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
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.
I believed that too, until Elevatorgate and the “Dear Muslima” letter from Dawkins showed me otherwise.
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.
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.
The holdouts that still claim to be atheists but “culturally Christian” are the worst.
Well, maybe the worst are the “TradCath means Warhammer 40k LARPing” converts.
The holdouts that still claim to be atheists but “culturally Christian” are the worst.
so a fascist lol.
They were anti religious without being anti capitalist. So they were farcical Voltaire esque liberals at best
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.
“‘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.“
“‘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.“
And then the Catholic church decided the best way to interpret that and other Jesus teachings was big garish cathedrals and lots of pompous ceremonies.
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)
Whys the lobster man dressed like Two-Face from Batman
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, 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
I think you’re on to something: the “happy ignorant” people I’ve known and have seen around me do some really avoidable Ls, like eating Hot Pockets and pounding down soda with every meal (their shopping carts said it all when I saw them in line) and smoking like chimneys until it’s no surprise that they are utterly wrecked by 50 and are maybe have an oxygen tank, colostomy bag, or both.