One of the steps that are performed to discredit New Atheism has been to point out [seemingly-]atheist so-called critiques of New Atheism. Michael Ruse’s supposed critique has been an exemplary miniature of this strategy.

*Conventionally*, thilosophers (note: thilosophy is a theology in the ‘clothing’ of philosophy) has successfully made the god delusion seem in the scope of mere philosophy for decades and one of the features of the New Atheist Paradigm has been to spread demanding empirical/scientific evidence/demonstration of god. And since this step’s constitution of a lethal blow to the Ponzi Scheme of thilosophers is foreseen by the thilosophers, all thilosophers united in a chorus bash New Atheism. How is this a blow?

If you can keep the god delusion a topic of philosophy only and dictate that this disputation has to be interested in by all, you can earn money by selling thilosophy. For example, only by that way a theist thilosopher markets his/her book titled “The Ontological Manipulation in favour of the god delusion” and only by that way a seemingly-atheist thilosopher can market his book titled “A Rebuttal to the Ontological Manipulation in favour of the god delusion“. This cycle goes on: theist responds (and sells books), then in turn the other side responds (and sells books). It is done by thilosophers In all fields of philosophy – morality, consciousness, mathematics, cosmology etc. Both sides earn money by maintaining this illusory dictation named god: Philosophically, the idea of god is not even decent, the god disputation is sound financially: the god disputation generates money for thilosophers and that is why thilosophers force this disputation to remain alive. Thanks to this forced god discussion, philosophers can earn money by selling their mere thoughts.

And that is where the lethal blow of New Atheism (at the same time, of Positivism) comes: If it becomes known that there is nothing wrong with asking empirical evidence for god, the disputation will be settled down (at least temporarily): you can demonstrate your assertion, people accept it – you fail to demonstrate your assertion, people reject it. Full Stop. Then, people will no longer feel they have to buy, read and research fantasies of thilosophers – people won’t be buying abstract mere fantasies of thilosophers and all those thilosophers will go bankrupt. That is why all thilosophers, let they be a theist or seemingly-atheist, bash New Atheism.

As New Atheism spreads, people won’t be fool enough to be fooled into being persuaded that they need to spend time, money and energy for useless questions like “does god exist? is the argument from morality sound? what is the nature of nature? what is the nature of time?” – the questions so-called philosophy has failed to settle down in 2500 years.

If you want to read more about baseless, urban-legend repetitions of neotheists on New Atheism being sciencism, read the following: https://new-atheism.org/2022/12/23/new-theist-hoaxes-1-new-atheists-are-sciencist/

Jester’s privilege is the ability and right of a jester to talk and mock freely without being retaliated or sanctioned or punished. Latest developments from UNO demonstrated that New Atheism has been right: that religions enjoy Jester’s Privilege.

The UNO’s attempt to suppress the Freedom of Speech and Expression when it comes to religions demonstrated how right New Atheism has been since its manifestation.

Currently, there are news (1, 2, 3) of UNO trying to pass a global law that bans people from exercising their right to freedom of speech when it comes to religions. Unsurprisingly, it was supported more than it was opposed:

That is not all, some countries which are usually considered rational and democratic are also trying to suppress Freedom of Speech when it comes to religion: Denmark and Finland. All all these attempts do is to remind us prominent New Atheists telling this truth long ago. One of the main things the prominent figures of New Atheism has been yelling is the fact that religions have what we call the Jester’s Privilege. Richard Dawkins put it in this way in his book The God Delusion:

A widespread assumption, which nearly everybody in our
society accepts – the non-religious included – is that religious faith
is especially vulnerable to offence and should be protected by an
abnormally thick wall of respect, in a different class from the
respect that any human being should pay to any other.

New Atheists have been vocal in attacking religions in an outspoken way. New Atheism’s prominent figures have expressed this call. And this, probably, is the demarcation between New Atheists and other “conventional” [so-called] atheists. Stenger described it in this way:

Here the New Atheists find themselves in conflict with many other atheists who prefer to accommodate religion and not challenge beliefs, even when those beliefs conflict with well-established science. However, the New Atheists say we should challenge the irrational thinking behind religious beliefs, including that of moderates, which can only help justify the more extreme activities, as well as motivate less extreme, but still dangerous, behavior.

