Doxa

Firstly, I want to argue that New Atheism treats fundamentalism as a problem rather than as the solution to a problem.
To understand this we can look at how alcohol abuse functions. The excessive alcohol consumption is not the problem, but an attempt at self-cure, it is then the solution to a problem. If the person doesn’t deal with the problem for which the alcohol is the solution they will always struggle. Even if they do manage to stop drinking another symptom will simply arise whether that be chain smoking, excessive fitness or bouts of aggression.
In a structurally similar way, instead of seeing fundamentalism as a problem it is more helpful to see it as a defense mechanism that is providing a psychological service to the individual. Because of this, if someone gives up their religious fundamentalism and adopts a new system, without addressing why they embraced religious fundamentalism in the first place, the new system will simply function in the same way as the old one.
For example, in Northern Ireland, it is not uncommon to see a former paramilitary join the church. But generally the type of religious commitment they adopt has the same belligerence, intolerance and tribal markers as their previous political fundamentalism. Why? Because their new found religious belief is functioning in the same way as their political fundamentalism. Namely protecting the person from dealing with a complex set of personal and political antagonisms.
In response to this the New Atheist will point out that they are not advocating another system, but rather are offering the critique of a system. They claim that atheism is a religion in the same way that baldness is a hairstyle or health is a disease i.e. it isn’t.
However this answer fails to address the way in which even the rejection of a system can itself operate in structurally the same way as a system. In other words, “Nothing” can be given a positive charge and can act as a tribal identity.
This is captured beautifully in a joke that Derrida would tell of a Rabbi walking into a synagogue and publically saying, “I am dust, I am nothing.” Then a priest came in and did the same. Followed by an Imam. Finally the caretaker of the building entered and also said, “I am dust, I am nothing.” On hearing this the three religious leaders turn to each other and whisper, “who does he think he is, saying that he’s nothing?”

"Ham seems blithely unaware that his view of the Bible is only possible in the world of the Enlightenment, where objectivity and reason are still king. The text of the Bible is stripped from its context where it floats in heavenly neutrality, waiting for clear-minded and unbiased interpreters like Ham to seamlessly and easily apply it to modern science. Thus the Bible ceases to be an ancient text, and therefore ceases to really say anything other than what we want it to say.

On the other hand, Nye argues, unlike his subtler atheist comrades, that the only other option is to doom the Bible to the dustbin of history in favor of the modern religion of reason, science, and “discovery.” “Mainstream science,” Nye argued repeatedly in the debate, must eschew any contact between science and the sacred, lest we risk the collapse of American ingenuity and progress. This type of alarmist sectarianism is remarkably close in tone to Ham’s prophetic warnings, and just as founded in the religion of logic and reason."

Metacrock wrote:Heard of Rollins but can't remember who he is. I know who Krauss is, I attack him in the book I'm writing now. he's an idiot, even though a brilliant physicist. An idiot when he talks about religion.

mdsimpson92 wrote:

Metacrock wrote:Heard of Rollins but can't remember who he is. I know who Krauss is, I attack him in the book I'm writing now. he's an idiot, even though a brilliant physicist. An idiot when he talks about religion.

Ironically I think this type of "reason will save us" mentality is just like the type Dostoyevsky criticized in "Notes from the Underground" and "Brothers Karamazov", that man's rarely acts in a wholly rational manner and does things in spite of its self interest.