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Apologia Report: Surveying New Resources in Christian Apologetics
– a weekly e-mail briefing in worldview news and study designed
to help bring understanding to an age-old arena of conflict

Volume 15: Number 29 (1,034)
August 4, 2010

In this issue:

Theme for Philosophy Now magazine’s Apr/May 2010 issue: “Is God
*really* Dead?”

Victor Stenger asks “What’s New About the New Atheism?” and
champions “the new forthrightness”

Why “the New Atheists have no good reason to treat their atheism
differently from how they treat belief in the divine”

This edition of Apologia Report is sponsored in part by:

** The Centers for Apologetics Research, an international ministry
network with outreaches to the former Soviet Union, Africa and
Latin America. P.O. Box 1196, San Juan Capistrano, CA 92693 USA;
(949) 496-2000, fax (949) 496-2244, ,

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Apologia Report

ISSN: 1088-1107

Publisher: Apologia

Editor: Rich Poll

Contributing Editor: Paul Carden

Member: Evangelical Ministries to New Religions

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Copyright 2010 by Apologia . All rights reserved.
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Ask about our free back-issue online database. And, if you have
questions about what you read in Apologia Report, for even more
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Report readers, check out the discussion at AR-talk:

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Apologia Report 15:29 (1,034)
August 4, 2010

ATHEISM
“Meet the New Atheism / Same as the Old Atheism?” by Tim Madigan —
an introduction to the theme of Philosophy Now magazine’s Apr/May
2010 issue (p4). The cover art apes “The most famous Time magazine
cover [which] dates from April 8, 1966, consisting solely of the
question ‘Is God Dead?'” The PN cover reads: “Is God *really* Dead?”
Madigan opens with a brief historical summary of modern atheism
beginning with “the so-called ‘Death-of-God’ movement in the 1960s.”

He continues with the understatement that “While atheism as an
intellectual concern has been a time-honored aspect of philosophy,
it has never been generally popular…. It should be noted that in
1985 [when Madigan began a 25-year stint on the editorial board of
the secular humanist publication Free Inquiry (2)] one of the most
common definitions given in dictionaries for ‘atheism’ was
‘immoral’…. One of the facts I found remarkable during my fourteen
years as an editor [with FI], was how many subscribers requested
that the magazine be sent to them in a brown paper wrapper, so that
their neighbors or family members wouldn’t know they were receiving
such a controversial publication. …

“In this issue’s symposium, our contributors address such themes
as how to define ‘atheism’ (as Paul Edwards pointed out in his
encyclopedia entry, this is no easy matter); the historical
connections between present-day debates and the Victorian Crisis of
Belief; the arguments over whether believers or nonbelievers have
the burden of proof; and what, if anything, is really ‘new’ about
the New Atheism other than its public prominence.”

In “What’s New About the New Atheism?” (pp12-15) Victor Stenger, who
eventually comes to spew the bile for which atheists are
stereotyped, begins by explaining that “New Atheism” is the name
that was attached, “often pejoratively,” to what Madigan (above)
describes as “a spate of bestselling books” on the subject beginning
in 2004. As background he reports that “While 87% of scientists
accept evolution by unguided, purely natural processes, only 32% of
the public does. Belief in unguided evolution among mainline
Protestants and Catholics is about the same as among the general
public, while only 10% of Evangelicals and 19% of fundamentalist
Protestants acknowledge it. …

“A 1998 survey of National Academy [of Sciences] members
indicated that only 7% believe in a personal God…. Yet the Academy
insists that science has nothing to say about God or the
supernatural: ‘Science is a way of knowing about the natural world.
It is limited to explaining the natural world through natural
causes. Science can say nothing about the supernatural. Whether God
exists or not is a question about which science is neutral.'” (This
comes with the citation: “Teaching about Evolution and the Nature of
Science, National Academy of Sciences, 1998, p58.”)

From here, Stenger argues that “the efficacy of prayer in aiding
healing” ought to be a major source of evidence on behalf of belief
in God. Nevertheless, “The results so far have been negative….”

