Comments by "" (@A86) on "Bill Maher Fan Can’t Understand Why People Don’t Think ‘Real Time’ Is Funny" video.
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@wvu05 Exactly. Weak, agnostic atheism is the easiest form to defend, so some strong, gnostic atheists retreat to that definition when pressed even though they previously made a strident claim. I think it's because they realize making a positive or strident claim (like "No gods exist") would put some burden of proof on them even though it's a statement of rejection. Like if I said "Japan does not exist". Even though it's a statement of negation it's still asserting positive knowledge, so I would need to back that statement up. So they retreat to a safer, more defensible position like weak agnostic atheism to squirm out of the burden of proof. Whether they know it or not, that's a weasely tactic known as "Motte and Bailey". The first sentence of your second paragraph sums up New Atheists almost perfectly! I'm not religious myself, but I've always noticed there is huge overlap in the mentality of New Atheists and religious fundamentalists. They share the same exclusionary and hypervigilant ideological gatekeeping, obsession with perfection and lack of error or falliabilty (New Atheists can't understand why religious people would value a flawed or imperfect text), the lack of ability to wrap their minds around nuance or relativism, and the insistence on absolutism and "the one true" interpretation of everything. Everything must have "the objective, one true" way or interpretation of reading or understanding something. I think it's no coincide that a lot of New Atheists sound like they tend to come from religious fundamentalist or theologically conservative households and upbringing when they describe their background. They lost the religion but not the fundamentalist mindset or psychological framework. They also tend to not be much more knowledgeable about Christian history than religious fundamentalists either. Like being unaware that this interpretation of scripture has only been a widespread thing for about 250 years and many denominations and sects predate fundamentalism, like you said.
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@deanlowdon8381 You have to use discernment with ALL texts. Including secular ones. Do you follow the books or teachings of whatever political ideology or alignment you subscribe to blindly? No, you use discernment. You're free to disagree with some of what the founders of your political ideology said or suggested, or what subsequent ideological contributors wrote. The same with religion. That's how many, if not most, religious people treat their holy texts. Most religions even have textual criticism or textual analysis, exegesis, interpretation, etc. Literally thousands of years worth of different religious scholars and leaders disagreeing about interpretation, implementation, authenticity, what to disregard or abide by, etc. Like I said, your understanding seems uniquely like a conservative Evangelical Protestant understanding of scripture or religion. Your mindset would be foreign to a Catholic, for example. The Catholic Church has tens of thousands of pages of different priests and monks arguing about interpretation and their discernment (The Catechism) and Catholics see it as basically co-equal with the Bible.
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@wvu05 This. I find that New Atheists are essentially just **inverse religious fundamentalists**. Just like religious fundamentalists they insist that textual litetalism, textual inerrancy, harsh eschatology, lack of exegesis (because understanding scripture non-litetally is a false interpretation in their minds), fanatical zeal, end-times obsession, and a vilgiantly exclusionary mindset and desire for non-believers to be punished is the only way holy texts can be read or that theology/religion can be believed in "correctly". Just like religious fundamentalists they insist that religious moderates, religious liberals, and religious progressives are intellectually dishonest people misinterpreting the scripture/religion and that religious conservatives/reactionaries are the only true believers or true followers who "correctly" understand it. A telltale sign that an atheist is a New Atheist is their insistence that religious people who aren't fundamentalists or theologically conservative are coping phonies not performing the faith correctly, while crazed fundamentalists are the ones doing it as the founder would want. They also tend to attack people who identify as Agnostic, Ignostic, or "Spiritual But Not Religious". New Atheists think that the only thing you can be is a raving reactionary theist who wants to harm or force nonbelievers into submission, or a hardcore Dawkins or Lawrence Krauss-style strong atheist. They view Agnostics as covert theists or Atheists who are "cowards", and view religious non-fundamentalists as unbelievers or atheists waiting to happen who are in denial.
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