Comment by pstuart
3 hours ago
> the New Atheism movement
Not a religion, not a faith. It's simply well-publicized challenging of religion.
I think that you only see it as such because of how you see the world, but Dawkins, Harris, et al are not my leaders and I strongly disagree with several of their positions.
If you abstract away the specific claims made by new New Atheists (either the leaders or the footsoldiers) and analyze it from a purely sociological point of view - it behaves identically to any other religion or faith - especially when you consider that strong, top-down leadership is not a universal property of religion.
Also relevant here is that the concept of "religion" itself was introduced very recently in the 16th and 17th centuries, and seems to have been created so that specific groups of people could consider their own activities as being non-religious. See Before Religion by Nongbri.
> analyze it from a purely sociological point of view - it behaves identically to any other religion or faith
What is the analysis? What is the behavior? I'm genuinely curious. Help me see what I am apparently blind to seeing.