Are "New Atheists" Too Obsessed With Religion?

[Gerald Kelleher]

Charles Darwin was not responsible for Social Darwinism

Remarkable !.

National Socialism was a symptom of a dysfunctional society and Orwell based a future dystopian society on a nightmare where people could choose not to see something if it didn't suit their version of history -

"Nazi theory indeed specifically denies that such a thing as "the
truth" exists. […] The implied objective of this line of thought is a
nightmare world in which the Leader, or some ruling clique, controls
not only the future but the past. If the Leader says of such and such
an event, "It never happened"—well, it never happened. If he says that
two and two are five—well, two and two are five. This prospect
frightens me much more than bombs […]" Orwell

 

[Laika]

Remarkable !

I do my best.

If you want to discuss the ethical consequences of Scientism in Nazi/Communist ideology- you're welcome to set up another thread as it's definitely off-topic, but I'll happily contribute.

 

[Gerald Kelleher]

I do my best.

If you want to discuss the ethical consequences of Scientism in Nazi/Communist ideology- you're welcome to set up another thread as it's definitely off-topic, but I'll happily contribute.

This is all very straightforward and doesn't involve a preface of 'Social' before Darwinism but you all knew that already.

The new batch of atheists won't be drawn into such historical details as how Darwin's secondary opinion on a non biological foundation of civilized/savage humans morphed into a 'law of nature' and extended on to evolution as a working principle.

 

[Laika]

This is all very straightforward and doesn't involve a preface of 'Social' before Darwinism but you all knew that already.

The new batch of atheists won't be drawn into such historical details as how Darwin's secondary opinion on a non biological foundation of civilized/savage humans morphed into a 'law of nature' and extended on to evolution as a working principle.

I'm of the old batch and I'm still reeling from the possibility that the Communists were 'right' for using a pseudo-scientific view of social evolution for justifying their crimes. If that conclusion were correct, it would have direct implications on evaluating Nazi crimes and on "Social" Darwinism. I would be happy for someone to tell me I'm wrong as it's dark territory, but very few people are honest enough to have that discussion because it so fundamentally violates our conception of ethics.

 

[Gerald Kelleher]

I'm of the old batch and I'm still reeling from the possibility that the Communists were 'right' for using a pseudo-scientific view of social evolution for justifying their crimes. If that conclusion were correct, it would have direct implications on evaluating Nazi crimes and on "Social" Darwinism. I would be happy for someone to tell me I'm wrong as it's dark territory, but very few people are honest enough to have that discussion because it so fundamentally violates our conception of ethics.

The dark territory is evolutionary sciences as an extension of a social/political agenda whether it justifies in sequence - the scientific method, national supremacy, or lately ,a chance to diminish what people consider religion.'

There is no 'Social' preface where Darwinism may wish to partition its civilized/savage perspectives from biological evolution as the roots of the conclusion were drawn from non biological sources insofar as to be civilized or savage doesn't show up in any physiological way. They made no apologies for their convictions so no charge of a lack of integrity can be leveled at the originators of that opinion but the same cannot be said for the proponents today who have successfully,at least up to a point, managed to narrow evolution down to Darwinism and subtracted its roots in discriminatory anchors of privileged and impoverished.

 

[ChristineES]

By "critically", I mean questioning the very axioms upon which the Bible relies and accepting only those parts which can be demonstrated to be true using objective evidence. You didn't do that because you came to a conclusion which is rationally unjustifiable.

Actually, I did. You and I have never discussed the various books in the Bible, so I don't think you'd know what I've read and studied so I don't see how you could come up with this conclusion. We've never even debated the Bible as I lately I stay out of Scriptural debates on this forum.

 

[Looncall]

Math works the same, but it doesn't mean all life throughout the universe is necessarily carbon based. It doesn't necessarily mean that what we know about physics and chemistry, as we have observed them function on Earth and under Earth conditions, is equally applicable throughout the universe, under all circumstances. Even if what we currently know today is the bulk majority of them, it would still be like expecting everyone on earth to be fluent in English because it's the most predominate language. And just saying English isn't entirely clear, as there is more than one type of English.

Spectra from distant stars show no such anomalies, as far as I am aware. Do you know of any evidence that would justify your wild speculations?

 

[Laika]

The dark territory is evolutionary sciences as an extension of a social/political agenda whether it justifies in sequence - the scientific method, national supremacy, or lately ,a chance to diminish what people consider religion.'

There is no 'Social' preface where Darwinism may wish to partition its civilized/savage perspectives from biological evolution as the roots of the conclusion were drawn from non biological sources insofar as to be civilized or savage doesn't show up in any physiological way. They made no apologies for their convictions so no charge of a lack of integrity can be leveled at the originators of that opinion but the same cannot be said for the proponents today who have successfully,at least up to a point, managed to narrow evolution down to Darwinism and subtracted its roots in discriminatory anchors of privileged and impoverished.

