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The New Atheism, a definition and a quiz
by Andrew Brown, Guardian
Reposted from:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/andrewbrown/2008/dec/29/religion-new-atheism-defined
Since this is the season for warmed up leftovers and presents not entirely appreciated, I thought I would try to define the New Atheism that I, and others, so dislike.
In part this is difficult because the new atheism is largely a political and social rather than an intellectual movement. In some ways it can be understood as the canary in the coalmine of American power and exceptionalism. Before the crash, when it was possible to believe that globalised capitalism would go on making us richer and more liberal forever (at least if you didn't read John Gray) the new atheism was one of the few ways to express disbelief and fear and loathing in the way the world was going. "Religion" became a synecdoche for everything that might go wrong, so that belief in the evil qualities of Faith was not so very different from belief in the evils of witchcraft.
Note, this is not a claim that the new atheism is a religion. I don't actually believe that even religion is a religion in the sense that there is one thing or mode of thought which the word describes. But one of the ways to examine religion is as a set of shared stories and characters which explain what is happening in the world, and the new atheists, with their urgent, apocalyptic message about the dangers of faith, certainly offer that.
So, who are they? The ideas I claim are distinctive of the new atheists have been collected from Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Jerry Coyne, the American physicist Robert L. Park, and a couple of blogging biologists, P Z Myers and Larry Moran. They have two things in common. They are none of them philosophers and, though most are scientists, none study psychology, history, the sociology of religion, or any other discipline which might cast light on the objects of their execration. All of them make claims about religion and about believers which go far beyond the mere disbelief in God which I take to be the distinguishing mark of an atheist.
As an example of an old atheist, there is Anthony Kenny, the philosopher and former Master of Balliol, who left the Roman Catholic priesthood because he came to doubt that his faith was true. His book on varieties of disbelief, The Unknown God, was the immediate trigger for this post. In any case, he believes that all the proofs for classical theism fail and as such will do very nicely as a baseline atheist, and proof that it is possible to doubt God while rejecting all the distinctive doctrines of the new atheism. So far as I know, he would reject all of the following propositions.
❄ There is something called "Faith" which can be defined as unjustified belief held in the teeth of the evidence. Faith is primarily a matter of false propositional belief.
❄ The cure for faith is science: The existence of God is a scientific question: either he exists or he doesn't. "Science is the only way of knowing – everything else is just superstition" [Robert L. Park]
❄ Science is the opposite of religion, and will lead people into the clear sunlit uplands of reason. "The real war is between rationalism and superstition. Science is but one form of rationalism, while religion is the most common form of superstition" [Jerry Coyne] "I am not attacking any particular version of God or gods. I am attacking God, all gods, anything and everything supernatural, wherever and whenever they have been or will be invented." [Dawkins]
❄ In this great struggle, religion is doomed. Enlightened common sense is gradually triumphing and at the end of the process, humanity will assume a new and better character, free from the shackles of religion. Without faith, we would be better as well as wiser. Conflict is primarily a result of misunderstanding, of which Faith is the paradigm. (Looking for links, I just came across a lovely example of this in the endnotes to the Selfish Gene, where lawyers are dismissed as "solving man-made problems that should never have existed in the first place".)
❄ Religion exists. It is essentially something like American fundamentalist protestantism, or Islam. More moderate forms are false and treacherous: if anything even more dangerous, because they conceal the raging, homicidal lunacy that is religion's true nature. [Sam Harris]
❄ Faith, as defined above, is the most dangerous and wicked force on earth today and the struggle against it and especially against Islam will define the future of humanity. [Everyone]
All of these propositions will be found in the authors I have cited as well as in the comments to religious articles here. I sometimes think that only the last two are unique to the new atheists: you can certainly find the others in earlier authors. But those are the six doctrines which I would reject when saying rude things about the new atheists.
What would be interesting in comments is if people would score themselves out of six. I expect that one of the most common forms of disagreement would be to claim that you are a three or a four, but none the less the believers are so repulsive and dangerous that the other two points just don't matter. That's how politics works, after all, and the new atheism is interesting as a political or social movement, not an intellectual one.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/andrewbrown/2008/dec/29/religion-new-atheism-defined
Since this is the season for warmed up leftovers and presents not entirely appreciated, I thought I would try to define the New Atheism that I, and others, so dislike.
