Spencer Klavan: How wokeness killed New Atheism

Emily interviews Spencer Klavan on how new questions about science and faith could be quietly rocking American politics.

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[MrMerajjio]

As a former muslim I was one of the OG adherents to new atheism in my 20s. I drank up every drop of the ideology and had sam harris, hitchens, dawkins books practically memorized. Little did I know that that very movement would unleash the most lunatic pseudo religious cult known to man - the woke mind virus.

[woodsmand]

The left's contempt for religion and their reverence for reason has always been extremely selective. Growing up in northern California I knew many people who thought believing in god made you stupid but thought crystal healing and wicca were perfectly rational.

[bad.hat.harry.]

These kinds of discussions would NEVER happen at BP!
Krystal won't let it!

[alexdevisscher]

The main points the guest is making are based on a fundamental misunderstanding of quantum mechanics. When quantum mechanics talks about an "observer", it doesn't necessarily mean a person. It can be as simple as a detector. I agree that the decline of religion has led to the rise of a number of secular religions, but I find the idea that there is a scientific imperative for religion deeply flawed.

[amanrob]

I was actually with them in my 20's, but you mature and come to some realizations with age. I am now back where I was raised with Catholicism and couldn't be happier.

[RockyWarhol]

Objectivity. Empiricism. Dissent. And now this? What? What does any of this have to do with anything? I'm lost.

[theWebWizrd]

I've listened to this guy talk nonstop for 25 minutes and I feel he has said absolutely nothing at all. I should be his target audience, who self-identifies as an agnostic, interested in learning more about spirituality coming from a pretty humanist society, and deeply opposed to many of the woke ideas. This guy feels like he has no insights into anything at all and is just a waste to listen to, sorry to say. He is about as coherent and well-thought-out as a drunk friend at a bar having showerthoughts.

[stephenbailey]

When rationalism and secularism became identified as white, Euro culture, then the populists of the world turned away to older, more primordial attachments.
Common humanity is replaced by tribalism. In the 'modern' US as well.

[JW_______]

Guys, Christian intellectuals (Catholic, Protestant, and Eastern Orthodox) have been carrying this water for a long time. Please don't ignore the intellectual heavyweights for the sake of focusing on the johnny-come-lately's.

[Charlotte_Martel]

Atheism+ came along, as well as Social Marxism aka Woke, and we quickly saw that religion did not require a god to take hold. I now consider myself to be a Catholic agnostic. I truly wish that I could actually believe in the tenets of the faith, but my mind simply doesn't work that way. I need solid evidence to believe something, and ancient scripture isn't enough for me.

I sincerely hope that someday I can actually believe, but until then, I will defend the role of the Church (and Christianity in general) in building more coherent, decent societies and people.

[ryanbudney]

Your guest says Newtonian mechanics can provide an exhaustive list of truths -- this is false. There are many truths the Newtonian mechanics demands that are non-computable in nature, i.e. we can't predict them ahead of time.

Ultimately what's going on is that just because you have some kind of (differential) equation that controls a system, it does not mean you can look into its future and understand what it predicts. This is an issue both for classical mechanics and any theory that approximates it in "classical contexts".

It sounds like your guest isn't making arguments about science, but some 19th-century colloquial understanding of science. Even in the 19th century some of the leaders of science had a sense for this, like Poincare. But it wasn't until about 50 years ago that these issues of non-computability started becoming well-understood in the sciences.

A very simple example of this can be illustrated this way. If you encounter an empty bucket with a hole at the bottom, when was it last full? Newtonian mechanics says there's no answer to that question without time-travel, i.e. you actually have to witness a full bucket and there's no mathematics that can tell you the answer (unless there's a little bit of water in the bucket to start with), even though Newtonian mechanics completely predicts the water-level in the bucket. That's a simple example, but there's far more subtle examples, as well.

IMO your guest misunderstands what science is about. It's a common misunderstanding and its something that drives book sales, but I don't see how its productive.

[charlesiragui]

The Catholic universities thought that inquiry was a way to understand God, to love and serve Him.

[springbloom]

Yeah, see the thing is, 'atheism' is no religion where 'Atheism' is absolutely a religion. It just received a New Testament.

[glennmitchell]

Has anyone come up with a theism on first principles, not based on any revealed religious precepts? Who was the most recent receiver of revelation? Who is the new Buddha, Confucious, or Abraham.

[RaviA]

Ah, the petersonesque christian appropriation of universal human philosophy.

[MoneyMakerDg]

I think it would be super interesting to see you speak to Alex O’Connor some time. Have Freddie introduce you!

[ptyleranodon]

Super interesting discussion. I personally believe that there is no single religious tradition that is the winner. (Though some have proven to be more valuable to the well being of mankind than others.) But I also believe that the dismissive attitude that the New Atheists made popular was extremely shortsided and narrow minded. To assume that material reality is the only thing of value and painting all religious people as ignorant believers of nonsensical fairy tales is to blind yourself to the complexity what makes us human. And we're starting to see the fruits of that indoctrination.

[JonathanMoore-kk]

I was homeless, got into drugs, went into prisons, then i got to know Jesus, He changed my life.. Now i make 22k weekly. have a home, a wife, a lovely daughter... A child of God. HALLELUJAH!

[ericwarmath]

Huh? I'll stick with Douglas Adams.

[RickGabriel]

This dude just talked for 37 minutes and didn't say a damn thing.