![]() ![]() “It isn’t even mere atheism.” It is in fact antitheism, which he finds “to be rooted in a naive and, dare I say, unscientific understanding of religion – one thoroughly disconnected from the history of religious thought.” He contends that “atheism has become more difficult to define for the simple reason that it comes in as many forms as theism does” – negative atheism, positive atheism, empirical atheism, and even agnosticism. “Not only is New Atheism not representative of atheism,” he writes. For Aslan, though, the semantic distinction between “atheist” and “antitheist” is key and intended to discredit those speaking out for rationalism and against religion. For that matter, I have never had an experience for which I sought a religious – that is, supernatural or superstitious – explanation. ![]() I have never envied people of faith their worldview, never esteemed the ability to consider something true without evidence, never respected as morally superior those who manage this feat of credulity and illogicality. The point is, I do not, cannot, believe, and do not wish to believe. Well said! Speaking for myself, I’m happy to be labeled an antitheist. ![]() The eternally repressive alternate reality concocted by the religious of eons past, if true, would be, in his words, “horrible” and “grotesque.” (Aslan even provides the link to a relevant Hitchens text from long ago that is well worth reading.) Antitheists hold that the portrayal of our world and humankind’s place in it as set out in the foundational texts of the three Abrahamic religions constitutes, to quote Hitchens, “a sinister fairy tale,” and that “life would be miserable if what the faithful affirmed was actually the case.” The reason? “here may be people,” he wrote, “who wish to live their lives under a cradle-to-grave divine supervision a permanent surveillance and monitoring ,” but he certainly did not. In his recent Salon rebuttal to denunciations (including mine) of religion put forward by people the media has come to call New Atheists, he resurrects a word the late Christopher Hitchens, now three years departed, used to describe himself: antitheist. ![]()
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