The New Atheism is Not So New and It's Very Partial
Posted on Nov 12th, 2006
by 
~C4Chaos
~C4Chaos
(Crossposted from www.c4chaos.com)
I just finished reading the recent WIRED feature on The New Atheism. The trinity of active mainstream atheists (Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett) are at it again evangelizing the gospel of the God-less society.
For the most part, I agree with them. Belief in God is not required and it's the cause of so much suffering around the world via religious extremisms. However, their approach is too fundamentalistic for my taste. While I personally don't limit the idea of God to its Christian or Muslim or Jewish concept, I also don't think that logic and rationalism alone could ever take the place of faith and religion. It's like saying that integral calculus can be taught to students without them learning basic algebra.
The biggest flaw of the New Atheists is that, their ideas, no matter how rational, are FLAT. They are too focused attacking the the idea of God without defining which level of God they're attacking. I say that they're pretty much attacking the mythic God. However, they're making a lot of performative contradictions and thus elevate their own level of God in the process: the mental God (read: logic, rational).
If there's one good thing that the New Atheists are doing, it's that they're elevating the psychological development of people who are ready to step out of mythic belief in God. This is good. I just hope that these people don't get stuck in rational level because there are other higher levels of God that can only be understood and appreciated once we take a skinny dip into the trans-rational.
Kudos to the WIRED article for not buying into the atheistic Kool Aid :)
"The New Atheists have castigated fundamentalism and branded even the mildest religious liberals as enablers of a vengeful mob. Everybody who does not join them is an ally of the Taliban. But, so far, their provocation has failed to take hold. Given all the religious trauma in the world, I take this as good news. Even those of us who sympathize intellectually have good reasons to wish that the New Atheists continue to seem absurd. If we reject their polemics, if we continue to have respectful conversations even about things we find ridiculous, this doesn't necessarily mean we've lost our convictions or our sanity. It simply reflects our deepest, democratic values. Or, you might say, our bedrock faith: the faith that no matter how confident we are in our beliefs, there's always a chance we could turn out to be wrong."
Access: PublicTagged with: WIRED, Atheism, New Atheism, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, God, New Atheists
atheism
September 2008 
That's always been my argument against my atheist friends. I tell them I'm cool if they don't believe in God. But I'm not cool with them being as much fundamentalist in their positions as the religious fundamentalists. They don't see it, and they don't seem to care. They're just sure they're right, and everyone else is either dumb or blind.
fundamentalism will always be alive and well and living in just about every religion, philosophy or anti-religion. let them foam at the mouth. we will get on quietly with the business of transforming the planet. :)
love,
nicole
Perhaps the problem is with the language. Why do we have the same uber potent word (god/God) for so many shockingly different concepts? It only causes confusion, in my experience.
Maybe the “new spiritualists” (or whatever the Fluffy , Integral, Second Tier, post-post-conventional, Judeo-Christian-Muslim crowd get labeled) should consider a new term for their idea of “God”. To me, “god” and “God” simply don't mean anything other than some guy in the sky who is semi-omnipotent (depending on what he's expected to be responsible for at any given time). And I don't think I'm that unusual (in this rare case!).
So when I hear Dennet or Dawkins or their ilk talk about the irrational and unhealthy belief in a “god” (at least for grown adults who should already be well past purple, red, and blue levels), I completely agree with them. I also completely agree with Wilber, the Dalai Lama, et al, when they talk about Kosmos, love, nonduality, and so on. I just wish that Wilber et al didn't specifically use the term “God”. I understand the idea of “reclaiming” a term (like queer or gay or the n word) as a way of empowering a group, but in this case I think it's backfiring, and do we really want to place more of a priority on empowerment at the expense of clarity?
Ultimately I think Wilber, Buddha, Dennet, and Dawkins are all talking about the same things, only using a very different framework for the language.
In his new Integral Spirituality book, Wilber talks about first, second, and third person “God”. As I was reading that bit, I had to translate his terms into “my core being”, “love/intimacy”, and “the Universe” respectively. My terms might not be that spectacular, but they are far more meaningful to those folks who didn't grow up in a Judeo-Christian-Muslim atmosphere than God #1, God #2, and God #3. If we want Integral philosophy to be, well, integrated into society I think it's important to frame it in a universally understandable language. Know what I mean?
The new Atheism is the old atheism. It hasn't changed one bit. The only thing new is that terrorism and fundamentalism has provided them with new ammunition. I, for one, will continue to believe in a Flying Spaghetti Monster.