0
A quick response
Posted by
CommunitarianKevin
,
in
Senior Project (New Atheism)
30 April 2012
·
374 views
Wow that was not what I expected. Dr. Prothero already responded to my email and gave me some advice.
Stephen Prothero prothero@bu.edu
6:47 AM (4 hours ago)
to me
Hi Kevin,
Sounds like a great project.
I have a few quick suggestions.
First, since this is a history project, there is a long history of atheists/freethinkers/agnostics/humanists in American life. Books by Hecht (Doubt: A History) and Susan Jacoby might help here. Same with Martin Marty's old book on atheism in American history. I forget the title, but you can find it. One interesting question here is HOW is the "new" atheism "new." What is old and what is new about it?
I would also look carefully of course at the key figures, perhaps restricting yourself to 3-4 major figures. (Note they are mostly men. Is there something "masculine" about all this? Here you might look at a great book called "American Manhood"--it's a history.)
Finally, if you are interested in calling some of these new atheists "religious" you have a burden of defining what "religious" means and then showing you have evidence to pin this on them. I think that may be the key part of the paper. Note that new atheists do NOT have (for the most part) a robust DEFINITION of religion. In other words, they haven't really thought about it, problematized it, because they know what religion is already.
Hope that helps.
Good luck!
Stephen Prothero prothero@bu.edu
6:47 AM (4 hours ago)
to me
Hi Kevin,
Sounds like a great project.
I have a few quick suggestions.
First, since this is a history project, there is a long history of atheists/freethinkers/agnostics/humanists in American life. Books by Hecht (Doubt: A History) and Susan Jacoby might help here. Same with Martin Marty's old book on atheism in American history. I forget the title, but you can find it. One interesting question here is HOW is the "new" atheism "new." What is old and what is new about it?
I would also look carefully of course at the key figures, perhaps restricting yourself to 3-4 major figures. (Note they are mostly men. Is there something "masculine" about all this? Here you might look at a great book called "American Manhood"--it's a history.)
Finally, if you are interested in calling some of these new atheists "religious" you have a burden of defining what "religious" means and then showing you have evidence to pin this on them. I think that may be the key part of the paper. Note that new atheists do NOT have (for the most part) a robust DEFINITION of religion. In other words, they haven't really thought about it, problematized it, because they know what religion is already.
Hope that helps.
Good luck!
..it's like saying, "we don't exist"
i'm not keen on jesus or anything.. but if there was no purpose or point to it all, i don't see how or why we'd even be here in the first place?