Taken from: Victor Stenger – What is New About The New Atheism

Earlier, the conversation that sparked the Enlightenment too featured these 2 topics. Indeed, the beginning of the conversation of The Four Horsemen was on this issue. Richard Dawkins started:

One of the things we’ve all met is the accusation that we are strident or arrogant or vitriolic or shrill. What do we think about that?

to which a part of Daniel Dennett’s reply was great:

I came to realize that it’s a no-win situation. It’s a mug’s game. The religions have contrived to make it impossible to disagree with them critically without being rude.

and the conversation went on:

DENNETT: You know, they sort of play the hurt-feelings card at every
opportunity, and you’re faced with the choice of, Well, am I going to
be rude? Or am I going to—
DAWKINS: Say nothing, yes.
DENNETT: —articulate this criticism? Or I mean am I going to
articulate it or am I just going to button my lip and—?

but the main spot-on moment came from Sam Harris:

Well, that’s what it is to trespass a taboo. I think we’re
all encountering the fact that religion is held off the table of rational
criticism in some kind of formal way, even by, we’re discovering, our
fellow secularists and our fellow atheists. It leaves people to their
own superstitions. Even if it’s abject and causing harm, don’t look
too closely at it

As we see from the attepmts and the speeches of prominent New Atheists, Religions are granted Jester’s Privilege. And now, we should oppose those attempts. There is a rationale for this:

1. To begin with, it is his/her book, so, s/he can burn it, tear it, use it instead of toilet roll or as a wood for fire.
2. Religions are not private: they are ideologies that refer to societies, all individuals, all humankind. Thus, just like communism, you can mock it, you can scorn it, you can respect it.
3. Even if all ideologies, not religions only, were granted the same privilege, we should still be free to mock religions in anyway as those religions attack and insult us.

I am not going to list all the insults religions throw at others who do not subscribe to their nonsense, you can find them easily by googling and taking a look at their context. Despite all these, even many atheists display that “we shall respect religions” attitude. “Religions shall insult others as they wish, may religions discriminate, ostracize, may the religious be completely free and maintain the Jester’s Privilege: Religions should never be opposed!” You were brainwashed to be so, but now we tell: get rid of this brainwashing. Broke this Jester’s Privilege.

All in all, all rational and sane people should oppose UNO’s attempt to maintain the Jester’s Privilege religions have and join us fighting and mocking religions.

New Atheism – Rational People of the World, Unite!

You can not argue for some truth about the universe by saying that it would be nice if it were true

said Dawkins, addressing William Lane Craig who was talking gibberish (as always), emphasizing something like (not quoting verbatimly) “if atheism is true, then we are doomed to death and that is where theism comes: we are promised eternal life“. And the above quote was where the disputation came down to and settled down.

What Dawkins said there was actually a philosophical razor. I paraphrase Dawkins’ Razor as follows:

Just because something sounds nice does not entail that it is true.

The Dawkins’ Razor clearly reveals what kind of baseless dictations religions are. “If god exists, then, there is eternal life. So, god exists.” Every promise that we hear from the frauds are very nice-sounding but unfortunately, just because they are nice did not necessitate that their promises to be true. That is what makes Dawkins’ Razor important and that is why theists should be educated on this one, just like William Lane Craig was educated by Richard Dawkins.

We rational people hold that atheism is lack of delusion in fairytale character myths known as gods. Neotheists are famous for disputing this truth and dispute it often as “atheism is a belief that there are no gods” (for example: Graham Oppy). They do it with, in my eyes, three purposes:

1. That is how you sell your hobby (philosophy): if you can make it conventional that atheism is a belief that there are no gods, then you can keep on selling your arguments, elaborations and explanations about why there are no gods. At least, this way will increase your sells and rates.
2. Assigning burden of proof into atheists: “just like me, you too have to prove your case. If mine is unproven, so is yours.”
3. To take one down to quicksand with yourself: “I am unable to deal with the fact that my faith is irrational, but then, I am going to pull you down with myself.”

I can think of other reasons as well but I am not going to commentate on them. Attempts to shift the burden of proof into atheists, or at least make it shared, is probably the most common, and the most idiotic, cheap tactic of many theists and neo-theists.

