THE CITY

The City
What Is Wrong
with the
New Atheism?
Robert B. Stewart
The “New Atheists” are the rock stars of the unbelieving
world. Their books are New York Times bestsellers.
They are the speakers that secular masses pine over.
So what is the New Atheism? “The New Atheism” is
a term coined by Gary Wolf in his Wired magazine
article, “The Church of the Non-Believers,” to describe a new
sort of atheism, led by Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel
Dennett, and the late Christopher Hitchens. The New Atheism is
as fundamentalistic and evangelistic as any evangelical church. Of
course, these four are merely the brightest lights of a much larger
group. The rise of think tanks or “centers” like the Center for Inquiry
or the Center for Naturalism shows just how persuasive they have
been. Wolf maintains that New Atheists are issuing a call to action
“to help exorcise this debilitating curse: the curse of faith.” 1 The
consistent message of the New Atheists is that: (1) belief in God is
irrational in an age of science because science has replaced religion
and/or philosophy as the primary way to find truth and meaning in
life; (2) “faith” is belief in spite of and sometimes even because of a
lack of evidence; and (3) religion is dangerous.
I cannot in this brief article fully analyze or critique the claims
of the New Atheists. Therefore my intention is to point out a few
problems with their position. I will focus my criticism on issues
arising from their view of science.
1
Gary Wolf, “The Church of the Non-Believers,” http://www.wired.com/2006/11/
atheism/ accessed November 4, 2015.
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