In part this is difficult because the new atheism is largely a political and social rather than an intellectual movement. In some ways it can be understood as the canary in the coalmine of American power and exceptionalism. Before the crash, when it was possible to believe that globalised capitalism would go on making us richer and more liberal forever (at least if you didn't read John Gray) the new atheism was one of the few ways to express disbelief and fear and loathing in the way the world was going. "Religion" became a synecdoche for everything that might go wrong, so that belief in the evil qualities of Faith was not so very different from belief in the evils of witchcraft.
Note, this is not a claim that the new atheism is a religion. I don't actually believe that even religion is a religion in the sense that there is one thing or mode of thought which the word describes. But one of the ways to examine religion is as a set of shared stories and characters which explain what is happening in the world, and the new atheists, with their urgent, apocalyptic message about the dangers of faith, certainly offer that.
So, who are they? The ideas I claim are distinctive of the new atheists have been collected from Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Jerry Coyne, the American physicist Robert L. Park, and a couple of blogging biologists, P Z Myers and Larry Moran. They have two things in common. They are none of them philosophers and, though most are scientists, none study psychology, history, the sociology of religion, or any other discipline which might cast light on the objects of their execration. All of them make claims about religion and about believers which go far beyond the mere disbelief in God which I take to be the distinguishing mark of an atheist.
As an example of an old atheist, there is Anthony Kenny, the philosopher and former Master of Balliol, who left the Roman Catholic priesthood because he came to doubt that his faith was true. His book on varieties of disbelief, The Unknown God, was the immediate trigger for this post. In any case, he believes that all the proofs for classical theism fail and as such will do very nicely as a baseline atheist, and proof that it is possible to doubt God while rejecting all the distinctive doctrines of the new atheism. So far as I know, he would reject all of the following propositions.
❄ There is something called "Faith" which can be defined as unjustified belief held in the teeth of the evidence. Faith is primarily a matter of false propositional belief.
❄ The cure for faith is science: The existence of God is a scientific question: either he exists or he doesn't. "Science is the only way of knowing – everything else is just superstition" [Robert L. Park]
❄ Science is the opposite of religion, and will lead people into the clear sunlit uplands of reason. "The real war is between rationalism and superstition. Science is but one form of rationalism, while religion is the most common form of superstition" [Jerry Coyne] "I am not attacking any particular version of God or gods. I am attacking God, all gods, anything and everything supernatural, wherever and whenever they have been or will be invented." [Dawkins]
❄ In this great struggle, religion is doomed. Enlightened common sense is gradually triumphing and at the end of the process, humanity will assume a new and better character, free from the shackles of religion. Without faith, we would be better as well as wiser. Conflict is primarily a result of misunderstanding, of which Faith is the paradigm. (Looking for links, I just came across a lovely example of this in the endnotes to the Selfish Gene, where lawyers are dismissed as "solving man-made problems that should never have existed in the first place".)
❄ Religion exists. It is essentially something like American fundamentalist protestantism, or Islam. More moderate forms are false and treacherous: if anything even more dangerous, because they conceal the raging, homicidal lunacy that is religion's true nature. [Sam Harris]
❄ Faith, as defined above, is the most dangerous and wicked force on earth today and the struggle against it and especially against Islam will define the future of humanity. [Everyone]
All of these propositions will be found in the authors I have cited as well as in the comments to religious articles here. I sometimes think that only the last two are unique to the new atheists: you can certainly find the others in earlier authors. But those are the six doctrines which I would reject when saying rude things about the new atheists.
What would be interesting in comments is if people would score themselves out of six. I expect that one of the most common forms of disagreement would be to claim that you are a three or a four, but none the less the believers are so repulsive and dangerous that the other two points just don't matter. That's how politics works, after all, and the new atheism is interesting as a political or social movement, not an intellectual one.
Comments 1 - 50 of 438 |
Reload Comments | Back to Top | Page Numbers2. Comment #308264 by InfuriatedSciTeacher on December 29, 2008 at 5:58 pm
Silly me for going to the site and thinking there would be a way to take Brown's 'quiz' other than posting in the comments section. I'd prefer to answer and discuss his points here...I take issue with the concept of faith having to be in contrast to evidence; In some cases it simply exists in the absence of evidence. Otherwise I'd have to score myself as agreeing with that so-called tenet.
Bullets two and three are just fine with me, although the true cure for faith is REASON (as is the true opposite of faith). Science is an excellent vehicle for determining the evidence behind a reasoned position, although one can arrive at conclusions logically and philosophically as well.
I disagree with the fourth point. Unfortunately, I see it as completely pollyanna-ish to view religion as doomed. There is far too much "belief in belief" (to borrow from Dennett) and gross lack of education for it to completely disappear. Religion sprouts from ignorance like mushrooms after a rain.
