The New Atheist Movement is Dead

[CrucifyCindy]

The New Atheist Movement is dead and it is not exactly the fault of those who really wanted to give atheism a voice. I do blame Dawkins, he has in the recent past made some very stupid comments about stuff that as nothing to do with atheismand he can be blamed for giving voice to misogynists in the movement. Do I blame Hitchens? Hell no! Even though Hitchen's politics were sliding into Neo-Con territory I do not blame him, in fact I miss him because he was the one voice that would have questioned Dawkins, Harris an d others. He was the ultimate contarian and I do apprieciate him. Do I blame Sam Harris? Hell yes. Sam Harris has an aggenda that has nothing to do with atheism (whether he is an atheist is doubtful, the dude beleives in Buddhist woo), he is an Islamphobe in the likes of Ann Coulter and you atheist accepted him and invited him into the dialogoe and people like him have poison it with hate. This is why the New Atheist movement has died. It lost any moral high ground and has become a movement of fear, hate and bigotry. The very thing it has criticized about religions. When Dawkins is making misogynistic statements and you accept them then you lost the moral high ground against religion, when you accept Sam Harris perpetuate his hatred of Islam without criticizing it then you have lost the moral high ground against religions that preach hate. A movement always loses when that high ground is lost...The New Atheist movement lost it.

[Baruch]

But my hate is speaking truth to power and your hate is bigotry ;-)

On a purely psychological and personal note ... people including myself, who think we can speak to big issues or big villains ... might be lacking in humility and I confess to having a big mouth ;-)

If the New Atheists had been merely against self-destructive Arab politics ... I could respect them, as non-experts.  But if someone paints with a big brush, one might get wet paint on oneself as well as the wall one is trying to paint.

[jonb]

An atheist movement that gets rid of gawd but rallies around saints is not worth a glance.

[Baruch]

An atheist movement that gets rid of gawd but rallies around saints is not worth a glance.

Without our idolatry, where would we be?  Avoiding idolatry by substituting one for another ... is a bit like musical chairs.  Don't be the last one to sit down!

[CrucifyCindy]

Without our idolatry, where would we be?

I think we would be free.

[Baruch]

Thats a hard to get ... freedom.  The price is higher than most people are willing to pay, particularly since it is primarily payed in the coin of one's own weaknesses and foibles.

[mauricio]

Having been intellectually raised by people like the four horsemen, carl sagan, douglas adams and other science popularizers, intellectuals and writers. I'm truly sad at the way i see atheists act on the internet this days. I have been watching the richard dawkins facebook page that seems to be run by a SJW that keeps publishing articles for everyone to circlejerk in their tribalism of liberals vs conservatives calling people homophobes,racists, sexists without any sort of actual skeptical analysis or refutation. Seems like very few people actually remember what the new atheism movement was about. It was about not taking things at face value but always scrutinizing any claim, even if it was said by another atheist or a scientist.

I found this youtube comment that sums up the degradation of the atheist movement due to it's mixing with political identities and the intellectual laziness of it's members that made it descend into tribalism forgetting that ultimately evidence is king not political affiliation or other characteristics of the speaker. And how they use technology to hide in echochambers rather than debate ideas.

The thing we've been learning is that these people aren't atheists in the sense we'd like to know it, aka valuing evidence and reason above all else. These people are anti theists, no different than any religious person who attacks another religion while having no self awareness of their own faiths unsupportable presumptions and irrationality. Its why these new "progressive" leftists/sjw's/feminists are so easily fooled by pseudo science, whether it be thorium cars or solar roadways, science is faith and a badge of social currency, nothing deeper than that. When confronted with arguments they can't rebut, they block, they no platform, they silence. These new "progressives" only wear the skin of atheism and being liberal, they do not care for the values. So while I'm not going to agree with milo on religion as an atheist, he is right about it not being the major issue in western societies anymore. You can bash religion all want(outside islam) on platforms like youtube and suffer no real consequences, but I've watched channel after channel touching on feminism critically being flagged down. In the manosphere its a given that eventually they will be hit with strikes, and youtube has proven that it applies special rules for special people, they are demonetizing videos, demanding they be removed, never getting around to answering questions on the reason for their actions because their system doesn't allow for any recourse or transparency. They are free to be as arbitrary as they wish, and with channels like thinkparadox, redpillphilosophy, tl;dr, becauseiamaboy, themajorofmgtow etc, the track record is becoming clear, they either allow for behavior which creates a chilling effect, or they condone it by rewarding flagging of material which is not offensive by any objective standard, it simply offended feminists. This isn't a danger atheists have to face anymore unless they touch on feminism, like thunderf00t has found out when his twitter was suspended for no good reason as well. Technology doesn't necessarily make people smarter. Gamergate proved xkcd's citogenesis effect,, where bad citation gets repeated in the corrupt and lazy media echo chamber into becoming legitimate wikipedia citations and articles. In gamergate we've seen these regressive leftists promote things like blacklists/blocklists to shield their followers from "harmful opinions". We've seen the very same types push for the removal of comment sections from countless websites and news sites based on the same threat narrative. Tech is enabling more people to create their own little bubbles, enabled by social media companies who find a captive mind the most convenient. The regressive left have common cause with authoritarian tendencies of governments and the desire of corporations to control people to create "safe spaces" by throwing away their privacy and their freedoms. Facebook now demands government ID from accounts they deem too '"fake", soon they will have the excuse that they are doing this just to "protect" people from "danger", government agencies have their own reasons to track people and undermine anonymity, there is always a threat, and the more you can be tracked, the more can be sold to you, the more you can be controlled. Just look at the UN "cyberviolence" report http://pastebin.com/QwwLkFNH they tried to sell just a few weeks ago. This isn't the result of people becoming smarter through technology. It was a demonstration of pervasive intellectually laziness, if not outright dishonesty which is allowed to fester these days, unchallenged in any real way. It took people who have had their name slandered for a year and a "right wing" journalist to help expose such incompetence because no one else would do it, fearing they would be called "misogynists". Just yesterday Forbes pulled an article disagreeing with the notion there is a diversity problem in tech. Its not the right wing silencing discussion anymore, that is for certain.

