It seems that Douglas
Groothius has commented on 'New Atheism' on his blog,
The Constructive Curmudgeon [1]. 'New Atheism' is best described by the website with the same namesake [2]:
Intolerance of ignorance, myth and superstition; disregard for the tolerance of religion. Indoctrination of logic, reason and the advancement of a naturalistic worldview.
The more infamous article from
Wired gives a more expanded picture of this definition [3]. To help keep things concise, people consider the forefront of New Atheists being Richard
Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Daniel
Dennett [4]. My main concern is not an analysis of this 'New Atheism', but if I were to give a sound-bite it would be the following. To call this movement 'New Atheism' is akin to calling a new religion the 'New Theism'. It is really bothersome to read literature concerning atheism and notice the continuous misuse of the word. In short, an atheist is anyone who does not believe in a god. A modern Buddhist is typically an atheist. A modern Taoist is typically an atheist. Not every atheist is an ascribed naturalist, though perhaps these are the most common in America and other secular nations. The gross over-generalization of these groups
simply need to end. The Buddhist holds no more sentiments with the naturalist's pursuit of answering reality than the Taoist feels for the
dharma of Buddhism. I would use a more descriptive term for the three. Rather than the 'New Atheism', why not the 'new rationalists' or the 'New Naturalists'? Or rather, and this is perhaps the most descriptive of all, the 'New Popular Critiques of Religion'?
But I digress. I skimmed
Groothius' log entry. I understand he was simply outlining his criticisms, so I will not hold the fallacy of ambiguity against him. Now, I will enter into a format which I rarely utilize, but for brevity and ease of reading I will engage each point presented. The first point follows:
These two books (The God Delusion and Letter to a Christian Nation) are offering nothing new by way of critiques of theism or specific religions. Christian philosophers and biblicla (sic) scholars have responded to all the charges before. What is different is their severe tone. Religion is not just wrong, but terribly dangerous. It should scarcely be tolerated. To demonstrate this, one must argue that a belief is both false and deleterious. That doubles the intellectual load--and produces a fair amount of bombast.
To be fair to
Dawkins, I think he presents an excellent case against organized religion. Currently, I am working on a review of the book myself, so I will not divulge too much information here. However, one case to consider is the comparison of the beliefs of the cargo cults to modern orthodox religions [5]. Though
Dawkins does not make an outright comparison, he is sly in allowing the reader to fully comprehend what he is attempting to portray. That is, the beliefs of the cargo cult is equally as ridiculous as the claims of modern orthodox religions in light of rational scrutiny. The short amount of time for the development of the story of the cargo savior is analogous to the
time frame for the story of, say, Mohammed's ascension. And just as their exists people devoted to this cargo savior not because they ever met the savior personally but because they learned of him vicariously from other supposed witnesses. This predicament is similar to when unnamed rabbis and pagan skeptics would contend with the early Christians [6]. Often, it took either a letter or visit from Paul to attempt to answer and rebuke skepticism, an individual who only knew of Christ vicariously from the apostles [7].
So, in conclusion, in terms of
Dawkins, I have yet seen a religious scholar, known or unknown, address certain points in his book, and some of the points addressed are simply
inadequate. For brevity, I can only recommend one reads my hopefully upcoming review of
Dawkins' book.
Item two reads:
Harris especially assumes that all believers are fideists or rely on the worst possible arguments. This is false. A debate with Bill Craig would demonstrate this in short order.
I have had a great misfortune of interacting with William Lane Craig as well [8]. I do find a bit of humor, though, that
Groothius cites Craig. Indeed, I believe if Craig were to ever face a
theoretical astrophysicist in a debate rather than biologists or philosophers he would falter and revert to a very faith-based argument as his natural theology is rushed from underneath him. Sadly, the
physics community knows of his
mutilation of recent models of cosmology. I state sadly because physicists do not like to deal with people who show a lack of understanding in a certain topic and a will to never understand it correctly.
I digress [9]. I wish to remark in the irony of Craig being mentioned in the same paragraph as Harris being charged with
overgeneralizng. In Craig's debate with Richard Taylor [10], he confuses egotism with naturalism. In fact, though I will not demonstrate this, his projection of egotism onto a natural basis of morality ignores the simple observance that we are social creatures by nature. However, this steers further from the course of this analysis, but the point had to be addressed. I find it ironic to recommend someone who over-generalizes to seek out someone else who over-generalizes as well.