Brown found it necessary to state that religion existing was a central tenet of the philosophy he's attempting to critique' What a total asshat... if it didn't exist, there's no argument. Next point please. (If the corrolaries to his point WERE his point, he might consider learning to write more clearly, and he's still an asshat. Yes I agree with those ideas)
Faith is CERTAINLY the most dangerous force on the planet today because it causes people to make rash decisions without a modicum of reason behind them. We have people blinded by faith in charge of large thermonuclear arsenals, people who are willing to give up this life for an afterlife that has the drawback of not existing, I can continue ad nauseum and choose not to... Remove faith and you still have to contend with megalomaniacal fucktards like Stalin, Hitler, and Hussein, but at least they didn't justify themselves using an ancient book (and people followed them because they were superb propagandists, or induced enough terror). Perhaps one can attribute part of Stalin's success to a more modern work, but all the same that would fall under faith (Marxism isn't a religion by any stretch, but its adherents also weren't rational in the face of evidence).
edit: I almost certainly made spelling and grammatical errors that I'm too lazy to correct at this time.
Other Comments by InfuriatedSciTeacher
3. Comment #308265 by Mark Jones on December 29, 2008 at 5:59 pm
A pretty pathetic article.
He leaves Dennett out of the list just, one can only assume, so he can say there are no philosophers amongst the so called new atheists. Not much point in wasting any more time on this non-article.
Other Comments by Mark Jones
4. Comment #308266 by Steven Mading on December 29, 2008 at 6:00 pm
Well there's one thing he got right, but not in the way he meant it. He's right that "New Atheists" are primarily about social and political concerns, rather than the philosophical argument. He just fails to see why that's the case. It's because philosophers in the past have already won that argument If he wants to talk about that sort of argument - go check the philosphers of the 1700s, 1800s, and early 1900s. We won that argument already in the philosophy world - it's just that the world is full of dishonest people who don't admit it. The point of the "new" atheists is - what are we going to DO about it now? Okay, so we're on the right side of the facts - NOW what?And that's why it's a political movement.
Other Comments by Steven Mading
5. Comment #308267 by InfuriatedSciTeacher on December 29, 2008 at 6:02 pm
Mark> I'd wager that he leaves Dennett out because he can't understand Dennett's writing as easily... or because he's intimidated.Other Comments by InfuriatedSciTeacher
6. Comment #308268 by mordacious1 on December 29, 2008 at 6:02 pm
"They have two things in common. They are none of them philosophers...".
Why leave out Dan Dennett?
[ooops, Mark said this already]
Other Comments by mordacious1
7. Comment #308270 by kraut on December 29, 2008 at 6:06 pm
What the hell is a "new" atheist?I have been an atheist since I was sixteen, over 40 years ago.
And I concur with many of the things Dawkins, Harris, Dennet, Hitchens (although he is my political night mare)et al say.
I guess New Atheism is the definition of those "strident" and "abrasive" atheists who not longer take the invasion of religious dogma and tenets into politics/law making lying down. Time to kick ass, buddy.
Other Comments by kraut
8. Comment #308278 by mordacious1 on December 29, 2008 at 6:17 pm
I've also always considered Sam Harris a philosopher. He did his undergrad degree in philosophy and just because he did his grad work in neuroscience does not exclude him from being considered a philosopher. Other Comments by mordacious1
9. Comment #308279 by Fuller on December 29, 2008 at 6:18 pm
A search for 'new atheist' on wikipedia takes you straight to 'anti-theist'. Personally, the term doesn't bother me (although it is mainly used by theists and is supposed to be insulting somehow). To me it just refers to the metaphorical refresh button that was hit when that bunch of fine books came out at around the same time.
I don't think you need to qualify the term 'new atheists' by putting 'so called' in front of it every time. It's a pretty innocuous term, and it means there's a new movement with which to title - which must be a good thing.
Other Comments by Fuller
10. Comment #308302 by NewEnglandBob on December 29, 2008 at 6:48 pm
I give Andrew Brown six raspberries for his muddled thinking.Brown has no inkling of subtlety and obviously does not comprehend much of what he reads. How sad for him.
As Mark Jones said, this article is pathetic.
Other Comments by NewEnglandBob
11. Comment #308304 by cristinabories on December 29, 2008 at 6:56 pm
Ok, but why not discuss the validity of the bullet number five "More moderate forms are false and treacherous: if anything even more dangerous, because they conceal the raging, homicidal lunacy that is religion's true nature. [Sam Harris] "
Do we really all feel that strongly about it?
