…and this is a 
The wikipedia article on "New Atheism" is nothing short of a travesty. It mentions nothing of the fact that the people associated with this "New Atheism" clearly state that there is nothing "new" about it, and the only sources it cites are Andrew Brown, who has become something of a mewling whiner about it, and Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary! It even talks about "Doctrines", as if we have any!
It does list books by Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, and Hitchens…but doesn't bother to say word one about what's actually in them.
This is an article that actually belongs on Conservapædia—it is that bad.
Here's the old version of the page that I was criticizing. If you go to the "New Atheist" page now, it redirects to the entry on atheism in general. Good, fast work!
Comments
Posted by: daveau
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July 23, 2009 10:20 AM
What God would that be?
Posted by: JD | July 23, 2009 10:21 AM
I prefer old fashioned, handcrafted atheism. Just like my dear grandpa used to make.
Posted by: James Sweet | July 23, 2009 10:23 AM
I used to be a hardcore Wikipedian, but now don't spend much time there. I've already added a couple of tags saying the article is crap, but of course a major rewrite is in the works.
Posted by: pikeamus | July 23, 2009 10:23 AM
Well thats frankly the worst wiki page I've ever seen.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | July 23, 2009 10:27 AM
AFAIK, the term "New Atheism" was injected into the discourse by Gary Wolf in Wired magazine.
Posted by: James Sweet | July 23, 2009 10:28 AM
@pikeamus: Then you haven't spend much time in the netherregions of Wikipedia ;)
Seriously, the article is (well, was) a hatchet job, but at least it's coherent and occasionally bordered on being accurate. That's a lot better than many Wikipedia articles.
I am all over it. Already you will find it is far less objectionable than when PZ posted about it. This is what it looked like at the time of PZ's post.
Posted by: PZ Myers | July 23, 2009 10:29 AM
Wikipedians work fast. It's already been cut to the bone. You'll have to look at the history page to find out what I was complaining about, but basically, it attempted to define "New Atheism" entirely by quoting two critics, Brown and Mohler, who don't understand it.
Seriously, I wouldn't have been surprised to see it was the work of the Schlafly Bros. on Conservapædia, but to see such hackery on wikipedia was dismaying.
Yeah, I know there is a lot of crap on wikipedia, I just usually don't bump into it.
Posted by: ChebGhobbi | July 23, 2009 10:36 AM
The New Atheist is a straw man used by the likes of Brown to paint those on the side of science as the aggressors in the war to keep creationism out of classrooms. Simple as.
Posted by: James Sweet | July 23, 2009 10:36 AM
PZ: At my post in #6, I provided a permalink to the version you posted about. You might want to update your post with a link to that, so people don't think you are crazy :)
Posted by: JefFlyingV | July 23, 2009 10:37 AM
Conservapaedia gives faint praise to "old atheism", because of the non-publishing nature of the old atheists.
Who wrote the entry for Wiki, Buchanan or Coulter?
Posted by: Beige | July 23, 2009 10:38 AM
I'm pretty sure that the rational freethinking hordes at your disposal should be able to bring that article up to speed in no time at all.
Posted by: Marcus Ranum | July 23, 2009 10:39 AM
That Myers guy ought to write a book.
Posted by: PZ Myers | July 23, 2009 10:39 AM
The primary perpetrator of the one-sided hackery is some guy called Jbolden1517. All you have to do is undo anything he has or will ever contribute to improve the article ten thousand fold.
Posted by: daveau
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July 23, 2009 10:41 AM
Wow! That was a fast revision.
But I think it's "Wikipudlians". Anyone know where I can look that up?
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | July 23, 2009 10:44 AM
pharyngulation in action
Posted by: ken | July 23, 2009 10:47 AM
Sorry this is going somewhat out of place....but regarding the upcoming field trip to the Creation Museum:
Consider reviewing some of the stuff at: http://www.reasons.org/
That is a Christian faith-based ministry (or something) that believes in an old (billion-year) Earth, etc. (at least to a point) -- all based on literal Bibilical interpretation! Just like the Creation Museum cult--same source material, very different conclusion.
