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New Atheism, Open-Mindedness, and Critical Thinking

Chapter
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Part of the Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures book series (SCPT, volume 21)

Abstract

A common theme throughout the writings of Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and the late Christopher Hitchens is the importance of ‘critical thinking’. Not only do these authors believe that they themselves are critical thinkers, they also advocate critical thinking as a key element in their idealized atheistic future. This chapter has been written to assess the veracity of their claims to critical thinking in their engagements with ‘religion’, via an engagement with related literature on ‘open-mindedness,’ particularly the work of William Hare and Harvey Siegel. An analysis of this nature is not merely of academic interest, but is of great importance given the popularity of their books both within and outside the atheistic milieu, the near-canonical status that they have achieved, and the effects of their rhetoric upon the beliefs and practices of individuals in the ‘real’ world. The argument in this chapter flows sequentially through delineations of the concepts of ‘open-mindedness’ and ‘critical thinking’, and a demonstration of the New Atheists’ valorization of critical thinking, before discussing open-mindedness as a constituent part of critical thinking, and then building a three stage argument to demonstrate that the New Atheists are not open-minded, and that therefore they are not critical thinkers (in the context of their most popular considerations of ‘religion’).

Keywords

New atheism Open-mindedness Critical thinking Scientism Richard Dawkins William Hare 
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We desperately need a public discourse that encourages critical thinking and intellectual honesty. Nothing stands in the way of this project more than the respect we accord religious faith. (Harris 2007, 87–88)

Back in 2004, just before the publication of a number of best-selling atheistic texts, Alister McGrath hinted at the emergence of a ‘new atheism’ (2005 [2004], 174). However, this appellation—with added capitalization—is commonly traced to Gary Wolf ’s ‘The Church of the Non-Believers’ (Wolf 2006; see also Stewart 2008, 6; Zenk 2012, 2013), and points to the emergence of an apparently distinctive twenty-first century form of atheism which has emerged in the aftermath of the events of 9/11 but which has seemingly little analytical purchase. According to Simon Hooper (writing for CNN), ‘New Atheists’ share ‘a belief that religion should not simply be tolerated but should be countered, criticized and exposed by rational argument wherever its influence arises’ (2006). In this its widest sense, New Atheism is a vague ‘umbrella term, which has originated in the public discourse of the Western world during the first decade of the twenty-first century, and which has been, and still is, used to describe several social actors and phenomena’ (Zenk 2013, 245). The term has gained great traction in a variety of different geographical and cultural contexts—from German Neuer Atheismus (see Mastiaux Chap.  10, in this volume) to Polish Nowy Ateizm (Zenk 2013, 251)—and been applied to a variety of high profile social actors—from Somali-Dutch activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali (see Finger Chap.  9, in this volume) to French philosopher Michel Onfray (see Trompf Chap.  8, in this volume). However, what is most commonly meant by the appellation is the writing of four individuals—Richard Dawkins , Daniel Dennett , Sam Harris , and (the late) Christopher Hitchens . All that I say below builds upon previous research (Cotter 2011, 2015), and is based largely upon what these individuals have written in their most prominent ‘atheistic’ works.

A common theme throughout the writings of these four authors—from now on referred to as ‘the New Atheists’—is the importance of ‘critical thinking’. As I shall demonstrate below, not only do these authors believe that they themselves are critical thinkers, they also advocate critical thinking as a key element in their idealized atheistic future. This chapter has been written to assess the veracity of their claims to critical thinking, via an engagement with related literature on ‘open-mindedness’. It goes without saying that I cannot comment on whether these individuals are open-minded or employ critical thinking in other areas of their lives, or even what was going on in their heads whilst they were writing their books. Likewise I am not placing any judgement on whether their positions are correct or not—I am simply focusing upon what they have written and how it interacts with the concepts of open-mindedness and critical thinking. An analysis of this nature is not merely of academic interest, but is of great importance given the popularity of their books both within and without the atheistic milieu, the near-canonical status that they have achieved, and the effects of their rhetoric upon the beliefs and practices of individuals in the ‘real’ world. The discussion below flows sequentially through delineations of the concepts of ‘open-mindedness’ and ‘critical thinking’, and a demonstration of the New Atheists’ valorization of critical thinking, before discussing open-mindedness as a constituent part of critical thinking, and then building a three stage argument to demonstrate that the New Atheists are not open-minded, and that therefore they are not critical thinkers (in the context of their most popular considerations of ‘religion’). In making these charges I do not claim that similar charges cannot be levelled against the thought and discourse of various others, including critics of the New Atheism, and scholars who study these discourses. However, due to constraints of time and space these others are not the focus of this chapter.

3.1 Open-Mindedness

It is common to trace accounts of the virtue of open-mindedness1 to the late nineteenth/early twentieth century philosophers Bertrand Russell (e.g. 1985) and John Dewey (e.g. 1986).2 However, these early and underdeveloped accounts merely define open-mindedness by what it is not, i.e. to be open-minded is to not be closed-minded; to not, according to Callan and Arena ’s definition, ‘be unable or unwilling to give due regard to reasons that are available for some belief or beliefs contrary to [a proposition] because of excessive emotional attachment to the truth of [that proposition]’ (2009, 14).3 For a positive account of what it is to be open-minded, we must turn to the extensive work of philosopher of education William Hare .

