126-469: The term New Atheism describes the positions of some atheist academics, writers, scientists, and philosophers of the 20th and 21st centuries. New Atheism advocates the view that superstition , religion , and irrationalism should not be tolerated. Instead, they advocate the antitheist view that the various forms of theism should be criticised , countered , examined, and challenged by rational argument, especially when they exert strong influence on
252-624: A Channel 4 television documentary titled The Root of All Evil? , is the founder of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science . He wrote: "I don't object to the horseman label, by the way. I'm less keen on 'new atheist': it isn't clear to me how we differ from old atheists." Harris wrote several bestselling non-fiction books including The End of Faith , Letter to a Christian Nation , The Moral Landscape , and Waking Up , along with two shorter works (initially published as e-books) Free Will and Lying . Hitchens,
378-528: A spectrum of theistic probability —the likelihood that each assigns to the statement "God exists". Before the 18th century, the existence of God was so accepted in the Western world that even the possibility of true atheism was questioned. This is called theistic innatism —the notion that all people believe in God from birth; within this view was the connotation that atheists are in denial. Some atheists have challenged
504-476: A theistic naturalism . Nevertheless, Oppy argues that a strong naturalism favors atheism, though he finds the best direct arguments against theism to be the evidential problem of evil, and arguments concerning the contradictory nature of God were one to exist. Some atheists hold the view that the various conceptions of gods, such as the personal god of Christianity, are ascribed logically inconsistent qualities. Such atheists present deductive arguments against
630-457: A "domain where one form of teaching holds the appropriate tools for meaningful discourse and resolution". In Gould's proposal, science and religion should be confined to distinct non-overlapping domains: science would be limited to the empirical realm, including theories developed to describe observations, while religion would deal with questions of ultimate meaning and moral value . Dawkins contends that NOMA does not describe empirical facts about
756-587: A "grave disservice" and does a "disservice to scholarship" at a more general level. Paul Kurtz , editor in chief of Free Inquiry , founder of Prometheus Books , was critical of many of the new atheists. He said, "I consider them atheist fundamentalists... They're anti-religious, and they're mean-spirited, unfortunately. Now, there are very good atheists and very dedicated people who do not believe in God. But you have this aggressive and militant phase of atheism, and that does more damage than good." Jonathan Sacks , author of The Great Partnership: Science, Religion, and
882-503: A 1991 Montreal Gazette article describes union activist Michel Chartrand as a "Quebec nationalist and social-justice warrior". Katherine Martin, the head of U.S. dictionaries at Oxford University Press , said in 2015 that "[a]ll of the examples I've seen until quite recently are lionizing the person". As of 2015 , the Oxford English Dictionary had not done a full search for the earliest usage. Merriam-Webster dates
1008-610: A Christian Nation , which was a severe criticism of Christianity. Also in 2006, following his television documentary series The Root of All Evil? Richard Dawkins published The God Delusion , which was on the New York Times best-seller list for 51 weeks. In 2010, Tom Flynn (1955–2021), then editor of Free Inquiry , stated that the only thing new about "New Atheism" was the wider publication of atheist material by big-name publishers, books that appeared on bestseller lists and were read by millions. Mitchell Landsberg , covering
1134-517: A backlash among people who feel their speech is being policed". In Internet and video game culture , the phrase is broadly associated with a wider culture war that also included the 2015 Sad Puppies campaign that affected the Hugo Awards . A study from Feminist Media Studies noted that "the appropriation of SJW as a memetic straw man became commonplace during and following the upheaval of #Gamergate." In August 2015, social justice warrior
1260-405: A divine mandate is not true ethical behavior but merely blind obedience. Baggini argues that atheism is a superior basis for ethics, claiming that a moral basis external to religious imperatives is necessary to evaluate the morality of the imperatives themselves—to be able to discern, for example, that "thou shalt steal" is immoral even if one's religion instructs it—and that atheists, therefore, have
1386-502: A gathering held by the Council for Secular Humanism in 2010, said that religious skeptics in attendance were at odds between "new atheists" who preferred to "encourage open confrontation with the devout" and "accommodationists" who preferred "a subtler, more tactical approach." Kurtz was ousted from the Center for Inquiry in the late 2000's. This was in part due to a perception that Kurtz was "on
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#17328588494561512-418: A god either leads to moral relativism and leaves one with no moral or ethical foundation, or renders life meaningless and miserable. Blaise Pascal argued this view in his Pensées . There is also a position claiming that atheists are quick to believe in God in times of crisis, that atheists make deathbed conversions , or that " there are no atheists in foxholes ". There have, however, been examples to
1638-500: A label of practical godlessness was used at least as early as 1577. The term atheism was derived from the French athéisme , and appears in English about 1587. Atheism was first used to describe a self-avowed belief in late 18th-century Europe, specifically denoting disbelief in the monotheistic Abrahamic god . In the 20th century, globalization contributed to the expansion of
1764-416: A lost Attic drama that featured Sisyphus , which has been attributed to both Critias and Euripides , claims that a clever man invented "the fear of the gods" in order to frighten people into behaving morally. Does then anyone say there are gods in heaven? There are not, there are not, if a man is willing not to give foolish credence to the ancient story. Consider for yourselves, don't form an opinion on
1890-598: A means of explanation, and opposed arguments from religious authority . Other critics of religion and the Church during this time included Niccolò Machiavelli , Bonaventure des Périers , Michel de Montaigne , and François Rabelais . Historian Geoffrey Blainey wrote that the Reformation had paved the way for atheists by attacking the authority of the Catholic Church, which in turn "quietly inspired other thinkers to attack
2016-543: A new cause to fight for. In an April 2021 interview, Natalie Wynn, a left-wing YouTuber who runs the channel ContraPoints , commented: "The alt-right , the manosphere , incels , even the so-called SJW Internet and LeftTube all have a genetic ancestor in New Atheism." In a June 2021 retrospective article, Émile P. Torres of Salon argued that prominent figures in the New Atheist movement had aligned themselves with
