New Atheism is a perspective shared by someatheist academics, writers, scientists, and philosophers of the 20th and 21st centuries, intolerant ofsuperstition,religion, andirrationalism.[1][2] New Atheists advocate theantitheist view that the various forms oftheism should becriticised,countered, examined, and challenged byrational argument, especially when they exert strong influence on the broader society, such as in government, education, and politics.[3][4]
Major figures of New Atheism includeRichard Dawkins,Daniel Dennett,Christopher Hitchens, andSam Harris[3] collectively referred to as the "Four Horsemen" of the movement.[5] Proponents of the New Atheist movement have experienced some controversy and criticisms from academics and other atheists.[6][7][8][9][10]
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Key figures associated with New Atheism include evolutionary biologistRichard Dawkins, philosopher and neuroscientistSam Harris, philosopher and cognitive scientistDaniel Dennett, and journalistChristopher Hitchens.[3][5][11] The four are often collectively referred to as the "Four Horsemen",[5][12][13] an allusion to the biblicalFour Horsemen of the Apocalypse from the Book of Revelation.[14][15] Before her 2023 conversion to Christianity, writer and politicianAyaan Hirsi Ali was sometimes referred to as the fifth "Horseman"[12][16] or "Horsewoman" of New Atheism.[14][17]
Harris's 2004 bookThe End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason, a bestseller in the United States, was joined over the next couple years by a series of popular best-sellers by atheist authors.[18][19] Harris was motivated by the events of11 September 2001, for which he blamed Islam, while also directly criticizingChristianity andJudaism.[20] Two years later, Harris followed up withLetter to a Christian Nation, which was a severe criticism of Christianity.[21] Later Harris wrote several bestselling non-fiction books includingThe Moral Landscape, andWaking Up, along with two shorter works (initially published as e-books)Free Will andLying.[22][23]
Dawkins is the founder of theRichard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science. In 2006, following his television documentary seriesThe Root of All Evil?, he publishedThe God Delusion, which was on theNew York Times best-seller list for 51 weeks.[24] Dawkins writes in the introduction to the 10th anniversary edition of the book: "I don't object to the horseman label, by the way. I'm less keen on 'new atheist': it isn't clear to me how we differ from old atheists."[25]
On 30 September 2007, Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens, and Dennett met at Hitchens' residence in Washington, D.C., for a private two-hour unmoderatedround table discussion. The event was videotaped and titled "The Four Horsemen".[26] During "The God Debate" in 2010 with Hitchens versusDinesh D'Souza, the group was collectively referred to as the "Four Horsemen of the Non-Apocalypse".[27]
Hitchens, the author ofGod Is Not Great,[28] was named among the "Top 100 Public Intellectuals" byForeign Policy andProspect magazines. He served on the advisory board of theSecular Coalition for America. In 2010, Hitchens published his memoirHitch-22 (a nickname provided by close personal friendSalman Rushdie, whom Hitchens always supported during and followingThe Satanic Verses controversy).[29] Shortly after its publication, he was diagnosed with esophageal cancer, which led to his death in December 2011.[30] Before his death, Hitchens published a collection of essays and articles in his bookArguably;[31] a short edition,Mortality,[32] was published posthumously in 2012. These publications and numerous public appearances provided Hitchens with a platform to remain an astute atheist during his illness, even speaking specifically on the culture ofdeathbed conversions and condemningattempts to convert theterminally ill, which he opposed as "bad taste".[33][34]
Dennett was the author ofDarwin's Dangerous Idea andBreaking the Spell.[35][36] He had been a vocal supporter ofThe Clergy Project,[37] an organization that provides support for clergy in the US who no longer believe in God and cannot fully participate in their communities any longer.[38] He was also a member of theSecular Coalition for America advisory board,[39] and a member of theCommittee for Skeptical Inquiry, as well as an outspoken supporter of theBrights movement. He did research into clerics who are secretly atheists and how they rationalize their works. He found what he called a "don't ask, don't tell" conspiracy because believers did not want to hear of loss of faith. This made unbelieving preachers feel isolated, but they did not want to lose their jobs and church-supplied lodgings. Generally, they consoled themselves with the belief that they were doing good in their pastoral roles by providing comfort and required ritual.[40] The research, with Linda LaScola, was further extended to include other denominations and non-Christian clerics.[41] The research and stories Dennett and LaScola accumulated during this project were published in their 2013 co-authored book,Caught in the Pulpit: Leaving Belief Behind.[42]
The bookThe Four Horsemen: The Conversation That Sparked an Atheist Revolution was released in 2019.[43][19]
