Alex O'Connor

And it's indebted to the so-called Four Horsemen, mostly Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris.

Daniel Dennett wasn't quite as fierce, you know.

But these guys...

You've got a biologist, an evolutionary biologist in Richard Dawkins, a journalist in Christopher Hitchens, a neuroscientist, although I don't know if he did anything further than his studies, Sam Harris.

And then you've got the philosopher, Daniel Dennett.

And notice that the philosopher is the one who's the least critical in that regard and outgoing, although he had a lot to say about religion.

The reason why these guys in other disciplines were getting involved is because Richard Dawkins was annoyed that young earth creationists were saying you can't teach evolution in schools.

Christopher Hitchens was getting annoyed that religious justifications were being used for geopolitical terrorism.

That was their kind of line of attack.

And so to think that they would be talking about that kind of stuff, that Hitchens would be sort of standing up and complaining about the sort of the messianic undertones of the Israeli-Palestine conflict, and then suddenly start going, but you know, I think that Brahmin and Atman are maybe the same thing.

But I want to critique that idea by, you know, appealing to the rival.

It just seems ridiculous to me.

So I think new atheism, no.

But that's because within Eastern religions, you have the same kind of conflicts going on, which I don't think that West knows as much about.

But also the kind of engagement I have is not about that.

Like I say, I'm not interested so much in the deities and the gods and the sects.

I'm interested in the philosophical traditions.

And I don't think the new atheists were even interested in the Western philosophical traditions.

They were interested in the practical reality of religion.

Religion is a force for evil.