In his classic account of open-mindedness, Hare states that

[A] person who is open-minded is disposed to revise or reject the position he holds if sound objections are brought against it, or, in the situation in which the person presently has no opinion on some issue, he is disposed to make up his mind in the light of available evidence and argument as objectively and as impartially as possible. (1979, 9; emphasis my own)

By this account, open-mindedness is most simply understood as a disposition to objectivity and impartiality. However, as noted by Wayne Riggs , there appears to be nothing to commend this understanding of open-mindedness, which (at least superficially) amounts to ‘nothing short of rationality itself’ (2010, 179). Why, then, is there a need for a concept of open-mindedness at all?

To answer this charge, in more recent elaborations of his thesis, Hare introduces a third key component to understanding open-mindedness, which ‘involves being critically receptive to new ideas especially when they seem wildly improbable, contrary to what we might wish to be true, or potentially threatening to apparently secure and cherished beliefs’ (Hare 2005, 16 emphasis my own) (see also Hare 2003a, 76, b, 4, 2004). However, the introduction of this dimension of self-reflexivity and heightened epistemic threat into the mix is still not enough for an unambiguous demarcation of open-mindedness. Jason Baehr has recently contended that this mode—which he terms the ‘adjudication model’—is too restrictive, because it ignores situations where there is no apparent or relevant conflict, and other intellectual activities which do not necessarily involve rational evaluation or assessment but where open-mindedness can also come into play (2011, 145).4 For instance, attempting to move from an understanding of Einstein ’s Special Theory of Relativity to the General Theory of Relativity would be a dramatic departure from one’s usual way of thinking, but will not, under normal circumstances, involve any conflict; it would not require thinking for oneself as such, but simply grasping information as presented in textbooks, by teachers, colleagues etc. (2011, 145–6).

Baehr makes a convincing case that the key component of open-mindedness is that a person leaves behind and transcends ‘a certain default or privileged cognitive standpoint’ (2011, 149). This kind of non-conflict-dependent open-mindedness may be employed in one of three ways: first, when evaluating two positions, neither of which one has previously accepted, this might require that one entertains a possibility or standpoint that one had not previously conceived, ‘which in turn might require a kind of intellectual “opening” or transcending of one’s present cognitive perspective’; second, to adjudicate open-mindedly one must be able to oscillate between the different positions that are involved, thus opening up the possibility that one will remain permanently in one or more of these positions; finally, and somewhat counter-intuitively, one may keep an open mind by ‘refraining from taking up an alternative cognitive standpoint’ out of a desire to avoid hasty generalisation and/or premature conclusions (2011, 150–1). This account of open-mindedness leads Baehr to the following, more nuanced definition:

An open-minded person is characteristically (a) willing and (within limits) able (b) to transcend a default cognitive standpoint (c) in order to take up seriously the merits of (d) a distinct cognitive standpoint (e) where doing so makes a significant demand on the person’s agency, and (f) necessarily involves adjusting one’s beliefs or confidence levels according to the outcome of this assessment. (2011, 152; emphasis my own)

Taking this sophisticated account and combining it with my previous observations relating to Hare ’s work allows me to provide the following working account of open-mindedness which shall be sufficient for my purpose:

(a) a disposition to transcend one’s own cognitive standpoint and (b) evaluate evidence objectively and impartially when coming to one’s beliefs, (c) to revise or reject one’s position in the light of new evidence or sound objections, and (d) to rigorously apply this process in situations where one holds certain beliefs particularly strongly.

Readers would do well to remember, however, that to be open-minded is to not be closed-minded. As I shall demonstrate below, propaganda—which is designed to lead to closed-mindedness—is not a tactic employed by the open-minded.

3.2 Critical Thinking

Critical thinking—the third key term of relevance to this chapter—has received much more extended academic attention than open-mindedness, yet a brief survey of the relevant literature encouragingly reveals an underlying commonality to the wide variety of definitional projects. Diane Halpern declares that critical thinking is ‘purposeful, reasoned, and goal directed. It is the kind of thinking involved in solving problems, formulating inferences, calculating likelihoods, and making decisions’ (1989, 5). Taking a slightly different approach, Jennifer Moon sees it as ‘a capacity to work with and express complex ideas, whereby a person can make effective provision of evidence to justify a reasonable judgement’ (2008, 5). As with open-mindedness, critical thinking is understood to involve ‘two related, but conceptually distinct, aspects or dimensions: the ability to reason well and the disposition to do so’ (Bailin and Siegel 2003, 182). It is associated with a host of activities or skills such as a willingness to plan, flexibility, persistence, and a willingness to self-correct (Halpern 1989, 29–30), an emphasis upon the quality of the reasoning which has gone into making a decision (Bailin 2005, 54), and even a self-reflexive critical evaluation of the very process itself (Moon 2008, 26; see also Halpern 1989, 5). It is also worth noting that there is a line on the meaning of critique and the nature of critical intellectual life that is bound up with Critical Theory, and as such ‘critical thinking’ can be viewed as a political endeavour that has ‘emancipation from limiting practices as its practical end’ (Quadrio 2011, 63; see also Critchley 2001, 54–74).

