New improved atheism with added antagonism

Quote for the day, from Oliver Kamm.

I reject – in the sense that I’m antagonistic towards them, not just that I don’t accept them – all religious claims to truth.

Precisely. That is no doubt what put the ‘new’ in ‘new atheism’ – the addition of antagonism to non-acceptance. The move from plain unbelief to unbelief plus dislike. The adoption of Kingsley Amis’s ‘Yes [I’m an atheist] but it’s more that I hate him.’ The brazen unapologetic frank hostility to all religious claims to truth, because they are religious claims to truth, and therefore not only worthless but also harmful, because religion is not the way to get at truth, and pretending it is just trains people to learn bad non-functional ways to think.

We are allowed to do that. Call it new or call it old, it makes no difference; we are still allowed to do that. Othering, shunning, name-calling, finger-pointing, ‘framing’ – none of them are going to convince us otherwise. Genuinely good arguments might, but all that other crap isn’t going to do the job.

Have a nice day.

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