Free Republic

The movement that became known as the New Atheism was born in the smoldering ruins of 9/11. It was the horror of that scene, perpetuated by terrorists driven by a radical Muslim ideology, that convinced several atheists that the root problem was religion. Like secular versions of the biblical prophets of old, they concluded that they needed to speak out and denounce the dangers of religion with a new boldness and ferocity. Sam Harris led the way in 2004 by when he published The End of Faith. That book exhibited a strident, anti-religious message which helped it become a bestseller....

One. If religion is pure negativity, prohibition and denial, then its opposite - science, reason and truth - must be proselytised in a similar vein as ultimate, self-sufficient values. What seems at first the progressive and critical attitude of a latter-day humanism becomes a language of moral absolutes, an absurd pretence to certainty, a kind of fearful scholasticism that wants to rebut, dismiss, elide and ignore the heterogeneous motivations of spirituality. “Against the New Atheism,” by Ned Curthoys (Overland, September 1, 2008) Two. New Atheism is a modern movement that not only publicly rejects the existence of all gods, but...

Sexism? Atheists and Feminists Clash There have always been clashes between Camp Feminist and Camp Atheist. Still, a recent post on Ms. magazine’s blog has highlighted just how bitter intellectual wars can become. From the feminist Monica Shores: If you’ve been following the rise of so-called “New Atheism” movement, you may have noticed that it sure looks a lot like old religion. The individuals most commonly associated with contemporary atheism—Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett and Victor Stenger—are all male, white and, well, kinda old (69, 61, 68 and 75). Sam Harris, another popular figure who bears mention, has the...

I think I am very close to concluding that this whole “New Atheism” movement is only a passing fad—not the cultural watershed its purveyors imagine it to be, but simply one of those occasional and inexplicable marketing vogues that inevitably go the way of pet rocks, disco, prime-time soaps, and The Bridges of Madison County. This is not because I necessarily think the current “marketplace of ideas” particularly good at sorting out wise arguments from foolish. But the latest trend in à la mode godlessness, it seems to me, has by now proved itself to be so intellectually and morally...