The True Unbeliever by Paul Kurtz

[Jason]

I thought that this article was a fair and honest article about the
"New Atheists". Paul Kurtz has been painted by the mainstream media
as hating the New Atheists and casting them as "mean-spirited".
However, the two articles that I've read so far from Paul Kurtz
directly on the New Atheists (Harris, Dawkins, Hitchens, Dennett) were
far less emotionally ridden and politely disagreeing with some of the
tactics but accepting of the New Atheists (still a minor voice)
receiving more media coverage.

http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=kurtz_fi_30_1

[hiphead]

I've responded to one of Kurtz's diatribes against "Blasphemy Day"
which the Council for Secular Humanism endorsed this year. I think
that was his first outburst about the "intolerance of 'fundamentalist
atheists'". I asked Mr. Kurtz for a definition of fundamentalist
atheist. Mr. Kurtz did not respond and here again fails to explain
just exactly what a fundamentalist atheist is...or just exactly what
this intolerance that he keeps alleging that the "New Atheists" (a
term that I despise) are so egregiously guilty of.

Kurtz says: "A fundamentalist is a person who is committed to a set
of basic beliefs or doctrines with dogmatic and inflexible loyalty."
O.K., fine definition. So how does this apply to an atheist whose
only fundamental belief in regards to what makes him an atheist is
that he doesn't believe in deities?

Kurtz's casual use of the word god and the capitalization of it also
bothers me because it adds to the confusion. I don't go around saying
that "God doesn't exist! period" and therefor making the kind of
absolute statement that bothers Kurtz and neither do the Harris,
Hitchens, Dawkins or Dennett. I say I don't know what the heck anyone
means when they use the word "god". It's a fundamentally fishy word.
It means many different things to many different people so, when one
uses it in conversation, whether it be dialog or monologue, or in
articles which various and sundry people are privy to and which those
observers bring their own differences of understanding of what this
word means then one will be victim to the conflicting definitions and
the ultimate ambiguity of the word.

> http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=kurtz_f...