Are "New Atheists" Too Obsessed With Religion?

[lewisnotmiller]

New atheists/Old commies are more or less the same, have the same roots and outlook when it comes to science but know enough to realize the education system is the key to spreading ideologies.

I'm neither a new atheist, nor an old commie. Nor do I agree that they are the same. Are all theists the same? Are they even close to subscribing to a single dogma? You're wielding a wide brush.
Your constant reference to the education system is at best a moot point (ironically, if you want to track the origins of the meaning of that phrase).
Any education system can be used to spread ANY ideology. This includes, but is not limited to, religious ideology.

Near as I can tell, the rest is off topic. As stated, create a new thread. I'll happily come over, and you can try and beat me to submission there (just PM me a link), but you're straying too consistently off topic.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

Please don't make me. It happens to often and enters my sleeping mind as nightmares.

I know. I chose it with care. I figured you'd be able to relate, and there was at least a 10% chance you'd have flashback nightmares, and curl into a ball, thus handing me a win by default. What I'm trying to win, I have no idea, but it seems a common aim on this site at times, so I just kinda rolled with it.
(BTW (complete sidenote) I still haven't forgotten that I promised the world I would eviscerate you in a one on one debate at some point. I'm brushing up on obscure knowledge in the area of 9th century sports, hoping this is a topic of unfamiliarity to you.)

You hit upon an extremely deep point here, actually. Time was your average physicist spoke Latin and the modern languages of scholarship (at that time, German, French, and Italian mostly), was more familiar with the philosophy and the history of philosophy than mathematics (hence the formulation of quantum mechanics known as "matrix mechanics" was developed by one who did not known what matrices were), and we had sociologists, not social neuroscientists, social psychologists, etc. Modern science is extremely interdisciplinary, which is great on the one hand, but it means that for any given field, specialists are actually scant because to be a real specialist requires specialization in something as specific as the construction of satellite temperature records from MSU signals (which is the only reason Dr. John Christy has continually been asked to contribute to the IPCC reports). If one attends a seminar or conference for specialists, increasingly these have become people who are ostensibly in the same field having to tell their ostensible colleagues the basics of their work.

Fits entirely with my layman's consideration of it. To some degree, a similar phenomenon occurs in my industry, and I was taking a little bit of a leap of faith that it was similar in yours. Whilst I'm not scientific, I have clients who are serious providers of medical research (largest couple in Australia), and get to spend fun lunch dates with researchers. Their topics of conversation provide me some limited insight into their fields, even whilst losing me in terms of their actual research. I occasionally hit on deep points, and even more occasionally do so on purpose.

The problem (or part of it) is, as I see it, partly the increasing lack amongst scientists of more general philosophical knowledge and the familiarity with the philosophy & history of science. Hence the reduction by those like Dawkins of theology and philosophy to his knowledge of the sciences and an inability to engage in the type of discourse scientists & academics such as Russell, Whitehead, Freud, Lewis, etc., were capable of.

Perhaps. I certainly wouldn't argue that's untrue. There have been enough instances of Dawkins and Harris making much that point, in truth (ie. drawing boundaries around their areas of expertise). Hitchens is more broad in terms of classical literature, or global politics, but still probably not what you are referring to.
However, I'm not sure that it would make much difference if they WERE more philosophically or theologically sound. Because the increase in their knowledge wouldn't be matched by an increased capacity of the audience to understand.

Even when talking about areas he IS knowledgeable about, Dawkins is reasonably good at making it understandable. I suppose if he were more philosophically rounded, he might still 'dumb it down' enough that the core message he was peddling would remain largely unchanged.

Basically, the increasing specialization has made it so much harder for any academics to be polymaths of the type that virtually all academics were less than a century ago.

This appears common in many technical areas. On of the issues with standing on the shoulders of giants is that improving on increasingly more complex and complete theories almost dictates increasing specialization over time. I've worked a niche in my industry by being less specialized, and instead more able to see the entirety of a technical picture, but this only serves to make me acutely aware that I can contribute and follow in depth conversations by specialists in their areas, but I cannot reach their depth of knowledge (depth versus breadth).

But much of them were meant to be and were (not his and Whitehead's PM, but his history of western philosophy and "why I am not a Christian" and so many other works now considered largely inaccessible were intended to be accessible).

Kinda my point. Russell's work is fairly accessible, I've found, in many ways.
One, it's fairly readily available. He has enough of a name that decent larger non-academic bookstores (even in Australia) will have a decent collection of his works.
Heck, I can get Russell, Darwin (meh...it felt expected...) and Nietzsche on my Kindle for free.
So practically, he's accessible.
And more than that, Russell is fairly readily understandable. Nietzsche, not so much...lol...although I got value from repeated rereadings. Tough going for me, though.