Even from this brief account, it is clear that open-mindedness and critical thinking are related. Critical thinking, as understood above, refers to activities of the reasoning process and a disposition to apply these in practice (potentially to emancipatory ends). Open-mindedness indicates a continuation of this process in the light of new or contradictory evidence. I shall return to this relationship below, however it suffices at this point to acknowledge that, as it will be understood below, critical thinking involves a self-reflexive process of evaluating evidence in a systematic and objective manner. I shall now turn to the texts of the New Atheists to demonstrate that the perceived absence of critical thinking, thus understood, forms a strand of their on-going critique of ‘religion’, whilst also being a key virtue that they extol.

3.3 New Atheism and Extolling Critical Thinking

In a previous publication, I argued that the New Atheists’ critique and construction of religion centres around three manifestations of ‘danger’:

“Religion” is castigated for motivating, supporting, and initiating violence, for encouraging amoral (if not positively immoral) behaviour, and fostering an atmosphere where passive submission to ignorance and religious authority is normative. (Cotter 2011, 86)

It is in the final aspect of this critique that implicit and explicit references to religion’s opposition to critical thinking can be found.

The criticism of religion’s perceived impediment of knowledge and critical thinking is twofold. Firstly, religion is perceived as an outdated worldview which explicitly and vehemently opposes progress, and is still, according to Hitchens, in the thrall of Martin Luther’s assertion that ‘reason is the Devil’s harlot’ (2008, 63). ‘Religion’ is charged with teaching ‘us that it is a virtue to be satisfied with not understanding’ (Dawkins 2007, 152) or ‘that some other standard of intellectual integrity applies’ (Harris 2007, 65), whilst those who hold positions of authority in religious groups are accused of knowingly ‘mak[ing] up the details as they go along’ (Dawkins 2007, 56), concealing their ‘inability to give reasons for their views’ and not ‘understand[ing] what they are talking about’ (Dennett 2007, 298, see also 217; see also, e.g., Dawkins 2007, 135, 187, 319; or Harris 2006, 28, 204). These explicit charges of anti-rationality are coupled with the charge that it is a selective anti-rationality—science and reason are, apparently, utilized when they assist religion in some way (Dawkins 2007, 83). This selectively anti-science attitude is deplored most strongly when it exerts its influence on health-related issues, where ‘religious beliefs [can] become genuinely lethal’ (Harris 2007, 28, see also, e.g., 2006, 149–150, 167, 2007, 33; Dawkins 2007, 327–328; or Hitchens 2008, 45, 221), and enforced through multiple processes including ‘guilt’ (Dennett 2007, 292), fear of causing offence (Harris 2007, 39), deliberate interference in people’s lives, and aggressive marketing (Hitchens 2008, 17; Harris 2006, 25).

Secondly, according to these authors, ‘the mists of incomprehension and failure of communication’ form an integral part of religion (Dennett 2007, 217), meaning that it is perceived as implicitly and integrally impeding critical thinking. By making a virtue of faith and according texts the status of ‘gospel truth’, religion forecloses rational inquiry (Dennett 2007, 241), resulting in ‘a vanishing point beyond which rational discourse proves impossible’ (Harris 2006, 25). Religion, within this model, belongs to ‘human prehistory’—the ‘bawling and fearful infancy of our species’—and even those rarely targeted ‘Eastern’ religions that promise enlightenment involve the ‘dissolution of [our…] critical faculties’ (Hitchens 2008, 64, 204). Whether implicitly or explicitly, intentional or unintentional, ‘religion’, for the New Atheists, unequivocally opposes critical thinking.

Turning to a more ‘constructive’ strand that surfaces throughout their writings, the New Atheists are consistently puzzled as to why anyone would choose religious faith over scientific knowledge and critical thinking (Dawkins 2007, 142; Hitchens 2008, 278; Harris 2006, 48). Dennett suggests that the only constant of human nature may be ‘our incessant curiosity’ (2010, xxiii), and that all should be allowed ‘to make their own informed choices’ including in matters of religion (2007, 327–328). However, this enthusiasm translates itself into an implicit and explicit promotion of critical thinking that goes beyond merely lamenting its lack, and the New Atheists’ texts are rife with poetic and romanticised exhortations. Free inquiry is said to have ‘emancipatory consequences’ (Hitchens 2008, 137)—connecting to the emancipatory aspect of critical thinking acknowledged above—whilst the atheism for which they advocate ‘nearly always indicates a healthy independence of mind and, indeed, a healthy mind’ (Dawkins 2007, 26). It is the duty of these atheists to educate the world (Dennett 2007, 328) and promote ‘a public discourse that encourages critical thinking and intellectual honesty’ (Harris 2007, 87–88). ‘Reason is’, after all, ‘nothing less than the guardian of love’ (Harris 2006, 190). Returning to my proposed understanding of critical thinking as ‘a self-reflexive process of evaluating evidence in a systematic and objective manner’, the New Atheistic critique of religion, and their more positive intellectualist agenda effectively demonstrate that these authors understand themselves to be critical thinkers, that they promote critical thinking, and that they criticise religion for lacking this virtue. Indeed, according to their critique, it would seem that critical thinking can only be displayed by abandoning religion.

