Why were people so excited about atheism a few years ago?

[Anonymous No.15242145]

What the fuck did they expect was going to happen? They always seemed so happy making the same arguments over and over.

[Anonymous No.15242174]

>>15242145
Because religion is philosophically insufficient and practically ineffective. They were hoping atheism could transcend that which not only turned out to be worse.

[Anonymous No.15242734]

>>15242145
I don't know Dennet, but Dawkins is a shrill, culturally tone deaf asshat, which unfortunately led me to write off people like Harris and Hitchens by association. Despite my disagreements, I've come to respect these last two a lot more and would listen to them any time over Dawkins.

[Anonymous No.15242781]

>>15242145
Until the early to mid 00s, most people in the west (with exceptions, like large parts of the American south) were de facto godless, but a religious veneer still directed most of our public interactions in respectable society. I suspect the New Atheists got so much attention because they were encouraging people to stop suppressing themselves publically and exhorted them to act as godlessly in public as they did in private (whether you think that's a good thing or a bad thing). The sheer stupidity of the Bush regime over things like the Iraq War and the Patriot Act only exacerbated it, because they used a lot of superficially religious justifications

Also people realised how awful we had been to gays and felt bad and wanted shit like gay marriage. And given the current state of heterosexual marriage as a family-raising institution, you couldn't credibly oppose gay marriage on those kinds of grounds. Only religious arguments made sense, and large bodies of people were only "pretending" to be religious. So new atheism was compatible with a surging liberalism on social issues (gay marriage just one of them) in a way that true religious outlook wasn't

[Anonymous No.15242930]

>>15242145
God gave Hitchens cancer and killed the movement.

[Anonymous No.15243059]

>A philosopher
>A writer for Vanity Fair
I have no idea how a neuroscientist and evolutionary biologist linked with those two. And the worship of Hitchens was nauseating: yes he was well read but the man never offered any innovative ideas or insights. Hawkings argues better using science as a metric than all four of those guys combined.

[Anonymous No.15243074]

>>15242781
shit take

[Anonymous No.15243258]

>>15242145

Not a single philosopher in the atheist circles. Hitchens has made an ass of himself any time he is asked any even slightly nuanced question.

[Anonymous No.15243274]

>>15242145
They were all grifters and pseuds. Dawkins is just a fucking moron, Hitchens became a neocon imperialist, Harris needs Patreon money to stay relevant and Dennet is unknown compared to the others. New Atheism was a consequence of the triumph of liberal hegemony after the 1990s and was especially popular because of 9/11. After history slowly started to return they all dropped off because their presence was completely circumstantial and none of them are original

[Anonymous No.15243309]

>>15243258
> HOW DAYAH YOU? YOU SHED BE ASHAYMED!

[Anonymous No.15243324]

It was the neckbeard meme back then, in the same way that "scientific racism" has been the meme for the past few years

[Anonymous No.15243325]

>>15243258

The common philosopher's "trick": "I don't like what was said so I define it out of existence".

[Anonymous No.15243346]

>>15243274

being a neocon imperialist isn't a bad thing, liberal hegemony is a net good, and 9/11 was correctly instructive of the real barbarianism. Shame on you for your youthful error in suggesting otherwise.

[Anonymous No.15243370]

>>15243074
Why's that?

[Anonymous No.15243389]

The real question is: why were they able to quickly attain such popularity and why christians were completely unprepared for the bluntest and most obvious critical inquiry of their dogma? Why were they instead making fools of themselves by denying evolution and trying to become the best friends with Israel?

[Hyronimus B No.15243398]

>>15243274
>>15243274
Sam Harris left patreon 2 years ago.
>>15242145
>happy making the same arguments
because people wouldnt understand. I only know Harris on free will and its painful seeing the "arguments" of the opposition.
Dennet seems interesting although desu im sceptical of compatibalism. I watched a compatibalist on Joe Rogan who argued that believing in free will is convenient(!) therefore we should say it exist.

[Anonymous No.15243465]

>>15242145
if you're talking about 4chan - mostly pseud mentality and lolbertarianism, I'm talking about the times of Ron Paul and the Great Happening. atheism isn't inherently bad if properly theorized and practiced, read Nietzsche, Feuerbach and Marx

[Anonymous No.15243502]

>>15243389
Because they were pushed by big media.
Why were they pushed?
Because their godless narrative suits the ideology of big media owners and their overlords.

