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What is "New Atheism"?
I read a book attacking "the new atheism", and I still don't know how they're defined; all I worked out was that the author considered Richard Dawkins and the late Christopher Hitchens as "new atheists". And the author's approach was very aggressive and arrogant toward the "new atheists", having named just two that he classified as such.
14 Answers
- tentofieldLv 75 years ago
I stopped believing in gods and therefore became an atheist more than fifty years ago. I don't see that "not believing in gods" has changed at all in that time. There is nothing new about it. As atheism is just the disbelief in gods, nothing more, nothing less, new atheists and old atheists are exactly the same, how can they be different?
- Anonymous5 years ago
New Atheism is a social and political movement that began in the early 2000s in favour of atheism and secularism promoted by a collection of modern atheist writers who have advocated the view that "religion should not simply be tolerated but should be countered, criticized, and exposed by rational argument wherever its influence arises".[1] There is uncertainty about how much influence the movement has had on religious demographics worldwide. In England and Wales, as of 2011 the increase in atheist groups, student societies, publications and public appearances coincided with the non-religious being the largest growing demographic, followed by Islam and Evangelicalism
- ?Lv 75 years ago
Remember the New Atheists? Of course you do. How could you forget the gleefully provocative insults packed into Sam Harris' The End of Faith, Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion, and Christopher Hitchens' God is Not Great? Starting in 2004, these books bounded up the bestseller lists in quick succession, and together they spawned a million articles, reviews, and blog posts about faith and its supposedly undeniable follies. The New Atheist message, without exception, was that religion is utter nonsense and unwaveringly, unambivalently bad for us in all forms, in all times, in all places.
- NateLv 75 years ago
It seems to be a term some people made up to describe...well I'm not sure actually.
There was a question I answered once before that stated it referred specifically to outspoken atheists but that seems silly.
- Jim VLv 75 years ago
"New atheists" are not just those who do not believe that God is, they are "energized" to promote that view in outspoken ways.
Anonymous has posted a picture of those who are called "the four horseman of the new atheists".
- Anonymous5 years ago
Same as the old atheism, just more visible.