Mises and "New Atheism"

[Taraz]

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How do you characterize the "old brand" of atheism?

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I guess when you would get burned at the stake for atheism, old atheism was not believing in god an not liking being told that you were a bad person for believing that. New atheism is telling other people they're bad people because they believe in god. The ironing is delicious.

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Thanks I'll be interested in what Taraz has to say though.

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But seriously, from the view as communicated by the OP, the "new" atheism involves openly attacking the true believers. Old atheism was about seeking accpetance of a minority view, which is a defensive position.

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This answer is pretty close to what I would say. What I would term "new atheists" believe that religion itself is a negative force in the world and that we have to get rid of it as a whole. They see no necessary positive aspects of religion. They go on the attack and try to do away with everything that religion provides even though they themselves have no answers.

"Old atheists" do not really seek to actively convert all theists. They generally don't believe in God personally but they don't proselytize and claim to have the answers or that the answers are irrelevant.

[BCPVP]

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So the "new atheism" is just much more intolerant of other points of view regarding god, etc. than the "old atheism" was. Not surprising actually.

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No, not surprising. Considering that the intolerance present in most religion has been a driving force to the spread of atheism, it is perhaps interesting to observe the same intolerance in atheism.

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Seems to me that religion has gotten less intolerant overall, not more so that doesn't seem like a very convincing reason.

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Really? My not particularly thought out interpretation is that through intolerance and bullying religion grabbed a foothold in society, which eventually led to significant rejection of the religion, which made bullying tactics less effective, which led to attempts to stem defections by putting on a friendly face ("we really aren't that bad!") rather than the old school bullying face ("you'd better find faith in Christ or you're going to hell!").

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Considering the timeline of religion, your correlation seems little off.

[mosdef]

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Considering the timeline of religion, your correlation seems little off.

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I'm trying to paraphrase my interpretation of what OP means by "new" atheism. Cut me some slack.

[Taraz]

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That doesn't explain why people believe something when it has no benefits for them. Furthermore, smoking as well has benefits, although they may seem absurd to non-smokers (e.g. taste, enjoyment of the drug effects on the brain, fitting in with a social group/alleviating peer pressure as a youngster, a way to fulfill one's oral or manual fixations, etc.).


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NOPE!

Smoking creates all the problems that it fixes. It is only relaxing because it's a relief from the withdrawal pangs. It only seems to taste good because the smoker has acquired that taste, and learned to associate it with pleasure.

The reason all of this seems absurd to nonsmokers is that they haven't become addicted. Smokers are all under the illusion that they are enjoying something nonsmokers are missing out on.

Same thing with religion. I'm not missing out on anything really by being an atheist. I don't need heaven, because I don't fear hell. The christian conception of the atheist is that he gravitates towards the devil by rejecting god. We sidestep the whole question entirely by not believing in imaginary entities.

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Although I disagree slightly that smoking doesn't provide anything except for what the addiction makes you crave, you're missing a bigger point. Even if smoking has created all the cravings, you still have those cravings. You still need something to assuage those feelings. Even if these cravings are short term problems until you've succeeded in quitting, you almost always need some bridge into "normal" life.

I think the suggestion that smoking lets you fit into a social group or alleviates peer pressure is a good point/analogy. You may think it's ridiculous to use cigarettes to deal with these needs, but it still does the job. Religion is very similar. If you grow up in a religious community you can't abandon it and replace it with nothing. If I grow up in a Mormon community for example, abandoning my faith will basically force me to abandon all social contact.

[Taraz]

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So the "new atheism" is just much more intolerant of other points of view regarding god, etc. than the "old atheism" was. Not surprising actually.

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No, not surprising. Considering that the intolerance present in most religion has been a driving force to the spread of atheism, it is perhaps interesting to observe the same intolerance in atheism.

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Seems to me that religion has gotten less intolerant overall, not more so that doesn't seem like a very convincing reason.

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Really? My not particularly thought out interpretation is that through intolerance and bullying religion grabbed a foothold in society, which eventually led to significant rejection of the religion, which made bullying tactics less effective, which led to attempts to stem defections by putting on a friendly face ("we really aren't that bad!") rather than the old school bullying face ("you'd better find faith in Christ or you're going to hell!").

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Considering the timeline of religion, your correlation seems little off.

