Was the New Atheism Movement a Failed Crisis Cult

[dust1n]

In the sense that it was a media created phenomena and movement?

You mean, like everything?

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

Without reading the thread, I've heard a lot about these "New Atheists". What are they? Am I one? How do I know? I think that's a problem with defining "new atheists" as a group, let alone a "cult". There really is no defined membership or criteria for such membership.

Anti-atheists need a bogeyman, so please don't poopoo 'The New Atheists'. They are horrible, ugly creatures who live in their parents' basement, play silly role-playing games, and grow hair on their necks.

They are disgusting creatures. All decent people should hate the New Atheists.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Anti-atheists need a bogeyman, so please don't poopoo 'The New Atheists'. They are horrible, ugly creatures who live in their parents' basement, play silly role-playing games, and grow hair on their necks.

Do I still count if I live in the attic rather than the basement?

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

Do I still count if I live in the attic rather than the basement?

You uppity (new) atheists just have to take the high ground and lord it over decent, family-valued folk, don't you!

 

[CynthiaCypher]

Thanks!



I dunno. Seems like a stretch to consider it a new group; I'm sure there were always atheists out there that believed they shouldn't have to tolerate religion; I suspect many atheists at some point have felt components of the above. As for it being a cult, that would be completely out of the question. You really have to have a membership group to have that.

As for me, I do think that atheists should be free to criticize religion or to combat it when it curtails rights, but I think people should be free to be religious, nor do I think we can or should eradicate it.

I didn't call it a religious cult, I said it was a crisis cult as Weston La Barre defines the term

 

[Penumbra]

I'm not saying atheism has a set moral system, but that a certain group of people, specifically this group, can have a moral system based around atheism.

A theological concept doesn't necessarily have a set moral system, yet a moral system can be set around a theological concept.

You said that "new atheism" is not much different than religious fundamentalism, with the reason being that they blend morality with their atheism.

I've asked for examples but you haven't really made that case at all.

Religion isn't only an idea, it often can become an action by applying specific roles and practices. A religious man can be discriminated against, an organization can be discriminated against, and a religion is an organization.

Also, I would say it is discrimination to not tolerate something merely because of what it is.

Please keep in mind I'm not talking about general atheism.

Intolerance of intolerance is still intolerance; but whether or not it's ethical is another topic. Just as well, religion itself isn't intolerance so New Atheism wouldn't be intolerating intolerance, they'd simply be intolerant, though it can have properties which are intolerant against certain things.

I think it's great to be intolerant to harmful things.

I'm pretty glad people in my country are intolerant to female genital mutiliation, for example. It would be pretty horrible to be in a place where people are not intolerant of that.

I'm also glad that many people are intolerant to the idea of blending religion and state.

For some my friends around me, I'm glad that people are beginning to be intolerant of legalized discrimination against homosexuals, so they can finally get married now. Some of them in other areas, still can't though.

Does New Atheism specify their bias as only towards "individual religious ideas"?

Again, "New Atheism" doesn't specify anything, Sum. New Atheism is not some entity that specifies things, and there isn't really a large collection of people that call themselves the New Atheists. This was a term coined by other people that currently refers to basically any outspoken atheist post-9/11, especially the most widely known names like Dawkins, Harris, Dennet, and the late Hitchens.

If you read through some of the posts in this thread that I've made, then yes, various outspoken atheists specify their arguments to individual religious ideas.

-For example, Richard Dawkins said nice things about Anglicanism while he tends to be more aggressive against conservative Christianity and Islam.
-Sam Harris called Jainism the real religion of peace, has publicly used the Dalai Lama as an example of peak moral goodness, and has spent years of his own life deeply studying Buddhist meditation on multi-month-long meditation retreats and by traveling to Asia. He has also debated with intellectual liberal Rabbis to talk about god and the afterlife and said that their more metaphorical and agnostic and non-harmful views of the god and the afterlife aren't really a problem and that instead far more literal interpretations of things in the general public, are a problem.

It's a movement, therefore a community, how isn't it an entity or at least work like one?

Keep in mind New Atheism is not general atheism.

No, it's not a movement or a community. People don't call themselves "New Atheists" or get together to form a shared policy on things so that the Borg Collective known as "New Atheism" can be quoted.

"New Atheism" is a term coined by other people, about some atheists, and is used broadly to refer to any currently outspoken atheist, basically. Sam Harris doesn't even use the term "atheist" to describe himself, let alone "New Atheist". :sarcastic

But don't Neo-Atheists say "religion is bad"? That would be a heavy proponent of their ethical system.

No, because that would be a silly thing to say. They make arguments for why religion as a whole tends to be harmful and inaccurate, with specific arguments against what they view as the more specifically harmful ones. If anyone of them said a quote like that, which I haven't heard, it was likely in a book that went on for hundreds of pages explaining and articulating precisely how they view things.

I dunno man, read their books or talks if you want to quote them and understand them.

Which I'm not saying is a bad thing to say, but it is saying X religion is bad and is expressed via atheism, it is atheism-based (indirectly) politics.

It's more like saying, "religion X is harmful and untrue, because of reasons 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5". How can something be "expressed via atheism"? For example, Harris doesn't even use the words atheist or atheism in his book The End of Faith.

Then how can he be considered a New Atheist?

Because he's not the one that calls himself that. Other people call him that.

That's what I've been pointing out. "New Atheism" is not some thing, not some group of people saying, "We're New Atheists, these our are shared positions, and this is how we differ from Old Atheism". Instead, "New Atheism" is a term made by people that are not them, to describe these various outspoken public atheists within the last decade since their books started coming out and they became a bit more widely known.

Are you getting all your information on this from the wikipedia article on New Atheism? Because it starts with, "New Atheism is a social and political movement in favour of atheism and secularism promoted by a collection of modern atheist writers who have advocated the view that "religion should not simply be tolerated but should be countered, criticized, and exposed by rational argument wherever its influence arises." but as you can see from the reference, that's just a quote by reporter Simon Hooper for CNN back in 2006. That doesn't make it true, and that's not what they've said their own positions are.

It's a case where some people called them New Atheists, the term managed to stick, and their own response to that is basically, "um, no".

Morally judging God or religion would be an activity based on the lack of belief in God. Thus actively portraying virtues centered around atheism.

Actually there are some theists that believe a god exists but is evil, and therefore criticize god and religion while not being atheists. That's mostly besides the point.

There are also two US Muslim Congressmen, and both of them currently view it as harmful to discriminate against homosexuals. One of them in particular is a very strong supporter of gay marriage. That puts them at a disagreement with how many Muslims view it, how most Islamic nations operate, but it's not because they're atheists. It's because they're talking about the harmful and unloving results of treating homosexual people poorly.

Your argument is like a chicken and an egg problem, to suggest that they morally judge a god-character or a religion based on their atheism. "We're atheists, so we criticize Islam!" Wouldn't it be better to say that they're atheists because they don't believe in gods, because they criticize many religious ideas, rather than the other way around? One of them doesn't even call himself an atheist, doesn't like the term. They're defined as atheists either by themselves or by others because they don't believe religions and particularly theistic religions are true.

I'm going to admit one thing though - I haven't looked too much into what the New Atheist Movement was completely about and now that I did I find that while they may be secular on some virtue ethics, there are still things within it that show activity based on atheism - antitheism is one of them. Dissing theism as an entirety has something to do with a moral judgement of the idea in itself, if it were for statistical reasons where theism has led to violence then it should be shunning the practices rather than theism.

Not if their arguments tend to be that the practices are coming from the religion, from the theism. Like if a religious book says, "do X", and then people of that religion do X, and someone is saying that X is a bad thing and that the book is wrong, then what they're saying is that this religion, by saying to do X, is harmful, and is the reason people are doing X.

So when a religious scripture says, for example, to kill gay people, then it is indeed a criticism of that religion when one says that this book is harmful and illogical and untrue in part for statements like that. The vast majority of people that actively oppose gay marriage in this world, for example, are directly citing religious reasons for their doing so.

Second, many public atheists have criticized the methodology itself- of believing things without good evidence through faith instead. You still seem to be viewing it as "dissing religion entirely" but that's not how these people generally put their positions, sum. In their views, they dismiss bad reasoning, harmful practices, beliefs about the world that are not accurate reflections of the world, and that's a description that they seem to feel covers a rather large portion of religion in this world.