Anyway, "study" some of the interpretive "logic" at reasons.org and toss that out during the field trip. They'll never expect you to be quoting the Bible and/or some other Biblical resource. It may throw them off completely. I've found this sort of thing to be quite fun. At least for a little while, once in a while....
While you're there & saying whatever, see if they've figured out how the Earth is the center of the universe around which everything, sun included, rotates. Also, ask what happened to that little light in the sky at night mentioned in Genesis -- that can't be the moon (whose formal name is Luna, by the way) because that, Luna, is just a reflector...NOT a light! So much for Biblical literalism. While I'm thinking of it, how do they reconcile the 120 (or 125?) year age limit on humans (per Genesis) with Jesus' remarks about 'these things shall pass, meaning his return, before this generation passes' (or something like that) -- it would be fun to see some 2000+ year old folks from that meeting...have they aged well, did they provide any feedback in the Museum's design, etc. (of course, this assumes that since Jesus was infallible all-knowing God he couldn't have been wrong and since he hasn't yet returned, that particular audience must not have yet passed on...otherwise he wouldn't be the infallible all-knowing God, just a liar).
I could go on....hope you go prepared with some good questions!!! Just for fun.
Posted by: James Sweet | July 23, 2009 10:51 AM
I think Jbolden1517 was acting in good faith, but doesn't really understand what so-called "New Atheism" is all about. The majority of his contribs seem to be about non-religion related stuff, and he seems legit. He was responding to someone on the talk page who felt the article was too generous towards New Atheism and that it did not include criticism... but I think in the process he botched it.
Don't hate on him, though, he just fucked up, he wasn't trying for a hatchet job as near as I can tell.
Posted by: gistgrant | July 23, 2009 10:53 AM
Slightly off topic. A friend of mine is turning 40 soon and I need to get him a gift. He enjoys Dawkins and has all his books and the latest on order. So, any suggestion's? (For a book that is)
Posted by: Marc Abian | July 23, 2009 10:56 AM
I find wikipedia very reliable, any topics I already knew about seemed to be accurately explained when I went there. I think it's just people not looking past the fact that anyone can submit content.
Posted by: Feynmaniac | July 23, 2009 10:56 AM
PZ has already criticized Andrew Brown's 6 doctrines of "New Atheism"
Posted by: RobC | July 23, 2009 11:01 AM
Maybe you should add Brad Pitt to it.... (though he sounds more like an who cares Agnostic than a "New Atheist," whatever that means.
http://www.bild.de/BILD/news/bild-english/celebrity-gossip/2009/07/22/brad-pitt-interview/inglourious-basterd-star-on-angelina-jolie-and-six-kids.html
BILD: Do you believe in God?
Brad Pitt (smiling): “No, no, no!”
BILD: Is your soul spiritual?
Brad Pitt: “No, no, no! I’m probably 20 per cent atheist and 80 per cent agnostic. I don’t think anyone really knows. You’ll either find out or not when you get there, until then there’s no point thinking about it.
Posted by: tsg | July 23, 2009 11:03 AM
Like any other reference, it's all about the citations. Wikipedia is a good place to start, but for anything more than a passing interest in a particular subject, it's not where I stop.
I've found that fact useful for teaching other people about following the references.
Posted by: James Sweet | July 23, 2009 11:03 AM
As someone who spent a large period of time behind the scenes at Wikipedia... yes, more or less. There is some shockingly bad shit on Wikipedia, but a lot of the articles, particularly about certain topics (more on this in a sec), are fantastic.
When you spend enough time on Wikipedia, you get to be able to tell when it can probably be trusted, and when to ignore everything it says. Does the article seem to be arguing with itself? Ongoing content war, proceed with caution. Does it sound like a press release? Probably was, and nobody has caught it yet.
