The November 2006 issue ofWired magazine featured the article “The Church of the Non-Believers” written by Gary Wolf (pp. 182-193). On the cover of Wired, the article was presented as “The New Atheism. No Heaven. No Hell. Just Science. Inside the Crusade against Religion.” Here are some of my thoughts concerning this article (thoughts I originally sent to one of my Philosophy of Science students who asked me what I thought about the article):
First, the article is basically a description of some of the leading "lights" in the New Atheism. I have been aware (for the past decade or so) of Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett, but not Sam Harris. Dawkins and Dennett have been quite famous (notorious?) for their anti-religious -- especially anti-Christian -- attitudes that have in recent years verged into the realm of fanaticism. I recall comments made by them about how they think that children should perhaps be taken away from Christian parents and about how anyone who is a Christian is insane. They are basically very outspoken, dogmatic, atheistic fundamentalists who are quite abrasive and, ultimately, unattractive. I appreciate the fact that the author of the Wired article recognizes this aspect of Dawkins and Dennett.
Second, I am disappointed that the author of the article didn't summarize the arguments for atheism. It would be good for open-minded, critical thinkers to make an informed judgment about the arguments that Dawkins and company claim to make belief irrational. Yes, the author did set out one of Dawkins' sarcastic responses to an admittedly weak pro-God argument set out by an unidentified geneticist and an unidentified neurosurgeon (p. 184). But the author glosses over their other "best theistic arguments." In the name of fairness, these should be set out and critiqued too.
Third, the article tends to intellectually defend/ "justify" atheism by appeals to loaded language and name-dropping. An example of loaded language occurs on page 190 when the author describes atheists as "we adults, we readers of Dawkins and Harris, we practiced reasoners and sincere pilgrims on the path of nonbelief...," implying that believers are not practiced reasoners and not sincere (as far as I can tell, many believers, at least in the academic world, are practiced reasoners and are sincere). Also on page 190, atheists are described as "freethinkers," implying that believers are dogmatic and closed-minded (this may be true for some believers, but clearly not most). Page 191: "secular professors show up with their corrosive arguments." The word "corrosive" is the only strength here -- the actual allegedly corrosive arguments need to be set out. Name-dropping occurs on page 187: "I have now read my David Hume, my Bertrand Russell...." He needs to set out Hume's and Russell's arguments, but doesn't. It turns out that Hume's and Russell's arguments are pretty weak. (I can speak with a wee bit of academic authority about Hume, since I have studied his work over the years.)
Fourth, the author sets out (describes on page 191) Scott Atran's psychological theory to explain why people mistakenly believe in God. That is, we have "a grab bag of cognitive predispositions" that make us "natural believers." But the author fails to realize that there are also psychological theories/ "cognitive predispositions" that can make us non-believers. Paul Vitz, a psychologist at New York University (or State University of New York?) has done a study of this and has published his work in the book Faith of the Fatherless. (I think that the idea is that many people project no-God onto the universe because they are rebelling against a father figure.) So the appeal to psychology is a double-edged sword. But the author fails to mention this, but should -- if he is as good a reasoner as he seems to think he is.
Fifth, the author is out of touch with the findings and philosophical implications of contemporary science. He writes, "There's barely a field of modern research -- cosmology, biology, archaeology, anthropology, psychology -- in which competing religious explanations have survived unscathed." The author is apparently unaware of the Intelligent Design movement in cosmology and biology, and of the fact that this movement, though controversial, is growing among scientists and philosophers. As a careful thinker, he should at least acknowledge this.
Well, I should stop. It's definitely an interesting article. I hope that it spurs Christians on to do not just good scholarship and science, but excellent scholarship and science. I hope, too, that it spurs us on to share the results of our efforts in a winsome way -- showing great love and respect to those with whom we disagree.
Postscript: Here is a helpful article on the new atheism's new intolerance. Here is a critique of Richard Dawkins' book The God Delusion by the philosopher Alvin Plantinga.