Interesting Investgating Atheism Website
Cambridge University Department of Divinity has an investigating atheism website. As befits an esteemed scholarly and academic institution, it seems to me to be impartial and unbiased (as far as these things are possible).
It covers atheist history, arguments for atheism, atheist views on morality, meaning, violence and science and has a particular focus on the ‘new atheism’ of Dawkins, Hitchens et al. If you check it out, let me know what you think.
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The classic mildly religious defencse when confronted with atheism. Basically ignoring the whole point (God not existing).
Compared to that, their constant use of militant isn’t such a big deal.
It’s not all that impartial and unbiased; it is in fact an apologia for religion against atheism. It’s also not tremendously scholarly, though they make a start. E.g. they dismiss with a wave of their hand all atheism before the seventeenth century (though acknowledge that there were probably crypto-atheists), but one has to assume that they’re only interested in Christian societies since there were well-known atheist Greek philosophers including Protagoras and Diogenes (and most of the Cynics, actually).
This isn’t to say that all of it is wrong. In fact, much of it is quite valid as a criticism of the rather simplistic arguments of the New Atheists they are criticizing (chiefly Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, and Dennett). Interestingly, they often pull in philosopher of religion (and atheist) Michael Martin to argue for them against the New Atheists. E.g. they say, “The leading philosophical atheist Michael Martin, for example, speculating in 1989 about the likely consequences of a widespread growth in atheism globally, stated his belief that there would ‘probably’ be fewer wars and less violence than there is now; however, he also acknowledged (evidently with the still existent USSR in mind) ‘the danger that if atheism became widespread, as it has in the Soviet Union and in other countries of the world, it would become the functional equivalent of a state religion with the suppression of theistic minorities’. Martin notes that this is ‘not a necessary consequence of widespread atheism; but it is of course a possibility’. Martin furthermore notes that not only is there no necessity for a religious society to exercise suppression of religions, but that ‘there are good moral reasons for avoiding it’; however, he nevertheless acknowledges that there is always the possibility that ‘atheists, no less than theists, might want to suppress what they did not believe was true or what they thought was dangerous’.”
Despite using him fairly frequently like this, they never actually engage with his atheistic arguments, which are much stronger than the New Atheists’. They do on occasion acknowledge that his positions exist, but then make no attempt to refute them and pass over them with just a couple of words while vigorously arguing against the much more problematic contentions (and more easily disposed of) of Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, et al.
By the way, Mr. Skinner, you should check out the section called “Atheist Arguments” which actually does handle whether or not God exists. Not in a lot of detail, but at least as much detail as any other section of the website as it currently stands. I also cannot object to their calling Dawkins, Harris, et al. “militants.” Dawkins and Harris, at least, have the avowed goal of exterminating religious belief (not religious believers, of course). I think calling that militant is fair, nor do I think the word has to be pejorative. I am a militant against slavery, for example.
I just browsed around the site briefly - it looks pretty interesting. Even if it is primarily theistic, at least the authors aren’t breathing fire at atheists.