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Do the New Atheists have any new ideas? – five-minute debate



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Do the New Atheists have any new ideas? – five-minute debate

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Andrew Brown challenges philosopher and atheist Daniel Dennett to convince him that the New Atheists have new ideas — and that they have really changed the face of belief in America. Dennett, one of the original ‘four horsemen’ of new atheism (along with Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens), has argued that belief in God is not merely mistaken, but dangerous.

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44 thoughts on “Do the New Atheists have any new ideas? – five-minute debate
  1. You've said all this before. You conveniently keep forgetting all the arguments you couldn't defeat, you keep reverting to your initial claims, you persist in reducing secular morality to a ridiculous straw man that you keep valiantly defeating in the same way, over and over again. This is not a discussion, it's a failed sermon, What a bore. To think that people call this "faith" and think of it as "good". Even the words have lost their meaning.

  2. "if morality is explicable by mechanism, then you are merely committing a naturalistic fallacy, which is deriving an ought from an is. If the mechanism is removed, so is morality." – Is this your response to the extremely serious accusation of statutory rape cover-up (ie, complicity) organised by various Churches? Great effort.

  3. I don't live in the USA, so there's that.

    But I think you will find that ignorant people will always believe stupid things, and being atheist will not really alleviate the situation at all.

    Better to look at the conceptions of "god" that people of some intellect have held and compare it to the viability of metaphysics held by intellectual atheists.

    To extent that intellectual atheists offer a coherent, sensible, metaphysical view, I'm not sure it is in any way superior.

    Pick your poison.

  4. I'm not sure why "creators of universes" needs rigorous scrutiny.

    To me it's like studying a language. If you want to communicate you need a language. If you want to understand reality you need a coherent metaphysical outlook.

    You can study metaphysics, just like you can study language. But it does not follow that any language is objectively superior, provided everybody understands each other.

    Similarly, I don't think any coherent metaphysics is superior to any other. Soundness be damned.

  5. The casual study of some metaphysical language is not world-altering. The stakes are very different, that should be obvious enough. Again, we're not arguing about your particular beliefs, but about religion.

  6. Don't change the subject. Admit that your comment was to attempt to shift the burden unfairly.

    "you need a coherent metaphysical outlook"

    For what? What has metaphysics offered our species? Books? Interesting thoughts?

    Meanwhile, we have actual physics, which has given us everything from missions to Mars, to suspension bridges, to transistors, etc. ad infinitum.

    Yes, I have evidence to suggest that "practical utility" allows physics to kick metaphysics' ass up and down the street. Daily.

  7. Check this example of moral attitude: /watch?v=cKfmI4BewJc

    Please keep in mind that the bird is little more evolved than the ancient dinosaurs and has brains the size of a pea.

  8. I was using the study of language as an analogy for the study of metaphysics. I'm not so very sure the stakes are quite so different. And practical metaphysics is the main role of religion.

    This is just a rehash of the Quine-Chomsky debate, with the atheist position being basically is that there is no "fact of the matter" which metaphysics is supposed to address.

    To address this issue is not a small thing.

    I agree with Quine, but also with Chomsky in that this does not allow us to ignore it.

  9. "Meta" means "beyond", in order to meaningfully even discuss what constitutes "the physical" your definition needs to be metaphysical in nature to be coherent and/or complete (specifically: non-circular).

    Otherwise atheism amounts to little more than accepting an incomplete view of reality, which I doubt is acceptable to many.

    You would not have had ANY physics without the earlier metaphysical thought of earlier philosophers, don't kid yourself, that's where you got the tools from.

  10. Newsflash: An "incomplete view of reality" is exactly what we have.

    Let me be clear: I don't care about the philosophical underpinnings of philosophy that led to the scientific method in the 6th century, B.C.

    I make 2 casual assumptions about the universe. 1. That it exists, and 2. That I can learn something about it. If you or anyone else isn't comfortable with those basic assumptions, then good luck discovering anything or improving the lives of our species.

    Less talking: more doing.

  11. Science consists of more than just learning about reality, there is also method.

    Examples abound, like Pascal's "gambler's wager" being instrumental in development of probability theory, Aristotle's logic a formed the basis for Frege which led to the development of Turing machines. Descartes kickstarted calculus and gave us the Catesian plane…

    Had it not been for philosophers talking, we would still be doing it like cavemen.

