When Atheism Becomes Religion: America's New Fundamentalists

Chris Hedges

Mar 2009 · Sold by Simon and Schuster

About this ebook

From the New York Times bestselling author of American Fascists and the NBCC finalist for War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning comes this timely and compelling work about new atheists: those who attack religion to advance the worst of global capitalism, intolerance and imperial projects.

Chris Hedges, who graduated from seminary at Harvard Divinity School, has long been a courageous voice in a world where there are too few. He observes that there are two radical, polarized and dangerous sides to the debate on faith and religion in America: the fundamentalists who see religious faith as their prerogative, and the new atheists who brand all religious belief as irrational and dangerous. Both sides use faith to promote a radical agenda, while the religious majority, those with a commitment to tolerance and compassion as well as to their faith, are caught in the middle.

The new atheists, led by Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris, do not make moral arguments about religion. Rather, they have created a new form of fundamentalism that attempts to permeate society with ideas about our own moral superiority and the omnipotence of human reason.

I Don't Believe in Atheists critiques the radical mindset that rages against religion and faith. Hedges identifies the pillars of the new atheist belief system, revealing that the stringent rules and rigid traditions in place are as strict as those of any religious practice.

Hedges claims that those who have placed blind faith in the morally neutral disciplines of reason and science create idols in their own image -- a sin for either side of the spectrum. He makes an impassioned, intelligent case against religious and secular fundamentalism, which seeks to divide the world into those worthy of moral and intellectual consideration and those who should be condemned, silenced and eradicated. Hedges shatters the new atheists' assault against religion in America, and in doing so, makes way for new, moderate voices to join the debate. This is a book that must be read to understand the state of the battle about faith.

Ratings and reviews

Chris Hedges, a foreign correspondent and New York Times bestselling author, describes how the New Atheists (Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris) are guilty of the very same sins they accuse Christian fundamentalists of committing, adding to the problem without contributing anything to its solution by creating "a new form of fundamentalism that attempts to permeate society with ideas about our own moral superiority and the omnipotence of human reason," all the while seeming to ignore the very real nature of our human condition which constantly invalidates the notion of human perfectibility at every turn. "The battle underway in the United States is not between religion and science," describes the back of the book. "It is a battle between two utopian forms of faith. These antagonists trade absurdity for absurdity. They show that the danger is not religion or science. The danger is the fundamentalist mindset itself." This book is a worthy contrast to his previous work American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America.

Well I don't believe in talking snakes and donkeys or flying horses and zombies.this is complete rubbish and makes me wish I could use this e book as toilet paper.

Atheists don't believe in some utopia. Society will probably progress but human nature the same. Lot of strawman arguments against atheists.

About the author

Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who was a foreign correspondent and bureau chief in the Middle East and the Balkans for fifteen years for The New York Times. He previously worked overseas for The Dallas Morning News, The Christian Science Monitor, and NPR. He is host of the Emmy Award­–nominated RT America show On Contact. Hedges, who holds a Master of Divinity from Harvard University, is the author of numerous books, and was a National Book Critics Circle finalist for War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning. He has taught at Columbia University, New York University, Princeton University, and the University of Toronto. He has taught college credit courses through Rutgers University in the New Jersey prison system since 2013.