Live Online Intelligence Squared debate with RD

[klr]

Lost connection and missed A.C. Grayling's closing.

It was rather good. I assume it will appear somewhere on the interwebz in no time at all.

[FBM]

What's the difference between the old atheists and us "new" atheists???

[klr]

What's the difference between the old atheists and us "new" atheists???

The new ones don't get burned at the stake or strung up.

[Animavore]

Ownage.

[FBM]

What's the difference between the old atheists and us "new" atheists???

The new ones don't get burned at the stake or strung up.

Cool. I got here at the right time, then...

[AshtonBlack]

The faith-heads got curb stomped. RD and AC make a good team.

[Deep Sea Isopod]

That was wellcool. Wish it had been onforlonger. Thanks for the heads up, Eli.

[klr]

The faith-heads got curb stomped. RD and AC make a good team.

I'm not sure though which one was the good cop and which one the bad cop. It's much easier with Fry and Hitchens.

[wolfréalt]

The faith-heads got curb stomped. RD and AC make a good team.

Spot on there

[Gawdzilla Sama]

wellington.jpg (35.23 KiB) Viewed 683 times

[Elessarina]

That was wellcool. Wish it had been onforlonger. Thanks for the heads up, Eli.

No probs.. good bit of Sunday evening brain food

[FBM]

Indeed! Thanks, Ele!! I don't know why I woke up at 4 a.m., but I'm glad I did.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

That was wellcool. Wish it had been onforlonger. Thanks for the heads up, Eli.

No probs.. good bit of Sunday evening brain food

Youtube should be up tomorrow, you think? I want some quotes out of it.

[klr]

That was wellcool. Wish it had been onforlonger. Thanks for the heads up, Eli.

No probs.. good bit of Sunday evening brain food

Youtube should be up tomorrow, you think? I want some quotes out of it.

I assume RD.net will have a copy as well, or at least a pointer to it. It's probably a condition of participation that he and the others get "media rights".

[maiforpeace]

What's the difference between the old atheists and us "new" atheists???

Bitter Rift Divides Atheists

by Barbara Bradley Hagerty

October 19, 2009

Last month, atheists marked Blasphemy Day at gatherings around the world, and celebrated the freedom to denigrate and insult religion.

Some offered to trade pornography for Bibles. Others de-baptized people with hair dryers. And in Washington, D.C., an art exhibit opened that shows, among other paintings, one entitled Divine Wine, where Jesus, on the cross, has blood flowing from his wound into a wine bottle.

Another, Jesus Paints His Nails, shows an effeminate Jesus after the crucifixion, applying polish to the nails that attach his hands to the cross.

"I wouldn't want this on my wall," says Stuart Jordan, an atheist who advises the evidence-based group Center for Inquiry on policy issues. The Center for Inquiry hosted the art show.

Jordan says the exhibit created a firestorm from offended believers, and he can understand why. But, he says, the controversy over this exhibit goes way beyond Blasphemy Day. It's about the future of the atheist movement — and whether to adopt the "new atheist" approach — a more aggressive, often belittling posture toward religious believers.

Some call it a schism.

"It's really a national debate among people with a secular orientation about how far do we want to go in promoting a secular society through emphasizing the 'new atheism,' " Jordan says. "And some are very much for it, and some are opposed to it on the grounds that they feel this is largely a religious country, and if it's pushed the wrong way, this is going to insult many of the religious people who should be shown respect even if we don't agree with them on all issues."

Jordan believes the new approach will backfire.

A Schism?

Jordan is a volunteer at the center and therefore could speak his mind. But interviews for this story with others associated with the Washington, D.C., office were canceled — a curious development for a group that promotes free speech.

Ronald Lindsay, who heads the Center for Inquiry, based in Amherst, N.Y., says he didn't know why the interviews were cancelled. As for the art exhibit and other Blasphemy Day events the group promoted:

"What we wanted were thoughtful, incisive and concise critiques of religion," he says. "We were not trying to insult believers."

But others are perfectly happy to. New atheists like Oxford biologist Richard Dawkins and journalist Christopher Hitchens are selling millions of books and drawing people by the thousands to their call for an uncompromising atheism.

For example, Hitchens, a columnist for Vanity Fair and author of the book God Is Not Great, told a capacity crowd at the University of Toronto, "I think religion should be treated with ridicule, hatred and contempt, and I claim that right." His words were greeted with hoots of approval.

Religion is "sinister, dangerous and ridiculous," Hitchens tells NPR, because it can prompt people to fly airplanes into buildings, and it promotes ignorance. Hitchens sees no reason to sugarcoat his position.

"If I said to a Protestant or Quaker or Muslim, 'Hey, at least I respect your belief,' I would be telling a lie," Hitchens says.

Asked why he feels compelled to be so blunt, he responds: "I believe it's more honest, more brave, more courageous simply to state your own position."

The more outrageous the message the better, says PZ Myers, who writes an influential blog that calls, among other things, for the end of religion. On Blasphemy Day, Myers drove a rusty nail through a consecrated Communion wafer and posted a photo on his Web site.

"People got very angry," he recalls. "I don't know why. I mean, it's just a cracker, right?"

