Sure.

You keep saying that, but you don't say why. To sell this idea, you will need to define 'New Atheism', you will need to lay out your definition(s) of 'religion' and you will need to present a case in favour of the claim. Just saying it again and again isn't going to cut it.

But they don't contradict themselves. Even granting your claim, many religions regard all other faiths as imperfect, impure or downright evil. There is nothing at all contradictory about it; you are, at worst, criticising their use of the word 'religion' ("It should have an 'other' at the front and an 's' on the end, guys!").

Nah. How we came to be here, sure. Trying to turn how into why is silly, and pretty well encapsulates the futility of the line you're taking. Think for a minute about the phrase 'creation myth' and it may become clear to you ('mythical' by comparison to what standard? Aaaaah...).

New Atheism is the adamant, extremely aggressive secularism which has developed the past few years by people like Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris. Because it assumes materialism, it presupposes that religion has to be wrong and labels religious people as idiotic. It is also heavily tied into social movements of eradicating religion, separation of church and state, and the general advancement of science.


Using the definition of Clifford Geertz, who said," Religion is defined as (1) a system of symbols which acts to (2) establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by (3) formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and (4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that (5) the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic."

To each of the points:
1) New Atheism has developed many symbols that identify with it. The Flying Spaghetti Monster is the most popular example, but the many cartoons and demotivational posters also serve as symbols. Furthermore, the books and people also hold iconic value.

2) This seems rather obvious. People believe in it and are motivated by it.

3) Adamant materialism is the key to this one. By making this metaphysical claim, it is also making a claim about the afterlife and what is ultimately real (matter). With this position, an order of existence necessarily follows.

4) New Atheism relies on empirical study and materialism to support this factuality.

5) If we are to deny this, we must believe that people like Dawkins and whole organizations like the FFRF are deceiving everyone, which is ridiculous.

I don't even see how this is an issue. If you say that you want to eradicate religion, but at the same time push a religious movement, you are being hypocritical and contradictory. New Atheism doesn't say that other religions are bad; it says that all religions are bad.

I have no idea what you mean by this. When you presuppose materialism, the "how" and the "why" are identical. This does not mean that the "why" then just disappears.

I'm not sure what is "extremely aggressive" in the Harris comments below. Haven't read any Dawkins or Hitchens on religion other than snippets on here so don't know if they should still be on the list.

I don't think this is an accurate characterization.

It's new! It's so new now, because well, you guys are actually writing about, and reading about, and talking about your atheism! Whereas before if you did any of that we could just burn you at the stake! See, it's new, you guys weren't so aggressive before!

Did my reply get deleted from this thread, or did I just dream that I replied?

Well this is kind of all over the place. I'll indulge it for a while, though, for the sake of argument. So we'll say there is this thing 'New Atheism'.

NA 'assumes materialism' in much the same way that I do; there is nothing I know of that is not material. 'Non-material' is, at present, an empty category.

The 'presupposition that religion has to be wrong' seems inaccurate also - Dawkins and Stenger claim to regard 'the god hypothesis' as a valid scientific hypothesis - taking them at their word, if they claim the hypothesis is inconsistent with their investigation of the universe they occupy, where is the presupposition? Conclusions are not presuppositions.


Is this the only definition of religion you're going to use? You did say any would do. This one will make a Moses out of Gary Gygax if you want it to. But on to the point-by-point...

The New Atheists use language with the intent of persuading others to their point of view. Uh-huh.

As long as by 'believe in' you mean 'agree with', then sure, people believe in it. Motivated by it is tougher to accept, and the ball's in your court - we're not taking it as read.

What order of existence is that? (It will also be helpful if you explain what 'an order of existence' is.)

What?

If we are to deny what? That NA seems uniquely realistic to its adherents, or that NA is a religion? You need to expand on this.

No, again, your criticism here is levelled at their use of the term 'religion'. This is the attitude to be adopted if you genuinely believe that NA is a religion. That you don't see that indicates to me that a) you don't genuinely believe it's a religion and b) you wish to present the idea that it is a religion for propaganda purposes.

According to Dawkins, that's more or less exactly what it means. How here is referring to factual accounts of chains of events. Why is, or at any rate has been, the domain of mystics, philosophers and theologians. If we remove the word 'why' from the discussion, in what sense has it not disappeared?

For my next trick, I will demonstrate that the belief "'New Atheism' is a religion" is itself a religion.

Well, obviously. That's why I have to spot him it - no-one's 'spotting' anyone 'Jesus founded Christianity' because, well, he did. No spotting required.

This kind of false dichotomy is typical of the three-card-monte shuck and jive these New Atheists preach.

No, there's a significant core on the Sam Harris "science can give us morality" bandwagon.

I don't know about that, either. Transhumanism?

That's by-the-by IMO. You may be arguing for Harrisism, but not for 'New Atheism' per the OP.

I'm sure you could cast transhumanism as a religion, but it's definitely not a part of OP's outline of 'New Atheism'.

Whoa there partner! Non-material is an empty category? What do you call the worlds of myth, fantasy, ideals and religion? These thing can't be measured, but I'm sure you'll agree that they exist! In fact these "non-existent" things are probably the most powerful things in our lives! How does a smarty-pants atheist account for such non-existent things animating armies, producing great works of art and erecting vast temples? All the science in the world is useless in understanding such phenomena! Admit it, your worldview is bullsh*t! I dare you to look yourself in the mirror and say, "I'm a scientific atheist and my worldview is bullsh*t". There, you feel better already, don't you?

