The "New Atheist" Crusade and Me

I agree with the New Atheists: it's time for religion to go. Intolerant, politicized, ugly, right-wing religion, that is. I agree with religious people too, atheism has killed more people in the name of godless ideologies than all religions combined. Or put it this way, the atheist says "Crusades!" and the religious believer answers "Pol Pot!" Are we to be stuck trading insults like schoolchildren, or is there a better way to discuss the two eternally unanswerable questions: the quest for ultimate meaning and the search for the origin of everything?

At a time when Islamist extremists strap on bombs and blow up women and children; when the United States has just come staggering out of the oppressive thirty-year-plus embrace of the dumb-as-mud, hate-filled religious right; when evangelicals are bullying, harassing, and persecuting gay men and women in the name of God, it's understandable that decent people run from religion. There is a problem though, for those who flee religion expecting to find sanity in unbelief: they will discover that the madness never was about religion, nor was it caused by faith in God. It was, and is, about how we evolved and what we evolved into.

In other words Pogo, the Walt Kelly possum cartoon character, was correct: "we have met the enemy and he is us!" If only making ourselves happy, kind, and tolerant was as simple as giving up religious faith. If that's all it took, the Soviet Union under Stalin or China under Mao would have been such nice places to live, and our largely secularized Ivy League universities would not be filled with backstabbing intellectuals ready to kill each other (metaphorically speaking) over who gets tenure.

The Context of the New Atheist Crusade

I suspect that the intensity of the New Atheists' anti-religion crusade has less to do with religion per se, and more to do with a post-9/11 reaction (Islam is bad!), and then a further reaction to the reaction (Bush is just as bad!) The context of the heating up of the New Atheist movement has to do with the justifiable anger felt by reasonable people everywhere at the horrible way the born-again and smugly self-righteous evangelical George W. Bush led the United States, and was put (and kept) in power by his willfully ignorant evangelical base.

An unnecessary war-of-choice in Iraq, "legalized" torture, a carelessly managed war in Afghanistan, little-to-no action to repair the earth's environment, presidential sniping at evolution being taught in schools, an anti-sex education campaign, ties to the apocalyptic "End Times" evangelical/fundamentalist Christian Zionists (that skewed Bush's Middle East politics toward the State of Israel in a way that was harmful to all concerned--not least to the State of Israel)... this and more was the context of New Atheist reaction.

The problem I have with the more radical aspects of the New Atheists' answer to religion--which is to get rid of religion--is that we are spiritual beings, self-contemplating animals, with or without the New Atheists' permission, and despite the fact that there are so many national village idiots saying and doing things "in the name of God."

The New Atheists have proved how inescapable religion/spirituality is (by whatever name we call it) by turning their movement into a quasi-religion with priests, prophets and gurus, followers, and even church services. Check out Richard Dawkins' Web site and you could be looking at the Web site of any televangelist suffering from an acute messianic delusion. Add a dash of hucksterism, replete with scads of merchandise, including a "Scarlet A pin" to be worn by the faithful to identify them as followers and to provoke "conversations" with the uninitiated leading to their conversion to atheism. A secular "Maharishi" of atheism may also be a fruitcake cult figure leading a "church" in all but name.

Speaking of churches, and the need to reinforce one's faith, Bill Maher's 2008 movie Religulous provided the atheist version of a church-going experience [see Brent Plate's "Why Bill Maher Gets a 'C' in My Introduction to Religion Class"]. When I was watching Religulous in an Upper West Side theater in New York, it seemed to me that the laughter and shouted comments were just another version of "Amen!" and "Preach it brother!" I assumed these cries of affirmation were from the more spirit-filled atheists in the audience! In a moment of unintended self-parody, Maher even delivered an altar call at the end of his film begging believers to join him in his unbelief.

It seems to me that the various New Atheist prophets have one thing in common: they are old-fashioned literalists. The tone of their books strikes me as stuck in a premodern time warp that is ironically shared by evangelical authors such as Rick Warren. For Warren and the New Atheist authors it is, as it were, never about "A" purpose driven life but always about "The" purpose driven life.

