New Atheism
Encyclopedia
New Atheism is the name given to a movement among some early-21st-century atheist writers who have advocated the view that "religion should not simply be tolerated but should be countered, criticized, and exposed by rational argument wherever its influence arises." New atheists argue that recent scientific advancements demand a less accommodating attitude toward religion, superstition
, and religious fanaticism
than had traditionally been extended by many secularists
.
The movement is commonly associated with Richard Dawkins
, Daniel C. Dennett, Sam Harris
, Christopher Hitchens
, and Victor J. Stenger
. Several best-selling books by these authors, published between 2004 and 2007, form the basis for much of the discussion of New Atheism.
magazine.
The movement's origins are often traced to the 2004 publication of The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason
by Sam Harris, a bestseller in the USA. This marked the first of a series of bestsellers that took a harder line against religion. Harris was motivated by the events of September 11, 2001, which he laid directly at the feet of Islam, while also directly criticizing Christianity and Judaism. Two years later Harris followed up with Letter to a Christian Nation
, which was also a severe criticism of Christianity. Also in 2006, following his television documentary The Root of All Evil?
, Richard Dawkins published The God Delusion
, which was on the New York Times bestseller list for 51 weeks. Other milestone publications from New Atheism leaders include Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon by Daniel C. Dennett (2006); God: The Failed Hypothesis – How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist
by Victor J. Stenger (2007); God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything
by Christopher Hitchens (2007); Atheist Manifesto: The Case Against Christianity, Judaism, and Islam by Michel Onfray
(2007); Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists by Dan Barker
(2008); Why I became an Atheist by John W. Loftus (2008); The reason driven life by Robert M. Price (2006).
.
" concept, Dawkins argues to the contrary, claiming the "God Hypothesis" is a valid scientific hypothesis
, having effects in the physical universe, and like any other hypothesis can be tested and falsified
. Other New Atheists such as Victor Stenger propose that the personal Abrahamic God is a scientific hypothesis that can be tested by standard methods of science. Both Dawkins and Stenger conclude that the hypothesis fails any such tests, and argue that naturalism
is sufficient to explain everything we observe in the universe, from the most distant galaxies to the origin of life
, species and even the inner workings of the brain and consciousness
. Nowhere, they argue, is it necessary to introduce God or the supernatural
to understand reality. Many New Atheists argue that "absence of evidence is evidence of absence" when evidence can be expected, using the Argument from divine hiddenness. They conclude rather that the universe and life do not look at all designed
by a God or any supernatural being, but look just as they would if they were not designed at all.
) are scientific claims in nature. They argue, for instance, that the issue of Jesus' supposed parentage is not a question of "values" or "morals", but a question of scientific inquiry. The New Atheists believe science is now capable of investigating at least some, if not all, supernatural claims. Institutions such as the Mayo Clinic
and Duke University
are attempting to find empirical
support for the healing power of intercessory prayer
. So far, these experiments have found no evidence that intercessory prayer
works.
, omnibenevolent
and omnipotent
attributes, which he termed a 3O God, cannot logic
ally exist. A similar series of logical disproofs of the existence of a God with various attributes can be found in Michael Martin and Ricki Monnier's The Impossibility of God, or Theodore M. Drange's article, "Incompatible-Properties Arguments".
view advocated by Stephen Jay Gould
regarding the existence of a "domain where one form of teaching holds the appropriate tools for meaningful discourse and resolution." In Gould's proposal, science and religion should be confined to distinct non-overlapping domains: science would be limited to the empirical realm, including theories developed to describe observations, while religion would deal with questions of ultimate meaning and moral value
. The New Atheism leaders contend that NOMA does not describe empirical facts about the intersection of science and religion. In an article published in Free Inquiry magazine, and later in his 2006 book The God Delusion
, Richard Dawkins writes that the Abrahamic religions constantly deal in scientific matters. Massimo Pigliucci, in his book Nonsense on Stilts, wrote that Gould attempted to redefine religion as moral philosophy
. Matt Ridley
notes that religion does more than talk about ultimate meanings and morals, and science is not proscribed from doing the same. After all, morals involve human behavior
, an observable phenomenon, and science is the study of observable phenomena. Ridley notes that there is substantial scientific research on evolutionary origins of ethics and morality.
contends that what has been called "New Atheism" is neither a movement nor new, and that what was new was the publication of atheist material by big-name publishers, read by millions, and appearing on best-seller lists.
