New Atheists?

[Secret Chief]

So it's not new then really, just some prominent atheists got fed up with the pernicious effect irrational superstition sometimes exert. Why shouldn't atheists be as vocal as theists?

No reason at all, the link was simply to show the origin of the term.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Atheists do not have any problem with theists till the theists start bragging before them about their God/son/prophet/messenger/manifestation/mahdi/saint. We understand that many of the theists are not capable or trained to understand today's science. They are not courageous enough to leave their crutches.

You!!! Now follows a lot of words that will get me banned.
So here is the short version. Your crutch is that you believe that you are better than other humans, but you have no science for that. Now report me or don't. But you just proved one of the points against New Atheism. That is sometimes for small people, who try to hide their own crutches by mocking others for having one too. I too have a crutch. Now what?

 

[Colt]

Well, yes. But in practice that likely means something different to you and I.

The truth isn't a practice, it just is. We can acknowledge that the truth exists and search for it with a whole heart or deny it and eventually become unreal in an increasingly spiritual universe.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

The truth isn't a practice, it just is. We can acknowledge that the truth exists and search for it with a whole heart or deny it and eventually become unreal in an increasingly spiritual universe.

Yeah, I just use a different methodology than you.

 

[Audie]

What doctrines, atheism has no doctrines, though atheists might.

religion
noun

1. the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods.

That doesn't sound like atheism to me, and it is certainly not my atheism. I've never understood why some apologists want to label atheism a religion anyway, I mean to what end? They can hardly imagine it's an insult or a pejorative can they? That seems like a pretty obvious own goal to me.

It is the incapacity to grasp the fact that
not everyone has a " god shaped hole".

SINCE, by such figuring, we really do believe in God, or at least sense this emptiness, we strive to fill the void with sinful living, making ourselves god, etc.

And, of course, are thus just like them, but in
sinful rebellion, and they can gaze down on
us fools from their lofty righteousness.

While. BTW, speaking of their selfless abandonment of ego.

 

[Audie]

You may well think that.

Believing that there are limits to rationality in some way or ways does not make one irrational. IMO.

Too clever by one half, in that nobody remotely
suggested otherwise.

Inability to comprehend where the limits are is
the prob called irrationality.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

It is the incapacity to grasp the fact that
not everyone has a " god shaped hole".

SINCE, by such figuring, we really do believe in God, or at least sense this emptiness, we strive to fill the void with sinful living, making ourselves god, etc.

And, of course, are thus just like them, but in
sinful rebellion, and they can gaze down on
us fools from their lofty righteousness.

While. BTW, speaking of their selfless abandonment of ego.

We really really are the real humans, we the atheists. I mean I can use science to show evidence for the fact that I am real and they are not.

So you and I are just 2 different kinds of atheism, though that is somehow really wrong.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Too clever by one half, in that nobody remotely
suggested otherwise.

Inability to comprehend where the limits are is
the prob called irrationality.

That applies to all human behavior including reason, logic and evidence and not just all other behavior.

 

[Twilight Hue]

uhg!

I used to think that when I was a theist.

They are still around. Closest to New atheists I can find.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

I'm a middle aged atheist.

I've heard the phrase "new atheist" before and I have no idea what it means. There was a recent thread by a Baha'i believer who posted a list of what the new atheists supposedly believed, but it was written by another Baha'i and not accurate. The arguments against belief in various Gods have been pretty consistent ver time as far as i can tell. But there has been a lot of study by science that has explained why theists believe, perhaps that's the "new" part of atheism.

"New atheism" is just a lable applied to people who, over the last few decades, have decided to speak up and talk about their views on some of the harms that religions can do -- and most assuredly have done.

In that sense, although I've been an atheist as long as I've been consciously considering "God," I am something of a new atheist. I began really talking about my doubts about religion in the 1990's, and have been growing more certain that religion -- overall -- is a force for holding back the progress of human-kind towards being a species able to live together, sustainably, on the only home we can have, so far as we know, yet.

