The New Atheist Denial of History
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15
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This compact, forcefully argued work calls Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker, and the rest of the so-called 'New Atheists' to account for failing to take seriously the historical record to which they so freely appeal when attacking religion. The popularity of such books as Harris's The End of Faith, Dawkins's The God Delusion, and Christopher Hitchens' God Is Not Great set off a spate of reviews, articles, and books for and against, yet in all the controversy little attention has focused on the historical evidence and arguments they present to buttress their case. This book is the first to challenge in depth the distortions of this New Atheist history. It presents the evidence that the three authors and their allies ignore. It points out the lack of historical credibility in their work when judged by the conventional criteria used by mainstream historians. It does not deal with the debate over theism and atheism nor does it aim to defend the historical record of Christianity or religion more generally. It does aim to defend the integrity of history as a discipline in the face of its distortion by those who violate it.
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Please give my Amazon review a helpful vote - https://www.amazon.com/review/R1ZWNCVJPRZBDD/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm
This book is absolutely necessary.
I interact with a lot of internet atheists and I have been astounded at the ignorance of a group of people with such amazing tools for research at their disposal and who consider themselves so manifestly intelligent, but whose knowledge consists of memes and ignorant drivel. It is not just that these people are ignorant, but they are worse than ignorant - what they think they know is wrong.
Of course, this trait runs through modern culture as a general proposition. It is why Rodney Stark has written several books attempting to correct the cherished myths of cultured despisers about Christianity and Catholicism. (See e.g., [[ASIN:B01F57R0LO Bearing False Witness: Debunking Centuries of Anti-Catholic History (Science and the Big Questions)]]. The problem is that “docility” and “humility” is required for a person to become educated.
Author B. Painter, like Sociologist Rodney Stark, almost seems to be writing out of despair. Painter describes his discovery of the New Atheist/Internet Atheist phenomenon:
“Hitchens. In particular, their constant cries for evidence-based reasoning contradicted their treatment of history, where they ignored the evidence presented by mainstream historians. On that score, they seemed to me no better than others who misused history for their ideological purposes. I read scores of reviews, articles, and books reacting to the Big Three of the New Atheism. Their treatment of the past got a passing grade by default, while I gave them a failing grade in history. In 2007, I published a short op-ed piece on the subject in the Hartford Courant. The nasty responses from those outraged that anyone should pose such a challenge to the New Atheists introduced me to the blogosphere and an awareness of the significance of the Internet in spreading New Atheist history.
(We can see an example of this from the inarticulate, knee-jerk review of this book.)
Like Stark, Painter does not disclose any particular religious agenda. Rather, like Stark's recent books, this is a work of historical apologetics as if the study of history actually mattered. He writes:
“The stakes are high, for if history exists only as an adjunct to ideology, it has nothing of objective and independent value to teach us. History then ceases to be as an autonomous discipline capable of giving some useful and truthful perspective on the human condition generally and our current state of affairs specifically.”
As a professor of history, Painter gives each of the “Four Horsemen” of New Atheist a failing grade in history. He describes the approach and the absurd conclusion that New Atheists reach as part of their ideology:
“Instead of relying on the work of professional historians, the New Atheists and their allies follow their own historical methods and interpretations. They have, in short, gone beyond the boundaries of good historical practice. Unlike those who have pioneered new approaches to history, the New Atheists' historical views gain force through constant repetition without reference to what mainstream historians have produced. There is no other way to explain some of the “truths” declared by one or another of the New Atheists: Martin Luther King Jr. was only nominally a Christian. Joseph Stalin supported the Russian Orthodox Church. Totalitarian regimes are religious because they are political religions. The popes ruled medieval Europe. Without religion we might have had democracy and the Internet by 1600. Religion has been the primary cause of war in history. In the Holocaust, the Nazis acted as agents of religion. North Korea's regime is Confucian, not Communist. John Calvin's Geneva was the prototypical totalitarian state. Only religion makes good people do bad things.”
I have just come from an atheist website where an internet atheist who prides himself on being a professor of mathematics refuses to accept the proposition that the Communists of the Soviet Union were atheists who intended to build an atheist civilization. (The dogma of Christopher Hitchens that “no one has ever killed in the name of atheism,” patently absurd to anyone who has read the history of the Soviet Union, is so firmly implanted in the hearts and minds of internet atheists that no amount of evidence can get past this dogma.) Painter lucidly writes:
“In the face of this well-known evidence, Richard Dawkins, justly appalled by the Taliban's destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan, informs us that he does “not believe there is an atheist in the world who would bulldoze Mecca—or Chartres, York Minster or Notre Dame, the Shwe Dagon, the temples of Kyoto or, of course, the Buddhas of Bamiyan.”2 Despite such assurances, the Cathedral of Christ the Savior fell to the Soviet wrecking crews in 1931 as part of a systematic campaign by atheist leadership to destroy Russian Orthodoxy. On the site of the razed cathedral, the Soviet government originally planned to erect a monumental Palace of Soviets, topped by a huge statue of Lenin. World War II prevented that project, and so afterward the space became a huge outdoor swimming pool. The swimming pool replaced the cathedral physically, while spiritually the state sought to replace Christianity with scientific atheism. Dawkins's ill-informed statement turns out to be only one of a long list of false, misleading, and irresponsible historical pronouncements from the Big Three bestselling New Atheist authors: Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris.”
Painter marches his way through the centuries, comparing the statements of the New Atheists to actual history. Along the way, Painter makes a number of solid points about historiography and the study of history that apply well-beyond the New Atheists. For example, I have read too many books on the Catholic Church during the Nazi period that turn into extended bouts of moralizing, which is simply not a proper function of history. As Painter observes:
“New Atheist accounts of Hitler and the Holocaust have nothing to say about the scientific and pseudoscientific basis of Nazi racism. The point here is not to blame “science” for these horrors but rather to argue for providing the necessary context within which to understand the barbarities of Nazism. The historian's task is that of seeking such understanding, not playing a moralistic “blame game” in the service of an ideology.”
This is a solid book on a serious topic.
It should be read by internet atheists who would do well to learn something of the subject they want to twist like taffy.
Of course, they won't, which is why this book, and my review, will probably be rewarded with one star ratings and unhelpful votes, thereby proving Professor Painter's thesis.
