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Myths of the New Atheism

Religion does not answer questions about the universe. It merely stops people from asking the questions and looking for the answers.

While that anti-religious trope is certainly true if you look at modern 'Answers in Genesis' type US fundamentalism or certain types of Islamic fundamentalism, it is another one of such tropes that don't really stand up to any degree of critical enquiry.

Historical, in many cultures, it has been one of the biggest reasons for asking the questions and looking for answers.

In Europe, for example, one of the main reasons science developed legitimacy, social prestige and thus funding was its link with theology, and, unless we take them for liars, was a major motivator and influence for key figures in the development of modern science such as Bacon, Newton, Boyle, Leibniz, etc.
 

Milton Platt

Well-Known Member
While that anti-religious trope is certainly true if you look at modern 'Answers in Genesis' type US fundamentalism or certain types of Islamic fundamentalism, it is another one of such tropes that don't really stand up to any degree of critical enquiry.

Historical, in many cultures, it has been one of the biggest reasons for asking the questions and looking for answers.

In Europe, for example, one of the main reasons science developed legitimacy, social prestige and thus funding was its link with theology, and, unless we take them for liars, was a major motivator and influence for key figures in the development of modern science such as Bacon, Newton, Boyle, Leibniz, etc.

Yes, it was scientific enquiry that began answering the questions, and not religion. When science started coming up with the answers, the scientists were imprisoned or ridiculed by the clergy when it proved their dogma incorrect.

Religions only answer to a mystery is “god did it”.
 

Milton Platt

Well-Known Member
The Baha'i Faith does not do that. We encourage people to ask questions and we believe that science is just as important as religion.

Religion is not the cause of happiness or unhappiness. People are happy for many different reasons.

Spiritual happiness can be achieved without either of those.

We should not believe in a religion so we can be happy. The ONLY reason we should believe in a religion is because it is the Truth from God.

Happiness is overrated and it is transitory. One can be happy with what this material world has to offer as long as they are here, but if that is all they know they will be lost after they die and go to the spiritual world.

If one wants to take a chance that there is no afterlife they can do that, but it is a big gamble because if you lose, you lose big.


As an atheist, I can agree with all of that except the reference to the unsubstantiated afterlife. That is why I’m an atheist.
 

Milton Platt

Well-Known Member
Oh, I would much, much rather have the happiness that religion provides, than the creature comforts that science provides, any day of the week. I dare say that I'm a typical human being in this regard. What good is health or long life or a high definition TV if one is miserable?


Religion is not a necessary component of happiness. Give up all of the creature comforts and go live naked in a cave and forage for your daily meal and see how happy you will be.
 
I've yet to meet anyone within my own religious demographics (which would include Unitarian Universalism, contemporary Paganism, and Druidry) who fails to recognize the narratives of their traditions are mythos rather than logos. Trouble is, mythological literalism (treating mythos as logos) became all the rage when certain segments of Christianity went all anti-intellectualist...

There's sort of a 2 way attack on myth, those that take it too literally and those that reject it completely because 'it is not objectively true' (although the belief they have rejected it is usually more indicative of a lack of self-awareness).

Neither group really appreciate the idea of metaphorical truths, things which may not be objectively true yet can serve a purpose if one uses them as a guide for behaviour. Often such myths are really heuristics derived from human experience that have endured precisely because they offer some kind of benefit in the complex and often unfathomable world we live in.

There are some minds which give us the sense that they have passed through an elaborate education which was designed to initiate them into the traditions and achievements of their civilization; the immediate impression we have of them is an impression of cultivation, of the enjoyment of an inheritance. But this is not so with the mind of the Rationalist, which impresses us as, at best, a finely-tempered, neutral instrument, as a well-trained rather than as an educated mind.

Intellectually, his ambition is not so much to share the experience of the race as to be demonstrably a self-made man. And this gives to his intellectual and practical activities an almost preternatural deliberateness and self consciousness, depriving them of any element of passivity, removing from them all sense of rhythm and continuity and dissolving them into a succession of climacterics, each to be surmounted by a tour de raison. His mind has no atmosphere, no changes of season and tem perature; his intellectual processes, so far as possible, are insulated from all external influence and go on in the void.

