The New Atheism at 20: How an Intellectual Movement Exploited Rationalism to Promote War
The New Atheism at 20: How an Intellectual Movement Exploited Rationalism to Promote War
Inspired by the attacks of September 11th, the New Atheism appeared on the scene shortly after the invasion of Iraq in 2003. It became immediately clear that the Four Horsemen were exploiting Enlightenment principles to justify the bombing of women and children in third world nations. Muslim terror...
As Western bombs rain on Gaza’s starving civilians, the New Atheism turns 20. The philosophical genre, which argues for secularism over organized religion, was kick-started by Sam Harris. His 2004 book, The End of Faith, promoted neuroscience-based spirituality in place of irrational groupthink. The philosopher, Daniel Dennett, soon followed with Breaking the Spell (2006), as did the evolutionary biologist, Richard Dawkins, with his 2 million unit-selling, The God Delusion. The late essayist, Christopher Hitchens, completed the quartet, known as the Four Horsemen, publishing God Is Not Great (2007).
Inspired by the attacks of September 11th, the genre appeared on the scene shortly after the invasion of Iraq in 2003. It became immediately clear that the Four Horsemen were exploiting Enlightenment principles to justify the bombing of women and children in third world nations. Muslim terrorists are not aggrieved by Western foreign policy, the authors claim, but rather by their fanatical devotion to their faith. The decimation of Iraq was not motivated by elite US strategies to control oil markets, but because “god” told Bush to invade. The state does not exploit religious differences for cynical realpolitik; but rather, hateful mobs randomly attack each other because of their different belief systems.
As I document in my latest book, The New Atheism Hoax, the authors concocted a major fraud. In case after case, their own sources say the opposite of what they claim. This doesn’t happen a few times. It happens almost every time.
With the exception of Hitchens whom, in his final years, became a right-winger, the attention of liberals was diverted by the seductive, anti-religiosity of the New Atheists. Instead of analyzing the world through the only lens that matters—realpolitik—progressives were invited to divide the world into the simple dialectics promoted by George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden’s speechwriters: that of a “clash of civilizations,” to use a phrase popularized by Samuel P. Huntington.
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Atheism died with Hitchens. In his absence, Dawkins and his ilk peddled sentimental and philosophically naive "anti-theism".
I'm not surprised to see the author of this book claim that the New Atheist ideologies were used as justification for violent American nationalism.
I was already 20 years an atheist back then, and I went to protests against the Iraq invasion. I figured out the Four Horsemen’s angle early on, which, as an atheist and anti-imperialist, was deeply disappointing.
'New atheists' don't own atheism.
Outside of Reddit groupthink, who are the prominent atheist thinkers? Who is debating the issues and heralding the cause?
I guess there's Aaron Ra and "Professor" Dave and a few other YouTubers. My point is that Hitchens was an accomplished and powerful intellectual. I don't know of any atheists who even come close.
I couldn't tell you, I don't pay much attention to any such people. Including Hitchens. I came to my atheism the traditional way, I went through Catholic school.