Hirsi Ali is a Somali-born Dutch-American writer, politician, and well-known critic of Islam.[14] She was a central figure of New Atheism[11] until she announced herconversion to Christianity in November 2023.[44] Originally scheduled to attend the 2007 meeting,[45] she later appeared with Dawkins, Dennett, and Harris at the 2012Global Atheist Convention, where she was referred to as the "one horse-woman" by Dawkins.[46]Robyn Blumner, CEO of the Center for Inquiry, has described Hirsi Ali as the fifth "horseman".[16] Hirsi Ali has been vocal in opposing Islamic ideology, especially concerning women, as exemplified by her booksInfidel andThe Caged Virgin.[47][48]
Others have either self-identified as or been classified by some commentators as new atheists:
Some writers sometimes classified as new atheists by others have explicitly distanced themselves from the label:
Many contemporary atheists write from a scientific perspective. Unlike previous writers, many of whom thought that science was indifferent or even incapable of dealing with the "God" concept, Dawkins argues to the contrary, claiming the "God Hypothesis" is a validscientific hypothesis,[62] having effects in the physical universe, and like any other hypothesis can be tested andfalsified.Victor Stenger proposed that the personalAbrahamic God is a scientific hypothesis that can be tested by standard methods of science. Both Dawkins and Stenger conclude that the hypothesis fails any such tests,[63] and argue thatnaturalism is sufficient to explain everything we observe. They argue that nowhere is it necessary to introduce God or thesupernatural to understand reality.
Non-believers (in religion and the supernatural) assert that many religious or supernatural claims (such as thevirgin birth of Jesus and theafterlife) are scientific claims in nature. For instance, they argue, as dodeists andProgressive Christians, that the issue of Jesus' supposed parentage is a question of scientific inquiry, rather than "values" or "morals".[64] Rational thinkers believe science is capable of investigating at least some, if not all, supernatural claims.[65] Institutions such as theMayo Clinic andDuke University have conductedempirical studies to try to identify whether there isevidence for the healing power of intercessory prayer.[66] According to Stenger, the experiments found no evidence that intercessoryprayer worked.[67]
In his bookGod: The Failed Hypothesis,Victor Stenger argues that a God havingomniscient,omnibenevolent, andomnipotent attributes, which he termed a3O God, cannotlogically exist.[68] A similar series of alleged logical disproofs of the existence of a God with various attributes can be found inMichael Martin and Ricki Monnier'sThe Impossibility of God,[69] orTheodore Drange's article, "Incompatible-Properties Arguments: A Survey".[70]
Richard Dawkins has been particularly critical of the conciliatory view that science and religion are not in conflict, noting, for example, that the Abrahamic religions constantly dabble in scientific matters.[64] In a 1998 article published inFree Inquiry magazine,[64] and later in his 2006 bookThe God Delusion, Dawkins expresses disagreement with the view advocated byStephen Jay Gould that science and religion are twonon-overlapping magisteria (NOMA), each existing in a "domain where one form of teaching holds the appropriate tools for meaningful discourse and resolution".[64]
In Gould's proposal, science and religion should be confined to distinct non-overlapping domains: science would be limited to the empirical realm, including theories developed to describe observations, while religion would deal with questions of ultimate meaning andmoral value. Dawkins contends that NOMA does not describe empirical facts about the intersection of science and religion. He argued: "It is completely unrealistic to claim, as Gould and many others do, that religion keeps itself away from science's turf, restricting itself to morals and values. A universe with a supernatural presence would be a fundamentally and qualitatively different kind of universe from one without. The difference is, inescapably, a scientific difference. Religions make existence claims, and this means scientific claims."[64]
Harris considers that thewell-being of conscious creatures forms the basis of morality. InThe Moral Landscape, he argues that science can in principle answer moral questions and help maximize well-being.[71] Harris also criticizescultural andmoral relativism, arguing that it prevents people from making objective moral judgments about practices that clearly harm human well-being, such asfemale genital mutilation. Harris contends that we can make scientifically-based claims about the negative impacts of such practices on human welfare, and that withholding judgment in these cases is tantamount to claiming complete ignorance about what contributes to human well-being.[72]
In the context of international politics, the principles of New Atheism establish no particular stance in and of themselves.[73]P. Z. Myers stated that New Atheism's key proponents are "a madly disorganized mob, united only by [their] dislike of the god-thing".[74] That said, the demographic that supports New Atheism is a markedly homogeneous one; in America and the Anglo-sphere more generally, this cohort is "more likely to be younger, male and single, to have higher than average levels of income and education, to be lessauthoritarian, lessdogmatic, less prejudiced, lessconformist and more tolerant and open-minded on religious issues."[73] Because of this homogeneity among the group, there exists not a formal dynamic but a loose consensus on broad political "efforts, objectives, and strategies".[75]