While the term postmodernism is often used to describe an aesthetic, artistic worldview characterized by a distrust of theories and ideology, I think it usefully applies (or rather should apply) to the "certainties" on both sides in the religion vs. atheism debate. When it comes to the New Atheists pitting atheism's truth claims against religion's truth claims, postmodern nuance, let alone humility, is nowhere in sight. The New Atheists turn out to be secular fundamentalists arguing with religious fundamentalists. (I explore these various forms of fundamentalism in my forthcoming book Patience With God: Faith For People Who Don't Like Religion--Or Atheism.)

Secular and religious fundamentalists seem to overlook the reality of our actual situation: we are specks on a tiny planet and our concept of truth, time, and space is relative to our perspective. When Dawkins proposes his alternative to God (in The God Delusion), he talks about the billions and billions, perhaps trillions, of solar systems increasing the probability of life starting in a kind of Russian roulette. Since everything must have happened at least once in an infinite universe maybe that explains, well, everything! Problem is; these are just words. They could just as well be used to argue the "probability" of the existence of God in a limitless universe where everything might happen once someplace, say a virgin birth.

Certainty Kills

Words were invented by people to describe what they perceive to be "true" from what amounts to an ant's roadside view of passing cosmic traffic. Dawkins knows no more about the vast, forever-beyond-our-reach totality of the universe than I do about God. He thinks, hopes, surmises, does a bit of reading, uses metaphors to describe his ideas about things (which is all words are) grows old and dies, as do we all. When he makes the jump from proven Darwinian biological evolutionary science and tries to apply it to cosmology (the origin of everything), his is a leap of faith worthy of Sören Kierkegaard--though it has nothing to do with science. Whether we are embracing the life of the spirit or running from it, most of us seem to affirm or reject faith too vehemently to claim that we just don't care.

The New Atheists have been so shrill in their attempts to put what they regard as religious Dims in their place that even some other atheists find them abrasive. These critics of the New Atheists might be called New New Atheists. They too have come forward to proclaim atheism, yet to denounce the New Atheists in a way that to me is reminiscent of the church splits that my evangelical/Calvinist missionary parents (Francis and Edith Schaeffer who founded the ministry of L'Abri in Switzerland) went through. We became members of ever "purer" churches through one "separation" after another, until the "True Church" more or less boiled down to just our family!

In The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality, French philosopher André Comte-Sponville tries to present a "humanitarian foundation" for the life of unbelief. Comte-Sponville says that his "way of being an atheist," was influenced by the Catholicism of his youth. He acknowledges the positive aspects of faith. And then there is Ronald Aronson, a philosopher teaching at Wayne State University and contributor to Religion Dispatches, who first laid out a critique of the New Atheists in a review of their books in the Nation published in June 2007. "Where does the work of the New Atheists leave us?" he asked. "Living without God means turning toward something." Then in his book Living Without God, Aronson fleshed out his critique. He writes, "Religion is not really the issue, but rather the incompleteness or tentativeness, the thinness or emptiness, of today's atheism, agnosticism, and secularism. Living without God means turning toward something."

It might also mean that we should look for a less drastic alternative to fundamentalist faith in God than a fundamentalist faith in no God. The New Atheists and the religious fundamentalists have been looking through the wrong end of the same worn-out telescope. It strikes me that the idea--dare I say the fundamental truth -- of paradox has been left out of the current atheist vs. religion debate.

At its best faith in God is about thanksgiving, shared suffering, loss, pain, generosity, and love. The best religious people and the best secular people learn to ignore our chosen (or inherited) religions' nastier teachings (be those found in the Bible or in the "science" of eugenics and white racial superiority) in order to preserve the spirit of our faiths, be it a faith in secular humanism, science, God or in all of the above. It's the tediously consistent fundamentalists, religious or atheist, who become monsters. They are so sure that they have the truth that they dare claim that only those members of "my" religion will be saved. This is the path to madness and, if history is any guide, to violence. Certainty kills.

