The particular neckbeardy, fedora wearing, Sam Harris listening trend of atheism was a pretty clear reaction to the evangelical psychosis of the Bush administration.
Other geriatrics here can attest that the character of Christianity at the time was way different than it is now. These days, the fascists are more "culturally Christian" and avoid overt bible apologism. But back in the day, these people were constantly on TV spewing young earth creationism and other shit, and they were largely taken seriously. It's hard to believe now how much time was spent "debating" evolution back then. The atheist backlash at least affected discourse aesthetically for some time, making these views laughable, which deplatformed a lot of evangelicals or made them hide their power levels on TV.
Some argue that this brand of atheism justifies imperialism. It does so really only in theory. There really is no material basis for atheists in the US to justify an invasion anywhere in the world. The truth is that Christianity is still a far more powerful force for imperialism. Bush said that God told him to invade Iraq. I don't see any president saying anytime soon that the US needs to secularize a country through force.
If fundamentalist and political religiosity were defeated, then belligerent atheism would dissolve, but the reverse is not true.
Overall, it really does seem like people over emphasize this group of internet no-lifers because of the cultural cringe they manifested.
Nu-atheism always had a white chauvinism element to it, which was why it was so quickly weaponized to serve Islamophobic ends. Their whole understanding of history is that humans were enslaved by superstition and religion until a certain group of humans (ie white people) realized that superstitions and God aren't real. Their partial freedom from the God delusion lead to a flourishing of human thought and achievement, first realized as the Enlightenment, which then lead to them ushering forth the Industrial Revolution upon which their thriving societies are built on. The rest of humanity is stuck as backwards people living in mud huts thinking praying to the rain god would give them rain because they're still enslaved by superstition and God, so it is the duty of the atheists of the secular world to free the rest of humanity from the darkness of God.
This is just typical missionary white chauvinist bullshit. It's no wonder they would eventually "find God" again once it became more in vogue to embrace religion. Perhaps the rise of China has something to do with it. Once a non-European country ruled by an atheist ideology begins to rise, suddenly "atheism is the key to human progress and civilization" begins to lose its luster.
This makes a lot of sense.
I always wondered why so many of these dudes who would openly mock religion took such a hard right turn and became alt right christo fascists themselves. Really weirded me out.
Didn't Dawkins himself turn into an anti-muslim lunatic? Not to mention Sam Harris of course.
Speaking of which, one of my favourite Zizek quotes is "People ask me why I support the death penalty. It's because Sam Harris is still alive." :che-laugh:
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from this one would locate the catalyst for pop atheism in the 2000s being the fall of the soviet union :thinkin-lenin:
That genuinely might be the case. There was always a great deal of ire directed at the Soviets on theocratic grounds. When they were gone, that habit of religious rage had to go somewhere . . .
Carl Sagan had a book about that, it was called, "The Demon-Haunted World". It was a best-seller, of course.
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If the PLA had not marched into Tibet, still today they would be living in that demon-haunted world and serving the lamas.
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