Michael De Dora has replied to his critics. He’s much more responsive than Mooney, but I still disagree with him. I disagree with the underlying ideas.
I see that we are right, philosophically speaking — but I also care about collective, democratic, evidence-based discourse and progress (just as, say, Chris Mooney cares about scientific literacy). To that end, I think rallying around atheism presents problems both inherently (the word doesn’t say much) and in presentation and interaction with the 95 percent of the public who are not atheists.
One, ‘rallying around atheism’ isn’t really the issue, or an issue. I don’t know of any atheists who are atheists to the exclusion of everything else. I suppose attending conferences could … Read the rest