What Does a Neo-Atheist Believe?

I don’t know the origins of the term neo-atheist, it may have been coined to describe people like Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and Sam Harris who are leading thinkers in the latest wave of western anti-religiosity. I admire these three men, and through reading them or about them (I can’t remember which) came upon the neo-atheist moniker, but that’s not why I use it. In fact I’m not sure any of them use the term, although I would like to think of myself as in the same intellectual company as these illustrious authors- at least in regard to our fundamental world view that is. No, I like the term because I think it is more accurate and aggressive than “agnostic”, which I never felt completely comfortable with.

By my definition, being a neo-atheist is an important position between that of agnostic and atheist. Atheism is an assertion that there is no god, which is as unprovable and unknowable as the opposite assertion. And agnosticism is just wishy washy. Neo-atheism does not assert that no god is possible, only that the existence of any of the gods created by man, from the very ancient past to this very second, is certainly impossible. Ahau-Kin (a Mayan sun deity), Zeus, and Allah are all put on the same plane and in their proper place.

So what does a neo-atheist believe? I believe that the principles of scientific inquiry are the purest and surest foundation upon which man can base his understanding of the universe, including his own existence. Scientific inquiry is the only proven means for discovering the truth.