A lot of these guys (Demski and Behe do this too) will change their rhetoric depending on their audience. When speaking to a religious audience, they will use overtly religious language. When debating with scientists or speaking on a more mainstream forum, they will play down their religious motivations and say they’re only interested in science (Berlinski sometimes claims to be a “Secular Jew,” but his book is filled with theistic apologia and broadsides against atheists. I believe he’s trying to claim a technical position that he believes in a deity but does not subscribe to any particular organized religious tenets). When Berlinski comes on with his “Im not religious,” line, he’s using that as sort of a pose.
Yes. Exactly. 
Having reflected on it, I’d guess that this atheism is “new” in the sense that whereas before one could claim that a nonbeliever’s punishment for sin was his cattle getting sick or his children dying or a swarm of locusts eating his crops or boils forming on his body (all signs of the wrath of God), we can now mitigate these quite easily with cattle feed with hormones, modern pediatrics, insecticides and dermatology. The wages of sin are pretty minimum these days. It was easier to invoke the spiritual when life was chock-full of random miseries that couldn’t be explained in any way other than wrath of God or acts of Demons or curses by Witches or some such crap, but a “new” atheist can discuss his views at length and not even get stricken by dropsy! While “old” atheists were directed to Confessional, “new” atheists can just head down to the emergency room, likely getting better results.
The father of “new” atheism, if there is such a thing, isn’t Richard Dawkins. It’s Louis Pasteur.
I skimmed that book in a store. It’s awful. You could frighten every crow in the western hemisphere with all the strawmen in that book
I recently read Science and creation by physicist turned priest J.C. Polkinghorne. Written in 1988 it’s obviously not a critique of the “new atheism,” but it’s a pretty good book. For one thing Polkinghorne accepts evolution without reservation, and spends some time arguing that creationism is bad theology as well as bad science. I don’t think it’s going to convert any atheists, but it’s worth a read, and might serve the OP’s needs.
I’m not so sure about that, Bryan. Just because we can feed children and heal people and all that, it doesn’t mean we’re doing it. There still is and will always be the moral trilemma of helping, harming, or doing nothing. Lots of people still suffer in the world, maybe more than ever.
Speaking of modern atheism, ethics is probably the most exciting field of modern atheist philosophy. While theists have been very active in metaphysics since the latter half of the 20th century, atheists have been very busy with ethics. And this is interesting because both have come home to roost from Kant’s perspetive — one to examine his denial that existence is a predicate (theists), and the other to examine his claim of a moral imperative (atheists).
That wasn’t actually the point I was trying to make. There was a time when a disease sweeping through a population could not be explained in any reasoned manner. A sufficiently determined religious person could claim it was the work of demons/witches/God/whatever in punishment for insufficient faith, and be hailed as a great spiritual guide. In thankfully modern times, a sufficiently determined religious leader can still try to claim that, say, AIDS is the work of demons/witches/God/whatever in punishment for insufficient faith, and though devout supporters may cheer, the net effect is damage to the credibility of the leader, rather than an enhancement of it. If there’s a “new” aspect of modern atheism, I’d guess this is it, though atheism itself is pretty much unchanged.
Unchanged since when, yesterday? I (briefly) reveiwed the enormous changes in atheism over time from the ancient Greeks to today — from skepticism to physicalism. Atheist philosophies have evolved like everything else has.
But what “new” aspects have popped up in the last few years that prompts writing books about them?
People realized there’s money in it? Skimming Hitchens’ slapdash effort I had a nasty picture of him thinking “Holy crap, look at the numbers on Dawkins book! I can do that in a fortnight. So long bar tab.”
I have no references to give you, but I have some suggestions of arguements to make, in the direction of religion being beneficial to many people.
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The “religion as a drug” meme, with the resulting “drugged condition” being better than the reality of everyday life. For large groups of people in history-- slaves and serfs-- belief in god(s), and some form of reward in an afterlife, had a palliative effect. People who had no rational hope of a more tolerable life nevertheless had hope for the future and a rationale for going along with societal rules not to their advantage.
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Religion as educational tool – an efficient tool for teaching societal norms.
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Religion as threat-- an efficient tool for instilling the fear of dire consequences for not following societal norms.
Sorry, I can’t for the life of me think of any good reasons for an actual god to exist, but believing in a god… maybe, under some limited, and by and large miserable, conditions. Excepts for the priests, of course, they wouldn’t be so miserable. 
I keep asking to tell us what atheist philosophies have to do with any individual’s assertion of atheism. You can’t possibly assert that all atheists embrace a previous articulated philosophy. I don’t see how a simple statement of the sort Dio references constitutes a philosophy in the first place.