3.4 Critical Thinking Requires Open-Mindedness

Earlier I alluded to the intertwined nature of critical thinking and open-mindedness. Throughout many of the writings on critical thinking that have already been discussed, we find references to an understanding of open-mindedness as a central component of critical thinking. Jennifer Moon suggests that ‘[c]ritical thinking involves the good reading of others’ work, good listening when they speak and an awareness of what lies “between” the lines’ (2008, 84). More explicitly, Diane Halpern , Sharon Bailin , and Harvey Siegel all list ‘open-mindedness’ in their characteristics, or dispositions, of critical thinkers (Bailin 2005, 55; Bailin and Siegel 2003, 183; Halpern 1989, 30). From a different perspective, William Hare seems convinced that critical thinking is an essential component of open-mindedness, stating that a ‘fundamental commitment to rational appraisal [...] is the hallmark of open-mindedness’ (1985, 97) and that ‘the open-minded person is ready to reject an idea that cannot withstand critical appraisal’ (2004, n.p.).5

This relationship between open-mindedness and critical thinking leads to the following key question: if critical thinking involves an open-minded attitude, and open-mindedness involves a critical thinking component, are they not simply the same thing? Fortunately Harvey Siegel comes to the rescue by drawing attention to a fundamental flaw in Hare ’s argument. Siegel points to the following passage in Hare ’s initial thesis:

[A] person may fall short of rationality by offering an argument which is invalid; let us say [... for example, that h]e asks that we accept that if p then q. Then he points out that q. He concludes by affirming p. We, of course, will rightly charge that this is irrational, that it does not follow. But we are not at all entitled to say that he is not open-minded just because he has committed a fallacy. (1979, 11–12; in Siegel 2009, 30)

According to this account, a person may be open-minded regardless of whether their argument has been logical. This realization allows Siegel to come to two conclusions. Firstly, ‘[o]pen-mindedness is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition of critical thinking’ i.e. one can only be a critical thinker if one is open-minded; one lacks the ‘critical spirit component of critical thinking’ if one is not open-minded (2008, 12–13). Secondly, as has been demonstrated throughout the previous discussion, open-mindedness is a component of the overarching ideal of critical thinking and therefore ‘Critical thinking is a sufficient (but not necessary) condition of open-mindedness’ (2008, 13). Therefore, if we accept Siegel’s account, one possible way to assess whether or not the New Atheists actually employ critical thinking in their writings is to assess whether or not these same writings exemplify an attitude of open-mindedness.

3.5 The New Atheists Are Not Open-Minded

…it seems that open-mindedness, if it is appropriate at all, is appropriate with regard even to those beliefs we hold most strongly. […] I have in mind here religious and political beliefs, and beliefs in the correctness of social norms. (Riggs 2010, 177)

Earlier, I provided the following working account of open-mindedness:

(a) a disposition to transcend one’s own cognitive standpoint and (b) evaluate evidence objectively and impartially when coming to one’s beliefs, (c) to revise or reject one’s position in the light of new evidence or sound objections, and (d) to rigorously apply this process in situations where one holds certain beliefs particularly strongly.

I also related the epistemic virtue of open-mindedness to the vice of closed-mindedness—which manifests itself in propaganda, where ‘appeals to emotion rather than reason’ are the order of the day (Halpern 1989, 199; see below). Turning to the New Atheist texts, and given what has just been discussed concerning the relationship between open-mindedness and critical thinking, I believe I can be justified in discarding (b) from this particular discussion due to its similarity to my understanding of critical thinking. Given the centrality of critical thinking in both the New Atheists’ critique of religion, and the agenda they promote, it can also be taken as given that the writings we have considered thus far are contexts in which they each hold their ‘belief in critical thinking’ particularly strongly (d), i.e. these texts are particularly appropriate sources to examine for evidence of open-mindedness. As to whether or not the New Atheists are disposed to transcend their own cognitive standpoints (a) and/or revise or reject their position in the light of new evidence or sound objections (c), I can only engage with this through the presentation in their texts. With this in mind, I shall now assess the New Atheists’ open-mindedness by examining whether they exemplify what Wayne Riggs describes as ‘a willingness to consider other viewpoints fairly and on their own terms, though without necessarily coming to believe them’ Riggs (n.d., 14). I shall then present evidence which suggests that they promote a closed-minded understanding of ‘religion’ through propaganda.

3.6 Failure of Engagement

Aside from the large number of ungeneralizable caricatures of ‘religion’—seen, for example, by Hitchens as ‘[v]iolent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism and tribalism and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive toward children’ (2008, 56)—which populate New Atheist texts, there are three key ways in which the New Atheists fail in their engagement with religion which justify a charge that they are not open-minded: firstly, by ‘ignoring or dismissing counter-currents, they base their definition of religion on the behaviour and beliefs of a limited number of believers who fit their stereo-type ridden model’ (Nall 2008, 266); secondly, they frequently fall foul of the ultimate attribution error (Amarasingam 2010); and finally, the New Atheists’ engagement with religion is akin to scientism (LeDrew 2012; Pigliucci 2013), which can itself be dubbed structurally closed-minded.

