The New Atheism and Its Critics

This is a volume of Midwest Studies in Philosophy with 12 contributions from different angles of the debate. The initial essay reminds us that it is all about sense-making and that theories are always under-determined by evidence. Many themes are dealt with, including the relationship between science and religion, epistemology, agnosticism, the nature of belief, knowledge and faith, scientism and evidence. Michael Ruse reminds us of the centrality of metaphor in our understanding and more specifically of the questions that the machine metaphor leads us to ignore or exclude, including why there is something rather than nothing. Many oversimplifications such as the opposition between reason and faith and openness to evidence (what kind?) are addressed. Richard Fumerton asks what is new about the new atheism, commenting that they make a very strong public claim about the epistemic irrationality of religious beliefs and characterise them as morally destructive. He examines these claims in some detail, recommending a degree of epistemic humility. Massimo Pigliucci contributes an excellent piece on the relationship between the new atheism and scientism, concluding that scientism is philosophically unsound, and that it does a disservice to science as well as to atheism and advocating instead a cooperative approach based on mutual disciplinary respect.