 

[Mock Turtle]

But you seem to have a bright smile doing this.

I'm a naturally cheerful person.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

"New atheism" is just a lable applied to people who, over the last few decades, have decided to speak up and talk about their views on some of the harms that religions can do -- and most assuredly have done.

In that sense, although I've been an atheist as long as I've been consciously considering "God," I am something of a new atheist. I began really talking about my doubts about religion in the 1990's, and have been growing more certain that religion -- overall -- is a force for holding back the progress of human-kind towards being a species able to live together, sustainably, on the only home we can have, so far as we know, yet.

Fair enough. But science can't do it alone. You in effect need faith in a value system. It doesn't have to be supernatural, but it has to be more than just science and will be some kind of nature/humanistic religion in effect.

 

[RestlessSoul]

I think this is where you sent all your God-Botherers.

Your country was built by Religious dissenters, yes. The Plymouth brethren seem to have been quite a sincere and idealistic bunch, but probably an absolute pain in the arse to be around. Back in England, people soon got tired of Cromwell’s Puritan government, and Protestantism never really captured the soul of the CoE.

 

[England my lionheart]

I see a lot of people, usually theists, Bring up the New Atheist. They often try to apply the label to me, and get me to defend random things that they claim New Atheism is about. I deconverted back in the early '80s, so I don't know. Are there actually New Atheists? Are you one?

Afaik it’s always been the same,there’s nothing “new” about it,I don’t believe what your saying unless you can prove it,simplified of course.

 

[ppp]

New atheists are like the atheists, with the difference that now they can talk freely.

Ciao

- viole

Ah yes. The mouthy atheists who do not know their place.

 

[lukethethird]

New Atheists?
Where were the so called New Atheists when I was growing up in the 60's, when I was forced to go to church every week?
I could have used them then.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

New Atheists?
Where were the so called New Atheists when I was growing up in the 60's, when I was forced to go to church every week?
I could have used them then.

Yeah, that must have been hard. But what does that actually have to do with New Atheists as New Atheists?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I've come to see it more as just raw dismissiveness and animus. That's not actually skepticism or freethinking at all. I see it time and again. Rational arguments, serious points of view are just attacked as 'woo', or 'new age' etc. That's not actually rationality. It's emotionality.

Understanding it as anti-theism, as a radical offshoot of atheism, makes a lot of sense to me. I don't dismiss Christianity because of fundamentalists like Pat Robertson and company. Why should we disrespect atheism because of the anti-theists?

There are a lot of great insights and contributions that come from both theistic and atheistic perspectives. Radical fundamentalists should not define what either of those are. They frankly should just be put in their place.

You think that people like Dawkins are "radical fundamentalists"?

The theistic equivalent of Richard Dawkins isn't Pat Robertson; it's the slightly-liberal Anglican minister who, if people were going to fault him for anything, it would be for being too boring.

If you don't believe me, grab a random sermon transcript from a moderate, liberal Christian denomination in praise of faith, then - without making the language any more emotionally charged - switch the wording so that it's speaking against faith instead of in favour of it. The result will likely be something more extreme than any speech that Dawkins ever gave.

 

[Nakosis]

I see a lot of people, usually theists, Bring up the New Atheist. They often try to apply the label to me, and get me to defend random things that they claim New Atheism is about. I deconverted back in the early '80s, so I don't know. Are there actually New Atheists? Are you one?

Well, what else do theist have to attack other than this nefarious band of folks who basically make a living by being atheists?

They make controversial statements to sale books, get on TV and invited to lectures. Basically the Clickbait Atheists' Club.
Few are going to buy your books if you aren't out their making controversial statements. So they are just following a successful business model.

I don't see it making a lot of sense trying to defend against an advertising campaign. If you actually read their books, I find they are not really that controversial.
The new atheist is the same as the old atheist except with a marketing agenda.

 

[Father Heathen]

It's weird to me that the conversation turned to the US specifically, considering that two of the "Four Horsemen of New Atheism" are/were British.

My guess is because those who get their panties bunched up over them tend to be American.