For example, one of the primary aims is to further reduce the entanglement of church and state, which derives from the "belief that religion is antithetical to liberal values, such as freedom of expression and the separation of public from private life".[75][76][77] Additionally, new atheists have engaged in the campaign "to ensure legal and civic equality for atheists", in a world considerably unwelcoming to and distrustful of non-religious believers.[76][77][78] Hitchens may be the atheist concerned most with religion's incompatibility with contemporary liberal principles, and particularly its imposed limitation on both freedom of speech and freedom of expression.[76][79] Because New Atheism's proliferation is accredited partly to the 11 September attacks and the ubiquitous, visceral response,Richard Dawkins, among many in his cohort, believes thattheism (in this case,Islam) jeopardizes political institutions andnational security, and he warns of religion's potency in motivating "people to do terrible things" against internationalpolities.[80]
According toNature, "Critics of new atheism, as well as many new atheists themselves, contend that in philosophical terms it differs little from earlier historical forms of atheist thought."[81]
Critics of the movement described it as "militant atheism", "fundamentalist atheism", and "secular fundamentalists".[a][7][82][83][84][85][86] Theologians Jeffrey Robbins and Christopher Rodkey take issue with what they regard as "theevangelical nature of the New Atheism, which assumes that it has a Good News to share, at all cost, for the ultimate future of humanity by the conversion of as many people as possible", and believe they have found similarities between New Atheism and evangelical Christianity and conclude that the all-consuming nature of both "encourages endless conflict without progress" between both extremities.[87]Amarnath Amarasingam, an extremism researcher, argues that the New Atheists fall prey to cognitive biases such as thefundamental attribution error and theout-group homogeneity bias, among others. These biases pose a substantive problem for New Atheism’s claims to rationality and objectivity.[88] Political philosopherJohn Gray asserts that New Atheism,humanism, andscientism are extensions of religion, particularly Christianity.[89] Anthropologist and psychiatristSimon Dein considers New Atheism to be a mirror image of religious fundamentalism, based on an analysis of characteristics identified by theFundamentalism Project: reactivity, dualism, absolutism and inerrancy, and apocalypticism. In addition, he also notes a shared emphasis on evidentialism.[90] Sociologist William Stahl has said, "What is striking about the current debate is the frequency with which the New Atheists are portrayed as mirror images of religiousfundamentalists."[91]
The atheist philosopher of scienceMichael Ruse states that Richard Dawkins would fail "introductory" courses on the study of "philosophy orreligion" (such as courses on thephilosophy of religion), courses which are offered, for example, at many educational institutions such as colleges and universities around the world.[8][92] Ruse also says that the movement of New Atheism—which is perceived by him to be "a bloody disaster"—makes him ashamed, as a professional philosopher of science, to be among those holding to an atheist position, particularly as New Atheism, as he sees it, does science a "grave disservice" and does a "disservice to scholarship" at a more general level.[8][92]Paul Kurtz, editor in chief ofFree Inquiry, founder ofPrometheus Books, was critical of many of the new atheists.[83] He said, "I consider them atheist fundamentalists... They're anti-religious, and they're mean-spirited, unfortunately. Now, there are very good atheists and very dedicated people who do not believe in God. But you have this aggressive and militant phase of atheism, and that does more damage than good."[84]Jonathan Sacks, author ofThe Great Partnership: Science, Religion, and the Search for Meaning, feels the new atheists miss the target by believing the "cure for bad religion is no religion, as opposed to good religion". He wrote:
Atheism deserves better than the new atheists whose methodology consists of criticizing religion without understanding it, quoting texts without contexts, taking exceptions as the rule, confusing folk belief with reflective theology, abusing, mocking, ridiculing, caricaturing, and demonizing religious faith and holding it responsible for the great crimes against humanity. Religion has done harm; I acknowledge that. But the cure for bad religion is good religion, not no religion, just as the cure for bad science is good science, not the abandonment of science.[93]
The philosopherMassimo Pigliucci contends that the new atheist movement overlaps with scientism, which he finds to be philosophically unsound. He writes: "What I do object to is the tendency, found among many New Atheists, to expand the definition of science to pretty much encompassing anything that deals with 'facts', loosely conceived ... it seems clear to me that most of the New Atheists (except for the professional philosophers among them) pontificate about philosophy very likely without having read a single professional paper in that field ... I would actually go so far as to charge many of the leaders of the New Atheism movement (and, by implication, a good number of their followers) with anti-intellectualism, one mark of which is a lack of respect for the proper significance, value, and methods of another field of intellectual endeavor."[94]
