"New Atheism"

>Christianity didn't contribute to anything either.
Do you mean prominent Christians didn't, or just that theology itself didn't? Because plenty of Christians have contributed lots of valuable things to the world.
Do you know if the thing I heard about Dawkins being a shitty biologist is true? Kind of interesting if it is.

As far as I know Dawkins did extremely important work in evolutionary theory. There's debate among biologists as to what the unit of natural selection is (does selection operate on species, individual organisms or genes?) and Dawkins seems to be at the center of a group advocating gene selection as the main aspect of natural selection ("The Selfish Gene" is his popular-audience version of this work). He's also a good writer in his own element. He has an essay in an anthology edited by Doug Hofstadter called "The Mind's I" which I really enjoyed, where he likens genes to souls or spirits.

I also enjoy Christopher Hitchens's political writings.

As far as I can tell Sam Harris is by far the worst of the bunch; I've never read a sentence of his that was remotely interesting and I can't grasp why anyone pays him any attention.

It doesn't alter the fact that you believe that your vengeful spiteful murderous Jehovahgod sought to keep Knowledge from humanity and that when, unusually for an omnipresent being, he failed in this so he imposed a debt of sin on all mankind.

>It doesn't alter the fact that you believe that your vengeful spiteful murderous Jehovahgod sought to keep Knowledge from humanity and that when, unusually for an omnipresent being, he failed in this so he imposed a debt of sin on all mankind.
What? I'm an atheist. I just think the whole New Atheism thing seems pretty stupid.

>What's the fucking point of the "new atheist" movement?

to do drugs duh, the embracement of anarchism values of self ownership, determination & property rights as an extended faculty of owning ones labour, work, and resultant product

Sure, the likes of Dawkins and the late Mr Hitchens are (were) by far from perfect, but they are the voice of reason. They would have us all think for ourselves, instead of being blindly lead along like sheep.

New Atheism is imperialistic and has nothing to do with anarchism.

Then again, neither does half of what you just said.

self is god all thats left is ur autism buddy who let u near a connected keyboard anyway?

On the Genealogy of Morality is worth more than all our modern atheist literature put together.

Atheism is a meme

>They're what you might call triumphalists

Christians and religious people are more inclined to be triumphalists than those with a more secularist mindset.

Welcome to pop science and how to get famous quick. As a scientist you get famous by finding something huge in your field or you write a book about being an atheist. The four horsemen are shill for their own bank account and nothing more.

He was proven wrong BTW, Kin Selection is the mechanism.
He held science back for 20 years on his stupid ego.

I'd argue that the triumphalists in the New Atheist Camp he's talking about aren't Secularists.

Secularism doesn't mean atheism, it just means keeping separate religious, or religious mindsets, out of public life.

You can be a secularist and believe that Jesus is your Lord and Savior or that Muhammad is the last prophet or that God is bullshit or whatever.

Some Dawkinists are pretty much evangelical and just as subject to triumphalism as anyone else.
In the end, it all really boils down to the mindset, not the belief.

Any organized system can be poisoned by zealots and dogmatics.

Atheism SHOULD be immune to this, because it shouldn't have prophets or evangelists at all; it should be an individual belief.

>Get attention from intellectuals for being really smart
>hmm this is fun but I want more
>Those pseud-intellectuals who care about the non-existence of God look like a good target audience

why

You write as if religious beliefs didn't harm society at all.

The new atheists merit is to bring this old ideas to an audience, the same merit as Neil deGrasse Tyson, say.

You understimate the value of making ideas approachable to the layman.

The religions only harmed society because they had political power. That's the true evil here, and Religion is only one of its many forms.

These New Atheists operate on the same level as the theists did, and are therefore are just as capable of doing harm to society as they were.

How can you harm society with atheism? Religion is a powerful tool, because the followers believe all the non-sense even if the people with power doesn't. Are you gonna tell me the Qu'ran doesn't steer fundamentalists towards violence?

>How can you harm society with atheism?
Very easily
>These people with ideology I don't believe in are our greatest enemies. They believe their truth is greater than our truth, let's prove how wrong they are by deporting/killing them.

Unless im mistaken,the whole point to atheism is being a critical thinker and having no gods telling you what to do

>Atheism = ideology
/t

>How can you harm society with atheism

No more than any view on the Cosmos, really, but forcing its implementation on the populace would be no less destructive than Forced Christianization. Just ask ol Steely Joe.

>Unless im mistaken,the whole point to atheism is being a critical thinker and having no gods telling you what to do

And the whole point of Christianity is to love thy neighbor and do the dying, not the killing.

An ideal is only as noble and good as its practitioners, and those who practice it will not capitulate to their supposed doctrine when power is on the line.