Articles that are about non-controversial purely factual topics tend to be pretty good. Articles about extremely controversial topics also tend to be pretty good, because they get so much attention that they get fixed. Articles about mildly controversial topics, or controversial-yet-obscure topics, are dangerous. As the New Atheism article demonstrates...
Posted by: XD | July 23, 2009 11:04 AM
It's certainly a reasonable article now, but I do have a problem with:
I hate it when gods are termed "God", as it looks like it is only the god of Abraham which is being spoken about.
Posted by: David Wiener
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July 23, 2009 11:06 AM
gistgrant@18
My wife got me an "A" shirt for my Bday. I wear it all the time - great way to start random conversations. Not a book, but still...
Posted by: XD | July 23, 2009 11:18 AM
I love Wikipedia. I think it's an audacious project that works better than many would have expected. And I actually think that its imperfectness is a good thing, as it teaches people to be skeptical, and to learn how to identify good sources from bad ones.
Several years ago now, it was found that Wikipedia was as accurate as the Encyclopædia Britannica, and just this year, Encyclopædia Britannica announced that it was branching out into user contribution.
Posted by: Doosh | July 23, 2009 11:19 AM
Ha ha! The article is truly "gutted" now. See discussion page:
"Still is a hatchet job. Now it's a puff piece to soothe PZ Myers' ego."
Posted by: Peter McKellar | July 23, 2009 11:20 AM
Wow, that first version was terrible.
James - Could I suggest updating the entry so that it includes the scarlet A.
The book list is also kinda lame - a list of 77 books was provided by one of the blogs recently. If including the babble (this rated second on the atheist reading list for its power to convert theists to atheists), it may help to direct readers to leviticus and deuteronomy. Harris's Reason project may be a good external link, along with pharyngula and dawkins.net.
Current entry is much better already. I agree that jbolden was probably doing the best he could with what he knew and could easily find.
Posted by: Glen Davidson
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July 23, 2009 11:21 AM
Probably something should be done about it, but, like most controversial issues on Wikipedia, it'll no doubt be an endless fight and it'll probably never be very good.
So sure, fix it as best you can (I've never contributed, only commented a little), but don't sweat Wikipedia. It should be only a quick reference on most things, and considered of little value on issues in dispute.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p
Posted by: BadChild | July 23, 2009 11:24 AM
And while you're at it, Wikipedians, fix this article too:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_the_bible
Posted by: pikeamus | July 23, 2009 11:26 AM
According to the comments in the discussion session it's now a puff piece, though I can't see where any praise is being given to... well... anything really so I'm not sure how that description can be accurate.
Honestly I'm not sure why there needs to be a page for 'New Atheism'. Can't there just be a comment in the main Atheism page that says "Outspoken modern atheists have been labelled by some as "New Atheists" but many of them have rejected the label." With appropriate references of course.
Posted by: Heaventree
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July 23, 2009 11:29 AM
Wikipedia won't allow an article on the topic "Fucked-Up Bullshit," but that would be the appropriate place to cite to Albert Mohler.
On Wikipedia in general, I'll agree pretty much with James Sweet @ #23 above. For basic factual data about non-controversial topics, like the dates and places of birth and death of famous people or basic topics in the sciences (the articles on the chemical elements are great handy references, for instance), Wikipedia is hard to top, being both free and quick. But as James Sweet points out, it's the semi-controversial matters that seem to be a real clambake.
Posted by: raven | July 23, 2009 11:29 AM
One of the favorite activities of some xians is vandalizing wikipedia. At one point Eric Rudolph, the xian terrorist and killer was described as an atheist. The article on xian terrorism gets hit frequently. Some of the dumber things Philip Johnson, father of ID, said get erased and on and on.
It is just more Lying for Jesus. At my local library they check out atheist books and never return them. I presume when they get enough, they have a bonfire and toss on some Harry Potter and biology books as well.
Posted by: Heaventree
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July 23, 2009 11:31 AM
I have no idea why, @ #32, I'm now "Heaventree Author Profile Page." I'm just Heaventree.