 

[steeltoes]

Atheism won't die if theism were to perish. There will still be atheism.

Wrong again. If there were no theists saying invisible gods are out there, there would be no atheists saying, I don't believe you.

 

[CynthiaCypher]

Wrong again. If there were no theists saying invisible gods are out there, there would be no atheists saying, I don't believe you.

So you are saying atheism is reactionary?

 

[Gjallarhorn]

I'm on my phone so anyone with the drama llama picture can go right ahead and post it.

 

[Debater Slayer]

Think of it as a media ploy or as propaganda.

How so?

 

[CynthiaCypher]

How so?

I believe that the two loudest of the New Atheists that Hitchens and Harris were Neo-Con propagandist and that the movement itself was an invention of the media, it was spectacle to say the least. The whole purpose of the movement was to spread fear and hatred of a certain group, those who were responsible for the crisis. And I think it sort of worked but as of now I think the whole thing is fizzling out.

 

[CynthiaCypher]

You mean, like everything?

You read Guy Debord, so you tell me.

 

[Debater Slayer]

I believe that the two loudest of the New Atheists that Hitchens and Harris were Neo-Con propagandist and that the movement itself was an invention of the media, it was spectacle to say the least. The whole purpose of the movement was to spread fear and hatred of a certain group, those who were responsible for the crisis. And I think it sort of worked but as of now I think the whole thing is fizzling out.

Can you cite some quotes by Hitchens and Harris that demonstrate this supposed purpose to "spread fear and hatred of a certain group"?

 

[steeltoes]

So you are saying atheism is reactionary?

Atheism means without theism. Atheism is not an ism in and of itself.

Atheism is predicated on there being theism.

Atheists do not share in the commonly held beliefs of the theist, it is more of an involuntary non participation rather than a reaction. Atheists merely sleeping in on Sunday morning can not be considered reactionary to those that get up and go to church.

 

[CynthiaCypher]

Can you cite some quotes by Hitchens and Harris that demonstrate this supposed purpose to "spread fear and hatred of a certain group"?

"It is time we admitted that we are not at war with "terrorism". We are at war with Islam."

"To speak specifically of our problem with the Muslim world, we are meandering into a genuine clash of civilizations, and we're deluding ourselves with euphemisms. We're talking about Islam being a religion of peace that's been hijacked by extremists. If ever there were a religion that's not a religion of peace, it is Islam."

“The men who committed the atrocities of September 11 were certainly not "cowards," as they were repeatedly described in the Western media, nor were they lunatics in any ordinary sense. They were men of faith—perfect faith, as it turns out—and this, it must finally be acknowledged, is a terrible thing to be.”

"some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them."


Need I go on? There are just so many.

 

[steeltoes]

"It is time we admitted that we are not at war with "terrorism". We are at war with Islam."

"To speak specifically of our problem with the Muslim world, we are meandering into a genuine clash of civilizations, and we're deluding ourselves with euphemisms. We're talking about Islam being a religion of peace that's been hijacked by extremists. If ever there were a religion that's not a religion of peace, it is Islam."

“The men who committed the atrocities of September 11 were certainly not "cowards," as they were repeatedly described in the Western media, nor were they lunatics in any ordinary sense. They were men of faith—perfect faith, as it turns out—and this, it must finally be acknowledged, is a terrible thing to be.”

"some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them."


Need I go on? There are just so many.

Chomsky refers to them as religious fanatics and I can only agree with him.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

"It is time we admitted that we are not at war with "terrorism". We are at war with Islam."

"To speak specifically of our problem with the Muslim world, we are meandering into a genuine clash of civilizations, and we're deluding ourselves with euphemisms. We're talking about Islam being a religion of peace that's been hijacked by extremists. If ever there were a religion that's not a religion of peace, it is Islam."

“The men who committed the atrocities of September 11 were certainly not "cowards," as they were repeatedly described in the Western media, nor were they lunatics in any ordinary sense. They were men of faith—perfect faith, as it turns out—and this, it must finally be acknowledged, is a terrible thing to be.”

"some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them."


Need I go on? There are just so many.

