the new atheism

I've already mentioned the New Atheism, so as with some of these other early posts, best to have a "defining our terms" post.

I don't -- I wish it didn't need to be said, but it does -- have a problem with atheism. I have more common ground with some of the atheists I know than with most of the Christians I know. The writers and movement that have come to be called the New Atheism are another matter. The big names here are Richard Dawkins, previously best known for introducing the idea of the meme and favoring the gene-centered model of evolution over others; cognitive scientist and philosopher of science Daniel Dennett; and English-American journalist Christopher Hitchens.

Subjectively, one of the differences between the New Atheism and the atheism of Bertrand Russell, for instance, is that the New Atheism lacks a certain ... intellectual rigor.

They don't do their research, is what I'm saying. Dawkins especially has been taken to task for showing little to no familiarity with religious studies, with the history of any particular religion, or with non-Western religions. New Atheists like to dismiss this sort of criticism -- "if we don't believe in any of it, what's the point in studying any of it?" -- but it's exactly the sort of thing that becomes relevant when they start going off about "all the wars religion has started." And it's not just religious content that the New Atheists show little to no familiarity with, but the social sciences in general. Furthermore, there's a clear difference between simply being unaware of the details, and purposefully supporting the conservative Christian agenda by painting fundamentalism and literalism as the purest forms of religion, while coincidentally being the easiest targets.

Objectively, a clear difference between New Atheism and earlier generations is the aggression, anger, and evangelizing associated with the New Atheists. It's pretty fair to paint this as a reaction to the rise in aggression on the part of conservative Christian elements, but New Atheism has also piggybacked on Islamophobia, both before and after 9/11, xenophobia in general, and white Anglo-Americans' hostility towards the cultural markers of others.

The average person is not impacted by New Atheism very much, not in ways we see without speeding up the film -- I think it's a further symptom of, more than a contributing cause to, the tendency of American religion in the last century to grow increasingly conservative as liberals participate less and less rather than fighting back. But certainly it presents nuisances in my work -- religious literacy is so low already, and the New Atheists certainly contribute to worsening it, and have made it virtually impossible to find decent discussions of religion among strangers.

When considering the attitudes and actions of religious people, if we are at all moral and human, we see Goofus, who insists that his path is the only possible true one and that everyone else will burn in hell (or dismisses all other paths as those of ignorant foreigners, or rubs his hands together because he loves being one of the chosen few on the one true path and can't wait till we all die so everyone else will see how wrong they are), differently than we see Gallant, who is as devoted to his path as Goofus is but judges others by their actions and behavior rather than whether their beliefs accord with his own (and may show a healthy interest in other peoples' beliefs, understanding that truly held devotion is not threatened by exposure to different ideas). There is no reason for approaches to atheism to be considered any differently than approaches to religion.

Twenty years ago and maybe even only ten or fifteen, the dumbest positions on religion that I'd overhear were, 90% of the time or more, from moderately to extremely conservative Christians. The dumb moderates were usually the sheltered types who wound up in classes on religion or ancient history and were shocked that history books didn't reassure them that the religion they were raised with was the best, truest, or original. The dumb conservatives espoused a theology a few decades old that they were sure originated the minute Adam woke up.

These days I'm as likely to see "religion started all the wars! religion killed all the peoples!" comments as the first two types. Some of this, of course, is because any framework, any model of the world, will find adherents who can't quite grasp things in granular detail and revert to broad sweeping statements. Some of those raised in arch-conservative households find it easy to adopt the New Atheist rhetoric instead, because ultimately they agree on so much -- their understanding of religion is still fundamentally the same -- and it's easier to go from "Yes it is!" to "No it isn't!" than from either to "actually, the situation is more nuanced than that." But that's basically my point: that the New Atheism as a movement consists exactly of that dumbing-down and simplification, an atheism limited to primary colors and broad gestures, and one that has made itself appealing to internet trolls in just the same ways that Christian fundamentalism did.