That may be "the point" of Atheism but the "point" of Christianity is to be nice, but we all see how that turned out.
For example, if a society worships a singular God and is peaceful through their belief in a single God, an Atheist would introduce conflict and possibly violence by not believing in said God.

How exactly is Atheism not ideology?

That's false.
Christianity clearly defines homosexuality as an aberration, advocates sexism, prevents the use of birth control methods, etc.
Islam teaches to kill apostates, even harsher sexism, to never doubt your faith, etc.
Atheism is to reject the claim that a god exists, no more, no less. Anything else is a different thing.
You can argue from an apologetic stance for Islam and Christianity, but the words of the holy books are pretty clear.

Rejecting a claim is not an ideology. Atheism teaches nothing, nor claims nothing.

>but the words of the holy books are pretty clear.
The entire field of theology disagrees with you fám.

>Christianity clearly defines homosexuality as an aberration
Except for all the Christians who don't think it is.

The only biblical source for anti-gay propaganda is in Leviticus, and Christians as a whole defy most of the old Judaic Law.

>advocates sexism
Jesus preached to women specifically and equally, and women were much less valued as equals to his ancient contemporaries. Women were absolutely vital in the spread of Christianity.

>Anything else is a different thing
You can't No True Scotsman and then tell others they can't.

But most ideals of Atheism do not advocate what would be considered "immoral" behavior. Atheism denies God, but not the moralistic laws that he sets, for instance most Atheists would not argue that murder and rape are ok.

Where in the world did you hear that?

>Is there something about having a PhD in one field that makes you feel like you intuitively know about all fields? Sam Harris apparently thinks he knows all about such broad topics as philosophy (granted, he has a bachelor's in it, but even that doesn't really show), anthropology, history, political science, and so on.
You don't have to have a degree to read a fucking book.

How exactly did you "burn the strawman"? Does or does not Atheism condone rape or murder?

The thing about Christianity is the book isn't literal or specific. It isn't even meant to be. Mather, Mark Luke and John all tell the same events but are different, especially john. Not only that but the Old Testament is more there to give context to the New Testament, and it's really just multiple writings cobbled together by a council.

It's a completely different beast to something like the Quran and really shouldn't be used has hard and fast law.

I'm sitting here perfectly happy and typing away. If the number of atheists reaches a critical number will I leap up and start killing people or what? I'd like to know so I can be prepared.

There are no ideals of atheism.

Then why does Atheism exist at all?

Apostles were only men . Homosexuality as a sin isn't only in Leviticus. NT is ok with slavery. Paul said women can't speak in congregations. I'm not discussing what Christians think, but what's on the books.

Atheism is to reject a claim. Simple as that. Christianity is an ideology and therefore is safe from no true scotman. I never claimed some people aren't «real Christians», I'm arguing for the books contents.

What?

It does neither.

It's a stance of the existence of deities, it has nothing to do with morals.

See

The criteria to dilucidate between passages literal and metaphorical is anyone's guess. Even if you take everything metaphorically it's impossible to deny it's homophobia and sexism.

So by rejecting God what does Atheism accomplish?

Atheism really shouldn't exist as a force at all.

Atheism should be a decision one comes to on their own.

I'm saying you could simply ignore it, and still be a Christian.

You could ignore the whole bible, remember Christianity existed for hundreds of years before there was a bible.

The bible =! Christianity.

Because of context. It should be a default position with no name at all, just like feminism (yeah, we all hate the word, but you know what I mean).

No sexism, no feminism.
No religions followed by most of the world population, no atheism.

The same thing rejecting the idea of the aether existing.

>feminism
The word your looking for is egalitarianism, that's the default "everyone is equal" one, it's in the name.

Then how is Atheism any different from Christianity?

Exactly, they are different sides of the same coin.

To be able to make an informed decision you need to be exposed to the different positions.

What about Deism?

Then one needs to be able to be open to all positions and religions, and find peace in whichever suits them.

For some, there need be a deity

Yes, I agree completely. But that's how apologists justify believing in such an archaic piece of literature in modern society.

But such apologists don't really have a leg to stand on.

My point is most religions have holy books at their cores. Holy books preach non-sensical morals. Religion divides in apologists, fundamentalists and apathics. Fundamentalists influence society and apologists that still have some of the fucked up values do so too, but with more credibility to the public. Society gets shit smeared on it.

>How can you harm society with atheism?

By imposing it as a totalitarian dogma, like in the USSR.

What about it?

Christianity teaches dogmas. Atheism rejects dogmas.

Deism doesn't bother anyone. Completely harmless. As atheism, really.

Define Dogma

It's the imposition that does the harm. Not atheism.

Claims for which there's no good evidence. Often unfalsifiable.