3.6.1 Ignoring or Dismissing Evidence

First of all, there are many examples in the New Atheists’ writings (more than I have space to discuss) that demonstrate a tendency to ignore or dismiss evidence which contradicts their central theses. For instance, as William Stahl points out, in the New Atheists’ texts ‘“[m]oderate” religious groups are dismissed as not really being religious’ (Stahl 2010, 103). Rather than engage with this constituency, the moderately religious are derided for cherry-picking which scriptural passages to view as ‘“symbolic” rather than literal’ (Dawkins 2007, 280), for ‘neglecting’ their own religion’s teachings (Harris 2006, 18, 2007, 83) and not being willing to bet their lives on them, which is, according to Dennett, ‘the surest sign of belief’ (2007, 289).

When considering religion and violence, factors as diverse as a belief in the afterlife (Dennett 2007, 285) and group loyalty amongst religionists (Dawkins 2007, 297; Hitchens 2008, 18) contribute to the assessment that religion is ‘a continual source’ of human conflict (Harris 2006, 79). Whilst religious believers can be ‘rational and tolerant of others’ (Harris 2006, 28; see also Hitchens 2008, 187–188) and ‘religion may well not be the root cause of [...violent] yearning[s]’ (Dennett 2007, 285), these cases are seen as exceptions to the rule, and as complementing humanism rather than religion (Hitchens 2008, 27)—‘[r]eligious wars really are fought in the name of religion’ (Dawkins 2007, 316). This reductionism reifies religion as a uniquely powerful force influencing social action, and ignores the complexity in even those conflicts that seem ‘obviously’ religious. For instance, ‘the Crusades’—which receive remarkably little attention in the New Atheists’ texts6—whilst undoubtedly being ‘the best example of a papally orchestrated war of conquest,’ (Bartlett 1995, 20) have been variously

represented as a sinister plot of popery, a transparent cloak for material greed, a precursor of imperialism or a frenzied mass psychosis, but also as a gigantic enterprise to realize lofty ideals, the most articulate expression of collective contrition, and a Messianic movement… (Prawer 1972, 4; cited in Housley 2006, vi)

Another example that is given somewhat more attention is the ‘troubles’ in Northern Ireland. Hitchens is quick to label this conflict as ‘sectarian warfare between different sects of Christianity’, offhandedly dismissing alternative explanations that focus on ‘rival nationalisms’ (Hitchens 2008, 18), despite a host of rival theological, cultural, economic and ethnic explanations that lay blame upon any combination of the Roman Catholic Church, the British state, the Irish Republic, Protestantism, the peoples of the UK, Ireland, and Northern Ireland, and more (McGarry and O’Leary 1995).7 Returning to William Stahl , with these illustrative examples in mind we can argue that

in arbitrarily dismissing from discussion the bulk of actual religious practice, the[ir] arguments [...] also become divorced from empirical reality. […] Instead of systematically collecting and weighing all relevant evidence [..., a]ny evidence to the contrary is studiously ignored. (2010, 103)

3.6.2 The Ultimate Attribution Error

Secondly, the New Atheists have been soundly criticized by Amarnath Amarasingam for falling foul of ‘the ultimate attribution error’ (2010).8 He describes a prevalent situation, such as that alluded to above, whereby, when a religious individual (here a member of the ‘out-group’) acts in a (positive) manner so as to challenge the New Atheists’ general (negative) picture of those who are religious, this event tends to be dismissed as the exception that proves the rule, or as originating through some causative factor other than ‘religion’. This process is typically reversed when the New Atheists engage with those other atheists, secularists etc., i.e. their ‘in-group,’ who act in a (negative) manner which does not meet with their expectations (cf. Amarasingam 2010, 577). For example, Amarasingam (2010, 579–580) points to New Atheist discussions surrounding Hitler and Stalin where the authors are at pains to point out that the horrific acts perpetrated by these individuals and their regimes was nothing to with their atheism any more than it was due to their having moustaches (see, e.g., Dawkins 2007, 272–278; Hitchens 2008, 229–252; Harris 2006, 100–107). These authors also echo Michael Burleigh ’s line that with the ‘waning of traditional religions’ and the rise of modernity, ‘the political and cultural space for ideologies masquerading as religions, i.e. political religions, opens up, leading to phenomena such as the Third Reich and Stalinism’ (Jackson 2008, 123). Such totalitarian systems are, apparently, ‘faith-based’ (Hitchens 208, 250), and thus not proper atheism.

