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  1 0 Phil Plait, The Bad Astronomer, gave the seminal speech rebutting the "New Atheism" called "Don't Be A Dick." Check it here: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/08/17/dont-be-a-dick-part-1-the-video/ fourstringer answered in Books & Writing about 1 year ago | Report 1 comment by dirac… 0 0 Thank you very much. This was great. dirac commented about 1 year ago | Report Enter your comment or ask a new question preview THIS IS A PREVIEW: Click "Post" to submit it or "Edit" to make changes. edit Please wait… This could take a minute if the tubes are clogged.

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  1 0 With regard to the recent public relations campaign by some atheists, there are those who whine that they're just a little too strident. If only they were 3% less combative, things would be fine. Others say, no, they're too polite. The need to dial the rhetoric up about 3%. And some have written books and articles that are 3% or 5% more strident, and others less so. So what is the best mass media strategy here? Given that few if any of these people or their followers are actually card-carrying members of anything, and wouldn't want to be a member of any club that would admit them? Who knows? I suppose time will tell. Are you talking about the technical arguments against religion and/or the existence of god? Refutations of the ontological argument and so on? These things are centuries old. Dawkins and Hitchens and these guys haven't broken any new ground. No academic philosopher is going to keep beating that dead horse. There are contemporary arguments about whether IRA terrorists are just as much "real" Catholics as Al Qaeda terrorists are "real" Moslems, but that's not actually a philosophical question. But if anyone does know of an argument for or against that wasn't moldy and stale in the 17th Century I'd love to hear it... elenchos answered in Books & Writing about 1 year ago | Report 1 comment by dirac… 0 0 Thanks for your answer. I think if you're looking for a mass media strategy then you're bound to displease someone. I am interested in the New Atheists and the newer Skeptics as a cultural phenomenon (as I think its more popular and acceptable than in the 17th century) and the social psychology behind it--moreso than the actual question. I think it's actually a ridiculous debate in the first place and one embraces the fallacy of their opponent when engaging in the dialogue e.g. argue from epistemology over matters of metaphysics. This is not to dismiss the necessity to counter the idea of ID and creationism as science, however. But I do have questions of atheism as a new mythos. I know, easily dismissible to some as quackery, but I'd like to know if anyone (but not me, I'm not an "authority with real credentials" in that field) is seriously asking the question rather than the standard "Atheism is also a religion" tautologies that I hear in folk psychology or talk radio. dirac commented about 1 year ago | Report Enter your comment or ask a new question preview THIS IS A PREVIEW: Click "Post" to submit it or "Edit" to make changes. edit Please wait… This could take a minute if the tubes are clogged.

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  1 0   This is not a critique of the movement but a better example of it then Dawkins is: Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great. Hitchens is a brilliant and very humorous writer unlike Dawkins who I have never been fond of. Also, Sam Harris has argued that science can and should be used as the guide for morality. Here's a clip from his appearance on John Stewart.  (Sorry I didn't give you the critiques, but thought you might find these proponents more interesting than Dawkins) The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c Sam Harris www.thedailyshow.com Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Rally to Restore Sanity   Qland Char answered in Books & Writing about 1 year ago | Report 1 comment by dirac… 0 0 Thanks. I really do think Harris and Hitchens write better. But I didn't want to talk Dawkins down entirely--I liked the Selfish Gene and The Blind Watchmaker. But I thought Delusion was just bad. dirac commented about 1 year ago | Report Enter your comment or ask a new question preview THIS IS A PREVIEW: Click "Post" to submit it or "Edit" to make changes. edit Please wait… This could take a minute if the tubes are clogged.

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  1 0 Another vote for Chris Hedges's "I Don't Believe in Atheists". Not a great book, but definitely worth reading. Better, in my opinion, is Stuart Kaufman's "Reinventing the Sacred", which is largely about the limitations of reductionism and rationality. He's big on emergence, which isn't a bad thing. Lee Smolin, in both "Life of the Cosmos" and "The Trouble with Physics" touches on the religion-science continuum, but neither book is explicitly about the subject. That said, Smolin is very much a classical, philosophical thinker, in addition to being a theoretical physicist. Lilting Missive answered in Books & Writing about 1 year ago | Report Comment on this answer Enter your comment or ask a new question preview THIS IS A PREVIEW: Click "Post" to submit it or "Edit" to make changes. edit Please wait… This could take a minute if the tubes are clogged.