Posted by: James Sweet | July 23, 2009 11:32 AM
At the time ThuranX made that comment about it being a "puff piece", there was a sentence in the intro roughly along the lines of, "Prominent new atheists tend to be academics and all round very smart guys, including Dawkings, Hitchens, and the totally handsome and popular blogger PZ Myers." I exaggerate, but not by much :)
The article is already converging on something reasonable, but is lacking sources.
If you're really serious about this, you can follow the process here.
Posted by: pikeamus | July 23, 2009 11:40 AM
Thanks for the link James, I have to head home from work now but will check-in in about an hour.
Posted by: James Sweet | July 23, 2009 11:43 AM
pikeamus, I copied your "Honest I'm not sure..." paragraph to the talk page on Wikipedia, and there was some agreement. Right now, the talk is about merging it into the History of atheism article in the section "21st Century".
Posted by: Matt Penfold | July 23, 2009 11:45 AM
Is anyone else getting side and top bar adds for gnmagazine ?
The mag seems to be a creationist publication posing as a science one.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | July 23, 2009 11:47 AM
Yes and it really perplexes the shit out of me how Science Blogs seemingly has no control over any decisions about what services they use for add revenue.
Posted by: gistgrant | July 23, 2009 11:50 AM
Hey, maybe I should get him a book by Dawkings, I'm sure he doesn't have any of his books!
Posted by: Cartomancer | July 23, 2009 11:58 AM
Actually the sentence at the end of the first paragraph simply said that most of the so-called "new atheists" are "authors and academics" (which is true, they are), and that PZ Myers is a "popular blogger" (which is also true, he is).
It has come to a pretty pass when merely stating what is true is automatically considered to be unacceptably partisan.
Posted by: TripMaster Monkey | July 23, 2009 12:01 PM
What a joke. The "new atheism" entry in Wikipedia is in danger of imploding under the weight of all the [citation needed] tags. :P
Posted by: The Kardinal | July 23, 2009 12:10 PM
Completely unrelated:
It turns out religion does not poison EVERYTHING. After all, religion gives us....
Naked Chicks Plowing Fields!
Reuters has the scoop:
http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSTRE56M3G020090723
Posted by: JBlilie | July 23, 2009 12:13 PM
gistgrant @18:
My recommendations:
1. The new book by Dawkins (coming in Sept.) The Greatest Show On Earth (obvious, I know)
2. Why Evolution Is True (Coyne)
3. Your Inner Fish (Shubin)
4. Parasite Rex (Zimmer)
5. Why We Get Sick (Nesse, et al)
6. Under the Banner of Heaven (Krakauer)
7. Oranges (McPhee)
8. One-Man Caravan (Fulton)
9. Full Tilt (Murphy)
10. Touching the Void (Simpson)
11. The Origins of Virtue (Ridley)
12. Perfume (Susskind) (Had to throw one novel in.)
The Wiki was nicely fixed up. Good work!
Posted by: James Sweet | July 23, 2009 12:19 PM
Ah, but what you choose to say and what you choose to omit can very easily create a bias. Let's say I was writing a Wikipedia article on Michael Jackson. Possible intro sentences:
1) Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009), also known as the "King of Pop", was an American recording artist and one of the most commercially successful entertainers of all time.
2) Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009), also known as the "King of Pop", was one of the most commercially successful entertainers of all time and a prolific philanthropist, whose tragic death caused a massive outpouring of grief and mourning.
3) Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an accused child molester who was acquitted despite admitting that he shared his bed with children, was often ridiculed for his botched plastic surgery, and died with only a fraction of his original fortune.
All three intros are factual, but the second one is unreasonably positive and the third is unreasonably negative.
By the same token, the intro sentence in question on the New Atheism article, while factually true, focused on information that made Dawkins et al look good, and placed undue focus on promoting PZ. (Mentioning blandly that Dawkins is an academic, while expending over a dozen words to push PZ's credentials as a biologist and popular blogger, is clearly not neutral)
See Wikipedia's police on "undue weight".