2142-478: A number of openly atheistic followers, such as atheistic or humanistic Judaism and Christian atheists . Atheism is accepted as a valid philosophical position within some varieties of Hinduism , Jainism , and Buddhism . Ideas that would be recognized today as atheistic are documented from the Vedic period and the classical antiquity . Atheistic schools are found in early Indian thought and have existed from
2268-467: A persistent feature of political if not so much philosophical debate. Moral precepts such as "murder is wrong" are seen as divine laws , requiring a divine lawmaker and judge. However, many atheists argue that treating morality legalistically involves a false analogy , and that morality does not depend on a lawmaker in the same way that laws do. Philosophers Susan Neiman and Julian Baggini among others assert that behaving ethically only because of
2394-551: A precursor to the "social justice warrior". The negative connotation has primarily been aimed at those espousing views adhering to social progressivism , cultural inclusivity, or feminism . Scott Selisker writes in New Literary History that the SJW is often criticised as the "stereotype of the feminist as unreasonable, sanctimonious, biased, and self-aggrandizing". Use of the term has also been described as attempting to degrade
2520-424: A proposition; they instead place noncognitivism in its own category. Most atheists lean toward ontological monism : the belief that there is only one kind of fundamental substance. The philosophical materialism is a view that matter is the fundamental substance in nature. This omits the possibility of a non-material divine being. According to physicalism , only physical entities exist. Philosophies opposed to
2646-586: A punishable offense. During the Early Middle Ages , the Islamic world experienced a Golden Age . Along with advances in science and philosophy, Arab and Persian lands produced rationalists who were skeptical about revealed religion, such as Muhammad al Warraq (fl. 9th century), Ibn al-Rawandi (827–911), and Abu Bakr al-Razi ( c. 865 –925), as well as outspoken atheists such as al-Maʿarri (973–1058). Al-Ma'arri wrote and taught that religion itself
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#17328588494562772-507: A reasonable expectation of public punishment. Although Voltaire is widely considered to have strongly contributed to atheistic thinking during the Revolution, he also considered fear of God to have discouraged further disorder, having said "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him." The philosopher David Hume developed a skeptical epistemology grounded in empiricism , and Immanuel Kant 's philosophy has strongly questioned
2898-407: Is right-wing and serves to defend "the position of the white middle-class western male". Atheist professor Jacques Berlinerblau has criticised the new atheists' mocking of religion as being inimical to their goals and claims that they have not achieved anything politically. Roger Scruton has extensively criticized New Atheism on various occasions, generally on the grounds that they do not consider
3024-482: Is a justified and rational true belief, but offers no extended epistemological justification because current theories are in a state of controversy. Martin instead argues for "mid-level principles of justification that are in accord with our ordinary and scientific rational practice." Other arguments for atheism that can be classified as epistemological or ontological , assert the meaninglessness or unintelligibility of basic terms such as "God" and statements such as "God
3150-669: Is a type of incandescent stone", an affirmation with which he tried to deny the divinity of the celestial bodies. In the late fifth century BCE, the Greek lyric poet Diagoras of Melos was sentenced to death in Athens under the charge of being a "godless person" (ἄθεος) after he made fun of the Eleusinian Mysteries , but he fled the city to escape punishment. In post-classical antiquity, philosophers such as Cicero and Sextus Empiricus described Diagoras as an "atheist" who categorically denied
3276-405: Is all-powerful." Theological noncognitivism holds that the statement "God exists" does not express a proposition, but is nonsensical or cognitively meaningless. It has been argued both ways as to whether such individuals can be classified into some form of atheism or agnosticism. Philosophers A. J. Ayer and Theodore M. Drange reject both categories, stating that both camps accept "God exists" as
3402-427: Is an SJW carries implications that they are pursuing personal validation rather than any deep-seated conviction , and engaging in disingenuous arguments. The phrase originated in the late 20th century as a neutral or positive term for people engaged in social justice activism. In 2011, when the term first appeared on Twitter , it changed from a primarily positive term to an overwhelmingly negative one. During
3528-639: Is fragmentary, based largely on criticism of the ideas by other schools: "Though materialism in some form or other has always been present in India, and occasional references are found in the Vedas, the Buddhistic literature, the Epics, as well as in the later philosophical works we do not find any systematic work on materialism, nor any organized school of followers as the other philosophical schools possess. But almost every work of
3654-445: Is inconsistent with theism. For example, Oppy says arguing for naturalism is an argument for atheism since naturalism and theism "cannot both be true". Fiona Ellis describes the "expansive naturalism" of John McDowell , James Griffin , and David Wiggins while also asserting there are things in human experience which cannot be explained in such terms, such as the concept of value, leaving room for theism. Christopher C. Knight asserts
3780-579: Is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?" Similar arguments have been made in Buddhist philosophy . Vasubandhu (4th/5th century) outlined numerous Buddhist arguments against God . Philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach and psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud have argued that God and other religious beliefs are human inventions, created to fulfill various psychological and emotional wants or needs. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels , influenced by
3906-430: Is not compatible with a world where there is evil and suffering , and where divine love is hidden from many people. Epicurus is credited with first expounding the problem of evil. David Hume in his Dialogues concerning Natural Religion (1779) cited Epicurus in stating the argument as a series of questions: "Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he
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4032-403: Is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make in the presence of unjustified religious beliefs. In early ancient Greek , the adjective átheos ( ἄθεος , from the privative ἀ- + θεός "god") meant "godless". It was first used as a term of censure roughly meaning "ungodly" or "impious". In the 5th century BCE, the word began to indicate more deliberate and active godlessness in