    Science didn't spring from thin air and is not "just observation".

  12. People often seem to have an awful lot of degrees on the internet…

    Spare me your self-important B.S., your purported doctorate means nothing to me. All I can (will) go on is the strength of your argument.

    To me there are two types of people in the world: Those who think they transcend methodological concerns, and good scientists.

  13. If there is no one god ( not three like in Christianity or man shaped god like in pagenity faith Jewish faith and Christianity because god isn't human ) if there is no god there is no creatures this amazing world is made is created by god if u say no god this means u r one of three crazy or lost or know deep inside u there is god but u just don't want to say u believe

  14. I appreciate that English might not be your first language. Really, that's fine.
    What you seem to be saying, is: god is real, god made everything, god is within everyone and people refuse to believe (and this is a bad thing). Correct?

  15. Honestly, I don't know how you could become so confused, but I can see you are very passionate about the technicalities of rape. For someone who claims to be so intelligent on the subject, a statement "Rape is not about sex" is reaaaaaaally fucking stupid looking. Sorry for wasting your extra precious time.

  16. I don't know how you can be so arrogant.
    Needing to twist someone's words just so you can accuse them of being 'reaaaaaaally fucking stupid' exposes you as the 'reaaaaaaally fucking stupid' one, especially as you're the one needing it spelled out.
    An intelligent person would have clearly understood the reply,
    "No, rape is about power and dominance"
    in reply to your assertion that
    "Rape, is about sex",
    means rape is more to do with 'power and dominance' (control) than sexual conquest.

  17. I never twisted anyone's words, maybe you should reread that.
    I think people should think about the more basic, obvious elements of a thing rather than delving into all of the mental reasoning behind it. If he would've left the "no" out, it would've been understood. IF he was to dsagree with the simple fact that rape is about sex, first and foremost, than I would have to stand firm that he is wrong. I'm not trying to make anyone look really fucking stupid, it just happens that way.

  18. The word no, was necessary to indicate that he disagreed with your assertion, and as it happens, he was correct. Rape is most definitely not primarily about sex (sexual conquest), but about power and dominance (control). It's your persistent arrogance that will continue to make you the only one looking really fucking stupid.

  19. in short there are absolutely no new arguments. just old arguments presented in a less academic and more jerry springer like format. this isnt to say there arent some good arguments. they just arent new. in fact older atheist thinkers presented more nuianced and sophisticated ideas as many were trained in philosophy rather then biology or journalism. hitchens was bright yes but an extremely poor listener like many of his theist opponents.

  20. Pfffffff…. As an agnostic I can only think of: "come on Dennett, don't be so radical…! Such extremist words…"

    Oh.. My… ¿God?!! haha 

  21. My take on this, as an Atheist, I think that because of the fact of Evolution to hit the stage (as it wasnt taught to me in school), coupled with the power of the internet, it has created a new Atheism that, like with myself, can educate the people far better than ever before. Hence, "New Atheism".

  22. 3:30 =_= That totally don't make sense Mr. Dennett. There are good human and there are bad human, therefore the good human are providing cover to the bad human by doing good? Seriously.

  23. The question is 'what is Religion'? And when you actually think about it, it's not such an easy question to answer. What is its nature? What is the common thread that all religions share? This question needs to be discussed before 'religion' can be effectively criticised.

  24. About halfway through Andrew Brown just hands Daniel Dennett his ass. "who are the bad Atheists? – "Well we condemn them."
     
    If you really condemned them then you would avoid the name Atheism, in the same way people avoid affiliation with the names ISIS, or the KKK, or NAZI.

    Atheism has a history and you want to come out as a "NEW  ATHEIST" then it's very valid for people to suspect you're not so different than the old Atheists. 

  25. New-atheism is, and was, an emotion-based, reactionary response to the events of 9/11.    That is self-evidently the case, and that is how history will look back upon it.   Fear-filled, existential angst regarding Islamic-extremism and it's relevance to "the enemy within" i.e.  muslim communities living in western nations.

  26. Atheism is a single concept: The lack of a belief in any God or more specifically any theology surrounding any kind of deity.

    Not much room for 'New' ideas. It remains, as always, an absence of proposition that requires no proof.

  27. By the logic of atheism I can just walk out the door right now genocide humanity and there's nothing wrong with that because there is no morals there is no purpose

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