On that note, I'd like make an observation as someone who's not a cis anglo saxon. I wasn't raised Christian and so I'm pretty much ignorant of that entire world, so please bear with me. I've always been atheist but I always saw an incredibly aggressive and vile undercurrent of hate within the 'New Atheist' movement and it's lead me to realize that I've met way more tolerant religious people in the US than I have met nonshit-head 'fundamental' atheists/agnostics. I think the Atheist movement in the country is way past the point of being a sort of revolt against oppression coming from religious entities in the country. The New Atheists were a reaction to something else, and I can't quite put my finger on it.
I just genuinely trust religious people more to not be complete pieces of shit with regards to class, gender, and race. Maybe I'm crazy and don't know enough about the world.
I've always seen the New Atheists as a kind of very thin intellectual cover to spread Islamophobia. It wasn't a reaction to something oppressive so much as a lurching, malformed twisted response to 9/11 as a way to get the fundamentalist Christians and the more cosmopolitan liberal types in the same side. New Atheism was the by product. They spent so much focus on Christianity because that's who they were around, but their main focus of hatred was always Islam. Now so many of these same people are overt reactionaries I'd say the intellectual cover worked well. It did what it was supposed to do.
Also there is genuine oppression perpetrated by religious groups in the USA, largely cults and evangelical groups brainwashing LGBTQ kids or destroying their lives. You'll notice that was hardly ever the focus for the new atheist currents. They were more focused on wacky creationists or justifying imperialist invasions.
I grew up Catholic down in Texas, so I was in a bit of a weird place. I don't know that I'd say I would trust religious people more. But there's definitely a generational gap in the attitudes of religious Boomers and religious Millennials. Cultural conservatism is a hell of a drug, but once you kick that habit you just end up with normal people who have a few eclectic superstitions and beliefs.
On that note, I'd like make an observation as someone who's not a cis anglo saxon. I wasn't raised Christian and so I'm pretty much ignorant of that entire world, so please bear with me. I've always been atheist but I always saw an incredibly aggressive and vile undercurrent of hate within the 'New Atheist' movement and it's lead me to realize that I've met way more tolerant religious people in the US than I have met nonshit-head 'fundamental' atheists/agnostics. I think the Atheist movement in the country is way past the point of being a sort of revolt against oppression coming from religious entities in the country. The New Atheists were a reaction to something else, and I can't quite put my finger on it.
I just genuinely trust religious people more to not be complete pieces of shit with regards to class, gender, and race. Maybe I'm crazy and don't know enough about the world.
I've always seen the New Atheists as a kind of very thin intellectual cover to spread Islamophobia. It wasn't a reaction to something oppressive so much as a lurching, malformed twisted response to 9/11 as a way to get the fundamentalist Christians and the more cosmopolitan liberal types in the same side. New Atheism was the by product. They spent so much focus on Christianity because that's who they were around, but their main focus of hatred was always Islam. Now so many of these same people are overt reactionaries I'd say the intellectual cover worked well. It did what it was supposed to do.
Also there is genuine oppression perpetrated by religious groups in the USA, largely cults and evangelical groups brainwashing LGBTQ kids or destroying their lives. You'll notice that was hardly ever the focus for the new atheist currents. They were more focused on wacky creationists or justifying imperialist invasions.
I grew up Catholic down in Texas, so I was in a bit of a weird place. I don't know that I'd say I would trust religious people more. But there's definitely a generational gap in the attitudes of religious Boomers and religious Millennials. Cultural conservatism is a hell of a drug, but once you kick that habit you just end up with normal people who have a few eclectic superstitions and beliefs.
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