Superstition
Superstition is a belief in supernatural causality: that one event leads to the cause of another without any process in the physical world linking the two events....
, and religious fanaticism
Fanaticism
Fanaticism is a belief or behavior involving uncritical zeal, particularly for an extreme religious or political cause or in some cases sports, or with an obsessive enthusiasm for a pastime or hobby...
than had traditionally been extended by many secularists
Secularism
Secularism is the principle of separation between government institutions and the persons mandated to represent the State from religious institutions and religious dignitaries...
.
The movement is commonly associated with Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
Clinton Richard Dawkins, FRS, FRSL , known as Richard Dawkins, is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author...
, Daniel C. Dennett, Sam Harris
Sam Harris (author)
Sam Harris is an American author, and neuroscientist, as well as the co-founder and current CEO of Project Reason. He received a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy from Stanford University, before receiving a Ph.D. in neuroscience from UCLA...
, Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Eric Hitchens is an Anglo-American author and journalist whose books, essays, and journalistic career span more than four decades. He has been a columnist and literary critic at The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, Slate, World Affairs, The Nation, Free Inquiry, and became a media fellow at the...
, and Victor J. Stenger
Victor J. Stenger
Victor John Stenger is an American particle physicist, outspoken atheist, and author, now active in philosophy and popular religious skepticism....
. Several best-selling books by these authors, published between 2004 and 2007, form the basis for much of the discussion of New Atheism.
History
The "New Atheism" and "New Atheists" nomenclature appeared in the November 2006 issue of WiredWired (magazine)
Wired is a full-color monthly American magazine and on-line periodical, published since January 1993, that reports on how new and developing technology affects culture, the economy, and politics...
magazine.
The movement's origins are often traced to the 2004 publication of The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason
The End of Faith
The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason is a book written by Sam Harris, concerning organized religion, the clash between religious faith and rational thought, and the problems of tolerance towards religious fundamentalism....
by Sam Harris, a bestseller in the USA. This marked the first of a series of bestsellers that took a harder line against religion. Harris was motivated by the events of September 11, 2001, which he laid directly at the feet of Islam, while also directly criticizing Christianity and Judaism. Two years later Harris followed up with Letter to a Christian Nation
Letter to a Christian Nation
Letter to a Christian Nation is a non-fiction book by Sam Harris, written in response to feedback he received following the publication of his first book The End of Faith. The book is written in the form of an open letter to a Christian in the United States...
, which was also a severe criticism of Christianity. Also in 2006, following his television documentary The Root of All Evil?
The Root of All Evil?
The Root of All Evil?, later retitled The God Delusion, is a television documentary written and presented by Richard Dawkins in which he argues that humanity would be better off without religion or belief in God....
, Richard Dawkins published The God Delusion
The God Delusion
The God Delusion is a 2006 bestselling non-fiction book by British biologist Richard Dawkins, professorial fellow of New College, Oxford, and inaugural holder of the Charles Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford.In The God Delusion, Dawkins contends that...
, which was on the New York Times bestseller list for 51 weeks. Other milestone publications from New Atheism leaders include Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon by Daniel C. Dennett (2006); God: The Failed Hypothesis – How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist
God: The Failed Hypothesis
God: The Failed Hypothesis is a 2007 New York Times bestseller by scientist Victor J. Stenger who argues that there is no evidence for the existence of a deity and that God's existence, while not impossible, is improbable....
by Victor J. Stenger (2007); God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything
God Is Not Great
God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything is a book by author and journalist Christopher Hitchens criticising religion. It was published in the United Kingdom as God Is Not Great: The Case Against Religion....
by Christopher Hitchens (2007); Atheist Manifesto: The Case Against Christianity, Judaism, and Islam by Michel Onfray
Michel Onfray
Michel Onfray is a contemporary French philosopher who adheres to hedonism, atheism and anarchism...
(2007); Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists by Dan Barker
Dan Barker
Dan Barker is a prominent American atheist activist who served as a Christian preacher and musician for 19 years but left Christianity in 1984.-Biography:...
(2008); Why I became an Atheist by John W. Loftus (2008); The reason driven life by Robert M. Price (2006).
