I agree with you that cognitive biases and differing affective responses to religious people probably explain much of the negativity towards new atheists. That’s a good point too, about many people being ok with snark directed towards full blown creationists but not moderates, revealing a possible inconsistency.

However, even if non-rational factors are the causes of these beliefs/attitudes/behaviors, I’m still interested in the way people would discuss them, and people do this by offering reasons to justify their beliefs/attitudes/behaviors. So, if pressed, an anti-new-atheist should have reasons for not liking them, and I’m interested to know whether those reasons are (or would be) moral, epistemic, or prudential, even if the reasons did not actually *cause* the dislike. Because if someone cannot produce adequate reasons, this can sometimes be pointed out to her, and sometimes the affective response can be consequently refined. Although I am certainly not overly optimistic about the prospects of changing one’s attitudes towards all matters at will.

I’d actually spring for a more basic explanation: Affect. A lot of “old atheists” who are wary of snark directed at moderate religious beliefs are perfectly okay with snark directed at, say, full-blown Creationists… as long as you’re a conservative Christian rather than a conservative Muslim, of course, in which case your views demand respect and understanding in some historical context.

And I’m not trying to be dismissive here — I really think it just boils down to the cognitive biases which are discussed in moral psychology. “Old atheists” are more exposed to religious moderates and see them as ideological allies. This ties to the prudential arguments, but I think they go much deeper, since what is actually prudent often does not track these group biases.

For example, the other day, my mom (the token leftist in my life, I guess) approvingly mentioned a local hospital that was refusing to hire doctors that smoked, on grounds that someone who made such poor health choices in their personal life had no business managing the health of others. I mused as to whether this would be similar to a university refusing to hire theists in their scientific departments because clearly theists have such poor epistemological habits that they shouldn’t be in charge of educating future generations of scientists. Of course, to her this was completely different… until I replaced the generic theist with a Creationist, at which point OF COURSE these people had no business being professors! I’m sure that one could offer a strained explanation for the consistency of these views — but I think it’d just be a post hoc way of justifying some more-fundamental group biases.… Read More

Prudentially, I agree that going after religious moderates isn’t very productive for the Vast Atheist Agenda (hail Satan!), but I don’t think that strategic concerns are what motivates the backlash against New Atheists.

I would have guessed it was mostly the moral objection, but sometimes it’s hard to tell. Claims like that the new atheists are “arrogant” could be read as moral or epistemic objections. Although, I doubt many men on the street really think explicitly in terms of whether the new atheists are justified in drawing their conclusions.