Wikipedia

New Atheism

(Redirected from New Atheists)

The term New Atheism describes the positions of some atheist academics, writers, scientists, and philosophers of the 20th and 21st centuries.[1][2] New Atheism advocates the view that superstition, religion, and irrationalism should not be tolerated. Instead, they advocate the antitheist view that the various forms of theism should be criticised, countered, examined, and challenged by rational argument, especially when they exert strong influence on the broader society, such as in government, education, and politics.[3][4] Critics have characterised New Atheism as "secular fundamentalism" or "fundamentalist atheism".[5][6][7][8][9] Major figures of New Atheism include Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennett, collectively referred to as the "Four Horsemen" of the movement.

History

edit

The secular humanist Paul Kurtz (1925–2012), founder of the Center for Inquiry, is often regarded as a forerunner to the New Atheism movement.[10][11] The 2004 publication of The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason by Sam Harris, a bestseller in the United States, was joined over the next couple years by a series of popular best-sellers by atheist authors.[12][13] Harris was motivated by the events of 11 September 2001, for which he blamed Islam, while also directly criticizing Christianity and Judaism.[14] Two years later, Harris followed up with Letter to a Christian Nation, which was a severe criticism of Christianity.[15] Also in 2006, following his television documentary series The Root of All Evil? Richard Dawkins published The God Delusion, which was on the New York Times best-seller list for 51 weeks.[16]

In 2010, Tom Flynn (1955–2021), then editor of Free Inquiry, stated that the only thing new about "New Atheism" was the wider publication of atheist material by big-name publishers, books that appeared on bestseller lists and were read by millions.[17] Mitchell Landsberg, covering a gathering held by the Council for Secular Humanism in 2010, said that religious skeptics in attendance were at odds between "new atheists" who preferred to "encourage open confrontation with the devout" and "accommodationists" who preferred "a subtler, more tactical approach."[18] Kurtz was ousted from the Center for Inquiry in the late 2000's.[18][11] This was in part due to a perception that Kurtz was "on the mellower end of the spectrum" according to Flynn.[18]

In November 2015, The New Republic published an article entitled "Is the New Atheism dead?"[19] In 2016, the atheist and evolutionary biologist David Sloan Wilson wrote: "The world appears to be tiring of the New Atheism movement."[20] In 2017, PZ Myers, who formerly considered himself a new atheist, publicly renounced the New Atheism movement.[21] The book The Four Horsemen: The Conversation That Sparked an Atheist Revolution was released in 2019.[22][13]

Legacy

edit

In a January 2019 retrospective article, Steven Poole of The Guardian observed: "For some, New Atheism was never about God at all, but just a topical subgenre of the rightwing backlash against the supposedly suffocating atmosphere of 'political correctness'."[23] In November 2019, Scott Alexander argued that New Atheism did not disappear as a political movement but instead turned to social justice as a new cause to fight for.[24]

In an April 2021 interview, Natalie Wynn, a left-wing YouTuber who runs the channel ContraPoints, commented: "The alt-right, the manosphere, incels, even the so-called SJW Internet and LeftTube all have a genetic ancestor in New Atheism."[25] In a June 2021 retrospective article, Émile P. Torres of Salon argued that prominent figures in the New Atheist movement had aligned themselves with the far-right.[26]

In a June 2022 retrospective article, Sebastian Milbank of The Critic stated that, as a movement, "New Atheism has fractured and lost its original spirit", that "much of what New Atheism embodied has now migrated rightwards", and that "another portion has moved leftwards, embodied by the 'I Fucking Love Science' woke nerd of today."[27] Following the conversion of writer Ayaan Hirsi Ali to Christianity in 2023, the columnist Sarah Jones wrote in New York magazine that the New Atheism movement was in "terminal decline".[28]

Prominent figures

edit

Key figures associated with New Atheism include Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali.[29][30]

"Four Horsemen"

edit
 
 
 
 
The "Four Horsemen of the New Atheism" (clockwise from top left): Richard Dawkins (b. 1941), Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011), Daniel Dennett (1942–2024), and Sam Harris (b. 1967).

On 30 September 2007, Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens, and Dennett met at Hitchens' residence in Washington, D.C., for a private two-hour unmoderated round table discussion. The event was videotaped and titled "The Four Horsemen".[31] During "The God Debate" in 2010 with Hitchens versus Dinesh D'Souza, the group was collectively referred to as the "Four Horsemen of the Non-Apocalypse",[32] an allusion to the biblical Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse from the Book of Revelation.[33] The four have been described by critics as "evangelical atheists".[34]

Harris wrote several bestselling non-fiction books including The End of Faith, Letter to a Christian Nation, The Moral Landscape, and Waking Up, along with two shorter works (initially published as e-books) Free Will and Lying.[35] [36] Dawkins, the author of The God Delusion,[37] and director of a Channel 4 television documentary titled The Root of All Evil?, is the founder of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science. He wrote: "I don't object to the horseman label, by the way. I'm less keen on 'new atheist': it isn't clear to me how we differ from old atheists."[38]

Hitchens, the author of God Is Not Great,[39] was named among the "Top 100 Public Intellectuals" by Foreign Policy and Prospect magazines. He served on the advisory board of the Secular Coalition for America. In 2010, Hitchens published his memoir Hitch-22 (a nickname provided by close personal friend Salman Rushdie, whom Hitchens always supported during and following The Satanic Verses controversy).[40] Shortly after its publication, he was diagnosed with esophageal cancer, which led to his death in December 2011.[41] Before his death, Hitchens published a collection of essays and articles in his book Arguably;[42] a short edition, Mortality,[43] was published posthumously in 2012. These publications and numerous public appearances provided Hitchens with a platform to remain an astute atheist during his illness, even speaking specifically on the culture of deathbed conversions and condemning attempts to convert the terminally ill, which he opposed as "bad taste".[44][45]