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  1 1 I'm not sure if this is an exact fit - it is not a direct answer to Dawkins et al., but check out The Religious Case Against Belief by James Carse. It is not a great book (is great book is called Finite and Infinite Games) but it does try to distinguish between "true" religion and "belief" and advocates a sort of radical open mindedness - really, radical ignorance, I think he calls it - that is missing among the new athiests. Probably more what you are looking for in terms of direct critique is Chris Hedges'response to the Dawkins crowd - I don't Believe in Athiests. This was a stupid title that was retitled as something else when it came out in paperback. I have not read it and I hear it is not so good, but it might be a good place to start. Bion Satir answered in Books & Writing about 1 year ago | Report 2 comments by dirac and dedalus… 0 0 Thanks for your response. I've heard of Hedges' book and the supposed bad reviews. I guess I'll take a look at Hedges and Carse's book as well. dirac commented about 1 year ago | Report 0 0 check out this article: http://www.openlettersmonthly.com/december-absurdity/ dedalus commented about 1 year ago | Report Enter your comment or ask a new question preview THIS IS A PREVIEW: Click "Post" to submit it or "Edit" to make changes. edit Please wait… This could take a minute if the tubes are clogged.

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  0 1 It is difficult when you are passionate about a subject that so many are afraid to discuss at all, out of "respect" (that has not been earned). Add to this that the subject is one that causes your fellow humans to suffer and die on a massive global scale every day. Further, being part of the "academic elite" - and having the vast majority of society brainwashed into thinking that makes you it's enemy - it is no surprise that Dawkins' passion (and compassion) make so many people uncomfortable. In reality Dawkins is on the front line of the most important issue facing humanity...one that will decide our very fate. A few ruffled feathers are not a concern equal to the survival of humanity. However, for a slightly different and more "don't wanna rock the boat too much" type approach...you might like "Irreligion" by mathematician John Allen Paulos. Also, Daniel Dennet seems to make a point of being as non-combative as possible when writing on the subject, so his books might be more what you are looking for too. Former User answered in Books & Writing about 1 year ago | Report 5 comments by dirac, Former User, and dirac… 0 0 Thanks very much for your reply. I've read Dennet and will check out Paulos. I don't think "don't rock the boat" is what I'm after. I'd like to find something that's not going to indiscriminately lump in all of religion and religionists into the same camp as the rabid fundamentalists. The problem--and I find this especially true with some of the New Atheists--is that they elevate their own viewpoints to religious proportions while totally rejecting the complexity and value of religious thought. It's quite a shallow viewpoint. And like fundamentalists, in order to show the supposed absurdities of religious thought, they take these myths literally rather than as expositions of the human condition or externalizations of psychological archetypes. What's worse is that Harris no less than advocates for further preemptive war and murder supposedly in the name of the West to defend us against Evil Islamism. Hitchens is not much better. dirac commented about 1 year ago | Report 0 1 Where would fundamentalists be without "moderate" apologists? Former User commented about 1 year ago | Report 0 1 Interesting as a catch phrase but doesn't address my response in the least. Btw, I'm not really one of those Rally to Restore Sanity moderate types--I'd just prefer not to get all rah, rah for "my side is right" without examining the truth. Part of that truth is in realizing that using epistemology to argue metaphysics is a big flaw in the creationists and engaged atheists/debunker's arguments. I'd imagine those fundamentalists would be doing the same thing that say a Jerry Falwell or a Sam Harris would be doing: advocating for the slaughter of The Other in the name of the Western Institution of the Day--people like fundamentalists don't listen to so-called moderates, which makes them fundamentalists. Mutual intransigence is rarely supplanted by telling others they're stupid and wrong or that the tradition they come from is stupid and meaningless--a form of Western Hubris that's also responsible for murder and oppression. dirac commented about 1 year ago | Report 0 0 Fundamentalists are an issue for moderates to deal with. Religion has to clean it's own house if others are expected to acknowledge the supposed line that separates the extremists and the "real" christians, muslems, etc...otherwise they will remain on equal ground in my eyes. Please give examples of Sam Harris "advocating for the slaughter of the other" and then we can pretend for a second that advocating for something is as bad as thousands of years of actually putting it into practice. Former User commented about 1 year ago | Report 0 0 "...otherwise they will remain on equal ground in my eyes." Interesting "your with us or against us" attitude. Either ideas have consequences or they don't, you can't have it both ways. I'll give Harris the benefit of the doubt, because I understand there's things like "nuance" and complexity, but I believe it's a poor choice of words to say "[a nuclear first strike] may be the only course of action available to us, given what Islamists believe." (The End of Faith) dirac commented about 1 year ago | Report Enter your comment or ask a new question preview THIS IS A PREVIEW: Click "Post" to submit it or "Edit" to make changes. edit Please wait… This could take a minute if the tubes are clogged.

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