Which I think has been blown out of the water so many times (at the very least, it’s easy to make clear that whatever such a claim is, scientific it ain’t) it’s kind of funny when it pops up again. Krauss’ book was such a fiasco.

They’re atheist leaders in the sense that they are atheists who tend to be advancing a particular point of view. But where are the accomodationists who can reasonably be called activists for atheism?

There’s Michael Ruse (not a fan of him) who tends to argue against the New Atheists. But what atheist activism does he engage in otherwise, aside from disliking intelligent design – which isn’t supposed to be an atheist/theist thing anyway? I think a similar pattern follows for most accomodationists: they express their disagreements with the New Atheists, they mention they’re atheists… and then they go back to their interests, which usually has little to do with atheism.

Maybe I’m missing some. Can you give me some examples?

The best I can piece together is that the idea is that they’ve gotten down to so fundamental a level that they’ve mapped all possible things that could interact with particles, and so there’s no room for any other mechanism to interact with natural things, thus no possible supernatural mechanisms, which is what I loosely described above. I’m not taking that idea on directly here, but pointing out how that idea doesn’t really address the supernatural claims that are under discussion here.

The GLAAD/NAMBLA example actually seems to support this somewhat. Part of the reason I can say that NAMBLA is not representative of ‘the LGBT movement’ is because of the other groups and leaders who exist in contrast, and who really are leading a movement. If NAMBLA was basically the only organization in town talking about things related (however loosely) to LGBT issues, then I’d question whether an LGBT movement existed in a meaningful way beyond NAMBLA. Likewise with atheism, the New Atheists are not only comprised of very visible leaders who behave a certain way, but the actual atheist groups which exist embrace them wholeheartedly.

So if you tell me that you’re dealing with the Atheist Movement, but the one that exists above and beyond the New Atheists, I’m going to end up asking what this movement is. It’s apparently a movement with no leaders, no organizations, and which is only bound together by, perhaps, having some belief in common – and this belief happens to be one that demands zero action (in principle, an atheist could be completely apathetic about prayer in school, or even secularization.) To me that’s a little like talking about America’s anti-monarchy-movement. Okay, I get that monarchy isn’t exactly a popular choice in America. Plenty of people would probably reflexively share that sentiment. But I don’t think there’s an anti-monarchy-movement.

So, if you look at religious groups, you have to note that the leaders of the religions themselves are generally very official and very organized. They have PR people who make sure that the message is clear and on target, and that they don’t use any methods that might tick people off. Which means that they tend to be less insulting or jerkish than others, because PR would calculate the precise time to be passionate and only act then, which is why they use political power more to achieve their goals than appeals to the masses. But if you look at individuals, there are a lot of religious and/or right-wing individuals that are jerks and quite popular, or at least were (Limbaugh, and the head of that one Catholic organization that I ignore because, well, he ain’t the Pope or my local priest so why should I care, etc, etc).

Yes, the WBC is a fringe organization, but only in being an organization that seems to follow those aggressive principles. While you can call Dawkins et al leaders, they aren’t really the leaders of influential organizations — they may lead organizations, but those organizations are not yet influential as such — and so are grassroots leaders, and a lot of grassroots leaders are aggressive and, yes, even jerks … across all movements.