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In my opinion, "new atheism" is a reaction against fundamentalist religion, which itself is a reaction against the increased tolerance of religion as a whole. Basically I believe that religion has actually become more tolerant. But as a result, certain factions have split off that do not approve of this tolerance or "softening" of their religious beliefs. Fundamentalism is a reactionary stance which seeks to go back to the "old" ways of practicing the religion (however fictional this old style is). Now that fundamentalism has gained such a foothold in the world (see: militant Islam and much of Evangelical Christianity), the new atheists perceive a grave threat to "rationalism". Because these new atheists misunderstand religion to quite a large extent, they perceive the threat to be from religion as a whole.

Instead of focusing their attack on the more ridiculous and radical versions of religion, new atheists target all forms of religion. Unfortunately this often results in creating an "us" vs. "them" paradigm, thereby forcing more moderate religious people into the fundamentalist camp. Fundamentalists claim that God and religion is under attack by science, progress, etc, and the new atheists are giving this position validity by following through with this attack.

[Archon_Wing]

There's always the fact that not all religion came from the Middle East (though I admit these are probaly what shows up the most), and some might not have the "follow us or die" theme.

Though I must wonder how much intolerance and violence comes from the religion itself. I mean people will fight over any reason. I suppose there are violent and hateful ideas in a number of religion, but not of their followers necessarily adhere to it. The reason how I can take the Old Testament in the Bible seriously even though I do believe in it, is that the context of the times was harsh with a lot of uncertainty going on and thus the tone of everything sounds really harsh, and God is harsh as well.

But I wonder:
Would the Crusades have happened if there wasn't Christianity or Islam?
Would Al Queda exist without Islam?
I'm quite sure there would still be conflict in the same places just because of people having clashing agendas, although the degree of the conflict might be diffrent.

Also Taraz:
How has religion gotten more tolerant? Have they gotten more tolerant towards other religions? What about atheists/ nonreligious people? Yes, there is a difference here.

[moorobot]

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Smoking creates all the problems that it fixes. It is only relaxing because it's a relief from the withdrawal pangs. It only seems to taste good because the smoker has acquired that taste, and learned to associate it with pleasure.

[/ QUOTE ] These assertions are simply false. Tobacco contains drugs that have effects on the mind no matter what, and you can posit that it is an "acquired taste" all you want but many people who aren't addicted to it enjoy the taste.

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Same thing with religion. I'm not missing out on anything really by being an atheist. I don't need heaven, because I don't fear hell.

[/ QUOTE ] I listed 5 positive functions religion plays for people, none which had anything to do with going to hell. What about all those benefits that it does and has brought to billions of people throughout history?

In my view, all that you are showing is that the process of cognitive dissonance reduction has set in very staunchly within your mind in these two cases, convincing you that there are not any benefits to these things that you don't do. Now, cognitive dissonance reduction is very good for improving an individual's utility (they no longer have to worry about whether or not the path they have taken was the correct one, because there is nothing good about the alternate path!), but terribly awful at helping them to understand the world as it is.

[moorobot]

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That doesn't explain why people believe something when it has no benefits for them. Furthermore, smoking as well has benefits, although they may seem absurd to non-smokers (e.g. taste, enjoyment of the drug effects on the brain, fitting in with a social group/alleviating peer pressure as a youngster, a way to fulfill one's oral or manual fixations, etc.).



Which leaves us at the tautology that people do things because they want to do them. True, but not very useful.

[/ QUOTE ] ??? I'm not arguing for a basic axiom of human conduct or anything here...I'm simply stating that what another poster said was false.

[Subfallen]

Something like 99% of Americans are too spiritually impoverished to even understand religion on any meaningful level, so they won't miss it when it's gone.

(Disclaimer: to me, "spirituality" suggests many vaguely related categories such as aesthetic sensibility, emotional objectivity, capacity for gratitude, etc.)

[Copernicus]

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So the "new atheism" is just much more intolerant of other points of view regarding god, etc. than the "old atheism" was. Not surprising actually.

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No, not surprising. Considering that the intolerance present in most religion has been a driving force to the spread of atheism, it is perhaps interesting to observe the same intolerance in atheism.

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"new atheism" doesnt exist. Dawkins goes out of his way NOT to attack theists, he only demonstrates that there is no scientific basis for belief in god. Hitchens Ive never read, but there have been plenty of obnoxious atheists in the past, one more doesnt make it a "new atheism".

Actively campaigning against prayer in school and other perceived violations of separation of church and state have been around since the 50s, and in fact are probably pursued by as many theists as atheists.