The New Atheism: Where has it come from and where is it going?
Date: Monday 16 June 2008 Time: 18:45 - 21:00
The God Delusion… God is Not Great… Against all Gods… The End of Faith… Breaking the Spell… Atheism is suddenly fashionable, with new anti-God polemics flying off the shelves. But is there anything new about them? What are the origins of this sudden explosion of atheistic fury and does it have any staying power?
In an evening hosted by Theos, the public theology thinktank, and LICC, John Gray, Professor of European Thought at the London School of Economics and author of Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia, will be exploring current anti-theistic sentiments.
Drawing on historical examples, Professor Gray will argue that there is little that is genuinely new in contemporary atheist thinking, which continues to take many of its concepts and categories from theism while denying its debts to Judaism and Christianity. Given its dogmatic character, he argues, contemporary atheism is likely to continue to function as a sect in the broader tradition of western monotheism.
With opportunity for Q&A after the talk, this evening promises to be both an interesting and enlightening exploration of one of the most important trends of recent years.
Please book in advance as entry can’t be guaranteed on the evening. To book a place call LICC on 020 7399 9555 or email mail@licc.org.uk.
Cost: £7, concessions: £5 (for bookings of 5 people or more). Light refreshments provided.Venue: LICC, Central London, St Peter’s Church, Vere Street, W1G 0DQ.
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The Smiths - The Boy With The Thorn In His Side.
2 comments:
Samuel Skinner
Ha- I can answer this easily.
The new atheists do not have any new arguments- well, not since Big Bang theory. Most of the origional ones were formulated thousands of years ago and, of course, are still politely ignored by proper religious folk.
As for what distinguishes the new atheists- internet, communication and antitheism. The "new" atheists are forming a community... well, that is an exaggeration- a support network is more accurate.
As for antitheism, the new atheists are heavily antitheist. Mostly this has been brought about by the explosion of religious violence in the world and the rise of extreme fundamentalists in the American government.
And, no, atheism isn't new, it isn't boring from the current religions, it isn't dogmatic and it isn't likely to be "a small isolated sect". Professor Gray is wrong. Atheists show an extremely low tendency to convert to other religions AND have a higher rate of influx. Their numbers should grow.
Thanks for this, Samuel. I envy your absolute faith in your beliefs. It must be wonderful to live in a world of easy answered completely untroubled by the perceptions of an independent thinker that the Independent has saluted as "a man for our times", the Times has called "the best theorist about our troubled world today", and that the New York Times considers to have "usually been a little ahead of the zeitgeist."
So, forgive me for thinking that I and others might be stimulated and challenged by listening to Gray's ideas. You have enlightened me. John Gray is wrong. No question. No argument.
Atheists have often argued that once a person has left unconscious grace (a phrase taken by Philip Pullman from Kleist) behind by beginning "the habit of thinking honestly" about what they do then there is no way back to the state of mind of the simple believer. Instead, the atheist "can only go on – through life, through education, through suffering, through experience to the thing we come to call wisdom."
Your comments would seem to put that argument into reverse, particularly when you dogmatically insist that atheism isn't dogmatic.
John Gray has said: "My experience is that liberal humanists fall into one of two categories. Some hold to a set of conventional beliefs that don't have much depth. They're the sort who almost seem to be relieved when I ventilate the doubts, the forebodings that they have long had. The other type of liberal humanist is the body-armoured rigid type who illustrates a certain kind of innocence. Unlike members of most religions in the world, they don't interrogate their own myths. They don't even think that their beliefs might be myths."
But he was probably wrong about that too!
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