Militant Atheism

In earlier times it was widely believed that our children and grandchildren would live in a new era void of religion and its infantile illusions. That generation's cultural high point came on April 8th, 1966, when Time magazine carried a lead story, entitled "Is God Dead?" The story described the advent of the "death of God" movement. And yet, over 50 years on from that proclamation, nothing could appear further from the truth. It has been widely noted that since the 1980’s, there has been increase of religiosity across the world, including in the western world. The perception of the ‘death of God’ has given way to a renewed interest in God and spirituality. Atheism’s prophecies of a Godless world have in fact, failed to materialise. Belief in God and religion have began once again to thrive, much to the astonishment and intense irritation of those who hold such things to be superstitious and mythological. Out of this sheer annoyance and frustration is born an anti-religious movement, known as the ‘new atheists’ and sometimes ‘militant atheism’.

The popular science writer Richard Dawkins’ book The God Delusion went straight to the top of the best seller lists in Britain and America when it was published in 2006. Christopher Hitchens’ book, God Is Not Great, has achieved similar levels of success since its publication in 2007 and other books promoting atheism by Sam Harris, AC Grayling and Daniel C. Dennett, have also found an avid readership.

What’s distinguishes this kind of atheism is not its intellectual content, the new atheists have nothing novel or concrete to add here as compared with the leading pioneers of atheism, such as Hume and Kant, but rather it is the tone, the pernicious and aggressive attitude towards religion which marks....

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The message of these books and anything of their ilk is quite simple: To hold up the best of science and compare it to the worst of religion, which is an unfair and dishonest standard.

Lets try comparing the worst of religion to the worst of science or the best of religion to the best of science, and see where that gets us.

These days anyone who has a bibliography at the end of his book is considered a scholar or an expert, when really all he did was investigate a list of people who agree with his original thesis which is dishonest as well. True scholarship isn't just a string of letters after your name followed by a list of people who say you're right. True scholarship is objectivity and a willingness to be wrong, to learn from your research and yourself grow and change during the course of your study.

Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris haven't written anything I didn't already know. I read each of their books at the library. I think they are merely regurgitating what we already knew and giving new voice to it now that there is more of a market for it. We live in a more free age than the atheists of old did and more people are questioning or have broken free from religion. These guys are just selling books really.

The one exception is Dennett, who isn't so much writing "god is a delusion", "god is not great", etc (which most atheists already realize) but is instead looking beyond this and into theories of consciousness, determinism, origins of morality, etc. He goes beyond the god question so he's charting newer.

Religion hasn't died at all. It's just a matter of how many and how much people practice it.

deenman said:

What’s distinguishes this kind of atheism is not its intellectual content....

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You clearly haven't actually read Grayling or Dennett.

As I understand it, Richard Dawkins is considered to be quite a joke even (if not especially) by the atheistic and skeptical community, the equivalent of pop psychology quacks to genuine psychiatrists. And for good reason: anyone who's read anything by him can see that you can take an average high school student who can fare no better than a D in English, scraping by with an eleventh-hour paper on why they like their favorite boy band, and that student could probably read an article by Dawkins and, under pressure and with no distractions, refute him pretty soundly. I'm not exaggerating. I don't think.

OurIslamic said:

Religion hasn't died at all. It's just a matter of how many and how much people practice it.

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And there are more theists than ever before.

As I understand it, Richard Dawkins is considered to be quite a joke even (if not especially) by the atheistic and skeptical community, the equivalent of pop psychology quacks to genuine psychiatrists. And for good reason: anyone who's read anything by him can see that you can take an average high school student who can fare no better than a D in English, scraping by with an eleventh-hour paper on why they like their favorite boy band, and that student could probably read an article by Dawkins and, under pressure and with no distractions, refute him pretty soundly. I'm not exaggerating. I don't think.

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Dawkins is brilliant scientist, and I would recommend some of his earlier works to anyone studying biology. However, ever since he's started a (seemingly pointless. What does he expect to gain from it other than hatred and mockery? Oh, money. Greedy man.) war on religion, all he's done is publicise arguments that have existed for hundreds of years whilst only having a superficial knowledge of the Bible or any religious theology/beliefs. Luckily, no serious theist will ever listen, let alone be convinced, by such silly points Dawkins raises.