One. If religion is pure negativity, prohibition and denial, then its opposite - science, reason and truth - must be proselytised in a similar vein as ultimate, self-sufficient values. What seems at first the progressive and critical attitude of a latter-day humanism becomes a language of moral absolutes, an absurd pretence to certainty, a kind of fearful scholasticism that wants to rebut, dismiss, elide and ignore the heterogeneous motivations of spirituality.
“Against the New Atheism,” by Ned Curthoys (Overland, September 1, 2008)
Two. New Atheism is a modern movement that not only publicly rejects the existence of all gods, but also tries to “liberate” believers from their faith. Many of the old heresies it recycles are attracting new ears, thanks largely to post-September 11 anxiety, which has turned religion into the scapegoat for most of society’s woes. To aid its arguments, celebrity New Atheists such as Dawkins tell us that scientific testing fails to find proof of a living God, and instead crowns natural selection as an infallible idol. These are then employed, alongside poorly-informed theology, to belittle faith.
“God Gave You Brains…,” by Scott Monk (Quadrant Magazine, November 1, 2010)
Three. Similar weaknesses abound in Letter to a Christian Nation, in which Harris taunts the many Christians infuriated by his first book. Harris admits up front that “the ‘Christian’ I address throughout is a Christian in a narrow sense of the term.” Aiming comfortably at this caricature, he repeats his insistence that there is a fatal clash of civilizations afoot, between Islam and the West but also between science and religion. Armageddon still looms.
“Same Old New Atheism,” by Jackson Lears (The Nation, May 16, 2011)
Four. Atheism was once new, exciting, and liberating, and for those reasons held to be devoid of the vices of the faiths it displaced. With time, it turned out to have just as many frauds, psychopaths, and careerists as religion does. Many have now concluded that these personality types are endemic to all human groups, rather than being the peculiar preserve of religious folks. With Stalin and Madalyn Murray O'Hair, atheism seems to have ended up mimicking the vices of the Spanish Inquisition and the worst televangelists, respectively.
“The Twilight of Atheism,” by Alister McGrath (Christianity Today, March 1, 2005)
Five. When I think about atheist friends, including my father, they seem to me like people who have no ear for music, or who have never been in love. It is not that (as they believe) they have rumbled the tremendous fraud of religion – prophets do that in every generation. Rather, these unbelievers are simply missing out on something that is not difficult to grasp. Perhaps it is too obvious to understand; obvious, as lovers feel it was obvious that they should have come together, or obvious as the final resolution of a fugue.
“My departure from the faith was like a conversion on the road to Damascus. Now I believe again,” by A.N. Wilson (New Statesman, April 6, 2009)
Six. Dawkins declares that the biblical God is a monster, Harris that God is evil, Hitchens that God is not great. But without some fixed sense of rightness how can one distinguish what is monstrous, evil or ‘not great’ from its opposite? In order to make such value judgments one must assume, as the hard-core atheists are honest enough to acknowledge, that there exists somewhere, in some mode of being, a realm of rightness that does not owe its existence completely to human invention, Darwinian selection or social construction. And if we allow the hard-core atheists into our discussion, we can draw this conclusion: If absolute values exist, then God exists. But if God does not exist, then neither do absolute values, and one should not issue moral judgments as though they do.
“Amateur Atheists,” by John F. Haught (Christian Century, 26 February, 2008)
Seven. Thomas Haywood: So, as an atheist, I can’t live a moral life?
James Ellroy: If you are still an atheist when you get to my age, you don’t know shit. I hope you change.
“The NS Interview, James Ellroy, author,” by Thomas Haywood (New Statesman, November 15, 2010)
He said it.