The New Atheism - The Next Step

Julian Baggini has writted a quite interesting article on this subject over on CiF. I mostly agree with it, but it has a bit of a problem. Here's a quick quote from it:

What it revealed is the negative perception people have of the godless hordes, and the New Atheism must share responsibility for creating its own caricature. You can't publish and lionise books and TV series with titles like The God Delusion, God is Not Great and The Root of All Evil? and then complain when people think you are anti-religious zealots.

This can't be dismissed as "mere perception". Appearances count, which is why those able to present a more agreeable face have come to dominate the moderate middle ground, even if their arguments are often vapid and shallow.

The problem is this: Baggini has two messages, which aren't really compatible. They are as follows:

1. The New Atheists are perceived as being too forthright and certain. Look at me, in contrast. See how I open my article with the words "When I threw off my Christianity, I did not throw out my Bible, I just learned to read it properly. Intelligent atheism rejects what is false in religion, but should retain an interest in what is true about it." Lets all get better at presenting a "more agreeable", less "contemptuous" face to the world, like moderate religious people and agnostics do.

2. The New Atheists have been too narrow in selecting their targets. They have drawn attention to some fundamentalists with nasty views, but there are still people wandering around with views that are equally bonkers, wouldn't stand up to five minutes solid questioning, and need to be challenged, because they're currently getting away with holding views that are frankly even more ill-thought-through than the religious loonies. The "fluffy brigade" are "flattering the woolly-minded by telling them vagueness is a virtue, not a vice."

The first message urges us to stop pissing people off by seeming so sure of ourselves. The second one basically assumes that we're right, and that it's not just the fundies who need arguing with, but the woolly minded ones who think "God is love" is a terribly profound statement, not a load of fatuous guff. I'd agree with the second one, but I don't see how we're going to change anything of the perception of New Atheism by extending criticism to the people in the middle who are currently busy slapping themselves heartily on the back for being so chuffing moderate.

Of course, Baggini calls it a "conversation", not criticism or an argument, but presumably the aim of the exercise is to cure people of their "woolly minded"ness, so I don't quite know how that's going to work. Presumably, these people are all so thick that during these "conversations" they won't notice that we think we're right if we just talk to them very, very softly.

It's worth a try, I suppose.