"Four Horsemen"
Referring to a 2007 debate, Dawkins' website refers to four members of the movement - himself, Harris, Dennett, and Hitchens - as "The Four Horsemen", alluding to the Four Horsemen of the ApocalypseFour Horsemen of the Apocalypse
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are described in the last book of the New Testament of the Bible, called the Book of Revelation of Jesus Christ to Saint John the Evangelist at 6:1-8. The chapter tells of a "'book'/'scroll' in God's right hand that is sealed with seven seals"...
.
Perspective
The New Atheists write mainly from a scientific perspective. Unlike previous writers, many of whom thought that science was indifferent, or even incapable of dealing with the "GodGod
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
" concept, Dawkins argues to the contrary, claiming the "God Hypothesis" is a valid scientific hypothesis
Hypothesis
A hypothesis is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon. The term derives from the Greek, ὑποτιθέναι – hypotithenai meaning "to put under" or "to suppose". For a hypothesis to be put forward as a scientific hypothesis, the scientific method requires that one can test it...
, having effects in the physical universe, and like any other hypothesis can be tested and falsified
Falsifiability
Falsifiability or refutability of an assertion, hypothesis or theory is the logical possibility that it can be contradicted by an observation or the outcome of a physical experiment...
. Other New Atheists such as Victor Stenger propose that the personal Abrahamic God is a scientific hypothesis that can be tested by standard methods of science. Both Dawkins and Stenger conclude that the hypothesis fails any such tests, and argue that naturalism
Naturalism (philosophy)
Naturalism commonly refers to the philosophical viewpoint that the natural universe and its natural laws and forces operate in the universe, and that nothing exists beyond the natural universe or, if it does, it does not affect the natural universe that we know...
is sufficient to explain everything we observe in the universe, from the most distant galaxies to the origin of life
Abiogenesis
Abiogenesis or biopoesis is the study of how biological life arises from inorganic matter through natural processes, and the method by which life on Earth arose...
, species and even the inner workings of the brain and consciousness
Consciousness
Consciousness is a term that refers to the relationship between the mind and the world with which it interacts. It has been defined as: subjectivity, awareness, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind...
. Nowhere, they argue, is it necessary to introduce God or the supernatural
Supernatural
The supernatural or is that which is not subject to the laws of nature, or more figuratively, that which is said to exist above and beyond nature...
to understand reality. Many New Atheists argue that "absence of evidence is evidence of absence" when evidence can be expected, using the Argument from divine hiddenness. They conclude rather that the universe and life do not look at all designed
Teleological argument
A teleological or design argument is an a posteriori argument for the existence of God based on apparent design and purpose in the universe. The argument is based on an interpretation of teleology wherein purpose and intelligent design appear to exist in nature beyond the scope of any such human...
by a God or any supernatural being, but look just as they would if they were not designed at all.
Scientific testing of religion
The New Atheists assert that many religious or supernatural claims (such as the virgin birth of Jesus and the afterlifeAfterlife
The afterlife is the belief that a part of, or essence of, or soul of an individual, which carries with it and confers personal identity, survives the death of the body of this world and this lifetime, by natural or supernatural means, in contrast to the belief in eternal...
) are scientific claims in nature. They argue, for instance, that the issue of Jesus' supposed parentage is not a question of "values" or "morals", but a question of scientific inquiry. The New Atheists believe science is now capable of investigating at least some, if not all, supernatural claims. Institutions such as the Mayo Clinic
Mayo Clinic
Mayo Clinic is a not-for-profit medical practice and medical research group specializing in treating difficult patients . Patients are referred to Mayo Clinic from across the U.S. and the world, and it is known for innovative and effective treatments. Mayo Clinic is known for being at the top of...
and Duke University
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B...
are attempting to find empirical
Empiricism
Empiricism is a theory of knowledge that asserts that knowledge comes only or primarily via sensory experience. One of several views of epistemology, the study of human knowledge, along with rationalism, idealism and historicism, empiricism emphasizes the role of experience and evidence,...
support for the healing power of intercessory prayer
Studies on intercessory prayer
Although religious beliefs are often untestable by the scientific method, some more specific claims can be tested in this manner. One such claim is that praying for somebody who is sick can have positive effects on their health.-Introduction:...
