Author: Ayoub Rasekh
Modern Atheism in the Balance of Critique (part 3)
Foundations of New Atheism
As previously mentioned, New Atheism emerged in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, incident and rapidly expanded. Modern atheists took full advantage of this opportunity and launched attacks against all religions—especially Islam—presenting it to the world as a religion of war, killing, and violence. In pursuing this agenda, they exerted such extensive efforts that books written by atheists came to be recognized as some of the best-selling books worldwide. Among them were The End of Faith by Sam Harris, The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, and God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens, all of which were considered among the best-selling atheistic works in the Western world.
It is worth noting that New Atheism is not like the old communist atheism, which influenced only a limited number of educated individuals affiliated with the Soviet communist system. Rather, it poses a far greater danger, as it has penetrated a broad spectrum of young people and adolescents who possess little or no religious knowledge, destabilizing and transforming their beliefs. In this process, many governments and political and economic institutions have welcomed the spread of this form of atheism and have provided it with substantial support.[1]
This newly emerging atheism—which has spread rapidly and influenced a wide audience—is based on which principles, foundations, and assumptions? What are the most important pillars of this type of atheism? These are the questions addressed in this study.
The foundation of New Atheism rests on principles such as naturalism, evolution and natural selection, and the alleged conflict between science and religion, each of which is examined and analyzed in detail.
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Naturalism
Naturalism can be regarded as the most fundamental pillar and worldview of New Atheism. The belief that everything that exists is nothing but nature, and that there is nothing beyond nature—in other words, the belief that reality is nothing other than nature and natural forces—is a naturalistic belief.
In fact, naturalism, as a metaphysical doctrine, seeks to explain what is ultimately real and what is not. According to this view, what is ultimately real is nature, consisting of the smallest structures of matter and energy and the laws governing their behavior. From the perspective of naturalists, everything that exists is nature; in other words, nature is a closed system of material causes and effects that is not influenced by anything beyond itself. Consequently, speaking of the “supernatural” or the “metaphysical” is considered imaginary, and belief in such matters is regarded as superstition.
This worldview provides a framework according to which all phenomena—from the simplest physical movements to the most complex human emotions and the emergence of civilizations—must be explained within this closed system. In such a perspective, even human consciousness, moral conscience, and the innate search for meaning are regarded as nothing more than complex byproducts of brain activity and evolutionary processes. By rejecting any supernatural causes or agents, naturalism insists on a unified and coherent explanation of the world—an explanation in which there is no place for the intervention of supernatural forces, divine will, or transcendent purposes. This outlook reduces existence to a vast material stage in which all events are merely a necessary and mechanical chain of causal relations among material components.
Subsequently, this perspective becomes directly linked with extreme scientism. If everything that exists is nature governed by laws, then the only valid tool for understanding it is the methods of the natural sciences, which rely on observation and experimentation. At this point, naturalism, as a metaphysical position, paves the way for the epistemological claims of scientism. However, the claim that “only nature exists” is itself a philosophical and metaphysical assertion that cannot be tested by empirical scientific methods. Naturalism is not so much a scientific conclusion as it is a fundamental presupposition that determines how scientific data are interpreted. In other words, it is not science that has concluded the nonexistence of the supernatural; rather, it is the presupposition of the nonexistence of the supernatural that enforces a particular interpretation of scientific achievements. Many critics emphasize that reducing all reality to material and natural phenomena is itself a philosophical choice, not an unavoidable scientific finding.
In summary, the following can be identified as the most important claims of naturalism as the shared worldview of atheists:
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Nothing exists except nature, which includes human beings and their cultural products; there is no God, no soul or spirit, and no life after death;
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Nature is self-subsisting and not created by God;
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The universe has no purpose or final cause, although humans living within it may have purposeful lives;
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Since God does not exist, all explanations and causes are entirely natural and can be understood only through science;
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All characteristics of living beings, including human intelligence and behavior, can ultimately be explained in terms of natural phenomena, and today this is usually possible within scientific frameworks and Darwinian evolution.[2]
These claims—especially the last two—indicate that naturalism is not limited to a belief about the composition of the world; rather, it turns into a research program and an explanatory ideology. Accordingly, every phenomenon, no matter how profound or personal, must eventually be translated and reduced to the language of physics, chemistry, biology, and especially evolutionary theory. This reductionist approach becomes the basis for denying any form of the sacred, pure spirituality, or objective moral values, as these are regarded merely as complex mechanisms for survival and reflections of neural processes. Therefore, naturalism is not merely a description of the world; it has deep implications for humanity’s understanding of itself, its place in existence, and the foundations of morality and meaning.
Naturalism itself has various forms and can generally be divided into ontological, methodological, and epistemological naturalism. Ontological naturalism, the strongest form, directly addresses the nature of existence and denies the existence of anything beyond nature. Methodological naturalism, which is more pragmatic, suggests that for scientific progress we should “conduct research as if” only nature exists, without necessarily making a philosophical judgment about ultimate reality. Epistemological naturalism holds that the only valid and true knowledge is that which is obtained through the methods of the natural sciences.[3]
New Atheism is primarily grounded in the ontological version of naturalism and, in conjunction with its epistemological version, employs it as a weapon to attack the metaphysical foundations of religions and to reject any discourse concerning transcendence.
Continues…
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References:
[1]. Afandi & Ansari (2020), p. 3.
[2]. Shahbazi et al. (2016), p. 168.
[3]. Bikran-Behesht & Sheikh-Rezaei (2019), pp. 87–89.
