Richard Dawkins has lost: meet the new new atheists
The atheist spring that began just over a decade ago is over, thank God. Richard Dawkins is now seen by many, even many non-believers, as a joke figure, shaking his fist at sky fairies. Hes the Mary Whitehouse of our day.
So what was all that about, then? We can see it a bit more clearly now. It was an outpouring of frustration at the fact that religion is maddeningly complicated and stubbornly irritating, even in largely secular Britain. This frustration had been building for decades: the secular intellectual is likely to feel somewhat bothered by religion, even if it is culturally weak. Oh, she finds it charming and interesting to a large extent, and loves a cosy carol service, but religion really ought to know its place. Instead it dares to accuse the secular world of being somehow -deficient.
The events of 9/11 were the main trigger for the explosion of this latent irritation. There was a desire to see Islamic terrorism as the symbolic synecdoche of all of religion. On one level this makes some sense: does not all religion place faith above reason? Isnt this intrinsically dangerous? Dont all religions jeopardise secular freedom, whether through holy wars or faith schools? On another level it is absurd: is the local vicar, struggling to build community and help smelly drunks stay alive, really a force for evil even if she has some illiberal opinions? When such questions arise, a big bright Complicated sign ought to flash in ones brain. Instead, in the wake of 9/11, many otherwise thoughtful people opted for simplicity over complexity. They managed to convince themselves that religion is basically bad, and that the brave intellectual should talk against it. (This preference for seeming tough and clear over admitting difficult complexity is really cowardice, and believers are prone to it too.)
The success of five or six atheist authors, on both sides of the Atlantic, seemed to herald a strong new movement. It seemed that non-believers were tired of all the nuance surrounding religion, hungry for a tidy narrative that put them neatly in the right.
Atheism is still with us. But the movement that threatened to form has petered out. Crucially, atheisms younger advocates are reluctant to compete for the role of Dawkinss disciple. They are more likely to bemoan the new atheist approach and call for large injections of nuance. A good example is the pop-philosopher Julian Baggini. He is a stalwart atheist who likes a bit of a scrap with believers, but hes also able to admit that religion has its virtues, that humanism needs to learn from it. For example, he has observed that a sense of gratitude is problematically lacking in secular culture, and suggested that humanists should consider ritual practices such as fasting. This is also the approach of the pop-philosopher king, Alain de Botton. His recent book Religion for Atheists rejects the boring question of religions truth or falsity, and calls for a selective reverence for religious rituals and concepts. If you can take his faux-earnest prose style, he has some interesting insights into religions basis in community, practice, habit.
And liberal punditry has softened. Polly Toynbees younger sisters, so to speak, are wary of seeing all of religion as a misogynist plot. When Zoe Williams attacks religious sexism or homophobia she resists the temptation to widen the attack and imply that all believers are dunces or traitors. Likewise Tanya Gold recently ridiculed the idea of religion as a force for evil. The idea of my late church-going mother-in-law beating homosexuals or instituting a pogrom is obviously ridiculous, although she did help with jumble sales and occasionally church flowers.
All these writers admirably refuse to lapse into a comfortably sweeping ideology that claims the moral high ground for unbelief. Lifes complicated, they admit. Institutional religion might be dubious, but plenty of its servants buck that trend with a flair that puts secular culture to shame. To adapt a Katharine Hepburn line, the time to make up your mind about religion is never.
In these pages Douglas Murray recently recounted debating alongside Richard Dawkins and being embarrassed by the crudity of his approach. Murray is not one of lifes fence-sitters: it must have occurred to him that atheism has polemical possibilities that would suit him rather well. But he has the sense to turn down the role of the new Christopher Hitchens. A polemical approach to religion has swung out of fashion. In fact, admitting that religion is complicated has become a mark of sophistication. Andrew Brown of the Guardian has played a role in this shift: hes a theologically literate agnostic who is scornful of crude atheist crusading, and who sometimes ponders his own attraction to religion. On a more academic level, the philosopher John Gray has had an influence: he is sceptical of all relics of Enlightenment optimism, including the atheists faith in reason.
What, if anything, do these newer atheists have to say? In previous generations, the atheist was keen to insist that non-believers can be just as moral as believers. These days, this is more or less taken for granted. What distinguishes the newer atheist is his admission that non-believers can be just as immoral as believers. Rejecting religion is no sure path to virtue; it is more likely to lead to complacent self-regard, or ideological arrogance.
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The atheist spring that began just over a decade ago is over, thank God
There have been atheists throughout history. Richard Dawkins did not invent the concept and does not control it. There was no "Atheist spring" except in your own mind.
One of the peculiarities of a lot of religious people is the mistaken belief that atheists have some sort of structure, with leaders that we follow or who are somehow in charge of atheism. It all goes back to the religious mistake that atheism is another form of religion, when it is not. The are no atheist leaders, so there can be no new ones or old ones. Each atheist is a person in and of themselves. The only thing that we have in common is that we know god doesn't exist. That's it. We have no tenets or religious rules that we follow or guide books or other common beliefs or ideas or lifestyles or political convictions or race or anything else. It's like we are on or own when it comes to everything, except we know there is no god. Thereis no movement and therefore no leader, so as I said there can't be be ones, because there never were any.There is no movement now, at least not anymore then there has been throughtout history. A movment, a structure is the oppisite of atheism. It there was a structure that says it atheist, it is not. We have no leaders and never have.
Unlike the msm, Fox News Channel is fair and balanced.
Why? Is it because it shows newer atheists moving away from bashing religion and mocking believers to a more logical and reasoned position?
Oh and this whole poor us, christens are being bashed and hated by atheists is getting to be a joke, like FOX's war on Christmas. It's old, tired, worn out bullshit. Come up with something new. You're getting boring with that samelies over and over again.
And yet there should be nothing stopping atheists from assuming an immoral anti-humanistic approach but they don't . They are inevitably humanistic and "moral" in their "preachings" . Why is that ? Because there is a structure . I expect it comes from the writings of the older atheists ...
And yet there should be nothing stopping atheists from assuming an immoral anti-humanistic approach but they don't . They are inevitably humanistic and "moral" in their "preachings" . Why is that ?
Because, as rule, atheists are just as good and moral human being as those that believe in a god. One doesn't need a god or a structure to be a good person. Most people are good people all on their own. Morality is not owned by those that believe in a god. Atheists have it too. Just like with everyone there are some bad people, but mostly good people. Morality and goodness are a human things, human values, not religious ones. There is no structure to atheism, there is no leader or set of rules or a creed, because one is not needed. Being an atheist is in no way an amoral or immoral thing. Also there are no old leaders or new ones, because non exist or ever did. I know I have been an atheist for many years and have know several (my son is one) and I have certainly never had a leader. and neither have any of the others.