The Limitations of New-Atheist Style Rationalism

 

Getting Blocked by an ‘Atheist’ Guru
Recently a self-proclaimed atheist- rationalist who previously was my FB friend blocked me. ‘The arrogant Atheist’ is a caricature of people like him.
Please note: It is not criticism of atheism but a caricature of certain atheists. I can be described as atheist myself if by ‘atheism’ you mean belief in the existence of the natural world only.
Getting Blocked in FB by a “rationalist” for asking evidence for his claims
Recently I got blocked by such a self-proclaimed atheist guru. He blocked me for asking evidence to his claims. I pointed out that his assertion is based on anecdotes and as rationalists we need to be careful about generalisation. He immediately blocked me !! He is a professor in a prestigious Business School and he encouraged his students to question him. He runs a FB for Humanism and calls for Indian Enlightenment(similar to European Enlightenment). But in that FBPage he never replies and none of my detailed comments,even the ones related to his interview are answered.He also believes that we can know the meaning of words like ‘religion’ by looking in the dictionary.

The arrogant atheist and their Fallacies
The core beliefs of the ‘The arrogant atheist’ and my criticism of such beliefs.
1.Atheism is rationalism :It confuses taking an ontological position (atheism) that there is no God or more generally believing only the physical world exists as equivalent to become rationalist. They seem to reason as follows:
Premise 1: Following the path of reason that is critically evaluating one’s beliefs lead to atheism.
Premise 2: I am an atheist
Conclusion: I am rationalist:
Even assuming premises are correct it is a classical Affirming the consequent fallacy possibly coming from confusing process and outcome.
2. Rejection of Religion as Progress : From this they come to the conclusion that for society to progress we need to reject religion.They don’t ask questions like what exactly religion is? do all cultures have religion and how certain thinkers are classified as religious. In Indian context schools of thought like Nyaya-Vaisesika, Yogachara Buddhists etc are considered as religious even though when you compared them to many western philosophers they make more sophisticated arguments.Is it possible orientalist mindset that sees East as the rationalist west’s other working here. Does rejecting the Religion is necessary or sufficient to become rationalist? Or what it means to reject religion? Just because somebody considers a particular book as infallible/religious doesn’t mean one shouldn’t read them. I can read Sankara,Kumarila,Nagarjuna in the sameway as I read Plato,Aristotle or Spinoza.There are atheist authoritarian countries and people who argue for religious majoritarianism while being non-believers in their personal life.
3. Naive view of Human Beliefs: They think people literally believe the stories underlying the rituals.They reject the possibility that people may do rituals for the experience of doing it or just do for the sake of it.
4. Moral Superiority : Considering most atheist/materialist tradition has been historically maligned( except in the 20th century) and even today prosecuted in many countries. This makes them feel superior to others especially ‘religious people’.

Atheist Guru as Inverted God Man
Some of them start to preach this kind of atheism and start to act like GodMan’s whom they despise so much. Their belief that adoption of atheism and rejection of religion as equivalent to being rationalists is a similar experience of enlightenment(Self Realisation- atmasakshatkar) described by Godman. In their moral superiority they equal the GodMan’s attitude of being superior to others' attitude. In the words of Ashish Nandy the GodMan is their intimate enemy.