The tolerant atheist

To an innocent bystander, it looks like there's some anger and aggression to it as if someone is under attack somewhere.

Call this constellation of views scientific naturalism—or don’t call it that, since there is nothing particularly scientific about it, except that those who champion it tend to wrap themselves in science like a politician in the flag...Thomas Nagel would call it something else: an idol of the academic tribe, perhaps, or a sacred cow: “I find this view antecedently unbelievable—a heroic triumph of ideological theory over common sense. ... I would be willing to bet that the present right-thinking consensus will come to seem laughable in a generation or two.”

His important new book is a brief but powerful assault on materialist naturalism....except for atheism, Nagel rejects nearly every contention of materialist naturalism....Nagel has endorsed the negative conclusions of the much-maligned Intelligent Design movement, and he has defended it from the charge that it is inherently unscientific.

For that piece of blasphemy Nagel paid the predictable price; he was said to be arrogant, dangerous to children, a disgrace, hypocritical, ignorant, mind-polluting, reprehensible, stupid, unscientific, and in general a less than wholly upstanding citizen of the republic of letters.

In the Dawkins thread, I excerpted some quote from the philosopher, Michael Ruse, who is himself a steadfast atheist, which strongly disapprove of the tactics of the "new atheists," such as Myers. He insightfully notes how similar their devout adherence to the creed of "secular humanism," sometimes called "ontological naturalism" (aka "scientism"), is to organized religions. Their "faith" is absolute, and their dogmatic ideology is inflexible and all-encompassing.

I don't quite see how it differs from Comte's positivism, quite dated therefore, pre-quantic and before communism which defined itself as based on positive science and was, like Comte, fiercely anti-religious.

Comtean positivism had viewed science as description, whereas the logical positivists posed science as explanation,

In the late 1970s, A J Ayer [one of it's founders] supposed that "the most important" defect "was that nearly all of it was false." ...John Passmore found logical positivism to be "dead, or as dead as a philosophical movement ever becomes".

Yeah, bigotry in it's general and literal sense (many seem to think "bigotry" only applies to those whose belief's oppose theirs):

Quote:

"stubborn and complete intolerance of any creed, belief, or opinion that differs from one's own."

By the late 1960s, logical positivism had clearly run its course...Even philosophers disagreeing among themselves on which direction general epistemology ought to take, as well as on philosophy of science, agreed that the logical empiricist program was untenable, and it became viewed as self-contradictory.

But what disturbed me most about his presentations is the haughty way he suggested that religious people might be afraid of atheists.

I am talking about something much deeper—namely, the fear of religion itself. I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself: I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers.... It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that.

It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief.

I recently came across the atheistic views of PZ Myers, a biologist whose views regarding religion don't appear to be particularly tolerant. He categorizes believers as stupid

Interesting to see that Nagel is one of those kinds of atheists.

It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that.

“Reason is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.” (David Hume)

By the time I was through listening to this speech, I couldn't help being reminded of a preacher giving a sermon to his "flock." Myers is definitely proselytizing here, and urging all his listeners to do the same. But it really doesn't stop there; he is calling for a full-blown CRUSADE.

He his flattering himself and his audience by saying that atheists are like "superman," favoring "truth, justice, and the American way" (he's "joking," but then again he isn''t). He not only tells them how "moral" atheists are, but is virtually promising them "bliss" if they join his crusade. How "happy" those who are atheists are, and all that.

But, lest there be doubt, this isn't about "persuading" others. It about "killing" their ideas and ransacking their city. It's about predatory "fierce hunters" slaughtering the "sheep."

I infer that you're saying that no issue exists. That i could agree with. It just doesn't come up in real life.