The "New Atheism" movement?

Here is a link to an article I've recently read entitled “The New Atheism; No Heaven. No Hell. Just Science. Inside the Crusade Against Religion.”

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.11/atheism.html .

This article made the front cover of the November issue of Wired Magazine. Take and look and let's write the editors at editor@wiredmag.com to let them what you think.

Here's my response:

To Mr. Gary Wolf and the Editors of Wired magazine,

At first after reading this article I really would not have considered this a credible scientific article in any scientific community since this article presents no evidences (or even hints of any) that supports the claims made but only seems to attack people of faith. However, I made the mistake of reading the article first before really taking the title of it in, "The New Atheism; No Heaven. No Hell. Just Science. Inside the Crusade Against Religion". The title is actually shocking because this information about the "New Atheism" movement is being presented as if the scientific community should just accept the movement because the movement is said to be based on "reason".

People have been trying to discredit religion and the Bible for 2000 years. What makes this "New Atheism" movement different than its predecessors? As explained in the article the "New Atheism" movement desires to be more aggressive but the primary difference is that this movement will condemn not only belief in God but also "respect for belief in God" and actively recruit those who believe the same. Again, this is nothing new under the sun as the Nazi's, Soviets, and Maoists were known for their recruiting efforts directed towards people who had a disrespect for belief in God. If the Atheism movement is so firmly based on reason within the "intelligent" scientific community why are the methods of the movement changing, presumably? Where is the evidence that "highly intelligent people are mostly atheists"? Maybe, this is true for the people Mr. Dawkins considers, "highly intelligent" but to even assume a statement of that sort could be proved to be true would be presumptuous. What level of intelligence is "highly intelligent" and about which subjects does the person need to have knowledge of to be "highly intelligent"? These are only basic questions brought up in the article and the answers to these questions could be debated for hours.

In the article the Atheism movement is described as stagnate because atheists are unconfident of their beliefs and not because Atheism lacks substance. If this is the case, then this would be the perfect opportunity for Mr. Dawkins, Mr. Harris, Mr. Dennett, or Mr. Wolf the author of the article to answer or explain the following with verifiable facts and sound judgment to defend their atheism and their "new" movement.

The scripture in the Bible is considered errant in many ways by some but scripture actually possesses a far greater knowledge of basic scientific facts than humans have had over the years.

In Job 26:7 (1520 B.C.) the earth is described as hanging upon nothing. In the 6th Century B.C. the astronomer Anaximander was one of the first to recognize that the earth most likely did not have any type of foundation.

In Genesis 15:15 (1400 B.C.) and Jeremiah 33.22 (600 B.C.) scripture states that the stars are too many to be numbered. In 150 B.C. the astronomer Hipparchus stated his count of the stars stood at 1026. In 150 A.D Ptolemy counted and gives a figure of 1056. The famous atheist Carl Sagan estimated the count to be 25 sextillion stars. There is verifiable evidence that this figure is incorrect because today's astronomers are still counting.

Moses told the Israelites in Leviticus 17:11-14 that the "life of a creature is in the blood". Many of the earliest physicians practiced bloodletting as a method to get rid of certain diseases. George Washington actually died because of severe blood loss and not his severe cold.

The First Law of Thermodynamics states that neither matter nor energy can be either created or destroyed. This law disproved Fred Hoyle's "Steady State" theory at the time that said energy/matter in the universe was constantly being created. Moses states in Genesis 2:1 that ""the heavens and earth were completed in all their vast array".

The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that energy will tend to distribute equally among the accessible energy states of the system until the system reaches a state of thermodynamic equilibrium. Stated simply this says that everything on the earth and including the earth is in a state of decay. The Bible hints at this in Isaiah 51:6, Psalm 102.26, and Hebrews 1:11 saying the earth is "wearing out like a garment".

These are only a few items in medicine, the astronomical, and physical sciences that verify that the Bible had knowledge of the sciences before the human race. There are many other ideas in the fields of archaeology, biology, and oceanography that verify this pattern. My main question is how could the Bible have foretold these things if there isn't a God who created all the sciences?

The reality is most atheists do not believe not because there is no scientific evidence available for all to research but because they choose not to believe. I challenge Mr. Dawkins to really examine Christianity. I do not believe he has done so yet because of his statement,

"As long as we accept the principle that religious faith must be respected simply because it is religious faith, it is hard to withhold respect from the faith of Osama bin Laden and the suicide bombers."

The teachings of Christ specifically warn us against accepting ideas in the realm of religious faith that go against Christ's teachings about love. In this statement it appears that Mr. Dawkins has been swayed more by the media/culture's opinion of how faith should be handled rather than what the scriptures actually proclaim.

So if this challenge happens to get to Mr. Dawkins I pray that he will truly accept this challenge for his movement and with all of his passion let the world know what he finds.

Regards,
Ty Mccathran