Re: [asa] NPR on New Atheism

Heya Mike,

>
> Sounds like hypocrisy. Basically, the New Atheists think the way to get
> people to embrace reason and science is to use hateful propaganda, edgy
> ridicule, and any other means of arousing negative emotions. Whatever it
> takes. New Atheists clearly do not believe in reason and science. They
> believe in whatever it takes.
>
>
Exactly. Not only are they not relying on either reason or science, but as
near as I can tell, they don't even want people to embrace those things.
Those things have become little more than buzzwords that amount to
shockingly little - what's really central is a combination of personal
animosity, and social/political considerations. Always has been, and always
will be.

I reject the common claim that the New Atheists subscribe to 'scientism'.
Science is appealed to superficially only insofar as it offers utility - and
is either ignored, rejected, or superceded by ideologies otherwise. To make
what I think is an apt comparison, during the french revolution the
revolutionaries yelled quite a lot about "reason". But does the reign of
terror really seem like the result of reason? Do historians, or anyone who
reads about that age, talk about how reason triumphed during that reign?

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Tue Oct 20 22:54:34 2009