Reply to Reza Aslan: Sam Harris and "New Atheists" aren't new, aren't even atheists

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Reply to "Reza Aslan: Sam Harris and "New Atheists" aren't new, aren't even atheists"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]“The great Enlightenment thinkers Voltaire, David Hume, Thomas Hobbes and John Locke were severely critical of institutional religion, viewing it as a destructive force in society. But they did not explicitly reject God’s existence, nor were they opposed to the idea of religious belief. (There were, of course, numerous other Enlightenment figures who professed atheism, such as Jean Meslier and the French philosopher Baron d’Holbach.) On the contrary, they recognized the inherent value of religious belief in fostering social cohesion and maintaining order, and so sought a means of replacing religion as the basis for making moral judgments in European society. It was political transformation they wanted, not religious reform.

Yet in the century that followed the Enlightenment, a stridently militant form of atheism arose that merged the Enlightenment’s criticism of institutional religion with the strict empiricism of the scientific revolution to not only reject belief in God, but to actively oppose it. By the middle of the 19th century, this movement was given its own name – anti-theism – specifically to differentiate it from atheism.

It was around this time that anti-theism reached its peak in the writings of the German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Marx famously viewed religion as the “opium of the people” and sought to eradicate it from society. “The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness,” Marx wrote in his celebrated critique of Hegel.

In truth, Marx’s views on religion and atheism were far more complex than these much-abused sound bites project. Nevertheless, Marx’s vision of a religion-less society was spectacularly realized with the establishment of the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China – two nations that actively promoted “state atheism” by violently suppressing religious expression and persecuting faith communities.“

State atheism seems like the opposite of state religion, but in a way, state atheism becomes a religion itself, without being a religion. The state becomes the religion and whomever is in charge at the head of government becomes the “god.” Those atheist regimes kill a lot of people, their own people. 
[/quote]

This is all bullshit, and you know it, as there are no "atheist regimes" who commit atrocities in the name of atheism.

Atrocities done in the name of religion are extraordinarily plentiful, though, so unless you want to start listing them and get embarrassed, I suggest you drop that failed argument.[/quote]

It’s almost like you don’t have an honest bone in your body. Nothing in the quoted passage (which I didn’t post) said atrocities are committed “in the name of atheism” (your slippery phrasing). It said the atheist states committed atrocities. There’s a big difference, and you know it.

Do better. [/quote]

So what you’re saying is that humans commit atrocities and not even faith in a god or gods and fear of divine retribution serves to prevent humans from committing these moral atrocities?[/quote]

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