The "New" Atheism

[Baydwin]

I keep hearing stuff about this "new atheism" and that Richard Dawkins is their High Priest etc.
Is there in fact a new movement within atheist circles, or are there simply more atheists, more vocal atheists, or both?

 

[dust1n]

I think both. I can't remember what the new atheism was out side of just being assertive about your beliefs. Atheists will generally cling together, but I don't think it's just for the for the 'atheism' sake.

Generally, ontological oppression is self-inflicted, and we are oppressed by things that have no physical bearing, just a mental one.

I'm more concerned with physical oppression, including religious institutions, rather than the oppression we imagine God having (referencing only personified gods, but we make them ideal, and fall under forever.)

 

[gnomon]

There is no "new" atheism.

 

[YmirGF]

Atheism is atheism. There is nothing new about it.

Perhaps the only thing new is that atheists are hitting theists very hard and the theists aren't handling it at all well. The surest sign you can get is when they moan that one is not being respectful enough. Is it really possible to be too irreverent?

 

[Alceste]

Agree with gnomon. Atheism is the same as it ever has been - since the dawn of theism.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I keep hearing stuff about this "new atheism" and that Richard Dawkins is their High Priest etc.
Is there in fact a new movement within atheist circles, or are there simply more atheists, more vocal atheists, or both?

I think more people feel that atheism isn't something to be ashamed of. As far as Dawkins goes, if people think that vocal atheists are something new, they apparently haven't heard of Bertrand Russell or Robert Ingersoll.

Edit: I know that Ingersoll was an agnostic, not an atheist - I was thinking mainly of his tendency to be publicly vocal against religion.

 

[gnomon]

I think more people feel that atheism isn't something to be ashamed of. As far as Dawkins goes, if people think that vocal atheists are something new, they apparently haven't heard of Bertrand Russell or Robert Ingersoll.

Edit: I know that Ingersoll was an agnostic, not an atheist - I was thinking mainly of his tendency to be publicly vocal against religion.

That's true.

Neither Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris or Dennett have introduced anything new nor anything more "combative" than Ingersoll.

 

[dogsgod]

I think someone said that he or she "knew" of an atheist and the rest is history.

 

[Baydwin]

So is this "new atheism" just an imaginary movement then? Is it something cooked up by theist leaders to rouse their followers into opposing the "new atheism"?

It's not something I've made up, I hear it all over the place.

 

[MSizer]

There's absolutely no doubt that atheism is getting way more attention in popular media, and that's surely connected to the increased vocal nature of atheists in recent years. I don't think there's anything new about atheism, except that it's no longer reserved mainly for academics and philosophers.

 

[Charity]

Nothing new for the Atheists
Dawkins speaks out on "consciousness raising".....and the need for atheists to come out....speak up and convert believers and make people believe that there is no basis for religious faith.....
I do enjoy reading Dawkins books however....

 

[Baydwin]

So no one here would say that there is a certain new "group" of atheist, perhaps newly deconverted, that typify the outspoken, anti-religious, super-skeptical stereotype that seems to abound of late?

 

[Kilgore Trout]

So no one here would say that there is a certain new "group" of atheist, perhaps newly deconverted, that typify the outspoken, anti-religious, super-skeptical stereotype that seems to abound of late?

Many "new" atheists go through such a phase, but atheists, as a whole, are pretty much the same as they always were - including the new ones.

 

[Apex]

So no one here would say that there is a certain new "group" of atheist, perhaps newly deconverted, that typify the outspoken, anti-religious, super-skeptical stereotype that seems to abound of late?

There is definitely a sub-group within atheism which fits that description. But as atotalstranger said, atheists as a whole are pretty much the same.

 

[Yes Man]

There's a difference between atheism and anti-theism. Calling atheism anti-theistic is unethical and dangerous. Not that I'm saying you're doing that.

 

[Sunstone]

So no one here would say that there is a certain new "group" of atheist, perhaps newly deconverted, that typify the outspoken, anti-religious, super-skeptical stereotype that seems to abound of late?

Ingersoll

 

[gnomon]

So is this "new atheism" just an imaginary movement then? Is it something cooked up by theist leaders to rouse their followers into opposing the "new atheism"?

It's not something I've made up, I hear it all over the place.

As MSizer states below it's the increased level and availability of communication that has led to a greater awareness of atheists and non-believers.

There's absolutely no doubt that atheism is getting way more attention in popular media, and that's surely connected to the increased vocal nature of atheists in recent years. I don't think there's anything new about atheism, except that it's no longer reserved mainly for academics and philosophers.

So no one here would say that there is a certain new "group" of atheist, perhaps newly deconverted, that typify the outspoken, anti-religious, super-skeptical stereotype that seems to abound of late?

There's hardly anything truly outspoken of the so called Four Horseman of atheism. The fact is that some of them, Dawkins and Dennett notably, reserve the same criticism towards religious beliefs that some theologians hold as well. And as more than 1/10 th and Sunstone state the arguments put forth today have been put forth in the past. Ingersoll the most notable American to have brought strong criticisms, perhaps as strong as Hitchens and definitely stronger than Dawkins, of Christianity specifically. Even past philosophers back to the Greeks have raised very strong sentiments against theism in the past. The arguments are not truly new. It's only the increased awareness as a number of cultures have opened up to competing lines of inquiry.

Ingersoll

Recently picked up the Collected Works of Ingersoll, books 1 & 2, after a customer ordered them and failed to buy them. Anyone who thinks that the prominent atheist writers are in any way "combative" or "militant" should read Ingersoll and some of his late 19th and early 20th century contemporaries.

edit: And if anyone thinks that these past atheists were of the line of the rejection of theism they would be wrong. I think the earlier writers did a better job of pinpointing the culture in which they lived and raising strong valid criticisms of religion in that culture. One of them, whose name fails me at the moment and I'll dig my book out later to find it, once stated that atheism is to find the idea of God irrelevant. Which can actually be both a theistic and atheistic view.

 

[dogsgod]

New atheism goes way back:

Diagoras "the Atheist" of Melos, Greek poet, (5th cent. BCE).
Threw a wooden image of a god into a fire, remarking that the deity should perform another miracle and save itself. The uproar this caused in Athens prompted Diagoras to flee for his life. "Athens outlawed him and offered a reward for his capture dead or alive. He lived out his life in Spartan territory."

 

[Alceste]

So is this "new atheism" just an imaginary movement then? Is it something cooked up by theist leaders to rouse their followers into opposing the "new atheism"?

It's not something I've made up, I hear it all over the place.

Not cooked up by theist leaders, but not a movement either. It's a convenient but completely groundless concept that makes it a little easier for journalists to churn out their requisite editorial column inches.

There is no "movement", only a bunch of overworked media hacks churning out product and feeding off each other's work.