And having cut himself off from the traditional knowledge of his society, and denied the value of any education more extensive than a training in a technique of analysis, he is apt to attribute to mankind a necessary inexperience in all the critical moments of life, and if he were more self-critical he might begin to wonder how the race had ever succeeded in surviving. With an almost poetic fancy, he strives to live each day as if it were his first, and he believes that to form a habit is to fail. And if, with as yet no thought of analysis, we glance below the surface, we may, perhaps, see in the temperament, if not in the character, of the Rationalist, a deep distrust of time, an impatient hunger for eternity and an irritable nervousness in the face of everything topical and transitory. Michael Oakeshott - Rationalism and Politics
 

IndigoChild5559

Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
Religion is not a necessary component of happiness. Give up all of the creature comforts and go live naked in a cave and forage for your daily meal and see how happy you will be.
If I have religion, I'll be quite happy living in a cave foraging for my daily meals.
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
As an atheist, I can agree with all of that except the reference to the unsubstantiated afterlife. That is why I’m an atheist.
Of course there is no physical proof of an afterlife that is a spiritual world, but that does not mean it does not exist. There is some evidence of it, just not the kind you would like. I might be posting something about that on a new thread soon.
 

Aupmanyav

Be your own guru
2. Humankind will progress.
There is no evidence of this. We progress technologically. But one has only to look at our crime rate and wars and decimation of other species to see that we are still the animals we have always been - we just do our animal thing on a larger scale.​
I do not think science has ever said or will say this. Science can talk only about evolution. And there are various views of what humans will look like if they survive a million years.

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Give up all of the creature comforts and go live naked in a cave and forage for your daily meal and see how happy you will be.
The world has changed, Milton. At most places this would not be possible, the jungles have been destroyed.​
 
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Yes, it was scientific enquiry that began answering the questions, and not religion. When science started coming up with the answers, the scientists were imprisoned or ridiculed by the clergy when it proved their dogma incorrect.

How many of these 'scientists' can you actually name? Surely, if what you say is true, there must be dozens of them if not hundreds...

Science didn't exist until the 18th C (and scientists until the 19th), and its precursor Natural Philosophy was not something clearly differentiated from theology, cosmology, ethics, etc from the time of the Greeks onwards. The development of modern science is intertwined with religion, and trying isolate science from its historical roots can only lead to anachronistic misunderstandings.

A disproportionate number of people involved in the development of modern science were clergy, which seems strange if they were so oppressed and cowed against pursuing knowledge. When the university system developed (with significant support from the Church) you couldn't even study theology until after you had studied Natural Philosophy. The Churchiest was the single biggest funder of the scientific enquiry in Europe, and the Church was the major translator of Graeco-Arabic Natural Philosphical texts, which also seems very strange if they were so hostile to 'scientists'.

The conflict thesis story you present has been discarded by the vast majority of modern historians of science because it's completely untenable in light of the evidence. Unfortunately, as it is a New Atheist dogma, this point seems to be ignored by those who otherwise profess to place great value on reason and scholarship.

Religions only answer to a mystery is “god did it”.

If you want to be almost wilfully ignorant you could reduce a diverse set of cultural influences that have endured over many diverse societies for thousands of years to a statement such as this.

It doesn't show a great deal of intellectual curiosity, understanding or critical insight, but each to their own I suppose.

A reified concept of religion in the modern sense didn't even exist until the 18th C. This is another reason why this eternal battle between science and religion myth is somewhat problematic seeing as neither actually existed in the way we think of them today until quite recently.
 

Aupmanyav

Be your own guru
If you want to be almost willfully ignorant you could reduce a diverse set of cultural influences that have endured over many diverse societies for thousands of years to a statement such as this.
They could have lived even without this and perhaps would have been happier with no wars or cruelty based on religions.
 
They could have lived even without this and perhaps would have been happier with no wars or cruelty based on religions.

Or perhaps there would have been more wars and cruelty, we'll never know.

Religions of some kind were probably necessary to enable our ancestors to form the larger scale societies that allowed for social and technological development.

It is possible we might have been happier as hunter-gatherers though.
 

Aupmanyav

Be your own guru
Religions of some kind were probably necessary to enable our ancestors to form the larger scale societies that allowed for social and technological development.
Societies are formed even in such animals as bees or ants. They do not require religion. They say one and one make eleven. Humans would not have been able to face the mastadons, the bisons and the big cats without societies. Do not credit religion for that. Even in case of stone tools, they had to import obsidian from far off places. Societies were necessary for human survival.
 
