huh. i wasn't aware that anyone was paying attention to them. i see hitch's book on the non fiction shelves at the bookstore. at the library, nowhere to be found but buried in the stacks. the new non-fiction shelf by far the bulk of books there are about religion. books about religion take up one entire rack, whereas the rest of the subjects will take up one or two shelves on a rack.
>I suppose, thinking about what could possible be interesting about it all,
>it might just be that they're at some level forcing (especially leftist)
>intellectuals to come to grips with their attitudes toward religion. Maybe
>that doesn't matter, either, but maybe it does.
it's not that what they write couldn't possibly be interesting. rather, what they write seems to be objectionable. I didn't understand what was objectionable according to the review Joseph posted. In fact, the review made it seem like a book worth reading. so, what's objectionable about the new atheists. In the past, people have disapproved of them, IIRC, because they come off sounding all high and mighty: http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/2007/2007-November/021103.html
In which case, people are offended for one of two reasons, at least:
1. they are religious themselves and don't like their beliefs challenged.
2. they aren't religious and worry that, if people on the left do challenge religion, then religious people on or near the left will reject left groups and people because of the new atheists.
to me, #2 is a hoot. i've worked with a lot of religious folks over the years. they are in the midst of things _because_ of their beliefs and faith, and not whether or not someone with whom they're working in coalition shares their religious beliefs or faith or not.
when i was doing work on abortion rights, the religious groups we worked with did not give a shit whether all the feminists were atheists or agnostics. most of them knew we were. they just didn't care. they supported abortion rights for reasons that went beyond that sort of thing, and they supported prisoner's rights, opporition to war, and so forth for the same reason. working with atheist and agnostic commies, socialists, feminazis etc had no bearing on anything for them other than that they saw us as important allies in their work.
>On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 6:25 AM, shag carpet bomb <shag at cleandraws.com>wrote:
>
> > what's at stake? who cares about new atheism? why are you reading their
> > stuff. what in the world could it possibly matter what they have to say.
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