Opinion of "New Atheism"

[ElectionsGuy]

Didn't know what it was until I googled it.

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Seems pretty terrible, these people might as well call themselves anti-theists instead.

[Rockefeller GOP]

They too often simplify the most intriguing and complicated debate of human history.  Too often it seems that, in the mind of someone like Richard Dawkins, one is to either be smart/critically thinking/rational and believe that there is no higher power/intelligence/consciousness of any sort or else they are a superstitious/ignorant/dumb sheep who follows mythology.  Cannot one be an incredibly bright, scientifically minded person who simply has trouble with the blank notion that the Universe created itself from nothing with no external, guiding force?  Paul Davies comes to mind as a brilliant physicist who also feels it necessary to at least entertain the idea of a "creator" of some sort.  That's what Christians and other religions believe in at the end of the day: an undefinable higher intelligence that is responsible for the perceived design in the cosmos ... These faiths have simply assigned the name God to such a being, and unfortunately that leads many atheists to characterize non-atheists as worshiping a "man in the sky," which honestly makes said atheists come across as just as close minded and ignorant as the fundies.  Of course, that doesn't even come close to describing all atheists, but fundamentalists don't even come close to describing all theists.  HA, overall.

Also, I've never seen such a tiny percentage of the population get so much attention.  I've never seen a poll with atheists comprising any more than 5% of the population.  Yes, there are many more who aren't religious, but that does NOT equal atheist.

[bedstuy]

Also, I've never seen such a tiny percentage of the population get so much attention.  I've never seen a poll with atheists comprising any more than 5% of the population.  Yes, there are many more who aren't religious, but that does NOT equal atheist.

I would instead look at atheism as part of a greater non-religious community, which would include atheists, agnostics, people with no religion and secular religious people who don't believe in any religious doctrine seriously.  Someone who is merely a deist in a very bare sense that they believe in some mystical thing like "the human spirit" or "nature" or "love," is basically an atheist.

Belief in God in that sense, existing or not, is actually pretty inconsequential, right?  That debate is basically an irrelevant philosophical argument.  There's no reason to believe in God certainly, but it's an attractive, comforting idea for some people.

The real step off the deep end with religion is when you start saying, God told me to do XYZ.  That's the problem with religion anyway in the eyes of atheists.  It's not so much the religion itself, it's the irrational, harmful behavior caused by magical thinking which predicates religious belief.

[IceSpear]

The real step off the deep end with religion is when you start saying, God told me to do XYZ. 

Like how every Republican presidential candidate says God told them to run for president?

[Rockefeller GOP]

The real step off the deep end with religion is when you start saying, God told me to do XYZ. 

Like how every Republican presidential candidate says God told them to run for president?

Democratic politicians talk about God quite a bit, too.

[Phony Moderate]

Better than New Labour at least.

[Bigby]

The real step off the deep end with religion is when you start saying, God told me to do XYZ. 

Like how every Republican presidential candidate says God told them to run for president?

Mike Huckabee was told by God not to run in 2012 apparently, so I have no idea what that means for him, then.

[IceSpear]

The real step off the deep end with religion is when you start saying, God told me to do XYZ. 

Like how every Republican presidential candidate says God told them to run for president?

Mike Huckabee was told by God not to run in 2012 apparently, so I have no idea what that means for him, then.

It means Huckabee is God's favorite. All the others, he just wanted an entertaining clowncar.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     New Atheism is really terrible. Because when you're a tiny minority of the overall population, the answer is to be antagonistic and make enemies out of the majority.

[Lurker]

What is "Old Atheism", and how does "New Atheism" differ from that? I never even seen a good argument for how there is something "new" about the latter. As far as I can see it's just an attempt to give a pejorative term to the anti-religious views of a handful of "celebrity Atheists", most notably Hitchens and Dawkins, views that are not new at all.