Soft-core atheism

John Haught criticizes the spate of recent "God is evil/dead/non-existent" books for espousing a much softer, blander atheism than the bold atheist frameworks of the past:

[T]he recent atheist authors want atheism to prevail at the least possible expense to the agreeable socioeconomic circumstances out of which they sermonize. They would have the God-religions—Judaism, Christianity and Islam—simply disappear, after which we should be able go on enjoying the same lifestyle as before. People would then continue to cultivate essentially the same values as before, including altruism, but they would do it without inspired books and divine commandments. Educators would teach science without intrusions from creationists, and students would learn that evolution rather than divine creativity is the ultimate explanation of why we are the kind of organisms we are. Only propositions based on evidence would be tolerated, but the satisfaction of knowing the truth about nature by way of science would compensate for any ethical constraints we would still have to put on our animal instincts.

This, of course, is precisely the kind of atheism that nauseated Nietzsche and made Camus and Sartre cringe. For them, atheism of this sort is nothing more than the persistence of life-numbing religiosity—it is religiosity in a new guise. These more muscular critics of religion were at least smart enough to realize that a full acceptance of the death of God would require an asceticism completely missing in the new atheistic formulas.

The blandness of the new soft-core atheism lies ironically in its willingness to compromise with the politically and culturally insipid kind of theism it claims to be ousting. Such a pale brand of atheism uncritically permits the same old values and meanings to hang around, only now they can become sanctified by an ethically and politically conservative Darwinian orthodoxy. If the new atheists' wishes are ever fulfilled, we need anticipate little in the way of cultural reform aside from turning the world's places of worship into museums, discos and coffee shops.

He makes a good point.  When I compare the worldview of Christopher Hitchens, for example, with the worldview expressed by the actions of Islamic militants, I'm tempted to believe that the naked public square is not such a bad thing, and that a future in which cultural norms are grounded more firmly in a collective agnosticism about God's existence (or at least relevance) appears much rosier than the alternative.  But then I catch myself, remembering that Islamic militants are not inescapably the sole occupants of the religion-friendly public square, and that the world in which Hitchens provides such wonderful conversation-starters may look quite different if his worldview ultimately holds sway.