The rise of the 'Atheist' identity

[SmirkerOfTheWorld]

The disappearence of religion, spirituality and other forms of non-materialistic, irrational belief from society is very much a good thing and the world is becoming more secular/atheistic in general - this is something to be applauded and will hopefully lead to happier, more imaginative and liberated world.


But the rise of self-proclaimed Atheist Priests like Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris and the like - dogmatic bigots masquerading as 'free-thinkers' - is not only creating a backlash where religious fundamentalism can thrive and go on the defence, but it is alienating vast swathes of irreligious people who never signed up to be part of Dawkins' cult.



'Atheist' is NOT A PROTECTED CHARACTERISTIC. What Dawkins and their ilk are doing, prehaps unintentionally, is building an Atheist Identity, whereby (usually) non-oppressed people, that is white, middle-class men, can try and emulate the oppression of the non-privileged thereby protecting their privilege.


That is NOT FREE-THINKING.


That is not rejection, but acceptance of dogma and it is an incredibly narrow-minded view which is leading vast swathes of secular-thinking people to turn away from materialism towards New Age, nationalism, and other "spiritual" notions...even worse, it is resulting in a massive backlash where people, mainly from the non-established religion (Christianity) and turning back to their original faiths as a way of defending their identity against this new bigoted Atheist Identity.


This is why we should oppose all the bullshit the New Atheists put out and keep them from monopolising rationalism, reason, materialism, humanism, egoism etc...


Thoughts?

[Eleutheromaniac]

Atheism has become too politicized. Look at Reddit. Some of the posts on /r/atheism have nothing to do with faith, and everything to do with bashing Republicans.

Richard Dawkins naively discounts philosophy as a realm of scholarly interest. Christopher Hitchens supported water boarding until he underwent to process himself. The point is that new(ish) movements always seem to have sort of a role model that everyone follows. Personally, fuck those guys. However, I don't discount their research entirely. The loss of their followers is due to their arrogance, not their ignorance.

Nobody is monopolizing rationalism, materialism, etc. Everybody should be able to think for themselves. Some people give the movement a bad name, but every movement has that "foil" who exposes things society finds inappropriate.

[Atsumari]

When Richard Dawkins gives his support to Pat Condell, you know something went wrong. Plus a guy who loves rationalism and logic saying to a woman "Well some people in the Middle East have it worst than you," is a bit laughable.

Rational Wiki also has a fun game called "Harris or Malkin?"
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Sam_Harris

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

The disappearence of religion, spirituality and other forms of non-materialistic, irrational belief from society is very much a good thing and the world is becoming more secular/atheistic in general - this is something to be applauded and will hopefully lead to happier, more imaginative and liberated world.


But the rise of self-proclaimed Atheist Priests like Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris and the like - dogmatic bigots masquerading as 'free-thinkers' - is not only creating a backlash where religious fundamentalism can thrive and go on the defence, but it is alienating vast swathes of irreligious people who never signed up to be part of Dawkins' cult.



'Atheist' is NOT A PROTECTED CHARACTERISTIC. What Dawkins and their ilk are doing, prehaps unintentionally, is building an Atheist Identity, whereby (usually) non-oppressed people, that is white, middle-class men, can try and emulate the oppression of the non-privileged thereby protecting their privilege.


That is NOT FREE-THINKING.


That is not rejection, but acceptance of dogma and it is an incredibly narrow-minded view which is leading vast swathes of secular-thinking people to turn away from materialism towards New Age, nationalism, and other "spiritual" notions...even worse, it is resulting in a massive backlash where people, mainly from the non-established religion (Christianity) and turning back to their original faiths as a way of defending their identity against this new bigoted Atheist Identity.


This is why we should oppose all the bullshit the New Atheists put out and keep them from monopolising rationalism, reason, materialism, humanism, egoism etc...


Thoughts?

Dawkins, Hitchens and the like are, of course, bourgeois liberals, and like all bourgeois liberals, they are the enemy (even if certain liberals are able to swindle large sections of the "left"). But your post is worrying on several levels.

First of all, the nonreligious do experience discrimination, even in "the West", ranging from de facto religious tests for certain jobs to special privileges being granted to the religious. Technically, atheism is "NOT A PROTECTED CHARACTERISTIC", in terms of US, UK, etc. law, but in many cases, neither is sexual orientation.

The characterisation of atheists as "white, middle-class men" does remind me a bit of the old US Maoist (RCP, RWH) tirades against those decadent gay men. If you brought up the old canard about religion (family) being a great help to the poor, the resemblance would be uncanny.

Finally, if those "vast swathes of secular-thinking people" are so fragile they can't take an honest statement of atheism (gods don't exist, period), that's their problem. You might as well require communists to shut up about socialisation of the means of production because that would scare off the "vast swathes of leftist-thinking people".

The problem with "New Atheists" isn't that they're atheists, it's that they're liberals, and in fact, they're not atheist enough. As communists, our task is to present a consistent, Marxist atheism, not pander to the "undecided".