This essay first appeared on Religion Dispatches. Sign up for the free RD newsletter here

Frank Schaeffer is the author of Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back and the forthcoming Patience With God: Faith For People Who Don't Like Religion (Or Atheism)

Follow Frank Schaeffer on Twitter: www.twitter.com/frank_schaeffer

Comments

[jej89]

Hard-core atheists accuse believers of being unreasonable, of embracing fairy tales, but most of us believe in, and act on, realities (like the existence of human rights, or the beauty of a work of art, or the genuine love of one person for another) that transcend both rational proof and conclusive scientific evidence. We should respect the dignity of each person, while recognizing the differences of perception and conviction that arise from each person's circumstances and choices. In conversations with agnostic friends, I've sensed a shared commitment to some basic values of social and environmental responsibility and respect towards others, rooted in a sense of accountability to one's own conscience and to some kind of judgment (whether of God or merely of future generations) after our lives on this earth are over. Instead of the hubris, ignorance, fear, and hatred promoted by both secular and religious fundamentalists, let us promote humility, lifelong learning, hope, and love for all people, even our enemies.

[JimReed]

Individually believers embrace human rights and beauty in art and transcendent love, but collectively we see them embracing conservative politics, even when that leads to war and torture, and using their collective strength for intolerance of different views. I think they made a mistake by getting so involved in rapture fiction, and ultimately zionism and calls for more war. I think the problem is Christianity doesn't police itself, and they overlook dangerous trends in their midst because they are focused on looking for problems in those who disagree with them.

When you start to look at it that way you can see the root of the problem, Christianity joined up with the party of the rich, and now they often seem (not individually but as a collective) as the religion of the rich, and that means always supporting whatever helps the rich tilt the playing field in favor of themselves becoming more rich in comparison to the poor.

Perhaps churches are better at speaking in generalities because if they ever made these things clear to the people, they would be out of a job.

[discourse jockey]

"National village idiots"? Never heard that phrase before, consider it stolen.

Regarding the New Atheist movement, I largely agree with Frank Schaeffer (like I almost always do), but also with Julian Baggini, who is himself an atheist who sees a detrimental effect on real atheism (no, I'm not an atheist, at least not fulltime):

"the New Atheist Movement is destructive" because it "reinforces the view that atheism is primarily a negative attack on religious belief... is arrogant, and attributes to reason a power it does not have".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Baggini#Philosophical_outlook

In other words: Please don't confuse Richard Dawkins' "Atheism" with atheism. Dawkins keeps talking about his "Brights" movement as though it was in fact a band of initiates who've Seen The Light. He is a dubious spokesman for atheism.

I'd recommend The Fabric of Reality, and I wonder whether Frank Schaeffer has read it.

Anyway, once again, Schaeffer provides both spiritual and intellectual relief and shelter within the cacophony of the discourse. So looking forward to Patience With God.

[JimReed]

"(no, I'm not an atheist, at least not fulltime)"
That is a great line. Can we steal it?

Now that religion has become political and is sinking us into a conservative hell, perhaps what is needed IS a negative attack on religious belief. Hopefully the attack won't be arrogant or beyond reason, but if religion can't police itself it might fall to atheism, new or old, to do the job.

[discourse jockey]

Feel free to take it and use as you see fit.

Um, if I understand Frank correctly, one of his major and recurring points (and I happen to agree with him) is that the problem is not with religion but with the way it is being abused by some. Personally, I believe a far better way to attack those forces of evil is to publicly strip them of their presumptuous sole claim to Christian and conservative values. What are Christian values after all, and who are the ones acting on their basis and defending them? The neocons? We know that's not the case, quite to the contrary, and I believe it can be easily communicated, and even more efficiently so without childishly pointing fingers at guys like Sanford (like some do).

Imho, we should definitely withstand the pressure (or temptation, if someone is so inclined) to fight surrogate wars along those old frontlines which quite literally embody at least part of the status quo. "Religion vs. atheism" doesn't work because it plays right into the hands of those who would have us fight each other. The lines should be redrawn according to parameters that really do matter, e.g. "not behaving like a d.ick vs. behaving like one".

[brynnrose thorn]

Mr. Schaeffer, love your articles. One quibble however; the assumption that religious leaders actually believe the dogma they are preaching. I seriously doubt that a great many of them did/do since their actions so obviously belied that dogma. Religion has always been used as a political tool and the leaders use it as well. The warrior popes are just one example in a long line of many.

