Thursday, July 30, 2015

Why Wouldn't A New Atheist Assume That Anyone Critical Of Any New Atheist Is A Conservative Christian?

I'm looking at Amazon's bestsellers in Books > Religion & Spirituality > Atheism. It seems the great majority of them are either books by New Atheists, or by theists trying to warn everyone about how atheism will lead to chaos, Destruction and Doom. Former atheists seems to be a big hit in the 2nd category, with Hitch's formerly atheist, now conservatively Christian brother leading the way.

Dawkins' God Delusion is #1 (Kindle Edition), #2 (Audible Audio Edition) and #3 (Paperback) on this list, 11 years after its first publication, ka-CHINGGG. Hardcover's #9.

The first book on this list which is neither New Atheist nor apologist and anti-atheist is Russell's Why I Am Not a Christian and Other Essays at #22. I don't know whether Penn Jillette is a New Atheist or not, but he's an atheist and his newest smash hit is at #25, Freud's Future of an Illusion is #27. There's a Buddhist atheist at #30, a couple of Christian atheist dingbats in the #30's, but for the most part the top 100 continues to be New Atheists and theists warning of the horrible dangers of atheism.

My point is, maybe it's not so unreasonable that New Atheists tend to automatically assume -- wait. let me rephrase that: it's not so unreasonable when anybody assumes any time anybody criticizes any New Atheist about anything, that they are dealing with a theist. Usually a conservative Christian. Assuming that most people don't actually create their own opinions about anything, but adopt them from those seen as intellectually authoritative. Which sadly seems to be a very safe assumption.

Not so unreasonable, because when someone here in the Western world criticizes a New Atheist, about anything, far more often than not it is a conservative Christian. Atheists tend to assume that the most prominent atheists are sensible people, conservative Christians tend to assume that atheism is a disaster, and very few others tend to give much of a crap about such things one way or another. And without a doubt, the most prominent atheists currently are New Atheists. They are CRUSHING us Steven Bollinger Can Haz Nobel Atheists in the bestseller lists.

Yeah, that sounds like the world I live in. Talking points rule, actual deep thinking is misunderstood, because it is unfamiliar. Well, we're just going to have to keep doing it until people get used to it, and start doing it themselves. God, I'm exhausted.

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