. So far, these experiments have found no evidence that intercessory prayer
Prayer
Prayer is a form of religious practice that seeks to activate a volitional rapport to a deity through deliberate practice. Prayer may be either individual or communal and take place in public or in private. It may involve the use of words or song. When language is used, prayer may take the form of...
works.
Logical arguments
Victor Stenger also argues in his book, God: The Failed Hypothesis, that a God having omniscientOmniscience
Omniscience omniscient point-of-view in writing) is the capacity to know everything infinitely, or at least everything that can be known about a character including thoughts, feelings, life and the universe, etc. In Latin, omnis means "all" and sciens means "knowing"...
, omnibenevolent
Omnibenevolence
Omnibenevolence is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as "unlimited or infinite benevolence". It is often held to be impossible, or at least improbable, for a deity to exhibit such property along side omniscience and omnipotence as a result of the problem of evil...
and omnipotent
Omnipotence
Omnipotence is unlimited power. Monotheistic religions generally attribute omnipotence to only the deity of whichever faith is being addressed...
attributes, which he termed a 3O God, cannot logic
Logic
In philosophy, Logic is the formal systematic study of the principles of valid inference and correct reasoning. Logic is used in most intellectual activities, but is studied primarily in the disciplines of philosophy, mathematics, semantics, and computer science...
ally exist. A similar series of logical disproofs of the existence of a God with various attributes can be found in Michael Martin and Ricki Monnier's The Impossibility of God, or Theodore M. Drange's article, "Incompatible-Properties Arguments".
Views on NOMA
The New Atheists are particularly critical of the two non-overlapping magisteria (NOMA)Non-overlapping magisteria
Non-overlapping magisteria is the view advocated by Stephen Jay Gould that "science and religion do not glower at each other... [but] interdigitate in patterns of complex fingering, and at every fractal scale of self-similarity." He suggests, with examples, that "NOMA enjoys strong and fully...
view advocated by Stephen Jay Gould
Stephen Jay Gould
Stephen Jay Gould was an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science. He was also one of the most influential and widely read writers of popular science of his generation....
regarding the existence of a "domain where one form of teaching holds the appropriate tools for meaningful discourse and resolution." In Gould's proposal, science and religion should be confined to distinct non-overlapping domains: science would be limited to the empirical realm, including theories developed to describe observations, while religion would deal with questions of ultimate meaning and moral value
Morality
Morality is the differentiation among intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are good and bad . A moral code is a system of morality and a moral is any one practice or teaching within a moral code...
. The New Atheism leaders contend that NOMA does not describe empirical facts about the intersection of science and religion. In an article published in Free Inquiry magazine, and later in his 2006 book The God Delusion
The God Delusion
The God Delusion is a 2006 bestselling non-fiction book by British biologist Richard Dawkins, professorial fellow of New College, Oxford, and inaugural holder of the Charles Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford.In The God Delusion, Dawkins contends that...
, Richard Dawkins writes that the Abrahamic religions constantly deal in scientific matters. Massimo Pigliucci, in his book Nonsense on Stilts, wrote that Gould attempted to redefine religion as moral philosophy
Ethics
Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...
. Matt Ridley
Matt Ridley
Matthew White Ridley, FRSL, FMedSci is an English journalist, writer, biologist, and businessman.-Career:...
notes that religion does more than talk about ultimate meanings and morals, and science is not proscribed from doing the same. After all, morals involve human behavior
Human behavior
Human behavior refers to the range of behaviors exhibited by humans and which are influenced by culture, attitudes, emotions, values, ethics, authority, rapport, hypnosis, persuasion, coercion and/or genetics....
, an observable phenomenon, and science is the study of observable phenomena. Ridley notes that there is substantial scientific research on evolutionary origins of ethics and morality.
Criticisms
In a 2010 column entitled Why I Don't Believe in the New Atheism, Tom FlynnThomas W. Flynn
Thomas W. "Tom" Flynn is an author, journalist, novelist, entertainer, folklorist, Executive Director of the Council for Secular Humanism, and editor of its journal, the Free Inquiry magazine...
contends that what has been called "New Atheism" is neither a movement nor new, and that what was new was the publication of atheist material by big-name publishers, read by millions, and appearing on best-seller lists.