It's been wild watching the new atheist movement slowly morph into the new batshit religious quack movements in only 10 years
I really don’t get it, like, I thought the reason we were all annoying atheists because of a sense of love for humanity, equality, etc. and seeing that Christianity was the most powerful force for regression and subjugation for the last 1500 years or so.
Like, how did we go from atheism to “protecting western civilization”? What is western civilization if not the societies produced by hegemonic Christianity? My atheism is a big part of what drew me to oppose the values of western civilization. And I really thought we were all on the same page on that.
And I guess I wasn’t entirely wrong, as it seems like Russel Brand went the other way around and became a Christian to keep supporting western ideals.
the reason they were all annoying atheists was because islam bad, turns out
there's that, but also I think for some of them being a new atheist libertarian was a way to be conservative while separating themselves from the unfun aspects of religious conservative ideology (but specifically the anti-drug and anti sex before marriage parts)
but now they're old, their days of partying and chasing girls are behind them and they've either settled down with a partner or accepted being foreveralone, so they no longer need the veneer of being a fun dudebro, and even if on the inside they don't really believe in religion, they realize that it supports their interests with regard to upholding social hierarchies, so they turn back to it
The new atheist movement was for neocons who didn’t care to do the Jesus stuff but still wanted in on being racist to Middle Eastern people
This. Same thing i went through. Eventually i asked what's the point? And for nu atheism the only point was watching Hitchens epically own some nobody with Oxford debate shit on Youtube. I started looking at humanism - but all they cared about was stories about "they're making my kids say god in the pledge of allegiance" or "some southern city is building a ten commandments monument!" No movement that isn't explicitly left wing can ever even imagine the possiblity of a better world*
*actually Sam Harris thinks he's imagining a better world, but its through genocide, holy wars, and phrenology.
Its no wonder that Sam Harris was Dave Rubin's first guest, and was Joe Rigan's original "smart guy guest". He is the ultimate dumb guys intellectual. Like he knows absolutely nothing about anything he talks about.
That's why everything is a "thought experiment." He doesn't know anything outside of his own thoughts
In the second installment, I’ll be making the case that Sam Harris is not only a fraud, but also a white supremacist. See you then!
Hell yeah. Theres so much wrong with Harris it needs a part two
That comparison doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Also, no one in any New York zip code invented algebra or chemistry so even with his premise its still wrong lol
I'm going to take a different angle for my answer: Content.
There were a lot of people rallying around secularism but they had no guide post. The Intellectual Dark Web and similar groups of grifters targeted this unorganized group heavily with videos, posts, meet and greets, etc. They offered a direction to people who had no direction (in part because their cultures were predicated on members being traditionally religious). They made people feel heard, like they were special.
It shouldn't surprise anyone that a large number of self-identified atheists at the time were being reactionary and hadn't really detached from their religious programming - this was a huge talking point / criticism back in the day. It was true of many even though it was not true of all. When these reactionaries in particular chased after the IDW, it destroyed the fabric of the emerging community. How was a loose-knit, unorganized bunch of atheists supposed to survive half of its members becoming an army for religious cryptozealots?
The Islamophobia was obvious and disgusting. It was a mess of double standards. There was pushback against it - I gave quite a bit myself - but pretty quickly it had become too late to nip in the bud. We all fractured apart and the few existing spaces were absolutely overrun by reactionary ideologues. There was no longer a point to interacting with these groups. Inside of them, atheism was no longer even a common talking point. Instead it was the alt-right's talking points that took over - and standing in my shoes, I have to say that I still believe there was a concerted and inorganic effort to make it that way. But ultimately their efforts worked and that's all that matters.
I was already a Marxist (my atheism was also a big factor in my rejection of western hegemony) but I leaned more heavily into Marxist spaces as we all scattered in the wind away from the brigaded communities. I think I'm probably in the minority in that regard, but I know that I was far from alone.
I think this was a wakeup call for many of us about the continued strength of cultural religiosity and the challenge of actually deprogramming.
My takeaway was that there is serious work needed on the cultural and educational fronts before they can start changing the course of the material front. Or conversely, a massive material state change to provoke cultural adaptations.
However if part of the issue really was a lack of guidance outside predatory and exploitative grifters then I believe it reinforces the idea that more non-reactionary role models and content would help to counter those reinforcing the status quo. If there had been a coherent alternative to the IDW at the time, they may never have taken off.
