My question for every person of every religious or spiritual flavor is the same - where is the soul? Where is it located in the body? We have had thousands of religions in the world that all begin at the same starting point. A belief in an invisible soul. A weird thing that’s somehow made up of all the parts of us that strangely cannot be found anywhere in the human body. We look at this world and and cry out how can things be so bad still? When over 90 percent of the people in the world believe in something that has absolutely no basis in reality of course you will have wars and famine and hate. Most people are living irrationally. It isn’t rational to be an adult and believe in things that aren’t real. It opens the door to all sorts of irrational thinking. I think it’s time that atheists stop debating whether it’s rational to believe in Christianity or Islam or any of the other religions and to focus on only one thing - the sheer lunacy of the idea of and belief in the soul. If we can help people see that the very basis of every religion or spiritual practice (the belief in a soul) is totally false then there will never be a need to debate the merits or faults of any religion.
It’s no wonder that this world is so messed up. There are no adults running it. Instead we have children pretending to be adults that still cling to an infantile lie to get them through their lives.
I heartily agree - there are certainly some foundational pressure points whose refutation collapses these beliefs, and the soul is a very important one. Thanks for reading and commenting!
I am not a "New Atheist." I was a non-believer and very hostile to religion before Sam Harris was even born. In my youth, there were no four horsemen. We had Bertrand Russell and a few others, but above all Spinoza, who, to my mind, is without peer in time or country. Over the years, my hostility has faded, and it feels like we have won, achieving a respectable presence in the West.
A fair point! I notice that most 'New Atheists' either disavow the term, or use it ironically - Coyne, for example, writes that there isn't much 'new' about it, except perhaps the hyper focus on science. It was Hitchens who came up with the 'Four Horsemen' thing - 'The Four Horsemen of the Non-Apocalypse' or 'Counter-Apocalypse' - which was very much, and quite clearly, a joke. I agree that it's not the most useful of terms, but I like to employ it now and again (I hope the piece above shows that there's a certain irony in my own use of it).
I would disagree slightly that we've 'won', in the sense that religion seems to have become a potent and corrosive force in the West once more. It feels to me like there was a brief respite during, roughly, the Obama years, but that afterwards, Christian fundamentalism has made a worrying comeback. And Islamic fanaticism has never truly gone away, as we've seen very recently with the UK Cineworld fiasco and Batley schoolteacher case, not to mention the murder of Samuel Paty in France. In fact, I've been meaning to write something along the lines of - New Atheism, by which I mean public and explicit condemnation of religion, requires something of a comeback in the current climate.
Anyway, thank you for responding, Carl! Truly appreciated.
(When I say Islamic fanaticism has never truly gone away, I meant 'in the West' - it is, of course, a great danger elsewhere. Which is another reason why 'New Atheism' still matters - so many Muslim dissidents, and ex-Muslims, in Muslim majority countries take great inspiration from the works of the 'New Atheists' - as evidenced by the fact that The God Delusion has been downloaded more than 10 million times in Arabic. Outside of the West, for sure, 'New Atheism' is a potent, even a revolutionary, force, and if for no other reason than that, it deserves great credit.)
My comment wasn't meant to disparage "New Atheists" - the opposite in fact (I have 30+ of their books). I was drawing a then/now comparison. Like so many other measures of human well being, admitted non-belief has burgeoned in the West. My feeling that "we've won" in large part comes from the existence of the four horsemen and their work. They (and many others) have moved the world forward to a degree I wouldn't have thought possible back then. It gratifies me to see talented, informed young atheists arriving on the scene - keep up the good work.
My question for every person of every religious or spiritual flavor is the same - where is the soul? Where is it located in the body? We have had thousands of religions in the world that all begin at the same starting point. A belief in an invisible soul. A weird thing that’s somehow made up of all the parts of us that strangely cannot be found anywhere in the human body. We look at this world and and cry out how can things be so bad still? When over 90 percent of the people in the world believe in something that has absolutely no basis in reality of course you will have wars and famine and hate. Most people are living irrationally. It isn’t rational to be an adult and believe in things that aren’t real. It opens the door to all sorts of irrational thinking. I think it’s time that atheists stop debating whether it’s rational to believe in Christianity or Islam or any of the other religions and to focus on only one thing - the sheer lunacy of the idea of and belief in the soul. If we can help people see that the very basis of every religion or spiritual practice (the belief in a soul) is totally false then there will never be a need to debate the merits or faults of any religion.
It’s no wonder that this world is so messed up. There are no adults running it. Instead we have children pretending to be adults that still cling to an infantile lie to get them through their lives.
I heartily agree - there are certainly some foundational pressure points whose refutation collapses these beliefs, and the soul is a very important one. Thanks for reading and commenting!
The “soul” is in the same place as “human dignity.” It’s nowhere.
I am not a "New Atheist." I was a non-believer and very hostile to religion before Sam Harris was even born. In my youth, there were no four horsemen. We had Bertrand Russell and a few others, but above all Spinoza, who, to my mind, is without peer in time or country. Over the years, my hostility has faded, and it feels like we have won, achieving a respectable presence in the West.
A fair point! I notice that most 'New Atheists' either disavow the term, or use it ironically - Coyne, for example, writes that there isn't much 'new' about it, except perhaps the hyper focus on science. It was Hitchens who came up with the 'Four Horsemen' thing - 'The Four Horsemen of the Non-Apocalypse' or 'Counter-Apocalypse' - which was very much, and quite clearly, a joke. I agree that it's not the most useful of terms, but I like to employ it now and again (I hope the piece above shows that there's a certain irony in my own use of it).
I would disagree slightly that we've 'won', in the sense that religion seems to have become a potent and corrosive force in the West once more. It feels to me like there was a brief respite during, roughly, the Obama years, but that afterwards, Christian fundamentalism has made a worrying comeback. And Islamic fanaticism has never truly gone away, as we've seen very recently with the UK Cineworld fiasco and Batley schoolteacher case, not to mention the murder of Samuel Paty in France. In fact, I've been meaning to write something along the lines of - New Atheism, by which I mean public and explicit condemnation of religion, requires something of a comeback in the current climate.
Anyway, thank you for responding, Carl! Truly appreciated.
(When I say Islamic fanaticism has never truly gone away, I meant 'in the West' - it is, of course, a great danger elsewhere. Which is another reason why 'New Atheism' still matters - so many Muslim dissidents, and ex-Muslims, in Muslim majority countries take great inspiration from the works of the 'New Atheists' - as evidenced by the fact that The God Delusion has been downloaded more than 10 million times in Arabic. Outside of the West, for sure, 'New Atheism' is a potent, even a revolutionary, force, and if for no other reason than that, it deserves great credit.)
My comment wasn't meant to disparage "New Atheists" - the opposite in fact (I have 30+ of their books). I was drawing a then/now comparison. Like so many other measures of human well being, admitted non-belief has burgeoned in the West. My feeling that "we've won" in large part comes from the existence of the four horsemen and their work. They (and many others) have moved the world forward to a degree I wouldn't have thought possible back then. It gratifies me to see talented, informed young atheists arriving on the scene - keep up the good work.
Understood - I (mostly) agree. Thanks for your kind and thoughtful comments.