4158-622: Is positively correlated with irreligion. He found that there are much lower concentrations of atheism and secularity in poorer, less developed nations (particularly in Africa and South America) than in the richer industrialized democracies. His findings relating specifically to atheism in the US were that compared to religious people in the US, "atheists and secular people" are less nationalistic , prejudiced , antisemitic , racist , dogmatic , ethnocentric , closed-minded, and authoritarian, and in US states with
4284-597: Is the conscious rejection of belief. It is usual to define atheism in terms of an explicit stance against theism. For the purposes of his paper on "philosophical atheism", Ernest Nagel contested including the mere absence of theistic belief as a type of atheism. Graham Oppy classifies as innocents those who never considered the question because they lack any understanding of what a god is, for example one-month-old babies. Philosophers such as Antony Flew and Michael Martin have contrasted positive (strong/hard) atheism with negative (weak/soft) atheism. Positive atheism
4410-602: Is the explicit affirmation that gods do not exist. Negative atheism includes all other forms of non-theism. According to this categorization, anyone who is not a theist is either a negative or a positive atheist. Michael Martin, for example, asserts that agnosticism entails negative atheism. Agnostic atheism encompasses both atheism and agnosticism. However, many agnostics see their view as distinct from atheism. According to atheists' arguments, unproven religious propositions deserve as much disbelief as all other unproven propositions. Atheist criticism of agnosticism says that
4536-482: Is the tendency, found among many New Atheists, to expand the definition of science to pretty much encompassing anything that deals with 'facts', loosely conceived ... it seems clear to me that most of the New Atheists (except for the professional philosophers among them) pontificate about philosophy very likely without having read a single professional paper in that field ... I would actually go so far as to charge many of
4662-418: Is unacquainted with theism is an atheist because he does not believe in a god. This category would also include the child with the conceptual capacity to grasp the issues involved, but who is still unaware of those issues. The fact that this child does not believe in god qualifies him as an atheist." Implicit atheism is "the absence of theistic belief without a conscious rejection of it" and explicit atheism
4788-677: The Center for Inquiry , is often regarded as a forerunner to the New Atheism movement. The 2004 publication of The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason by Sam Harris , a bestseller in the United States, was joined over the next couple years by a series of popular best-sellers by atheist authors. Harris was motivated by the events of 11 September 2001 , for which he blamed Islam, while also directly criticizing Christianity and Judaism . Two years later, Harris followed up with Letter to
4914-451: The Gamergate controversy , the term was adopted by what would become the alt-right , and the negative connotations gained increased usage which would eventually overshadow its origins. Dating back to 1824, the term social justice refers to justice on a societal level. From the early 1990s to the early 2000s, social-justice warrior was used as a neutral or complimentary phrase, as when
5040-582: The Roman Empire , Christians were executed for their rejection of the Roman gods in general and the Imperial cult of ancient Rome in particular. There was, however, a heavy struggle between Christians and pagans, in which each group accused the other of atheism, for not practicing the religion which they considered correct. When Christianity became the state religion of Rome under Theodosius I in 381, heresy became
5166-435: The far-right . In a June 2022 retrospective article, Sebastian Milbank of The Critic stated that, as a movement, "New Atheism has fractured and lost its original spirit", that "much of what New Atheism embodied has now migrated rightwards", and that "another portion has moved leftwards, embodied by the 'I Fucking Love Science' woke nerd of today." Following the conversion of writer Ayaan Hirsi Ali to Christianity in 2023,
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5292-473: The well-being of conscious creatures forms the basis of morality. In The Moral Landscape , he argues that science can in principle answer moral questions and help maximize well-being. Harris also criticizes cultural and moral relativism , arguing that it prevents people from making objective moral judgments about practices that clearly harm human well-being, such as female genital mutilation . Harris contends that we can make scientifically-based claims about
5418-540: The 11 September attacks and the ubiquitous, visceral response, Richard Dawkins , among many in his cohort, believes that theism (in this case, Islam ) jeopardizes political institutions and national security , and he warns of religion's potency in motivating "people to do terrible things" against international polities . According to Nature , "Critics of new atheism, as well as many new atheists themselves, contend that in philosophical terms it differs little from earlier historical forms of atheist thought." Critics of
5544-407: The 2014 Gamergate harassment campaign, where it emerged as the favored term of Gamergate proponents and was popularized on websites such as Reddit , 4chan , and Twitter . Gamergate supporters used the term to criticise what they claimed were unwanted external influences in video game media from progressive sources. Martin states that "the perceived orthodoxy [of progressive politics] has prompted
5670-674: The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams . Hart argues positively that Christianity was a progressive factor in human history and the only factor that "can be called in the fullest sense" a revolution. In his negative case against New Atheism, Hart argues that the Enlightenment was actually "a reactionary flight back toward a comfortable, but dehumanizing, mental and moral servitude to elemental nature." The New Atheist movement has been accused of sexism, especially prominent figures such as Richard Dawkins . In 2014, Sam Harris said that New Atheism
5796-560: The Christian faith, saying the Judeo-Christian tradition is the only answer to the problems of the modern world. Others have either self-identified as or been classified by some commentators as new atheists: Some writers sometimes classified as new atheists by others have explicitly distanced themselves from the label: Many contemporary atheists write from a scientific perspective. Unlike previous writers, many of whom thought that science
5922-482: The Epicureans was to attain ataraxia ("peace of mind") and one important way of doing this was by exposing fear of divine wrath as irrational. The Epicureans also denied the existence of an afterlife and the need to fear divine punishment after death. Euhemerus ( c. 300 BCE ) published his view that the gods were only the deified rulers and founders of the past. Although not strictly an atheist, Euhemerus
