I put it up as something of guest editorial. I think it's important to note when others see the themes I've been harping on.
Lately I've been thinking about how the most vocal and popular atheists happen to be just those people who have no intellectual expertise relevant to atheism itself.
Aside from Daniel Dennett, the other three are not experts in philosophy or logic, but are well known more for the emotional button-pushing nature of their claims than for the robustness of their thoughts. And in response, many atheists understandably repudiate Dawkins and the like.
But it's undeniable that he is the most popular Atheist around, and has a tremendous following despite having his academic credentials in a field that is only tangentially related to the question of God (biology by way of evolution).
As if this weren't enough, one needs only to take a look at youtube. Who are the most influential atheists on youtube? Are they known for making good, rational, persuasive arguments? Hardly. They too, are experts of button-pushing. Speaking out of strong emotions, be they disgust, hatred, prejudice or contempt.
This is not me pouring scorn on youtube atheists. I honestly believe this to be true of the pre-eminent and popular atheist personalities on youtube and the quality and nature of the material that is presented.
Then, we have people in scientific and academic fields, atheists who stumble all over themselves, falling prey to elementary mistakes and logical fallacies one after another in their popular publications (Krauss, Dawkins, even Hawking).
We are seeing several signs of a severe decline of the intellect with atheists.
And I predict that the intellectual side of atheism will be in a coma within 10-15 years.
Is it a coincidence that atheists are flocking away from strong atheistic positions and falling back on weak atheism? Weak atheism has a much lower burden of proof, makes much more modest claims, and when successfully claiming the skeptical position, resorts to nothing more than selective skepticism to reject positive arguments.
The question is two-fold: Why is this happening in such a concerted fashion? And why are atheists not bothered by it?
Really I don't think that fewer atheists are intellectuals now than when I was an atheist in the 70s I's not that intellectuals dropped out of atheism but more uneducated types were brought in by the internet.
In the old days you only met other atheist at universities. I think it is true that the more vocal are the less intellectual.
2 comments:
Atheism simply means without theism (aka religion) and therefore an atheist is one who holds no religious beliefs whatsoever. If you study anything from astrophysics, biology, physics, quantum mechanics all the way to zoology, you will find the same theme: the concept of god is irrelevant and never appears in any scientific paper. There is a reason for this: god is like dark matter or energy, the concept is deployed when necessary to answer unknowns at that moment. As our knowledge base expands, god is then moved from the now known to the unknown, like a sliding scale. Theism is simply iron age logic to describe the world as the writers understood it. It has zero consumptive value in present society. In 10-15 years or 100-150 years, this growing trend of secularization intellectual enlightenment will continue forward just as our knowledge base increases-the two variables are absolutely correlated. The concept of god as is presently used by mono-theist is absolutely a decaying endeavor. I predict by 2050, 50% of the United States will identify themselves as having no religious affiliation whatsoever and therefore, atheism will over take theism in the 21st century. If I am wrong, there will be a world war over the next 35 years based largely on opposing mono-theism perspectives. The fact that there are at least three major monotheistic dogmas on this planet and what religion one proclaims, is almost an exclusive product of geography, should be all the evidence one needs to declare religion as a cultural legacy / relic that cannot survive the increasing knowledge base of our species.
this whole blog is about why atheism is not just a a lack of belief but actually an ideology and a hate group. of course that is qualified to ""new atheism." your prediction is meaningless,Atheism is not growing.
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