>Jonathan Derbyshire writes: Jeremy Bentham, his disciple John Stuart Mill once wrote, would always ask of a proposition or belief, âIs it true?â By contrast, Benthamâs contemporary Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Mill observed, thought âWhat is the meaning of it?â was a much more interesting question.
Todayâs New Atheists âRichard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett and the late Christopher Hitchens principal among them â are the heirs of Bentham, rather than Coleridge. For them, religion â or the great monotheistic faiths, at any rate â are bundles of beliefs (about the existence of a supernatural being, the origins of the universe and so on) whose claims to truth donât stand up to rational scrutiny. And once the falsity of those beliefs has been established, they imply, there is nothing much left to say.<
http://www.newstatesman.com/lifestyle/religion/2013/03/god-dead-long-live-our-souls
Todayâs New Atheists âRichard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett and the late Christopher Hitchens principal among them â are the heirs of Bentham, rather than Coleridge. For them, religion â or the great monotheistic faiths, at any rate â are bundles of beliefs (about the existence of a supernatural being, the origins of the universe and so on) whose claims to truth donât stand up to rational scrutiny. And once the falsity of those beliefs has been established, they imply, there is nothing much left to say.<
http://www.newstatesman.com/lifestyle/religion/2013/03/god-dead-long-live-our-souls