Dennett was the author of Darwin's Dangerous Idea and Breaking the Spell.[46][47] He had been a vocal supporter of The Clergy Project,[48] an organization that provides support for clergy in the US who no longer believe in God and cannot fully participate in their communities any longer.[49] He was also a member of the Secular Coalition for America advisory board,[50] and a member of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, as well as an outspoken supporter of the Brights movement. He did research into clerics who are secretly atheists and how they rationalize their works. He found what he called a "don't ask, don't tell" conspiracy because believers did not want to hear of loss of faith. This made unbelieving preachers feel isolated, but they did not want to lose their jobs and church-supplied lodgings. Generally, they consoled themselves with the belief that they were doing good in their pastoral roles by providing comfort and required ritual.[51] The research, with Linda LaScola, was further extended to include other denominations and non-Christian clerics.[52] The research and stories Dennett and LaScola accumulated during this project were published in their 2013 co-authored book, Caught in the Pulpit: Leaving Belief Behind.[53]

"Plus one horse-woman"

edit
Main article: Ayaan Hirsi Ali
 
Ayaan Hirsi Ali (born 1969)

Ayaan Hirsi Ali was a central figure of New Atheism[29] until she announced her conversion to Christianity in November 2023.[54] Hirsi Ali, originally scheduled to attend the 2007 meeting,[55] later appeared with Dawkins, Dennett, and Harris at the 2012 Global Atheist Convention, where she was referred to as the "plus one horse-woman" by Dawkins.[56] Robyn Blumner, CEO of the Center for Inquiry, described Hirsi Ali as the "Fifth" horseman.[30]

Hirsi Ali was born in Mogadishu, Somalia, fleeing in 1992 to the Netherlands in order to escape an arranged marriage.[57] She became involved in Dutch politics, rejected faith, and became vocal in opposing Islamic ideology, especially concerning women, as exemplified by her books Infidel and The Caged Virgin.[58]

Hirsi Ali was later involved in the production of the film Submission, for which her friend Theo van Gogh was murdered with a death threat to Hirsi Ali pinned to his chest.[59] This event resulted in Hirsi Ali's hiding and later emigrating to the United States, where she resides and remains a prolific critic of Islam.[60] She regularly speaks out against the treatment of women in Islamic doctrine and society[61] and is a proponent of free speech and the freedom to offend.[62][63]

Writing in a column in November 2023, Ali announced her conversion to the Christian faith, saying the Judeo-Christian tradition is the only answer to the problems of the modern world.[64][65]

Others

edit

Others have either self-identified as or been classified by some commentators as new atheists:

Some writers sometimes classified as new atheists by others have explicitly distanced themselves from the label:

Perspective

edit
 
The scarlet A, symbol of Out Campaign

Many contemporary atheists write from a scientific perspective. Unlike previous writers, many of whom thought that science was indifferent or even incapable of dealing with the "God" concept, Dawkins argues to the contrary, claiming the "God Hypothesis" is a valid scientific hypothesis,[80] having effects in the physical universe, and like any other hypothesis can be tested and falsified. Victor Stenger proposed that the personal Abrahamic God is a scientific hypothesis that can be tested by standard methods of science. Both Dawkins and Stenger conclude that the hypothesis fails any such tests,[81] and argue that naturalism is sufficient to explain everything we observe. They argue that nowhere is it necessary to introduce God or the supernatural to understand reality.

Scientific testing of religion

edit

Non-believers (in religion and the supernatural) assert that many religious or supernatural claims (such as the virgin birth of Jesus and the afterlife) are scientific claims in nature. For instance, they argue, as do deists and Progressive Christians, that the issue of Jesus' supposed parentage is a question of scientific inquiry, rather than "values" or "morals".[82] Rational thinkers believe science is capable of investigating at least some, if not all, supernatural claims.[83] Institutions such as the Mayo Clinic and Duke University have conducted empirical studies to try to identify whether there is evidence for the healing power of intercessory prayer.[84] According to Stenger, the experiments found no evidence that intercessory prayer worked.[85]

Logical arguments

edit

In his book God: The Failed Hypothesis, Victor Stenger argues that a God having omniscient, omnibenevolent, and omnipotent attributes, which he termed a 3O God, cannot logically exist.[86] A similar series of alleged logical disproofs of the existence of a God with various attributes can be found in Michael Martin and Ricki Monnier's The Impossibility of God,[87] or Theodore Drange's article, "Incompatible-Properties Arguments: A Survey".[88]

Views on non-overlapping magisteria

edit

Richard Dawkins has been particularly critical of the conciliatory view that science and religion are not in conflict, noting, for example, that the Abrahamic religions constantly dabble in scientific matters.[82] In a 1998 article published in Free Inquiry magazine,[82] and later in his 2006 book The God Delusion, Dawkins expresses disagreement with the view advocated by Stephen Jay Gould that science and religion are two non-overlapping magisteria (NOMA), each existing in a "domain where one form of teaching holds the appropriate tools for meaningful discourse and resolution".[82]

In Gould's proposal, science and religion should be confined to distinct non-overlapping domains: science would be limited to the empirical realm, including theories developed to describe observations, while religion would deal with questions of ultimate meaning and moral value. Dawkins contends that NOMA does not describe empirical facts about the intersection of science and religion. He argued: "It is completely unrealistic to claim, as Gould and many others do, that religion keeps itself away from science's turf, restricting itself to morals and values. A universe with a supernatural presence would be a fundamentally and qualitatively different kind of universe from one without. The difference is, inescapably, a scientific difference. Religions make existence claims, and this means scientific claims."[82]

Science and morality

edit
Main article: Science of morality

Harris considers that the well-being of conscious creatures forms the basis of morality. In The Moral Landscape, he argues that science can in principle answer moral questions and help maximize well-being.[89] Harris also criticizes cultural and moral relativism, arguing that it prevents people from making objective moral judgments about practices that clearly harm human well-being, such as female genital mutilation. Harris contends that we can make scientifically-based claims about the negative impacts of such practices on human welfare, and that withholding judgment in these cases is tantamount to claiming complete ignorance about what contributes to human well-being.[90]