This opinion is also a bit of self-criticism because I hate clout. I don't want a platform. I despise influencer culture. I think dialectics among communities should guide us, not the half-baked ideas of "Great Men" on youtube. But these preferences are not highly compatible with countering the effects of influencers like the IDW on directionless individuals. My anonymous pushback might have been well-constructed but it didn't move the needle even a single tick. Meanwhile the IDW was offering a pre-packaged and microwave-ready ideology that reinforced deep-seated biases and could be defended with "Just watch **** on youtube" instead of requiring individuals to personally explain their arguments. There was basically no contest.
Christianity was the most powerful force for regression and subjugation for the last 1500 years or so.
Turns out it wasn't Christianity, just aristocracy.
Russel Brand went the other way around and became a Christian to keep supporting western ideals.
He was always a mediocre entertainer. First he rejected Christianity as part of his dog-and-pony show. Now he's come around, because the original bit couldn't pull the same audience. But its always just been a performance. The only thing he cares about as the attention (and the money it generates).
Yeah I mean at that point Christianity was all about bombing people and hating LGBT people and those were big factors for me in rejecting it but it turns out there were also people who rejected it for some other reason and then realized that they'd accidentally undermined their justifications for bombing people and hating LGBT people and had to scramble to come up with new ones.
Have you thought maybe they just wanted to be mean to the weird sheltered christian kid at school, and girls?
I really don’t get it, like, I thought the reason we were all annoying atheists because of a sense of love for humanity, equality, etc.
That was what I thought too, and was the reason I moved away from nu atheist stuff
This breed of atheism is all about opposing the values of religion that are humane, harmonizing, and fundamentally good. The sense of community and goodwill for others is a tenet of many religions that still hasn’t been completely annihiliated and at least bregudgingly accepted by the most reactionary.
These atheists, in contrast, and ironically enough in the words of steve harvey, truly have zero moral compass that binds them to any sort of pesky virtues that would have them accept others.
Reminds me of Christopher Hitchens. A man who made a living on the talk show circuit by tweaking people's noses and saying "Are you mad? Are you mad, yet?"
All fun and games when the people getting tweaked were self-important holy rollers. But as soon as he saw a payday in pissing on anti-war protesters by calling them Islamists, the man was urinating like a fucking fire hose.
Dawkins is just a lower-rent Hitchens.
I really disagree. The guy was argumentative for the sake of it, but I don't think it's fair to say he was ungenuine or just chasing a pay day.
I don't think it's fair to say he was ungenuine or just chasing a pay day.
He did a good job of delivery early on. But once he started defending George Bush Jr - a man who stacked his career on phony religious pandering - the mask dropped like a rock. No one who goes this hard for an American Christian Conservative can possibly hold the views he claimed a decade earlier.
Maybe he changed over time. Or maybe Rupert Murdoch found the price for his soul. But the guy sold out hard all through the '00s.
hitchens is the posterboy for the modern trot-to-neocon/fascist pipeline
The holdouts that still claim to be atheists but "culturally Christian" are the worst.
so a fascist lol.
I tried to steer it in to a militant occult organization but, obvious, i got distracted yelling at the memes guy about Islamic history and forgot to train my godslaying army.
Meh, happened with the boomers. This whole country is designed at every level to stifle progress in left wing thought.
They were anti religious without being anti capitalist. So they were farcical Voltaire esque liberals at best
At least Voltaire was savage enough to get exiled multiple times.
It'd be more accurate to say people like this now attract the types of dudes who would've been really into "logic" and atheism 15 years ago
I was 100% that type of person, and I still don't agree. But maybe it's just me that's out of touch.
I meant the really annoying types who were into weird atheist youtubers
They fall under that same category of "rationalist larpers that is actually a right-wing woo grifter"
“‘And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward.“
Somehow that one has never made an impact on anyone, ever, except weirdly enough Prince who is semi-famous for doing concerts in places that were having a bad time so he could have an excuse to be in the area to quietly do good work because idk Prince?
Tbf I think, at the very least theoretically, there is a difference between earnestly celebrating a mass with other believers and social media influencers doing whatever this is at a January 6th event or whatever for millions of views.
Just saying, the most austere and egalitarian churches and mass were done by calvinists out of all fucking people, so much the other protestants thought they were radical freakos. I am pretty sure if christianity survives into higher socialism we will have one sect mutating to fit the new paradigm and they will not be like shining paragons of the ideology, but close enough to at least try and wiggle into the halls of power somehow (source: vibes and looking at Xian ability to always have been actually about supporting the warlord/king/freedom and democracy)
If those conservatives could read, they'd be very upset!
He's getting a lot of questions about his suit that are answered by his suit
Let's see, Roger Stone is The Riddler, Peterson is Two Face, who else we got?