InThe Evolution of Atheism, Stephen LeDrew wrote that New Atheism is fundamentalist and scientist; in contrast to atheism's tradition ofsocial justice, it isright-wing and serves to defend "the position of the white middle-class western male".[95][96][97] Atheist professorJacques Berlinerblau has criticised the new atheists' mocking of religion as being inimical to their goals and claims that they have not achieved anything politically.[98]Roger Scruton has extensively criticized New Atheism on various occasions, generally on the grounds that they do not consider the social effects and impacts of religion in enough detail. He has said, "Look at the facts in the round and it seems likely that humans without a sense of the sacred would have died out long ago. For that same reason, the hope of the new atheists for a world without religion is probably as vain as the hope for a society without aggression or a world without death."[99] He has also complained of the new atheists' idea that they must "set people free from religion", calling it "naive" because they "never consider that they might be taking something away from people".[100]
Edward Feser has critiqued the new atheists' responses to arguments for the existence of God:[101]
It can safely be said that if you haven't both understoodAquinas and answered him – not to mentionAnselm,Duns Scotus,Leibniz,Samuel Clarke, and so on, but let that pass – then you have hardly "made your case" against religion. Yet Dawkins is the only "New Atheist" to offer anything even remotely like an attempt to answer him, feeble as it is.
— Edward Feser,The Last Superstition (2008)
There have been criticisms of such movements perpetuatingpatriarchal beliefs and practices such assexism, despite internal claims ofgender equality. This has contributed to female atheists feeling shut out, trivialized, and silenced.[102][9] The New Atheist movement was accused of sexism after "Elevatorgate", a controversy surrounding responses to atheist bloggerRebecca Watson's criticism of unwanted sexual advances in the atheist community.[103][104] In 2014, Sam Harris said that New Atheism was "to some degree intrinsically male".[104]
Some commentators have accused the New Atheist movement ofIslamophobia.[105][106][107][108] Wade Jacoby and Hakan Yavuz assert that "a group of 'new atheists' such as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens" have "invoked Samuel Huntington's 'clash of civilizations' theory to explain the current political contestation" and that this forms part of a trend toward "Islamophobia ... in the study of Muslim societies".[107] William W. Emilson argues that "the 'new' in the new atheists' writings is not their aggressiveness, nor their extraordinary popularity, nor even their scientific approach to religion, rather it is their attack not only on militant Islamism but also on Islam itself under the cloak of its general critique of religion."[108]
In 2019,Steven Poole ofThe Guardian claimed: "For some, New Atheism was never about God at all, but just a topical subgenre of the rightwing backlash against the supposedly suffocating atmosphere of 'political correctness'."[109] In an April 2021 interview, Natalie Wynn, aleft-wing YouTuber who runs the channelContraPoints, commented: "Thealt-right, themanosphere,incels, even the so-calledSJW Internet andLeftTube all have a genetic ancestor in New Atheism."[110] In a June 2021 retrospective article,Émile P. Torres ofSalon argued that prominent figures in the New Atheist movement had aligned themselves with thefar-right.[111]
Tom Flynn (1955–2021), editor ofFree Inquiry, wrote that the only "new" thing about New Atheism was the wider publication of atheist material by big-name publishers, books that appeared on bestseller lists and were read by millions.[112] In November 2015,The New Republic published an article entitled "Is the New Atheism dead?"[113] In 2016, the atheist and evolutionary biologistDavid Sloan Wilson (b. 1949) wrote: "The world appears to be tiring of the New Atheism movement."[114] In 2017,PZ Myers, who formerly considered himself a new atheist, publicly renounced the New Atheism movement.[115]
In a June 2022 retrospective article, Sebastian Milbank ofThe Critic stated that, as a movement, "New Atheism has fractured and lost its original spirit", that "much of what New Atheism embodied has now migrated rightwards", and that "another portion has moved leftwards, embodied by the 'I Fucking Love Science' woke nerd of today."[116] Following the conversion of writerAyaan Hirsi Ali to Christianity in 2023, the columnist Sarah Jones wrote inNew York magazine that the New Atheism movement was in "terminal decline".[44]
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Informational notes
Citations
The New Atheists are authors of early twenty-first century books promoting atheism. These authors include Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens. The 'New Atheist' label for these critics of religion and religious belief emerged out of journalistic commentary on the contents and impacts of their books.