6048-562: The Greek Cyrenaic school . This branch of Indian philosophy is classified as heterodox due to its rejection of the authority of Vedas and hence is not considered part of the six orthodox schools of Indian philosophy . It is noteworthy as evidence of a materialistic movement in ancient India. Satischandra Chatterjee and Dhirendramohan Datta explain in An Introduction to Indian Philosophy that our understanding of Chārvāka philosophy
6174-527: The Greek word into the Latin átheos . The term found frequent use in the debate between early Christians and Hellenists , with each side attributing it, in the pejorative sense, to the other. The term atheist (from the French athée ), in the sense of "one who ... denies the existence of God or gods", predates atheism in English, being first found as early as 1566, and again in 1571. Atheist as
6300-550: The Search for Meaning , feels the new atheists miss the target by believing the "cure for bad religion is no religion, as opposed to good religion". He wrote: Atheism deserves better than the new atheists whose methodology consists of criticizing religion without understanding it, quoting texts without contexts, taking exceptions as the rule, confusing folk belief with reflective theology, abusing, mocking, ridiculing, caricaturing, and demonizing religious faith and holding it responsible for
6426-685: The Western world, atheism declined after Christianity gained prominence. The 16th century and the Age of Enlightenment marked the resurgence of atheistic thought in Europe. Atheism achieved a significant position worldwide in the 20th century. Estimates of those who have an absence of belief in a god range from 500 million to 1.1 billion people . Atheist organizations have defended the autonomy of science , freedom of thought , secular ethics and secularism . Arguments for atheism range from philosophical to social approaches. Rationales for not believing in deities include
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#17328588494566552-488: The advantage of being more inclined to make such evaluations. Some prominent atheists—most recently Christopher Hitchens , Daniel Dennett , Sam Harris , and Richard Dawkins , and following such thinkers as Bertrand Russell , Robert G. Ingersoll , Voltaire , and novelist José Saramago —have criticized religions, citing harmful aspects of religious practices and doctrines. The 19th-century German political theorist and sociologist Karl Marx called religion "the sigh of
6678-550: The all-consuming nature of both "encourages endless conflict without progress" between both extremities. Political philosopher John Gray asserts that New Atheism, humanism , and scientism are extensions of religion, particularly Christianity. Sociologist William Stahl said, "What is striking about the current debate is the frequency with which the New Atheists are portrayed as mirror images of religious fundamentalists ." The atheist philosopher of science Michael Ruse states that Richard Dawkins would fail "introductory" courses on
6804-456: The ambiguity involved in defining atheism arises from the definitions of words like deity and god . The variety of wildly different conceptions of God and deities lead to differing ideas regarding atheism's applicability. The ancient Romans accused Christians of being atheists for not worshiping the pagan deities. Gradually, this view fell into disfavor as theism came to be understood as encompassing belief in any divinity. With respect to
6930-506: The author of God Is Not Great , was named among the "Top 100 Public Intellectuals" by Foreign Policy and Prospect magazines. He served on the advisory board of the Secular Coalition for America . In 2010, Hitchens published his memoir Hitch-22 (a nickname provided by close personal friend Salman Rushdie , whom Hitchens always supported during and following The Satanic Verses controversy ). Shortly after its publication, he
7056-455: The authority of the new Protestant churches". Deism gained influence in France, Prussia, and England. In 1546, French scholar Etienne Dolet was executed upon accusation of being an atheist. The philosopher Baruch Spinoza was "probably the first well known 'semi-atheist' to announce himself in a Christian land in the modern era", according to Blainey. Spinoza believed that natural laws explained
7182-415: The basis of my words! Protagoras has sometimes been taken to be an atheist, but rather espoused agnostic views, commenting that "Concerning the gods I am unable to discover whether they exist or not, or what they are like in form; for there are many hindrances to knowledge, the obscurity of the subject and the brevity of human life." The Athenian public associated Socrates ( c. 470–399 BCE ) with
7308-476: The belief that they were doing good in their pastoral roles by providing comfort and required ritual. The research, with Linda LaScola, was further extended to include other denominations and non-Christian clerics. The research and stories Dennett and LaScola accumulated during this project were published in their 2013 co-authored book, Caught in the Pulpit: Leaving Belief Behind . Ayaan Hirsi Ali
7434-413: The broader society, such as in government, education, and politics. Critics have characterised New Atheism as " secular fundamentalism " or " fundamentalist atheism ". Major figures of New Atheism include Richard Dawkins , Sam Harris , Christopher Hitchens , and Daniel Dennett , collectively referred to as the " Four Horsemen " of the movement. The secular humanist Paul Kurtz (1925–2012), founder of
7560-460: The broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities . Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities. Atheism is contrasted with theism , which is the belief that at least one deity exists. Historically, evidence of atheistic viewpoints can be traced back to classical antiquity and early Indian philosophy. In
7686-412: The campaign "to ensure legal and civic equality for atheists", in a world considerably unwelcoming to and distrustful of non-religious believers. Hitchens may be the atheist concerned most with religion's incompatibility with contemporary liberal principles, and particularly its imposed limitation on both freedom of speech and freedom of expression. Because New Atheism's proliferation is accredited partly to
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#17328588494567812-461: The charges of atheism at his trial. From a survey of these 5th-century BCE philosophers, David Sedley has concluded that none of them openly defended radical atheism, but since Classical sources clearly attest to radical atheist ideas Athens probably had an "atheist underground". Religious skepticism continued into the Hellenistic period , and from this period the most important Greek thinker in
7938-545: The columnist Sarah Jones wrote in New York magazine that the New Atheism movement was in "terminal decline". Key figures associated with New Atheism include Richard Dawkins , Sam Harris , Christopher Hitchens , Daniel Dennett , and Ayaan Hirsi Ali . On 30 September 2007, Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens, and Dennett met at Hitchens' residence in Washington, D.C., for a private two-hour unmoderated round table discussion. The event
