Tag Archives: New Atheists

Gnu Atheism, Movement Conservatism, and Civility

At Commentary’s website this week, Peter Wehner appeals to his fellow conservatives to find, in themselves, a greater habit of civility, and resist the temptation to always confront one’s opposition in a spirit of relentless ridicule, dismissiveness, and ad hominem. What struck me in … Continue reading

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Ron Rosenbaum separates the sheep from the asses with one question: why is there something rather than nothing?

In a recent Slate article, Ron Rosenbaum affirms his agnosticism against both theists and atheists, and offers atheists in particular a “show me the money” question: Rosenbaum wants atheists to write and tell him how it is that something came from nothing:  … Continue reading

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What is the Enlightenment’s Distinctive Feature? And What Contemporary Movement is the Enlightenment’s Most Representative Heir?

Zeev Sternhell, in his recent book, The Anti-Enlightenment Tradition  (Yale 2009), offers reason  as the Anglo-French Enlightenment’s distinctive feature, and the ingredient that made for its historic break with the past (41): Criticism of the existing political order, but also criticism … Continue reading

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Accomodationists v. Obnoxionists: Physicist Sean Carroll Coins a New Term in Reply to Those New Atheists Who Call Him a “Faitheist”

For the New Atheists, physicist Sean Carroll suggests the word “obnoxionists”: The irony is that the pro-obnoxious crowd (obnoxionists?) is ultimately making the same mistake as the accommodationist crowd. Namely: blurring the lines between the truth of a claim and … Continue reading

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Atheist Michael Shermer, in the Huffington Post, Quotes Me

And favorably! Shermer thought I had offered an amusing blog post retort to Jerry Coyne’s charge that he (Shermer) had gone soft on theism and now deserved the label “faitheist”. See Shermer’s Huffington Post piece here, and my blog post that Shermer quotes from here.

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Creation vs. Evolution Watch: A Trojan Horse at UCLA?

This past week a group of Evangelicals came onto the UCLA campus in Westwood and gave away 2000 free copies of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859). But, as usual, there is a catch to such things. The edition of … Continue reading

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PZ Myers Finally Rises into Bryan Appleyard’s Radar

And Appleyard skewers him, returning rhetorical fire with rhetorical fire: I note also the appearance of this character P.Z.Myers. I’ve never read him before but I now discover he once did me over – ‘How stupid are the editors and … Continue reading

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Camille Paglia on Richard Dawkins

Today in Salon, Camille Paglia, an atheist who obviously hasn’t been paying much serious attention to the post 9/11 New Atheist movement, stumbled upon Richard Dawkins talking about religion on NPR, and having never heard his voice before, she thought he sounded a … Continue reading

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What Do New Atheists Actually Believe That Makes Them, Well, New?

I think it’s fair to say that “old school” atheists of previous generations, like Baron d’Holbach and Albert Camus, share a number of beliefs with the New Atheists of the 21st century. For example, “old school” atheists would agree with the … Continue reading

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