Politics

edit

In the context of international politics, the principles of New Atheism establish no particular stance in and of themselves.[91] P. Z. Myers stated that New Atheism's key proponents are "a madly disorganized mob, united only by [their] dislike of the god-thing".[92] That said, the demographic that supports New Atheism is a markedly homogeneous one; in America and the Anglo-sphere more generally, this cohort is "more likely to be younger, male and single, to have higher than average levels of income and education, to be less authoritarian, less dogmatic, less prejudiced, less conformist and more tolerant and open-minded on religious issues."[91] Because of this homogeneity among the group, there exists not a formal dynamic but a loose consensus on broad political "efforts, objectives, and strategies".[93]

For example, one of the primary aims is to further reduce the entanglement of church and state, which derives from the "belief that religion is antithetical to liberal values, such as freedom of expression and the separation of public from private life".[93][94][95] Additionally, new atheists have engaged in the campaign "to ensure legal and civic equality for atheists", in a world considerably unwelcoming to and distrustful of non-religious believers.[94][95][96] Hitchens may be the atheist concerned most with religion's incompatibility with contemporary liberal principles, and particularly its imposed limitation on both freedom of speech and freedom of expression.[94][97] Because New Atheism's proliferation is accredited partly to the 11 September attacks and the ubiquitous, visceral response, Richard Dawkins, among many in his cohort, believes that theism (in this case, Islam) jeopardizes political institutions and national security, and he warns of religion's potency in motivating "people to do terrible things" against international polities.[98]

Criticisms

edit
See also: Criticism of atheism § New Atheism

According to Nature, "Critics of new atheism, as well as many new atheists themselves, contend that in philosophical terms it differs little from earlier historical forms of atheist thought."[99]

Scientism, accusations of evangelicalism and fundamentalism

edit

Critics of the movement described it as militant atheism and fundamentalist atheism.[a][100][101][102][11] Theologians Jeffrey Robbins and Christopher Rodkey take issue with what they regard as "the evangelical nature of the New Atheism, which assumes that it has a Good News to share, at all cost, for the ultimate future of humanity by the conversion of as many people as possible", and believe they have found similarities between New Atheism and evangelical Christianity and conclude that the all-consuming nature of both "encourages endless conflict without progress" between both extremities.[103] Political philosopher John Gray asserts that New Atheism, humanism, and scientism are extensions of religion, particularly Christianity.[104] Sociologist William Stahl said, "What is striking about the current debate is the frequency with which the New Atheists are portrayed as mirror images of religious fundamentalists."[105]

The atheist philosopher of science Michael Ruse states that Richard Dawkins would fail "introductory" courses on the study of "philosophy or religion" (such as courses on the philosophy of religion), courses which are offered, for example, at many educational institutions such as colleges and universities around the world.[106][107] Ruse also says that the movement of New Atheism—which is perceived by him to be "a bloody disaster"—makes him ashamed, as a professional philosopher of science, to be among those holding to an atheist position, particularly as New Atheism, as he sees it, does science a "grave disservice" and does a "disservice to scholarship" at a more general level.[106][107] Paul Kurtz, editor in chief of Free Inquiry, founder of Prometheus Books, was critical of many of the new atheists.[102] He said, "I consider them atheist fundamentalists... They're anti-religious, and they're mean-spirited, unfortunately. Now, there are very good atheists and very dedicated people who do not believe in God. But you have this aggressive and militant phase of atheism, and that does more damage than good."[11] Jonathan Sacks, author of The Great Partnership: Science, Religion, and the Search for Meaning, feels the new atheists miss the target by believing the "cure for bad religion is no religion, as opposed to good religion". He wrote:

Atheism deserves better than the new atheists whose methodology consists of criticizing religion without understanding it, quoting texts without contexts, taking exceptions as the rule, confusing folk belief with reflective theology, abusing, mocking, ridiculing, caricaturing, and demonizing religious faith and holding it responsible for the great crimes against humanity. Religion has done harm; I acknowledge that. But the cure for bad religion is good religion, not no religion, just as the cure for bad science is good science, not the abandonment of science.[108]

The philosopher Massimo Pigliucci contends that the new atheist movement overlaps with scientism, which he finds to be philosophically unsound. He writes: "What I do object to is the tendency, found among many New Atheists, to expand the definition of science to pretty much encompassing anything that deals with 'facts', loosely conceived ... it seems clear to me that most of the New Atheists (except for the professional philosophers among them) pontificate about philosophy very likely without having read a single professional paper in that field ... I would actually go so far as to charge many of the leaders of the New Atheism movement (and, by implication, a good number of their followers) with anti-intellectualism, one mark of which is a lack of respect for the proper significance, value, and methods of another field of intellectual endeavor."[109]

In The Evolution of Atheism, Stephen LeDrew wrote that New Atheism is fundamentalist and scientist; in contrast to atheism's tradition of social justice, it is right-wing and serves to defend "the position of the white middle-class western male".[110][111][112] Atheist professor Jacques Berlinerblau has criticised the new atheists' mocking of religion as being inimical to their goals and claims that they have not achieved anything politically.[113] Roger Scruton has extensively criticized New Atheism on various occasions, generally on the grounds that they do not consider the social effects and impacts of religion in enough detail. He has said, "Look at the facts in the round and it seems likely that humans without a sense of the sacred would have died out long ago. For that same reason, the hope of the new atheists for a world without religion is probably as vain as the hope for a society without aggression or a world without death."[114] He has also complained of the new atheists' idea that they must "set people free from religion", calling it "naive" because they "never consider that they might be taking something away from people".[115]

Criticisms of responses to theistic arguments

edit

Edward Feser has critiqued the new atheists' responses to arguments for the existence of God:[116]

It can safely be said that if you haven't both understood Aquinas and answered him – not to mention Anselm, Duns Scotus, Leibniz, Samuel Clarke, and so on, but let that pass – then you have hardly "made your case" against religion. Yet Dawkins is the only "New Atheist" to offer anything even remotely like an attempt to answer him, feeble as it is.