This dissociation of atheism from violent acts pervades the New Atheist texts, yet this same desire to rescue atheism where any ambiguity exists does not extend to the consideration of ‘religious’ violence. Returning to Hitler and the Holocaust, Dawkins (2007, 310), Harris (2006, 106), and Hitchens (2008, 236–243) all discuss the possibility that Hitler remained a nominal Christian, and invoke an historical Christian anti-Semitism ‘that built the crematoria brick by brick’ (Harris 2006, 179) through the support of Catholics and ‘German Christians’ for Hitler’s regime, with the entire Christian church being dubbed, at minimum, guilty of ‘passivity’ and ‘inaction’ (Hitchens 2008, 238). Taking some other examples from Hitchens’ writings: first of all, he willingly acknowledges the good deeds and pacifism of Martin Luther King, yet declares that, due to these, ‘[i]n no real as opposed to nominal sense, then, was he a Christian’ (2008, 176); secondly, he declares that the connection between the paedophilic actions of some priests and Catholicism is inherent and ‘unavoidable’ (2008, 196); and finally, for now, the late contrarian is perhaps most (im)famous for his takedown of Mother Teresa who was, in Hitchens’ view, no saint, and whose over-celebrated and under-criticized actions were not motivated by kindness or humility, but by unwavering religious fundamentalism (2012). Amarasingam is keen to state that the New Atheists are not the only group guilty of this attribution error—in fact, it is more than likely that I have been guilty of it myself in this very chapter—but he focuses upon their brand of atheism ‘because it often presents itself as an objective, value-free, and universal critique of religion en bloc’ (2010, 575). However, it should be clear from the examples given in the two sections above that the New Atheists are regularly not disposed to transcend their own cognitive standpoint (religion=bad; atheism=good), and that they are dismissive of evidence which contradicts their views, and thus can frequently and legitimately be viewed as not open-minded.

Although these criticisms hold water when we look at Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens’ texts, the situation is more complicated when reading Dennett where we find a somewhat more open-minded attitude pervading his text which seems lacking in the others’: he provides a tentative definition of religion which smacks of some engagement with the social-scientific study of religion (2007, 9); he engages with some canonical (if dated) figures in the social science of religion such as William James and Emile Durkheim; he admits that he doesn’t know enough about non-monotheistic religions ‘to write with any confidence about them’ (2007, xi–xii); and he seems much more willing than the other authors to acknowledge positive aspects of religion (perhaps due to his cognitive psychological perspective). These few instances are all the more notable for their absence in the others’ books, and for this reason I would hesitate to label Dennett ’s approach to religion as not open-minded (at least in this respect). However, through demonstrably failing to engage with religion fairly and on its own terms, the other authors clearly and unapologetically present themselves as not open-minded.

3.6.3 Closed-Minded Scientism

Finally, I wish to turn to the widespread notion that the New Atheists are proponents of closed-minded scientism. Massimo Pigliucci defines scientism as

a totalizing attitude that regards science as the ultimate standard and arbiter of all interesting questions; or alternatively that seeks to expand the very definition and scope of science to encompass all aspects of human knowledge and understanding. (2013, 144)

Although this is but one definition among many in a contested field (see Tuckett forthcoming), this definition suffices for my purposes, and echoes discussions in Sorell (1991), Burnett (2012), and Kidd (2014). An argument connecting New Atheism with scientism is convincingly advanced in Pigliucci (2013), and by Stephen LeDrew who states that ‘Popular Atheism today is becoming more and more indistinguishable from scientism and a drive to secure the cognitive, moral and ultimately political authority of the natural sciences’ (2012, 71). Thus, without going into these arguments in any more detail, in what follows I shall simply assume that ‘New Atheism’ and scientism’ are effectively interchangeable. Here, I draw primarily on a chapter by Ian James Kidd, in which he argues that ‘[t]here are at least four components of a scientistic stance that could encourage closed-mindedness’ (2016, n.p.).9 These act as a lens through which we can view the New Atheists’ works.

First of all, he suggests that a scientistic person might deny that they occupy a particular stance, ‘on the grounds that there is only one stance—that of “Reason”, perhaps’. Such an understanding renders ‘unintelligible the very idea that one does or even could occupy a distinctive stance or “default cognitive standpoint”’ (2016, n.p.). Given what I have been arguing above, it seems clear that this particular charge of closed-mindedness can be dismissed out of hand due to the fact that the New Atheist case is consistently built on the fact that ‘the religious’ occupy a different, and more primitive, cognitive standpoint—that any notion of a ‘convergence between religion and science is a shallow, empty, hollow, spin-doctored sham’ (Dawkins 2004, 179).

Second, Kidd argues that a scientistic person might be closed-minded due to an insistence that one’s own stance is the only sensible or plausible one, thereby working against any ‘willingness to disengage from one’s default stance’ and denying ‘sense to the idea that other stances might have merits to take seriously’ (2016, n.p., emphasis in original). Here, my reason for dismissing the previous charge becomes a justification for this second charge. ‘Religion’ is discursively constructed throughout the New Atheists’ writings as unsophisticated, infantile, dangerous, and belonging to the past. Just as chemistry and astronomy took the place of alchemy and astrology, so ‘philosophy begins where religion ends’ (Hitchens 2008, 256; see also Harris 2006, 14). Harris asserts that religion ‘allows otherwise normal human beings to reap the fruits of madness’ (2006, 73), and is an area of human life ‘where people imagine that some other [and, one infers, more primitive] standard of intellectual integrity applies’ (2007, 65); the religious are simply not thinking right (2012, 55). Indeed, Christopher Hitchens is famed for asserting that ‘what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence’ (cited in Harris 2006, 176). These exemplary quotations are indicative of a closed-minded insistence that, in the ‘battle’ between ‘religion’ and ‘atheism’, the New Atheist position is the only sensible or plausible one.