As far as my observation goes, the most common way of this cheap tactic is the following:

if atheism is merely a lack of belief in God, then rocks, trees, and outhouses are all “atheists” because they too lack a belief in God. It doesn’t take any brains to “lack a belief” in something. A true atheist believes that there is no God.

taken from crossexamined.org, a Christian apologetics website.

Any functional brain could easily decipher the blatant manipulation here.

• Innocence, for example, is lack of crime and/or guilt – have you ever seen a neotheist arguing “no, innocence can not be as such, otherwise, rocks, trees, houses are all innocent. So, we shall define innocence as those who oppose crime exists”? If anyone argued so, feel free to quote and cite him/her.
• Homeless, for example, means “without home“, have you ever seen a neotheist objecting to this definition by arguing “no, homelessness can not mean lack of home, otherwise, rocks, trees etc all are homeless. So, we shall re-define homeless as someone who believes homes do not exist”? If anyone has ever argued as such, please, quote and cite him.

But this cheap tactic’s folly is beyond it. There are many ongoing wars (unfortunately) and we always try to evacuate the civilians from clash zones. What does civilian mean at all? Not belonging to an army (or to armed forces). Babies are considered civilians – have you ever seen a neotheist arguing “no no no. A baby can not be considered a civilian. We shall re-define civilianness as someone who opposes belonging to armed forces. Otherwise, rocks and trees are also civilians we have to transfer somewhere else as they do not belong to an army or any armed forces.” If we were to follow that neotheistic rationale, we would have to argue that babies can not be considered civilian and we would have to oppose the transfer of babies from warzones. Fortuneately though, this neotheistic way of arguing is not taken seriously by any sane person.

Now, you have seen that this neotheistic myth too is absurd and does not hold, just like all of them.

New Atheism – The Actual Salvation.

INTRODUCTION

Academic works by even Muslim theology departments explicitly and unequivocally admit that it was muslims who spreaded the myth on gospels (or the entire bible) being canonized in the Nicean Creed, as we will see in the next sections but a neotheist, who asserts to be an atheist himself, spreads this myth as if it belongs to [New] Atheists. In this article, we will see how clueless, ignorant and charlatan fraud neotheists are in general and Tim O’Neill in particular (though this is the only neotheist entity I know that spreaded this hoax, his audience is a good example of how ignorant neotheists are and how you can throw any lies at New Atheists without even being asked for a back up). In this article, you will be presented the following assessments from the contemporary scholarship and academy:

• A book being canonized in Nicene Creed dates back to 4th century Christian theologian, historian and Saint, Saine Jerome.
• The origin of the assertion of Nicene Creed canonizing books is the Eastern Christian church.
• The assertion that Nicene Creed chose canonical books is popularized by Muslims.
• Neotheist Tim O’Neill is a pseudo-atheist that slanders the New Atheist movement which seeks to cure people from religions and theism.

neotheist Hoax: “New Atheists Assert that Bible was Canonized in 4th Century”

A neotheist posted ‘an article’ titled “The Great Myths 4: Constantine, Nicea and the Bible”. According to this neotheist’s writing, a facebook group named “PHILOSOPHICAL ATHEISM” posted a meme in which it is stated that Constantine and his bishops voted for some books which currently constitutes the bible. Here is the meme this neotheist attributes to New Atheism:

Then, this neotheist labels this PHILOSOPHICAL Atheism group’s post as “New Atheist bad history”. The first make-fool-of is the idiosyncratic strawman of this neotheist: a factually wrong assertion of someone else is taken, patched into New Atheists and then claimed New Atheists are wrong. 

The second make-fool-of is that when something wrong is detected, that wrong is attributed to New Atheists and then refuted: the idea is clear, to play to the crowds consisted of the religious. If this neotheist attributed it to Muslims (as it really is), or, if those so many Muslims are rebutted for spreading this myth, then he will lose his muslim audience, why jeopardize it? Instead, just attack those already marginalized New Atheists, please your audience and sell more. Why not? After all, neotheism works.