[JimReed]

Some don't really believe, but the most dangerous ones do. A non-believer might work for his own greed, but only a true believer in God, Jesus, and the Bibile will work for a destructive end of civilization, and recruit a group of followers.

[discourse jockey]

I don't agree. The most dangerous ones are the cynics, the opportunists, those who really believe in nothing at all. Their icecold precision and zeal easily match up to any genuine raving lunatic.

[digger0007]

You said it. The core of the problem is self-righteous certainty. Atheism is not a solution. It's like putting on new clothes to hide ugly sores. Communism was the perfect anti-example - their own self-righteousness doomed generations of Russians and Chinese in poverty that took decades to eradicate. Giving up religion as a solution against the hypocritical far right is like throwing out the baby with the bath water.

The greatest religious teachers always embrace humility as the first principle. If only their followers would truly follow their teachers' teachings, the world would be a peaceful place.

[JimReed]

Are any of those greatest religious teachers still alive today? If you can think of any, would any of them be Christian?

[sandpiper1]

Frank, I think we need to separate or differentiate spirituality from religion. One can have religion but not spirituality which I think is what the religious zealots exercise. They neither show nor practise mercy, tolerance, brotherhood, love, empathy/sympathy or respect for others' beliefs but their own. You are a sinner and godless if you do not adhere to their religious beliefs. I think that's what has turned so many of us off. I'm a baptised RC and though I no longer adhere to the Catholic religion or teachings, I do believe in God nonetheless.

[JimReed]

sandpiper,
Right, everyone agrees spirituality and religion are different, and they all see the problem with religious zealotry. At least they see problems with other groups of zealots, but none of them ever see any problems with zealots in their own group. We need to find a way to help them understand. For lack of any better choices, I think Hagee and his zionism are a good first step. Can other Cristians see the problem with encouraging more war in the middle east for rapture? Should they accept Hagee into the greater group of Christianity, or separate themselves and say they are not part of that other Christian religion that wants more war?

[lgillooly]

Extremism and certainty are the enemy. Love,kindness and tolerance must prevail.

[rolodex]

Love and kindness I can agree to, but tolerance can be a double edged sword.
Tolerance also is what allows extremism and certainty to flourish.
We can be tolerant of opinions which have no clear correct answer - what is your favorite ice cream, favorite car, sexual preference? But tolerance of opinions which contradict discernible fact, only breed false beliefs - 2+2=5, the earth is flat, god says gays are evil, god smote New Orleans to punish the gays (his aim was terrible) , the earth is 6000 years old, god told me to invade Iraq etc.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but we all must live with the same set of facts.

[JimReed]

Scientific knowledge progresses over time. Religion is more conservative by nature and can't progress, so its only hope to stay ahead is to maintain belief they are above science because they already know ultimate truth.

[Zanti]

None of the points you make in your post serve to support one another. Tolerance is a double edged sword, you claim--it is the thing that "allows extremism and certainty to flourish." This rather extraordinary (and sweeping) claim is left right there--no proof, no examples, no reason for us to believe that tolerance is what allows extremism and certainty to flourish, though, presumably, we have your word that it is.

Then you claim that "tolerance of opinions which contract discernible fact, only breed false beliefs." What this has to do with allowing extremism and "certainty" to flourish is anyone's guess, and again you offer no proof for your statement--it's simply so. It should go without saying that a view that's merely false is not necessarily extreme.

These two I-said-so assertions somehow lead to your conclusion that we all must live with the same set of facts. Really? How are we to make that happen? And how many sets of facts are possible, given that, per your worldview, facts aren't negotiable? Logically, there would only be one set of facts.

I think you should consider filling in your points a little.

[Zanti]

Sorry--I meant to type "tolerance of opinions which contradict discernible fact, only breed false beliefs." The misquote was unintentional.

[JimReed]

"The best religious people and the best secular people learn to ignore our chosen (or inherited) religions' nastier teachings in order to preserve the spirit of our faiths"

Are they really the best, or is there an even better set of people who won't or can't ignore nasty teachings?