Could it be that accepting softer forms of religion was tolerable because we really need to concentrate in crushing the toxic forms?
Or is Sam Harris right?
And as important, which would be the best strategy if our goal was say.. "erradicate all forms of religion in the next one hundred years"?
Other Comments by cristinabories
12. Comment #308313 by CShepGuy on December 29, 2008 at 7:16 pm
"new atheism" Does anyone here know what that means? Is it just an attempt at making atheism sound like any old trend? I'm pretty sure atheists hundreds of years ago felt pretty much the same way I do now about religion, etc. Oh and this article is pretty lame. Other Comments by CShepGuy
13. Comment #308320 by skyhook on December 29, 2008 at 7:30 pm
has anybody actually spelt out the difference between an (old) atheist and a "new" atheist?edit:
presumably there are new christians for example? You know, those who are very wooly about the old testament and its nastiness, very wooly about the discrepancies in jesus' life, very wooly in general about christianity because, quite frankly, it's an outdated, hypocritical, ignorant view of the world that I, and other, atheists are fed up with interfering in all areas of life. And that goes for all religions.
Other Comments by skyhook
14. Comment #308330 by Virgil on December 29, 2008 at 7:58 pm
New atheism gives the feeling that there was a bad or unwanted atheism at some point, apparently referring to Stalin and co. Who started the term New Atheism?
Other Comments by Virgil
15. Comment #308332 by Ed-words on December 29, 2008 at 8:01 pm
Wouldn't philosopher-historian-mathematicianBertrand Russell have gotten a "6" on this quiz?
New, old, what's the difference?
Other Comments by Ed-words
16. Comment #308334 by mithraman on December 29, 2008 at 8:06 pm
Hey, like, those old atheist are just a bunch of squares who don't know where its at, man. Ya dig? Like, the new atheists are hip and cool. and far out. and groovy. dude! where's my god?Other Comments by mithraman
17. Comment #308342 by BeyondBelief on December 29, 2008 at 9:04 pm
Bah! "New Atheism." It's just a marketing ploy designed to drum up a public outcry demanding a return to the old recipe. Eventually, we'll be able to choose between Classic Atheism, New Atheism, Atheism Zero, and Diet Atheism.
Cheers! :-) (I particulary like Captain Morgan's with my New Atheism.)
Other Comments by BeyondBelief
18. Comment #308353 by Daniella on December 29, 2008 at 9:43 pm
Here's what 5 min research and google can produce:
Richard Dawkins - Balliol College, Oxford, B.A., 1962, M.A., 1966, D.Phil., 1966.
Sam Harris - completed a bachelor of arts degree in philosophy. He is currently pursuing a doctorate in neuroscience at UCLA
Christopher Hitchens - educated at the Leys School, Cambridge, and Balliol College, Oxford, where he read Philosophy, Politics, and Economics
RD, SH and CH all studied philosophy (as if it makes any difference)
Obviously, this Andrew Brown is part of the wave of so called 'New Journalism' which doesn't find it necessary to fact check before publishing an article.
What a twat.
Other Comments by Daniella
19. Comment #308356 by Marku on December 29, 2008 at 9:46 pm
Religion is the easiest thing to discredit, for it represents how fallacious "man" can be. It doesn't take a high I.Q. to read a few history books to discredit this human-only-phenomenon as rubbish. "New Atheists" are lucky, in the sense that we don't need "New Philosophers". Once again, anyone with half a brain can go to his/her library, or search Google to find a bazillion examples of atheistic philosophy that is light-years ahead in thinking than the average Joe-Schmo out there that probably only has read two books since his/her mother spawned his/her existence, one of which is probably not the bible, indeed.
PS
For some reason I feel the need to use the words rubbish and indeed when I think of Richard Dawkins, or British people in general.
Other Comments by Marku
20. Comment #308360 by demognome on December 29, 2008 at 10:02 pm
The only difference between an "old" athiest and a "new" athiest is that the new athiest is able to illuminate such a position with more experience and a wider knowledge base than was available before, hence criticizing more fields of (ir?)rational thought with logical deconstructionism (is that a word?.. anyway).and as Mading (#4) and others have already pointed out, the only thing "new" about athiesm these days is that athiests find new problems to solve. or something like that.
anyway. after living in Indonesia for 22 years, I'd have to say Harris is right on the money about the threat of Islamic doctrine itself-- far far far more dangerous than Christianity *currently* is, mostly because Science has been able to disarm Christianity to a large extent.