[Slavic]

To each their own. Religion is not a bad thing, it is the rise of religeous organizations which breeds.the hate and bigotry that one typically associates with religious people. Atheist religeous organizations are not an exception to this rule.

[slum]

The problem with "New Atheists" isn't that they're atheists, it's that they're liberals, and in fact, they're not atheist enough.

i cannot stress this enough. these guys are mouthpieces for the liberal ideologies behind so much ostensibly 'secular' capitalist rhetoric. keep an eye on them and their arguments, they have the same crypto-deism embedded in there as other liberal ideologues who worship 'rational' capitalist realism as 'science'/'common sense'

[Psycho P and the Freight Train]

*tips fedora*

Seriously though, fuck these people. A bunch of douchebag liberal idiots who can't shut the fuck up about how liberal and euphoric they are.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

Religion is not a bad thing.
Even at its best, religion is anti-scientific idealism.

[Atsumari]

Even at its best, religion is anti-scientific idealism.
You will be surprised at scientific progress many religious people have made. The first guy who proposed the possibility of the Big Bang, Georges Lemaitre was a Catholic priest. It was not like science was in danger before the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment.
I still do not understand how people think that being non-religious is somehow a requirement to be a good scientist.

[Blackburn]

Yes, I understand what the OP is saying. The behaviour of r/atheism is quite disgusting, as is most of reddit. The cries of the angry young white man as he perceives his toys are being taken away from him.

I think we have vital aspect of our selves that can lumped under 'irrational' that needn't be described that way. We will always emotionally engage with the world. Religion and spirituality can be an aspect of that.

The problems lies why people want to force their religion on you, and discard science when it suits them. The idea that this is entirely the domain of 'religion' is an outdated and naive notion. I think people will act irrational without religion.

This is why I believe in promoting the secular state. Allowing people to live with their own religious choices, and preventing them from forcing it on others.

Maybe I'm old fashioned. But I don't believe in forced Atheism by the gun or some sort of room 101 solution from 1984.

[Slavoj Zizek's Balls]

Marx, interestingly, thought that Atheism involved a lot time-wasting. Andy Blunden of MIA and Vale Smith both explain this case well.

A quote from Marx, then a link to Andy's text.


I desired that, if there is to be talk about philosophy, there should be less trifling with the label “atheism” (which reminds one of children, assuring everyone who is ready to listen to them that they are not afraid of the bogy man), and that instead the content of philosophy should be brought to the people.Voilà tout.

Where 'trifling' means :'time-wasting' (archaic).

Link: http://home.mira.net/~andy/works/atheism.htm

[rylasasin]

You will be surprised at scientific progress many religious people have made. The first guy who proposed the possibility of the Big Bang, Georges Lemaitre was a Catholic priest. It was not like science was in danger before the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment.
I still do not understand how people think that being non-religious is somehow a requirement to be a good scientist.

Religious people ≠ Religion.

Such people may be or may have been religious, but they only make/made progress when they put aside their religion for the moment and looked to naturalistic, materialistic solutions rather than looking to their religion of choice for answers.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

You will be surprised at scientific progress many religious people have made.
That just means they're inconsistent, using reason when it suits them professionally, and falling back on anti-scientific idealism when it suits them personally.

[Atsumari]

Religious people ≠ Religion.

Such people may be or may have been religious, but they only make/made progress when they put aside their religion for the moment and looked to naturalistic, materialistic solutions rather than looking to their religion of choice for answers.
The rationale of learning science is that it brought you closer to God. I am not saying that Christianity is a requirement to be a scientist, but the history of science most certainly did not involve a rational/irrational or naturalistic/superstitious dialectic. It was not really until Galileo and Copernicus when things started to get controversial and I would say it was Aristotelian dogmatism more than anything.


That just means they're inconsistent, using reason when it suits them professionally, and falling back on anti-scientific idealism when it suits them personally.
Are you for real?

Let me put it this way. Science does not need religion but religion needs science.

[Tenka]

I can't stand New Atheists. I do not believe in any Dawkins cult or any such thing though. American self-identified Atheists tend to be especially reactionary due to the quasi-theocratic political and cultural climate in the U.S. British ones, due to general Islamophobia, from my admittedly shallow understanding.

[rylasasin]

The rationale of learning science is that it brought you closer to God.

Then why more often than not does it do the exact opposite? :laugh:. Study of materialistic reality tends to lead you away from the presupposition of a supernatural being.


It was not really until Galileo and Copernicus when things started to get controversial and I would say it was Aristotelian dogmatism more than anything.

No true scotsman fallacy.


Are you for real?

Let me put it this way. Science does not need religion but religion needs science.

Are you for real? :rolleyes:

Try telling that to the Discovery Institute. Or the multitudes of other religious anti-science organizations.:glare:

Religion works just fine without science and has done so for the longest of times. In fact it's when science started entering the picture and started to disprove what the religion taught that it started causing problems. Suddenly people started questioning their religion, and they can't have that. :glare:

No. Religion does not "need" science, nor vise versa. Never did, never will.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

Let me put it this way. Science does not need religion but religion needs science.
Religion has never needed science. That's an absurd statement.

