Which brings me to the problem with modern atheism, embodied by the likes of Harris and Hitchens, authors of "The End of Faith" and "God Is Not Great," respectively. So often it seems like a conversation ender, not a conversation starter. And the loudest voices of today's militant atheism, for all their talk of rational thought, don't seem to want to do too much thinking at all. As James Wood wrote in The New Yorker, "The new atheists do not speak to the millions of people whose form of religion is far from the embodied certainties of contemporary literalism. Indeed, it is a settled assumption of this kind of atheism that there are no intelligent religious believers."
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Thursday, December 30, 2010
The arrogance of the "new atheists"
Some great points. An excerpt:
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Indeed, it is a settled assumption of this kind of atheism that there are no intelligent religious believers.
This is not quite correct: There are no religious believers who are simultaneously intelligent, well-informed, and honest. And it's not an assumption, it's a conclusion derived from years of bitter experience.
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