So if Russell is both available and understandable, why are Russell's arguments not taking care of the 'dumbing down' gap?

As available and accessible as they are, they remain outside the grasp of many people who are still involved in the theist/atheist debate.
Russell gets cherry-picked, understandably so in my view, but I suspect many doing so have read things second hand, rather than picking from the primary source.
Nietzsche gets cherry picked, but generally in a mangled sort of manner which indicates limited grasp of the underpinning philosophies.

Hitchens, in particular, was very audience savvy. I suspect we might be getting the debate we (the audience) deserve to have.

It strikes me that I appear to be defending 'New Atheism'. I suppose there are lots of things about it I would defend. But I don't subscribe to anti-theism, and think that 'New atheism' probably over focuses on an anti-theist message, rather than a proactive message of secularism. Hitchens, in particular, is well versed in the history of secularism in the US (at least) but often didn't raise this knowledge in debates, as he was more commonly ranged against people in a 'Is God Real/Is religion Good' forum, where sidestepping the whole question and simply focusing on secularism would have looked like avoidance.

 

[Cephus]

I became a Christian by reading the Bible.

Certainly not critically.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

None of this makes any sense. It is as well known as anything is, that the number of protons in the nucleus of an atom determines what element it is. This is built right into the fundamental properties of the universe.

Yes, but it doesn't mean we have found them all, or have it all figured out. For all we know, there may be ways of forcing extra protons in each layer, or fill a gap in with sub atomic particles, forcing the proton to an outer layer, making entirely new elements under conditions that may happen in another galaxy, solar system, whatever.

 

[Bunyip]

Yes, but it doesn't mean we have found them all, or have it all figured out. For all we know, there may be ways of forcing extra protons in each layer, or fill a gap in with sub atomic particles, forcing the proton to an outer layer, making entirely new elements under conditions that may happen in another galaxy, solar system, whatever.

No. It doesn't work that way.

It is like numbers, say from 0 to 100, on every planet math will work the same way. There will not be extra numbers between 2 and 3 in other places.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Wrong! The 'New Atheist' movement IS that small handful of authors - they are the New Atheists.

Their are many, many people who identify themselves as new atheists. I covered this already and a way you can confirm it yourself.

Just one example of the sort of sterile argument from any of the New Atheist authors.

I gave you more than one already.

 

[Bunyip]

Their are many, many people who identify themselves as new atheists. I covered this already and a way you can confirm it yourself.

So what? People identify as Klingons - how is that relevant? The term 'New Atheist' still refers to Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris et al.

I gave you more than one already.

No, you gave as an example something you thought I had used for some reason. You have not provided an example of an argument from Dawkins et al that you feel is intellectually sterile, largely of course because atheism needs no such arguments.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

on being "intellectually sterile"...

First, I'd like a definition.

Barren. Devoid of any metaphorical "offspring" or intellectual content as
1) The only thing "new" about the new atheists is the social aspects
&
2) There is a great deal more to the atheist tradition that is not new but also not addressed in discussions, lectures, literature, etc., by the new atheists.

Abrahamic fundamentalism is on the rise, and it's having serious negative impacts on society.

It's never been lower. Time was the RCC ruled much of the world, universities were mostly for training priests, and countries and states had "state religions" (this is true even of the US, which only forbade, at least originally, federal religions but allowed and had official state religions). The number of Jewish people drastically decreased due in part because of the "science" of eugenics but in particular its most perfect realization by a secular movement in Germany and its political party (the German Worker's Party). There are about a billion muslims. They run the gamut from radical feminists to extremist terrorists. Also, most of the effects from religious extremism or fundamentalism are tied to or even inexorably bound to political ideology. It's the political ideology I tend to worry about more than I do the religious, as e.g., most of Europe is secular yet suffers from various problems while the main countries we see increases in Christianity are 1) in places like Africa and 2) tend to effect the population by building schools and bringing aid. Also, the new atheism has had no real impact on the fundamentalists or extremists other than to give them a target to help justify their fundamentalism.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

So what? People identify as Klingons - how is that relevant?

If somebody actually things they are a Klingon then they have bigger problems. People who call themselves "new atheists" are "new atheists" because that's what they call themselves, and the scientific study of religion as well as other fields in and related to sociology call them that as well. Your bordering on a "no true Scotsman" argument here.

No, you gave as an example something you thought I had used for some reason. You have not provided an example of an argument from Dawkins et al that you feel is intellectually sterile, largely of course because atheism needs no such arguments.

You missed a post then. I covered Victor Stenger, and in particular his books God: The Failed Hypothesis and The New Atheism.

 

[Bunyip]

Barren. Devoid of any metaphorical "offspring" or intellectual content as
1) The only thing "new" about the new atheists is the social aspects
&
2) There is a great deal more to the atheist tradition that is not new but also not addressed in discussions, lectures, literature, etc., by the new atheists.



