The primary autopsy finding here is that New Atheism was born dead. It was an intellectually vacuous vanity project from the start. Its vanguard was a coterie of dullards and narcissists who glanced away from their own mirrors only long enough to beg book deals. The arguments they made in their books were the stuff of comedy acts — “everything came from nothing for no reason,” “the universe came from quantum mechanics, which is nothing,” “acknowledging an intelligent Creator is an impediment to science, but asserting meaningless existence is a boon to science,” “we are meat machines, and you should pay attention to what we say,” “there is no good or evil, and if you think there is, you’re evil,” “there is no free will and you should change your mind and agree with me,” …
Michael Egnor, “New Atheism: A Shipwreck of Fools” at Evolution News and Science Today
And anyone who didn’t immediately accept all this rubbish as Big Insight was a moron, right? But Dr. Egnor goes on to warn that reason will not emerge victorious from a horse laugh at the declining new atheists’ expense:
But rational moral theism will not easily emerge victorious from this little fight. Paganism, not atheism, is the natural religion of unreflective men. We worship, and creation is full of beauty and mystery and ravishing idols. Pride and lust of eyes and flesh reigns in our culture, and Asherah poles are popping up everywhere. The Valley of Hinnom is our altar of child sacrifice, and we tithe in penance for our sins against Gaia.
As New Atheism stops twitching, another beast — a rougher beast — is rolling the stone from its perennial crypt.
Michael Egnor, “New Atheism: A Shipwreck of Fools” at Evolution News and Science Today
In the context, notice the easy indulgence offered in popular science publications to crazy stuff like Greta Thunberg’s “children’s crusade” against climate change.
If climate change is so serious, where are the Joint Allied Chiefs of Staff, so to speak? Why wouldn’t Thunberg and her followers be encouraged to go back to school and study science instead of striking from school and threatening people?
Unfortunately, when reason is no longer believed to exist, unhinged people, impassioned minors, substance abusers, etc., start to seem like prophets.
Forecast: It’ll get crazier at first. Buckle up.
See also: How did new atheism become the godlessness that failed? Ever since the new atheists declined (or whatever), discussions of Darwinism and evolution have become much more open-minded. For example, researchers seem to talk more openly about work that points in a direction other than Darwinism. Perhaps they don’t worry so much about 20,000 semi-literate trolls writing their Dean of Science to get them fired just for saying that their research points in another direction.
New Atheism hasn’t died young. It has simply matured now that it has established its legitimate position in the public square and is no longer the non-belief that dare not speak its name.
Maybe because, behind the denialists; there are vested interests that have strong financial reasons for pretending nothing is happening?
Maybe because it’s their generation and beyond that will have to clean up the mess that our generation has left behind it?
Seversky, atheism died a thousand deaths long ago. You just keep exhuming the corpse and try to persuade others that the corpse is alive.
That Seversky himself champions global warming is perhaps the best evidence on UD that global warming must be a fraud.
The bands in the climate fraud parade just keep on a’ comin’:
To me, the bigger takeaway is that it takes a 700-word blog post with five citations to debunk one 14-word D.C. Metro propaganda poster.
Like Winston Churchill famously observed, “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.” Or in this case, all around the nation’s capital.
Bornagain77 @ 3
You seem to be remarkably alarmed by a corpse that cannot possibly harm you – unless it rises from the dead, of course.
Bornagain77 @ 4
I’m just curious to see just how much land has to disappear under the waves before the denialists concede that maybe – just maybe – something is wrong.
Lack of belief in reason isn’t the problem. Corruption of reason is the problem. All of these crazies use reason as their prime weapon against unbelievers.
In general there’s no hope of recapturing a word or idea after it’s been corrupted by fashionable elites. The best approach is to abandon the concept entirely. If it can be turned backwards so easily, it’s not worth using or defending AT ALL.
@2 Seversky: “Maybe because it’s their generation and beyond that will have to clean up the mess that our generation has left behind it?’.
And? If life is purposeless, why should we fight? We are a ‘fluke’.
Atheist ‘logic’. A ‘Shipwreck of Fools’ no doubt.