Societies are formed even in such animals as bees or ants. They do not require religion. They say one and one make eleven. Humans would not have been able to face the mastadons, the bisons and the big cats without societies. Do not credit religion for that. Even in case of stone tools, they had to import obsidian from far off places. Societies were necessary for human survival.

The societies that humans evolved to live in were small scale, like our primate cousins. Larger societies require some kind of cultural glue to bond them, and this, universally, seems to have involved some form of religion.

Are you aware of any societies that developed without religion?
 

HonestJoe

Well-Known Member
New Atheism, whether one likes the term or not, is an ideology and thus is not simply atheism.
Atheism itself is a variously defined, used and abused term in itself and "New Atheism" is no better. I doubt you could come up with a definitive definition everyone would agree on. It isn't a definition here, it's a label, one which can be applied to anyone.

To say a criticism of New Atheism is somehow a criticism of atheism a bit like referring to to the word democratic in the name Democratic People's Republic of Korea and saying criticism of North Korea is thus criticism of democracy.
I never said it was. It's not even only "atheists" (by whatever definition) I'm concerned about, it's a much more general issue.

The OP makes two assertions;
1) New Atheists are "hateful, unduly rude and obnoxious" and hypocrites
2) New Atheists believe these four "myths"

This means that anyone who supports any of those "myths" (or challenges the definitions, which is treated the same way) can be labelled as "New Atheist" by definition, with all the implications of the first assertion. The OP might not even be consciously aware this is what they're doing but it is the fundamental core of this form of argument.

The better approach is to either present the four concepts without the negative baggage of the labelling so they can be openly discussed in
abstract or quote the statements of named individuals so the challenges (and any negativity) is focused on them and not automatically spread to anyone else.
 

Brickjectivity

Turned to Stone. Now I stretch daily.
Staff member
Premium Member
Yes, it was scientific enquiry that began answering the questions, and not religion. When science started coming up with the answers, the scientists were imprisoned or ridiculed by the clergy when it proved their dogma incorrect.

Religions only answer to a mystery is “god did it”.
Better stated "It was Scientific enquiry that began answering questions, and not the clergy." Religion is very broad and includes many people who do ask lots of questions about everything.
 

Aupmanyav

Be your own guru
The societies that humans evolved to live in were small scale, like our primate cousins. Larger societies require some kind of cultural glue to bond them, and this, universally, seems to have involved some form of religion.
Are you aware of any societies that developed without religion?
Cultural bond is big in India, that is what keeps India going; even Muslims are part of it. Religion is never the decider because it is considered a personal thing. Indian society has always consisted of people subscribing to various religions. Muslim native states had happy Hindus and Hindu native states had happy Muslims.
 

metis

aged ecumenical anthropologist
Cultural bond is big in India, that is what keeps India going; even Muslims are part of it. Religion is never the decider because it is considered a personal thing. Indian society has always consisted of people subscribing to various religions. Muslim native states had happy Hindus and Hindu native states had happy Muslims.
And I was listening to Punjabi music this morning.

[just had to add that]
 

Aupmanyav

Be your own guru
And I was listening to Punjabi music this morning.
Punjabi music is beautiful whether plaintive, devotional, teasing and energetic. In the recent times, we have had Punjabi Rap. :)
Punjab is big on music because boys and girls are trained to sing Sikh devotional hymns. Every village has that tradition. Then it has poor Muslims families with tradition of singing sufi folk music.
In this village, every child knows his ragas - Times of India ►
Why Every Single Kid in This Tiny Village in Punjab Knows Classical Music

'Indian Idol' is a premier music competition here. Though it has not yet concluded, but Salman Ali is one of the best singers in the show. Salman is very poor and has a large family to support. Listen to some of his singing, you would find it enjoyable (the clothes that he is wearing have been provided by the show organizers).
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b&ei=573dW83YHIrdvgT7kLfACw&q=Salman indian idol 10 site:youtube.com&oq=youtube&gs_l=psy-ab.3...84599.87125.0.87700.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0....0...1c.1.64.psy-ab..0.0.0....0.2L24NMtOYqY&ved=2ahUKEwiN6NSXxLjeAhWKro8KHXvIDbgQ2wF6BAgAEAg
 
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