Atheist editor, bored with 'New Atheism,' wishes everyone would just move on

[BurtWorm]

I'm mainly interested in the Richard Norman quote (which I've bolded below) that Caspar Melville (editor of the British magazine New Humanist) cites at his "turning point" in the essay. Melville seems to want to hold it up as an idea that will mollify his fellow atheists--or make them bored, too? It doesn't have the calming (or dare I say, stupefying?) effect on me that it has on Melville, apparently, because what I see is a plea to let believers delude themselves into thinking that what one of their defenders *admits* is really all about *human beings* is actually about "the First Cause" or "the Creator." I really don't understand why anyone should pretend a blatant delusion is anything but a delusion. I'd rather view religion through an anthropological lens than try to find a becalming view through a "religious lens" that I don't believe (or see no compelling reason to believe) exists.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/sep/21/beyond-new-atheism

Beyond New Atheism?

I'm bored by New Atheism. It's time we move on and leave the years of irascible, impatient, blunt, godless discourse behind


o Caspar Melville
o guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 21 September 2010 15.38 BST


...


... Perhaps the classic New Atheist quote is Dawkins's response to those who accuse him of dismissing theology from a position of ignorance: "Look," he told Laurie Taylor, "somebody who thinks the way I do doesn't think theology is a subject at all. So to me it is like someone saying they don't believe in fairies and then being asked how they know if they haven't studied fairy-ology."

There is a crisp logic here. I agree with Dawkins. But in another interview, this time with a fierce critic of New Atheism, Terry Eagleton says: "Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the Book of British Birds and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology." Put this way, Eagleton seems right. I agree with him, too.

Because entertainment value aside it is surely false, as well as politically unwise and, well, pretty impolite, to say that "all theology" is irrelevant (some of it is moral reasoning, isn't it?), still worse to say that "religion poisons everything", or that without religion there would be no war, or that bringing a child up within a faith is tantamount to child abuse, or that moderate religious believers are worse than fundamentalists because they prepare the ground for extremism, or that "all" religion is this, or that, or "all" faith is misguided, or to suggest that those who believe in God are basically stupid, or that science, and only science, can answer our questions.

The picture of religion that emerges from New Atheism is a caricature and both misrepresents and underestimates its real character. "Religion," Richard Norman writes "is a human creation … a mirror which humanity holds up to itself and in which it sees itself reflected. Human beings attribute to their gods all their own human qualities – cruelty revenge and hatred, but also love and compassion and mercy. That's why you can find a justification for anything, good or bad, in religion."

This may be less fun than denouncing the pope and all his works, but it's closer to reality. For Norman, as a humanist, the requirement is to be less strident so as to create alliances with moderate religionists on specific topics – faith schools, fundamentalism, terrorism – of concern to all. I second that, but I have a more base reason for wanting to move beyond New Atheism. I'm bored, and I fear my readers are becoming so too.

...

[Fumesucker]

1. Back in the closet with you atheists..

The New New Atheism is coming..

[ladjf]

2. I'm bored with this post. nt

[frogmarch]

3. New atheism is

armchair atheism. What we need is a crusade!

[DeSwiss]

4. What a load of BS. He sez.....

"Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the Book of British Birds and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology..."

The scientific principles involving biology must be reproducible in any laboratory anywhere on the planet earth and are constantly evolving and improving. Theology on the other hand is stuck in time like an insect caught in flypaper -- having no principles that are readily nor easily agreed upon and its evolutions are called schisms. They are hardly comparable.

Biologists must prove their findings using protocols which are accepted and peer-reviewed. Theologists on the other hand can't even agree with each other when they are a part of the same system of belief.

In fact were some types of theology pursued in some places, it could result in one's death. So to try and compare these impossibly divergent systems of thought is nothing short of a farce and one wonders why the article was printed at all. Except maybe as filler material.

One is a system of science and facts and the other is a system of ideas based upon myths that harken back to a time even before there was system of writing. Which largely accounts for the desperate and often contradictory accounts one sees within the same "holy books." This so-called article was a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing. The Guardian can do much better in my view.

- And I have no dog in this fight as I am not even an atheist. Just your garden-variety non-believer.

[wookie72]

9. You could say the exact same thing about philosophy

Or for that matter much of political theory. There is no "proof" that one political system is better than another.
Heck, let's throw out literature while we're at it.

No, there is not always agreement between theologians (although again, when it comes to the theoretical level of physics, that's also true). However, Dawkins spouted off without reading a large body of work that has commented and dissected the scripture for over 6000 years (Midrash being a long tradition in Judaism).

Hamlet never existed, but people have devoted their whole life to studying him. To the dustbin, I guess.

[Jim__]

5. I agree that it's time to move on.

Religion has been with us for the last 50,000 years or more. It's not very likely that it's going away any time soon, at least not in all of its manifestations. Humanity is confronted with extremely complex problems, for instance, the potential for nuclear war; and the silly argument about all religion being all bad, all the time seems to have played itself out.

[trotsky]

6. Totally.

Religion has only had those 50,000 years to try and mollify the violent nature of humans. Granted, it's failed miserably, but that's because it just needs more time. We should definitely not reject it just because of its 50,000-year track record of failure. Let's move on and blame outspoken atheists instead.

[BurtWorm]

7. If you think it's played itself out, then no need to continue participating in the debate, right?

:hi:

[struggle4progress]

8. There are interesting and useful atheistic views of religion -- and atheistic views that are neither

I've posted in this forum regularly views I thought were interesting, from atheists like Bloch or Gardavsky