— Edward Feser, The Last Superstition (2008)

Criticism from David Bentley Hart

edit

Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies by David Bentley Hart was published by Yale in 2009. Philosopher Anthony Kenny called Hart's book "the most able counsel for the defence in recent years".[117] Writing for Commonweal, poet Michael Robbins described the book as "an unanswerable and frequently hilarious demolition of the shoddy thinking and historical illiteracy of the so-called New Atheists."[118] On 27 May 2011, Hart's book was awarded the Michael Ramsey Prize in Theology by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams.[119][120] Hart argues positively that Christianity was a progressive factor in human history and the only factor that "can be called in the fullest sense" a revolution. In his negative case against New Atheism, Hart argues that the Enlightenment was actually "a reactionary flight back toward a comfortable, but dehumanizing, mental and moral servitude to elemental nature."[121]

Accusations of bigotry

edit
See also: Elevatorgate

The New Atheist movement has been accused of sexism, especially prominent figures such as Richard Dawkins.[122][123] In 2014, Sam Harris said that New Atheism was "to some degree intrinsically male".[123] Sebastian Milbank of The Critic stated that anti-Catholic rhetoric by the New Atheist movement reached its pinnacle in 2010, during the state visit by Pope Benedict XVI to the United Kingdom, where "many mainstream newspapers (especially The Guardian) engaged in more or less naked anti-Catholic rhetoric of a sort that seemed more suited to the eighteenth century than the twenty-first".[27]

Some commentators have accused the New Atheist movement of Islamophobia.[124][125][126][127] Wade Jacoby and Hakan Yavuz assert that "a group of 'new atheists' such as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens" have "invoked Samuel Huntington's 'clash of civilizations' theory to explain the current political contestation" and that this forms part of a trend toward "Islamophobia ... in the study of Muslim societies".[126] William W. Emilson argues that "the 'new' in the new atheists' writings is not their aggressiveness, nor their extraordinary popularity, nor even their scientific approach to religion, rather it is their attack not only on militant Islamism but also on Islam itself under the cloak of its general critique of religion."[127]

See also

edit

References

edit

Informational notes

  1. ^ The term is sometimes used benignly, for example by atheists such as Frans de Waal.[100]