It's never been lower. Time was the RCC ruled much of the world, universities were mostly for training priests, and countries and states had "state religions" (this is true even of the US, which only forbade, at least originally, federal religions but allowed and had official state religions). The number of Jewish people drastically decreased due in part because of the "science" of eugenics but in particular its most perfect realization by a secular movement in Germany and its political party (the German Worker's Party). There are about a billion muslims. They run the gamut from radical feminists to extremist terrorists. Also, most of the effects from religious extremism or fundamentalism are tied to or even inexorably bound to political ideology. It's the political ideology I tend to worry about more than I do the religious, as e.g., most of Europe is secular yet suffers from various problems while the main countries we see increases in Christianity are 1) in places like Africa and 2) tend to effect the population by building schools and bringing aid. Also, the new atheism has had no real impact on the fundamentalists or extremists other than to give them a target to help justify their fundamentalism.

That is all just a generalised gripe against atheism. The New Atheists have been an astonishing success - they have brought atheism into the public eye and sold millions of books. They have made atheism a topic that is being discussed much more broadly - in any sense they have been stunningly successful in doing so. None of your complaints are specific to the New Atheist movement, but are attacks on atheism per se.

 

[Bunyip]

If somebody actually things they are a Klingon then they have bigger problems. People who call themselves "new atheists" are "new atheists" because that's what they call themselves, and the scientific study of religion as well as other fields in and related to sociology call them that as well. Your bordering on a "no true Scotsman" argument here.

Nope. People who call themselves 'New Atheists' are no more 'New Atheists' than the ones pretending to be Klingons are really Klingons. The 'New Atheists' are Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens and so on.

You missed a post then. I covered Victor Stenger, and in particular his books God: The Failed Hypothesis and The New Atheism.

What argument of his do you see as intellectually sterile? He doesn't tend to rely on arguments for atheism, sterile or otherwise. It's not as if there were any new evidence to counter (or any old evidence for that matter).

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

This is silly drivel. Nuclear structure (the periodic table) is very well understood indeed. You need to get yourself an education.

Despite more than a century of research, nuclear physics is by no means a ‘closed’ subject. Even the basic strong nucleon-nucleon force is not fully understood at a phenomenological level, let alone in terms of the fundamental quark-gluon strong interaction. Indeed one of the outstanding problems of nuclear physics is to understand how models of interacting nucleons and mesons are related to the quark-gluon picture of QCD and where these two descriptions merge. A related question is how the nuclear environment modifies the quark-gluon structure of hadrons. It follows from our lack of knowledge in these areas that the properties of nuclei cannot at present be calculated from first principles, although some progress has been made in this direction. Meanwhile, in the absence of a fundamental theory to describe the nuclear force, we have seen in earlier chapters that specific models are used to interpret the phenomena in different areas of nuclear physics. Current nuclear physics models must break down at very high energy-densities, and at sufficiently high temperatures the distinction between individual nucleons in a nucleus should disappear"
Martin, B. (2006). Nuclear and Particle Physics: An Introduction (2nd Ed.). Wiley.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

That is all just a generalised gripe against atheism

No, as I wouldn't have a gripe with the new atheists were it not for their stunning success at the dumbing down of atheist literature, discourse, etc.

. The New Atheists have been an astonishing success - they have brought atheism into the public eye and sold millions of books.

Right. Atheism wasn't known to the public before the new atheists. They have succeeded in making some popular science books even worse than usual by combining religious topics with the natural sciences, thereby providing bad popular accounts of the sciences and worse accounts of religious topics (such as the history of religion, the "science" of morality, the scientific study of religion, the nature of religion, etc.).

They have made atheism a topic that is being discussed much more broadly

Yes, they've given a great deal of ammunition to religious fundamentalists and easy targets to apologists.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

"A pathetic shadow", is of course just your view, and it's a critique of style not content.

Of course it isn't a critique of style or content. Nor do I need to try to condense into a post such a critique, as their are hundreds of popular and academic critiques by atheists, theists, agnostics, non-theistic religious, etc. I cited the editor of one volume who, while contributions do contain such criticisms, only prepared the volume because despite the fact that "bookshelves are already littered with responses to the new atheism", these are almost all just critiques and few seek to study the phenomenon from other directions. You can pay $50-$150 for some of the academic responses, or ~$10 for many of the more popular critiques, and of course there are many journal articles that you can access for free on the intellectual sterility of the new atheism. If you would like me to point you to such sources or provide you with some, I'd be happy to.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Nope. People who call themselves 'New Atheists' are no more 'New Atheists' than the ones pretending to be Klingons are really Klingons.

I always forget that for you definitions are both absolute and determined by your usage.