I'd feel better if you went back to the thread you started and promptly abandoned on this subject rather than trying to derail this one. And also if you stopped shilling your crappy blogs in violation of the TOS. If Jib's going to be infracting rize for sarcasm, I'm surely going to report any more posts from you advertising your wares.

Don't change the subject dude! You made an outrageous statement in this thread and I responded to it! Please note for the record that I made no mention of any of my very fine blogs, and the only wares I'm selling here are 100% free of charge: the truth!

I think the assertion is that it all lumps together - that this "collection" of ideas essentially defines the "new atheism."

And many ideas are probably only part of a particular religion because the early adopters of the religion happened to also accept those ideas. So this kind of "belief correlation cluster" standard for religion wouldn't be unprecedented.

Plus, I'm sure "Harrisists," atheists, and transhumanists share plenty of overlap (especially the Harrisists and transhumanists, who are probably almost exclusively atheistic).

He's done it a couple of times elsewhere (here and here) that I know of, but not ITT. No big deal, but I'd rather he stopped. If he can derail, I can too.

Ok, took care of those. I agree, until someone has established that they are not here to promote their stuff they don't need to be linking to things.

Sure. But there is, for want of a better word, a political dimension to the discussion. If OP would say that what he's calling 'New Atheism' in many respects resembles a religion, I could agree - as I could about D&D, historical re-enactment societies, certain musical subcultures and sf/fantasy fandoms, etc... But because OP has a political axe to grind, he's not interested in comparative statements and analogy-drawing - 'NA' must be a religion, not just resemble one in some respects.

And for what it's worth, Pauline Christianity shares a lot of overlap with Platonism, right? Does that make Platonism a religious subset of Christianity (after all, transhumanism predates Harrisism/NA too, right?)

Edit: Cheers Jib.

Ok, back to the topic at hand.

1. creation myth: you can pick any of the naturalistic explanations for the origin of the Universe. You can refer to the latest book by Hawking if you like.

2. Founding figures: I don't know that you can really draw this back to any specific people. Really hard to say depending on what branch of the "new atheists" you are talking about.

3. Eschatology: Now there is no "mythic" aspect to it in the New Atheism, but there is definitely a stated "end of all things", namely the universe dying a "heat death".

4. Prescriptive moral code: Again, depends on what branch of New Atheism you are referring, but as has been pointed out there are many like Harris that advocate a "science" based morality.

ok, more on this later

Sure, this type of semantic stuff is mostly political, I think. But I don't see the harm in granting some of it. Hell, it might even be possible to coax some theists into agreeing with a definition that includes certain atheists - and then emphasize that the vast majority of atheists don't fit that category.

I admit, I'm worried about atheism becoming more ideological, and allowing some of this religion wordplay does make it easier for me to demonize the more ideological fringe of atheism - I'm more of an anti-ideologue than an anti-theist, and I like the idea of deterrents against going "too far."

Look into an abyss, the abyss looks into you, and all that stuff.

atheists saying things /= atheism saying things.

If I meet a Christian in a church and they tell me that real Christians blow up abortion clinics, would it make sense for me to act like that was a tenet of Christianity on RGT?

I'll quote a post I already made in this thread:

I don't know if you saw my previous question:

"What is the new atheism exactly? Has that ever been spelt out anywhere?"

Can I conclude from the above that the new atheism consitutes the following beliefs?

1. There is a naturalistic explanation for the creation of the universe
2. The universe will end with a 'heat death'
3. There is an objective moral code derivable via science

Would you say that anyone who believes all of these (and doesnt believe in God) is a new atheist and that anyone who doesnt believe in all of these is not a new atheist?

Those are not creation myths. They are speculative scientific hypotheses for the creation of the universe that are not accepted by most scientists or atheists and could potentially be completely rejected by atheists (including Hawking) in the future. The fact that you resort to mythology to explain the creation of the universe does not mean that all attempts to do so are mythology.

The terrible thing is, I know exactly what you mean. But it's an analogy, not an equivalence. If atheism were a religion, then, naturally, whatever explanation it offered for the beginning of everything 'would be' its creation myth. But 'the Big Bang' (whatever precisely is meant by that) doesn't concern 'creation' (that requires intention) and isn't really a 'myth', either - whether taken literally or not, myths by their nature aren't subject to revision.

Just confining ourselves to OP's 'New Atheism', like I said I've no problem ceding HDDH as 'founders'. Or let's go the whole hog and say Darwin = Christ, Mendel = Paul and HDDH = MMLJ. Leaving aside religion, it's obviously possible to regard NA as 'a movement', and if someone thinks HDDH are 'the founders' of that movement, well, that's what they think. Hard to contradict them even if you don't agree (not that that's a point in favour of the idea).

Sticking with the analogy, this (I guess) makes entropy Babylon. But the eschaton proper is only the end of worldly days, isn't it? It's a funny eschatology that makes no mention of a hereafter.

Indeed they may advocate it. Are advocates of a philosophy-based morality also 'religious'? Be advised that if you do win this part of the argument, as far as I can tell it only means I'll need to edit the graph - it's not as if our only options for 'morality' are science or religion.

This. I wish I could articulate my thoughts this well.

No problem, as long as you don't mind having to emphasise that, like, every day for the rest of your life. Maybe it would buy enough peace and quiet to make up for it, though. Ditto, pretty much.

"We have met the Enemy, and he is us."