[MDMills12]

We are all in this together, none of us get out of here alive, and we are all so inter-related that it is beyond our ability to truly comprehend. We will experience the joys and the sorrows of living that experience is universal. Whether you fight against the idea of god or you fight
to prove that there is a god has no relevance.

Your or my thinking about our own rightness about something or wrongness about something makes absolutely no difference in what is. So... why fight for a position in thoughts. If you are right about something what have you proven? You have shown that your right and in so doing there is the contrast toward showing that someone else then is wrong and in that case what has this process done for you?

Whether we be one who believes in atheistic views or we be one who believes in theistic views either side of this only proves that we can think and have an opinion. If that reality is needful to give a sense of meaning, worth, and purpose then we are finally touching on the true essence of the something that drives our arguments and actions.

What if all these arguments only reveal how universally inter-connected we are to one another as we each search for meaning, purpose and worth to our individual existence?

[JimReed]

Beliefs can have consequences. Beliefs that are supported only to avoid facing the possibility that the belief is wrong can lead to a cascade of more questionable beliefs constructed only to put off the inevitable. We need an open discussion of the issues. Is Christianity in some way related to God? If that question is off the table, then we are back to where we started.

[MDMills12]

An open discussion of the issues is a refreshing life experience. Why? Because we can have a free and open conversation where we are able to share our points of view. This is the idea of sharing or conversing with mutual respect and a willingness to be open to another point of view and not feeling threatened by differing opinions or ideas. In the sharing of perspectives we are able to experience personal growth and expansion in the way we see ourselves, our faith and the world around us. None of us have this figured out, but we all have great worth and value and we need to be a part of the conversation.

[Michael Trefry]

Owww, you hurt my brain with all the metaphysical nonesense.

Right and Wrong (as in correct and incorect) MATTER!

Where would we be if the greatest scientific minds all just said, "well what does it matter if my theory is right, or your theory is right. Let's just all get along." We wouldn't even have great scientific minds if that were the case.

Fighting for position in thought, is very important if one thought is rational, and another irrational. If the world is ever to agree on anything, that thing should be based in reality.

[JimReed]

There is another way to fight for position in thought. There is strength in numbers. Very few will question the common consensus, and those few can be convinced through multiple levels of a system of rewards and punishments. Christianity has a truly impressive, even amazing history of conversions down through the millennia.

[kwinter]

Michael, I see this is your first post, I hope you'll become a frequent poster. That was very well said, and I couldn't agree more!

[MDMills12]

"Nonsense" is a reality for all of us and it is certainly something that I readily agree to about myself! The more I live and journey toward discovery I keep finding more and more nonsense that has been and is interwoven in the fabric of my life.

If this is "metaphysical nonsense" then so be it. Let's give it a label and in so doing it will help make the point of it's irrationality that in turn means we can declare it's irrelevance. If it be irrelevant than in contrast that would make the different perspective relevant. Congratulations! We now have a winner and a looser! What is the prize? I don't know... All I know is the conversation would than be over and we would be unable to find common ground to work on. There in is the tragedy! Why? Because we just derailed the train, built a wall and the bridge is collapsed.

Having differences of opinion does not equate to a fight that is be won or lost, but rather it's merely a conversation. Who said agreeing with one another was the means to everyone getting along? Everyone getting along happens when we stop being threatened by differences! So then we find reality, rightness, correctness, and rationality is defined by what absolute? If I am that absolute than who does that make me to be?

[brynnrose thorn]

Michael, thank you for your well thought out post. Especially impressive for your first one. Welcome and I just had the honor of becoming your first fan!

[Panglos]

Faith ultimately entails deciding, rather than determining, what is true or false. But facts are independent of any decisions we make about them. Thinking you can discover truth through faith provides an open opportunity for self-deception.

Soon after deciding what is true or false comes “bending the facts to fit your predetermined beliefs.” After that comes “making things up to support your predetermined beliefs.”

At that point your faith has taken you pretty far away from the truth.

[JailNeoconVicts]

You are absolutely right. Socrates proved his wisdom by saying, "I know that I know nothing"-- in other words, nothing is certain, given the limitations of our experience. And one of the most moving moments in Holocaust survivorJacob Bronowski's "The Ascent of Man" came when he waded into a pond at Auschwitz, scooped up a handful of mud containing the ashes of four million murdered people, and said, "When people believe they have absolute knowledge, with no test in reality, this is how they behave." I know, as a finite creature, that I will never know in this lifetime whether or not god exists. So I can concentrate on what I can come closest to knowing: that the world is made better by treating other people well.

