Anonymous A (OP) double-posted this 3 weeks ago, 2 minutes later[^][v]#1,413,451
I personally know a lot of people who'll say they're atheists or agnostic when asked, so it's not like atheism went away. But where's the edgy atheism gone? Where's Dawkins and his fanbase? Why don't I hear about r/atheism anymore? Sam Harris? Christopher Hitchens (yes I know he's dead)?
The blackest guy double-posted this 3 weeks ago, 2 minutes later, 1 hour after the original post[^][v]#1,413,459
One thing I have found annoying about militant atheists is that Catholics are more private with their belief than Protestants are, and the United States is majority Protestant, so whenever I’ve heard a militant atheist complain about Catholicism, it never really swayed me because it always sounds like they’re complaining about Protestants and don’t know what the difference is.
The blackest guy triple-posted this 3 weeks ago, 4 minutes later, 1 hour after the original post[^][v]#1,413,460
Mostly it just seemed overly reductionist to me, if there are 1.4 billion Catholics and the church is 2,000 years old, you can’t just label all of that history and all of those people as good or bad. Trying to reduce it down to a binary doesn’t mean anything.
tteh !MemesToDNA joined in and replied with this 3 weeks ago, 24 minutes later, 3 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,413,466
Well, the New Atheists® themselves scattered. Hitchens died, Dawkins got old, Sam Harris moved away from the "New Atheism" lane into podcasting and spirituality/Buddhism (he already fell out of favour with a lot of lefties after defending airport profiling lol), Ayaan Hirsi Ali converted to Christianity, and Daniel Dennett finally popped his clogs. The closest to a new 'horseman' is probably Alex O'Connor, and he's no antitheist.
But really I think a lot of people just grew up, and atheism stopped feeling like a rebellious/subversive/edgy identity once the teens who devoured The God Delusion entered the real world. Once it's just a default stance for a lot of people, who wants to rally around a movement defined by what it doesn't believe? And the attempts to bolt an identity onto it (Atheism+, the 'Brights' movement) felt contrived, probably because building a movement around a negation is inherently retarded. Some people strayed into adjacent movements like Effective Altruism and other TESCREAL-ish currents, which actually tried to offer a substantive programme (despite being their own flavour of retarded).
At the end of the day I think the novelty wore off and most people were happy to just... not believe, and move on.
boof joined in and replied with this 3 weeks ago, 10 minutes later, 3 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,413,469
in some group or groups, there's been drama with pro versus anti feminist stuff that is a distraction, devolving into a fuck-you-I'm-fascist-now attitude at worst
Anonymous I replied with this 2 weeks ago, 3 minutes later, 1 week after the original post[^][v]#1,415,085
@previous (H)
Our father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. And forgive us our trespass as we forgive those who trespass against us. Give us this day our daily bread, and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.
Killer Lettuce🌹 !HonkUK.BIE joined in and replied with this 2 weeks ago, 14 hours later, 1 week after the original post[^][v]#1,415,437
@previous (Green !!bO/s3MBcD)
I'm sorry, old friend, but I have chilled out since my militant atheist days as a lad. I am still an atheist, but I don't think much I accomplished by arguing about it on the internet. Also, religious people are obviously not all bad. It's like politics, I guess, sometimes you have to agree to disagree on things.
Besides, my country is already very secular anyway, so there's not really any religious interference to rally against here. If you were in a situation where religion was being used to control your life or you were being shunned for not believing then I would understand, but here that's just not much of thing.
Fake anon !ZkUt8arUCU joined in and replied with this 2 weeks ago, 54 minutes later, 1 week after the original post[^][v]#1,415,450
@1,413,466 (tteh !MemesToDNA)
This but also it's important to note that they took off when evangelical Christianity was ascendant in the US and they were waging war against jihadists in the middle east so there were a lot of problems and powerful stupid religious people who were fucking up the world. It felt good to fight back against that.
The world still sucks and is probably worse than then or narrowly better but rapidly becoming worse, but there is no clear identifiable religious cause behind it. So there just isn't the same animating energy behind the movement. Not to mention the younger generations are less religious in a traditional sense so in a way it's winning even though it's kind of become a historical footnote.
The Africa joined in and replied with this 2 weeks ago, 2 minutes later, 1 week after the original post[^][v]#1,415,451
@previous (Fake anon !ZkUt8arUCU)
Catholicism is a good middle ground between believing in Christ and not being a member of some hippie dippie yet somehow horrifically conservative Protestant mega church.
The Africa double-posted this 2 weeks ago, 1 minute later, 1 week after the original post[^][v]#1,415,452
Like they build churches that don’t even look like churches, a stadium isn’t a church… but they’re all conservative MAGA. Is Trump a Christian? It’s a question.
The Africa triple-posted this 2 weeks ago, 1 minute later, 1 week after the original post[^][v]#1,415,453
Bomb Nigeria on Christmas… that’s what God was about right? Whatever. Anyway I thought the pope had a pretty intelligent take on the whole power struggle thing.
Fake anon !ZkUt8arUCU replied with this 2 weeks ago, 1 minute later, 1 week after the original post[^][v]#1,415,454
@1,415,451 (The Africa)
Maybe the child rape coverup factory is the best church out there, but that seems to reflect poorly on churches, in my opinion.
The Africa joined in and replied with this 2 weeks ago, 2 hours later, 1 week after the original post[^][v]#1,415,474
@previous (Fake anon !ZkUt8arUCU)
I wonder if there’s a 2,000 year old religion consisting of 1.4 billion people where 0 of those people have ever been pedophiles.
The Africa double-posted this 2 weeks ago, 3 minutes later, 1 week after the original post[^][v]#1,415,475
Catholics believe that all humans are born with sin. If the church is an organization of people dedicated to worship of God, it seems obvious that the organization would be an organization of sinners. Personally, I believe that the Catholic Church was founded by Jesus. We can have a difference of opinion, but the good doesn’t diminish the bad and the bad doesn’t diminish the good.