New atheism
As New Atheism one is atheistic movement of the 21st century referred to a humanistic and naturalistic represents the world.
This atheist movement was triggered essentially as a counter-movement to religious fundamentalism . It received widespread attention mainly through some very popular books. These books criticize religion as irrational and advocate a world shaped by reason and understanding.
The four authors of these popular books are also called "The Four Horsemen of the Non-Apocalypse" (German: "The four non-apocalyptic riders", see below for the term) and are considered to be pioneers of the new atheist movement. They initially made a name for themselves in the English-speaking world. The movement is meanwhile spread under this term in other countries including Germany.
Concept emergence
"New atheists" initially referred to the authors of some popular books of the early 21st century, including Sam Harris , Richard Dawkins , Daniel Dennett and Christopher Hitchens . The term emerged as an overarching identifier from journalistic comments and reviews of the books.
The term was first mentioned in the article "The Church of the Non-Believers" by Gary Wolf in Wired magazine, 2006, without defining it in more detail. The first attempt at a definition of the term “new atheists” is said to go back to Andrew Brown, who used it to describe popular secular authors who believed religion and belief to be destructive cultural forces. He assigned them overarching core theses that were common to them. The self-definition of the New Atheists differs from this - Andrew Brown is considered one of the most vehement critics of the New Atheism.
In the meantime, the term “new atheism” is often used in journalistic texts and blogs - but without a uniform definition to distinguish it from the positions of “classic” atheists and other critics of religion . The distinction is sometimes mentioned that New Atheists consistently argue naturalistically, take a more aggressive position or identify a broad trend. In particular, the term is probably based on the trend-like emergence of several atheist books in millions of copies as well as the subsequent media-effective and rhetorically polished discussion of the most popular protagonists and others. a. also with Christian representatives.
The Four Horsemen
In 2007 four of the most prominent representatives of the neo-atheist movement - Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett - came together for a discussion. The round was later distributed as a video under the title "The Four Horsemen" - alluding to the four apocalyptic horsemen . Since then they have often been called that.
Definitions
"'New Atheism' is an expression used primarily to distinguish secular thinkers who argue that religious faith and belief in gods are dangerous and destructive because they are essentially irrational and encourage irrationality and anti-scientific thinking."
"" New atheism "is a term primarily used to distinguish secular thinkers who argue that religious belief and belief in gods are dangerous and destructive because they are essentially irrational and promote irrationality and anti-scientific thinking . "
"The best definition of a New Atheist that I've ever heard, it's: a New Atheist is just any old Atheist that the Catholic Church cannot legally set on fire, anymore."
"The best definition of a new atheist I've ever heard is: A new atheist is just an old atheist who the Catholic Church can no longer legitimately set fire to."
“The New Atheism is a movement that clearly and precisely, sometimes polemically or satirically, formulates its criticism. It is now explicitly natural scientists and no longer primarily philosophers express themselves . 'Moderate' religiosity is also rejected because it spreads irrational thinking in society. Religion and science are incompatible. Because the scientific method of critical examination is in contradiction to the blind belief in dogmas that religions demand. Faith (without evidence) deserves no respect. The New Atheists are naturalistic humanists. They assume that a more reasonable society without belief in the supernatural is also a better society. "
“The new atheists ... condemn not only belief in God, but also respect for belief in God. Religion is not only wrong, it is an evil. "
Conceptual criticism
Ulrich Berner criticizes the “arbitrary use” and “lack of clarity in content” of the terms “new atheism” and “new atheists”.
Michael Schmidt-Salomon considers the “new atheism” to be outdated and instead pleads for the promotion of a thematically broader “new humanism”.
causes
Nick Spencer analyzes the long history of atheism in Europe in response to the dominance of Christianity and concludes the same mechanisms for the blossoming of New Atheism, specifically for Great Britain and the USA, where religion unexpectedly achieved significance in politics: “This leads us to a somewhat paradoxical conclusion: we should expect to hear more about atheism in the future for the simple reason that God is back. "
The Canadian Stephen LeDrew analyzed in his doctoral thesis at York University in Ontario the exact causes that led to the new atheist movement in North America. The secularism thesis is more an ideological product than based on empirical facts. The new atheism could therefore be seen as a measure to still promote the success of secularism . He sees New Atheism in response to immigration, multiculturalism and religious adaptation. On closer inspection, the New Atheism is a "secular fundamentalism, a modern utopian ideology " and "essentially political". LeDrew points out that atheism with the theory of evolution has differentiated itself from the simple negation of religious beliefs to an affirmation of liberalism, scientific rationality and the legitimacy and methodology of modern science - i.e. from pure criticism of religion to a complete ideological system, with one Abundance of principles that have developed from the Enlightenment.
Victor J. Stenger locates the origin in the ongoing struggle with conservative Christians in the USA, who, contrary to the theory of evolution, also want to establish creationist creation in school lessons.
According to the “Bus Campaign”, the New Atheism emerged as a counter-movement to religious fundamentalism: “A new religious fundamentalism has established itself and called the 'new atheism' on the scene as a resolute countermeasure. Evangelicals , creationists and Islamists no longer dominate the public perception with their thematic setting ”.
Main theses of some representatives
In addition to the four “great” authors, a number of other authors were able to develop primarily regional significance in Europe: Piergiorgio Odifreddi (Italy), Michel Onfray (France) and Michael Schmidt-Salomon (Germany). For the German-speaking area, Peter Sloterdijk , Philipp Möller , Karlheinz Deschner , Carsten Frerk , Joachim Kahl and Herbert Schnädelbach are also named as the main representatives of the movement, although their positions differ significantly in some cases.
The evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins sees religion as an opportunity for theologians to evade verifiability. A divine being that interacts in some way with world events is inevitably entering natural scientific terrain and is in competition for explanations. In addition, questions that cannot be answered in principle by natural science are just as inaccessible to theology.
Karlheinz Deschner has written a comprehensive criminal history of Christianity that lists numerous crimes committed by church representatives in order to expose the inhumane effects of church power politics and the hypocrisy of Christians of all epochs up to clerical fascism .
Herbert Schnädelbach sparked a debate on May 11, 2000 with his criticism of the mea-culpa declaration by John Paul II. In the following contributions he defended the enlightenment of theology as a “pious atheist” and presented the “new” atheism as a denominational danger because of its scientific narrowing.
The ethnologist Pascal Boyer tried in 2004 (And Mensch created God) to underpin Feuerbach's projection thesis in terms of brain physiology: A certain module that processes sensory impressions easily leads changes in the environment back to living beings and leaves unclear perceptions of supernatural actors such as gods or ghosts arise.
Andreas Kilian interpreted religion in 2009 as a biologically selected, non-logical level of argumentation in order to be able to better justify and enforce individual egoism towards others.
In his book "Magical Thinking", Thomas Grüter points out constituent elements of magical thinking in religions.
Criticism of the new atheism
The Oxford professor of science and religion Alister McGrath names the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 as the main trigger for the new atheism . Furthermore, he attributes the blossoming of the New Atheism to the disappointment over the failure of the secularization thesis, i.e. the assumption that religiosity would lose importance in the long term, and thus also explains the sometimes confrontational vocabulary in which religious belief is not only stupid and morally evil is presented, but also as a "mental illness" that can spread "virus-like", whereby children in particular are to be protected from an "infection". He assigns parallels to religious fundamentalism to New Atheism and dubbed the “aggressive” appearance of the atheism advocates a “crusade” against religion.
In 2013, the Protestant theologian Ulrich Körtner criticized the Atheistic Religious Society in Austria as a representative of a New Atheism that "questions the elementary human right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion" and is therefore "in its consequences freedom-endangering". This criticism was rejected in 2019 by a board member of the Atheist Religious Society in a guest commentary in the weekly newspaper Die Furche .
Neo-atheist organizations
- Brights - international association of people who represent a worldview that is free from belief in the supernatural
- Humanistic Association of Germany - Organization for the promotion and dissemination of a secular-humanistic worldview and for representing the interests of non-denominational people in Germany
- Humanistic Association Austria (HVÖ) - Humanistic Freethinker Organization with the goals: Promotion of a rational worldview, promotion of enlightenment and humanism, enforcement of human rights, separation of state and religion, abolition of the privileges of religious communities.
- Giordano Bruno Foundation - foundation of civil law, which aims to promote evolutionary humanism
- Humanist Party - a party with secular and humanist goals
Magazines
With the public interest in New Atheism, some magazines have emerged or gained popularity:
- American atheist
- Free Inquiry
- The freethinker
- Freethought Today
- The humanist
- The New Humanist
- Reason
- The Secular Humanist Bulletin
- Skeptic
- Skeptical inquirer
- The Skeptic
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Bus campaign, online ( Memento from November 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Sam Harris (The End of Faith, 2004), Richard Dawkins (Der Gotteswahn, 2006), Daniel Dennett (Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, 2006), Christopher Hitchens (The Lord Is No Shepherd - How Religion Poisons the World , 2007)
- ^ The New Atheists, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Online
- ^ A b Victor J. Stenger, The New Atheism. What's New About The New Atheism ?, Philosophy Now, Issue 78
- Jump up ↑ Victor J. Stenger, The New Atheism: Taking a Stand for Science and Reason, Prometheus Books, 2009, SBN-13: 978-1591027515
- ^ A b Gary Wolf, The Church of the Non-Believers, Wired, Nov. 2006, online
- ^ A b New Atheism, The Skeptics Dictionary, Online
- ↑ Andrew Brown, The New Atheism, a definition and a quiz, The Guardian, 2008
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7IHU28aR2E
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1Q43OHVK10#t=234
- ↑ http://gbs-stuttgart.de/P_12_006
- ↑ Ulrich Berner, Religion and Criticism in the Modern Age, LIT Verlag Münster, 2012, p. 89 (“Due to their arbitrary use and the outlined lack of clarity in terms of content, the terms 'New Atheism' and 'New Atheists' are not suitable as analytical categories of scientific research . ")
- ↑ Michael Schmidt-Salomon, From New Atheism to New Humanism ?, Lecture at the conference “New Atheism and Modern Humanism”, Berlin April 25, 2008, PDF
- ↑ Nick Spencer: Atheists: The Origin of the Species. A&C Black, 2014.
- ↑ Stephen LeDrew: The Evolution of Atheism: The Politics of a Modern Movement. Oxford University Press, 2015, ISBN 978-0190225179 .
- ↑ Albert JJ Anglberger, Paul Weingartner (Ed.), New Atheism viewed scientifically, Walter de Gruyter, 2010, p. 22
- ↑ Stephen Bullivant, Michael Ruse, The Oxford Handbook of Atheism, Oxford University Press, 2013
- ↑ Hans Albert, Critique of Theological Thought, LIT Verlag Münster, 2013, p. 94
- ^ Alister McGrath, Reflections on the New Atheism, Catalyst, 2013, Online
- ↑ Ulrich HJ Körtner, Against Church Privileges: Atheism and Religious Freedom . In: The press. April 4, 2013, page 26, accessed February 11, 2020.
- ↑ Wilfried Apfalter, How much religion do we want? In: The furrow. June 13, 2019, No. 24/2019, page 14, accessed on February 11, 2020.