(I have amended the title of this post based on feedback and critique, to more acutely reflect the target of my grievance)
This could be a bad take, but, hear me out.
I was once a subscriber to r/atheism a long time ago. I was absolutely a smug ass fucking atheist. I'm not sure what it was that caused this world view I held to change, but as time marched on I've grown incredibly suspect of anyone who willingly identifies themselves as an "atheist".
I grew up going to church every week. That slowed as I got older. I remember my grandmother telling me I needed to cut my hair at church, and telling her "I have hair like Jesus, you think Jesus should cut his hair?" I learned later we stopped going to church because they started preaching about antiabortion and my mother wanted nothing to do with that.
So I was at least fairly indifferent about religion by the time I was in highschool. I remember Atheism giving me a sense of superiority that was deeply rooted in "facts and logic" despite being a severely under read dipshit in highschool. I'm sure I spent countless amounts of time debating people in comments, being a general idiot on the internet. Probably passively consumed a bunch of Hitchens work/ideas without having read any of his books.
At some point I stopped putting a lot of thought into it, and this smug sensibility was pushed into the back of my brain. Then in 2020, like a lot of people, I was swept up in this rise in socialist thinking, leading me to change my entire perspective on the world.
I think it wasn't until recently, when I was having a conversation with someone I knew and the topic of Islam came up that I realized how much I had distances myself from this smug atheist perspective. They said something about Islam being an "inherently violent religion", and my gut, instinctual reaction was to blurt out "What? What makes you think that's true?" They responded with something being in the Quran, and again, like water from a faucet the words "Listen, maybe that's true, maybe its not, but Islamic people are not a monolith." poured out of me and the conversation kind of died on the vine.
The reason I'm even thinking about this today is because, of all things, I watched the Asmongold "apology" video he published today. He attributes his shit ass takes about Palestinians being an inferior culture and thus worthy of genocide to his "hatred for religious extremism of all kinds". He goes on to say that he was or is a "r/atheist enjoyer" and a self professed "atheist". It really confirmed a lot of assumptions I have about atheism that I guess have been lingering in my skull.
Those assumptions being that Atheism is, on it's face, a religion in and of itself. It's belief is in that of non-belief. It has missionaries like most other religious belief systems, seeking to secularize communities and cultures. It believes it is the one true religion and that all other religions are false religions with false gods. It demonizes all other practitioners of these false religions indiscriminately, believing that they are either upholding their wicked systems of oppression, or are directly complicit in them. Countless books have been written about the its theology and the logic of its faith. It is a fully fledged faith, in that you have to believe in this non-belief, on faith that you will be proven correct when you die.
Not only all this but its clear to me now that Atheism is the western liberal religious belief system. Its fully compatible with western chauvinism, as it demonizes the wests enemies on the grounds of their systems of belief, which are regularly the reason for the wests interventions. Western wars are "secular" wars and as such they are atheist colonial projects as well. The idea that modernizing a backwards 3rd world country would bring about liberal democracy and with it liberal values. Atheism is liberal values.
Now this isn't to say that religious violence doesn't exist or that religious extremism is also a fable, but instead that Atheism and its ideas are a form of religious persecution, it breeds the same phobic believes that other religions develop about the ones they are attempting to conquer. The Atheist believes that through the abolition of religion, via changing hearts and minds, a entire form of violence will be removed as well. It completely denies the material realities and conditions that cause religious extremism to begin with. Because of this, it doesn't recognize that to achieve a secular world, it will only be done so through violence.
Somehow the atheist believes that religion and culture are all somehow disconnected and isolated phenomenon. That somehow you can remove religion from the equation without damaging or altering culture. That some how this secularization will happen quietly and without conflict.
When I'm asked if I'm religious I say no. if asked if I'm an atheist, I say no. The only thing I would identify as in this context is as a materialist. It matters not to me what lays beyond the vale of life, but what does matter to me is what is happening here and now. Pain and suffering exists here in this conscious reality. Happiness can be achieved here in this conscious reality. That happiness can include religious and spiritual belief.
I have no conclusions here. This is just the ramblings of an old wizard. If I'm off base here please tell me. Interested in your perspectives as always comrades.
Those assumptions being that Atheism is, on it's face, a religion in and of itself. It's belief is in that of non-belief. It has missionaries like most other religious belief systems, seeking to secularize communities and cultures. It believes it is the one true religion and that all other religions are false religions with false gods. It demonizes all other practitioners of these false religions indiscriminately, believing that they are either upholding their wicked systems of oppression, or are directly complicit in them. Countless books have been written about the its theology and the logic of its faith. [and they're universally poorly reasoned sophistry -ed]. It is a fully fledged faith, in that you have to believe in this non-belief, on faith that you will be proven correct when you die.