The third make-fool-of is that this neotheist implies those atheists advised to “look it up” without they themselves looking it up:

The irony of this meme urging readers “Don’t just believe me.  Go look it up.” is particularly amusing.  But okay, let’s “look it up”.

Ok, let us look it up and see who the actual ignorant clueless bad historian is.

Then, the next blatantly false part is that this neotheist first states that the origin of this myth can be traced to Voltaire. But later on this neotheist gives the actual possible origin, an Eastern Orthodox document named Vetus Synodikon. Presenting Voltaire as the origin of this source is a strategic move, Voltaire is known to have fought cruelties named religions, thus, he was a New Atheist: Instead of naming the actual origin this myth, which was an Eastern Christian document, just smirch New Atheists: if the actual sinner, a theist, was acknowledged to have created this myth, this neotheist would not be selling to other theists, he would not be pleasing his audience but if a New Atheist is shown as guilty, then his audience would buy it, would applaud him.

Let us now look it up who spreaded this myth.

CONTEMPORARY SCHOLARSHIP: MUSLIMS SPREADED THE MYTH ON  BIBLE BOOKS BEING SELECTED IN NICENE CREED 

Contrary to neotheists, there are some non-neotheist theists who explicitly ADMITS that this myth is not only spreaded by Muslims but actually was asserted by Christians.The very first example I am going to show is the Islamic Encyclopedia by the Directorate of Religious Affairs of Turkey, they have an article on the Nicene Creed [1] and it has a section titled Nicene Creed in Islamic Sources. The most important part of this article is that it explicitly states the following (personal translation from Turkish below):

İslâm kaynaklarında Ahd-i Cedîd’i oluşturan kitapların, özellikle İnciller’in sayısının İznik Konsili’nde belirlendiği şeklinde ifadeler bulunmasına rağmen gerek ilk dönem konsil kararlarının kaydedildiği  kilise tarihi kitaplarında gerekse diğer hıristiyan kaynaklarında böyle bir bilgiye rastlanamamıştır.

In English: Despite the statements about books that constitute the New Testament (Ahd-Cedid), especially the number of gospels have been decided in Nicene Creed occurs in Islamic sources, such information is found in neither the books on Church books containing the earliest council decisions nor the other christian sources.

Here, The Islamic Encyclopedia of the Directorate of Religious Affairs of Turkey explicitly admits that the assertion which this neotheist Tim O’Neill presents as New Atheist bad history is popularized by Islamic sources. Then, the same article presents Rahmatullah Al Hindi as the spark of this myth’s spread, states that Al Hindi wrote that Christians religious scholars gathered in Nicea to discuss if the deuterocanonical books are to be reckoned among sacred texts and explicitly states that “despite such information not being present on christian sources”. Then, the encyclopedia shows Abdul Ahad Davud as the one who spreaded the idea that 27 books of the New Testament was chosen in Nicene Creed. But that is not all, according to the same article, Abdul Ahad Davud went so far as to assert that Arius, who defended unitarianizm, was pressured; 700 (seven hundred) scholars were kicked out in accordance with the command of Constantine and the remaining 318 scholars were forced to sign the Nicene Creed which states that the father and the son was from the same substance. 

Then, in the journal of the Faculty of Theology of the Marmara University, we see another non-fraud academic that acknowledges that this myth is spread by Muslims. In his article titled I. Nicene Creed (325) and Its Place in Islamic Sources [2], Associate Professor Dr. Ismail Taşpınar states that reports about gospels being selected in I. Niece Creed (325) is seen especially in the recent Islamic sources (page 39, 2nd paragraph, 1st sentence). Like the Islamic Encyclopedia of the Directorate of the Religious Affairs, Taşpınar too shows Rahmatullah Al Hindi as the one that sparked this myth and adds that neither the medieval Islamic sources nor the Christian sources featured such account (the following sentence of the just mentioned reference). But Dr. Taşpınar narrates that Al Hindi backs up his claim relying on the prologue by Jerome on the book of Judith which states that “found by the Nicene Council to have been counted among the number of the Sacred Scriptures”. As we can see, we have a 4th century Christian Saint who talks of at least one book being chosen as canonical in Nicene Creed.

