Hipster?
As in “You wouldn’t have heard of the god I don’t believe in, He never went mainstream.”
They were skeptical of First Dynasty Egyptian faith claims when they were still underground.
Seems to me that the distinction is this: atheisim is not a belief system. It is simply the absence of a belief in god. Those folks who elevate it to a “system” of thought, a set of beliefs, or anything else to provide it with trappings must be the ones referred to as “new atheists.” Those who do not believe in god may refer to themselves simply as atheists as a synonym for one who does not have that particular belief or any related set of beliefs. New atheists seem to make a religion of it.
Except, Deism seems to have died out over a hundred years ago or so. I would suspect that mind set has moved to either Agnosticism or Atheism. I don’t know any believer who holds that their gods have no physical influence in the world. What would be the point? More importantly; how would you even convince yourself that such a non-interventioning god exists?
ETA: I don’t identify as a New Atheist; I’m just your old-fashioned anti-theistic atheist, though I wouldn’t mind if people would call me a “new atheist”.
Only if you redefine the term ‘religion’ into a fine mist.
You are hitting on something real, but misunderstanding it: There’s a definite and open atheist culture now, much like there’s a definite and open gay culture in the West at this point. The modern Western atheist culture is, obviously, godless, but it’s also to a large extent rationalist and very pro-scientific. We take on cranks like Deepak Chopra just like we take on Pat Robertson and the Pope, and for the same reason: We’re pro-reason, anti-faith, and anti-dualism.
It’s possible to be an atheist without joining or agreeing with the culture. However, the modern atheist culture is becoming an agent of social change and it might as well have a definite name. ‘New Atheist’ seems to be it.
Ok, well, I think that the activism part of it is very much like missionary work, and the evangelism of atheism, for whatever purpose, including social justice or whatever you want to call it, is very religious in nature. For me, and I’m sure for many others, the whole notion of marshalling your beliefs into action, including all the “good works” is one of the things that makes religion, and god, a flaming pain in the ass and it’s why many people simply do not pay any attention to it. We must be the old atheists.
CC: So is the Civil Rights Movement (any Civil Rights Movement… ) a religion?
In the past, atheists were wary of arguing with belief-based thinking. They would say “I respect your right to believe what you wish, although I do not share your belief.” Or like Voltaire, they would say, “I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
Unfortunately, many faith people did not share that generous attitude, and death was often the fate suffered by atheists. It’s easier to kill someone (or just burn his books) than to listen to what he says.
I feel that modern atheism is athier - more willing to come out of the closet and say, “You do not have the right to believe anything you wish and to force that upon your innocent children. The more we learn about the world, the more obvious it is that your beliefs are ridiculous, and not based on reality. You are deliberately ignoring the knowledge we have discovered. You are using the concept of ‘faith’ to over-ride reason.”
So, no more Mr. Nice Guy. If you want to call that New Atheism, that’s fine.
It isn’t so much their children we’re worried about as society in general. We’re interested in destroying the old ‘ceremonial deism’ and other religious crap that has been shoved down our throats our whole lives, even in a supposedly secular country like this one.
This, on the other hand, is perfectly correct.
But you see, inasmuch as you do care what other people think and this is a sort of crusade, you hurt your interests when you make a statement like “You do not have the right to believe anything you wish and to force that upon your innocent children.” In fact, people do have the right to believe anything they wish. And they also have the right to teach their children what they want them to believe, much as those beliefs may be silly, or even dangerous. This is the sort of belief-zeal that has been the bane of many normal, non-believing folk. It’s what I meant when I said that such an approach is akin to religious ferver. I think that religious thinking has done a lot more bad in the world than good over the centuries and I’m sorry we haven’t been able to grow out of it, but you can’t fight it with the same approach that religion, itself, takes when it sets out to create converts.
I take some interest in your choice of words, here; do you also admit that MLK was on a crusade?
This is true. I don’t argue with this at all. My only argument with the religious is when they attempt to impose religion on those outside of their families.
Personally, I think you’re trying to paint a huge group with the remarks of a very small minority within that group.
The distincion I make between the Civil Rights movement and religious crusades is this: the focus of the Civil Righs movement was the elimination of formal and legal impediments to equal - civil - rights. The focus of religious movements has to do with enforcing certain beliefs. Much as those of us who fought for civil rights hoped that people’s beliefs would change, it was seen as just that - a hope. It wasn’t the primary intention of the movement to change peoples’ minds. It was to change laws and legally sanctioned behaviors.
Religious movements attempt to get people to adopt certain beliefs and to eliminate other beliefs. Look, for example, at the missionaries who have gone into other countries to ridicule and eliminate the animist beliefs of the people and replace them with Christian ones. This is what the “new atheists” appear to be doing. You may quibble with the finer points here, but to me, the insistence on confronting people with the shortcomings of their quaint little supersitions and beliefs looks pretty much the same when missionaries do it or when atheists do it.
Well, quite. And religions do this all the time. Strike one for NOMA. To the extent that religions make testable hypotheses (which according to NOMA, they should not… and yet they do) these are falsified.
Then (assuming you are theist, not just tossing out a hypothetical), you are in a tiny minority of theists. A god whose existence is completely detached from the physical is a useless god.
