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Scientism, Humanism, and Religion: the New Atheism and the Rise of the Secular Movement

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Scientism, Humanism, and Religion: the New Atheism and the Rise of the Secular Movement SCIENTISM, HUMANISM, AND RELIGION: THE NEW ATHEISM AND THE RISE OF THE SECULAR MOVEMENT STEPHEN LEDREW A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY GRADUATE PROGRAM IN SOCIOLOGY YORK UNIVERSITY TORONTO, ONTARIO DECEMBER 2013 © STEPHEN LEDREW, 2013 ABSTRACT This dissertation examines the New Atheism as a secular fundamentalism that is both a utopian ideology and a social movement. It situates New Atheist thought within the context of the historical development of atheist thought and outlines the features of the ideology it promotes. It also examines the New Atheism’s role in the secular movement through research on major movement actions, campaigns, and debates on goals and strategies. It argues that the New Atheism comes into conflict with two other movement discourses: secular humanism and libertarian rationalism. These ideological conflicts are propelling the movement away from the New Atheism’s aggressive critique of religion toward more a more accommodating and inclusive approach that emphasizes basic humanistic values. ii DEDICATION For the love and support they have given me all my life, I dedicate this dissertation to my parents, Paul and Daphne LeDrew. In the final months of writing, during the most difficult time, they gave me what no one else could: the comfort of home. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Thanks are due first and foremost to my supervisor, Ratiba Hadj-Moussa. Her contribution to this dissertation as a scholarly mentor cannot be measured, but just as importantly, without her support and guidance through the difficult times that emerge during the course of completing a graduate degree, I never would have achieved this goal. I am grateful beyond words for everything she has given me. I am also very thankful to the other two members of my supervisory committee, Philip Walsh and Fuyuki Kurasawa. I am deeply thankful to both. Philip’s interest in this dissertation was inspiring, and his perspective was particularly important in the early stages as I struggled to find my way into this topic. Fuyuki’s critical eye and attention to detail helped me sharpen my arguments, and his wide-ranging knowledge was an invaluable resource as I navigated my way through new fields. When I think of my time as a student at York University and a resident of Toronto I think first of the good friends I made there, particularly among my fellow graduate students – they know who they are. Arriving in Toronto alone and knowing no one, I quickly found my place in a group of people who opened their world to me. I thank them all for the richness and fun that they brought to my life. Finally, I thank my love, Liz Rondinelli. Through many dark days she was strong enough for us both. It is safe to say that this dissertation would never have been completed without her support. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………ii Dedication………………………………………………………..…………………….…iii Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………….iv Table of Contents…………………………………………………………………...……..v List of Tables……………………………………………………………………………..vi List of Figures…………………………………………………………………...……….vii Introduction..........................................................................................................................1 Chapter 1.A Definition of Modern Atheism......................................................................21 Chapter 2. The New Atheism.............................................................................................56 Chapter 3. The Atheist Movement.....................................................................................97 Chapter 4. Atheists...........................................................................................................153 Conclusion.......................................................................................................................206 Notes................................................................................................................................216 References........................................................................................................................219 v LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Movement organizations....................................................................................100 Table 2.Characteristics of political and cultural movements...........................................104 Table 3.Characteristics of movement sub-groups............................................................115 Table 4. Sample demographics........................................................................................155 Table 5. Views on religion, science, and the New Atheism............................................166 Table 6. Movement participation.....................................................................................179 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Binaries in ideology of New Atheism................................................................68 Figure 2. Development of the atheist movement.............................................................109 Figure 3. Trajectories to atheism.....................................................................................161 vii INTRODUCTION Atheism and Secularity: An Emerging Field In 2012 a special issue of the Journal of Contemporary Religion was devoted to the theme of “Non-religion and Secularity”. Articles in this issue gave a sampling of studies of the non-religious in the United States, Great Britain, and India, while an introductory essay addressed the “state of the union” in the emerging interdisciplinary field of non-religion and secularity, a sub-field within the social scientific study of religion (Bullivant and Lee 2012). The editors of this special issue, Stephen Bullivant and Lois Lee, founded the Non-religion and Secularity Research Network in 2008, and a journal specifically dedicated to the field (Secularism and Nonreligion) in 2012. In her Research Note on terminology in the same issue, Lee (2012) explains that the concepts of “nonreligion” and “secularity” are intended to cover all positions that are defined in reference to religion but are considered to be other than religious. She also acknowledges that the name given to the field is a problematic issue and her proposal is not accepted by all those working in it (as a nascent field, some disagreement regarding basic terminology is to be expected). Phil Zuckerman, author of two qualitative studies of the beliefs of atheists in the United States and Scandinavia (2008; 2011), uses “atheism and secularity” to describe the field in his collection on the subject (2010). While noting that none of these terms or titles are perfect, I will use “atheism and secularity” for the moment. But the more important issue is, why did this new field come about, and what exactly are its concerns? Atheism and secularity studies is a scholarly response to the same social, cultural, and political developments that are addressed by the burgeoning literature on secularism and post-secularism (e.g. Calhoun et al. 2011; Gorski et al. 2012; Mendieta and VanAntwerpen 2011), which is heavily influenced by Charles Taylor’s seminal work, A Secular Age (2007). Taylor argues that the persistence of religion as an element of both public and private life compels us to question the assumptions that underwrite the secularization thesis, which posits that modernization brings functional differentiation of secular (public/political) and religious (private) spheres, and in some formulations, a 1 decline in religious belief and practice (Taylor 2007). Major events like the Iranian Revolution and the rise of the Christian Right led some scholars to point to a “deprivatization” of religion worldwide that contradicts the traditional secularization paradigm, with religion continuing to play a significant role in politics globally (Berger 1999, Casanova 1994). This trend continued with the election of George W. Bush, and the destruction of the World Trade Center and the subsequent “war on terror”. Meanwhile, the numbers of those who declare no religious affiliation in western societies has been growing for twenty years (Bruce 2011). Taylor argues that there is in fact no contradiction here, and that rather than moving inexorably toward a society where religion slowly disappears, our “secular age” is characterized by an explosion in the possibilities of belief and non-belief. Atheism and secularity studies are concerned with one specific group that is characteristic of this secular age and its new forms of belief – one which appears to be growing in number in western societies. While data on atheists specifically is scattershot and inconclusive, evidence does point to the steady growth of those who have no religious affiliation. This group is commonly known as the “nones” because they select “No Religion” in surveys and censuses. The nature of this group and the reasons for its growth, particularly its relationship to the ‘religious revival’ that contradicts the secularization thesis, are topics of growing interest (e.g. Baker and Smith 2009a, 2009b; Lim et al. 2010; Schwadel 2010; Vargas 2012). Within the category of the nones are those who are not simply religiously unaffiliated, but non-religious or explicitly atheist, a group that constitutes a sub-field in its own right, with a literature whose purpose can be divided into two major categories: (1) understanding the process of and reasons for apostasy, as well as the demographic
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