Dawkins is one of the new atheists. He is one of the 'The Four Horsemen: Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitch[ens] and Sam Harris. — Jack Cummins

Except for Sam Harris, I intellectually respect these gentlemen as advocates of irreligion but not of soundly reasoned atheism itself. Not even the philosopher Daniel Dennett (whose "belief in belief", while deflationary, seems too psychologistic (even hehaviorist)).

FYI: I'd been an unbeliever and freethinker for two decades already by the time "the new atheists" had become a thing. I have a background in the natural sciences, comparative religion, philosophy, etc. Thus, the only thinker from the so-called "New Atheism" movement who I'd found rigorously interesting was the late particle physicist and philosopher Victor Stenger whose writings inspired me in the late 90s to use methodological naturalism in order to further develop from negative atheism (i.e. "belief that there is a theistic deity is strongly unwarranted") to positive atheism (i.e. "disbelief that there is a theistic god is strongly warranted"). I've since moved on to (my own argument for) antitheism, but Dr. Stenger was an intellectual catalyst even for rethinking positive atheism as well. If you read only one book of his, Jack, I'd recommend the breezy, non-technical, and soundly reasoned The New Atheism in which Dr. Stenger summarizes the movement (e.g. "The Four Horsemen") but expands beyond them historically philosophically & scientifically. A list of his other related, even more comprehensive and technical works are found on this wikipedia page.

I am wondering how the perspective of such writers fits into the question of God' s existence, or if the nature of the question needs formulating. How much is about understanding causal reality and its sources?

'Supernatural claims' must consistently account for nature (which is ineluctable and universally accessible to us as natural beings) or else such 'claims' – a category which includes "God" – do not make sense, at best, and are false otherwise.

What does the concept of God imply, and what are the advantages and disadvantages of the concept of God in thinking about how life works and the nature of reality?

You will have to specify that "concept"; otherwise, underdetermined, it is too vague to "imply" anything intelligible.

How important is 'The New Atheism' in connection with the historical belief in God within the Judaeo- Christian tradition and other traditions and philosophies?

Not much. Other than Stenger (& Dennett on his better days), I think "new atheists" traffic mostly in journalistic polemics that are readily rebuffed – rationalized away – by well-worn JCI apologetics.

Except for Sam Harris, — 180 Proof

:lol: :rofl:

:clap: :clap:

mfw someone tells me they believe in "god":



pov of a theist when they tell me to "prove a negative":



this about sums of the intellectual merits of new atheism, imo. there is very little to be impressed by

fish in a barrel and all that

'Supernatural claims' must consistently account for nature (which is ineluctable and universally accessible to us as natural beings) or else such 'claims' – category which includes "God" – do not make sense, at best, and are false otherwise. — 180 Proof

If one begins with the assumption that the existence of the natural world cannot be explained in terms of the natural world, then a supernatural necessity cannot be rejected in principle. That there is or can be a consistent account for nature that does not take nature as a given is not something that has been demonstrated.

This does not mean that one should accept a supernatural explanation, for the simple reason that it is not an explanation. It is a claim in need of an explanation. It may be, however, that the existence of natural world does not make sense. [added: with or without supernatural claims].

New atheism is the same as old atheism: belief that there is/are no god(s).

No matter how you slice it, it's still baloney. No matter what name you give it, it still is the same thing: the belief that there are no gods / god.

What's the point of slicing it thin, or thick, or square, or semi-circularly? There is no god, that's a belief, and people who believe that are atheists.

Period, full stop, end of paragraph.

I totally don't understand this yammering about no gods. The four horsemen have been preempted by Marx, Engels, and the larger portion of the population in the entire eastern block, including China. What's the point in talking it to death?

The essay in which the term "New Atheist" first appeared is apparently The Church of the Non-Believers. It's an average piece of inconclusive journalism, hedging around the issue.

The defining characteristic seems to be that new atheists enjoy "pissing people off".

Outing their bullshit will do that.

New Atheism became a marketing term in publishing after it was coined and seemed to resonate, for good or ill. It doesn't refer to a movement.