[synthesis]

Just gonna leave this here.


"Imagine, sang John Lennon, a world with no religion. Imagine no suicide bombers, no 9/11, no 7/7, no Crusades, no witch-hunts, no Gunpowder Plot, no Kashmir dispute, no Indo/Pakistan partition, no Israel/Palestine wars, no Serb/Croat/Muslim massacres, no Northern Ireland 'troubles'. Imagine no Taliban blowing up ancient statues, lashing women for showing an inch of skin, or publicly beheading blasphemers and apostates."

-Richard Dawkins

I believe this quote aptly illustrates the problems posed by the phenomenon of bourgeois atheism, which we must be careful to distance ourselves from as Marxists and materialists. Bourgeois atheism has thoroughly permeated the modern Leftist movement in advanced capitalist countries.

What bourgeois atheism proposes is that the evils perpetrated by religious historical actors can be solely reduced to religious origins without regard for materialist analysis; bourgeois atheism, in and of itself, is a product of the conflicts between the emerging bourgeois and the clerical institutions in the Enlightenment era.

Bourgeois atheism denies material conditions in its obsessive need to invalidate religion. Bourgeois atheists, for example, deny that the attack on the World Trade Center had a material basis in indirect Western imperialism in the region through support for Israel, various military dictatorships, and corrupt capitalist democracies.

Bourgeois atheists deny that the Crusades had a material basis in the desire of the European ruling class to seize land and eliminate trade rivals. They deny that the Israel-Palestine conflict has a basis in Zionist colonialism in the 19th century. They deny the role of British imperialism in the Irish troubles.

What bourgeois atheists propose is that these destructive events can be wholly eliminated through the abolition of religion, completely denying the role of conditions in engendering conflict.

As Marxists, we should know better. It's time to abandon the irrational, bourgeois obsession with assaulting religion at all levels that has become such an obstacle to facilitating progress in Western society, and replace it with legitimate materialist analysis.


In any case, Dawkins wasn't really the primary target of this essay, which is apparent in the context of the original thread (http://www.revleft.com/vb/bourgeois-atheism-t67274/index.html?t=67274).

The real target would be actually be typified by the likes of Christopher Hitchens, a quintessential example of the bourgeois atheist.

Born to a bourgeois background, he was a Trot until, apparently, he became convinced that Islam was a greater threat than capitalism and eventually came to support Western imperialism in the Middle East as a result of his newfound convictions.

I argue that this is the danger of the various (unwitting) expressions of bourgeois atheism, on RevLeft and elsewhere, the mindset which is so strongly opposed to religion that when many of its adherents take it to its logical conclusion, they come to support agendas that are, on their face, expressions of anti-theism, but in fact are strongly rooted in reactionary intentions.

[Alexios]

Religion works just fine without science and has done so for the longest of times. In fact it's when science started entering the picture and started to disprove what the religion taught that it started causing problems. Suddenly people started questioning their religion, and they can't have that. :glare:

this is a really lazy and simplistic analysis that seems to completely leave out all other factors in the trend towards atheism and instead attributes it to scientific progress alone. Atheism is largely the result of the liberalization of society and the dis-involvement of the state in public and private life. It's pretty ironic that you flaunt your 'materialism' in this post.

[Wuggums47]

You will be surprised at scientific progress many religious people have made. The first guy who proposed the possibility of the Big Bang, Georges Lemaitre was a Catholic priest. It was not like science was in danger before the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment.
I still do not understand how people think that being non-religious is somehow a requirement to be a good scientist.

I agree with this, I feel that the existence of god can't truly be disproven. I'm religious but I don't think like a lot of Religious people do. I don't view science and religion as competing with eachother, I feel that the metaphysical and the physical are entirely separate. I also don't feel like religion is ever a cause to promote hatred, but rather a reason to oppose hatred and oppression of all kinds. I firmly believe that God opposes anti homosexual "activists", religious intolerance, and capitalism. Lastly I feel that it is logical to believe in something if it will make you happy. God makes me happy and makes sense to me, so I don't think anyone should be trying to convince me otherwise.

[Slippers]

I am immediately suspicious of anyone who loudly trumpets their own atheism or who bashes religion constantly.

That's generally a good indicator that someone's generally shitty.

I'm an atheist and there are certainly good reasons to criticize religion especially when it upholds oppression but generally I'd prefer to be respectful of people's religious beliefs and any good anti-religious sentiment there was to be found has been lately totally hijacked by Dawkins and bourgeois liberal nerds and I really don't want to be associated with their ilk.

Sorry if I'm not making sense; I really ought to be asleep now.

[BIXX]

Where 'trifling' means :'time-wasting' (archaic).


There is no way that's archaic. I cannot believe this. I didn't even realize there was another way to use it.