It's perfectly acceptable, is it not?

Clearly, Atheism needs to separate itself from its name. It shouldn't be the notion that there is no god, but that the foundation of Religion is a problem, that outmoded holy books claiming to know what they do not and dictating archaic laws are the problem.

As for the actual belief in a deity or not, that is for each man to come to himself.

That's really my only beef with Atheism

I once was a devout believer in a literal interpretation of the bible; I even led bible studies and "youth groups", in which older teens talk to younger children about the bible and god. When I was in college, I was able to spend longer amounts of time away from my church.

One day, in an impulsive decision to "test my faith", I bought The God Delusion and began to read it. By the end of the introduction, I could no longer claim that I believed in god. Years of self punishment, self administered thought-policing, shame, and self-exclusion from much of popular culture at last began to fade away. Never in my life have I felt (and literally was) more liberated than when I first read Richard Dawkins' book.

I like to make gods. And sometimes see one of them pretending to be the only God creator of all the universe. That's usually the time I choose to blog the story.

>For some, there need be a deity

So hearing from people who have different opinions is too difficult for some of these people? Or is expressing your beliefs exclusive to those who believe in a deity?

Religious people have much more to fear from atheists than the other way around, since totalitarian regimes that actively opressed the religious are still in recent memory. If anyone actually bothered to see how socialist regimes operated, they'd realize that institutionalized atheism was its essential component. Educators were encouraged to promote atheism and if you proclaimed yourself as a Christian you'd get in all sorts of shit.

>It shouldn't be the notion that there is no god
That's all atheism is.

Stop over complicating it.

Deleuze coined the expression "transcendental immanentism". Aka "quiet atheism".

Then a Christian society is not responsible for the actions that spring from it's Government.

So Atheists do not believe in morality?

What, no, I just mean that all religions, and areligions need to step back and let people come to them, or not, and not evangelize.

Informed choice.

Atheism has a lot of people who are in it for the virtue signaling first and foremost and as such are eager to tie it into whatever other beliefs they hold dear - especially political ones.

Atheism should simply be the rejection of faith.

Where in the world does this happen? Tell that to Salman Rushdie.

>So Atheists do not believe in morality?
Neither did Pascal who was a staunch Catholic devote.

Most people are a certain religion because of their parents, not because of evanglization.

But most of the largest religions explicitly state that they wish to convert people (and this is one of the main reasons they are so large, and an aspect that won't discarded).

won't be discarded*

In those cases the government has had the support of the holy book. Just as no one can say ISIS operates outside Qu'ran or the KSA government doesn't have the support from the book. Atheism says nothing of such things.

I can't speak for all atheists, since atheism doesn't say anything about morality. But I reject the claim that there's objective morality. Borrowing from Protagoras, everything is defined by man. To define morality, you need to define good and evil first. Good: «beneficial to...» Evil, the opposite. Then you can have some progress.

Beneficial to whom?

It's worthy to note that while religious people are free to roam around and preach their beliefs, when atheists go somewhat public, they're seen like disrupters and provocateurs.

I bet you thought no one would notice your /a/ posting.

Exactly. You can arbitrarily say «to humanity», «to the well being of all lifeforms», etc. Then after you've decided you have science support to help you dilucidate moral conundrums, of course, this is not infalible, but just as you won't discard physics because we don't know what dark matter is, you shouldn't discard this just because it can't solve everything instantly.

That's because most people are at least somewhat, at least internally theistic.

I'm a very soft deist, but even I still cringe at atheists themselves, despite agreeing with nearly literally everything they believe in except the one thing.

Ah, but in mine, I have revealed yours

Yes, that's because theism is the status quo, but rationally it doesn't deserve special privileges.

>That's because most people are at least somewhat..theistic

This due to history, not decisions made by individuals irrespective of external influences.

is due*

"Beneficial" comes from the same root as the Latin "buonum" that means "good", therefore your explanation can't constitute an explanation.
Let's try this : I call good what causes me joy, and bad what causes me sadness.
In turn, joy is the affect of increasing strength, whereas sadness is the affect of decreasing strength, ie debilitation.
Example : From a murderer's point of view, murder is good because it makes me feel stronger than my victim. From the victim's pov it's obviously a bad experience.
Now if the law condemns the murderer, the judge and jury will feel good when the criminal is weakened, even to his execution.

I'm just telling you why, desuphampai

Nah, you're talking about aversion to fear, not informed decision.

Honestly, it's not really that they don't have a god, it's just that Atheism is one of those words that have been utterly ruined, like Feminism.

oh, decent b8 m80.

(i'll bite again though, most theists have incredibly hypocritical intentions)

you dont respect Atheism,but you respect religion

interesting