You’re embarrassing us, Dawkins
Written by David Smart, Posted in Atheism, Philosophy
“Secular humanism is recovering from its Dawkinsite phase,” according to Theo Hobson in a special feature at The Spectator, “and beginning a more interesting conversation.” The success of five or six atheist authors, on both sides of the Atlantic, seemed to herald a strong new movement. It seemed that non-believers were tired of all the nuance surrounding religion, hungry for a tidy narrative that put them neatly in the right. Atheism is still with us. But the movement that threatened to form has petered out. Crucially, atheism’s younger advocates are reluctant to compete for the role of Dawkins’s disciple. They are more likely to bemoan the new atheist approach and call for large injections of nuance. Hobson goes on to cite specific examples such as Julian Baggini, Alain de Botton, Zoe Williams, Douglas Murray and others. “All these writers,” he said, “admirably refuse to lapse into a comfortably sweeping ideology [...]
