They have mistaken “religious conservatives have bad arguments” for “I am very smart and good at logic” so now everything they don’t intuitively understand must be wrong.
Because the core of their beliefs was basically “fundamentalists are silly cringe dummies who think silly cringe things that are dumb, how cringe, and what’s worse they’re saying I can’t have my funtime treats because of their silly cringe dumb-dumb stuff! Telling me no is a real mortal sin!” rather than any sort of actual principled opposition to the ontological evil of theocrats. When push came to shove they turned that same outrage at ever being limited in their desires towards women and minorities: they want to own and use women, they want to hurt and subjugate people they hate.
In short, a comfortable white cishet male atheist in the heart of empire has functionally the same material interests and worldview as a comfortable white cishet male evangelical: their ontological evil comes from their status and their desire to maintain and increase that status, instead of how firm a formal-logic framework they’re building their worldview on. Both will eagerly lie and twist reality around themselves to justify their cruelty, greed, and lust.
fundamentalists are silly cringe dummies who think silly cringe things that are dumb, how cringe
But how do you not take as part of it “And misogyny and racism are some of the cringiest things they do” because I followed that new atheist path so exactly and that’s the conclusion I landed on at 12 fucking years old. “Christianity is cringe but all of its beliefs are cool and good actually” is the most insane atheist take I’ve ever heard and idk how that’s where they ended up
Because they’re taking issue with the things like magic, subservience to a church, historical scriptural fraud, conflict with science, and most importantly the religious condemnation of “vice” in general: they want their funtime treats like drugs and free access to women’s bodies, and they think theocrats are ruining their good time in the name of something silly, irrational, and cringe. They don’t have a principled opposition to the cruelty and bigotry of theocrats, because they come from the same chauvinist cultural background and have much the same material interests as their fundamentalist counterparts. You generally need an actual ethical framework and political education to shake free of the chauvinist brainworms American society tries to infect everyone with.
Like if you look at countercultural media depictions of evangelicals, it’s usually like “oh they’re too goody goody, they’re too pure, they don’t know how to have fun, they’re silly and cringe, and the worst they can do is get in the way of my good time!” instead of “they are ontologically evil demons of hatred disguised in human skin and enacting horrors upon the world,” and that’s because the take is radically different depending on who’s making it. Like a comfortable white cishet male atheist is going to have wildly different conflicts with evangelical theocracy than a queer woman is, and the former is platformed way more and has way more cultural power than the latter.
And that’s why so many of the New Atheists went on to become secular fascists or tradcath fascists, because those promised them their funtime treats and they realized that the cynical hypocrisy of the system was a feature in their favor and not a glitch.
It was the Evangelical literalist generation of Christian fanatics being replaced by cultural/nationalist Christian fanatics who didn’t care about arguing that God literally stopped the Earth’s rotation for a bit once, they just make “the Christian cultural practices make us the supreme culture” arguments. And there was always an undercurrent of “the undeveloped savages lack our rational way of doing things, that’s why they’re savages” to portions of the new atheist movement, which dovetails with that attitude.
Plus, the right started picking up the “logic facts and reason” schtick so it made for an attractive grift to new atheists already with that branding.
I have the seed of an idea for a thesis paper on how new atheists are the hippies of the millennial generation. But I’m too busy being poor to do any research, so…
Unironically yes. I think one could show a consistent chauvinist libertine pattern with American counter-culture movements like that, where despite being in conflict with the mainstream their opposition is way more in the vein of “I want more, I want to be personally liberated to do as I wish unto others” than genuine opposition to the horrifying cruelty and depravity of the American mainstream.
I’ve been talking about this concept for years now, but have yet to sit down and write a formal history of the subject with referencible examples.
I think the good ones retired when the Bush-era anti-religious revival stopped, and the ones who were just in it to have an audience listening to their angry takes followed the audiences that wanted angry takes.
I don’t really know though; despite being a lifelong atheist and about the right age, none of these people have ever really appealed to me.
I don’t get it either. I was a fan of these dudes when I was young, and the path they led me down was the conclusion of “Christianity is the root of most evil in the western world, and all of its positions must be destroyed, including patriarchy, racism, hierarchy, and belief in magic”
I really don’t know how you go “Christianity is the root of most evil, but all of its positions are good actually.” It makes more sense to me to be an intense misandrist than a misogynist, simply because it’s the opposite position of Christianity.
Why have so many of these outspoken atheist figures started aligning themselves with some kind of de-facto chud shit?
