John Gray on myths that “New Atheists” tell themselves

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https://www.vox.com/2018/10/30/17936564/...-john-gray

INTRO: . . . John Gray is a British philosopher whose latest book, Seven Types of Atheism, explores the history of atheism. It’s both an affirmation and a critique of atheism, written by an atheist who is aware of all its contradictions. Gray has been one of the most forceful critics of the New Atheists since they first emerged on the scene, and his new book continues in that vein. I called him up to talk more about his views on the movement, and about religion and science more generally. Gray told me that the New Atheists are shaped by myths of their own, and that their failure to understand or acknowledge that is one of the biggest flaws of their movement. He also said that atheism is far more interesting when it seriously asks what it’s like to live in a “genuinely godless world.” A lightly edited transcript of our conversation follows....

MORE (interview): https://www.vox.com/2018/10/30/17936564/...-john-gray

EXCERPTS (GRAY): . . . I’m a skeptic by nature, so I’m resistant to claims by anyone to have complete answers to intractable human problems. [...] In many cases, the New Atheists are animated by 19th-century myths of various kinds: myths of human advancement, myths of what science can and cannot do, and all kinds of other myths. So yeah, I’m compelled to attack anyone who is debunking others for their reliance on myths when the debunkers themselves can’t see how their own thinking is shaped by myths. [...] These New Atheists are mostly ignorant of religion, and only really concerned with a particular kind of monotheism, which is a narrow segment of the broader religious world. [...] I think that’s what you had in mind when you said earlier that the New Atheists irritated you because they treated the idea of God as a kind of theoretical or epistemological question. There’s this silly idea that we have no need for religion anymore because we have science, but this is an incredibly foolish notion, since religion addresses different needs than science, needs that science can’t address...

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