Every atheist I have talked to about their beliefs says some basic variation of, “I just stopped believing.” They are neither weak atheists nor strong atheists. They don’t assert anything except for their lack of belief. They are not “a” and not “not a”, and they cannot be pigeonholed as such.
Out of curiosity I took a look at Lobsang’s GD thread on this subject. The responses there were hardly rigorous and I started skimming when the heads started butting. However, they were a fair sampling of real life approaches to this issue. Most people there also denied that a meaningful real world distinction of the alternatives presented in the title could be made.
Not one person appeared to respond to your logical hair-splitting. Perhaps you’ve made it in GD so often that people have learned not to. I’m certainly finding it frustrating, since every time I ask about the words you’re using to characterize atheists you back off and deny them.
You’ve got me wondering whether there is anything at all behind your contentions. Can’t it be better said that the responses (what you term philosophies) atheists have made to respond to believers have changed as believers’ arguments have changed? That does not imply that atheism has changed in any way, only the way the argument is framed. A “new atheism” may be similar in that atheists found that their previous statements on the subject were not reaching people and so have changed their approaches. Nothing underlying their atheism needs to have altered in the slightest for this to be true.
Throughout history, atheists have in the main been brought up to believe and stopped believing as they grew to understand the subject past childhood acceptance or never truly accepted the beliefs of their parents and community. No philosophy is needed to define this. Attempts to do so are more of an affectation than words ever meant to sway outsiders or deepen anyone’s understanding, even that of professed atheists.
If you complain that everyone ignores rational proof, perhaps the problem is that the very words “rational proof” have no place in this discussion at all.
History of atheism
History of Atheism
The History of Freethought and Atheism
The history of disbelief
History of Atheism
The natural history of atheism (PDF - whole book)
A History of Atheism in Britain: From Hobbes to Russell
Western Atheism: A Short History
Atheism: A Brief History Of Disbelief (BBC documentary)
76 articles on atheism and prominent atheist philosophers since ancient Greece
The Recent History of Materialism
History of Materialism and Criticism of Its Present Importance (PDF whole book)
The Rise of Physicalism
Humanism in Ancient Greece
And that’s supposed to mean what, exactly?
It means what I’ve been saying: that there’s a long history of the development of atheist philosophies going back to the skepticism of ancient Greece, and coming forward to the physicalism of modern Europe. Parsing your post beyond its rudeness and contempt, all I could find of interest was your apparent aversion to the idea that atheism has matured in its own right, beyond being merely reactionary to the arguments of theists. I think you sell your own philosophy short when you sum it up by saying basically, “Hey, we don’t know what we’re saying; we just shout it out when we think of it.” If you don’t mind my saying so, I don’t think it would harm you in any way if you were to read some of those sources.
I’m glad someone else is wondering. The phrasing “new atheism” paints it as some sort of religion, if you ask me. I don’t get it. I’m an atheist and I don’t see it as philosophical. I just have no reason to believe there’s a being who thinks or acts or cares or controls destiny or creates. Why would I?
First, you don’t know my beliefs or lack of them. I’ve never stated them at any time. I can argue against positions that are obviously wrong whatever my personal beliefs are.
I will note that you continue to utterly ignore my conjecture. You have provided not a particle of evidence that atheists have changed in any way at all and you resolutely refuse even to address the contention that arguments for a position may change while the position itself doesn’t. Instead, you once more claim that atheism has “matured” even though you repudiated the word earlier when I called you on it.
I’ll give it one last try. Given that not one atheist in a thousand has any awareness at all of the philosophies of earlier atheists, what is their relevance to today’s atheists? Or to today’s believers, for that matter?
That is absolutely untrue. Not only have I explained it myself, I’ve given you links to more than a dozen reputable cites explaining it in great detail. If you ignore all that, and continue to believe that the skepticism of ancient Greek is no different from the physicalism of modern Europe, then all the explanations and scholarly papers in the world won’t help. But if you at any point decide to educate yourself, the links will always be there for you.
I meant to respond to this as well. I’m not at all sure why you’re asking me since I haven’t said anything about that, but I would say that you could ask the same about almost anything. Why should anyone care about physics or biology or calculus or computer science, or what relevance do those have to people who know very little about them? I think it’s a pretty ridiculous question. Just because someone is ignorant about something doesn’t mean it has no effect on them.
Is it necessary for a “new” atheist to have read any of your linked sources, or similar material?
I don’t suppose it’s ever necessary to read anything at all. I just read stuff because I like to.