Posted by: Olaf Davis | July 23, 2009 12:30 PM
I'd been meaning to get around to fixing that, but the list-of-things-I'd-like-to-fix-on-Wikipedia is one of those lists which gains items about twice as fast as it loses them. The current redirect is probably what the article deserves, and certainly better than the old version.
Posted by: Joseph Kelly | July 23, 2009 12:33 PM
Glad to see the New Atheist article has been deleted, and is now a redirect to History of atheism. Great work! Also happy to see it is acknowledged as a pejorative term. Like "neo-con" and "gay agenda", it's used only by opponents.
Posted by: Cartomancer | July 23, 2009 12:33 PM
Simply being academics and authors does not mean people are automatically intelligent, informed or right about everything. Technically speaking Dembski, Michael Behe and even Josef Ratzinger are academics and authors. The comment was intended to show that "new atheism" is primarily a literary, academic phenomenon which has been popularised through the written word - primarily through published books and online blogs. It it a valid and important characterisation of the movement and its origins I feel.
Moreover, while Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens et al. are high-profile and easily recognised public figures, PZ Myers is much, much less well known. I would hazard a guess that hardly anyone chancing across the article in question will have heard of him. As such a simple description of who he is seemed appropriate (though a link to PZ's own Wikipedia article seems to do the job also).
Posted by: PZ Myers | July 23, 2009 12:33 PM
Actually, the redirect is perfect. The general atheism article isn't bad, and since this whole "New Atheist" gimmick is simply a label used by critics to marginalize them, it's just right to simply give it a brief mention in a larger context.
Posted by: PZ Myers | July 23, 2009 12:38 PM
There was absolutely nothing in this article (and I can assure you, there was also nothing in my head) to imply that I personally needed any kind of mention on the old "New Atheism" page. If anything, I think it needed savage cuts and a reduction to a discussion of the phrase.
But the redirect solves everything. I have no complaints now.
Posted by: Doug
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July 23, 2009 12:46 PM
Okay, I put an update on the Wiki page. I made a reference to a book published in 1966 criticizing the "new atheists". Quite absurd that the bible thumpers have been complaining about these new Atheists for over 30 years.
Posted by: Lynn Wilhelm | July 23, 2009 12:48 PM
Wow, that was amazing.
I did think PZ was a bit crazy when the link he gave only sent me to the 21st century part of the Atheism page.
THEN I started reading the comments and saw the link to the original page.
That page was horrible, I'm glad it's gone.
Posted by: Charles | July 23, 2009 12:50 PM
You should probably update your post to indicate that it now redirects to an appropriate location, PZ.
Posted by: Matt Penfold | July 23, 2009 12:51 PM
As a welcome bonus it makes Mooney look that little bit more of a hack.
Posted by: Demonhype | July 23, 2009 12:51 PM
There was one pretty goofy one a few months ago. I was looking up this list of standards of ethical awareness or development that I'd learned in one of my college psych classes--damn, I can't remember the name of it, but it's the one where the bottom two levels are "what's in it for me" reasoning, the middle two are about social dyanamics, and the top two are about highly developed ethics. No religious baasis in there, which I liked in class because most of the other standards we were reading managed to shoehorn some kind of "serving God" as an intrinsic characteristic of high morality.
So I googled it recently to find out the name (which I've forgotten again, stupidly enough) and there was a wikipedia entry on the list. I'm not any kind of wikipedian and the site has been off-limits as a resource for my classes for many a year. But I gave it a skim, and after the list of six levels of ethical development--the ones you can easily find in more reliable sources even online--there was a seventh, highest level of ethical development added to it, which was nowhere in my college psych book nor on any other source I could find online.
Can you guess what this seventh, highest level of ethical development was based on? You guessed it! The highest level of ethics was based on gawd-belief!
