Fundamentalist Scientism

 Get Religion reports Oxford Univ press is releasing a book “The Evolution of Atheism: The Politics of a Modern Movement” (Oxford University Press). that has a full, secular and well documented book that essentially says the "new atheism" is not just wrong, but it is passe, because it ignores modern social science among other things.

To LeDrew, current atheism is much more than a mere critique of religious faith or absence of belief. It “ignores the reservoirs of knowledge offered by the social sciences, which add complexities to our understanding of religion that the New Atheists prefer to ignore, indulging in the kind of willful ignorance that they disparage religion for promoting.” Therefore, it’s “an ideology,” defined as “a schematic or rigid framework of preconceived ideas that shape, and thus distort, understanding.” It must exclude social scientists’ thinking about religion and obscure “social reality.”

so why is it popular? It's about power, not truth.

The New Atheism is “absolutist,” he asserts, and “ultimately about power.” It wants to eradicate any “challenges to scientific authority,” whether from supposedly “pre-modern” religions or “post-modern” social science. In his view, this movement is neither “liberal” nor “progressive,” and in actuality is fostering a growing political right wing.