In this essay, I will be arguing that the ‘New Atheism’ is a religion of sorts. ‘New Atheism’ is a movement that arose after many Western civilisations became secularised in recent years. Atheism (the belief that there is no God or gods) is also on the rise in Western countries and this has led to ‘New Atheism’. Gary Wolf thought up the term ‘New Atheism’. It is a term used to describe atheists who are also known as, strangely enough, ‘The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse’. These men are Sam Harris- Author, philosopher and neuroscientist, Richard Dawkins- English Ethologist, biologist and author, Daniel Dennett- American Philosopher, writer and cognitive scientist and Christopher Hitchens- Anglo-American author. Together these four men share ideas about Atheism and their assumptions tend to be similar regarding the belief in religion in today’s society.
Although the ‘New Atheism’ is a new term that has only emerged in 2006, Atheism is an idea that has been around for quite some time. The ‘beliefs’ that Atheists have may be different but tend to all resort back to the belief that there is more than religion to explain the happenings of the world and that scientific beliefs tend to explain the world a lot better than religion can ‘… a human being is a biological animal rather than some kind of embodied spiritual soul…’ (Baginni, J.2011: p.17) Early Greek philosophers from C6th BC tried to work out the world around them in material way and not spiritual terms. As well as this Lucretius (C.99-55 BCE) denied that gods had any way of influencing our world. Although back in older times it was a lot harder to express atheistic ways as you would often be shunned, in today’s society, which is seen as more secular in Western countries you are more of an ‘insider’ if you are an atheist as this is more common and the Church is not nearly as powerful as it used to be.
New Atheism can be seen as a religion as sorts as it can fall under characterisations that one may define a religion to be. It is extremely difficult to define a religion, one may say a religion is the belief in God or gods, this is great for the majority of religions but it rules out religions such as Buddhism. Using characteristics like this is difficult when defining a religion as religion is such a broad term. If we define a religion for arguments sake as a strong set of beliefs, a following and leaders it is easy to categorise the New Atheism movement as exactly that. New Atheists would argue that faith is an irrational belief in something as there is absence of evidence. Richard Dawkins said that ‘I do everything in my power to turn people against faith itself’ (Dawkins,R. 2006: p.346). It is also said that faith is blind trust which has no evidence. It is obvious that New Atheists such as Dawkins oppose faith but it can be argued that faith rests upon a characterisation of something and not evidence. ‘Faith rests upon the character of God, not upon the demonstration of laboratory or logic’ (Tozer, A.W. 2015: p.27) people such as Tozer would argue that when a person is flying a plane people have faith in that person to fly it, not because said person has shown evidence to the people within the plane that he can fly it, but because the people within the plane have faith in the character of the pilot. Therefore, although New Atheists would argue that they indeed oppose faith as they are not religious these claims can be shot down. If the New Atheists believe that empirical science is the only way of understanding the world in which we live and that science and scientism is metaphysical, then it can be claimed that ‘New Atheists require faith- even if not in God’ (Gotquestions.org,2017) Therefore, If New Atheism requires faith and this is a characteristic of religion then New Atheism can surely be characterised the same way they are characterising religious beliefs. Another argument is that why would New Atheist dedicate their lives to disproving religion if they absolutely were sure that it is merely a lie? ‘Does a man spend their lives trying to disprove the existence of unicorns or elves?’ (Got questions.org,2017) obviously the answer to that question is no, if you are absolutely sure something does not exist you tend to not bother to disprove it further, you live with the knowledge that you know it does not exist even if others may believe that it does. Therefore, an argument may arise as to why New atheists dedicate so much of their lives trying to disprove something they know not to be true and surely this type of dedication to something can be viewed similarly to the dedication a religious believer may have to their faith.
The New Atheists also label religious believers as silly or cowardly for not believing that God or gods do not exist, this can be mirrored with many religious believers who do the same to non-believers. More often than not people who are atheists are labelled as heathens and things alike for not believing in God. This is yet another characteristic that religious believers and New Atheists share. It has also been claimed that ‘…the negation of a claim is likely to be the same type as the claim itself’ (Ruse, M.2011) This means that if you keep making a claim about something whether you are trying to disprove the claim or not you are closer to the claim itself. ‘If ‘eggs are good for you’ is a claim about nutrition, then ‘eggs are not good for you’ is a claim about nutrition’ (Ruse, M.2011) So therefore if you keep making claims about God or gods, even when denying their truths, does this mean that you are closer to being a religion as sorts, as the New Atheists continue to make these claims? The idea that personal belief that one has a religion comes into play when deciding whether the New Atheism can be seen as a religion. The example I would use is the Jediism. This is a ‘religion’ based on the fictional series Star Wars. This arose when people where recording their religion as ‘Jedi’ on national censuses. Surely if people claim they have a strong enough belief in something that it can be seen as a religion, without a God or gods or a worship place or holy book, then the same can be applied to New Atheism as they dedicate their lives and can be seen to have a ‘belief’ that God or gods do not exist and that religion has no place in today’s world. The New Atheism could be seen as a religion in this way as they have a strong belief in the fact there is no supernatural (metaphysical) beings, the fact that religion is epistemological and that it goes against the secular moral standard in today’s society.
I am overall inclined to describe New Atheism as a religion of sorts based on the arguments used within my essay and how the arguments used are almost a symmetry to how religious believers put their point across when trying to prove religion. The fact that New atheists must have faith to use some of the arguments that they do, the labels they use for ‘non-believers’ of Atheism and the way they dedicate their lives to disproving religion are all factors in which persuade me and many others to be able to generalise New Atheism as a religion of sorts using some of the characteristics that define major religions in the world.