Item three is uninteresting in this analysis, as he simply confirms the authors. Item four will be addressed after item five, which reads:
Harris and Dawkins are wrong in saying the religious moderates (this probably includes evangelicals to them) give safe haven to religious extremists, such as jihadists. Their reasoning seems to be that moderates give religion a pretty face and insulate it from rational testing. That means that radicals' religious beliefs cannot be intellectually critiqued either. Some moderate may make this claim to intellectual immunity, but I do not. As an evangelical (or historic Protestant) I believe that (a) religious beliefs should hold water philosophically and historically, (b) that Christian fulfills the condition of (a) and that (c) Islamic militants' religion is at once false, irrational, and dangerous. I fail to see how my "moderate" religion encourages, shields, or emboldens radicals in any way whatever.
Though I disagree with claim that Christianity passes the historical and philosophical
litmus tests, I will not enter into this discussion.
Dawkins, when he introduces the blame on moderate and liberal believers, charges them for allowing the perpetuating of extremism. I gathered from
Dawkins that he was essentially blaming moderate believers for simply allowing the existence of extremists, and that from modern thoughts sprang forth extremist ideals. In
other words, the moderate religious basis gave rise to the extremists at large. I will not expand any further on this, because hopefully this is self-explanatory.
Lastly, we come to the most interesting part; item four read:
Harris in particular conflates all religious claims: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim. They are all of a piece in being irrational, false, and dangerous. He thus commits the fallacy of hasty generalization. Believing that one will receive the ministrations of exactly seventy two virgins after dying in a jihad is an order of belief far different than believing that since Jesus Christ rose from the dead in space-time history, one who believes in him will enter paradise after death as a martyr (which precludes anything resembling jihad). Christianity is well supported apologetically; Islam, which denies the central tenets of Christian (sic), is not. For example, it denies that Jesus was crucified--a fact affirmed by virtually every biblical scholar in the world today. The fact that both are "religions" says nothing about their relative epistemic status.
Harris' equating the
Abrahamic faiths is a bit better conveyed in his book
The End of Faith than his
opuscule Letter. Now, since
Groothius throughs in the
epistemic card, I challenge him to read the works of some prominent apologists and historians of Islam. I also challenge the reader. As an atheist, i will admit that reading the apologetics of different beliefs only reaffirmed my atheism. Nearly every apologist makes the same claim concerning their religion. that is, the Islamic apologist can pull out textual credibility and integrity that would
embarrass the average Christian apologetic. The Islamic claim of Mohamed ascending into heaven is no more as ridiculous as Jesus' ascension or Elijah's ascension. Islamic history is better chronicled around the start of the religion as compared to the history of the Apostolic Church. I am amazed, simply, how
Groothius can make such a claim. Then again, it is not surprising when he reduces the religion to a
straw man.
In the comments, he defends his position impromptu. I will not reproduce them here, but I will only affirm that the first few premises made me chuckle.
Notes1.
Groothius, Douglas. "
Some Thoughts on New Atheism". The Constructive Curmudgeon. [Accessed 3/2/2007]
2.
the New Atheism3. Wolf, Gary. "
The Crusade Against Religion".
Wired. Oct. 23, 2006. [Accessed 3/2/2007]
4. Even after reading all his books and meeting him in person, I do not think it's justified listing him amongst Harris and
Dawkins.
5. see Chapter 5, p 202
6. Thus far in my knowledge. there is a shortage of named criticisms on Early Christianity. The Earliest, most famous skeptic is
Celsus, who went unanswered until ~80 years after his death. This situation is analogous, but I find the analogy to be a bit of a stretch. If anyone knows off-hand of any named criticisms of Christianity during the development of the Early Church, I desire to know.
7. Certainly, if one believes in his spiritual encounter, it is plausible one could formulate he knew of Jesus. However, a quick heuristic argument can be shown that Paul would not have known all of Jesus at Damascus. If we trust John that Jesus' ministry lasted three years, this is nearly 900-1000 days worth of preaching, if we allot some for travel and non-preaching activities. Amongst this time-frame, it is safe to assume that Jesus said a lot more than what is written in the New Testament, which amazingly only comprises of about three to four hours worth of
speeches and sermons. It is difficult for one to reasonably believe that Jesus exposed to Paul his entire ministry in the short encounter at Damascus.
8. I interacted with W.L. Craig briefly at the 2007 Greer-Heard Point-Counterpoint Forum after his ~40 minute defense of natural theology. The meeting was
unfortunate to me because I had to hear him essentially make a mockery of the natural sciences via his lack of knowledge and formal education in the respective fields, especially
theoretical physics. His time will come for my critique of both his presentation and papers.
9. As one can tell, I have a serious
qualm with W.L. Craig with his latest bolstering of
theoretical physics as a proof positive for a
finite universe.
10.
Craig-Taylor Debate. [Accessed 3/2/2007]