PS: I don't fully agree with that comment, but it illustrates how the values of scientific thinking are ignored and the label is just used to provide status to the speaker who pretends science is on his side. See people who claim for example that weed is harmless and science proves it! as if that is either true or an argument in and of itself.

[Munch]

Atheism is not a religion, it isn't a gathering of easily manipulated sheeple, it isn't an indoctrination, and it isn't something that can only exist with its own 'church', that itself defeats the purpose of atheism in and of itself, and the only reason people form churches around atheism was because they couldn't get the religious mentality out of their heads.

We don't need shit like that, all atheism has ever been is an awareness of facts about religion, and the view of what all religions are. If you can find like minded people, thats good, but it doesn't have to be the basis of what it represents. I'm an atheist not because I want to look for atheistic meetings and have preacher tell me what to think, its the same shit I have with my diabeties, when they keep offering me invites to these big ass diabetics UK grand meetings, all I think is why the fuck would I want to go to a large meeting place to be reminded I have a medical condition, I don't need that, I control my own condition without the need of some mass groups people with the same medical problem.

[mauricio]

Atheism is not a religion, it isn't a gathering of easily manipulated sheeple, it isn't an indoctrination, and it isn't something that can only exist with its own 'church', that itself defeats the purpose of atheism in and of itself, and the only reason people form churches around atheism was because they couldn't get the religious mentality out of their heads.

We don't need shit like that, all atheism has ever been is an awareness of facts about religion, and the view of what all religions are. If you can find like minded people, thats good, but it doesn't have to be the basis of what it represents. I'm an atheist not because I want to look for atheistic meetings and have preacher tell me what to think, its the same shit I have with my diabeties, when they keep offering me invites to these big ass diabetics UK grand meetings, all I think is why the fuck would I want to go to a large meeting place to be reminded I have a medical condition, I don't need that, I control my own condition without the need of some mass groups people with the same medical problem.

the atheist movement that started in 2006 is not the same as atheism though. It was a movement of young people becoming aware for the first time of skepticism and scientific thinking.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

This "movement" ...

[mauricio]

Do I blame Sam Harris? Hell yes. Sam Harris has an aggenda that has nothing to do with atheism (whether he is an atheist is doubtful, the dude beleives in Buddhist woo), he is an Islamphobe in the likes of Ann Coulter and you atheist accepted him and invited him into the dialogoe and people like him have poison it with hate.

[citation required]

[mauricio]

When Dawkins is making misogynistic statements

[citation required]

[CrucifyCindy]

This "movement" ...

Well it was a reality or fad but it did happen and I am sorry if you are embarrassed about it but it was an actual "meme"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Atheism

http://www.iep.utm.edu/n-atheis/

[Sal1981]

I have no idea what OP is talking about. How about an example of how Sam Harris is criticizing Islam without any merit?

[surreptitious57]

The New Atheist Movement may or may not be dead though atheism is increasing across both
North America and Europe. And this is undeniably a good thing as it makes for a more secular
society. However being an atheist in and of it self does not make one a better human being or
a better critical thinker or a greater authority on the meaning of life. Or any thing else for that
matter. As it just makes you some one who has no belief in the metaphysical being commonly
known as God. Although it actually applies to all gods not just the God but he be the main one
And that is all an atheist is and so anything else is simply arbitrary as it is not conditional on it