Is Atheism dying?

[AgnosticBoy]

I'm not hearing that much about atheism nowadays. The New Atheists don't seem to have as much impact. I admit though that it could be me but I do watch quite a bit of programs on social media that deal with theism and atheism. I know Christopher Hitchens passed. Sam Harris is still around but is he writing anything new that has to do with atheism? Perhaps atheism is dying because Christianity is also dying and there's not as much need for atheists? Or perhaps many atheists are choosing to identify as agnostics instead?


For Discussion..
1. Is atheism dying?
2. Who are the modern-day influential atheists? Are they still active?

 

[Multicolored Lemur]

The New Atheists don't seem to have as much impact.

Daniel Dennett

I found this guy very “abstract.” Meaning, hard to understand and never quite sure you’ve got it right!

He may have benefitted from media buzz and the need to find someone else so that there’d be the “four horsemen” of New Atheism and all that.

• Dan Dennett is a philosopher. And I think philosophy benefits from a scorecard. Please tell us, are you explaining why something we all believe to be true is true? Or, are you explaining why the common view is wrong?

 

[AgnosticBoy]

@Multicolored Lemur

Not sure if those questions were for me or if they were sample questions Dennett would ask. Yeah, I really am not a fan of philosophy because the usual tactic is to keep going deeper into meta issues instead of answering the question. I'm for it only when it is used together with evidence.

I used to follow those considered the leaders of the New Atheist movement but not so much Dennett. I followed Hitchens, Sam Harris, and, Dawkins. Dawkins might have been the most popular of them.

Why do you think the buzz around them died out?

My view is that they probably got a lot of push back from atheists who eventually became agnostics. They would go too far in attacking Christianity.

Another factor is that politics took over and became the major ideological divide/ debate of our time, replacing the God issue. What I mean is that back then (probably around 1800s and on), the major ideological divide was probably between Christians and atheists. But some time later (some time after Gore vs. Bush), political issues and parties became the new ideological divide in a prominent way. Of course, this all assumes that atheism is only relevant because it was a response to Christianity and it created important debate issues. If there was no debate, then atheism would probably be irrelevant.

 

[Multicolored Lemur]

Please tell us, are you explaining why something we all believe to be true is true? Or, are you explaining why the common view is wrong?

Not sure if those questions were for me or if they were sample questions Dennett would ask.

They’re questions I’d like to ask Dennett!

Okay, a lot of philosopher is tedious. But some of it is good. For example, I like Bertrand Russell, Peter Singer, and James Rachels.

 

[AgnosticBoy]

Here's one account of New Atheism from Christianity Today:

I think a case can be made that faith is one of the world’s great evils, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate,” Richard Dawkins said in 1996 to the American Humanist Association. Ten years later, in 2006, a ComRes poll found that 42 percent of UK adults agreed with this vitriolic statement. That is, two in five were not just nonbelievers; they thought all belief in God should be deliberately snuffed out.

This was near the height of the New Atheism movement—an angry, bombastic form of anti-religion that arose in the early 2000s. New Atheist leaders garnered millions from best-selling books and gained an influential following. At the time, it seemed that this would become the permanent state of secularism—that a lack of belief in God was necessarily joined with a bitter, trollish contempt for religion.

But things began to change. By 2015, some had begun to announce the death of New Atheism, and in 2020, 15 years after the ComRes poll, a new survey showed that only 20 percent of adults in the UK agreed that religious faith could be compared to an evil and intractable plague on society.

Here's the reason given for the decline...

Nick Spencer—senior fellow at Theos, a Christian thinktank in the UK,
...
But he concluded in a 2022 Theos report on science and religion that “the angry hostility towards religion engineered by the New Atheist movement is over,” with the UK public expressing a more balanced view of religion than during the height of New Atheist influence. Among the streams of contemporary nonbelief, more nuanced forms are on the rise.

As the New Atheist movement seemed to implode from within—due in part to its odd merger with the Far Right in the American culture wars—many secularists in the public square began to consider its leaders “a real embarrassment” who give “atheism a bad name,” says John Dickson, a Wheaton professor and public apologist who engages with atheists.

“Basically, the world has moved on and has rather left the New Atheism behind,” said Oxford theologian and apologist Alister McGrath, author of The Dawkins Delusion? “But that’s no cause for rejoicing, because we have new problems to worry about.” That is, the decline of the New Atheists’ particular brand of hyperbolic antireligious fervor does not necessarily signify a rise in religious faith or belief in God.

So the reasons given the "new atheists" decline are politics being mixed into the atheist movement and some moving towards a more balanced view of religion, and some seeing that atheism was getting a bad rap. This seems reasonable as I think politics being mixed into any system has the potential to lead to divide which could collapse such a system. I've always suspect that the new atheism would eventually get a bad rap so I'm not surprised there either.

 

[Multicolored Lemur]

My view is that they probably got a lot of push back from atheists who eventually became agnostics.

There’s a couple of recent examples here on Agnostic Forum of a crime or accident, and it seems random why one particular person dies and another does not. And instead of trying to grasp for a reason like a religious person might, I’d rather just say luck of the draw, no more, no less.

And making an overture to offering a hug to a family member is much better than trying to lay a bunch of philosophy on them.

Another thing …

A lot of people have a “sinner’s mentality.” That they might as well keep sinning since they’re so far off the mark. And they vaguely plan to do this Big, Hugely Difficult thing as they approach the end of their life, and give up everything they enjoy, and work really hard to believe, etc, etc. And they’re against Joel Osteen because he preaches a feel good sermon.

Okay …

As far as ethics and how we treat others, ideology has some to do with it. But it’s mainly about acquiring skills.

PS. I don’t think I answered your answer!

 

[AgnosticBoy]

PS. I don’t think I answered your answer!

You answered a lot of other questions and points

Btw, I'm familiar with Russel and Dennett. Haven't read much from James Rachels -- seems he focused on ethics.