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.

  • UlyssesT [he/him]
    ·
    1 year ago

    You know religions have been around for thousands of years before specific hat wearing racists got really popular with feudal warlords, and will continue to exist for probably as long as there are humans, right?

    Nothing you're saying about atheism is that unique to it, and while "absence of belief isn't a belief" is technically correct as a default position, the delicacy of a lack of belief is often as fickle and temporary as a subatomic particle. "Atheists are cooler and gooder than religious people" is self-satisfying to say but not useful in analyzing a society where there simply isn't and maybe will never be a complete banishment of belief or superstition.

    • Frank [he/him, he/him]
      ·
      1 year ago

      I really don't understand what you're getting at. Atheism is Empiricism encountering religious delusion. Atheists, at least the ones who are serious about it, don't believe in gods and fairies and magic and healing vibrations because there's no evidence of any of those things, and they do believe in an empirically observable universe.

      “Atheists are cooler and gooder than religious people” is self-satisfying to say

      Yeah that's the hat wearing racist new-atheism I'm talking about, the phenomena that is a blip in the history of atheism and doesn't define it or even comment on it in any meaningful way. People weren't running around France shivving priests during the Revolution because they saw South Park make jokes about Mormons.

      And the Soviet Union did a really, really good job of getting rid of religion, with relatively little violence, in like 70 years. It's not some pie in the sky when you die thing. Socialist societies have been very effective in relieving people from religious belief, and I sincerely hope we'll continue to be effective in the future. Europe is doing a pretty bang up job, too, with religious adherence plummeting since WWII.

      • UlyssesT [he/him]
        ·
        1 year ago

        Atheism is Empiricism encountering religious delusion

        I've heard all of this before, and the teapot, and the absence of belief isn't a belief slogan, and I don't even disagree there. However, in practice, it's functionally and practically counterproductive to cling to that secularly-pious sense of purity over the unwashed believers, because this is a messy world we live in and it's very, very easy for new belief systems to emerge under pressure, long before they can be called religions. Once upon a time, Daoism was quite likely just a very old early version of a secular hustlegrind selling wellness and longevity quack cures from a grifter that may very well have never actually existed as one single individual, for example.

        And the Soviet Union did a really, really good job of getting rid of religion, with relatively little violence, in like 70 years. It’s not some pie in the sky when you die thing. Socialist societies have been very effective in relieving people from religious belief, and I sincerely hope we’ll continue to be effective in the future. Europe is doing a pretty bang up job, too, with religious adherence plummeting since WWII.

        I don't disagree here except to say we're not currently in that world right now, and liberation theology may be useful to a nascent movement the way it was during the lead-up to revolutionary Russia.