I never thought of it as philosophy as such - the writers already referred to are mostly fundamentalist busters. This seems to be much needed, as ever more literalist expressions of theism seek to influence education, legal and social freedoms. One only need to be recognise that the fastest growing version of Christianity in the world is evangelical to see the problem.

Dawkins, in his emphasis on " natural selection" has simply replaced the idea of God with that of chance. — Jack Cummins

Dawkins expounds and supports a detailed theory of how complex organisms can develop from extremely simple forms of life. So there's no 'simply' involved. These days humans can experiment with evolutionary ideas using computers. We can watch the complexity of creatures increase in simplified, simulated worlds. We can use genetic progamming to solve problems. Darwin is the 'Newton of biology' now, and critics of evolution who aren't biologists seem to be in a very weak position.

:up:

The four horsemen are primarily polemicists. Hitchens wrote very well, on a number of things; the others I haven't read much. They say nothing new about the abundant problems of institutional religion and the so-called proofs of God's existence, as far as I know.

As others have already said, they don’t differ much from what we could call the old atheists. What’s different about them is that they actively attempt to propagate atheism and reduce the influence of theism in the public sphere, instead of just making closed communities like the Epicureans.

By doing what they do, they encourage the public to think seriously about the ideas and arguments they present, which is a good thing.

I will look out for the writing of Dr Stenger because it is worth looking at the idea of the new atheism from a wider angle. I read Dawkins a long time ago initially, at a time in which I was not reading philosophy. At the time, I was not even aware of the movement of new atheism.

In a way, the question of 'the supernatural' is part of the underlying question. The only thing which I would query is what supernatural means fully. The reason why I wonder this is because I read Lyall Watson's book on biology, 'Supernature' which suggests that aspects of nature, including telepathy, which people cannot understand may just complexities in nature which people cannot understand. Of course, I realise that religion is more about aspects far more difficult, such as the resurrection of Jesus and the nature of miracles. Of course, here it is connected to how religious texts, are interpreted, back to the issue of literal or symbolic interpretations.

The only thing about saying that Darwins ideas of evolution as being significant is that it is possible to accept Darwin's theory and believe in God. As far as I understand, he was not proposing his ideas to imply atheism itself.

Thanks for the link to an interesting article. It does seem as @Tom Storm argues that the 'new atheists' are like evangelists of atheism..

It does seem that the new atheists do attack institutional religion. I did read the book with the book, 'The Four Horsemen' , with the dialogue between the four writers last summer and didn't really feel that they got into the debate about the existence of God deeply enough. At the time, I consider creating a thread on it but was not sure that there was any really outstanding argument in it.

From my reading of the four writers, I find the ideas of Dawkins more interesting, as I reread it recently. The reason for this was because I thought that his understanding of the question of whether Einstein was or was not an atheist useful. Also, even though Dennett is included In the new atheism by some, I have come across the idea that he is not an atheist. From my reading of some but not all of his books, I am sure how to interpret him, because he comes across as a materialist but that doesn't in itself equate with atheism necessarily.

As far as I understand, he was not proposing his ideas to imply atheism itself. — Jack Cummins

:up:

Darwin was quite a gentle person, very unlike a brash atheist today. I think the threat of Darwin is that he offered a detailed and evidence-supported explanation of how a 'watch' could be created without a 'watchmaker.' The complexity of organisms (ourselves especially) is such that it's intuitively/initially hard to fathom the emergence of speaking/conscious intelligence from its other.

Philosophical contributions of new atheism? Virtually zero. There's no content here, just mediocre arguments rehashed thousands of times over and over again.

I think it's perfectly fine to have people learn about atheism and the irrationality which religion often does to people, but it's not much better to create militant atheists who are fanatical and just like to make fun of other people.

I think Harris is extremely bad. Hitchens was very good, but became garbage after 9/11, Dawkins is a good science educator. Dennett is very polite, at least.

But as for substance, not here. There's far more to be learned in Hume on this topic, than these four combined.

And, for something more modern than Hume, yet still quite rational and humane, Bertrand Russell also far exceeds them all.

At the time, I was not even aware of the movement of new atheism. — Jack Cummins

I don't think it is a movement, it was a time and place publishing phenomenon mainly. It probably also includes Michel Onfray who wrote, 'The Atheist Manifesto'. Taking down religious literalism is not really evangelism, but perhaps this is in the eye of the beholder.