Citations

  1. ^ Lee, Lois; Bullivant, Stephen (17 November 2016). A Dictionary of Atheism. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-252013-5. Archived from the original on 20 January 2023. Retrieved 12 March 2017.
  2. ^ Wolf, Gary (1 November 2006). "The Church of the Non-Believers". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Archived from the original on 21 July 2017. Retrieved 19 January 2023.
  3. ^ Taylor, James E. "New Atheists". The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Archived from the original on 26 August 2016. Retrieved 14 April 2016. The New Atheists are authors of early twenty-first century books promoting atheism. These authors include Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens. The 'New Atheist' label for these critics of religion and religious belief emerged out of journalistic commentary on the contents and impacts of their books.
  4. ^ Hooper, Simon (9 November 2006). "The rise of the New Atheists". CNN. Archived from the original on 8 April 2010. Retrieved 16 March 2010.
  5. ^ Hedges, Chris (2008). When Atheism Becomes Religion: America's New Fundamentalists. Free Press. ISBN 978-1-4165-7078-3.
  6. ^ McAnulla, Stuart (2011). "Secular fundamentalists? Characterising the new atheist approach to secularism, religion and politics". British Politics. 9 (2). Palgrave Macmillan: 124–145. doi:10.1057/bp.2013.27.
  7. ^ LeDrew, Stephen (2018). "Scientism and Utopia: New Atheism as a Fundamentalist Reaction to Relativism". Relativism and Post-Truth in Contemporary Society. Springer. pp. 143–155. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-96559-8_9. ISBN 978-3-319-96558-1.
  8. ^ Stahl, William (2010). "One-Dimensional Rage: The Social Epistemology Of The New Atheism And Fundamentalism". Religion and the New Atheism: A Critical Appraisal. Brill. pp. 95–108. ISBN 978-90-04-19053-5.
  9. ^ Nall, Jeff (2008). "Fundamentalist Atheism and its Intellectual Failures". Humanity & Society. 32 (3). Sage: 263–280. doi:10.1177/016059760803200304.
  10. ^ Evans, Robert (22 October 2012). "Paul Kurtz, "giant" of humanism, dead at 86". Reuters. Archived from the original on 28 December 2022. Retrieved 25 December 2022.
  11. ^ a b c d Hagerty, Barbara Bradley (19 October 2009). "A Bitter Rift Divides Atheists". NPR. Archived from the original on 1 April 2019. Retrieved 12 February 2017.
  12. ^ Hitchens, Christopher (15 August 2007). "God Bless Me, It's a Best-Seller!". Vanity Fair. Archived from the original on 2 October 2016. Retrieved 14 April 2016. ...in the last two years there have been five atheist best-sellers, one each from Professors Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett and two from the neuroscientist Sam Harris.
  13. ^ a b Hitchens, Christopher (2019). The Four Horsemen: The Conversation That Sparked an Atheist Revolution. New York: Random House. p. 1. ISBN 978-0-525-51195-3. Archived from the original on 21 April 2023. Retrieved 20 January 2023.
  14. ^ Harris, Sam (11 August 2004). The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-7432-6809-7.
  15. ^ Steinfels, Peter (3 March 2007). "Books on Atheism Are Raising Hackles in Unlikely Places". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 26 June 2017. Retrieved 17 July 2016.
  16. ^ "The God Delusion One-Year Countdown". RichardDawkins.net. Archived from the original on 28 August 2008. Retrieved 5 October 2007.
  17. ^ Flynn, Tom (2010). "Why I Don't Believe in the New Atheism". Free Inquiry. 30 (3): 7–43. Archived from the original on 7 April 2020. Retrieved 28 July 2011.
  18. ^ a b c Landsberg, Mitchell (10 October 2010). "Religious skeptics disagree on how aggressively to challenge the devout". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 21 January 2023. Retrieved 21 January 2023.
  19. ^ Bruenig, Elizabeth (6 November 2015). "Is the New Atheism dead?". The New Republic. Archived from the original on 12 July 2018. Retrieved 27 August 2022.
  20. ^ Sloan Wilson, David (1 February 2016). "The New Atheism as a Stealth Religion: Five Years Later". This View Of Life. Archived from the original on 16 August 2017. Retrieved 20 January 2023.
  21. ^ Myers, PZ (31 July 2017). "The New Atheism is dead. Long live atheism". Pharyngula. Archived from the original on 11 September 2018. Retrieved 12 July 2018.
  22. ^ "The Four Horsemen: The Conversation That Sparked an Atheist Revolution". Publishers Weekly. 19 March 2019. Archived from the original on 21 August 2019. Retrieved 21 August 2019.
  23. ^ Poole, Steven (31 January 2019). "The Four Horsemen review - whatever happened to 'New Atheism'?". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 28 July 2022. Retrieved 21 July 2022.
  24. ^ West, Ed (4 November 2019). "What really happened to the New Atheists". UnHerd. Archived from the original on 21 July 2022. Retrieved 21 July 2022.
  25. ^ Maughan, Philip (14 April 2021). "The World According to ContraPoints". Highsnobiety. Archived from the original on 29 April 2022. Retrieved 3 August 2021.
  26. ^ Torres, Émile P. (5 June 2021). "Godless grifters: How the New Atheists merged with the far right". Salon. Archived from the original on 26 August 2022. Retrieved 27 August 2022.
  27. ^ a b Milbank, Sebastian (15 June 2022). "The strange afterlife of New Atheism". The Critic. Archived from the original on 15 June 2022. Retrieved 16 June 2022.
  28. ^ Jones, Sarah (29 November 2023). "The Infidel Turned Christian". Intelligencer. Archived from the original on 18 January 2024. Retrieved 5 December 2023.
  29. ^ a b Khalil, Mohammad Hassan, ed. (2017), "The New Atheism", Jihad, Radicalism, and the New Atheism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 95–96, doi:10.1017/9781108377263.009, ISBN 978-1-108-38512-1, archived from the original on 3 October 2023, retrieved 24 December 2022
  30. ^ a b Blumner, Robyn (4 December 2020). "Give the Four Horsemen (and Ayaan) Their Due. They Changed America". Free Inquiry. Archived from the original on 28 December 2022. Retrieved 24 December 2022.
  31. ^ "The Four Horsemen DVD". Richard Dawkins Foundation. Archived from the original on 11 June 2017. Retrieved 13 April 2016. On the 30th of September 2007, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens sat down for a first-of-its-kind, unmoderated 2-hour discussion, convened by RDFRS and filmed by Josh Timonen.