Stenger is frustrated in still other ways. He likes the
aggressive approach of the New Atheists. Yet, “From my reading of
and contacts with both believing and nonbelieving scientists, I find
that the majority are happy with [Stephen Jay] Gould’s scheme” that
science and religion be considered as two “non-overlapping
magisteria (NOMA). …

“If any event triggered the New Atheist attitude it was 9/11. …

“While in recent times Christians have not produced numerically
comparable atrocities [as he feels Muslims have], individual cases
can be found where murders by Christians have been committed ‘under
orders’ from God.” This line of reasoning further degenerates into
political grousing.

Getting back on track, Stenger writes: “Faith is belief in the
absence of empirical evidence, and often in the face of contrary
evidence. The position of the New Atheists is that faith is the
force behind both the malevolent deeds of extremist religious groups
and the irrational acts of many political leaders. …

“Here the New Atheists find themselves in conflict with many
other atheists who prefer to accommodate religon and not challenge
beliefs….” He then refers to “a storm of criticism, from both
believers and nonbelievers” against the New Atheists. Examples are
given from “theologian John Haught,” “atheist philosopher Ron
Aronson,” and “geneticist Francis Collins.”

At one point, Stenger, oblivious to the irony, complains: “The
message of New Atheism has been terribly misunderstood as being
exclusively negative. Yet for every negative we have an even greater
positive. Irrational faith is absurd and dangerous, and we look
forward to the day, no matter how distant, when the human race
finally abandons it. Reason is a noble substitute, proven by its
practical and intellectual success. Religion is an intellectual and
moral sickness that cannot endure forever if human progress really
is possible.”

Nearing his conclusion, Stenger asks: “So where do Christians get
their morality? The same way atheists do. They examine their
consciences and choose from the alternatives life presents to them.
The issue of slavery in the nineteenth century provides a prime
example. In the US, while southern preachers and politicians, almost
all Christians, used the Bible to justify slavery, northern
abolitionists, also mostly Christians, ignored the Bible or found
more congenial passages, and decided for themselves that slavery was
immoral.” Any questions? [3]

The above article is based on his 2009 book, The New Atheism [1].
For background on Stenger, see

Also in the Apr/May 2010 issue of Philosophy Now, with “Where’s the
Evidence?” (pp18-21) Michael Antony, a Senior Lecturer in the
Department of Philosophy at the University of Haifa, Israel, “argues
that the New Atheists miss the mark.” His approach: “How can the New
Atheists employ evidentialist principles to argue that religious
belief is irrational if they are unwilling to apply those same
principles to atheism? If the New Atheists’ atheism is not
evidence-based, … doesn’t evidentialism entail that atheism is itself irrational or epistemically unjustified? The answer is ‘Yes’; at least if
evidentialism is interpreted in the standard way. So it appears that
the New Atheists need some fix for evidentialism – a kind of
‘theoretical plug-in’ – which legitimizes their atheism in the
absence of evidence. They also seem to be aware of this, since they
offer several reasons why atheism requires no evidential support. I
will discuss five of the most commonly offered reasons, and argue
that none of them succeed. At the end I will gesture toward what I
believe is the right way to view matters.” Those reasons: “1.
Atheism Isn’t a Belief,” “2. You Can’t Prove a Negative,” “3. The
Burden of Proof Is On the Believer,” “4. Ockham’s Razor,” “5.
Absence of Evidence Is Evidence of Absence”

Antony concludes: “[O]n matters concerning evidence and
justification, the New Atheists have no good reason to treat their
atheism differently from how they treat belief in the divine.”

——-

SOURCES: Monographs

1 – The New Atheism: Taking a Stand for Science and Reason, by
Victor J. Stenger (Prometheus, 2009, paperback, 282 pages)

——–

SOURCES: Periodicals

2 – Free Inquiry (Council for Secular Humanism),

3 – Philosophy Now,

—- End, Apologia Report 15:29 —-

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