We can easily criticize their work as insufficiently philosophical but the the point is they were writing polemical works, for the average reader, they were not engaged in serious philosophy. If they had been writing philosophy, they would have struggled to sell books.

I guess that it may be that there is some difference between the subject, or genre, of popular non fiction writing, from philosophy writing or academic philosophy. This is probably more clear in relation to religion, which is probably the angle I was coming from when I wrote a thread previous to this one religion on whether the existence of God was one of the sciences or humanities. It may be that in academic thinking and non fiction writing the conventional categories of non fiction writing are breaking down. Religion is related in some ways to the academic tradition of theology or religious movements. It is also related to the genre of spirituality, which may be popular outside of the academic establishments.

It does seem that writers such as Dawkins don't really deal with the academic issues of religion. Of course, a strong influence on these academic arguments was the Christian church historically. The ideas of Augustine and Aquinas took on those of Plato and Aristotle, reworking them in the context of the Christian Church, which became a source for the development of philosophy. But, in regard to the ideas of Dawkins and others they don't fit into the framework of philosophy itself.

One aspect which Karen Armstrong raises is that there are different conceptions of God, especially the God of the mystics and that of the philosophers. However, it would be hard to place the writings of Karen Armstrong because they could be they could be regarded as popular, although she came from the unusual position of having lived as a nun and writing on this basis. So, she is describing personal experience and it is hard to know where this fits in. It could be argued that it is not philosophy in the sense of being formulated on the basis of arguments primarily. But, here it could be queried to what extent is the philosophy of religion related to abstract arguments, or whether it incorporates personal reflection on the basis of experience.

New Atheism came out of the post 9/11 era where the West to some extent rediscovered how dangerous theism can be. A market popped up - perhaps further energized by Christopher Hitchens's charismatic appearances. Mostly the focus was practical - the impacts of religion on the world - Aristotle, Aquinas, even Armstrong were mostly superfluous to the project.

That's interesting as I hadn't thought of the connection between the new atheism and 9/11. Of course, religion, politics and philosophy have a complex relationship. So, it will be interesting to see what emerges in response to all that is happening in the world currently, ranging from the pandemic and conflict, especially the Ukrainian situation...

especially the Ukrainian situation... — Jack Cummins

Yes, especially the role of Christian nationalism in Putin's actions. There are media stories now about how some Trump supporters are pro-Putin because he is understood to be working to spread Christian values across Europe... If this continues to go sky high, expect best selling books about the cultural values of the Eastern Orthodox church.

I will look out for the writing of Dr Stenger because it is worth looking at the idea of the new atheism from a wider angle. — Jack Cummins

You will find Stenger very clear in his arguments, because he takes a firm stand on Naturalism. You could even call his inflexible position Dogmatism. If you agree with his Naturalist premises though, you must agree with the logic of his Atheist conclusions. But philosophers tend to be open to other interpretations of Nature, that may not be of interest to empirical scientists. Especially, regarding Ontology and questions about "something from nothing".

Naturalism takes the existence of this physical world for granted. So the scientific evidence for a specific "creation event" came as a shock. But, they have adapted their belief in eternal Nature, to imagine explanations for a time-before-time, when our knowable world didn't exist as we know it. Yet, Multiverse & Many Worlds theories are simply extensions of their original Naturalist premises across the Big Bang abyss into the unknowable what-if.

Ironically, the Wiki quote below says he also used a statistical probability argument, for which the data must be imagined, to prove that our world is nothing special. Hence, not created by an omniscient deity. However, other scientists have used similar anthropic logic to prove just the opposite. So, apparently, the Las Vegas odds are in favor of the "house", who determines the odds (premises) you will play with. So, are you going to play by house-always-wins rules, or your own personal reasoning? If you are a Theist, Stenger will challenge your assumptions. But, his own presumptions are also subject to philosophical questioning. :smile:


Stenger was an advocate of philosophical naturalism, skepticism, and atheism. He was a prominent critic of intelligent design and the aggressive use of the anthropic principle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_J._Stenger

The anthropic principle is the principle that there is a restrictive lower bound on how statistically probable our observations of the universe are, given that we could only exist in the particular type of universe capable of developing and sustaining sentient life. ___Wikipedia

Ever since Copernicus, scientists have continually adjusted their view of human nature, moving it further and further from its ancient position at the center of Creation. But in recent years, a startling new concept has evolved that places it more firmly than ever in a special position. Known as the Anthropic Cosmological Principle, this collection of ideas holds that the existence of intelligent observers determines the fundamental structure of the Universe.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/218097.The_Anthropic_Cosmological_Principle

Thanks for your summary of Stenger's writings and the reference to Barrow's book because both seem worth exploring.

