I Am The Blog

Robert Wright’s “new atheism” delusion

Robert Wright , who I mentioned in a recent post is the author of The Evolution of God , has now gone on the offensive to attack in an opinion piece in the Huffington Post what he calls "new atheism."

His book, reviewed in episode 58 of the podcast American Freethought , gives a history of the evolution of the Abrahamic God (of the Jewish, Muslim, and Christian faiths). Wright reportedly gives an account of the historical reasons behind the development of these religions, leading up to the modern day. While not taking an openly theistic stance in the book, he does include some enigmatic references to notions such as a "greater purpose".

In American Freethought, Wright criticized some of the so-called atheist leaders (Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Dawkins, etc.), while co-host John Snider made it clear that atheism is not a unified movement and these people do not speak for all atheists. In the Huffington Post piece, however, Wright again depicts atheism (or at least "new atheism") as one voice. In the Huffington Post , Wright says:

When it comes to foreign policy, a right-wing bias afflicts not just Hitchens’s world view, but the whole ideology of "new atheism" [...]

Atheism has little intrinsic ideological bent. (Karl Marx. Ayn Rand. I rest my case.) But things change when you add the key ingredient of the new atheism: the idea that religion is not just mistaken, but evil — that it "poisons everything," as Hitchens has put it with characteristic nuance.

This does not represent all atheists, and not even all the prominent he mentions. Richard Dawkins specifically counters such a notion in The God Delusion . In response to the title of a television program(me) on BBC 4 that was entitled "The root of all evil?" (the title of which he had reportedly fought against), Dawkins said on the very first page of the Preface:

From the start, I didn’t like the title. Religion is not the root of all evil, for no one thing is the root of all anything.

The Wright article is filled with mischaracterizations and overgeneralizations about both atheism and historical events. Does he truly think the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is "basically" unrelated to religion? Does he know for a fact that most atheists agree with Hitchens’ right-wing views on the war on terror? Where is the proof that new atheists think religion is completely evil? It makes me wonder what his agenda is, but it does seem like he is more openly criticizing atheism when before he seemed to be straddling the fence. The fact that he would still present atheism as some organized mass conspiracy, with no proof of this, is disheartening.

For a more in-depth critique of the article, see John Snider’s post on the American Freethought website.

American Freethought — Bill Mahr…and me!

Well, apparently July is the month for my comments to be read on podcasts! On American Freethought , hosted by John Snider and David Driscoll, they read some comments I had left them as their first feedback in episode 59 . This is an episode which also featured a review of Bill Mahr ‘s stand-up tour (who coincidentally I just saw on Comedy Central last night!).

It sounds like Mahr’s current tour does definitely spend some time on religious topics, but according to David Driscoll, Mahr said he leaves this mostly left at the end so that people who might be offended at such things at least see the rest of his show before walking out! (I don’t know if that’s a joke or if Mahr’s being [half-]serious about it). I’ve never seen him in person, but I have been a fan of Mahr’s since back in his Politically Incorrect days, and long before I was even close to considering myself an atheist. Based on David Driscoll’s review, it sounds like he puts on a very good show about a variety of political, social, and religious topics. Hopefully I’ll get to see it some time.

The rest of the podcast focused mostly on listener emails. My feedback, which I had left on the American Freethought Atheist Nexus page, was about an in-depth interview they had done in episode 58 with author Robert Wright . John Snider’s review of Wright’s book The Evolution of God can be found here . In a nutshell, the book is about how worldly forces (economy, politics, etc.), as opposed to divine inspiration, shaped the Abrahamic religions.

I haven’t read the book, but based on the review and the author’s comments in the interview, it seems like while the author details clearly non-theistic reasons for the development of religion, he still believes in a “greater purpose”. Frustratingly, he won’t explain what this means (is it supernatural? destiny? what?!?). This is what my comments focused on. John Snider had done a really good job of trying to pinpoint him on this as well as defending the atheist community against some preconceptions Wright seems to have. In case you’re interested, my comment is the first one that was read, from “anonymous” (because my Atheist Nexus page is under my pseudonym I Am The Blog and not my real name.)

I’d better start doing reviews of other podcasts, otherwise people will think I only care about shows that mention my comments (as I mentioned before, Dogma Free America was also nice enough to read my email on their most recent episode ). I’ve left comments for a number of shows via different media, so I guess it’s just a coincidence that my comments appeared twice in two weeks.

If you haven’t yet, I highly urge you to check out American Freethought , which is already in my links section on my website. Unlike Dogma Free America , which focuses on dogma- and atheist-related news events from around the world (with a humorous twist), American Freethought focuses mainly on interviews with notable people in the world of freethought and religion, as well as other occasional features such as “Holey Scripture” (featuring not-so-flattering Bible verses) and reports on freethought events around the country.