Then, we have an Islamic Research Journal admitting that this myth is popularized by Muslims and Abdul Ahad Davud spreaded this myth. In his article titled “A Controversial Religious Council in Christian and Islamic Sources: Nicene Creed” in the Islamic Research Journal[3], Dr. Mustafa Sinanoğlu, who is an author at the Islamic Encyclopedia of the Directorate of the Religious Affairs of Turkey, narrates that Abdul Ahad Davoud wrote that 27 books of the New Testament have been selected from a tremendous numbers of books that would not fıt into a single library (page 14, 3rd paragraph). Also, Dr. Sinanoğlu accuses both Al Hindi and Abdul Ahad Davoud of not providing source for their claims on New Testament books being selected at this Creed (page 16, 2nd paragraph) and ends up stating that if it is not an assertion by them, then, it must be relying on another narratives.

Finally, neotheist Tim O’Neill himself talks about how Christian Theologian got the Vetus Synodikon published but he presents it as “medieval Byzantine work” only whereas it might well be an Eastern Orthodox point of view.

CONTEMPORARY MUSLIMS ASSERTING THAT THE BIBLE BOOKS WERE CHOSEN IN NICENE CREED

Just like in the past, there are still lots of popular Muslims that spread this myth. Yasir Qadhi is an example,here is a facebook writing[4] about it. Here is what he states:

Eventually, based on this Nicene Creed, four Gospels that now form the essence of the New Testament were selected to be part of the Bible, and all other gospels and manuscripts that didn’t support the Nicene creed were subsequently destroyed and their knowledge forever lost in history.

And here is his youtube narration about this topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tu707oWxGqM He has 556K subscribers, his video has been watched 110K times and if you read the comments, you will see muslims praising that Shayk.

I can cite many examples but no need to prolong the text. Let us move into conclusions.

CONCLUSIONS AND MORE

As we have seen, here is how clueless ignorant this neotheist Tim O’Neill is summarized:

• Patching a Christian-Muslim myth into Atheists.
• Patching a PHILOSOPHICAL Atheists’ myth into New Atheists.
• Being unaware of history.
• Being unaware of religious discussions.
• Being unaware of, ignorant of and clueless about the Book of Judith, Saint Jerome and Vetus Synodikon

But the main problem is that, it is almost impossible to be unaware of the fact that Muslims are still spreading this myth yet this neotheist is silent at all those Muslims yelling this myth and when an atheist, probably non-famous, non-influential, yells this myth – this neotheist immediately exclaims at NEW Atheists. It is not hard to understand the purposes of his moves: If he shouts at theists or PHILOSOPHICAL atheists, he will no longer be touted as “intellectual, unbiased, knowledgeable” person. If you want to be seen as an intellectual person without being so, just exclaim at New Atheists, then you will be seen as such.

As is clear from the previous 2 hoaxes by neotheists (1 and 2), neotheists deploy a propaganda strategy attributed to Nazis: “Just repeat your life thousand time and your lie will be seen as a fact.”

Neotheists attained an intellectual immunity in a way that they can throw any blatantly false slanders at New Atheists and can get away with it without being disputed, questioned, asked for a reference or any kind of scrutiny or back up. A neotheist website historyforatheists.com is the perfect illustration of neotheism.

Anyone who opposes New Atheism in anyway is a fraud, a charlatan, a liar, deceptive gold-digger that is seeking ways to sell more easily. Never trust any person who exclaims New Atheism because New Atheism is a movement that fights cruelties, a movement that stand for reason, science, thought, education, art and philosophy. If any of them prevails, cruelties legitimized as religions will be shaken; philosophy exploitation forced upon people due to theism will collapse: that is why even all those ostensibly atheist philosophers oppose New Atheism.

Outspoken Atheism – Thinking People of the World, Unite.

REFERENCES:

Reference informations all are given with-in the text, here, I am going to leave the links only through which you can access those citations

[1] https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/iznik-konsili 

[2] https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/article-file/162656 

[3] http://isad.isam.org.tr/vdata/sayi06/isad006_sinanoglu.pdf

[4] https://www.facebook.com/yasir.qadhi/posts/in-325-ad-at-the-council-of-nicaea-the-roman-emperor-constantine-gathered-a-larg/10152262511703300/