8064-534: The conciliatory view that science and religion are not in conflict, noting, for example, that the Abrahamic religions constantly dabble in scientific matters. In a 1998 article published in Free Inquiry magazine, and later in his 2006 book The God Delusion , Dawkins expresses disagreement with the view advocated by Stephen Jay Gould that science and religion are two non-overlapping magisteria (NOMA), each existing in
8190-484: The consequent prejudice that warps his mind, that prevents its expansion, that renders him the slave of fiction, appears to doom him to continual error." In Great Britain, William Hammon and physician Mathew Turner authored a pamphlet in response to Joseph Priestley 's Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever . Theirs was the first work in English to openly defend atheism, and implied that established sentiment of Christianity made speaking up in defense of atheism an act with
8316-412: The contrary, among them examples of literal "atheists in foxholes". There exist normative ethical systems that do not require principles and rules to be given by a deity. According to Plato's Euthyphro dilemma , the role of the gods in determining right from wrong is either unnecessary or arbitrary. The argument that morality must be derived from God , and cannot exist without a wise creator, has been
8442-509: The criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo." Sam Harris criticizes Western religion's reliance on divine authority as lending itself to authoritarianism and dogmatism . Multiple studies have discovered there to be a correlation between religious fundamentalism and extrinsic religion (when religion is held because it serves ulterior interests) and authoritarianism, dogmatism, and prejudice. These arguments—combined with historical events that are argued to demonstrate
8568-469: The culture of deathbed conversions and condemning attempts to convert the terminally ill , which he opposed as "bad taste". Dennett was the author of Darwin's Dangerous Idea and Breaking the Spell . He had been a vocal supporter of The Clergy Project , an organization that provides support for clergy in the US who no longer believe in God and cannot fully participate in their communities any longer. He
8694-682: The dangers of religion, such as the Crusades , inquisitions , witch trials , and terrorist attacks —have been used in response to claims of beneficial effects of belief in religion. Believers counter-argue that some regimes that espouse atheism , such as the Soviet Union , have also been guilty of mass murder. In response to those claims, atheists such as Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins have stated that Stalin's atrocities were influenced not by atheism but by dogmatic ideology, and that while Stalin and Mao happened to be atheists, they did not do their deeds in
8820-499: The development of atheism was the philosopher Epicurus ( c. 300 BCE ). Drawing on the ideas of Democritus and the Atomists, he espoused a materialistic philosophy according to which the universe was governed by the laws of chance without the need for divine intervention (see scientific determinism ). Although Epicurus still maintained that the gods existed, he believed that they were uninterested in human affairs. The aim of
8946-489: The divine essence could not be intuitively or rationally apprehended by human intellect. Sects deemed heretical such as the Waldensians were also accused of being atheistic. The resulting division between faith and reason influenced later radical and reformist theologians. The Renaissance did much to expand the scope of free thought and skeptical inquiry. Individuals such as Leonardo da Vinci sought experimentation as
9072-502: The earliest use of the term to 1945. According to Martin, the term switched from primarily positive to negative around 2011, when it was first used as an insult on Twitter . The term first appeared on Urban Dictionary in 2011 and on the Something Awful forums in 2013. According to Know Your Meme , the pejorative term " keyboard warrior ", which describes a person who is unreasonably angry and hides behind their keyboard, may be
9198-516: The existence of God, which assert the incompatibility between certain traits, such as perfection, creator-status, immutability , omniscience , omnipresence , omnipotence , omnibenevolence , transcendence , personhood (a personal being), non-physicality, justice , and mercy . Theodicean atheists believe that the world as they experience it cannot be reconciled with the qualities commonly ascribed to God and gods by theologians. They argue that an omniscient , omnipotent , and omnibenevolent God
9324-535: The existence of gods but on the theist to provide a rationale for theism. Writers disagree on how best to define and classify atheism , contesting what supernatural entities are considered gods, whether atheism is a philosophical position or merely the absence of one, and whether it requires a conscious, explicit rejection; however, the norm is to define atheism in terms of an explicit stance against theism. Atheism has been regarded as compatible with agnosticism , but has also been contrasted with it. Some of
9450-458: The existence of gods, recommending that one should suspend judgment regarding the matter. His relatively large volume of surviving works had a lasting influence on later philosophers. The meaning of "atheist" changed over the course of classical antiquity. Early Christians were widely reviled as "atheists" because they did not believe in the existence of the Graeco-Roman deities. During
9576-500: The existence of the gods, but in modern scholarship Marek Winiarczyk has defended the view that Diagoras was not an atheist in the modern sense, in a view that has proved influential. On the other hand, the verdict has been challenged by Tim Whitmarsh , who argues that Diagoras rejected the gods on the basis of the problem of evil , and this argument was in turn alluded to in Euripides' fragmentary play Bellerophon . A fragment from
9702-635: The experiments found no evidence that intercessory prayer worked. In his book God: The Failed Hypothesis , Victor Stenger argues that a God having omniscient , omnibenevolent , and omnipotent attributes, which he termed a 3O God , cannot logically exist. A similar series of alleged logical disproofs of the existence of a God with various attributes can be found in Michael Martin and Ricki Monnier's The Impossibility of God , or Theodore Drange 's article, "Incompatible-Properties Arguments: A Survey". Richard Dawkins has been particularly critical of
9828-714: The expulsion of many clerics from France, lasting until the Thermidorian Reaction . The radical Jacobins seized power in 1793. The Jacobins were deists and introduced the Cult of the Supreme Being as a new French state religion. SJW Social justice warrior ( SJW ) is a pejorative term and internet meme mostly used for an individual who promotes socially progressive , left-wing or liberal views, including feminism , civil rights , gay and transgender rights , and multiculturalism . The accusation that somebody