  32. ^ Hoffman, Claire (2 September 2014). "Sam Harris is Still Railing Against Religion". Los Angeles Magazine. Archived from the original on 15 June 2017. Retrieved 13 April 2016. As Western society grappled with radical Islam, Harris distinguished himself with his argument that modern religious tolerance had placated us into allowing delusion rather than reason to prevail. Harris upended a discussion that had long been dominated by cultural relativism and a hands-off academic intellectualism; his seething contempt for the world's faiths helped launch the 'New Atheist' movement, and together with Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and Daniel Dennett, he became known as one of the 'Four Horsemen of the Non-Apocalypse.'
  33. ^ Zenk, Thomas (2013). "16. New Atheism". In Bullivant, Stephen; Ruse, Michael (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Atheism. OUP Oxford. p. 254. ISBN 978-0-19-964465-0. Archived from the original on 3 October 2023. Retrieved 20 January 2023.
  34. ^ Stedman, Chris (18 October 2010). "'Evangelical Atheists': Pushing For What?". The Huffington Post. Archived from the original on 4 August 2016. Retrieved 2 March 2017. something peculiarly evangelistic about what has been termed the new atheist movement ... It is no exaggeration to describe the movement popularized by the likes of Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens as a new and particularly zealous form of fundamentalism — an atheist fundamentalism.
  35. ^ Harris, Sam (2012). Free Will. The Free Press. p. 96. ISBN 978-1451683400. ASIN 1451683405.
  36. ^ Harris, Sam (2013). Lying. Four Elephants Press. p. 108. ISBN 978-1940051000. ASIN 1940051002.
  37. ^ Dawkins, Richard (2007). The God Delusion. Black Swan. ISBN 978-0-552-77429-1.
  38. ^ Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, 10th anniversary edition, Black Swan, 2016, page I15 (new introduction for the 10th anniversary edition).
  39. ^ Hitchens, Christopher (2007). God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (First trade ed.). Atlantic Books. p. 320. ISBN 978-1-843-54574-3.
  40. ^ Hitchens, Christopher (2010). Hitch22. Atlantic Books. p. 448. ISBN 978-1-843-54922-2. ASIN 1843549220.
  41. ^ "Christopher Hitchens dies at 62 after suffering cancer". BBC News. 16 December 2011. Archived from the original on 30 March 2019. Retrieved 20 June 2018.
  42. ^ Hitchens, Christopher (2011). Arguably. Atlantic Books. ISBN 978-0857892584. ASIN 0857892584.
  43. ^ Hitchens, Christopher (2012). Mortality. Atlantic Books. ISBN 978-1848879218. ASIN 1848879210.
  44. ^ Hitchens, Christopher. "Is there an afterlife?". YouTube.[dead YouTube link]
  45. ^ Hitchens, Christopher (12 December 2010). "Hitchens and Paxman interview". YouTube. Archived from the original on 20 December 2021.
  46. ^ Dennett, Daniel (1996). Darwin's Dangerous Idea. Penguin Adult. p. 592. ISBN 978-0140167344. ASIN 014016734X.
  47. ^ Dennett, Daniel (2007). Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon. Penguin. p. 464. ISBN 978-0141017778.
  48. ^ Dennett, Daniel. "Clergy Project". Archived from the original on 22 January 2013.
  49. ^ "Clergy Project Home Page". 4 October 2014. Archived from the original on 9 June 2017. Retrieved 3 November 2013.
  50. ^ "Daniel Dennett". secular.org. Archived from the original on 5 December 2020. Retrieved 4 January 2021.
  51. ^ [1] Archived January 23, 2019, at the Wayback Machine, "Preachers Who Are Not Believers," Evolutionary Psychology, Vol. 8, Issue 1, March 2010, pp. 122–50, ISSN 1474-7049.
  52. ^ Podcast: interview with Daniel Dennett. Further developments of the research: pastors, priests, and an Imam who are closet atheists. Archived April 14, 2020, at the Wayback Machine.
  53. ^ "Caught in the Pulpit: Leaving Belief Behind". TheHumanist.com. 22 April 2014. Archived from the original on 1 April 2019. Retrieved 1 June 2017.
  54. ^ Ali, Ayaan Hirsi (11 November 2023). "Why I am now a Christian". UnHerd. Archived from the original on 23 January 2024. Retrieved 13 November 2023.
  55. ^ Ahuja, Anjana (22 March 2019). "The Four Horsemen — polemics from the high priests of New Atheism". Financial Times. Archived from the original on 28 December 2022. Retrieved 24 December 2022.
  56. ^ Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris & Ayaan Hirsi Ali on YouTube
  57. ^ "Ayaan Hirsi Ali". Archived from the original on 7 March 2015. Retrieved 3 November 2013.
  58. ^ Hirsi Ali, Ayaan (2008). The Caged Virgin. Free Press. ISBN 978-0743288347. ASIN 0743288343.
  59. ^ "Controversial film maker killed". The Independent. London. 2 November 2004. Archived from the original on 24 June 2011.
  60. ^ Hirsi Ali, Ayaan (6 February 2012). "Christians in the Muslim world". Newsweek. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 3 November 2013.
  61. ^ Hirsi Ali, Ayaan (15 May 2012). "Ayaan Hirsi Ali on Protecting Women From Militant Islam". Smithsonian.com. Archived from the original on 25 June 2012.
  62. ^ Hirsi Ali, Ayaan (12 May 2009). "The Right to Offend". Project Reason. Archived from the original on 6 December 2010.
  63. ^ Hirsi Ali, Ayaan (17 September 2012). "Muslim Rage and the Last Gasp of Islamic Hate". Newsweek. Archived from the original on 23 April 2016. Retrieved 3 November 2013.
  64. ^ Jones, Sarah (29 November 2023). "The Infidel Turned Christian". Intelligencer. Archived from the original on 18 January 2024. Retrieved 5 December 2023.
  65. ^ Ali, Ayaan Hirsi (11 November 2023). "Why I am now a Christian". UnHerd.
  66. ^ Wainwright, Jon (2010). "The Not So New Atheists?". Philosophy Now. Archived from the original on 30 June 2022. Retrieved 27 August 2022.
  67. ^ Schulson, Michael (2 November 2013). "Atheist Philosopher Peter Boghossian's Guide to Converting Believers". The Daily Beast. Archived from the original on 16 December 2020. Retrieved 19 November 2020.
  68. ^ Borninski, Ned (30 June 2015). "In Defense of New Atheism". Center for Inquiry. Archived from the original on 19 May 2023. Retrieved 26 August 2022.
  69. ^ Berezow, Alex (21 October 2013). "Jerry Coyne's Twisted History of Science and Religion". Forbes. Archived from the original on 25 November 2022. Retrieved 25 November 2022.