I'll have to jump into google and come back with a name, because I'm no wikipedian and maybe someone else can fix this. I mean, to its credit it only claims that he theorized about this seventh level but never added it to the list, but in my psych class I seem to recall the history being a bit different, wherein the guy who came up with it was deliberately trying to identify these levels on a purely psych level without resorting to things like religion.
I could be wrong. But I don't think it's likely.
Posted by: Demonhype | July 23, 2009 12:53 PM
Kohlberg! It was Kohlberg! Kohlberg's stages of moral development! Well, I was close. I keep getting that mixed up with that Kubler-Ross thing. Must be the K's.
Posted by: Demonhype | July 23, 2009 1:04 PM
Just went to the wiki for atheism and I wanted to extend congratulations. Excellent work, beautiful job! :)
Posted by: Sastra
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July 23, 2009 1:06 PM
Even in what is apparently its "fixed" form, the entry doesn't really put its finger on the general factors I think characterize the so-called new atheists.
1.) Believing in the supernatural is not a virtue which requires mental discipline, nor is it an indication of good character and a loving heart. Faith is ultimately an abdication of epistemic responsibility, and intellectually dishonest; it should not be cherished, fostered, or given an automatic pass.
2.) The existence of God is a fact claim, and, if true, one would expect it to be not only consistent with the findings of modern science, but derivable from our discoveries. If this is not the case, then we should not look for ways to keep the concept anyway through such evasive tactics as; shoving it into gaps in our scientific understanding; placing it into some empirically-safe category such as taste, feelings, morals, or values; shifting the burden of proof; or redefining 'God' around any and all objections. Instead, throw it out for better explanations.
3.) People of faith are not so different from atheists that they need to be coddled, protected, and reassured that it's "okay to believe." They're perfectly capable of being told they're mistaken, changing their minds, and figuring out how to justify their values without leaning on supernatural authority. Disagreeing with people is not infringing on their "rights." What is valuable in religion is just as valuable without religion, and the religious are not going to lose the meaning in their lives.
4.) When people are encouraged to believe that the universe is ultimately grounded in magic, the supernatural, and the embodiment and fulfillment of human desires, then where people draw the line on what is, and isn't, likely, is arbitrary. The same applies to knowing things through "faith." There is no requirement that all spiritual truths should make reasonable sense without the special revelation.
5.) Religious claims deserves no special respect: they ought to be analyzed and treated like statements in science, politics, economics, or social theory. Ridiculous beliefs are not above being mocked just because they are "deeply felt."
6.) While religion may not cause every conflict, adding it in tends to make any conflict worse. Religion is socially divisive, and places areas of dispute beyond what can be decided in this world. No society has ever suffered because it became too reasonable.
I'm sure there are more, but I think 'new atheists' would agree with those 6 points.
Posted by: becca | July 23, 2009 1:07 PM
Demonhype @ 56: it seems to be fixed now.
Posted by: ihedenius | July 23, 2009 1:10 PM
I hate it when the singular god concept is accepted as if it is the 'obvious' question. It may be the dominant unsupported fantasy narrative globally and in the west but that doesn't make it any more credible or obvious.
I wish the 'New atheists' had rejected the term and never used it about themselves as they have unfortunately. Mostly without thinking about it I think.
Posted by: pikeamus | July 23, 2009 1:11 PM
Ah, that's much better. Good job whoever is responsible for the redirect.
Posted by: Blake Stacey
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July 23, 2009 1:23 PM
Interesting. I hadn't known about that one: Whose God is Dead: The Challenge of the New Atheism (1966), by David H. C. Read.
Posted by: raven | July 23, 2009 1:28 PM
Don't get complacent. The Liars for Jesus will be back.
They are like cockroaches. There is never just one. And you never get rid of all of them forever.
The wikipedia vandalizers have a habit of returning over and over and changing articles with truthful and negative information about their cults for years on end. They can stay crazy and malevolent longer than normal people can stay interested. The Xian Terrorism article kept getting hit until people got bored changing it back and gave up. The Charles Darwin article had its problems as well.