9954-542: The god-thing". That said, the demographic that supports New Atheism is a markedly homogeneous one; in America and the Anglo-sphere more generally, this cohort is "more likely to be younger, male and single, to have higher than average levels of income and education, to be less authoritarian , less dogmatic , less prejudiced, less conformist and more tolerant and open-minded on religious issues." Because of this homogeneity among
10080-404: The great crimes against humanity. Religion has done harm; I acknowledge that. But the cure for bad religion is good religion, not no religion, just as the cure for bad science is good science, not the abandonment of science. The philosopher Massimo Pigliucci contends that the new atheist movement overlaps with scientism, which he finds to be philosophically unsound. He writes: "What I do object to
10206-425: The group, there exists not a formal dynamic but a loose consensus on broad political "efforts, objectives, and strategies". For example, one of the primary aims is to further reduce the entanglement of church and state, which derives from the "belief that religion is antithetical to liberal values, such as freedom of expression and the separation of public from private life". Additionally, new atheists have engaged in
10332-411: The highest percentages of atheists, the murder rate is lower than average. In the most religious states, the murder rate is higher than average. Joseph Baker and Buster Smith assert that one of the common themes of atheism is that most atheists "typically construe atheism as more moral than religion". One of the most common criticisms of atheism has been to the contrary: that denying the existence of
10458-483: The hypothesis fails any such tests, and argue that naturalism is sufficient to explain everything we observe. They argue that nowhere is it necessary to introduce God or the supernatural to understand reality. Non-believers (in religion and the supernatural) assert that many religious or supernatural claims (such as the virgin birth of Jesus and the afterlife ) are scientific claims in nature. For instance, they argue, as do deists and Progressive Christians , that
10584-492: The intersection of science and religion. He argued: "It is completely unrealistic to claim, as Gould and many others do, that religion keeps itself away from science's turf, restricting itself to morals and values. A universe with a supernatural presence would be a fundamentally and qualitatively different kind of universe from one without. The difference is, inescapably, a scientific difference. Religions make existence claims, and this means scientific claims." Harris considers that
10710-483: The issue of Jesus' supposed parentage is a question of scientific inquiry, rather than "values" or "morals". Rational thinkers believe science is capable of investigating at least some, if not all, supernatural claims. Institutions such as the Mayo Clinic and Duke University have conducted empirical studies to try to identify whether there is evidence for the healing power of intercessory prayer . According to Stenger,
10836-405: The lack of evidence , the problem of evil , the argument from inconsistent revelations , the rejection of concepts that cannot be falsified , and the argument from nonbelief . Nonbelievers contend that atheism is a more parsimonious position than theism and that everyone is born without beliefs in deities; therefore, they argue that the burden of proof lies not on the atheist to disprove
10962-418: The leaders of the New Atheism movement (and, by implication, a good number of their followers) with anti-intellectualism, one mark of which is a lack of respect for the proper significance, value, and methods of another field of intellectual endeavor." In The Evolution of Atheism , Stephen LeDrew wrote that New Atheism is fundamentalist and scientist; in contrast to atheism's tradition of social justice , it
11088-708: The materialism or physicalism include idealism , dualism and other forms of monism. Naturalism is also used to describe the view that everything that exists is fundamentally natural, and that there are no supernatural phenomena. According to naturalist view, science can explain the world with physical laws and through natural phenomena. Philosopher Graham Oppy references a PhilPapers survey that says 56.5% of philosophers in academics lean toward physicalism; 49.8% lean toward naturalism. According to Graham Oppy, direct arguments for atheism aim at showing theism fails on its own terms, while indirect arguments are those inferred from direct arguments in favor of something else that
11214-483: The mellower end of the spectrum" according to Flynn. In November 2015, The New Republic published an article entitled "Is the New Atheism dead?" In 2016, the atheist and evolutionary biologist David Sloan Wilson wrote: "The world appears to be tiring of the New Atheism movement." In 2017, PZ Myers , who formerly considered himself a new atheist, publicly renounced the New Atheism movement. The book The Four Horsemen: The Conversation That Sparked an Atheist Revolution
11340-400: The modern sense was extremely rare in ancient Greece. Pre-Socratic Atomists such as Democritus attempted to explain the world in a purely materialistic way and interpreted religion as a human reaction to natural phenomena, but did not explicitly deny the gods' existence. Anaxagoras , whom Irenaeus calls "the atheist", was accused of impiety and condemned for stating that "the sun
11466-490: The motivations of the person accused of being an SJW, implying that their motives are "for personal validation rather than out of any deep-seated conviction". Allegra Ringo in Vice writes that "in other words, SJWs don't hold strong principles, but they pretend to. The problem is, that's not a real category of people. It's simply a way to dismiss anyone who brings up social justice." The term's negative use became mainstream due to
11592-465: The movement described it as militant atheism and fundamentalist atheism . Theologians Jeffrey Robbins and Christopher Rodkey take issue with what they regard as "the evangelical nature of the New Atheism, which assumes that it has a Good News to share, at all cost, for the ultimate future of humanity by the conversion of as many people as possible", and believe they have found similarities between New Atheism and evangelical Christianity and conclude that
11718-417: The name of atheism. People who self-identify as atheists are often assumed to be irreligious , but some sects within major religions reject the existence of a personal, creator deity . It has been said that atheism is not mutually exclusive with respect to some religious and spiritual belief systems, including modern Neopagan movements. In recent years, certain religious denominations have accumulated
11844-402: The need for the term "atheism". In his book Letter to a Christian Nation , Sam Harris wrote: In fact, "atheism" is a term that should not even exist. No one ever needs to identify himself as a "non- astrologer " or a "non- alchemist ". We do not have words for people who doubt that Elvis is still alive or that aliens have traversed the galaxy only to molest ranchers and their cattle. Atheism