  70. ^ a b c Pigliucci, Massimo (2013). New Atheism and the Scientistic Turn in the Atheism Movement Archived 20 August 2020 at the Wayback Machine Midwest Studies In Philosophy, Vol. 37 (1): pp. 142-153.
  71. ^ Kehe, Marjorie (10 February 2011). "Interview with Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, author of "36 Arguments for the Existence of God". The Christian Science Monitor. Archived from the original on 7 December 2022. Retrieved 27 August 2022.
  72. ^ Dalrymple, Theodore (2007). "What the New Atheists Don't See". City Journal. Archived from the original on 10 July 2022. Retrieved 27 August 2022.
  73. ^ "...sagte Michael Schmidt-Salomon, Vorstand der Giordano-Bruno-Stiftung und damit so etwas wie Deutschlands Chef-Atheist." ("...said Michael Schmidt-Salomon, [who is] chairman of the Giordano Bruno Foundation, and therefore something of a 'chief atheist' for Germany.") Chef-Atheist im Chat: "Gynäkologen, die an die Jungfrauengeburt glauben", Spiegel Online, 29 May 2007 (Accessed 6 April 2008)
  74. ^ Rogan, Joe (15 March 2017). "Joe Rogan and T.J. Kirk on Milo Yiannopoulos". The Joe Rogan Experience. Retrieved 17 March 2017 – via YouTube.
  75. ^ "New Atheists". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Archived from the original on 21 December 2019. Retrieved 20 January 2023.
  76. ^ Stenger, Victor J. (4 December 2009). The New Atheism: Taking a Stand for Science and Reason. Prometheus Books. ISBN 978-1-61592-344-1. Archived from the original on 21 April 2023. Retrieved 20 January 2023.
  77. ^ Johnstone-Louis, Mary (2013). "No Gods. No Masters?: The 'New Atheist' Movement and the Commercialization of Unbelief". In Rinallo, Diego; Scott, Linda M.; Maclaran, Pauline (eds.). Consumption and Spirituality. New York: Routledge. p. 57. ISBN 978-0-415-88911-7.
  78. ^ Catto, Rebecca; Eccles, Jane (14 April 2011). "Beyond Grayling, Dawkins and Hitchens, a new kind of British atheism". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 31 December 2011. Retrieved 27 August 2022.
  79. ^ "@loftusjohnw on Twitter: Why Did Randal Rauser Recommend "God and Horrendous Suffering"? Despite his high recommendation of my book Rauser is on a mission to discredit it, pejoratively calling me a "New Atheist" and a "Fundamentalist". Inquiring Minds Want to Know Why!". Archived from the original on 8 April 2022. Retrieved 8 April 2022.
  80. ^ Dawkins, Richard (2008). The God Delusion. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
  81. ^ Stenger, 2008
  82. ^ a b c d e Dawkins, Richard (1998). "When Religion Steps on Science's Turf: The Alleged Separation Between the Two Is Not So Tidy". Free Inquiry. Vol. 18, no. 2 Spring. Archived from the original on 16 March 2012. Retrieved 1 April 2023.
  83. ^ Fishman, Yonatan I. (June 2009). "Can Science Test Supernatural Worldviews?" (PDF). Science & Education. 18 (6–7): 813–837. Bibcode:2009Sc&Ed..18..813F. doi:10.1007/s11191-007-9108-4. S2CID 20246250. Archived from the original on 5 June 2011.
  84. ^ Stenger, Victor J. (12 February 2006). "Darwin Day Celebration: An International Celebration of Science and Humanity − "Supernatural Science"". Mukto-Mona. Archived from the original on 14 March 2016. Retrieved 11 March 2010.
  85. ^ Stenger, Victor J. (2009). The New Atheism: Taking a Stand for Science and Reason. Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books. p. 70. ISBN 978-1-59102-751-5.
  86. ^ Stenger, Victor J. (2007). God: The Failed Hypothesis. How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist (with new foreword by Christopher Hitchens ed.). Amherst (New York): Prometheus Books. ISBN 978-1591026525.
  87. ^ Martin, Michael; Monnier, Ricki (2003). The Impossibility of God. Prometheus Books.
  88. ^ Theodore M. Drange (1998). "Incompatible-Properties Arguments: A Survey". Philo (2): 49–60. Archived from the original on 6 December 2022 – via The Secular Web.
  89. ^ Harris, Sam (2012). The Moral Landscape. Black Swan. ISBN 978-0552776387. ASIN 0552776386.
  90. ^ Harris, Sam. "How Science can Determine Moral Values". Archived from the original on 27 February 2014. Retrieved 2 November 2013.
  91. ^ a b Kettell, Steven (21 November 2013). "Faithless: The politics of new atheism". Secularism and Nonreligion. 2: 61. doi:10.5334/snr.al.
  92. ^ Meyers [sic], Paul Z. [Pharyngula] (11 June 2011). "Atheism ≠ fascism". ScienceBlogs. Archived from the original on 1 April 2023. Retrieved 1 April 2023.
  93. ^ a b "New Atheism: The Politics of Unbelief". E-International Relations. 18 June 2014. Archived from the original on 23 June 2020. Retrieved 21 June 2020.
  94. ^ a b c Schulzke, Marcus (December 2013). "The Politics of New Atheism". Politics and Religion. 6 (4): 778–799. doi:10.1017/S1755048313000217. S2CID 197670821. ProQuest 2210982282.
  95. ^ a b Kettell, Steven (December 2016). "What's really new about New Atheism?". Palgrave Communications. 2 (1): 16099. doi:10.1057/palcomms.2016.99.
  96. ^ Edgell, Penny; Gerteis, Joseph; Hartmann, Douglas (April 2006). "Atheists As 'Other': Moral Boundaries and Cultural Membership in American Society". American Sociological Review. 71 (2): 211–234. doi:10.1177/000312240607100203. S2CID 143818177.
  97. ^ Hitchens, Christopher (December 2011). "Why Even Hate Speech Needs to Be Protected". Reader's Digest. Archived from the original on 23 June 2020. Retrieved 21 June 2020.
  98. ^ "Richard Dawkins On Terrorism And Religion". NPR.org. 27 May 2017. Archived from the original on 22 June 2020. Retrieved 20 June 2020.
  99. ^ Kettell, Steven (December 2016). "What's really new about New Atheism?". Palgrave Communications. 2 (1). doi:10.1057/palcomms.2016.99.
  100. ^ a b De Waal, Frans (25 March 2013). "Has militant atheism become a religion?". Salon.com. Archived from the original on 9 June 2017. Retrieved 9 March 2017. Why are the 'neo-atheists' of today so obsessed with God's nonexistence that they go on media rampages, wear T-shirts proclaiming their absence of belief, or call for a militant atheism? What does atheism have to offer that's worth fighting for? As one philosopher put it, being a militant atheist is like 'sleeping furiously.'
  101. ^ Bullivant, Stephen; Lee, Lois (2016). "Militant atheism". Oxford Reference. 1. doi:10.1093/acref/9780191816819.001.0001.
