Why call it "New"?
Truly, there is nothing new under the sun, as wise Solomon once proclaimed. So why are they called “New Atheists”? Atheism has been around… well, since the beginning of organized religion. So why are we calling them new?
The phrase was coined by journalist Gary Wolf in depicting a rise of a strong Atheistic trend that has taken root in the authorship of (what some have jokingly called the four horsemen of Atheism) men like Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, and Sam Harris.
What is different is the vehement attacks upon religion, and in particular Christianity, that has risen from these threads. What has changed is that prior to these men’s writing, Atheism had more of a bad connotation and questionable foundations. But with the help of evolution, these men have proported that it is the religious “fanatics” that have questionable foundations. They move to prove that it is the Atheist that have the logical high ground and that the religious “fairy tales” of the world are evil influences in the world.
As Steven Weinburg wrote, “Good people will do good things, and bad people will do bad things, but for good people to do bad things - that takes religion.”
And Michel Onfray once said, “God is a fiction invented by men so as not to confront the reality of their condition.”
What reality? That there is no point, no purpose, no life after death, and no reason for their pain and suffering.
And why do they see religion as frightening? If religion is, as Karl Marx says, the “opium of the people”, why take that comfort away?
Dinesh D’Souza suggests (as does the Bible), that the reason is that Christianity speaks out that what they do is evil. Not that these men are evil men, they are moral and upstanding citizens, as the next man. But in a purely biblical view, we all fall into doing evil - and when speaking of morality, we do differ in ideas of abortion, sexual freedom, homosexuality, among other socially controversial subjects.
Here is one of their own numbers honestly expressing this. Julian Huxley - “ I had motives for not wanting the world to have a meaning; consequently I assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption… For myself, as no doubt for most of my contemporaries, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation. The liberation we desired was… liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom.”
Christianity is too prudish, so we reject it. In essence was their starting point according to Julian. But they will adamantly tell you that their position is firmly rooted in science, not philosophy…
Let me use their own words again. Don’t be fooled.
Nietzsche - “If one were to prove this God of the Christians to us, we should be even less able to believe in him.”
Victor Stenger - “If he [God] does exist, I personally want nothing to do with him.”
Thomas Nagel - “I want atheism to be true… it isn’t just that I don’t believe in God… I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that.”
Science answers the question how. Religion answers the question why. That is a question science can NEVER answer. Which is why the Atheist mixes his tenses and comes out with what I like to call scilosophy (Philosophy masquerading as science). It is not founded upon science, it is science interpreted through the lens of THEIR philosophy - ie. Atheism. They claim science is not biased, but simple pure facts. Indeed it is, but their interpretation of what science means in terms of WHY is philosophy, not science - pure facts. This is New Atheism.
Jared Williams
The phrase was coined by journalist Gary Wolf in depicting a rise of a strong Atheistic trend that has taken root in the authorship of (what some have jokingly called the four horsemen of Atheism) men like Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, and Sam Harris.
What is different is the vehement attacks upon religion, and in particular Christianity, that has risen from these threads. What has changed is that prior to these men’s writing, Atheism had more of a bad connotation and questionable foundations. But with the help of evolution, these men have proported that it is the religious “fanatics” that have questionable foundations. They move to prove that it is the Atheist that have the logical high ground and that the religious “fairy tales” of the world are evil influences in the world.
As Steven Weinburg wrote, “Good people will do good things, and bad people will do bad things, but for good people to do bad things - that takes religion.”
And Michel Onfray once said, “God is a fiction invented by men so as not to confront the reality of their condition.”
What reality? That there is no point, no purpose, no life after death, and no reason for their pain and suffering.
And why do they see religion as frightening? If religion is, as Karl Marx says, the “opium of the people”, why take that comfort away?
Dinesh D’Souza suggests (as does the Bible), that the reason is that Christianity speaks out that what they do is evil. Not that these men are evil men, they are moral and upstanding citizens, as the next man. But in a purely biblical view, we all fall into doing evil - and when speaking of morality, we do differ in ideas of abortion, sexual freedom, homosexuality, among other socially controversial subjects.
Here is one of their own numbers honestly expressing this. Julian Huxley - “ I had motives for not wanting the world to have a meaning; consequently I assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption… For myself, as no doubt for most of my contemporaries, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation. The liberation we desired was… liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom.”
Christianity is too prudish, so we reject it. In essence was their starting point according to Julian. But they will adamantly tell you that their position is firmly rooted in science, not philosophy…
Let me use their own words again. Don’t be fooled.
Nietzsche - “If one were to prove this God of the Christians to us, we should be even less able to believe in him.”
Victor Stenger - “If he [God] does exist, I personally want nothing to do with him.”
Thomas Nagel - “I want atheism to be true… it isn’t just that I don’t believe in God… I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that.”
Science answers the question how. Religion answers the question why. That is a question science can NEVER answer. Which is why the Atheist mixes his tenses and comes out with what I like to call scilosophy (Philosophy masquerading as science). It is not founded upon science, it is science interpreted through the lens of THEIR philosophy - ie. Atheism. They claim science is not biased, but simple pure facts. Indeed it is, but their interpretation of what science means in terms of WHY is philosophy, not science - pure facts. This is New Atheism.
Jared Williams