11970-437: The negative impacts of such practices on human welfare, and that withholding judgment in these cases is tantamount to claiming complete ignorance about what contributes to human well-being. In the context of international politics, the principles of New Atheism establish no particular stance in and of themselves. P. Z. Myers stated that New Atheism's key proponents are "a madly disorganized mob, united only by [their] dislike of
12096-528: The new atheists' responses to arguments for the existence of God: It can safely be said that if you haven't both understood Aquinas and answered him – not to mention Anselm , Duns Scotus , Leibniz , Samuel Clarke , and so on, but let that pass – then you have hardly "made your case" against religion. Yet Dawkins is the only "New Atheist" to offer anything even remotely like an attempt to answer him, feeble as it is. Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies by David Bentley Hart
12222-436: The oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people ". He goes on to say, "The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo,
12348-467: The other schools states, for refutation, the materialistic views. Our knowledge of Indian materialism is chiefly based on these." Other Indian philosophies generally regarded as atheistic include Classical Samkhya and Purva Mimamsa . The rejection of a personal creator "God" is also seen in Jainism and Buddhism in India. Western atheism has its roots in pre-Socratic Greek philosophy , but atheism in
12474-662: The range of phenomena being rejected, atheism may counter anything from the existence of a deity, to the existence of any spiritual , supernatural , or transcendental concepts. Definitions of atheism also vary in the degree of consideration a person must put to the idea of gods to be considered an atheist. Atheism has been defined as the absence of belief that any deities exist. This broad definition would include newborns and other people who have not been exposed to theistic ideas. As far back as 1772, Baron d'Holbach said that "All children are born Atheists; they have no idea of God." Similarly, George H. Smith suggested that: "The man who
12600-418: The sense of "severing relations with the gods" or "denying the gods". The term ἀσεβής ( asebēs ) then came to be applied against those who impiously denied or disrespected the local gods, even if they believed in other gods. Modern translations of classical texts sometimes render átheos as "atheistic". As an abstract noun, there was also ἀθεότης ( atheotēs ), "atheism". Cicero transliterated
12726-600: The social effects and impacts of religion in enough detail. He has said, "Look at the facts in the round and it seems likely that humans without a sense of the sacred would have died out long ago. For that same reason, the hope of the new atheists for a world without religion is probably as vain as the hope for a society without aggression or a world without death." He has also complained of the new atheists' idea that they must "set people free from religion", calling it "naive" because they "never consider that they might be taking something away from people". Edward Feser has critiqued
12852-485: The study of " philosophy or religion " (such as courses on the philosophy of religion ), courses which are offered, for example, at many educational institutions such as colleges and universities around the world. Ruse also says that the movement of New Atheism—which is perceived by him to be "a bloody disaster"—makes him ashamed, as a professional philosopher of science, to be among those holding to an atheist position, particularly as New Atheism, as he sees it, does science
12978-431: The study of Muslim societies". William W. Emilson argues that "the 'new' in the new atheists' writings is not their aggressiveness, nor their extraordinary popularity, nor even their scientific approach to religion, rather it is their attack not only on militant Islamism but also on Islam itself under the cloak of its general critique of religion." Informational notes Citations Atheist Atheism , in
13104-450: The term to refer to disbelief in all deities, though it remains common in Western society to describe atheism as "disbelief in God". Skepticism , based on the ideas of David Hume , asserts that certainty about anything is impossible, so one can never know for sure whether or not a god exists. Hume, however, held that such unobservable metaphysical concepts should be rejected as "sophistry and illusion". Michael Martin argues that atheism
13230-516: The times of the historical Vedic religion . Among the six orthodox schools of Hindu philosophy, Samkhya , the oldest philosophical school of thought, does not accept God, and the early Mimamsa also rejected the notion of God. The thoroughly materialistic and anti-theistic philosophical Chārvāka (or Lokāyata ) school that originated in India around the 6th century BCE is probably the most explicitly atheistic school of philosophy in India, similar to
13356-452: The trends in pre-Socratic philosophy towards naturalistic inquiry and the rejection of divine explanations for phenomena. Aristophanes ' comic play The Clouds (performed 423 BCE) portrays Socrates as teaching his students that the traditional Greek deities do not exist. Socrates was later tried and executed under the charge of not believing in the gods of the state and instead worshipping foreign gods. Socrates himself vehemently denied
13482-409: The twenty-first". Some commentators have accused the New Atheist movement of Islamophobia . Wade Jacoby and Hakan Yavuz assert that "a group of 'new atheists' such as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens" have "invoked Samuel Huntington's 'clash of civilizations' theory to explain the current political contestation" and that this forms part of a trend toward "Islamophobia ... in
13608-572: The unprovability of a god's existence does not imply an equal probability of either possibility. Australian philosopher J.J.C. Smart argues that "sometimes a person who is really an atheist may describe herself, even passionately, as an agnostic because of unreasonable generalized philosophical skepticism which would preclude us from saying that we know anything whatever, except perhaps the truths of mathematics and formal logic." Consequently, some atheist authors, such as Richard Dawkins , prefer distinguishing theist, agnostic, and atheist positions along
13734-575: The very possibility of metaphysical knowledge. Both philosophers undermined the metaphysical basis of natural theology and criticized classical arguments for the existence of God . One goal of the French Revolution was a restructuring and subordination of the clergy with respect to the state through the Civil Constitution of the Clergy . Attempts to enforce it led to anti-clerical violence and
13860-690: The work of Feuerbach, argued that belief in God and religion are social functions, used by those in power to oppress the working class. According to Mikhail Bakunin , "the idea of God implies the abdication of human reason and justice; it is the most decisive negation of human liberty, and necessarily ends in the enslavement of mankind, in theory, and practice." He reversed Voltaire 's aphorism that if God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him, writing instead that "if God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish him." Sociologist Phil Zuckerman analyzed previous social science research on secularity and non-belief and concluded that societal well-being
