Well, it's impolite to associate moderate religious people with fundamentalists. Any movement is going to have fringes past some critical mass.

Huh? I'm not worried about atheism becoming ideological. Atheism is what it is. Lack of belief in god. I'm worried about atheists becoming more ideological.

This is totally vacuous because everything becomes a metaphysical claim. I think french cooking is explained by magic angels. If you reject this and think that french cooking is the result of basic chemistry you are now making a metaphysical claim because you are rejecting my angles.

That's true. Though, I'm also worried about ideologues becoming atheists (while remaining ideologues).

Well said.

Young Earth Creationists never claim that they ignore scientific evidence, but rather they say that they use the Bible as their "starting point." To them, the Bible is true. Period. If the majority of the scientific community suggests that the Earth is billions of years old, YECs claim that the data is flawed and more scientific research needs to be done in order to prove what the they already knows: That the Bible is literally true.

I'm not claiming that all Christians believe in YEC, but in understanding the YEC viewpoint, it's makes it easier to explain why it's unfair to claim that the Big Bang is a creation myth and that NA is a religion.

While all Christians aren't YECs, all Christians do believe that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. If you don't think JC rose from the dead, then basically by definition, you are not a Christian. The resurrection is to the Christian what a 6000 year old Earth is to the YEC. It's a "starting point" and the rules of science must bend to make it work. A Christian must believe in the resurrection of Christ despite the most widely accept scientific evidence that suggests that a human couldn't rise after being dead for three days.

It is this clashing of the most widely accepted scientific evidence of the day with an essential pillar of Christianity's dogma that makes Christianity a religion.

There is never a clash of the most widely accepted scientific evidence of the day with the dogma of New Atheism because they are one and the same. The dogma of New Atheism IS the most widely accepted scientific evidence of the day and it's subject to change at any time.

The Bang Bang Theory is not a myth--it's simply the current picture of the beginning of the universe that is most widely accepted by those who have no "starting point" outside of the scientific evidence.

That's not true:

http://friendlyatheist.com/2010/12/3...comment-625662

http://friendlyatheist.com/2010/12/3...comment-626488

So yes, the most widely accepted scientific evidence can conflict with ideological atheism.

Interesting posts, but I don't think it's fair to equate New Atheism with Ideological Atheism.

In fact, I don't particularly like the term "Ideological Atheist". The term itself seems to imply that a stubborn atheist who disagrees with a study just because it doesn't show atheists in a good light is somehow more of an atheist than another atheist who doesn't object to the study.

If a study comes out that definitively shows that Americans are far more obese than Europeans and an American disputes the study solely because it puts Americans in a bad light, I wouldn't be comfortable calling him an "Ideological American." I'd prefer to say that he's "a cry-baby" or "being a whiny little bitch." He's not complaining because he's American--he's complaining because he's overly-sensitive.

Taking the OP at face value, and plucking out my own jaundiced eye, the underlying assumption of a ‘new atheism' must imply an antecedent, or old atheism, is just unassailable logic. Fortunately for the pathetic and lost souls that avow the atheism mind set and cast their bread upon the waters of RGT, my recent readings can shed some light on this subject of old vs. new and the repercussion. The ‘old atheism’, the type that was not shouted from the rooftops, is that of Spinoza. I think George Santayana (1863-1952) put it best: My atheism, like that of Spinoza, is true piety towards the universe and denies only gods fashioned by men in their own image, to be servants of their human interests (from: On My Friendly Critics, 1921).

Now the 1920’s was the beginning of the revolution in physics with the developed of quantum mechanics by the usual conspiratorial cast of overly smart white men, of which Paul Dirac was a key figure. By chance, complete random chance I will add; I have recently finished a well written (I give it a B+) biography about Paul Dirac titled, The Strangest Man. In this book facts about the new atheism blaze forth. To wit: During the Solvay conference of October, 1927, when the brainy physicists were hobnobbing in a hotel lobby, Wolfgang Pauli made a comment after listening to Paul Dirac give a tirade against religion. Pauli said; ‘Well our friend Dirac, too, has a religion, and its guiding principle is “There is no God and Dirac is his prophet”.’

So there we have it, October 1927 is the birthday of the New Atheism and its religious underpinnings. And Paul Dirac is its Prophet. Seldom does a religion have such a firm beginning date. Having cleared this up and established the unequivocal position that the New Atheism is a religion (and leaving aside if Old Atheism was one also) the repercussions are plain, especially since Paul Dirac died on October 20, 1984. The New Atheists, to solidify and uphold their religious views, need to start praying to a god- which one may seem a problem but that can be quickly resolved. Zeno (I am whom I am), the New Atheist mod of RGT is the God that all you New Atheists need to pray to. To facilitate this I hereby solemnly give to the New Atheist masses this prayer:


Mostly Holy Zeno, maker of all and destroyer of all, master of all fates, creator of universes galore; deliver me from the evil of theism, give me my daily dose of David Sklansky, lead me not into irrational ravings, and uphold forever the sacred values of skepticism, in the name of our earthly father Richard Dawkins we pray. - Amen.


Prayers are accepted 8 am to 5 pm everyday (excluding US Holidays) on a first come first serve basis, are painstakingly catalogued, and immediately filed in a large trash bin that sits behind the Pizza Hut in Orange City, Iowa.

-Zeno: Master of all Universes.

"Old atheism" as far as I can see would refer to the time when atheists didn't write/read/talk about their atheism.

So basically many theists threatened non-believers with death at the stake to be quiet about what they really thought about the universe, but now that they don't kill anyone for disagreeing with them anymore, they still find it audacious that now atheists write, read, and talk about their atheism and pitifully characterize it as "aggressive" or "militant" all the while ignoring the vast amounts of human history where their theistic ancestors burned people alive for disagreeing with them.

I'm not from the US, but I always assume the point of this issue that keeps recurring is the separation of church and state thing - if atheism is a religion then either you can't teach evolution in schools or you also have to teach creationism

(I know evolution is a scientific theory and not a religious ideology, but I'm assuming that's how these people are thinking)