Russell Brand definitelyremovedd those women. He went from leftist agnostic fight the power guy, to right wing grifter christian anti vax nutter basically overnight. Homie straight up sexually assaulted all of those women. I fucking hateremoveds and their control fetish, man. Whether or not you ever found Brand's comedy actually funny back in the day (I got a kick out of him on 1 Leicester Square), you can't deny he really could have had any woman he wanted. Fucking makes me cringe that I ever found him funny.
No better signal about someone's guilt than whether or not they immediately flee to the crowd of people who would defend their action (of which they are also guilty).
the slur filter for brassica napus should really not eat the character BEFORE the word
Dude paid for custom lamb wool for the "heaven" side and goat wool for the "hell" side. Probably broke the bank and is trying to pawn it off as his 'signature look' or something.
actually he has 12 suits, one for each of his "rules for life": https://lgfgfashionhouse.com/en/catalog/jordan-peterson-book/
ok but this one slaps:
Show
also are the 12 rules really this stupid and meaningless? "Don't let your children do anything that makes you dislike them." like wtf does that mean? "Do not bother children when they are skateboarding" ???? "be precise in your speech" yeah sure
also are the 12 rules really this stupid and meaningless?
Yes, the prevailing critique since the book first came out has been "This is boring fungible self help stuff, why'd you have to cloak it in Jungian mysticism and Fascism? What's that? You're an esoteric fascist? Carry on then."
This is so hilariously self-absorbed, like highschool level shit
Yes, they're all useless pablum and Peterson doesn't follow most of them himself. It is astonishing that he is taken seriously by anyone.
- "Stand up straight with your shoulders back."
- "Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping."
- "Make friends with people who want the best for you."
- "Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today."
- "Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them."
- "Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world."
- "Pursue what is meaningful (not what is expedient)."
- "Tell the truth – or, at least, don't lie."
- "Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don't."
- "Be precise in your speech."
- "Do not bother children when they are skateboarding."
- "Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street."
The youtuber Cass Eris (who is a cognitive psychologist herself) went though the entire book. It's all pseudointellectual hogwash full off misgony, chauvinism, classism and lobsterson hating everyone who might want to make things better.
oh right, I think I actually watched that one a few years back. Guess my brain just decided Peterson's ideas weren't worth keeping rofl
No, the problem with being dumb is that, while you get to avoid some of the existential mores, there are other pains that you suffer as a result. You'll make (comparatively more) mistakes that are obvious in hindsight. You'll leave a beer on the ledge while you make a funny emote and your flailing arm will hit it into the pool below. In addition, your interpersonal relationships feel more random in terms of success and failure. Another attribute of intelligence is using of theory of mind to help know when an action makes those around you happy and sad. It's the difference between thinking that North Korea and Iran are just violent maniacs and thinking they might have legitimate grievances with the US and its vassals. If you "only made out with her because our rule is that you can't fuck other people" then you'll likely lose your relationship and think they were being unreasonable. Your relationship with your boss will be generally amiable but sometimes they just explode about random things about your work. These random acts of punishment will extend to the self and nature as well. All sorts of tummy aches, head aches, and bad moods are sidestepped entirely via introspection and adaptation. So many valuable things in life go more smoothly the more you're able to use that noggin to think about responses to actions and adapt because of it.
Or whatever haha
It's his new grift since 𝓣𝓱𝓮 𝓐𝓵𝓵𝓮𝓰𝓪𝓽𝓲𝓸𝓷𝓼 came out last year. Now every public appearance is some kind of Born Again Christian ritual because everyone knows you can't be a paedophile and religious.
He probably wanted to join the Catholic priesthood, but was worried it would be too blatant.
And if you are you can just do that little "i have sinned but i'm forgiven" ritual they do that somehow absolves them within their weird little cult.
@rosaslutzemburg
yeah i'd still be using twitter too if I managed to snag a handle that legendary
the t_d thread about this devolved into christian infighting arguing that catholics aren't real christians: https://archive.is/MLUgX
Good ol' KKK anti-Papist rhetoric making a return, iC.
You'd think they'd drop that to recruit more Irish and Italians into their ranks after 1930s European immigration began to decline and the descendants of those immigrants cashing in their skin color to join in hating non-whites.
Catholics are just as likely to be black and Hispanic immigrants, so it makes sense,
I'm pretty sure he got his doctoral license revoked. So now he's just another weepy powdered charlatan
Never liked brand, glad mark fisher didn’t live long enough to see his turn around.
great post
