(July 29, 2015 at 9:49 am)Alex K Wrote: To me, New Atheism is a combination of the following: the increased media presence of a certain crop of atheist spokespersons (especially Dawkins and Hitchens, Harris and Dennett to a smaller extent), a newly found unapologetic display of one's atheism, and a habitual reference to and reverence towards an idealized concept of "science" as the remedy against the oppression dealt out by religion.
That's close to what I've gathered it meant, except for the fact that many people appear to use the term "new atheist" as a pejorative as if it comes with the connotations of being the angry, foaming-mouth type. Do you think this is just a reaction of frustration by the religious, or is there something legitimate to the claim that atheists that identify with the four horsemen tend to be more hostile?
Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cozy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigor, and the great spaces have a splendor of their own - Bertrand Russell