[rolodex]

Interesting quote, let me give my interpretation of it.

True believers tend to have a believe that their religious text is either the literal or inspired word of their particular god. The nature of gods always ultimately requires 'faith' because they are 'supernatural' and thus there can be no proof of them, "no test in reality". This unprovable and also un-disprovable nature feeds their absolute knowledge since you can't prove them wrong.

By contrast, overwhelmingly, the new atheists are people of science, or at least have great trust in science. The very nature of science is one that recognizes there may be absolute facts, but it is difficult if not humanly impossible to have absolute knowledge of these facts. The best you can hope for is to continually advance the accuracy of the knowledge about these facts. This knowledge is continuously tested against reality, the greatest achievements in science are often the disproving of a previously held theory. Sometimes disproving a previous theory is really just an improvement in the accuracy on the theory.

Thus my interpretation of the quote would be that the author was condemning 'true believers' of faith. You may or may not agree, but judging from Franks arguments, I think he would interpret it the opposite as he seems to think that the neo-atheists claim some absolute knowledge.
The opposite is actually the truth, as these neo-atheists reject the religious assertions precisely because there can be "no test in reality" for them.

[JimReed]

"no test in reality"
That has always been the theoretical basis of religion, but now we have evolution to prove many of these religions are wrong. Of course acceptance by the church sometimes takes centuries, but after it is accepted the history won't matter and they can return to a state of unprovable infallibility and things can once again be the way they were back in the 1950's.

[Zanti]

A lot of problems with your last claim. First off, the most popular and influential neo-atheists (Richard Dawkins being the sorriest example) do not reject "religious assertions" (typically, fundie claims) as untestable. Au contraire. Rather, they treat them as testable claims, just as Dawkins does in "The God Delusion," wherein he attempts to disprove any and all claims for God. This is a mockery of the scientific method AND a betrayal of the fundamental principles of skepticism, for reasons too numerous to list. (Among them, the fact that the role of the skeptic is perverted from "Show me" to "I'll show you up.") Claims which can't be proven or disproven are just that.

Even worse, the neo-atheist community, not content simply to disgrace the function of skepticism, feels compelled to introduce one ludicrous claim after another--among them, that religion is a "virus" threatening the evolutionary progress of our species, that the human brain can't simultaneously process "rational" and subjective data, that religion is unique in the extent to which it has played host to evil (and never mind competition for power, land, military might, lax business regulations, etc.), and so on.

That is to say, neo-atheists, as a group, are guilty of a wide range of absurd claims which they make no attempt to prove--this, on top of making a mockery of skepticism by behaving as if untestable claims can, in fact, be tested.

Please.

[Zanti]

"Check out Richard Dawkins' Web site and you could be looking at the Web site of any televangelist suffering from an acute messianic delusion."

Except that most televangelists are humble by comparison.

I disagree a little on the context of the N.A. movement. The neo-atheists, for the most part, strike me as imitation-James Randi/CSICOP in their tone and outlook. Religion, to them, is a metaphor for our society's poor science report card. It's the perfect thing to scapegoat in their campaign to elevate the status of science, though only a psychologist can tell us how they think they're going to win anyone over with their arrogant approach.

The majority of participants in the faith-bashing movement aren't N.A.'s at all, imo--they tend to be believers who have rejected the old-fashioned church experience, with its family orientation and organ music and quiet atmosphere and serious tone. They want to differentiate "their" experience of God, spirituality, etc. from what they regard as the defunct version. And much of the disdain for faith is class-based, of course--for some, it's an excuse to bash "trailer park" society, and for others a chance to heap disdain on the middle class. The left isn't quite the pro-populist place it used to be, and those opposed to everyday culture have a perfect scapegoat in the religious right, since the r.r. is "okay" to bash. But their disdain is for average folk.

[JohnFromCensornati]

"And much of the disdain for faith is class-based, of course--for some, it's an excuse to bash "trailer park" society, and for others a chance to heap disdain on the middle class."