Science deals in evidence not proof. The fact that there is no credible evidence for God’s existence, that as Laplace said “There is no need for that hypothesis”, and that the explanatory power of the God Hypothesis is precisely zero, leads most scientists to discard the possibility of the existence of God. Those that retain it, seem to do so for psychological rather than scientific reasons.
You CAN “prove” that there isn’t a god, if only to the same extent that you can “prove” the non-existence of phlogiston. But for a thinking person who hasn’t had their rationality scrambled by childhood indoctrination or adulthood sophistry, that ought to be quite good enough.
ETA: perhaps I haven’t expressed clearly enough my real problem with NOMA - it’s basically the idea that “science isn’t the only way of knowing”. But that’s manure. There are many, many ways of guessing, but only one way of knowing, and it is called science.
People have the right to believe whatever they want. The right to impose it on their children is more iffy (for instance when it comes to things like withholding medical treatment), but generally our society allows people to teach their religion to their kids (though I’m not sure a case couldn’t be made that a kid still has a right not to be forced into religious practices against his/her will).
Believers are entitled to respect for their right to believe and practice. What they are not entitled to (and I think this is something that even some atheists get wrong) is respect for the beliefs themselves. The right to believe in the divinity of trees does not mean that people are not entitled to point and laugh at you for it. I think that’s the main thing that’s changed with regard to “new atheism.” A lot of atheists don’t bother to feign reverence for religious belief anymore, and are no longer afraid to call irrational behavior out for what it is.
Dawkins never actually says that believers are “delusional” in so many words, he makes a point that if many of the behaviors and beliefs of religious people were applied to something besides God we would call it delusional, and is asking what the real difference is. This is not an unfair question and is not an insult to believers, but because for so long it has been socially unacceptable to ask these kinds of questions, a lot of religious people (most of whom have never actually read these books) take it as an attack.
I would also point out that the most strident of these religionists have never had trouble disparaging religions other than their own, nor have they ever had any trouble villifying atheists.
Is homosexuality a religion? After all, there are gay rights activists.
Is liberal democracy a religion? There are plenty of protesters and dissidents within repressive states.
I can name a few Bridge players who are not content simply to meet quietly at each others houses for furtive games with carefully hoarded packs, but they actually have the effrontery to write articles for magazines, to run national organisations devoted to Bridge, and to encourage non-players to take the game up. So is Bridge a religion?
Pointing out a few superficial similarities to religions does not make something a religion.
The difference is in the focus. In one set of concepts, one is trying to change behaviors. In another, one is trying to change a set of beliefs. If gay activists direct their attention to what people believe, then they are no different from religious activists. It’s their beliefs vs other peoples’ beliefs. If they instead attempt to change the laws prohibiting certain behavior, then they are doing something entirely different.
Not entirely. They were also interested in changing opinions, in eradicating racist views from (at least) the mainstream, which was the only way to have de facto racial equality, not just under the law but culturally, as well. That’s why they played to the media to the extent they did; the Freedom Riders, the sit-in protesters, the marchers, and all the rest knew they had to change attitudes.
New Atheists are also interested in changing attitudes. We don’t want people to think we’re inhuman monsters anymore, we don’t want to have religion forced down our throats (often under threat of violence or complete ostracism), and we want people to know that we have a viable, realistic, and pleasant alternative to faith. We’re interested in changing attitudes by presenting verifiable facts about the Universe, and providing a philosophical framework that puts those facts in context and demonstrates you don’t need faith to make sense of them. It is, in fact, precisely what science education has always done, or at least what it does when it’s any good at all.
If that’s what you call religion, you’re using the term in a bizarre sense that most religious people would not recognize. You might as well call everything a ‘religion’ and be done with it.
I’d put it a little stronger than that, but I do think that people have a definite right to believe whatever the hell they like. Withholding medical treatment on others based on religious conviction should be IMHO a criminal offense - because I don’t give a damn about the “reasons” for doing something like that - and kids MUST have the right not continue in the beliefs their parents hold - I don’t even see how anyone can justify the opposing point.
Yes. I think Dawkins is clearest on this particular point; what he’s explicitly attacking (aside from anti-scientific nonsense) is the “automatic respect” for religion. Respect for religion should be about equal to the amount of respect we give opposing political positions. H.L. Mencken was generous (though I generally agree with the sentiment) when he said that “We must respect the other fellow’s religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.”
There’s no way to change society in practice when the overwhelming majority opinion is against the change. That’s just the way people work. Major societal change is not done by legislation. It’s the opinions and beliefs that have to change first - the last 100 years or so provide plenty of examples for that.
I think you are pointing to the core issue. Until now, it has not been politically correct for an atheist to argue publicly that there is no god, and that religious people are merely superstitious. We are forced waive that right of argument, while religionists are allowed to publicly lie about what we think and do.
This has resulted in a confused public view of atheism, that it is not a positive life-enriching thing. Instead it is treated as a kind of negative religious belief - a lack of religion. As religion is deemed by religionists to be Good, promoting good behaviour, lack of religion must be Bad, leading to bad behaviour. So, they believe atheism equals wrongdoing because their teachers have not allowed them to hear any contrary argument.
On the contrary, a large proportion of the division and unhappiness in the world, and some of the downright evil, is caused by sectarian adherence to religion. i don’t want to hijack the thread by going into this, but it is frankly self-evident.