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Category: The Enlightenment

Ted McCormick
Interview: Ted McCormick on Steven Pinker’s Enlightenment

Interview: Ted McCormick on Steven Pinker’s Enlightenment

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My latest guest on the History for Atheists video channel is Associate Professor Ted McCormick. Ted is a specialist in intellectual history and the history of science at Concordia University in Canada. He examines the intersections between science, technology, economy and empire in the early modern era. Recently, he has taken an interest in how the concept of “the Enlightenment” has been taken up as something of an ideological cause by some popular writers. In particular he has critiqued the…

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Religious Wars and Violence
The Great Myths 12: Religious Wars and Violence

The Great Myths 12: Religious Wars and Violence

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That religion is uniquely prone to violence is a truism anti-theistic atheists assume almost without question. The cliché that more people have died in wars over religion than any other cause is a unassailable dictum among atheist activists, and religious violence is a driving motivation for their zealotry. But, on closer inspection, this idea becomes increasingly incoherent and actually leads several New Atheists into some ethically paradoxical positions. The idea that religion is essentially and particularly violent is a founding…

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An Islamic “Reformation”? – Pseudo History meets Politics

An Islamic “Reformation”? – Pseudo History meets Politics

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New Atheists generally acknowledge that it was the 9/11 attacks that gave their anti-theistic movement its initial impetus. Not surprisingly, several of their leading lights, led by Dawkins, Harris and comedian Bill Maher, have become trenchant critics of Islam as a key example of the toxicity of unfettered religion. These critics therefore lionise the ex-Muslim atheist Ayaan Hirsi Ali and support her calls for an Islamic equivalent to the Protestant Reformation. But is this based on good history? Ayaan Hirsi…

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