13986-450: The workings of the universe. In 1661, he published his Short Treatise on God . Criticism of Christianity became increasingly frequent in the 17th and 18th centuries, especially in France and England. Some Protestant thinkers, such as Thomas Hobbes , espoused a materialist philosophy and skepticism toward supernatural occurrences. By the late 17th century, deism came to be openly espoused by intellectuals. The first known explicit atheist
14112-481: Was "to some degree intrinsically male". Sebastian Milbank of The Critic stated that anti-Catholic rhetoric by the New Atheist movement reached its pinnacle in 2010, during the state visit by Pope Benedict XVI to the United Kingdom , where "many mainstream newspapers (especially The Guardian ) engaged in more or less naked anti-Catholic rhetoric of a sort that seemed more suited to the eighteenth century than
14238-420: Was a "fable invented by the ancients" and that humans were "of two sorts: those with brains, but no religion, and those with religion, but no brains". Despite the fact that these authors were relatively prolific writers, little of their work survives, mainly being preserved through quotations and excerpts in later works by Muslim apologists attempting to refute them. In Europe, the espousal of atheistic views
14364-480: Was a central figure of New Atheism until she announced her conversion to Christianity in November 2023. Hirsi Ali, originally scheduled to attend the 2007 meeting, later appeared with Dawkins, Dennett, and Harris at the 2012 Global Atheist Convention , where she was referred to as the "plus one horse-woman" by Dawkins. Robyn Blumner , CEO of the Center for Inquiry, described Hirsi Ali as the "Fifth" horseman. Hirsi Ali
14490-484: Was a prominent figure in the French Enlightenment who is best known for his atheism and for his voluminous writings against religion, the most famous of them being The System of Nature (1770) but also Christianity Unveiled . "The source of man's unhappiness is his ignorance of Nature. The pertinacity with which he clings to blind opinions imbibed in his infancy, which interweave themselves with his existence,
14616-658: Was also a member of the Secular Coalition for America advisory board, and a member of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry , as well as an outspoken supporter of the Brights movement . He did research into clerics who are secretly atheists and how they rationalize their works. He found what he called a "don't ask, don't tell" conspiracy because believers did not want to hear of loss of faith. This made unbelieving preachers feel isolated, but they did not want to lose their jobs and church-supplied lodgings. Generally, they consoled themselves with
14742-577: Was born in Mogadishu , Somalia , fleeing in 1992 to the Netherlands in order to escape an arranged marriage . She became involved in Dutch politics, rejected faith, and became vocal in opposing Islamic ideology, especially concerning women, as exemplified by her books Infidel and The Caged Virgin . Hirsi Ali was later involved in the production of the film Submission , for which her friend Theo van Gogh
14868-459: Was diagnosed with esophageal cancer, which led to his death in December 2011. Before his death, Hitchens published a collection of essays and articles in his book Arguably ; a short edition, Mortality , was published posthumously in 2012. These publications and numerous public appearances provided Hitchens with a platform to remain an astute atheist during his illness, even speaking specifically on
14994-447: Was indifferent or even incapable of dealing with the " God " concept, Dawkins argues to the contrary, claiming the "God Hypothesis" is a valid scientific hypothesis , having effects in the physical universe, and like any other hypothesis can be tested and falsified . Victor Stenger proposed that the personal Abrahamic God is a scientific hypothesis that can be tested by standard methods of science. Both Dawkins and Stenger conclude that
15120-406: Was later criticized by Plutarch for having "spread atheism over the whole inhabited earth by obliterating the gods". In the 3rd century BCE, the Hellenistic philosophers Theodorus Cyrenaicus and Strato of Lampsacus were also reputed to deny the existence of the gods. The Pyrrhonist philosopher Sextus Empiricus ( c. 200 CE ) compiled a large number of ancient arguments against
15246-532: Was murdered with a death threat to Hirsi Ali pinned to his chest. This event resulted in Hirsi Ali's hiding and later emigrating to the United States, where she resides and remains a prolific critic of Islam. She regularly speaks out against the treatment of women in Islamic doctrine and society and is a proponent of free speech and the freedom to offend. Writing in a column in November 2023, Ali announced her conversion to
15372-535: Was published by Yale in 2009. Philosopher Anthony Kenny called Hart's book "the most able counsel for the defence in recent years". Writing for Commonweal , poet Michael Robbins described the book as "an unanswerable and frequently hilarious demolition of the shoddy thinking and historical illiteracy of the so-called New Atheists." On 27 May 2011, Hart's book was awarded the Michael Ramsey Prize in Theology by
15498-485: Was rare during the Early Middle Ages and Middle Ages (see Medieval Inquisition ). There were, however, movements within this period that furthered heterodox conceptions of the Christian god, including differing views of the nature, transcendence, and knowability of God. William of Ockham inspired anti-metaphysical tendencies with his nominalist limitation of human knowledge to singular objects, and asserted that
15624-433: Was released in 2019. In a January 2019 retrospective article, Steven Poole of The Guardian observed: "For some, New Atheism was never about God at all, but just a topical subgenre of the rightwing backlash against the supposedly suffocating atmosphere of ' political correctness '." In November 2019, Scott Alexander argued that New Atheism did not disappear as a political movement but instead turned to social justice as
15750-614: Was the German critic of religion Matthias Knutzen in his three writings of 1674. He was followed by two other explicit atheist writers, the Polish ex-Jesuit philosopher Kazimierz Łyszczyński (who most likely authored the world's first treatise on the non-existence of God ) and in the 1720s by the French priest Jean Meslier . In the course of the 18th century, other openly atheistic thinkers followed, such as Baron d'Holbach , Jacques-André Naigeon , and other French materialists . Baron d'Holbach
15876-581: Was videotaped and titled "The Four Horsemen". During "The God Debate" in 2010 with Hitchens versus Dinesh D'Souza , the group was collectively referred to as the "Four Horsemen of the Non-Apocalypse", an allusion to the biblical Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse from the Book of Revelation . The four have been described by critics as "evangelical atheists". Dawkins, the author of The God Delusion , and director of
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