Maybe the militant atheism of the 00s wasn't the right strategy. But the alternative can't be to just let delusional nutjobs go unchallenged, especially when they're in places of power and authority. There's a fine line between spiritualism and wingnut shit.
Yeah. Most of the New Atheist celebrities were/are reactionary assholes, but the threat was and remains real. Half the country is now under the dominion of theocratic Christian Fascism. The Christians can protest that it's not their fault all they want, but the simple fact is that they didn't take out their trash and now it's everyone's problem.
Add to that - Catholics, the second largest religious group in the US after protestants, are fully complicit in killing Roe, a great deal of censorship imposed under the facade of protecting children, and Columbus Day.
Religion, specifically Christianity in the US, is a real and immediate threat to the life and wellbeing of everyone in this country. We lost the paltry abortion rights we had and it's directly because of collusion between Christian Fascists and Catholics. If they don't want to be condemned by Atheists they need to get out of politics entirely.
Add to that - Catholics, the second largest religious group in the US after protestants, are fully complicit in killing Roe, a great deal of censorship imposed under the facade of protecting children, and Columbus Day.
Back when I was in catholic school, every year students would be encouraged to join faculty in protesting abortion in D.C. with a march for "life".
The marriage of Christianity and the U.S. right wing goes waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay farther back. "When fascism comes to America it'll be draped in the flag and carrying a cross" comes from a 1935 novel.
nuAtheism was born out of nerdy early internet culture and had all the shortcomings of that primordial slop. The best assessment of it is to look at the failings of that culture and erase them from what we're trying to do today. "Log off" and "be normal" are broadly this.
. Also because I'm Muslim my choices in the atheist v Christian dominionist fight were people who wanted me dead for being a heathen and people who wanted me dead for being an Islamo-fascist fifth columnist
A lot of skeptics movements came out of that time, too. They're not nearly as visible, being more local and regional, but there was more too it than just the reactionary New Athiests.
My perspective on this is always going to be colored by being a tumblr sjw in 2012-2014 I think where like, New Athiests were one of the worst enemies imaginable. Not that tumblr sjws were a religious bunch we criticized the reactionary element but still like, the leading anti-SJWs of the time were mostly New Athiests so in my head they became the enemy.
The perspective from other corners is good to have though. I can change my views, but my background is always going to be in my head.
because they were liberals with exactly one positive impulse (anti-religion) that calcified into its' own media-sphere and subculture without attaching itself to a legitimate political project.
this is also why they didn't move the needle at all on the rising anti-secularism in the US.
The Orthodox Church and hierarchy was the direct hand of the tsars in the same way the modern Russian church is the direct hand of Russian nationalism and Putin.
There was not a separation of state and religion. You’re imposing an anachronism into your understanding of why the Orthodox hierarchy needed to be dismantled. It was very directly part of an absolute dictatorship that explicitly saw the tsar as the appointee of god and that pushed an ideology where the monarchy were a required part of the natural order of things.
Avoid the anachronism of thinking “religion is the opiate of the masses” is a vaguely Richard Dawkins type statement. The era in which that was stated was an era where religion was the ideology of government and religious hierarchies were directly an extension of state power.
Private practice of religion under Stalin was often ridiculed but always tolerated as a matter of individual right. Public religion was suppressed in the aftermath of the revolution for the same reason the Tsar was shot and the period of dismantling monasteries and cathedrals was limited.
There was official hostility to religion but this was limited to being portrayed as backwards and anti-empirical, anti-material, at odds with the scientific nature of socialism advocated by Lenin and Marx.
The anti-clericism was intense in the 1930s to be sure, but for good reason. They were agents of the Tsar in a very direct sense.
I remember arguing about this with libs a million years ago. The church was rightly seen as a political institution that was counter revolutionary. Before the revolution it was an arm of the tsarist state.
The Soviets might have gone a bit too far in their anti-clericalism at certain points but man, do I understand it sometimes.
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Shoulda gone past the Atlantic to the Pacific.