Kidd’s third component of scientistic closed-mindedness is that a scientistic person may indicate willingness to embrace other stances in principle, but only if such a change in stance is perceived to be warranted, effectively allowing one’s current stance to place ‘constraints on the types of alternatives that one will take up’ (2016, n.p.). The New Atheist texts are replete with lines of argument which exemplify this particularly disingenuous form of closed-mindedness. The authors frequently invite the ‘religious’ to participate in rational discussion (Dennett 2007, 296–297), to provide evidence for God’s existence (Harris 2007, 51–52), and to defend their prejudices and ‘justify their faith’ (Dawkins 2007, 45). In the first chapter of his recent book, The Magic of Reality—subtitled ‘How we know what’s really true’ (emphasis my own)—Dawkins enjoins his (younger) readers to ‘always be open-minded’, but then continues to state that ‘the only good reason to believe that something exists is if there is real evidence that it does’ (2012, 15). Such lines of argument have the veneer of open-mindedness and allow the authors to claim that they are offering ‘no disrespect and no prejudging’ (Dennett 2007, 296) to the ‘religious’ position, yet basically amount to stating that the only admissible articulations of the religious standpoint are those which are couched in ‘acceptable’ scientific terms. On the basis of this evidence, the New Atheists also exemplify Kidd’s third component of scientistic closed-mindedness.

Finally, Kidd argues that ‘a scientistic stance might contain components that lead an agent to wrongly judge that they have disengaged successfully from it, when in fact they have done so only in a partial or imperfect manner’ (2016, n.p.). Given the discussion of Kidd’s second and third points above, it is clear that the New Atheist texts do not present a supposition that the authors have transcended their scientistic standpoint, and therefore they are not vulnerable to this charge of closed-mindedness.

To summarize this discussion of the New Atheists’ engagement with religion, first of all I demonstrated that they frequently ignore or dismiss evidence which goes against their central critique of religion. Secondly, they frequently fall foul of the ultimate attribution error, subjecting the ‘religious’ to different standards than their fellow ‘atheists’. Finally, in the supposed battle between ‘religion’ and ‘atheism’/‘science’, the New Atheists view their own stance as the only sensible or plausible one, and declare that only evidence that fits with their stance—evidence which, by their own definition, religion could not offer—could convince them to abandon it (see Kidd 2016). These three points combine to build a strong case that the New Atheists are not open-minded.

3.7 Through Propaganda

It can also be argued that the New Atheists promote a closed-minded understanding of ‘religion’ through their use of propaganda. According to Diane Halpern , most accusations of propaganda generally ‘imply [that there has been] less concern for truth or rigorous argument than the sort of arguments found in scholarly journals or presented by independent parties’ (1989, 199). ‘Frequently’, she says, ‘the information provided is charged with appeals to emotion rather than reason’ (1989, 199). We see this same emphasis on appeals to emotion in William Hare ’s definition, where propaganda is

A one-sided, biased presentation of an issue, trading on emotional appeals and a wide range of rhetorical devices in order to override critical assessment and secure conviction. (2004)

As a brief example, this appeal to emotion is clearly evident throughout the New Atheistic critique of religion and violence. These authors may pride themselves on their rigorous application of scientific thinking, yet their readers find themselves confronted with absurd and emotive analogies, such as the absence of fatwas pronounced against accordionists by musical organizations (Dennett 2007, 43), or the prediction that future generations will view contemporary society—where ‘faith, without evidence’ is prevalent—‘with pity and disgust, as we view the slaveholders of our all-too-recent past’ (Harris 2006, 48–49). Despite overwhelming evidence that global violence is at an all-time low, continuing a millennia-long downward trend (Pinker 2012), time and again we read of a large (and growing) body of adherents to religion, who are not only ‘prepared to lie and even to kill’ (Dennett 2007, 338) as they plan ‘your and my destruction’ (Hitchens 2008, 13), but who actively ‘look forward to the destruction of the world’ (Hitchens 2008, 56) and ‘are leading us, inexorably, to kill one another’ (Harris 2006, 12).