Bad take imo. Atheism isn't a religion; unbelief is not a belief, and this tired chestnut that "Atheism requires just as much faith as a belief system that posits a supernatural omnipotent creator, physics-defying miracles, and an afterlife for which there is neither plausible physical justification nor any hard evidence" has its source in Christian apologetics.
Atheism does have one element in common with religion, and that is that it is an identity, one that often immediately cuts you off from participation in your local community, which still revolves around the church in a lot of the world. And choosing to take on that identity knowing you might end up a local pariah can be more appealing to the already privileged or the socially incorrigible, among which groups I think we find most of movement atheism's bad actors.
Ideally we live in a world where atheism is unremarkable because it's the default. I used to be a live-and-let-live religious pluralist but I'm now more convinced by Engels' argument that atheism is a precondition to communism because you can't dismantle hierarchies when a bunch of people believe in a unaccountable ruler who only issues judgments after death and whose laws are so up for interpretation people have fought wars over theological disagreements. Yeah, you can be religious and keep it to yourself but it's still a gateway to bad thinking and social factionalism.
Yeah that's fair actually. Its really American Atheism, or Western Atheism I have a problem with. Encountering another nonbeliever in the west is a real dice roll.
I think you just have a problem with new atheists. If I remember things correctly, the original meaning of the prefix of "new" came from not being socialist and left-wing, but still being atheists. Since, traditionally atheism was associated with the left-wing (e.g. godless communists, godless socialists, etc.).
I do identify as an atheist, but always found myself hating the reddit/new atheists very highly. Obviously due to Islamophobia, but also because I had a lot of experience with what in my opinion were "good Christians" even if I still didn't believe in God. The most devout people I knew were my grandparents and a high school teacher. The grandparents were Lutherans and despite otherwise being white liberals, they did actually take their beliefs seriously enough that their reaction to MLK was "this guy is correct, all people are created equal and segregation and racism is wrong", and the activists that they met in the Civil Rights marches led them to follow it up by being in favor of activism for LGBTQ rights and for AIDs support during the 80s. And my high school Chemistry teacher became a teacher after being fired for heresy as a pastor. If I remember correctly, the last straw was officiating a gay marriage right after California started allowing gay marriage in the early 2000s. He believed that God giving humans sovereignty over the earth still meant that we had to take care of God's creation, so all true Christians should be radical environmentalists and firmly in favor of animal rights. He also believed that Christianity is anti-capitalist since they shouldn't strive for wealth, should make sure that everyone is looked after, and several parts of the New Testament call for a form of asceticism instead of indulging in luxury.
This doesn't in any way prove God exists and again, there are material reasons for religious belief and expression. Just that I do think that the "Reddit Atheist" deeply misunderstands religion and gives atheism a bad name.
I agree with Marx on this one. Religion is a reflection of materialist conditions. To that end, any group cultures is going to be, in some way, a reflection of materialist conditions. Therefore, Atheist talking as a group will be somewhat identical to religion.
For my honest beliefs, I will happily label myself as athiest; antithiest. Any "God" that treats it's children this way is in no way worthy of worship. And I would rather believe that I was just very unlucky than to believe that a consciousness in the universe chose to curse me with the afflictions I face.
It sounds like you're judging reddit users and debate bros rather than the theological statement that there is no God.
Hitchens was a popular dude. I know people who are neither of those who still spit his ideas about religion and call themselves atheists. I think its a western centric perspective on western centric atheists, which is naturally lacking a greater perspective as a result.
Yes, it's good that you see the western centrism now, because in its own, this post was a bit racist and invoking orientalist cliches. Like suggesting, that all non Western people are theists. Or saying, that atheism is a western liberal thing, when people all over the world actually think for themselves, draw their own conclusions and become atheists. Like every Marxist movement everywhere, for example. China, Cuba and the Soviet Union. Every liberation movement ever had to struggle against organized religion. Yes, even religious ones like liberation theology in South America, which struggled against the Vatican and lost or in part was ordered to stand down and obeyed.
A Marxist should accepts personal believes and fight oppression based on religion because it splits the working class. But in the end, while organized religion might in some cases be a temporary ally in national liberation, it has historically always succumbed to reactionary authority in the end and turned against us.
Furthermore, you're right, that the new atheists invocations of "facts", "logic" and "science" are seldom more than thinly veiled appeals to authority. They often do not define these things, nor do most of them seem to understand the many material contradictions and open philosophical questions within them. But that doesn't in itself make theism an defensible philosophical position either.
I will always call myself an atheist, even if new atheists suck a shit ton.
I'm an atheist, an antitheist even, as a black Marxist and a materialist, not an atheist as a white, American/British chud who thinks that transphobia and Zionism are an extension of my bubble of "rational" thoughts I've conjured up using FACTS and LOGIC.
In essence, I agree with a ton of what you said, and I'm glad comrades were able to get you to realize that generalizing atheists because of terminally online Dawkins/Harris/Hitchens fans on Reddit is a bit myopic.