  102. ^ a b Kurtz, Paul (February 2007). "Religion in Conflict: Are 'Evangelical Atheists' Too Outspoken?". Free Inquiry. Archived from the original on 20 January 2023. Retrieved 20 January 2023.
  103. ^ Jeffrey Robbins; Christopher Rodkey (2010). "Beating 'God' to Death: Radical Theology and the New Atheism". In Amarnath Amarasingam (ed.). Religion and the New Atheism A Critical Appraisal. Haymarket Books. p. 35. ISBN 978-1-60846-203-2.
  104. ^ Gray, John (2019). Seven types of atheism. Picador. ISBN 978-1-250-23478-0. OCLC 1137728757.
  105. ^ William Stahl (2010). "One-Dimensional Rage: The Social Epistemology of the New Atheism and Fundamentalism". In Amarnath Amarasingam (ed.). Religion and the New Atheism A Critical Appraisal. Haymarket Books. pp. 97–108. ISBN 978-1-60846-203-2.
  106. ^ a b Dougherty, T; Gage, LP (2015). "4/ New Atheist Approaches to Religion". In Oppy, Graham (ed.). The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Philosophy of Religion. Abingdon, UK; New York: Routledge. pp. 51–62. ISBN 978-1-84465-831-2. pp. 52–53: Michael Ruse (2009) said that Dawkins would fail 'any philosophy or religion course'; and for this reason Ruse says The God Delusion made him 'ashamed to be an atheist'
  107. ^ a b Ruse, Michael (August 2009). "Why I Think the New Atheists are a Bloody Disaster". Beliefnet. The BioLogos Foundation as a columnist of Beliefnet. Archived from the original on 9 January 2014. Retrieved 19 August 2015. ... I believe the new atheists do the side of science a grave disservice ... these people do a disservice to scholarship ... Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion would fail any introductory philosophy or religion course. Proudly he criticizes that whereof he knows nothing ... the poor quality of the argumentation in Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens, and all of the others in that group ..." [...] "the new atheists are doing terrible political damage to the cause of Creationism fighting. Americans are religious people ... They want to be science-friendly, although it is certainly true that many have been seduced by the Creationists. We evolutionists have got to speak to these people. We have got to show them that Darwinism is their friend not their enemy. We have got to get them onside when it comes to science in the classroom. And criticizing good men like Francis Collins, accusing them of fanaticism, is just not going to do the job. Nor is criticizing everyone, like me, who wants to build a bridge to believers – not accepting the beliefs, but willing to respect someone who does have them." [...] "The God Delusion makes me ashamed to be an atheist. ... They are a bloody disaster and I want to be on the front line of those who say so.
  108. ^ Sacks, Jonathan (2011). The Great Partnership: Science, Religion, and the Search for Meaning. New York: Schocken. p. 11. ISBN 978-0-805-24301-7.
  109. ^ Pigliucci, Massimo (2013). New Atheism and the Scientistic Turn in the Atheism Movement. Midwest Studies in Philosophy. pp. 151–152.
  110. ^ "The Evolution of Atheism (Review)". Publishers Weekly. 19 October 2015. Archived from the original on 9 April 2022. Retrieved 9 April 2022.
  111. ^ Sullivan, Marek (2016). "Review of The Evolution of Atheism". Secularism and Nonreligion. 5 (1): 5. doi:10.5334/snr.73.
  112. ^ Flynn, Tom (2016). "The Evolution of Atheism (Review)". Free Inquiry. 36 (3). Archived from the original on 10 August 2020. Retrieved 10 April 2022.
  113. ^ Winston, Kimberly (17 September 2012). "Professor Jacques Berlinerblau tells atheists: Stop whining!". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 12 January 2018. Retrieved 31 October 2017.
  114. ^ Scruton, Roger (31 May 2014). "Humans hunger for the sacred. Why can't the new atheists understand that?". The Spectator. Archived from the original on 8 May 2024. Retrieved 30 January 2022.
  115. ^ "Roger Scruton on New Atheism and Religion". Archived from the original on 20 December 2021 – via www.youtube.com.
  116. ^ Feser, Edward; Bowman, Karlyn (26 March 2010). "The New Philistinism". American Enterprise Institute - AEI. Archived from the original on 1 April 2023. Retrieved 1 April 2023.
  117. ^ "Anthony Kenny on 'Atheist Delusions'". The Times Literary Supplement and Truthdig. 14 May 2010. Archived from the original on 9 November 2020. Retrieved 23 January 2023.
  118. ^ "He Is Who Is". Commonweal. 27 January 2014. Archived from the original on 26 December 2022. Retrieved 23 January 2023.
  119. ^ "Winner of £10,000 Theology Prize Announced". The Archbishop of Canterbury. May 2011. Archived from the original on 4 July 2012. Retrieved 4 November 2013.
  120. ^ "David B. Hart wins the 2011 Michael Ramsay prize". The Christian Century. 27 May 2011. Archived from the original on 18 January 2012. Retrieved 22 January 2023.
  121. ^ Hart, David Bentley (2009). "Introduction". Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300164299.
  122. ^ Winston, Kimberly (6 September 2018). "Leading atheist, accused of sexual misconduct, speaks out". Washington Post. Archived from the original on 6 September 2018. Retrieved 13 July 2022.
  123. ^ a b Bianco, Marcie (12 February 2016). "Brazen sexism is pushing women out of America's atheism movement". Quartz. Archived from the original on 9 July 2022. Retrieved 21 July 2022.
  124. ^ Taylor, Jerome (13 April 2013). "Atheists Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris face Islamophobia backlash". The Independent. Archived from the original on 18 June 2022. Retrieved 30 January 2022.
  125. ^ FP Staff "Unholy war: Atheists and the politics of Muslim-baiting Archived 8 June 2017 at the Wayback Machine". First Post. Retrieved April 16, 2013.
  126. ^ a b Jacoby, Wade; Yavuz, Hakan (April 2008). "Modernization, Identity and Integration: An Introduction to the Special Issue on Islam in Europe". Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs. 28 (1): 1. doi:10.1080/13602000802080486. S2CID 144021468.
  127. ^ a b Emilsen, William (August 2012). "The New Atheism and Islam". The Expository Times. 123 (11): 521–528. doi:10.1177/0014524612448737. S2CID 171036043.
edit
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=New_Atheism&oldid=1255268050"