Meliorism - The rise of neo-atheism and the fall of reason

[ManMachine]

It’s becoming clear to me that there is a new kind of atheism. It stems from the cut n’ paste vox-pops puppets who think Dawkins’ greatest contribution to atheism is his ill-conceived disasterwork, ‘The God Delusion’ and who wouldn’t recognise a Selfish Gene if it broke into the bedrooms and stole their laptops.

People who are characterised by an atheist philosophy not born of critical thought and diligence but congealed out of a conflation of sound-bites from youtube clips of proselytising egoists and ratings-driven public access panels of smug half-educated, half-wits with half-baked notions of the absolute truth and authority of science delivering what they consider to be progress.

This neo-atheism would be quaint if it were not so dangerous.

The central theme running through neo-atheism is meliorism. The notion that science and technology, specifically as a result of human action, brings progress (and equally that and backward revision is retrogressive) is, in my experience dealing with neo-atheists, so central to their thinking it has become the priori on which their philosophy (if it can be called that) is predicated.

So convinced of the absolute inviolability of modern science, the neo-atheist behaves like a fundamentalist in their defence of their belief. Offering up misinterpretations and meaningless quotes stripped of context to maintain purchase on their belief, attacking reasoned enquiry like cyber-crusaders lopping off the heads of anyone who dare violate the first commandment of neo-atheism – Science is a jealous god and thou shalt not have any other god before it.

The eighteenth century dream of human progress is alive and well and masquerading as neo-atheism. Any notion of progress or regression can only make sense within a system of teleological thought. Teleological thought has embedded itself into the neo-atheist psyche so deep it has become the embodiment of reason.

“Eighteenth-century social philosophy was convinced that mankind has now finally entered the age of reason… With the progress of time society will more and more become the society of free men, aiming at the greatest happiness of the greatest number. Temporary setbacks are, of course, not impossible. But finally the good cause will triumph because it is the cause of reason.” [Bettina B. Greaves 1996]

But this is easily exposed as a myth. When we look back from any given state to the state of things in the past it is fair to use the terms development and evolution in a neutral sense. From this point it is easy to identify the process that led us from one state to the next, but we must guard against confusing change with improvement or progress. There is no progress against concrete goals, the general notion of progress and improvement is measured against a change in state, it simply doesn’t stand up to critical examination. The term progress is nonsensical when applied to a comprehensive world view.

To compound the matter neo-atheists assert human action as the agent of this progress. It is not permissible to substitute pseudoscientific anthropocentrism for the anthropocentrism of religion and older metaphysical doctrines.

The danger with Neo-atheism, as I see it, is that it has absorbed pseudoscientific anthropocentrism and the delusion of progress, and has rapidly become fundamentalist in its defence of these mistaken beliefs.


MM

What shit.

Care to elaborate or do you have the same regard for ecientific method which is what uderpinns my arguement?


MM

---

To expect all atheists to be intellectual heavyweights is akin to expecting cats to come falling out of the sky, pissing liquid gold.

I don't know much at all. I'm not proud of it. Those who take pride in ignorance are the pits. But, I understand enough to result at a highly logical agnostic atheist position. However, I'm sure I've done fallacious arguments in my time, who hasn't?

The more fellatious the better, as far as I'm concerned. Nothing to be ashamed of there .. unless that turns you on, you very naughty girl. (Who needs a spanking?)

---

The God Delusion is well-written, but it isn't groundbreaking. It seems to cover ground that has been well-trod for a long time. I wonder if it wasn't written to be some kind of primer for 'new' atheists, which means that it could be the first exposure to those arguments that many athiests see, and so they consider it a transcendental work. That might also be why it gets so much attention. My guess is that most people who read it eventually move on to more substantive works and leave TGD behind.

I just heard of new book by a biologist called "The Science Delusion" which sounds pretty interesting. He gave a TED talk which controversially was taken off of their youtube account. I'm still investigating.

'The Science Delusion' is written from a similar perspective to mine.

There are some 'dogmas' used in defence of science that are, if not unsubstantiated, very questionable.

The TEDx lecture briefly mentions some of the issues I make reference to. I've touched on some of the points in other threads.

I think it is very interesting that the lecture was removed from youtube as what is being said, while certainly controversial, is actually well reasoned and does not constitute pseudoscience at all, just a challenge to percieved scientific authority. This is exactly the kind of issue I was relating to in my OP when I said,

"... attacking reasoned enquiry like cyber-crusaders lopping off the heads of anyone who dare violate the first commandment ... Science is a jealous god and thou shalt not have any other god before it."


in much the same way as Copernicus challenged helio-centrism there is a sound rationality in challenging anthropo-centrism. In much the same way we view the Christian world before Copernicus I see new atheism. It seems so obvious to me that anthropo-centrism dictates the 'dogma' in this way of thinking. It took me a while to grasp it, it's a paradigm shift, I'm not surprised my OP generated the responses it did.


MM