This is personal for me, because I'm just old enough to have been active and around for that weird time in Dubya years when it finally started to become permissible, even cool, to call oneself atheist in at least some parts of the United States, especially on college campuses like the one I went to.

I kept in contact with scores of people that I had close ties with from the early 2000s, but watching the followers of the "Four Horsemen," as well as the horsemen themselves (fuck Sam Harris in particular, the quack hack), lead their flock in an increasingly reactionary direction was disturbing. Dawkins in particular had many swans to wrestle, especially against even the slightest attempts to make the movement about anything in particular other than dunking on religious people and feeling smart about it.

I saw the "dunk on fundies" video makers become "dunk on feminists and SJWs" almost overnight, around the time the Gamergate reactionary movement began.

To summarize though, it freaks me out how many of my old New Atheist college contacts started calling themselves "culturally Christian" (which means lots of tradwife craving and authoritarian and colonial aspirations, minus the inconvenient deity part) and even started becoming subscribers to Jordan Peterson.

Wild ride, buckos. :agony-yehaw:

  • doublepepperoni [none/use name]
    ·
    edit-2
    3 years ago

    Oh boy, Elevatorgate

    TW: sex pestery

    spoiler

    Young sceptic Youtuber goes to con

    As she tries to leave for her hotel room late at night, Sam Harris or whomever muscles his way into the elevator and propositions her for sex

    She is understandably upset by this and later writes a blog post about the experience without naming names and how older men trying to leverage their fame and power to sleep with younger women is gross and bad for the movement

    Dick fucking Dawkins shows up in her comment section to apologise to an imagined Saudi Arabian woman about how Western feminists are too busy whining about being innocently flirted with to save her from getting stoned to death

    Also I think a bunch of skeptodudes shat their pants about how crazy feminists want to ban guys from looking at or talking to women at events

    • UlyssesT [he/him]
      hexagon
      ·
      edit-2
      3 years ago

      The "Dear Muslima" letter launched a million fedoras straight toward the then-upcoming Trump campaign.

        • UlyssesT [he/him]
          hexagon
          ·
          edit-2
          3 years ago

          Gamergate, Trump campaign, same shit different year.

          :shrug-outta-hecks:

          Helen may have launched a thousand ships, but they had to cross an ocean first to get to Troy.

          In our modern case, an ocean of gamers. Gamers. :heated-gamer-moment:

    • BeamBrain [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Was it Sam Harris? I thought the guy's name was never revealed.

    • sooper_dooper_roofer [none/use name]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Dick fucking Dawkins shows up in her comment section to apologise to an imagined Saudi Arabian woman about how Western feminists are too busy whining about being innocently flirted with to save her from getting stoned to death

      Don't forget how "all catcalling is done by urban Black people" but when a creepy white guy asks a rando girl for sex "hey, he was just ASKING, relax"