(I have amended the title of this post based on feedback and critique, to more acutely reflect the target of my grievance)
This could be a bad take, but, hear me out.
I was once a subscriber to r/atheism a long time ago. I was absolutely a smug ass fucking atheist. I'm not sure what it was that caused this world view I held to change, but as time marched on I've grown incredibly suspect of anyone who willingly identifies themselves as an "atheist".
I grew up going to church every week. That slowed as I got older. I remember my grandmother telling me I needed to cut my hair at church, and telling her "I have hair like Jesus, you think Jesus should cut his hair?" I learned later we stopped going to church because they started preaching about antiabortion and my mother wanted nothing to do with that.
So I was at least fairly indifferent about religion by the time I was in highschool. I remember Atheism giving me a sense of superiority that was deeply rooted in "facts and logic" despite being a severely under read dipshit in highschool. I'm sure I spent countless amounts of time debating people in comments, being a general idiot on the internet. Probably passively consumed a bunch of Hitchens work/ideas without having read any of his books.
At some point I stopped putting a lot of thought into it, and this smug sensibility was pushed into the back of my brain. Then in 2020, like a lot of people, I was swept up in this rise in socialist thinking, leading me to change my entire perspective on the world.
I think it wasn't until recently, when I was having a conversation with someone I knew and the topic of Islam came up that I realized how much I had distances myself from this smug atheist perspective. They said something about Islam being an "inherently violent religion", and my gut, instinctual reaction was to blurt out "What? What makes you think that's true?" They responded with something being in the Quran, and again, like water from a faucet the words "Listen, maybe that's true, maybe its not, but Islamic people are not a monolith." poured out of me and the conversation kind of died on the vine.
The reason I'm even thinking about this today is because, of all things, I watched the Asmongold "apology" video he published today. He attributes his shit ass takes about Palestinians being an inferior culture and thus worthy of genocide to his "hatred for religious extremism of all kinds". He goes on to say that he was or is a "r/atheist enjoyer" and a self professed "atheist". It really confirmed a lot of assumptions I have about atheism that I guess have been lingering in my skull.
Those assumptions being that Atheism is, on it's face, a religion in and of itself. It's belief is in that of non-belief. It has missionaries like most other religious belief systems, seeking to secularize communities and cultures. It believes it is the one true religion and that all other religions are false religions with false gods. It demonizes all other practitioners of these false religions indiscriminately, believing that they are either upholding their wicked systems of oppression, or are directly complicit in them. Countless books have been written about the its theology and the logic of its faith. It is a fully fledged faith, in that you have to believe in this non-belief, on faith that you will be proven correct when you die.
Not only all this but its clear to me now that Atheism is the western liberal religious belief system. Its fully compatible with western chauvinism, as it demonizes the wests enemies on the grounds of their systems of belief, which are regularly the reason for the wests interventions. Western wars are "secular" wars and as such they are atheist colonial projects as well. The idea that modernizing a backwards 3rd world country would bring about liberal democracy and with it liberal values. Atheism is liberal values.
Now this isn't to say that religious violence doesn't exist or that religious extremism is also a fable, but instead that Atheism and its ideas are a form of religious persecution, it breeds the same phobic believes that other religions develop about the ones they are attempting to conquer. The Atheist believes that through the abolition of religion, via changing hearts and minds, a entire form of violence will be removed as well. It completely denies the material realities and conditions that cause religious extremism to begin with. Because of this, it doesn't recognize that to achieve a secular world, it will only be done so through violence.
Somehow the atheist believes that religion and culture are all somehow disconnected and isolated phenomenon. That somehow you can remove religion from the equation without damaging or altering culture. That some how this secularization will happen quietly and without conflict.
When I'm asked if I'm religious I say no. if asked if I'm an atheist, I say no. The only thing I would identify as in this context is as a materialist. It matters not to me what lays beyond the vale of life, but what does matter to me is what is happening here and now. Pain and suffering exists here in this conscious reality. Happiness can be achieved here in this conscious reality. That happiness can include religious and spiritual belief.
I have no conclusions here. This is just the ramblings of an old wizard. If I'm off base here please tell me. Interested in your perspectives as always comrades.
I think my framework of looking at American counter cultures as being heavily biased towards being fundamentally just as chauvinist as and a little more treat-centric and libertine than the mainstream culture works well here. Like Atheism as a movement in America has fundamentally been comfortable straight white men who think all the performative stuff and cultural signifiers they have to do to join with the Evangelical power framework are cringe and dumb barriers in between them and their preferred treats: in their worldview all the cruelty and hate and domination and violence that the theocrats carry out are secondary bullet points to tack onto a powerpoint presentation in support of their real grievances, which are that the theocrats are cringe little weirdos who think silly things that are cringe and what's worse are standing between fun loving guys and yim yum tasty treats like drugs and porn and free access to women's bodies.
Atheism itself is just disbelief, a rejection of mythology and magic as infeasible. It's not a ward against chauvinism or libertine treat-lust, and toxic sorts of self-interest and an alignment with American hegemony can make anything and everything toxic by association.
no notes, 10/10
You cracked the "LessWrong" code.
The secret is that if you swap out the word "theocrats" in that sentence for a context-appropriate antagonist it becomes an accurate description of a big chunk of basically any big counter culture in the US over the past century or so. Sometimes you don't even have to swap it out, you just have to attribute it to a different time. Like it describes
s being mad at geriatric old fuddy duds who hate fun one year and then redirecting that onto women the next year because Steve Bannon told them women were coming for their treats, it describes the hedonism of rock fandoms or the hippies, etc.
Smug treatbrain is so quintessential to American culture that it makes me want to do a bit about brainpans and treat lobes to mock explain it.
"The uncool old guard are trying to inhibit access to your treats" call to arms arguably goes back to at least the American Revolution, if applied broadly enough.
I don't even mean the tea tax or the attempt to ban applejack. I mean "England is trying to restrict and discourage slavery! How dare they!"
Yep. Fundamentally the same sentiment sits at a lot of reactionary thought, either in opposition to a status quo that isn't permissive enough for the privileged classes or in defense of a status quo that gives them almost unlimited personal freedom to act upon others as they please. You've got slavers opining that abolition would be the real slavery because it would destroy the only true freedom that is being an idle slaver dandy who can do as he please and live in opulence on the backs of others. There's that one take on Fascism that it was fundamentally selling itself as the liberation of the warrior class and the powerful who were then free to subjugate and act upon others as they pleased.
We can even tie this into the whole farcical framework of "individualism" vs "collectivism," where "individualism" is the "good and free" state of things where the vast majority of all individuals are subjugated through violence both direct and indirect to serve the opulence and lusts of the more privileged classes, and "collectivism" is the "bad and unfree" state of things where all individuals have their needs met and there is a systemic goal of preventing a more privileged class from separating out and preying upon them or abolishing and reintegrating such a class if it already existed.
Too many fair-weather leftist fall on the individualist side of things, like during that struggle session about wide-scale corporate powered sports gambling where "fuck you don't tell me what to doooooooooooooo" became the beginning and ending of a few treat defenders' arguments.
"No veggies at dinner, no bedtimes" baby leftist ideology is ideological poison.