Because he's a dick.

Buzzfeed's devastating account of years of sexual predation.

Sigh, so disappointing if proven to be true. Dawkins is a dick, looks like Krauss might be too, Sam Harris is a smug dick, just for loving himself so much, and I can handle all that, but if Dennet turned out to be a dick that would be devastating for me.

The Buzzfeed article seemed thorough -- multi-sourced, named accusers.

I've always hated the New Atheists. Not just arrogant, also wrong. Krauss is pretty snotty, but Harris is the worst of the lot. Hitchens at least knew he was playing to the mob in order to punch his meal ticket. Know less about Dennett.

I recall a Scientific American where Krauss went on about what a gross error Einstein made about something or other. It takes a special person to knock Einstein over something that did not become clear until 50 years later.

+1 on Dawkins and Harris. Dennett seems kewl though.

Wow... sad to hear.

I think they sold out for the publicity, maybe figuring that it was better than obscurity and would benefit 'the cause'. Not so sure about that myself, I think Dawkins does more to hurt atheism than anything and if these accusations are proven it will be fodder for theists who claim that atheists don't have any morals.

Dennet is my gold standard. Calm, rational, reasoned, devastatingly intelligent, never resorts to ad homs or other fallacies like Dawkins or Hitchens. Love him.

Even though I obviously disagree with Dennett's worldview, I have a lot of respect for him. He truly seems to be a "scholar and a gentleman", as they used to say.

I've only heard a few lectures/podcasts and articles by Krauss, but I have never been impressed. His dispute with David Albert was revealing in his disdain for those who disagree with him on these issues. Where do you think the new Atheists were wrong?

They wildly overestimate theism's damage to cognition and downplay the fact that rationalists are just as debilitated by ideology as any god fearing person.

People compartmentalize well. We can have batty ideas about demons or 9-11 conspiracies but be entirely functional in another field.

Atheists can be just as bedazzled and venal as Jimmy Swaggarts. Take the Neocons and the invasion of Iraq. Very ideologically driven, and entirely and predictably wrong. But they were very sure of themselves. Stalin, Pol Pot, and Henry Kissinger are even better examples of how rotten and wrong atheists can be. (Just guessing that K has no faith.)

Those are foundational problems with the NA. Then you look at the actual practice of say Sam Harris, and it is mendacious, pseudo-intellectual crap. I read a chapter of his about how all religions are wrong, but Islam is even wronger. It made really sophomoric historical errors. His mistakes have been explained to him repeatedly, but he keeps beating the drum and selling the books. Some years ago I launched a thread to vent at Harris, it's back there somewhere.

In my view, atheism does not really have much utility. We win the argument about origins -- no one knows where the cosmos came from -- but beyond that, theists can be just as kind and shrewd as anyone else.

If I had to take a long car ride with someone, I'll take Pope Francis over the NAs any day.

I've yet to see an article bashing Sam Harris that fairly represented his position, and in many cases it was a bald-faced misrepresentation. The smugness claims, I just don't see him the way some do. I think it might be based simply on whether you were introduced to Harris' ideas directly or via his critics 'quoting' them.

The Krauss backstory contains rather a lot of rumour, but there does seem to be "a lot". However, without diminishing the emotional effects of crass behaviour on some of these women, there is no indication that Krauss crossed any legal boundaries is there?

My conclusions came from reading all of chapter 4 in The End of Faith and reading his exchange with Chomsky which he did not know enough to be embarrassed by.

Screed with details vs. Harris: https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/s...8&postcount=84

If it's Greenwald, you know it will be detailed and not rehash of critics of Harris: https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...-muslim-animus

It didn't seem like anyone described outright sexual assault, even though one was close - so this would typically be classified as sexual harassment.

A quick google search reveals that sexual harassment is illegal in the workplace per US federal law, so in that regard he has crossed legal boundaries. But in practice I doubt many cases go to trial, but it has happened and there is supreme court precedent that says it is a violation of federal law.