Other Comments by demognome
21. Comment #308362 by mordacious1 on December 29, 2008 at 10:09 pm
Comment #308356 by Marku
"For some reason I feel the need to use the words rubbish and indeed when I think of Richard Dawkins, or British people in general."
Boy, taken out of context this could be insulting.
Other Comments by mordacious1
22. Comment #308369 by Patrick McArdle on December 29, 2008 at 10:31 pm
"But those are the six doctrines which I would reject when saying rude things about the new atheists."It's all about the projection, isn't it? Look, religious believers have doctrines: virgin birth & resurrection, Moses on the mountain, Mohammed receiving the arch-angel, whatever. An "atheist doctrine" is a contradiction in terms. "A theos" simply means "no god", and implies nothing beyond that. No two atheists need ever agree on why they do not believe in gods; for my own part, no theist has ever produced any evidence that any god exists.
(Please click over to the original article and comments thread, wherein Dr. Dawkins et. al. hand the author's head to him.)
Other Comments by Patrick McArdle
23. Comment #308372 by Richard Dawkins on December 29, 2008 at 10:43 pm
Dan Dennett wasn't the only philosopher omitted so that Brown could say "They are none of them philosophers." There's also A.C.Grayling.Incidentally, on one of Andrew Brown's books, his publishers had such a hard time finding endorsements from distinguished people to put on the cover, they resorted to fine-sounding quotations which, if you looked carefully, turned out to have nothing to do with Brown's book. The only quotation that mentions Andrew Brown, or his book, was the following, from Dan Dennett:
I wouldn't admit it if Andrew Brown were my friend. What a sleazy bit of trash journalism!
Richard
Other Comments by Richard Dawkins
24. Comment #308373 by Cartomancer on December 29, 2008 at 10:49 pm
I was also under the impression that Anthony Kenny is far from a critic of the "New Atheists". Didn't he endorse Richard's pro-atheism work somewhere?I don't like the term "New Atheists" much either. Is there any catch-all term we actually do like for the spate of pro-atheism books and cultural products over the past few years?
Other Comments by Cartomancer
25. Comment #308381 by Styrer- on December 29, 2008 at 11:33 pm
Comment #308372 by Richard Dawkins on December 29, 2008 at 10:43 pmThank you for a much-needed laugh after wading through yet another piece of pitifully scribbled detritus.
While Brown falls most sweetly into a lexical swamp of his own making (and never has a dunking of a head been so genuinely in need), New Atheism, Atheism, atheism and atheist all linguistically loom large in satisfyingly verbal manner as ideas against which he has not one slight iota of a jot of evidence to offer in support of his risible contention.
What is transparent is that the word 'atheist', and its cognates, is really bugging these pathetic little oiks, and is driving them to produce ever increasingly flailingly inept prose for newspapers with a cheque book hanging out of each orifice. It's a proud moment, where all of us who were terrified of dissenting from Sam's attack on the word, but who were equally scared of having no word at all by which to make clear their atheistic identity, can say 'YES!!! Wonderful! Brown has effected a lexical resurrection for us all!'
Now go forth and multiply. Linguistically, of course. Nothing naughty. Immorality would not look too good after such a tremendously generous gift from our benefactor Brown. Good egg.
Best,
Styrer
Other Comments by Styrer-
26. Comment #308382 by cyris8400 on December 29, 2008 at 11:35 pm
To Dan Dennett and A.C. Grayling as "New Atheist" philosophers you could also add Michel Onfray.How awful this Brown is.
Other Comments by cyris8400
27. Comment #308390 by Goldy on December 30, 2008 at 12:01 am
24. Comment #308372 by Richard Dawkins
Heheheheh! Reminded me....
I have a book - "The Hidden History of the Human Race" by Michael Cremo and Richard Thompson.
They put in what they called "adverse crticisms"
From Richard Leaky we have "Your book is pure humbug and does not deserve to be taken seriously by anyone but a fool. Sadly, there are some, but that's part of selection and there is nothing that can be done."
Graham Hancock liked it, mind :-)
Other Comments by Goldy
28. Comment #308393 by Dr Doctor on December 30, 2008 at 12:16 am
More trash from Andrew "I've got enough chips for everyones' shoulders" Brown Other Comments by Dr Doctor
29. Comment #308400 by MRA on December 30, 2008 at 12:30 am
@ Mark Jones - comment #3 - "He leaves Dennett out of the list..." - good point - why did he not mention Dennett?
I know a lot of scientists and people from the arts (I include lawyers, social 'scientists' and economists in that category) - it seems to me that the scientists can easily take to the arts in a very short time but the arts people can rarely take to the sciences. This annoys the arts people.
Other Comments by MRA
30. Comment #308402 by krazyowl on December 30, 2008 at 12:35 am
What the hell is the new atheism? You are either a person of reason or of superstition.Other Comments by krazyowl
31. Comment #308506 by Jack Rawlinson on December 30, 2008 at 2:56 am
Great to see Brown's slimy little article attracting the demolition it deserves over on The Guardian page, and great to see both Richard and Dan Dennett taking him to task too. I'd suggest those of you commenting here do so over there too. I already did (my handle is 'Jackanapes' at Comment Is Free) The Guardian has become notorious for persistently publishing cheap attack jobs on atheism and for its absurd "Face to Faith" column (which is basically their version of "Thought for the day). I try to never let them pass without a response but one has to be very careful with one's choice of words. The "moderators" there are extremely heavy-handed with all but the mildest criticism of the columnists.
Other Comments by Jack Rawlinson
32. Comment #308518 by JAMCAM87 on December 30, 2008 at 3:05 am
"I don't actually believe that even religion is a religion."
I stopped reading here. What a moron.
Other Comments by JAMCAM87
33. Comment #308519 by Jack Rawlinson on December 30, 2008 at 3:06 am
Another current atheist philosopher is Julian Baggini. True, he isn't generally lumped in with the "New Atheists" but he's written numerous articles in recent years which make and defend many of the same points that RD et al are making. Other Comments by Jack Rawlinson
34. Comment #308527 by AllanW on December 30, 2008 at 3:11 am
This article, the comments here and on the Guardian forum tell you all you need to know about the fallen stature of the Guardian. As Jack says above, they have a stable of third-rate writers specialising in intellectually vapid 'shock' items that have finally left me completely cold; how sad that this important part of my youth and intellectual development should be in such disarray.Richard simply shows the lengths that Brown goes to to omit any information that would undermine this article. Dishonest, shallow and vulgar writing like this deserves to be shredded and is all too easily achieved.
Other Comments by AllanW
35. Comment #308532 by Telic on December 30, 2008 at 3:16 am
They are none of them philosophers and, though most are scientists, none study psychology, history, the sociology of religion, or any other discipline which might cast light on the objects of their execration.
And how many of the priests and rabbis of this world have any of the above qualifications before they preach in favour of their delusion.
Putting aside the clergy, what percentage of religious followers have these kinds of qualifications to justify forcing their views and moral values on the rest of us.
Would it be a valid criticism to say that only people with degrees in political science should be allowed to criticise politics and politicians.
If we forget about 'formal' qualifications, then how the hell does Andrew Brown know what they have studied to form their views.
They can go on to reject as many propositions as they like, but unless they're going to explain the basis and reasoning for their rejection, then it's purely a waste of time.
Other Comments by Telic
36. Comment #308536 by MRA on December 30, 2008 at 3:23 am
It appears that both RD and Dan Dennett have commented on Brown's blog page. Dennet's comment is particularly good.Also, Hitch is mentioned on the list - didn't he do philosphy at Uni? That it good enough for me.
Finally, why can't scientists be taken seriously in philisophical matters? They seem to be doing a fine job re religion and was not science originally a branch of philosophy around Newton's times? I fear that the arts people might be feeling like the scientists are starting to take over their world...good job too.
Other Comments by MRA
37. Comment #308538 by MPhil on December 30, 2008 at 3:25 am
Richard et al,the claim that the new atheism lacks philosophical foundation is truly astounding. While it is true that Dennett's (whom I cannot praise highly enough), Hitchens', Harris' and your own "The God Delusion" are not the most rigorous philosophical work on critical philosophy of religion (i.e. philosophy of atheism), it is nevertheless substantiated, especially because so many brilliant people have published their research in this academic field.
How the hell can he not know about:
-J.L. Mackie ("The Miracle of Theism") (probably the best book ever written in that field)
-Michael Martin ("The Improbability of God", "The Impossibility of God", "Atheism - A Philosophical Justification")
-Nicholas Everitt ("The Non-Existence of God")
-Graham Oppy ("Arguing about Gods")
-John Sobel ("Logic and Theism")
-Richard Carrier ("Sense and Goodness without God")
et al (see the archive of papers at the internet infidels)
Seriously, such an amount of ignorance expressed in blatanly factually wrong claims would cost any serious journalist in any other field his job.
Other Comments by MPhil
38. Comment #308540 by epeeist on December 30, 2008 at 3:26 am
Comment #308527 by AllanW:This article, the comments here and on the Guardian forum tell you all you need to know about the fallen stature of the Guardian. As Jack says above, they have a stable of third-rate writers specialising in intellectually vapid 'shock' items that have finally left me completely cold; how sad that this important part of my youth and intellectual development should be in such disarray.The trouble is that all the other "quality" newspapers in the UK are no better. When did you last see any of them with a regular columnist who is a Nobel prize winner, as the NYT has.
Other Comments by epeeist
39. Comment #308547 by articulett on December 30, 2008 at 3:41 am
Andrew Brown is having a tantrum because those smart "new atheists" find his invisible friend as derisible as he finds all those other weird cultists out there. Other Comments by articulett
40. Comment #308549 by pw201 on December 30, 2008 at 3:43 am
That was great. I said what about Dennett? (as did someone called Muscleguy) and then Dennett turned up (as did RD).Reminds me of the time someone made a blog post about Grayling's response to Eagleton's review of The God Delusion and Grayling popped up in the comments.
BTW: a D.Phil. is what Oxford calls a PhD, it's not necessarily a qualification in what we now call philosophy.
Other Comments by pw201
41. Comment #308550 by phil rimmer on December 30, 2008 at 3:45 am
I hope Dan will forgive me reposting his comment from his Cif post of 8 hours ago...
Andrew Brown trots out an old atheist, Anthony Kenny, who (he surmises) would reject all six of the tenets he attributes to the New Atheists. What would that show, even if it were true? His six points are all caricatures in any case. The uniting feature of the New Atheists is that we have all decided that the traditional atheist policy of diplomatic reticence should be discarded. Brown doesnt tell us if he himself is any kind of atheist, old or new, but I suspect from the confusion of his essay that he is one of the tribe of But Atheists, as in Im an atheist, but . . . . I find that But Atheists are the most frantic defenders of religion these days; they themselves have no need for religion, they say, but they are worried that hoi polloi do. It puts me in mind of another old philosopher, Henry Sidgwick, a utilitarian who thought that utilitarianism should be a secret kept by the elite, a pernicious doctrine often called Government House utilitarianism. The seminaries and churches are full of atheist clergy who live their own version of this paternalism. We New Atheists think more highly of our fellow human beings; we think its time for us all to grow up.
Daniel Dennett
He has rather boldly picked up the cap of "New Atheist".
He has a point. A distinguishing feature of New Atheism (otherwise identical to Atheism) is the feeling that something needs to be done, if only declare it or discuss it.
Epeeist, AllanW. I knew no good would come from the Guardian's move from Manchester.
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42. Comment #308555 by AllanW on December 30, 2008 at 3:50 am
Comment #308540 by epeeist on December 30, 2008 at 3:26 am 'The trouble is that all the other "quality" newspapers in the UK are no better.'
Sadly you are right. In the last ten years in my particular interest areas of economics and finance it has become impossible to find sustained analysis and insightful writing in mainstream news sources. Even the Nobel laureates write mainly for their own blogs or consultancy bodies. Gone are the days when the FT and the Economist gave you a balanced view. Now I have to trawl through and sift as many as thirty widely different websites, blogs and academic publication sites just to get enough information to maintain a superficial understanding of the currents in this world.
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43. Comment #308557 by THEEVANGELIST on December 30, 2008 at 3:52 am
It has been reported that about 85% of elite scientists (in the US) do not believe in the Abrahamic god of traditional theism. I wonder what this figure is with philosophers. What is the proportion of philosopher in secular institutions who are atheistic?Are they openly atheistic philosophers practicing their trade in non-secular institution?
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44. Comment #308558 by King of NH on December 30, 2008 at 3:53 am
I think most people are New Atheists, and they don't believe in the new gods (Flying Speghetti Monster, Invisible Pink Unicorn). Clearly, Brown finds this deplorable and thinks we should welcome and worship these new deities.
I think of myself as both an Old Atheist, having the mental capacity to think beyond Jewish tribal myth, and a New Atheist, having the knowledge of when and why the new gods came to be.
But alas! who are we such undeveloped creatures of godless stupidity to argue with Brown? Evidently, his faith has shown him the noodly appendages and that is better than reason. Someone send the man a pirate hat.
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45. Comment #308559 by phil rimmer on December 30, 2008 at 3:54 am
Carto.I hate "New Atheism" also.
Active Atheism, perhaps?
(The risks from the alliterative acronym would be that we might be mistaken for reformed alcoholics or someone who can fix a car...)
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46. Comment #308561 by jabber on December 30, 2008 at 3:56 am
so, we 'get' our ideas from an external source, do we? I don't. I have ideas from my experiences and from conversations and then synthesise them..then i share them with others and refine them, revise, or abandon them. I was an atheist quite spontaneously and i came to this site because of it...not the other way round, not by being approached by people in the street with pamphlets, not by being taught it at school. I hate this tedious assertion that atheism is an alternative to religion - they seem incapable of understanding that some educated adults don't NEED to belong to a GROUP or a TRIBE or a GANG in order to feel more secure about their own existence. It's infantilising and insulting.
There are lots of things i don't beleive in (not because i choose not to, i just don't/can't), but i don't need the affirmation of elders for me to maintain this position. I do not suffer from Stockholm syndrome and I am not a child.
I have always known i was gay and meeting other gay people or gay-freindly people(whatever they may be) can change that. I never 'came out' becasue, for me, it was just never an issue that i should consider being anything else. Similarly, with atheism - it's not my lack of beleive taht casues the issue, it's how i'm treated by those who DO have a believe that prompts me to state my POSITION on the matter. It's about self-defence when i am accosted to someone attempted to warp my sense of reality for their purposes.
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47. Comment #308564 by gcdavis on December 30, 2008 at 3:58 am
Like others I dislike the term “new atheists” as I have been one for most of my life. However the term has some merit as evidenced by a “new” publishing phenomenon, ten years ago a book on atheism would be likely to sell in the hundreds not hundreds of thousands. The publicity surrounding these new books has encouraged those who had previously kept their disbelief to themselves to come out as atheists and so they too might be regarded as “new”. Where “new” is inappropriate is when it is applied to philosophical or even scientific concepts. There has been no new discovery or theory that suddenly makes the case for atheism overwhelming. Atheism is a very simple idea it doesn’t require any specialist knowledge or training. All I had to do was to start asking myself questions and the whole edifice of god and religion fell apart.
What drives the “new” atheism is the very real danger of religious fundamentalism across the planet. A tipping point was reached after 9/11, we all know that we cannot sit back and let these dangerous ideas based on ignorance and stupidity spread further and deeper into our own societies.
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48. Comment #308565 by pw201 on December 30, 2008 at 4:00 am
As for Brown, I think he's an agnostic who gets annoyed with "New Atheists" for (among other things) believing that theists accept their beliefs as propositional statements. That's another reason for avoiding mention of Dennett, since Breaking the Spell is pretty clear that for a lot of theistic beliefs, we can't tell what people actually believe, and many people don't take their religious beliefs in the same way as ordinary beliefs.For example, the only possible demonstrations of some beliefs are that the person says they believe them (for example, what would a believer do to demonstrate they believed in the Trinity?). In other cases where you might expect the belief to make a difference (Dennett mentions people who believe God is watching them all the time and disapproves of masturbation), it doesn't. These things are examples of what Dennett calls Belief in Belief: http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/07/belief-in-belie.html
I find Brown's stuff on his own blog quite insightful, but his stuff at the Graun is pretty terrible. I'm not sure why there's the difference: perhaps he feels he has to be more provocative when writing for the paper. Here's an example of the stuff I liked from his personal blog: http://www.thewormbook.com/hlog/?p=1658
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49. Comment #308566 by AllanW on December 30, 2008 at 4:02 am
Comment #308550 by phil rimmer on December 30, 2008 at 3:45 am 'Epeeist, AllanW. I knew no good would come from the Guardian's move from Manchester. '
Too true! But at least there is hope for that other bastion of Enlightenment from my youth the BBC; maybe they will rediscover their soul and integrity with the move to Salford :)
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50. Comment #308568 by Dr Doctor on December 30, 2008 at 4:08 am
pw201:Brown singularly fails to ever engage with what he describes as "New Atheists" in head on debate - preferring to place himself into a position from which he can scoff and rule himself out of needing to provide a cogent argument.
Typical of many self described agnostics, they just don't want to take a position out of sheer narcissism.
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1. Comment #308262 by Librarian on December 29, 2008 at 5:56 pm
I really do not like the term "New Atheism." Professor Dawkins has been out of the closet for a lot of years. Since when do you have to be a psychologist, historian or sociologist to express a stand on atheism? Atheism is an intellectual, political and social movement.Other Comments by Librarian