I think my framework of looking at American counter cultures as being heavily biased towards being fundamentally just as chauvinist as and a little more treat-centric and libertine than the mainstream culture works well here. Like Atheism as a movement in America has fundamentally been comfortable straight white men who think all the performative stuff and cultural signifiers they have to do to join with the Evangelical power framework are cringe and dumb barriers in between them and their preferred treats: in their worldview all the cruelty and hate and domination and violence that the theocrats carry out are secondary bullet points to tack onto a powerpoint presentation in support of their real grievances, which are that the theocrats are cringe little weirdos who think silly things that are cringe and what's worse are standing between fun loving guys and yim yum tasty treats like drugs and porn and free access to women's bodies.
Atheism itself is just disbelief, a rejection of mythology and magic as infeasible. It's not a ward against chauvinism or libertine treat-lust, and toxic sorts of self-interest and an alignment with American hegemony can make anything and everything toxic by association.
The secret is that if you swap out the word "theocrats" in that sentence for a context-appropriate antagonist it becomes an accurate description of a big chunk of basically any big counter culture in the US over the past century or so. Sometimes you don't even have to swap it out, you just have to attribute it to a different time. Like it describes
s being mad at geriatric old fuddy duds who hate fun one year and then redirecting that onto women the next year because Steve Bannon told them women were coming for their treats, it describes the hedonism of rock fandoms or the hippies, etc.Smug treatbrain is so quintessential to American culture that it makes me want to do a bit about brainpans and treat lobes to mock explain it.
Yep. Fundamentally the same sentiment sits at a lot of reactionary thought, either in opposition to a status quo that isn't permissive enough for the privileged classes or in defense of a status quo that gives them almost unlimited personal freedom to act upon others as they please. You've got slavers opining that abolition would be the real slavery because it would destroy the only true freedom that is being an idle slaver dandy who can do as he please and live in opulence on the backs of others. There's that one take on Fascism that it was fundamentally selling itself as the liberation of the warrior class and the powerful who were then free to subjugate and act upon others as they pleased.
We can even tie this into the whole farcical framework of "individualism" vs "collectivism," where "individualism" is the "good and free" state of things where the vast majority of all individuals are subjugated through violence both direct and indirect to serve the opulence and lusts of the more privileged classes, and "collectivism" is the "bad and unfree" state of things where all individuals have their needs met and there is a systemic goal of preventing a more privileged class from separating out and preying upon them or abolishing and reintegrating such a class if it already existed.
The growing religious sentiment in the US really concerns me, I wish we had an atheist movement that was actually good.
Not that I'm trying to criticize this post or endorse an /r/atheism worldview, but I have to say that this site is in an ironic position as a bunch of avowed leftists, with a ton of us being some flavor of ML, and being against atheism. Marxism is traditionally atheist, ML states have often been officially atheist, because religion is opposed to a materialist worldview.
It's always seemed to me that a lot of the the new/reddit atheist types were people who grew up in right wing Evangelical households and environment and broke out of it. They have a very understandable and correct hatred for that shit, but too many of them never really broke out of the pattern of thought they were taught. They kept the dogmatic, black-and-white worldview complete with smug superiority, just with a new dogma. Anecdotally I would sometimes argue with them against Jesus Mythicism and it was like banging my head against a wall. (Like, motherfucker I don't believe in the miracles or god shit either, but every piece of historical evidence points to there having been a dude who led a minor religious movement in Judea and got crucified by the authorities. Why is that so hard to admit? No one is asking you to believe anything else!)
But even so, I'm still pretty much an atheist even if I share your distaste for that word and the people who usually self-apply it, because what the hell else am I supposed to be? What, you want me to be Christian? I'm not doing that shit.
Yeah the more comments I read the more I understand my specific grievance. Specifically the brand of Atheism pushed by the likes of Hitchens and Dawkins, and others, sometimes called New-Atheism.
I've amended my title to reflect this realization.
Naturally in not advocating against being an atheist, but specifically this western chauvinistic brand of atheist. It's ironic that Hitchens called himself a Marxist.
Just my perspective as a Catholic, I don't think it makes sense to dismiss atheism as a whole because of the islamophobic tilt it has gained since the Bush years. If your materialist analysis leads you to think that belief in God or some other religious system is inconsistent with reality, why should that be invalid? There's a big difference between not wanting to believe in the things you can only believe in by faith for yourself, and believing the crap people like Dawkins preach about religion holding humans back because some brown people say Allah Ackbar when they fire their RPGs at occupation tanks. You understand that material reality is the engine behind those behaviors (in that particular example a very positive behavior that would undoubtedly still get called "religious violence" by the atheists you talk about), not the inherent violence of any given belief system, so you can obviously dismiss the racist nonsense. That doesn't take away from your absence of faith. The two things are independent of each other.