It is the precisely the integrity of both Nazis and Communists that disturbs me. In one sense they were honourable people who did what they thought was right; but unfortunately for everyone else what they thought was right was monsterous. As you probably realize, Darwin's theory of evolution was in part due to applying Malthus' Theory of Over-Population. Malthus was intended to study the relationship between population and food supply in humans, Darwin then applied in Animals and a key element of natural selection was born- competition by animals over resources in their environment. It was only a small leap for someone turn it back on it's head and start using Darwinian theories of natural selection and Malthus' over-population on humans as the Nazi's did. The Communists are a different matter because the mechanism of social evolution was economic rather than biological.

The New Atheists by comparison are stamped with the intellectual scars of the twentieth century in that we have lost confidence in the ability of science to tell us anything about society. Their use of science is largely confined to understanding whether the existence or non-existence of god is a reasonable position in the natural sciences but never venturing to consider it's implications on social science and ethics. Sam Harris is an exception in his discussion of the application of science to ethical questions (I desperately need to read "the moral landscape" but haven't got round to it), but it is absolutely clear that he is not even remotely in Communist/Nazi territory in terms of using science to understand society. it precisely for the reason that science became a tool in the pursuit of unlimited political power that the ethics are so difficult as they fly in the face of traditional concepts of free will, individual liberty, human rights and to a greater or lesser extent democracy. When you apply science to understanding people, more often than not you get totalitarian results because it gives you the ability (or the illusion) that you can control them.

 

[Gerald Kelleher]

It is the precisely the integrity of both Nazis and Communists that disturbs me. In one sense they were honourable people who did what they thought was right; but unfortunately for everyone else what they thought was right was monsterous. As you probably realize, Darwin's theory of evolution was in part due to applying Malthus' Theory of Over-Population. Malthus was intended to study the relationship between population and food supply in humans,

It wasn't a theory, it was expressed as a 'law of nature' which ran in parallel with the 'laws of motion' with both being incredibly drastic concepts and an assault to these 21st century eyes.These would normally be huge points of discussion but they have,so far, slipped into secondary or tertiary issues

So, the impact depends on the reader's own conceptions of themselves and what they hold to be true,what they allow in and what they don't. For the less courageous it means prefacing Darwinism with 'Social' as though it softens the impact of its roots in social supremacy of civilized and savage.

There is nothing that is done in a corner here, the texts are freely available and although only part of the story, the narrowing of evolutionary sciences to Darwinism tends to set the stage for something even worse.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Spectra from distant stars show no such anomalies, as far as I am aware. Do you know of any evidence that would justify your wild speculations?

It is not wild speculation. It is speculation that we actually do not know. I can put up all sorts of equipment to study a forest, and I can look at it from a distance, but without actually going to it I'm not going to learn much about it. And even if we look at something directly, we may not be seeing something.
We haven't even figured out our own planet that well. To say we have figured out the universe, especially since we ourselves have only left home to go to our garage and have only seen the outside world through cameras, is arrogance and ethnocentrism at it's finest. We haven't even seen the entire universe, we have only scanned a very small portion of the universe, we don't even know if there is other intelligent life forms our there somewhere or not. To say we have any such things figured out, such as atomic elements, when we ourselves have so very little knowledge and experience, seems to be the real wild speculation.

 

[icehorse]

Gerald,

I'm sorry, I think your theories end up boiling down to elaborate strawman arguments.

Please cite a new atheist claiming to make any of the connections you're making. I don't think any of them have ever made such logical leaps as you're making.

This is not an unreasonable request. If you make a claim about how new atheists are, you should be able to cite evidence. Not your opinion, but actual evidence.

 

[outhouse]

Not your opinion, but actual evidence.

I see him addressing philosophical aspects more then actually debating anything really.

 

[icehorse]

I see him addressing philosophical aspects more then actually debating anything really.

I could buy that - perhaps a "philosophical strawman" is what's going on here?

 

[outhouse]

I could buy that - perhaps a "philosophical strawman" is what's going on here?

Look at the terrible people he is quoting. Its pretty obvious.

 

[Bunyip]

So as not to waste the innumerable posts devoted to a position I never had (that atheists argue you can't disprove god), and given your view that disproving god is impossible

What? That's not my view. Of course you can disprove god. It all depends on which god and how it is defined.

