THE NEW ATHEISM

 
The New Atheism is said to be the view that religion and belief in God should not be tolerated and that religion should be aggressively exposed by rational argument, shown up as contradictory or superstitious, when its influence arises. Richard Dawkins is allegedly its pope. Spokesmen for New Atheism include Dawkins himself, Peter Atkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens and PZ Myers.
 
Religion is so dangerous that it is hard to insist that aggressive exposure is not the way to go. Religion should get away with nothing. Priests who commit crimes should be reported not just to stop their crimes but to hopefully put people off the Catholic faith.
 
The New Atheism is supposed to be an imitation of fundamentalist religion. Like fundamentalism it is dogmatic and so proud that it ignores any criticism however rational. But any atheist who takes the default positions is not being dogmatic. He is not taking them to be dogmatic but to be helpful and rational. Modern atheism listens to Christians like never before. They do look at Christian criticism of atheism. They are able to answer it. That is why the New Atheism is so clever. It is winning the argument.
 
We must remember that if there are Christian theologians who honestly look at rational arguments against the faith (I said if - this is hypothetical) it is sometimes said that they are not dogmatic, not proud and not arrogant and not know-alls who misguidedly think they know it all. But the same cannot be said of priests and laity who are not theologians. They do not have the same knowledge and yet they insist on obedience to a revealed faith and are proud of it. They are definitely fundamentalists.