There is an excellent post on First Things’ blog* (see also “First Things: On the Square” feed lower right) concerning the “modern” atheism. Joseph Bottum relays an excellent series of quotes in his entry from Harvard professor Harvey Mansfield's recent Weekly Standard** article:
“Mansfield notes: ‘Atheism isn’t what it was in the eighteenth century ... the focus of the attack is not the Church, which is no longer dominant, but religion itself. [Historically] atheism uncovered tyranny behind the mask of religion, but it was content to point out the power of injustice.... Today’s atheism rejects this serene attitude and goes on the attack....
[Yet it] is not religion that makes men fanatics; it is the power of the human desire for justice, so often partisan and perverted.... In the contest between religion and atheism, the strength of religion is to recognize two apparently contrary forces in the human soul: the power of injustice and the power, nonetheless, of our desire for justice. The stubborn existence of injustice reminds us that man is not God, while the demand for justice reminds us that we wish for the divine. Religion tries to join these two forces together.
The weakness of atheism, however, is to take account of only one of them, the fact of injustice in the case of Epicurean atheism or the desire for justice in our Enlightenment atheism.’”
Bottum succinctly summarizes Mansfield's thoughts with this conclusion:
“It’s a nice point: the two styles of atheism—the angry and the wry—like half-religions on either side of religion. Each getting only part of the human problem, each convinced in its partiality that it sees beyond religion.”
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Sources: [*] First Things: On the Square [Joseph Bottum]. [**] Weekly Standard (by way of First Things) [Harvey Mansfield].
“Mansfield notes: ‘Atheism isn’t what it was in the eighteenth century ... the focus of the attack is not the Church, which is no longer dominant, but religion itself. [Historically] atheism uncovered tyranny behind the mask of religion, but it was content to point out the power of injustice.... Today’s atheism rejects this serene attitude and goes on the attack....
[Yet it] is not religion that makes men fanatics; it is the power of the human desire for justice, so often partisan and perverted.... In the contest between religion and atheism, the strength of religion is to recognize two apparently contrary forces in the human soul: the power of injustice and the power, nonetheless, of our desire for justice. The stubborn existence of injustice reminds us that man is not God, while the demand for justice reminds us that we wish for the divine. Religion tries to join these two forces together.
The weakness of atheism, however, is to take account of only one of them, the fact of injustice in the case of Epicurean atheism or the desire for justice in our Enlightenment atheism.’”
Bottum succinctly summarizes Mansfield's thoughts with this conclusion:
“It’s a nice point: the two styles of atheism—the angry and the wry—like half-religions on either side of religion. Each getting only part of the human problem, each convinced in its partiality that it sees beyond religion.”
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Sources: [*] First Things: On the Square [Joseph Bottum]. [**] Weekly Standard (by way of First Things) [Harvey Mansfield].
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