Reza Aslan: Sam Harris and “New Atheists” aren’t new, aren’t even atheists
EXCLUSIVE: Renowned scholar calls Harris, Dawkins anti-theists, and as dogmatic, fundamentalist as true believers
The earliest known English record of the term “anti-theist” dates back to 1788, but the first citation of the word can be found in the 1833 edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, where it is defined as “one opposed to belief in the existence of a god” (italics mine). In other words, while an atheist believes there is no god and so follows no religion, an anti-theist opposes the very idea of religious belief, often viewing religion as an insidious force that must be rooted from society – forcibly if necessary.The late Christopher Hitchens, one of the icons of the New Atheist movement, understood this difference well. “I’m not even an atheist so much as I am an antitheist,” he wrote in his “Letters to a Young Contrarian.” “I not only maintain that all religions are versions of the same untruth, but I hold that the influence of churches, and the effect of religious belief, is positively harmful.”
Anti-theism is a relatively new phenomenon. But atheism is as old as theism itself. For wherever we find belief in gods we find those who reject such beliefs. The American anthropologist Clifford Geertz thought he could trace atheism all the way back to Neanderthal communities. Atheism is certainly evident in some of the earliest Vedic writings from the Indian subcontinent. The Rig Veda, composed sometime around 1500 B.C., openly questions belief in a divine creator:
"But, after all, who knows, and who can say
Whence it all came, and how creation happened?
The gods themselves are later than creation,
So who knows truly whence it has arisen?"
How far back one traces the concept of atheism depends on how one defines the word. The term “atheist” is derived from the Greek a-theos, meaning “without gods,” and was originally a pejorative for those whose actions were deemed impious or immoral. To the Greeks, an atheist didn’t necessarily reject the existence of the gods. He merely acted as though the gods did not exist or were unaware of his actions.
Unfortunately, this historical connection between lack of belief and lack of morals is one that still plagues atheism today, despite studies showing atheists to be, as a whole, less prejudiced, less willing to condone violence, and more tolerant of sexual, ethnic and cultural differences than many faith communities.