Yes, for me it has been an excuse to heap disdain on the trailer park society, but I'm a Real Christian now. As such, I'm going to judge them instead of bash them from now on.

[Retrofuturistic]

I don't buy your argument that atheists are secular fundamentalists. There is a difference between reason and blind faith. Certainty based on blind faith kills, but certainty based on reason (your own reason, not someone else's) does not.

We can have spirituality and moral principles without religion. Many atheists are spiritual; Sam Harris, for example, likes Buddhism.

There is nothing, however, that will bring people back to Christianity, because now they see the lies and the manipulation that are its essence. And furthermore, you don't see atheists fighting holy wars, conducting Crusades or Inquisitions, or killing and torturing "because God wants them to."

[MaggieMamacat]

But he specified "new atheists" and described those who demonstrate an evangelical fervor in their certainty. To me that means the description is not applicable to atheists who don't fit that description. The majority of atheists I've met are not people I'd consider fundamentalist atheists, but I've met a few who fit the bill.

[Retrofuturistic]

There is still a difference between being fervent about reason and being fervent about blind faith.

[TigerHunter9002]

Mr. Schaeffer - I'm a longtime fan of yours, but I have to point out that your attacks on Dawkins are unfounded. Didn't you yourself, in your recent article on Bill Maher, mention Dawkins' statements that he's by no means positive about the nonexistence of your god, or any other? And yet in this article, you accuse him of "leaps of faith" because he lacks exactly that, faith? Because he acknowledges that the theory of god has no evidence to support it, and as such, rejects it?

You're exactly right. Dawkins can't prove that your god doesn't exist. But he doesn't need to. The burden of proof is on you, and extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

[LetUsRatiocinate]

Just a couple quotes pertinent to the topic:

"Calling Atheism a religion is like calling bald a hair color." --Don Hirschberg
"Men never commit evil so fully and joyfuly as when they do it for religious convictions" -- Blaise Pascal
"No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says; he is always convinced that it says what he means." - George Bernard Shaw
"Why should I allow that same God to tell me how to raise my kids, who had to drown His own?" - Robert G. Ingersoll
"Religions are all alike - founded upon fables and mythologies." - Thomas Jefferson

Are these "new" atheists?

[Walter Silveira]

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?” -Epicurus, 341-270 BC.

Actually I think he's a lot Newer, wouldn't you say?

[I'm convinced this whole "Neo" moniker is a result more of heightened visibility more than serious difference]

http://www.allthumbsthinker.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/occamsrazorbu02.jpg

[mivogo]

The problem, as always, is true believers. Eric Hoffer said it best, and it stands today. The true believer has his natural enemy--those who don't believe. And you can either 1) kill them, or 2) convert them.
It can be certainty about God, or it can be a left or right winger's smug certainty--but when I run into a true believer who "knows" the answers, I run the other way.
Good column.

[JimReed]

Most true believers do not "1) kill them". Their only sin is they put up with that minority of the true believers who do.

[mivogo]

The Crusades, The Nazis, the Stalinists, etc--hundreds of millions murdered by true believers. Kill them or convert them--listen to your friendly political true believer rant and try to convert you to the 'correct" way of thinking until he's blue in the face, then tell me I'm mistaken.

[JohnFromCensornati]

"when evangelicals are bullying, harassing, and persecuting gay men and women in the name of God"

This is one of my favorite talking points used by the "spiritual" christians.
The "spiritual" christians don't believe in talking snakes or seas parting, but virgin births? Maybe.
They claim that the OT is no longer applicable, but does their source document include a chapter called Leviticus? It just might.
When our new president says that Je$u$ owns the English word "marriage", could that be rooted in the OT fairytales? It doesn't seem to be rooted in the constitution.

[HeevenSteven]

Virgin births, and resurrections too!

I have a "spiritual" friend who believes god saved her father from his heart attack.. The docs say it's a miracle--they can't explain why he's alive, ergo.. ..

Why didn't he just prevent the heart attack?? Don't be such a cynic..

[JohnFromCensornati]

LOL. Check out wondering. He's having some fun tonight.