2D: New Athiesm

Question 1

What is the difference between atheism and agnostic?

Answer 1

• Agnostic means a suspension of the decision to accept/reject belief in God: we can’t know
• Atheism is complete rejection of belief in God

Question 2

What different types of atheism do we find in modern society?

Answer 2

• Negative
• Positive
• Protest
• New

Question 3

Who are the ‘New Atheists’?

Answer 3

• those who believe religion is a threat to the survival of the human race
• atheism isn’t enough: we need to be anti-theist

Question 4

What are the main claims of the ‘New Atheists’?

Answer 4

• God doesn’t exist
• Religion is a threat to survival
• Faith is ‘the great cop out’
• Faith is anti-intellectual and undermines

Question 5

Where is atheism rooted from?

Answer 5

Ancient Greece
- the first atheist, Digoras of Melos, fled Athens in 5th century BCE
- Socrates was sentenced to death for his beliefs because he encouraged them to not believe in the city’s gods
- The word ‘atheistic’ appears in Ancient Greece and means ‘godless’ or ‘disrespecting the local gods’

Question 6

How was belief in God challenged in the 18th century?

Answer 6

• Age of Enlightenment encouraged individuals to use human reason and scientific exploration to find truth
• French Revolution viewed the Church as an outmoded institution that bolstered the monarchy

Question 7

Who is John Robinson and what is the name of his book?

Answer 7

• An Anglican bishop
• ‘Honest to God’

Question 8

What did Robinson state about God?

Answer 8

• God is ‘the ground of our being’: an essence, not an external being
• Placed God deep inside the person, rather than the traditional theistic approach of God as an ‘out there’ transcendent being

Question 9

What is anti-realism?

Answer 9

A movement that claims God isn’t objectively real, but is a useful concept for expressing our deepest values

Question 10

Who picked up the anti-realism movement?

Answer 10

Don Cupitt

Question 11

What do anti-realists believe?

Answer 11

Although God is not an objective reality out there, it is a useful concept and expresses something like our deepest human values

Question 12

Who was the last person jailed for being an atheist in Britain?

Answer 12

George Holyoake in 1842

Question 13

Who was Charles Bradlaugh?

Answer 13

• elected as the Liberal MP in Northampton in 1880
• He refused to take a parliamentary Oath of Allegiance so wasn’t allowed to take his seat
• He was re-elected several times over five years but did not take his seat until 1886
• When he eventually took his seat he became Britain’s first openly atheist member of Parliament

Question 14

Who coined the term agnosticism?

Answer 14

Thomas Huxley

Question 15

What is the ‘Sea of Faith’ movement?

Answer 15

• God exists as an idea in the minds of believers rather than an external and objective being

Question 16

What is the stance of ‘new atheism’?

Answer 16

The concept of God is seen as a totalitarian belief that destroys individual freedom and religion is a threat to the survival of the human race

Question 17

Who are the Four Horsemen of the Non-Apocalypse?

Answer 17

Sam Harrison, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Christopher Hitchens

Question 18

Sam Harris

Answer 18

• PhD in neuroscience
• ‘The End of Faith’
• Attacks ‘moderate’ religion which he believes is just as dangerous as ‘extremist’ religion because it contributes to the problems of the world by tolerating and teaching false things
• Extreme language at times “Some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them”
• Attacks Christian and Muslims fundamentalists, Roman Catholicism and Protestantism

Question 19

Daniel Dennett

Answer 19

• Philosophy professor
• ‘Breaking the Spell’
• Argues religion is a bi-product of evolution
• Interested in the nature of the mind, brain and consciousness

Question 20

Richard Dawkins

Answer 20

• Worked in zoology and regarded as populariser of science
• Appointed Simonyi Professor for Public Understanding of Science at Oxford: allowed his intellectual interests of widen
• ‘The God Delusion’ sold over 2 million copies worldwide

Question 21

Christopher Hitchens

Answer 21

• an accomplished journalist, prolific writer and debater
• ‘God is not Great’
• Argued against religion: claims religious heroes such as the Dalai Lama and Mother Teresa are duplicitous or at best hampered by their faith in any food they did