The Politics of New Atheism

I would like to thank Amanda Cortney Carroll and the journal's anonymous reviewers for their help with the manuscript.

Address correspondence and reprint requests to Marcus Schulzke, State University of New York, Albany, NY 12222. E-mail: [e-mail]

INTRODUCTION

Religion plays a substantial role in public life in many countries. In the United States, the debates over abortion, birth control, medical research, gay rights, the teaching of evolution and other scientific theories in public schools, and civil rights are often framed as conflicts between opposing sets of religious values or between religion and secularism. Government officials regularly affirm their religious convictions and use religious language in their speeches. There is disagreement over which religious values should inform political decisions and what churches elected officials should or should not belong to, but there seems to be a widespread tacit agreement that it is appropriate for religion to play a role in politics. However, over the past decade, prominent atheists, who are often known as “new atheists,” have waged a battle of ideas against theists and challenged religion's role in politics (Grayling 2011; Dennett 2007; Harris 2005; Hitchens 2007; Stenger 2007; 2009).

What sets new atheists apart from many other atheists, and what makes them warrant special attention from political scientists, is that their opposition to religion is less a matter of theology than of politics. New atheists argue that religion has a harmful effect on political and social life, and they have created a loosely organized social movement with the goal of reducing religion's influence and increasing tolerance for atheists. The politicization of atheism raises many questions, including the extent to which new atheists' critique of religion is justified, what kind of politics new atheists favor, and whether a social movement based on atheism can be respectful of cultural differences.

I will argue that political theorists and philosophers who criticize new atheism have mischaracterized the movement and its leading representatives as being illiberal. New atheists' critiques of religion and of faith in general, are informed by their desire to protect fundamental liberal values. New atheists do not borrow a specific liberal philosophy, but they do tacitly defend a form of political liberalism that coheres with core liberal doctrines. New atheists' critique of religion's harmful effects is based...