Could you provide sources, please?

 

[Debater Slayer]

"It is time we admitted that we are not at war with "terrorism". We are at war with Islam."

I disagree with that statement, but it also seems to be more of a statement about beliefs than people, albeit a harsh one.

"To speak specifically of our problem with the Muslim world, we are meandering into a genuine clash of civilizations, and we're deluding ourselves with euphemisms. We're talking about Islam being a religion of peace that's been hijacked by extremists. If ever there were a religion that's not a religion of peace, it is Islam."

Another statement about beliefs rather than people. Do you have an issue with people holding views of religion that you disagree with?

“The men who committed the atrocities of September 11 were certainly not "cowards," as they were repeatedly described in the Western media, nor were they lunatics in any ordinary sense. They were men of faith—perfect faith, as it turns out—and this, it must finally be acknowledged, is a terrible thing to be.”

What's wrong with this one? Are you aware that there are many religious people—including scholars—who support the 9/11 attacks and call Osama bin Laden a "martyr"? There are others who disagree and don't view him as such, but the fact that so many people supported his actions to begin with and call(ed) him a martyr makes the statement you quoted up for debate at worst and largely accurate at best.

"some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them."

That quote is taken out of context, as Harris explained here. Here's a part of his explanation (from the linked article):

When one asks why it would be ethical to drop a bomb on Ayman al-Zawahiri, the current leader of al Qaeda, the answer cannot be, “Because he killed so many people in the past.” To my knowledge, the man hasn’t killed anyone personally. However, he is likely to get a lot of innocent people killed because of what he and his followers believe about jihad, martyrdom, the ascendancy of Islam, etc. A willingness to take preventative action against a dangerous enemy is compatible with being against the death penalty (which I am). Whenever we can capture and imprison jihadists, we should. But in many cases this is either impossible or too risky. Would it have been better if we had captured Osama bin Laden? In my view, yes. Do I think the members of Seal Team Six should have assumed any added risk to bring him back alive? Absolutely not.

Highlighting mine.

Need I go on? There are just so many.

You may need to, because so far I haven't seen "propaganda" or "hatred" anywhere near the level you seem to be implying there is.

 

[Falvlun]

"It is time we admitted that we are not at war with "terrorism". We are at war with Islam."

I do think that's a cynical but accurate view of what the U.S. government did. I mean, are you hearing about many non-Muslim terrorists? Is the U.S. at war with any non-Muslim terrorist organizations? And yet they exist. It seems that the U.S. decided it was gonna pay attention to Muslim terrorists, but not the others.

"To speak specifically of our problem with the Muslim world, we are meandering into a genuine clash of civilizations, and we're deluding ourselves with euphemisms. We're talking about Islam being a religion of peace that's been hijacked by extremists. If ever there were a religion that's not a religion of peace, it is Islam."

I agree with the first half of that quote: there is a clash of culture.
I also think there is some truth to the second half. Obviously, not all Muslims are terrorists, and just as obviously, many do not believe their religion encourages them to go to war. But I do think that the fanatical elements of Islam are strong and persuasive in many predominantly Muslim countries.

“The men who committed the atrocities of September 11 were certainly not "cowards," as they were repeatedly described in the Western media, nor were they lunatics in any ordinary sense. They were men of faith—perfect faith, as it turns out—and this, it must finally be acknowledged, is a terrible thing to be.”

This demonstrates the danger of pure, blind faith. It's great if you are blindly believing to Love Thy Neighbor. It is terrible if you are blindly believing that you must kill a bunch of people and yourself.

Much better to rationally come to the conclusion to love thy neighbor.

"some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them."

Beliefs themselves shouldn't be grounds for killing people, but actions could be. This one is too extreme for me.

EDIT: DS's explanation made sense too. I'm not a fan of "pre-emptive strikes" when they refer to a whole country, but there is some merit to them in regards to known, dangerous leaders. Still a political can of worms though.

 

[Desert Snake]

Which is something of a mirage, after all. "Atheists for atheism" is hardly a new thing. The novelty is in the eyes of the beholder.

And now I'm utterly confused as to the direction of the thread, ..obviously we're talking reactionary argumentation here, but the OP didn't make that clear?? meh..