Such emotional and rhetorical appeals can also be found in, for example, the New Atheists’ critique of ‘faith schooling’ (Harris 2007, xii; Dawkins 2007, 206, 323, 348, 367), ‘religious’ attitudes to sexual ethics (Harris 2007, 26, 28; Dawkins 2007, 327; Hitchens 2008, 186, 215), and attitudes to contemporary medicine (Harris 2006, 167–169, 2007, 31; Dennett 2007, 86; Hitchens 2008, 45, 223). They can even be found in passages detailing (prophesying?) hopes for an atheistic future, with Dawkins optimistically adding a list of ‘massacres’, ‘witch-hunts’ and ‘persecutions’ to the list of evils that disappear in the vision of a non-religious future articulated in John Lennon ’s Imagine (2007, 23–24), and Harris , more pessimistically, detailing a post-apocalyptic scenario where the ‘unlucky survivors’ of a ‘holocaust’ brought about by ‘religious differences’ gaze back upon the ‘hurtling career of human stupidity’ that led them to their plight (2006, 224). Such sweeping generalizations and rhetorical flourishes suggest an emphasis upon winning converts—‘overrid[ing] critical assessment and secur[ing] conviction’ (Hare 2004)—which is given priority over an open-minded presentation of available evidence, and is likely to result in a closed-minded understanding of religion. To return to an earlier quotation from Callan and Arena : ‘To believe P close-mindedly is to be unable or unwilling to give due regard to reasons that are available for some belief or beliefs contrary to P because of excessive emotional attachment to the truth of P’ (2009, 14 emphasis my own). Can the New Atheists’ frequent utilization of propaganda, with all of its emotive content and emphasis, be dubbed open-minded? I think not.

3.8 The New Atheists Are Not Critical Thinkers

To recap what I have discussed so far, I began this chapter by demonstrating that the New Atheists promote critical thinking, and criticize ‘religion’ for lacking this virtue. I then discussed the relationship between critical thinking and open-mindedness, and demonstrated that open-mindedness is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for critical thinking. Turning back to the work of the New Atheists, I demonstrated that, on the basis of their key published works relating to ‘religion’, they cannot be dubbed open-minded, due to (a) a threefold failure of engagement, and (b) through propaganda and rhetoric. On the basis of this discussion, I conclude that because the New Atheists are not open-minded in their treatment of ‘religion’, and because open-mindedness is a necessary condition for critical thinking, the New Atheists are therefore not critical thinkers.

‘Why does this matter?’ I hear you ask. This is a fair question, and one which could arguably be asked of any work which analyzes the public discourse and rhetorical claims of social elites.10 However, discursive acts which are rehearsed, performed, and consumed in public arenas and over many years, can have profound and lasting effects upon societal perceptions, upon what is considered acceptable, legitimate, or common knowledge, and upon who and what becomes marginalized or excluded in society. Indeed, concurrent with the rise of ‘New Atheism,’ recent studies have demonstrated significant growth in reporting on secularism and atheism in the UK media between 1980 and 2000 (Knott et al. 2013), and an increased visibility of atheism in European popular cultures in general (Taira and Illman 2012; Lee 2015). This chapter has attempted to take the New Atheists on their own terms and assess them against criteria which they themselves set, and in this instance they were found wanting. It is my hope that further research can take up this gauntlet and investigate the impact of this dominant and conflicted discourse on atheism and critical thinking upon wider societal discourses on ‘religion’—discourses perpetuated by atheists, theists, secularists, religionists, academics, politicians, journalists and more—because only then can we begin to assess the impact of this concentrated yet rapidly diminishing burst of popular atheistic fervor. On the one hand, the hypothetical author of some future study might conclude that ‘New Atheism’ has had a pervasive and lasting social and cultural impact. On the other, our colleague from the future may concede, in the words of Douglas Adams (2009)—one of Dawkins ’ favourite authors—that ‘New Atheism’ was, all in all, ‘Mostly Harmless’.

Footnotes

  1. 1.

    For more on virtues and vices, see Ian James Kidd ’s Chap.  5, in this volume.

  2. 2.

    As Jonathan Tuckett noted in the editing process, naturalists such as Gilbert Murray (e.g. 1955) and Sydney Hook (e.g. 1944, 1961) can be added to this list, as they certainly argued from the ‘open-minded’ and ‘critical awareness’ provided by naturalism (see Tuckett forthcoming).

  3. 3.

    As Philip Quadrio noted in the editing process, to some degree this negative take on open mindedness arguably flows in line with British Empiricist philosophy, particularly its political wing, as expressed, for example, in John Locke ’s A Letter Concerning Toleration (1689). But there are also positive strains in that work if you look closely enough. For more on this, see Quadrio (2014).

  4. 4.

    Here I am indebted to Ian James Kidd for sharing his notes on Baehr (personal communication).

  5. 5.

    Elsewhere, Hare also states: ‘An open-minded person will not take an idea seriously unless it is judged to be supported to some degree by relevant evidence [… neglect of this fact] means that open-mindedness is often erroneously linked with relativism, abandonment of principles, general scepticism, inability to stick with a line of inquiry, and reluctance to come to a conclusion’ (2005, 16–17).

  6. 6.

    Although they are frequently invoked in general terms, alongside jihad, as a symbolic marker for religious violence.

  7. 7.

    Readers are also directed to William Cavenaugh ’s influential The Myth of Religious Violence (2009), particularly chapter 3 on the so-called ‘Wars of Religion’.

  8. 8.

    Understood by Amarasingam according to Tetlock’s definition: ‘a pervasive tendency on the part of observers to overestimate personality or dispositional causes of behaviour and to underestimate the influence of situational constraints on behaviour’ (1985, 227).

  9. 9.

    Forthcoming at the time of writing.

  10. 10.

    For more on this, see Quadrio Chap.  6, in this volume.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Politics, Philosophy and ReligionLancaster UniversityLancashireUK

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