New Atheists

[paulhope]

My dad sent me this article in Wired about what it calls the New Atheists (represented by Dawkins, Dennett, and others) a while ago, and I finally managed to direct my procrastination to it.

Comments

[rachiestar]

That what Ivy League procrastination looks like, eh? Aw man, 'round these parts our minds' eyes jus' turn upon beer and week-old Ann Arbor Craig's List ads. Mercilessly

[paulhope]

Eh...this post is not representative of "Ivy League procrastination." I spent the better part of last week playing flash games in which one is either a intelligent ball of slime or a Venus fly trap on the move

[theshowmustgo0n]

Dawkins, in the Time article, actually concludes the interview with a similar allusion to a "religion of reason," the tangent of interest in your article

[force_of_will]

Interesting...

The only end to God would be an end to the mystery of the world. Of consciouness. Of death and what might imaginatively come next.

Science gives us its own "virgin birth", they just call it the Big Bang. My own interests have been in comparative religious studies and mythology after a few years in college Physics. And it seems literalism is always the problem. That is when one cuts literally that God could not have used evolution, either by the lack of a need for a "why?" of this world as science does, or by a reasonable assessment of how which Bibilical literalists fail.

But I fear a world without mystery would be a hellish place. Nothing to find out. No way to improve ourselves.

[paulhope]

That's an interesting thought. But I have to wonder how much Dawkins really means what he says, and how much he's just trying to appear a little softer to his opposition

[anosognosia]

Except that no Christian until the Reformation would ever have believed that "whatever wonderful revelation does come in the science of the future, it will turn out to be one of the particular historical religions that people happen to have dreamed up." This notion flies in the face of the division between naturalist explanation and the domain of theology which became theological mainstay in the 4th century at the very latest (and really is just a continuation of distinctions drawn by Plato at the very dawn of western philosophy

[awwh_snap]

Hahahahahah. Invention Personified! God I love Dinosaur Comics. I wish I had anything more to say on the Religion talk, but my thoughts on the matter are still the same and theism continues to remain wholly unpersuasive, even without Dennett or Dawkins.

[paulhope]

I think you should be thankful. I was raised a theist and although I'm pretty much an atheist now sometimes I waver. There's something psychologically sticky about it that makes it hard to shake.

[awwh_snap]

Oh, I was a raised in a strongly Christian family. So, I know what you mean about the psychologically sticky things to shake. I've had my part and I think in the last 8-9 years or so, I've really come to shaking most of it off. I have, like many non-theists or struggling theists, had my Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard/general existentialist stage. And I've found Christian morality for the most part psychologically stifling; and as far as the trans-worldly attributes of Christianity go, it's mere mysticism to me, what Kant called an intellectual intuition

[force_of_will]

http://force-of-will.livejournal.com/309804.html... )

[paulhope]

To be honest, I have a hard time responding to much of what you write on-line because I have a hard time following.

But I don't think I can argue for or against the existence of God without some kind of definition.

How would one develop an awareness of God? What is it that you have named God?

I guess I would agree with the South Park prediction that there will be some manifestation of religious behavior for all of human existence. But that seems beside the point of the New Atheists. In fact, the so-called "religion of reason" seems to acknowledge and embrace that prediction. And if there's still religious conflict? What does that prove? I think the point is that it's possible that religions of the future could espouse beliefs that are more true.

I think we can make a pretty could case for what happens after death. Or, at the very least, we can make a case for what's not happening. Namely, pretty much any cognitive life. After that--I can't say I care much what it's like.

[force_of_will]

Paul

[anosognosia]

"And if there's still religious conflict? What does that prove?"

Well, it would stand against the rather prominent argument that theism is not justified on the ethical grounds that it leads to conflict.