The Origins of the “New Atheism”

[Daniel Mullarkey]

The origins of the “New Atheism” can be summed up in the statement that it is a post-9/11 counterculture.

[Christopher A. Lee]

How the heck did this known troll get through moderation?

[Don Martin]

Pluck, luck, and persistence?

--
aa #2278 Never mind "proof." Where is your evidence?
BAAWA Chief Assistant to the Assistant Chief Heckler
Fidei defensor (Hon. Antipodean)
The Squeeky Wheel: http://home.comcast.net/~drdonmartin/

[Burkhard]

On Thursday, September 5, 2013 1:00:30 PM UTC+1, Don Martin wrote:

>
> >
>
> >> The origins of the “New Atheism” can be summed up in the
>
> >> statement that it is a post-9/11 counterculture.
>
> >
>
> > How the heck did this known troll get through moderation?
>

> Pluck, luck, and persistence?

Extremely reasonable moderators?
That's the chaps website:
http://thesecularwave.com/index.html

So a bona fide atheist, even if you may find
his "enigmatic" one sentence posting style a
bit odd.

As to the content of this specific post, do you
find it particularly objectionable?
Sam Harris:"The End of Faith: Religion, Terror,
and the Future of Reason" was the first of the books
that gave rise to the term "new atheism". And Harris
himself did say he wrote in response to 9/11, to
express his "collective grief and stupefaction"

Victor Stenger's Book: "The New atheism, taking a stand
for science and reason" comes to the same assessment:
"If any event triggered the New Atheist attitude it was 9/11.
Some commentators have tried to explain this tragic event in
terms of social causes, such as the perceived American
oppression of Muslim nations. However, a reading of the
final instructions Mohammed Atta gave to his team leaves
little doubt that it was religion which motivated them
as they flew those planes into those buildings."

Now, you might quibble about the term "counter culture",
an expression that has fallen pretty much out of favour
with sociologists as it implies such as thing as a
homogeneous "dominant episteme" or majority culture,
which few societies have.

If you go by the dictionary definition, which is based
on Theorodre Roszak's book that coined the term
(The Making of a Counter Culture), I'd say for the US
at least, you can make the case (any subculture
whose values and norms of behavior deviate
from those of mainstream society - so not going to
church in a society where the majority does is
all it takes)

If that is a good definition is debatable - it makes
e.g. the culture of white Afrikaans during apartheid
a "counter culture" which seems odd. Some other
sociologists demand more, e.g. a generation conflict
aspect (so e.g. Dick Hebdige in his "Subculture" book)
In that case, at least Dawkins' "Four horseman
Harris, Dennet, Dawkins and Hitchins were a bit
too old.

So while you can argue over this, nothing in
it that would qualify as trolling,

[jimfar...@gmail.com]

On Saturday, August 31, 2013 8:11:20 PM UTC-4, Daniel Mullarkey wrote:
> The origins of the “New Atheism” can be summed up in the statement that it is a post-9/11 counterculture.

Me on the New Atheism (circa 2008).
http://huumanists.org/publications/journal/new-atheism-and-new-humanism

Jim F.

[Barry OGrady]

On Sat, 31 Aug 2013 17:11:20 -0700 (PDT), Daniel Mullarkey
<corresp...@danielmullarkey.me> wrote:

>The origins of the “New Atheism” can be summed up in the statement that it is a post-9/11 counterculture.

By 9/11 do you mean the incident that occured in New York
on 11/9?

=======
‘A being so powerful and so full of knowledge as a God
who could create the universe, is to our finite minds
omnipotent and omniscient, and it revolts our understanding
to suppose that his benevolence is not unbounded, for what
advantage can there be in the sufferings of millions of the
lower animals throughout almost endless time?’
-Charles Darwin