Attribution Biases of the New Atheists
If you are doing research into the new atheism, I highly recommend Amaranth Amarasingam’s article “To Err in Their Ways: The Attribution Biases of the New Atheists” in vol. 39 no. 4 (2010) issue of Studies in Religion. Here is part of the abstract:
“This paper contends that one of the fundamental arguments put forth by the new atheists – that religion poisons everything or that religion is responsible for much of the evil in the world – falls victim to one of the best established theories of interpersonal and intergroup relations in social psychology: the fundamental attribution error. Insights gleaned from social psychology are especially useful for critiquing the new atheism. Instead of simply arguing that the new atheists ‘over-generalize,’ social psychological studies on the nature of individual and group attribution provide the tools needed to launch a more substantive critique.”
It was an exceptionally well written article.
Hi Stephen,
I stumbled across this post because I noticed that someone had been forwarded to my blog from the ‘possibly related posts’ section. I have done a bit of research into the New Atheism, and in fact have an article being published in The International Journal for the Study of New Religions on the topic next month.
I read this Amarasingam article in December and wrote a response… I can’t really remember what I said tbh… I think it was a mixed review. But here it is: http://religionandmore.wordpress.com/2010/11/30/do-the-new-atheists-err-in-their-ways-a-response-to-amarnath-amarasingam/
Are you doing research into this area yourself?
I shall endeavour to have a look through your blog when I have a moment.
All the best,
Chris
Thanks for this. I appreciate your response. By the way, in your article writing, keep us in mind Hope’s Reason: A Journal of Apologetics. We are a peer reviewed print and online journal. Check us out at http://www.apologeticsjournal.com.
No worries. Will do if it ever comes up 🙂