(I have amended the title of this post based on feedback and critique, to more acutely reflect the target of my grievance)
This could be a bad take, but, hear me out.
I was once a subscriber to r/atheism a long time ago. I was absolutely a smug ass fucking atheist. I'm not sure what it was that caused this world view I held to change, but as time marched on I've grown incredibly suspect of anyone who willingly identifies themselves as an "atheist".
I grew up going to church every week. That slowed as I got older. I remember my grandmother telling me I needed to cut my hair at church, and telling her "I have hair like Jesus, you think Jesus should cut his hair?" I learned later we stopped going to church because they started preaching about antiabortion and my mother wanted nothing to do with that.
So I was at least fairly indifferent about religion by the time I was in highschool. I remember Atheism giving me a sense of superiority that was deeply rooted in "facts and logic" despite being a severely under read dipshit in highschool. I'm sure I spent countless amounts of time debating people in comments, being a general idiot on the internet. Probably passively consumed a bunch of Hitchens work/ideas without having read any of his books.
At some point I stopped putting a lot of thought into it, and this smug sensibility was pushed into the back of my brain. Then in 2020, like a lot of people, I was swept up in this rise in socialist thinking, leading me to change my entire perspective on the world.
I think it wasn't until recently, when I was having a conversation with someone I knew and the topic of Islam came up that I realized how much I had distances myself from this smug atheist perspective. They said something about Islam being an "inherently violent religion", and my gut, instinctual reaction was to blurt out "What? What makes you think that's true?" They responded with something being in the Quran, and again, like water from a faucet the words "Listen, maybe that's true, maybe its not, but Islamic people are not a monolith." poured out of me and the conversation kind of died on the vine.
The reason I'm even thinking about this today is because, of all things, I watched the Asmongold "apology" video he published today. He attributes his shit ass takes about Palestinians being an inferior culture and thus worthy of genocide to his "hatred for religious extremism of all kinds". He goes on to say that he was or is a "r/atheist enjoyer" and a self professed "atheist". It really confirmed a lot of assumptions I have about atheism that I guess have been lingering in my skull.
Those assumptions being that Atheism is, on it's face, a religion in and of itself. It's belief is in that of non-belief. It has missionaries like most other religious belief systems, seeking to secularize communities and cultures. It believes it is the one true religion and that all other religions are false religions with false gods. It demonizes all other practitioners of these false religions indiscriminately, believing that they are either upholding their wicked systems of oppression, or are directly complicit in them. Countless books have been written about the its theology and the logic of its faith. It is a fully fledged faith, in that you have to believe in this non-belief, on faith that you will be proven correct when you die.
Not only all this but its clear to me now that Atheism is the western liberal religious belief system. Its fully compatible with western chauvinism, as it demonizes the wests enemies on the grounds of their systems of belief, which are regularly the reason for the wests interventions. Western wars are "secular" wars and as such they are atheist colonial projects as well. The idea that modernizing a backwards 3rd world country would bring about liberal democracy and with it liberal values. Atheism is liberal values.
Now this isn't to say that religious violence doesn't exist or that religious extremism is also a fable, but instead that Atheism and its ideas are a form of religious persecution, it breeds the same phobic believes that other religions develop about the ones they are attempting to conquer. The Atheist believes that through the abolition of religion, via changing hearts and minds, a entire form of violence will be removed as well. It completely denies the material realities and conditions that cause religious extremism to begin with. Because of this, it doesn't recognize that to achieve a secular world, it will only be done so through violence.
Somehow the atheist believes that religion and culture are all somehow disconnected and isolated phenomenon. That somehow you can remove religion from the equation without damaging or altering culture. That some how this secularization will happen quietly and without conflict.
When I'm asked if I'm religious I say no. if asked if I'm an atheist, I say no. The only thing I would identify as in this context is as a materialist. It matters not to me what lays beyond the vale of life, but what does matter to me is what is happening here and now. Pain and suffering exists here in this conscious reality. Happiness can be achieved here in this conscious reality. That happiness can include religious and spiritual belief.
I have no conclusions here. This is just the ramblings of an old wizard. If I'm off base here please tell me. Interested in your perspectives as always comrades.
See, I grew up amongst normal atheists. I spent half my time with retired revolutionaries in a communist retirement community in Wuhan, China. The last of the elves to see the Light of the Two Trees of Valinor. So a lot more Maoist than the general Chinese population. Some comrades who were stationed in Shaanxi throughout the war(s), even some who participated in the long march.
After all, as l'internationale goes, 从来就没有什么救世主，也不靠神仙皇帝/Il n'est pas de sauveurs suprêmes Ni Dieu, ni César, ni tribun.
Some still held cultural beliefs that could be seen as a religious practice but it was not to serve any religion. Some who had seen the worst of the second war were more adamant that there are no powers above. I suppose if you witnessed Nanking during/immediately after WWII, you'd be angry at the gods for standing by and doing nothing. How good can the gods be if they stood by and watched when even the literal Nazi John Rabe had enough humanity to try and stop the slaughter? But understanding that the people have their beliefs was also a part of it. The most toxic and harmful parts were purged in the Cultural Revolution, who's to stop someone from joining the monks or having a statue of 观音 and lighting incense? The very people we fight for, the people who sheltered us during the Long March, the people who took up arms with us in the name of liberation. If the anti science, anti feminist and counter revolutionary aspects were purged, what harm is there in people observing holidays, praying and restricting their diets? To fast during Ramadan, to walk the path of the Buddha, to honour ones ancestors, to light fireworks to scare off the Nian, etc. Those things don't have to be toxic.
But upon moving to the west, atheism became Atheism, it was an identity. It was commodified and used to sell laptop stickers and books. It was a brand. To be Atheist is to debate Christians and buy Richard Dawkins books and share Hitchens' quotes and feel holier than thou. "In this moment, I am euphoric" sort of thing. To be Atheist is to be insufferable. Worse, they seem to just abandon the Christian part of Christian Chauvinism and just become Chauvinists. In some aspects, it's not only feeling smugly superior to the brown people believing in primitive gods or the "Moslems", it's to also feel smugly superior to Evangelicals, too. It's the next evolution of being a chauvinist. Critical support for their opposition of Young Earth Creationists and anti abortion dickheads, yes, but you cannot excuse their support for Western imperialism, literal and cultural, in the global south.
I guess in the end, atheism is a land of contrasts.
It was always sus that the disbelief in something was its own identity. "Atheist" should've just stuck as an adjective like "irreligious." Imagine going around calling yourself an irreligionist. Hell, irreligionist makes more sense since an irreligionist would hypothetically be someone who neither practices nor believes while an atheist could always practice a religion without necessarily believing in the metaphysical trappings of the religion. The whole "atheism is just another religion" spiel is people correctly observing that Western atheists still practice and navigate the world like Western Protestants even if they no longer profess belief in the God of Abraham and no longer believe in the infallibility of the Bible.
It's a thoroughly undialectical and idealist understanding of a social phenomenon, in this case religion, that I think dialectical materialists should be above.
This is why I generally identify as agnostic
I'm not out to prove anybody wrong, I just have other things I think are way more important