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In pushing atheism maybe, but not in anti-clericalism
Counterpoint; false belief should be opposed everywhere and always.
Maybe the militant atheism of the 00s wasn't the right strategy. But the alternative can't be to just let delusional nutjobs go unchallenged, especially when they're in places of power and authority. There's a fine line between spiritualism and wingnut shit.
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Yeah. Most of the New Atheist celebrities were/are reactionary assholes, but the threat was and remains real. Half the country is now under the dominion of theocratic Christian Fascism. The Christians can protest that it's not their fault all they want, but the simple fact is that they didn't take out their trash and now it's everyone's problem.
Add to that - Catholics, the second largest religious group in the US after protestants, are fully complicit in killing Roe, a great deal of censorship imposed under the facade of protecting children, and Columbus Day.
Religion, specifically Christianity in the US, is a real and immediate threat to the life and wellbeing of everyone in this country. We lost the paltry abortion rights we had and it's directly because of collusion between Christian Fascists and Catholics. If they don't want to be condemned by Atheists they need to get out of politics entirely.
Back when I was in catholic school, every year students would be encouraged to join faculty in protesting abortion in D.C. with a march for "life".
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The marriage of Christianity and the U.S. right wing goes waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay farther back. "When fascism comes to America it'll be draped in the flag and carrying a cross" comes from a 1935 novel.
nuAtheism was born out of nerdy early internet culture and had all the shortcomings of that primordial slop. The best assessment of it is to look at the failings of that culture and erase them from what we're trying to do today. "Log off" and "be normal" are broadly this.
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I'm saying the nuAtheism stuff would have happened without Bush.
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Why did all the people reacting to Bush turn out to be antifeminists though?
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I did not
Also I'm not talking about just the Horsemen of New Athiest. I'm talking about TAA and other New Athiest Youtubers and their followers.
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They're still Americans.
A lot of skeptics movements came out of that time, too. They're not nearly as visible, being more local and regional, but there was more too it than just the reactionary New Athiests.
My perspective on this is always going to be colored by being a tumblr sjw in 2012-2014 I think where like, New Athiests were one of the worst enemies imaginable. Not that tumblr sjws were a religious bunch we criticized the reactionary element but still like, the leading anti-SJWs of the time were mostly New Athiests so in my head they became the enemy.
The perspective from other corners is good to have though. I can change my views, but my background is always going to be in my head.
because they were liberals with exactly one positive impulse (anti-religion) that calcified into its' own media-sphere and subculture without attaching itself to a legitimate political project.
this is also why they didn't move the needle at all on the rising anti-secularism in the US.
relevant xkcd
Nah it’s overstated.
The Orthodox Church and hierarchy was the direct hand of the tsars in the same way the modern Russian church is the direct hand of Russian nationalism and Putin.
There was not a separation of state and religion. You’re imposing an anachronism into your understanding of why the Orthodox hierarchy needed to be dismantled. It was very directly part of an absolute dictatorship that explicitly saw the tsar as the appointee of god and that pushed an ideology where the monarchy were a required part of the natural order of things.
Avoid the anachronism of thinking “religion is the opiate of the masses” is a vaguely Richard Dawkins type statement. The era in which that was stated was an era where religion was the ideology of government and religious hierarchies were directly an extension of state power.
Private practice of religion under Stalin was often ridiculed but always tolerated as a matter of individual right. Public religion was suppressed in the aftermath of the revolution for the same reason the Tsar was shot and the period of dismantling monasteries and cathedrals was limited.
There was official hostility to religion but this was limited to being portrayed as backwards and anti-empirical, anti-material, at odds with the scientific nature of socialism advocated by Lenin and Marx.
The anti-clericism was intense in the 1930s to be sure, but for good reason. They were agents of the Tsar in a very direct sense.
I remember arguing about this with libs a million years ago. The church was rightly seen as a political institution that was counter revolutionary. Before the revolution it was an arm of the tsarist state.