Posted by: tmaxPA | July 23, 2009 1:34 PM
I think you're backwards on this, PZ. I'm very disappointed to hear that the article has been reduced to a redirect. Even more disappointing is the section on 21st Century Atheism:
A) It is all of one paragraph long
B) It mentions that hideous asshattery about "brights"
C) It makes NO mention WHATSOEVER of either PZ Myers or Pharyngula
Completely pathetic. Were I the kind of organized responsible person that could be relied upon in any way, which I am not, I would ask some questions and start an article on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Philosophy
(Philosophy Wikiproject) to research and coordinate a much larger more coherent article on New Atheism itself. Since I'm not going to be doing that, any future article will probably not contain my favorite theory, which is that, essential, New Atheism became the unapologetic antitheism it is today as a direct result of 9/11. Who in their right minds would be accommodating of anyone's theism after living through that day?
And your modesty aside, any article on New Atheism would be a bogus charade if it does not mention CrackerGate. I know for me, and probably millions of others, that episode marks the beginning of a new era. Sure, these authors and philosophers may have been around long before that, but writing books is what Old Atheists did. Sticking a nail through a communion wafer and throwing it in the trash? That's art. That's convincing. It is profound, in how ridiculous it makes any claim that the Creator Of The Universe is in any way concerned about that cracker.
And that is, really, what New Atheism is about, and why Mooney and the other accommodationists get so bothered by us. They would have us use every rhetorical weapon at our disposal against theism, in general or specific, but for one: Ridicule is not allowed. That's rude, and uncivilized. That's not fair. How dare we not consider ourselves morally inferior to religionists, when here we are mocking them, and isn't that the greatest sin of all?
Posted by: Feynmaniac | July 23, 2009 1:37 PM
Sastra @ #58
I like it! Much better than Andrew Brown's 6 points.
Posted by: A Recovering Catholic | July 23, 2009 2:00 PM
So, whose going to fix it up?
Posted by: Hypatia's Daughter | July 23, 2009 2:17 PM
#43 The Kardinal,
Naked virgins plowing must be more historically common than we realize. I have been reading a series of historical mysteries set in France in the 12th Century, written by Sharan Newman, who is a medieval historian and author.: http://www.sharannewman.com/
One of the books has the village virgins performing a naked ritual in the fields at night - an appeal to the "old gods" to bring rain and make the crops grow.
Her locales have included France, England & Germany and I can't remember where this was supposed to have happened....
Posted by: James Sweet | July 23, 2009 2:24 PM
@tmaxPA: I think the section on 20th Century atheism could use some expansion... so go for it!
Posted by: Dan Gilbert | July 23, 2009 2:29 PM
I'd never heard of "conservapedia" before reading this post, so just for kicks, I went and checked out THEIR article on atheism. Holy crap!!!
It's worse than I would have expected. They even go so far as to quote Chuck Norris when talking about atheism on the internet. WTF?!
Posted by: The Kardinal | July 23, 2009 2:42 PM
#67 Hypatia's Daughter
Very interesting. I think I hear a potential Master's thesis there. "efficacy of naked virgin plowing on farmers yield".
That title reminds me of my favorite pun/homonym: "Look at that farmer. He's outstanding in his field."
Posted by: ihedenius | July 23, 2009 3:01 PM
@sastra #58
I think all atheists throughout history would agree with that. Or at least back to Robert Ingersoll. If only because he's the oldest atheist I'm familiar with.
Reading Ingersoll it struck me how similar he sounds to todays atheists. He talks about children, it's apparent he would agree with Dawkins. He hints about the copying / manufacturing of the bible, my mind went to Ehrman. Points is, there isn't anything substantially 'new' about 'New Atheists' and the wiki should make that point. 9/11 as a catalyzer for more outspokeness maybe, otherwise not so much.
Posted by: Rob | July 23, 2009 4:20 PM
One could argue that the strongest evidence against the existence of God is the ubiquitous need by theists to prove that God exists.