Ι really don't get it. How superstitious beliefs or the rejection of them(atheism) can ever be part of a philosophical discussion outside of Sociology.

To be more precise,do we have any epistemology for the existence of God? If not, then how one can ever have a meaningful conversation for its existence or the rejection of the claim?
The concept of god is only relevant in anthropology and social sciences in general.

@Jack Cummins

Naturalism takes the existence of this physical world for granted. — Gnomon

:roll:
whiskey
tango
foxtrot ...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalism_(philosophy)

-"Naturalism takes the existence of this physical world for granted. So the scientific evidence for a specific "creation event" came as a shock. "
-Two issues. Naturalism is not one thing. Science is based on Methodological Naturalism..not Philosophical Naturalism.
Methodological Naturalism only acknowledges the limits of our methods of observation and verification.
MN and Science take nothing for granted. They just admit we can only produce descriptive frameworks within the naturalistic realm but we don't have methods that could verify or investigate other realms.
They don't dismiss other realms as wrong but in order to incorporate them in their frameworks a method capable to produce objective facts need to be available.

Now, In science the big bang event is not labeled as "creation"(since it would imply extra agencies) but as "formation" so there was no real shock caused by that observation.

-"But, they have adapted their belief in eternal Nature, to imagine explanations for a time-before-time, when our knowable world didn't exist as we know it. Yet, Multiverse & Many Worlds theories are simply extensions of their original Naturalist premises across the Big Bang abyss into the unknowable what-if."
-Not true either. Processes(cosmic time) before the process of the Universe(our time) is not an imagined explanation. Its a concept that keeps popping up in our math (string theory) in quantum mechanics(interpretations) and in our awarded (Nobel) observations (Quantum fluctuations).
A cosmic substrate interacts with matter that is formed in our universe and that is an indication that our universe is not all there is. In addition to that we already know that the universe didn't always exist as a process.
"Eternal Nature" as you named it is a reasonable conclusion since "nothing" as a state of being is a nonsensical concept. Something that has the potential to change state always exists.
Our cosmological metaphysics point to a change of energetic state of the cosmos thus allowing the process of universe to unroll.
Nothing is final of course but all those ideas are parsimonious, they are epistemically connected to current physics and we don't need additional supernatural entities or invisible realms to explain anything. We just use what we know it exists and hypothesize on possible mechanisms.

-"

Ironically, the Wiki quote below says he also used a statistical probability argument, for which the data must be imagined, to prove that our world is nothing special. Hence, not created by an omniscient deity. However, other scientists have used similar anthropic logic to prove just the opposite. — Gnomon

"
-Anthropic principles and statistical probabilities are not even in the same ball park. The first is a conclusion based on available facts and the second presupposes teleology and purpose behind a creation.(fallacy).

-" So, apparently, the Las Vegas odds are in favor of the "house", who determines the odds (premises) you will play with. "
-Actually in a vast cosmos the odds of energetic fluctuations producing new states are equal to the Las Vegas odds. We don't even know if it is something inevitable not to have universes in the cosmic stage. i.e. one who doesn't know how magnets work would find improbable for two magnets to always end up having the same "colors" stick to each other.
So we don't know many things about this source of virtual particles we observe so we can not declare it impossible, improbable or equal to casino odds....what we do know is that it's Possible.

How important is 'The New Atheism' in connection with the historical belief in God within the Judaeo- Christian tradition and other traditions and philosophies? — Jack Cummins

It's late to the show but useful for Americans who didn't pay much attention to atheism until now.

It's new for them, hence the label. In Europe, atheism is old news. Got ist tot, remember?

:up: