New atheism
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New atheism is a form of atheism that takes a positive position on the likely non-existence of God. It is characterized by seeing religion as not just factually false, but also destructive. This is contrasted with Victorian atheism, which mourned that belief was no longer possible. New atheism, like Nietzsche, celebrates freedom from God. [1] It appears the term was coined by Wired magazine in their article "The Church of the Non-Believers." [2][3]
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[edit] Doctrines
[edit] Andrew Brown
Andrew Brown of The Guardian[2] attempted to define New Atheism in terms of 6 doctrines:
- 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 opposite of religion, and will lead people into the clear sunlit uplands of reason.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
[edit] Al Mohler
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Al Mohler in his lecture at Dallas[1] also provides a theory of development for new atheism which include a theory of of what led to the distinctiveness of New Atheism from the earlier Victorian atheism or its later cousin, logical positivism. In his view this shift came from evolution, older atheism was focused on addressing theodicy most especially directly after the wars of the early twentieth century and the Holocaust. That is Victorian atheism arose in culturally Christian states, while New atheism came from attitudes first developed out of the world's first atheist state, the Soviet Union. The attitudes which had developed in the Soviet Union became part of Western European and American society came via. the secularization of the state and society where the ownership of land, social services (legal, medical...) were being provided by not explicitly religious institutions. Additional cultural changes occurred in Western Europe and American with the rise of social dislocation, loss of extended family, secularization of elites, personal autonomy and therapeutic culture. [4] Older atheism saw belief in God as functional that is the belief provided mental comfort, social cohesion... Because Victorian Atheism saw these functions as no longer necessary history would inevitably drive towards new forms of providing these services as "humanity came of age". For the New Atheists, the triumphs of science lead to a belief that God is not necessary and, moreover, that the very foundations of theism are denied by postmodernism. That is for New Atheists God is merely one socially constructed reality among others. Mohler believes that for the western elite there was a progression from belief in God being absolutely unquestioning during the middle ages, to disbelief being plausible during the enlightenment and modernity to, in the modern era, belief is longer even plausible.
At the same Dallas lecture Mohler indicated a list of distinctive features:[1]
- New Atheism is a celebration of atheism. God's funeral is something to be celebrated, not mourned.
- Not a rejection of a theism but an unambiguous rejection of the God of Christianity.
- Explicitly based in scientific arguments. Motivation and structure is considered to be an inevitable result of scientific revolution and method.
- Accommodation of theism to modern forms of thought is no longer seen as progress so new atheist literature attacks are focused on moderate and liberal forms of theism, at least as strongly as orthodox and conservative forms of theism.
- Belief in God is not to be tolerated. This contrasts with the older atheism's focus on plurality and freedom of religion.
- A view that inculcating a belief in God in children is harmful to them.
- Religion is the greatest threat to world peace.
[edit] See also
- Books by New Atheists on New Atheism
- Sam Harris, The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation
- Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion
- Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great
- Daniel Dennett, Breaking the Spell
[edit] References
- ^ a b c Lecture at Dallas Theological Seminary, The New Atheism And The Endgame Of Secularism ~ minute 20
- ^ a b Brown, Andrew. "The New Atheism, a definition and a quiz", The Guardian, December 29, 2008.
- ^ Wolf, Gary. "The Church of Non-Believers", Wired, issue 14.11, November 2006
- ^ Therapeutic culture edited by Jonathan B. Imber
[edit] Further reading
- Wired Magazine - The Church of the Non-Believers
- The Nation, The New Atheists and Among the Disbelievers
- CNN, The rise of the "New Atheists"
- Al Mohler, The New Atheism? and lecture at Dallas Theological Seminary, The New Atheism And The Endgame Of Secularism
- A. J. Chein, Institute for Health and Social Justice, The New Atheism, online at Z-Net
- Paul Kurtz, Council for Secular Humanism ,Are ‘Evangelical Atheists’ Too Outspoken?