Myers, who teaches biology at the University of Minnesota, Morris, says he received about 15,000 hate e-mails. He says one reason he favors the provocative approach is that it works, especially for the next generation of atheists.

"Edgy is what young people like," Myers says. "They want to cut through the nonsense right away and want to get to the point. They want to hear the story fast, they want it to be exciting, and they want it to be fun. And I'm sorry, the old school of atheism is really, really boring."

The Old School

Paul Kurtz founded the Center for Inquiry three decades ago to offer a positive alternative to religion. He has built alliances with religious groups over issues such as climate change and opposing creationism in the public schools. Kurtz says he was ousted in a "palace coup" last year — and he worries the new atheists will set the movement back.

"I consider them atheist fundamentalists," he says. "They're anti-religious, and they're mean-spirited, unfortunately. Now, they're very good atheists and very dedicated people who do not believe in God. But you have this aggressive and militant phase of atheism, and that does more damage than good."

He hopes this new approach will fizzle.

"Merely to critically attack religious beliefs is not sufficient. It leaves a vacuum. What are you for? We know what you're against, but what do you want to defend?"

The new atheists counter that they believe in reason, science and freedom from religious myth. And, as Lindsay, who replaced Kurtz, puts it: "We take the high road, the low road, country roads, interstates, highways, byways, — whatever it takes to reach people."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... =113889251

Atheism 3.0 finds a little more room for religion
Updated 10/19/2009 3:50 PM

By Daniel Burke, Religion News Service

Setting aside the question of whether God exists, it's clear that the benefits of faith far outweigh its costs, he argues in his new book, An Atheist Defends Religion: Why Humanity is Better Off With Religion than Without It.

"I don't know if anybody is going to be able to convince me that God exists," Sheiman said in an interview, "but they can convince me that religion has intrinsic value."

The old atheists said there was no God. The so-called "New Atheists" said there was no God, and they were vocally vicious about it. Now, the new "New Atheists" — call it Atheism 3.0 — say there's still no God, but maybe religion isn't all that bad.

Faith provides meaning and purpose for millions of believers, inspires people to tend to each other and build communities, gives them a sense of union with a transcendent force, and provides numerous health benefits, Sheiman says. Moreover, the galvanizing force behind many achievements in Western civilization has been faith, Sheiman argues, while conceding that he limits his analysis, for the most part, to modern Western religion.

"More than any other institution, religion deserves our appreciation and respect because it has persistently encouraged people to care deeply — for the self, for neighbors, for humanity, and for the natural world — and to strive for the highest ideals humans are able to envision," Sheiman writes.

Religion has always had its cultured defenders, atheists who speak up for the social benefits of faith. The philosopher Plato, for instance, did not believe in the Greek pantheon, but argued that other people should, for the good of society. He even proposed criminalizing disbelief in the existence of deities and immortality of the soul.

In recent years, the skeptical scene has been dominated by the New Atheists —Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and others — who argue in best-selling books that religious faith is a mental illness, or worse.

But now, a new crew of nonbelievers is taking on the New Atheists, arguing that while they may not have faith themselves, there's little reason to belittle believers or push religion out of the public square. The back-and-forth debates over God's existence have shed a little light, but far more heat, they argue, while the world's problems loom ever larger.

"The work that we need to do, we atheists, humanists and non-believers, is to build a better world and not try to tear down those with whom we disagree," said Greg M. Epstein, the Humanist chaplain at Harvard University.

"When our goal is erasing religion, rather than embracing human beings, we all lose."

Epstein argues in his forthcoming book, Good without God: What a Billion Nonreligious People Do Believe, that morality does not depend on a judgmental deity and that nonbelievers can lead meaningful, even purpose-driven, lives. But they can also learn from people of faith, such as California megachurch pastor and Purpose Driven Life author Rick Warren, Epstein says.

Warren's best-selling book basically says that "you have to have a purpose in life bigger than yourself, and that not everything is all about you," said Epstein. "And he's absolutely right about that. But he's wrong in saying that you have to believe in Jesus Christ and if you don't you're going to hell for eternity."

Atheists who insist that religion be removed from the public square are doing themselves a disservice, argues Austin Dacey, a former United Nations representative for the staunchly secularist Center for Inquiry and author of The Secular Conscience: Why Belief Belongs in Public Life. A godless public square not only shields religion from public criticism, it also circumvents a broader debate on morality, he argues.

"If they privatize faith, they also won't be able to criticize it," Dacey said of the New Atheists an interview.

On the flip side, atheists too, can be a "blessing" for believers, said Samir Selmanovic, co-founder and co-leader of New York's interreligious Faith House Manhattan and author of It's Really All About God: Reflections of a Muslim Atheist Jewish Christian.

Atheists are "God's whistle-blowers," who keep believers honest and focused on the here-and-now, Selmanovic said. "Atheism at its best grabs us by the collar and throws us to the ground, demanding to see lives well lived, forcing us to dig deeper and live up to the best of our own religions," he writes.

While no one expects the God debate to end any time soon, in the meantime, perhaps people can agree to disagree a little more agreeably, the new New Atheists argue.

"There was a moment when atheist books were selling," Dacey said. "But people like objectivity, they like the feeling of balance. So after this wave of atheist books and the criticism that they are extremist, people are trying to find a happy medium."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2 ... lief_N.htm