What argument of his do you see as intellectually sterile?

Again, this was a post I already wrote.

 

[ChristineES]

Certainly not critically.

Actually, quite critically. I read the entire Christian Scriptures all in one day and in one sitting. I read the rest of the Bible within 6 or so months: I was 18 at the time, which was 31 years ago. I've studied it even more since then . I read very fast and I had a college age reading level in High School.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Interesting response from Chomsky to Harris et al.

 

[Bunyip]

I always forget that for you definitions are both absolute and determined by your usage.


Again, this was a post I already wrote.

Stenger does not rely on arguments for atheism - you refer to the non-existent. Atheists have never had to face evidence to counter, we tend not to feel the need to disprove the unproveable. The role and agenda of the NA was to popularise discussion on the subject. And they have been a stunning success. Gosh -people even think it is an organisation!

 

[Bunyip]

No, as I wouldn't have a gripe with the new atheists were it not for their stunning success at the dumbing down of atheist literature, discourse, etc.

I'll take that with the requisite bag of salt.

Right. Atheism wasn't known to the public before the new atheists. They have succeeded in making some popular science books even worse than usual by combining religious topics with the natural sciences, thereby providing bad popular accounts of the sciences and worse accounts of religious topics (such as the history of religion, the "science" of morality, the scientific study of religion, the nature of religion, etc.).


Yes, they've given a great deal of ammunition to religious fundamentalists and easy targets to apologists.

If they are easy targets - the apologists still have no ammunition. Apologetics has been all but destroyed by the internet.

So by all means, if they are easy targets - maybe one day an apologist will finally hit them with something tangible. Have at it! I'd love to see any of them stumped by a apologist argument that hasn't been long ago demolished.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

"Perhaps unsurprisingly, most mainline atheists have distanced themselves from the “New Atheism,” disliking both the shrill tone of its rhetoric, and its failure to take the intellectual and social aspects of religion seriously. It is therefore important not to extrapolate judgments made about the “New Atheism” to the wider atheism intellectual community.The“New Atheism” is best seen as a populist splinter movement within atheism as a whole, characterized by methods and attitudes that are not representative of the wider movement.To some, it will seem to be of questionable value to consider their philosophical arguments, precisely because these are stated in such rhetorically exaggerated and intellectually simplified forms"
McGrath, A. E. (2013). Evidence, Theory, and Interpretation: The “New Atheism” and the Philosophy of Science. Midwest Studies In Philosophy, 37(1), 178-188.

"CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS AND DANIEL Dennett must be used to having their atheism called a pseudo-religion. Usually, however, such accusations are made by religious figures who nonetheless do not seem to be willing to follow up with offers of inter-religious ecumenical exchange. It must have been something of a surprise for the so-called New Atheists to have their views called a stealth religion by a self-declared atheist who is one of the world's scientific authorities on religion. David Sloan Wilson - an evolutionary biologist at Binghamton University (SUNY), NY whose critical review of Dawkins' The God Delusion appeared in Skeptic Vol.13, No.4 - has proposed an evolutionary account of religion as a group-level evolutionary adaptation"
Talmont-Kaminski, K. (2009, The new atheism and the new anti-atheism. Skeptic, 15, 68-71.

"many commentators (including some well-known atheists) have baulked at what they considered to be new atheism’s excessive rhetoric (e.g. Armstrong 2009, McGrath & McGrath 2007, Eagleton 2009). Unsurprisingly, theologians and philosophers of religion tend to take a disdainful attitude to what they often consider to be crass, and at times ignorant, arguments(e.g. Hart 2009, Haught 2007, Cottingham 2009)."
McAnulla, S. (2012). Radical atheism and religious power: The politics of new atheism. Approaching Religion, 2(1), 87-99.

"There has been much discussion about exactly what is “new” in the New Atheism.The novelty is not to be found in public advocacy of atheism, which at the very least dates to some of the figures of the Enlightenment, such as the Baron d’Holbach and Denis Diderot. Nor does there there appear to be anything particularly new from a philosophical standpoint, as the standard arguments advanced by the New Atheists against religion are just about the same that have been put forth by well-known atheist or agnostic philosophers from David Hume to Bertrand Russell.5 Indeed, not even the noticeably more aggressive than usual tone often adopted by the New Atheists, and for which they are often criticized even by other secularists, is actually new. Just think of the legendary abrasiveness of American Atheists founder Madalyn Murray O’Hair...
Dawkins says that the “God hypothesis” should be treated as a falsifiable scientific hypothesis; Stenger explicitly—in the very subtitle of his book—states that “Science shows that God does not exist” (my emphasis); and Harris later on writes a whole book in which he pointedly ignores two and a half millennia of moral philosophy in an attempt to convince his readers that moral questions are best answered by science"
For starters.