(and the fact that you missed my critique of Stenger), I might point to something that apologists and atheists alike have criticized about the new atheist discourse:
"First, unlike many old atheists, the new ones tend to lay stress on science as positively disproving what theists believe. Your typical old atheist (Bertrand Russell, for example) said ‘Arguments in defense of belief in God are just bad ones; so we have no reason to believe in God’. New atheists, by contrast, tend to suggest that those who believe in God can be absolutely refuted by scientific arguments — ones based on the notion of evolution...
When it comes to what makes New Atheism new, the third point I want to note is that its exponents largely seem to write with little reference to the history of theology. They often talk about something called ‘religion’ and (especially in the case of Dawkins and Hitchens), they focus on what they call ‘belief in God’. But, we might ask, ‘Which religion?’ and ‘Whose God?’ My impression is that the fathers of New Atheism have not much studied the fathers of Old Atheism or the fathers of theism in its classical Christian form. "
Davies, B. (2011). The New Atheism: Its Virtues and its Vices. New Blackfriars, 92(1037), 18-34.

The last part is a criticism I have stated myself many times in this thread, and quoted others in the literature as saying so as well. I include it merely for that reason. More interestingly is that (as I already showed in my criticism of Stenger) the position you adamantly defended (god can't be disproved, or that we can't prove the non-existence of god) is one the new atheists have rejected and embraced the opposite (for specifics, see my post in this thread on Stenger). So, either you are wrong and god can be disproven, or a central component of the new atheism has it wrong and your position is that they hold a laughable view you have mocked repeatedly (namely, you can prove god's non-existence or disprove god).

But you can disprove God, it is only impossible to do so when your opponant refuses to specify which god and what his characteristics are.

What's nice here is that after misreading a post and ranting about it for some time and mocking me for a position I don't hold, you've in fact disagreed with a fundamental component of the new atheists, offering yourself what must clearly be a powerful critique (given how obviously and blatantly true it is that god's non-existence can't be proven, according to you).

Except I don't disagree with it, you just misread.

 

[Willamena]

But you can disprove God, it is only impossible to do so when your opponant refuses to specify which god and what his characteristics are.

Surely also when your opponent subscribes to a god for which you've no concept?

Because, after all, his descriptions will only be whichever words he chooses that are convenient and pleasing at that moment.

 

[Bunyip]

So I don't have to summarize in an impossibly small space the ways in which Christian apologists have demolished the new atheists (with few exceptions).

Well that would take up no space at all, they have not 'demolished the NA' in any way whatsoever - unless you count whining about them.

However, if you would like to point to specific works by apologists in the works you've claimed to have read which address the new atheists and which you find inaccurate, wrong, fallacious, or otherwise flawed feel free. That way I don't end up writing posts that you ignore anyway, and you can demonstrate that you have an idea of what complaints apologists have with the new atheists (in particular, those you find lacking in their veracity, validity, or relevance).

Alternatively, you could read my posts rather than skimming them to find points of contention (regardless of whether or not the contention is over a point I have made).

No, it is an example. I personally like your own highly critical, mocking of a central component to the new atheists, because it's yours.

Mate, the whining criticisms of NA are irrelevant, what you need is evidence or an argument to challenge them.
I have no interest in whatever criticisms have been made of the NA's demeanor, character, influence etc etc etc. Nor am I interested in arguments they make FOR atheism, because they are redundant. I am asking for arguments you think are challenging for them. I would ask for an example of a new argument for the New Atheists to face, but of course there have been no new apologetic arguments for centuries.

 

[Bunyip]

Given how often you disregard my posts without reading them or miss them entirely, I'd just like to nail home once again how wrong you are and to link you to my post on Stenger:

Nail what home? I agree with Stenger. You can disprove god logically depending on how the apologist defines that god.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

And of course bacteria was speculated to be the cause of infections long before microscopes and Pasteur.Things that seem impossible are occasionally learned, and often our knowledge and understanding undergoes a paradigm shift.
We don't know it all. That is a fact. We hardly have a planet's worth of knowledge, and there is, quite literally, an entire universe of knowledge to be gained. Why be content with settling for the notion we probably have it all figured out, especially when that sentiment is often heard and always disproven.

 

[Bunyip]

And of course bacteria was speculated to be the cause of infections long before microscopes and Pasteur.Things that seem impossible are occasionally learned, and often our knowledge and understanding undergoes a paradigm shift.
We don't know it all. That is a fact. We hardly have a planet's worth of knowledge, and there is, quite literally, an entire universe of knowledge to be gained. Why be content with settling for the notion we probably have it all figured out, especially when that sentiment is often heard and always disproven.

Exactly! We need to move away from religious thinking - where we think we know all the answers and embrace science - which is all about figuring out what the right question is. Science never takes the position religion does of claiming some sort of absolute knowledge.