The resurrection of 'new atheism'

The resurrection of 'new atheism' (Al Jazeera)

As white supremacy reigns supreme in the US, a new book seeks to bring back to the fore one of its ideological branches...

Before proceeding any further, let us be clear: Atheism as such is a perfectly healthy proposition and the world, including the Muslim part of it, has never been devoid of atheists - all the power to them.

Across religions and cultures, there are decent and reasonable atheists, as there are equally decent and reasonable believers, who can and should openly engage in debate about religion and the belief in God without succumbing to hatred and convictions in one's supremacy. Such open and honest conversations are indeed healthy for any community or nation and should be encouraged.

But what the so-called "four horsemen" have engaged in during their 2007 discussion and in their public appearances and writings, is not an open and honest debate. Instead, the entirety of their work is just a vicious attack on a 1.5-billion-strong, immensely diverse and dynamic community.

So who are these four "new atheist" crusaders (yes, they may deny it, but they are indeed very much the product of the white Western Christian crusader tradition)? They are all white older men, who have never embarked on studying Islam, do not speak Arabic - the language of the Qur'an - and certainly have no special insight into any Muslim community on earth. They are, literally, illiterate...

In other words, it is quite clear from the writings of the "four horsemen" that "new atheism" has little to do with atheism or any serious intellectual examination of the belief in God and everything to do with hatred and power.

Indeed, "new atheism" is the ideological foregrounding of liberal imperialism whose fanatical secularism extends the racist logic of white supremacy. It purports to be areligious, but it is not. It is, in fact, the twin brother of the rabid Christian conservatism which currently feeds the Trump administration's destructive policies at home and abroad - minus all the biblical references.

While the right-wing conservatives favour the "Judeo-Christian" canard (the idea that the "Judeo-Christian civilisation" is superior to all others), the liberals opt for "new atheism" (or the idea that "secular" Western societies are superior to all others). Both, however, are in perfect agreement about their perceived white supremacy, which supposedly gives them the right to wreak havoc across the world as they please. That is - they are the two faces of that same cheap imperialist coin.

And just as religious white supremacy encourages individual and state-sponsored violence against those perceived as "inferior", so does its "new atheist" version. Historically, the "liberal atheists" have always eagerly joined their "Christian conservative" brethren in the battle call in advance of any US aggression anywhere in the world.

However, this is, not to say that such deadly fanaticism occurs only in the US (and by extension Europe). Militant Islamism and extremist Zionism have the same exact roots...

>1 John5918: the reviewer is fond of attack quotes, isn't he?

>2 southernbooklady:

Yes, I suppose so. I found it interesting because it's the first time I've seen it analysed through the lens of neocolonialism and racism. We sometimes gain useful insights from looking at something through the eyes of a different culture or worldview.

the tone of that piece is not what I'd call "analytical." (see what I did there? :) )

I haven't read Sam Harris, but regarding Dawkins, Dennett and Hitchens this is a complete--and obviously tendentious--lie:

Prior to this encounter, all four had authored books arguing that religion and "holy war" pose the greatest threat to human civilisation and therefore, religiosity should not be tolerated in "Western societies".

"Religiosity" is taken for granted as a recurrent phenomenon in human beings and societies by all three--it's the various expressions of religiosity that all three wish to see regulated. Perfectly reasonable, one might think, even if a Muslim--have you seen, for example, the news of Asia Bibi's arrival in Canada, after eight years she spent on death row for "blasphemy"? Not only is her life still in danger (they are now living under assumed names), at least two people who dared defend her in Pakistan were assassinated. How's that for Islamic religiosity?

The article only gets worse from there--just a bunch of lies and distortions, and none new either, it's all the same bullshit that's been heaped on the authors for decades. The slur on Dawkins, Dennett and Hitchens of white supremacy is beneath contempt.

Even if you ignore the fact that the author can't help indulging in the same kind of mudslinging he accuses Dawkins et al of ("With white supremacy currently flourishing in the US and elsewhere, a book on "new atheism" - a pseudo-intellectual movement that has heavily contributed to its rise - would surely sell.") the whole review felt weirdly off base to me. The book in question is the published transcription of a conversation that happened in 2007 that apparently went viral. (I say "apparently" because I sure missed it). It's not new stuff, it's this-moment-in-history stuff. From a publishing perspective, I'd say that Penguin Books thought it was worth packaging. Penguin is famous, (or infamous), for packaging and repackaging books in the hope of tricking people into buying them again and again.

So if the book is worth reviewing at all, I would think it would be as a historical, uh, document, which has one specific place in the evolution of not only atheist thinking but of those four writers. Dabashi doesn't do that though. He's writing like it's still 2007.

Harris, for example, as far as I know hasn't changed his thinking about organized religion in any great way but these days he tends to write about mindfulness and meditation. His last book was Waking Up is a kind of scientific exploration of our sense of self. He's in the same camp as Robert Wright, whose book Why Buddhism is True is not about Buddhism at all, really, but is about the neurological processes involved in decision making.

Basically, they both explore the fact that in human beings our instinctual reactions occur more than twice as fast as our conscious ones, and that the general function of our conscious brain is usually to justify what we already feel instinctually. Conscious thought doesn't control our responses, it doesn't even evaluate our responses. It rationalizes why they are the right responses. Which is why you can't convince someone who feels something is true that it isn't by using logic. As the writer of the above article demonstrates all too well. Writers like Wright and Harris see meditation as a tool to circumvent that inclination to rationalize and justify the things we feel (ie, "want") to be true. There's some science in behind the theory involving the measures of chemicals generated in the brain in response to different stimuli but at its essence it basically treats meditation -- with its goal of "detachment" -- as a kind of defense against our basic fight/flight response to perceived threats.

>6 southernbooklady:

If anything, the need to criticize religious thinking has become ever more pressing since 2007. As far as Islam is concerned, not only is Daesh here to stay in one form or another, but we're seeing increasing attempts (and increasingly successful) to impose conservative Muslim standards on the public, including in the West. Indonesia, Malaysia and the like may not be easy to help counterract the onslaught of hardline Islam (look at what almost became law in Brunei recently) but there's no reason the West would have to bow to it in its midst. At least the West other than the US, traditionally the haven for religious nutters. :)

Elsewhere, secular freedoms were hard won over many centuries. They ought to be defended for everyone, by everyone.

Speaking only for myself, as a white (germanic) 72-year-old, ex-Lutheran liberal democrat passivist atheist, I agree with a part of these thoughts but I suggest john examine his own beliefs and/or doubts and quit assigning his thoughts about white supremacy to individual cases.