We have similar laws in my country (but a bit broader, in that it is illegal in general) and they very rarely go to trial, people seldom want the attention and its probably difficult to fulfill the burden of proof.

But regardless or not, when so many come forth it's safe to say the evidence is saying he is a pretty miserable excuse for a human being.

Stories like this also makes me glad I never hinged my atheism on people. It's best as an intellectual position. I'm not surprised by the hero worship stories and the mob mentality of his followers, sadly. It seems to be a lot of that going on these days.

heh. I remember reading that greenwald column and watching that chomsky video about the new atheists back in the day. Back then those were all people I regularly paid attention to, and have now more or less moved on from all of them. Feels like a blast from the past.

Who is "we" in the bolded sentence?

^^^ Us atheists.

Gotcha.

Since when is it about utility, you make it sound like a choice. How about it not being an impediment to learning? I don't think anything in history has impeded learning like religion has, we'd be hundreds of years ahead of where we are now if religions hadn't censored any learning that contradicted their explanations. Islam and Christianity are the worst culprits.

I was addressing the New Atheists claim that religion inherently stupefies people.

Yes, specific doctrines are debilitating in specific ways. A creationist cannot be much of a biologist because they do not believe in biology. (Ya, I know some claim otherwise.) Yes, a political institution that silences Galileo will hinder science. But for every Torquemada there's a Gregor Mendel, or a Sultan Saladin bankrolling Jewish scientist Maimonides.

As far as religion causing a general degradation of cognition, inquiry, and creativity -- I don't see it.

Every conclusion I've ever made about science, politics, history, can and is arrived at by theists (with the mentioned exception of origins). A world run by devout Quakers would be far superior to Neocon state terrorism. So theists arrive at four by going 6-2 instead of 1+3. I don't give a crap, just so they are kind and have an honest intellect.

The NAs single out religion as a special force that is outside of history. They play word games that define everything bad as religious and everything good as rational (Maher is especially silly here). They go on and on about all the awful things religion does, and barely give lip service to the complexity of causes and contingency. It is playing to the mob, blaming everything on a simple target. Instead of "teenage immigrant welfare mothers on drugs," it's priests.

The NA trend plays well because it appeals to people's sense of intellectual superiority. It is a movement fueled by snot.

This only disproves the claim that no theist can come to these conclusions. A claim that nobody makes. A claim that is more common is that dogmatic religion hinders scientific inquiry and rational thought. You'd have to show that a similar percentage of theists come to these conclusions compared to non-theists. One clue that this is probably not true is that theists are underrepresented in the sciences.

Isn't that lack of nuance part of what makes them the New atheists?

I don't see why I need to do all that. New Atheism is a parlor game of ridicule, as such it makes excessive and unnuanced claims, such as that theism is what makes almost everything bad, and is stupid and makes people stupider. Disproving that does not take much. It is possible to have faith and also program Watson. Even a clown like Ben Carson was respected for his brain surgery.

Now for various reasons, people drawn to physics also apparently tend towards disbelief. But that is not what makes them successful physicists.
Physics today cannot remotely answer why there is something rather than nothing, so belief in God as creator does not hold back their inquiry.

The hard science style of thinking may tilt people towards skepticism, but that does not mean belief does general violence to wisdom. Biology is thoroughly removed from the origin of subatomic particles, how does being a Lutheran hold someone back from poking frogs with scalpels?

These aren't really rebuttals to their points. I remember hearing variants of these quite frequently in debates with the new atheists and while it has been a while I thought they were pretty effective at framing their arguments in ways where this wasn't a substantive criticism.

Huh?

Well I concede then

Krauss issues many denials of Buzzfeed reports.

Krauss has put Micheal Crow, the President of ASU in a horrible spot. Crow, since he took office in 2002. has been incredibly dynamic and has the object of turning ASU - which I doubt had a great reputation - into the new Harvard. His words, iirc, and the Origins Project that Krauss was recruited to head is an innovative program.

But Krauss can't survive. Not these days and w/ that many allegations. Too bad, he's my favorite public atheist bec he's the one who can manage a smile.