They have mistaken “religious conservatives have bad arguments” for “I am very smart and good at logic” so now everything they don’t intuitively understand must be wrong.
Because the New Atheist people were always reactionary.
Because the core of their beliefs was basically “fundamentalists are silly cringe dummies who think silly cringe things that are dumb, how cringe, and what’s worse they’re saying I can’t have my funtime treats because of their silly cringe dumb-dumb stuff! Telling me no is a real mortal sin!” rather than any sort of actual principled opposition to the ontological evil of theocrats. When push came to shove they turned that same outrage at ever being limited in their desires towards women and minorities: they want to own and use women, they want to hurt and subjugate people they hate.
In short, a comfortable white cishet male atheist in the heart of empire has functionally the same material interests and worldview as a comfortable white cishet male evangelical: their ontological evil comes from their status and their desire to maintain and increase that status, instead of how firm a formal-logic framework they’re building their worldview on. Both will eagerly lie and twist reality around themselves to justify their cruelty, greed, and lust.
Easy way to put it lmao
But how do you not take as part of it “And misogyny and racism are some of the cringiest things they do” because I followed that new atheist path so exactly and that’s the conclusion I landed on at 12 fucking years old. “Christianity is cringe but all of its beliefs are cool and good actually” is the most insane atheist take I’ve ever heard and idk how that’s where they ended up
Because they’re taking issue with the things like magic, subservience to a church, historical scriptural fraud, conflict with science, and most importantly the religious condemnation of “vice” in general: they want their funtime treats like drugs and free access to women’s bodies, and they think theocrats are ruining their good time in the name of something silly, irrational, and cringe. They don’t have a principled opposition to the cruelty and bigotry of theocrats, because they come from the same chauvinist cultural background and have much the same material interests as their fundamentalist counterparts. You generally need an actual ethical framework and political education to shake free of the chauvinist brainworms American society tries to infect everyone with.
Like if you look at countercultural media depictions of evangelicals, it’s usually like “oh they’re too goody goody, they’re too pure, they don’t know how to have fun, they’re silly and cringe, and the worst they can do is get in the way of my good time!” instead of “they are ontologically evil demons of hatred disguised in human skin and enacting horrors upon the world,” and that’s because the take is radically different depending on who’s making it. Like a comfortable white cishet male atheist is going to have wildly different conflicts with evangelical theocracy than a queer woman is, and the former is platformed way more and has way more cultural power than the latter.
And that’s why so many of the New Atheists went on to become secular fascists or tradcath fascists, because those promised them their funtime treats and they realized that the cynical hypocrisy of the system was a feature in their favor and not a glitch.
It was the Evangelical literalist generation of Christian fanatics being replaced by cultural/nationalist Christian fanatics who didn’t care about arguing that God literally stopped the Earth’s rotation for a bit once, they just make “the Christian cultural practices make us the supreme culture” arguments. And there was always an undercurrent of “the undeveloped savages lack our rational way of doing things, that’s why they’re savages” to portions of the new atheist movement, which dovetails with that attitude.
Plus, the right started picking up the “logic facts and reason” schtick so it made for an attractive grift to new atheists already with that branding.
I have the seed of an idea for a thesis paper on how new atheists are the hippies of the millennial generation. But I’m too busy being poor to do any research, so…
Unironically yes. I think one could show a consistent chauvinist libertine pattern with American counter-culture movements like that, where despite being in conflict with the mainstream their opposition is way more in the vein of “I want more, I want to be personally liberated to do as I wish unto others” than genuine opposition to the horrifying cruelty and depravity of the American mainstream.
I’ve been talking about this concept for years now, but have yet to sit down and write a formal history of the subject with referencible examples.
cursed take lmao. like it’s spot on, but jesus christ
I think the good ones retired when the Bush-era anti-religious revival stopped, and the ones who were just in it to have an audience listening to their angry takes followed the audiences that wanted angry takes.
I don’t really know though; despite being a lifelong atheist and about the right age, none of these people have ever really appealed to me.
I don’t get it either. I was a fan of these dudes when I was young, and the path they led me down was the conclusion of “Christianity is the root of most evil in the western world, and all of its positions must be destroyed, including patriarchy, racism, hierarchy, and belief in magic”
I really don’t know how you go “Christianity is the root of most evil, but all of its positions are good actually.” It makes more sense to me to be an intense misandrist than a misogynist, simply because it’s the opposite position of Christianity.
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