Why are the 'neo-atheists' of today so obsessed with God's nonexistence that they go on media rampages, wear T-shirts proclaiming their absence of belief, or call for a militant atheism? What does atheism have to offer that's worth fighting for? As onephilosopher put it, being a militant atheist is like 'sleeping furiously.'
Michael Ruse (2009) said that Dawkins would fail 'any philosophy or religion course'; and for this reason Ruse saysThe God Delusion made him 'ashamed to be an atheist'
Ayaan Hirsi Ali (1969–), sometimes referred to as the fifth 'Horseman,' is a Somali-born Dutch-American activist, feminist, and former politician
The typically belligerent, impassioned, and overly hostile tropes of the New Atheism's Four Horsemen—Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens—show that religion has retained an extraordinary amount of power in the modern world.
In reference to the Book of Revelation, the most popular representatives of this 'New Atheism'—Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens—are often called the 'four horsemen.' According to Dawkins, however, they had also invited a 'horsewoman' to the table: The Somali-born writer, filmmaker, and well-known critic of Islam, Ayaan Hirsi Ali [...]
The year following [Hitchens'] death the original conversation was revisited at theGlobal Atheist Convention in Melbourne [...]. Present were the three remaining 'horsemen'—and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-Dutch now American author, one-time politician and researcher, whose autobiographical debut, published in English asInfidel [...] tells her journey through different parts of the world and away from Islam.
...in the last two years there have been five atheist best-sellers, one each from Professors Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett and two from the neuroscientist Sam Harris.
On the 30th of September 2007, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens sat down for a first-of-its-kind, unmoderated 2-hour discussion, convened by RDFRS and filmed by Josh Timonen.
As Western society grappled with radical Islam, Harris distinguished himself with his argument that modern religious tolerance had placated us into allowing delusion rather than reason to prevail. Harris upended a discussion that had long been dominated by cultural relativism and a hands-off academic intellectualism; his seething contempt for the world's faiths helped launch the 'New Atheist' movement, and together with Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and Daniel Dennett, he became known as one of the 'Four Horsemen of the Non-Apocalypse.'
After publicly disavowing Islam, [Hirsi Ali] became a face of New Atheism and was elected to the Dutch parliament in 2003.
... I believe the new atheists do the side of science a grave disservice ... these people do a disservice to scholarship ... Richard Dawkins inThe God Delusion would fail any introductory philosophy or religion course. Proudly he criticizes that whereof he knows nothing ... the poor quality of the argumentation in Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens, and all of the others in that group ..." [...] "the new atheists are doing terrible political damage to the cause of Creationism fighting. Americans are religious people ... They want to be science-friendly, although it is certainly true that many have been seduced by the Creationists. We evolutionists have got to speak to these people. We have got to show them that Darwinism is their friend not their enemy. We have got to get them onside when it comes to science in the classroom. And criticizing good men like Francis Collins, accusing them of fanaticism, is just not going to do the job. Nor is criticizing everyone, like me, who wants to build a bridge to believers – not accepting the beliefs, but willing to respect someone who does have them." [...] "The God Delusion makes me ashamed to be an atheist. ... They are a bloody disaster and I want to be on the front line of those who say so.
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