A Proletarian critique of 'New' Atheists

[Svartalf]

Robert, I'm a bourgeois at heart, if not an aristocrat, and I find this blabber ludicrous... what happens when the proles and the bourges think the same?

[Hermit]

Should I read it or consider it academic noise?

By all means read it, but in my view the essay does not rise to academic anything. It's waffle dressed up to appear like academic noise. There are better argued opinion pieces in the (bourgeois) papers.

[Hermit]

Robert, I'm a bourgeois at heart, if not an aristocrat, and I find this blabber ludicrous... what happens when the proles and the bourges think the same?

Marxists got that covered. It's called 'false consciousness.'

[rasetsu]

meh. tl;dr. I found the bulk of what I read as consisting of criticizing the New Atheists for not following his Bauplan for what a rationalist movement should be, including the usual canards, "they just don't understand the deeper aspects of religion," and "atheism is a worldview," and, "they are science worshipping, not science valueing." I have my own criticisms of atheism as a canon and a movement, and he does hit on one, but his overall criticism is muted by his continually droning on and on in neo-post-modernist fashion about the deeper flaws in New Atheism, flaws, the acknowledgement of which, requires the acceptance of even more ludicrous and questionable bourgeoise acedemianism.1

To take the famous Goldwater quote and wrap it around a new form:

"Extremism in the service of reason is no vice. And moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!"



1 He should be taken out and shot for the way he misrepresents Whitehead. ("True courage is not the brutal force of vulgar heroes, but the firm resolve of virtue and reason." — A.N. Whitehead)



"No state of virtue is complete, however total the virtue, save as it is won by a conflict with evil, and fortified by the struggles of a resolute and even bitter experience."
— Horace Bushnell

"Virtue is persecuted more by the wicked than it is loved by the good."
— Miguel de Cervantes

[hadespussercats]

As soon as someone uses the word bourgeois I dismiss them as a wanker.

How bourgeois.

[Tero]

Well, Dawkins is kind of posh and claims to be a cultural Christian.

Go with the anti-Catholic Joseph McCabe. Wrote booklets for the working man.

[Thumpalumpacus]

It's hard to take critique based on ideology seriously. Built-in bias weakens any points to be made.

But it's not surprising that someone who worships a god should look askance at non-believers.

[Robert_S]

Robert, I'm a bourgeois at heart, if not an aristocrat, and I find this blabber ludicrous... what happens when the proles and the bourges think the same?

Marxists got that covered. It's called 'false consciousness.'

I wish these bourg would stop copying all the prole's ideas.

[Hermit]

It's hard to take critique based on ideology seriously.

LOL. Please tell me of a critique that is not based on one ideology or another.

[Svartalf]

Robert, I'm a bourgeois at heart, if not an aristocrat, and I find this blabber ludicrous... what happens when the proles and the bourges think the same?

Marxists got that covered. It's called 'false consciousness.'

I wish these bourg would stop copying all the prole's ideas.

Bugger you. Like those hoi polloi are even able to get any ideas without the benevolent guidance of their betters... (try telling me that Marx wasn't a bourge and keeping a straight face)

[Robert_S]

Robert, I'm a bourgeois at heart, if not an aristocrat, and I find this blabber ludicrous... what happens when the proles and the bourges think the same?

Marxists got that covered. It's called 'false consciousness.'

I wish these bourg would stop copying all the prole's ideas.

Bugger you. Like those hoi polloi are even able to get any ideas without the benevolent guidance of their betters... (try telling me that Marx wasn't a bourge and keeping a straight face)

Marx was most certainly a bourge, as are his scribes and pharisees. I was referring to outspoken atheism and anti-religiosity.

[Svartalf]

Both of which certainly grew earlier and faster in the learned middle and upper classes than among the proletariat.

[Robert_S]

As have New Age Woo and that wishy-washy moderate religion.

[Jason]

Eviscerate the proletariat!

[Svartalf]

take out your own garbage and make your own appliances and cars.