How the “New Atheists” Deradicalized Me

“New Atheism had taught me always to demand evidence; and the evidence revealed that, historically, political radicalism had been a major source of violence and inhumanity…”

The “New Atheists” played a crucial role in my personal and political development. It was their insistence on reason, logic, and evidence that made me question my radical left-wing views and led me to adopt a more nuanced perspective.

Raised Catholic, I had lost my faith years before I first came across New Atheism. The radical leftist and anarchist circles I was moving in were vehemently opposed to religion in all of its forms. The New Atheists, in particular Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens, appealed to me because their criticism of religion chimed with my pre-existing anti-religious outlook.

I was late to the party, though. My initial exposure to Hitchens coincided with his death. I remember watching his November, 2010 interview with Jeremy Paxman on BBC Newsnight shortly after he had passed away. Ravaged by cancer, Hitchens stood his ground with great wit and eloquence, his trademark contrarianism still very much intact. It did not take long for the Internet’s algorithms to point me towards Harris, Richard Dawkins, and other New Atheists.

Atheism, properly understood, is not a belief system but rather a skeptical approach to supernatural claims made by mere mortals. To quote Carl Sagan, “Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence.” Or, as Hitchens put it, “What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.” It took me a while to realize that the same logic could be applied to my beliefs, many of which were based on extraordinary claims, asserted without a shred of evidence.