Posted by: Skemono | July 23, 2009 4:28 PM
Check out Jean Meslier, then. Much older than Ingersoll.
Posted by: Luke Crowe | July 23, 2009 7:16 PM
A search for "New Atheist" on Wiki now links to a tiny paragraph on the 21st century on the History of Atheism page. How rubbish.
Posted by: Wowbagger, OM | July 23, 2009 7:34 PM
Sastra, #58 - excellent.
Oh, and over at M&K's Happy Smile Let's-all-hold-hands Funtime Blog the Mooney-loons are bemoaning the changes. New Militant Accomodationist McCarthy is claiming there's a New Atheist Conspiracy™ to control information via Wikipedia.
Posted by: amphiox | July 23, 2009 8:08 PM
"They can stay crazy and malevolent longer than normal people can stay interested"
And herein lies what I think is one of religion's most powerful features, a reason why the meme has persisted so long and been so successful in spreading itself.
It is (one of several, but among the most effective yet devised) a means by which large numbers of people can be motivated/compelled to do things that they in other circumstances would not do, or to an extent that they otherwise would not sustain.
It's an amplifier of human activity, for good or for ill, from which much of the grandeur and horror that is human civilization has sprung.
Posted by: Heidi | July 23, 2009 8:24 PM
WHOA! We have blasphemy laws in Massachusetts?! I've lived here 30+ years and I've never heard of that. I am not amused. Anybody know what I can do about it? Do I contact my state Attorney General?
Posted by: echidna | July 23, 2009 8:32 PM
911 as the catalyst for atheist outspokenness? I'm not so sure about that. I think it was the renewed creationist efforts to subvert education that drove the "New Outspokenness".
Posted by: Wowbagger, OM | July 23, 2009 8:49 PM
Ha. I'm going through some quotes and I found this; I think it's a good one in to cite in this particular debate:
Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?' Expediency asks the question, 'Is it politic?' Vanity asks the question, 'Is it popular?' But, conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?' And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because one's conscience tells one that it is right.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
I do appreciate the irony that an iconic figure who was also religious came up with it.
Posted by: Kel, OM | July 23, 2009 9:50 PM
What defines "new atheists" for me is a few things:
1. It's backed by a strong anti-theism. That religious belief can be harmful and fundamentalism is a problem. Terrorism, creationism, moral dictation, segregation, child indoctrination - religion has the capacity to cause great harm.
2. There's no sense of the sacred. We live in a pluralist thought where there's an intersection between using critical thinking in other aspects of life but when it comes to religion it is afforded special privledge. The "new atheists" don't see why that should be.
3. It's very vocal. It does go against the flow in the sense that modern society is built on a foundation of tolerance and keeping private with ones beliefs. Unfortunately religion pervades all facets of society so one has to speak out against it.
4. It doesn't pay lip service to cultural relativism. Either God exists or God does not, either Allah wrote the Koran or he did not. Either prayer works or it does not. It's not that each person has their own truth and leave it at that, there's one reality and while our perspectives may differ, the obvious contradiction is there.
Quite simply if religion wasn't such a pervaisive influence in society, the new atheists wouldn't feel the need to speak out. There's no point in speaking out against the pagans or animists or Hindus (at least in Western Society), the focus of ire is strongly on the myths today that give influence on our lives and society as a whole when they are clearly false beliefs.
Beyond all else, they are those who challenge the myth that one needs God in order to live. These "new atheists" aren't proposing nihilism, far from it. Purpose, meaning, morality, understanding - the pillars of belief in belief have fallen one by one and we are left with a group that can be spiritually whole without so much as an glance towards a divine origin.
This to me is the hardest thing to grasp from my interaction with theists on the issue. They truly can't see how one can have those traits without God to give them. But such is the nature of society. The earlier generations have made the transition towards a more positive naturalistic worldview so young-uns like me don't have to. They've laid the foundation for secularism and a post-Christian society.
Posted by: ihedenius | July 24, 2009 1:31 AM
I will, thanks. ... oh thats interesting.