Ya that post seems like a heavy over correction by them from reading too much reddit. Honestly a pretty online view. The amount of times any atheist has brought up their views unasked in real life is countable on one hand.
and believing the crap people like Dawkins preach about religion holding humans back because some brown people say Allah Ackbar when they fire their RPGs at occupation tanks.
I think this is what I'm railing against specifically. These guys, Dawkins, Hitchens, took this notion of non-belief and made this an external force instead of an internal force. Instead of it being a personal belief, they insisted on public debate with religious leaders.
I have no issue with people who have non-belief. I fall into that category as well. I think though, if a persons non-belief is steeped in this new-atheist framing, they need to reevaluate it.
Their writings have infested the discourse of non-belief and have turned it into a crusade against all religion. It isn't enough to be a nonbeliever, you have to actively support the eradication of religion, because as hitchen said, organised religion is "the main source of hatred in the world".
I understand where your coming from. It just feels like the term Atheist and the well it draws from are tainted. Hitchens referred to himself as a Marxist and a Trotskyist, his "material analysis" seems to have lead him to a conclusion that leads directly to progroms and genocide in my view. Even if that wasn't his intention. It still manifested publicly in the vial notions being put forward by some twitch chud streaming to a football stadium equivalent amount of people.
Sorry if my tone is off here, I really appreciate your perspective.
If nothing else I think the dialectics of a Catholic arguing in favor of atheism while a nonbeliever argues against it are really
That got me laughing! What I'm learning from this thread is I have a very specific grudge against western new-atheists.
Atheism is by no means western see, there are 'atheists' like Bill Maher who cite Bible to defend the existence of Israel. There is no text in atheism which says you have to hate Muslims etc.
Personally, I would rather not believe there is a god because if they were real, I would love to 'kill' them.
You're mad about settler colonialism and patriarchy, and rightfully so. Reddit atheism is one of the many faces of the white patriarchy and a particularly annoying one. It does not represent the vast majority of atheists who mostly just say "oh yeah I don't do that stuff" and live the rest of their lives as normal.
As someone who was raised religiously I completely disagree with you here. Stripping away people's religion may be difficult or an untenable position for building a worker's movement, as such it needs to be handled delicately. However, because of religion and religious activities related to I have deeply onset psychological issues related to seeing myself and engaging with others.
I didn't engage with natural exploration in adolescence due to my Christianity, and natural desires and impulses caused extreme psychological distress for me. Furthermore, the conception of original sin being passed down into every child from birth can be and was damaging to young children's self esteem.
The idea that you have something fundamentally wrong with you that you can only get rid through unresponsive prayers is psychologically traumatizing.
Live and let live is not the answer and if you talk to the apostates who leave these religions you'd find many similar attitudes.
That being said, the chauvinistic tendencies listed above that spawn from many reactionary atheist in the West is additionally harmful, if not more so.
You know that's a fair point, thank you for sharing. I was basically raised atheist so I don't actually know the perspective of people who've gotten away from the church.
As someone who was raised in a religiously (very) abusive household, and who has seen how religion has utterly destroyed lives, IMO it's an issue of irreligious rights as well as religious rights- the former are lacking almost everywhere, even across the west.
People should have the freedom to follow what they want, but others should have the freedom to live their own lives outside of it. This applies also and especially to the children of religious people- religion should not be an excuse for physical or psychological abuse (which many traditional religious practices are); it should not be an obligation, etc. TBH a lot of that issue comes from the fact that most societies also treat children like property, as Marx said, we must abolish the (capitalist, bourgeois- but IMO also pre-capitalist) family.
As someone who was once also a Reddit atheist and became a theist again, most atheists aren't like that. It's entirely possible to be a committed, even strident Atheist and still not be a smug asshole.
Marx was one, and he combined a well justified hatred of how organised religion supported capitalist exploitation while acknowledging the deep emotions and humanity at the heart of religion.
For all Communists, atheist and theist, religion is an important contradiction that we must struggle with and progress seriously.
It is idealism, but one which directly touches the material world and how we engage with it. In many ways it turns historical materialism back on its head and shows it it's mirror image.
I find this an incredibly productive tool to use, I admit that my beliefs in communism and religion don't meet neatly and that that is kind of the point. Without imbalance and contradictions there can be no motion.
As an atheist, I'd change the title of the post to "there's a type of atheist that disgusts me". I think religious beliefs are an expression of material conditions and the political culture, so those are what I focus on. And the material conditions and political culture breed all kinds of strange nonreligious belief systems that people should be more skeptical of. But I genuinely do not care what people believe as long as they do not use it to justify hating marginalized people, especially if they find meaning or peace in it. I don't think people find meaning or peace in QAnon, but I know Christians who are genuinely very good people and do not want them to stop believing if it makes them happy.
