New Atheists BTFO

Is this guy seriously suggesting that Christianity or Islam are too insignificant to be worth debating?

Yeah, it doesn't matter that there's a giant hole in my analogy…

I honestly think you're too stupid to grasp the article.

Most people in this thread don't seem to get the amazingly intelligent point you're trying to make, so I think you're going to need to express it better.

I think I expressed it perfectly well, I think the poster that I replied to is too stupid to grasp the point the article is making. There is no way for me to remedy this, it can't be 'conversed' or argued through, they're just too much of an idiot.

Actually you haven't expressed it at all, unless you're the guy who wrote the article.

And three other people, i.e. most people who have engaged with the article.

Fuck off.

I'm not arguing a case, I'm saying they lack the basic capacity to grasp the width of the argument the article itself is making. It's encompassing both sides of the coin in relation to:

Showing that the person commenting that didn't understand, or was completely unable to comprehend the article.

I'm basically calling you an idiot. It's a personal insult and it's meant to make you feel personally insulted. I'm suggesting that your brain has a lower capacity of understanding and that you are kind of a retard.

Well, it's better than living in mud huts…

But this is often the case. The Middle East is probably the world's most backward place right now, and it's also one of the most religious. Imperialism had an important role in the rise of fundamentalism, but religion is still the main source of backwardness compared to modern countries.

pick one. At least Dawkins or Krauss are serious scientists among the prominent New Atheists.

Why is LeftyPol giving Sam Kriss attention?
He's an extremely stupid leftist that thinks Pokemon Go is "preventing the revolution".
Sam Kriss attacked Zizek for being "reactionary, racist, fascist".

On the one hand I am partial to your view – basically it was the "new atheists" (on YouTube, posting biology/geology videos against creationism) that helped me to break with Catholicism and I think atheism was a first step towards communism.

On the other hand, I was only watching YouTube videos like that in the first place because I was asocial/avoidant in high school and not everyone has the same mental outlook as me.

Bump for The Baffler, fun cultural criticism

tip harder, you pretentious faggot

The only problem with these people is that they're not anti-capitalist enough. And some of them like Harris are crypto-imperialists.

His blog is pretty good and uses his fabulist sensibilities to their fullest.
A lot of the stuff he puts on other peoples websites, i.e. what he can get published and paid for, are the hottest of hot takes.

fuck off dipshit

With regard to his argument about the belief that religion causes strife and science causes progress…
What he's doing here is a well disguised strawman argument. The science promoters he's responding to are saying that science is a major contributing factor to quality of life, and that because religion often opposes science, religion often helps keep people in backward circumstances. The author if the article portrays this argument as if they're saying that science vs. religion is the sole determinant of a society's standard of living. Either the author is deliberately portraying people as unable to grasp systemic cause and effect (which is demonstrably false for the people he names) or the author himself fails to grasp systemic cause and effect and projects this understanding of the world onto others. His overuse of flowery language suggests to me it's the latter (leaning on one cognitive skill to compensate for lack of another).

Also, it's hilarious how he criticizes these people for being repetitive, when their jobs are to educate people. Follow any educator around and you will find them repeating themselves, because they will be talking to a new audience. The value of science is a pretty straightforward concept. Even though the fields of science are numerous and complex, a lot of it is very technical and genuinely beyond the grasp of the layman due to lack of familiarity with the special jargon and principles involved. The recent Cosmos series I thought did a very good job putting science into terms the average person could understand. My mother is a full on Ayn Rand, muh free market, Obongo's a Muslim commie type, but the episode on global warming actually got through to her. This article is very blatantly a case of "I'm really smart and this stuff is elementary to me. Stop teaching people things I already know."

The problem with new atheism was that it wasn't grounded in a more fundamental critique of society.

The new atheists only seem to critique the most overtly mystical elements of society, and uncritically accept the liberal status quo otherwise. They seem to unironically believe that mysticism is the Great Satan of human society and if people gave up their belief in the supernatural we'd have a utopia.

AD HOMINEM
khm.

But my god, Sam Harris & co. do say that wars, for example, are due to religion. Not once have I heard the fedora types mention economics.

Spearheaded by aforementioned wiseguy, they also believe that science can and should solely inform ethics, politics, and values, even.

There is no strawman here. THIS IS WHAT THEY ACTUALLY SAY, BELIEVE, WRITE BOOKS ABOUT.

OP's notion that on an ideological level this does serve class interests (since they obfuscate real causes and promote a ridiculous technocratic pipe dream) is correct.

Wars are due in part to religion. It's necessary to have an ideology to move the people to fight wars for the ruling class. That's not the only point of contention they have with religion though, and Sam Harris is possibly the stupidest atheist to ever live, so nice job cherry picking.

Uhm, ok? You just assblasted by the general direction of this thread, no?

So? Won't other ideologies suffice? As far as I can see this is just another argument against nu-atheists.

the only dumb thing he said was the last one

Dismissing Theology as "Fairyology" is a pretty damn stupid statement. They're the ideologies of former (and current) societies that both hold cues of the material conditions, the superstructure and its power division, the ruling class, etc. That's just on the societally related issues.

In the individual sphere, we see rudimentary psychology, in some cases complex descriptions and insights merely using a different terminology - and in many cases reaching very wrong conclusions. There's tales with an implicit 'moral code' (typically defending the elite, but again what they tell is in itself interesting), attempts at realistically describing the social realities of people, etc.

A whole bunch of shit.
Comparative mythology, even more so.
Then you have the theologians that just call themselves, that, but which were pretty much extremely scientifically minded people - and very humanist, simply using the language that that they were more or less stuck in. And the institutions that ruled the day.

Dismissing all their thought is extremely ignorant.

Then why does the writer go to such tedious length in comparing the 'new atheists' to a lunatic who insists on telling people the world is round? Am I not meant to take this seriously? The implication is that the atheists are wasting their time saying things that everybody knows to be true.

And I bet you are the writer, that's the only way to explain your butthurt reaction to criticism of the article. It's pseudo-intellectual bullshit and you aren't as smart as you think you are.

You missed his "continental philosophy" tweet

...

To be fair Plato is shit.