[Anonymous No.15243514]

>>15242145
Because the type of religion that was being practiced and perpetrated in public at the time they were popular had become stale and intellectually bankrupt. They weren't popular because the arguments they were making were particularly brilliant, it was that the arguments their opposition were raising were completely inane. They lived and died on a particular zeitgeist and now that it's passed they aren't very relevant anymore.

[Anonymous No.15243517]

>>15242174
>Because religion is philosophically insufficient
So is public education and the bread & circus loop, porn and whatnot. Sophistry as well.
>and practically ineffective.
Religion was very effective. It took a mandatory state institution to brainwash children out of it. Or rather, into another. They view their current religion as absolute truth and everything else must prove itself. Because they know better; they know it, because they were rated on it.

[Anonymous No.15243584]

>>15242174
Science (especially medical science) is just the new religion. Overplayed but true. None of the retards who are the most rabid atheists and scientismists know the esoterica of science, this is why “scientists” and medical professionals are now trained in public communication and to make “infographics” so they can spread the faith with exoteric social technology. What is “global warming” but apocrypha? Instead of the priest in white robes comforting the dying it is the doctor with a ventilator

[Anonymous No.15243696]

>>15243584

The difference is that scientific research at least strives for the most democratic distribution of ideas.

[Anonymous No.15243753]

>>15243696
>democratic distribution of ideas

[Anonymous No.15243856]

The only reason they are/were considered intelligent is because they have a habit of debating dumb American evangelical Protestants

[Anonymous No.15243865]

>>15242781
good post

[Anonymous No.15243879]

>>15243856
https://youtu.be/6VixqvOcK8E

[Anonymous No.15243890]

>>15243856
What Theists do you think are immune to atheistic critique

[Anonymous No.15243901]

>>15243584
What are you talking about nutjob climate change is not apocrypha. Stop watching Fox News your brain is melting

[Anonymous No.15243904]

>>15243890
The ones who don't justify their beliefs by pure reason alone

Augustine>Aquinas
Pascal>Descartes
Kierkegaard>Leibniz

[Anonymous No.15243912]

itt: butthurt religitards who realised the hat meme didn't suddenly make people believe in god again so they just resort to playground insults
there's still no fucking god. get over it

[Anonymous No.15243919]

>>15243904
If retarded feels over reals arguments are the best you have it's no wonder atheists are considered the intelligent ones

[Anonymous No.15243926]

>>15243059
Dawkins is by far the dumbest of the lot, and Harris isn't exactly bright himself.

[Anonymous No.15243931]

>>15243912
The hat meme did not turn people to God. It made people turn away from atheism which is a good thing

A Pagan or Trad Orthodox Larper is 10x better than a atheist who is happy about it

[Anonymous No.15243933]

>>15243309
lold

[Anonymous No.15243947]

>>15243389
To sweep away any remnants of faith in the mass public consciousness, thereby any resistance to the technocracy and the mark of the beast surveillance dystopia Bill and others are trying to push now.

[Anonymous No.15243952]

>>15243919
You are looking at it the wrong point of view. Arguing for some cosmological God is pointless since even if philosophical theism was some how proven it would be useless to the individual

This is why nobody is a deist anymore, people want a personal God, not some watchmaker who set the world in motion then went away

[Anonymous No.15243978]

>>15243952
The point is that you can't replace rational argumentation with "it feels really good in the belly when I believe X" and then complain that the guys on the opposite camp are considered the intelligent ones

[Anonymous No.15243979]

>>15243931
>It made people turn away from atheism
no it didn't. except for the fucknuts on here, nobody gave a shit about it
social media has given nonbelievers a voice. have a look on twitter, there are even people in muslim countries, where they could be imprisoned or killed for speaking out in public, declaring that they are atheists. if the threat of death didn't stop them, a hat isn't going to.

[Anonymous No.15244003]

>>15242145
They were a psyop who were dropped when their role was done

[Anonymous No.15244007]

>>15243901
I’m studying oceanographic climatology at a reputable institution, layman. The academy’s wisdom is not for you to question

[Anonymous No.15244014]

>>15243258
He was such a hack with his le cool edgy rebel persona. He was a pseud Camus in that regard, and Camus himself was already a pseud, so he's basically pseud's pseud

[Anonymous No.15244017]

>>15243978
Correct which is why Christians should never debate agnostics on why God exists. It's dumb pointless argument which only Evangelical Idiots engage in

Approximately 0 people in the entire history of the world have started believing in God because of some rational discussion on the appeal to the unknown

It does not make atheists more intelligent since they are also debating on the same pointless argument

[Anonymous No.15244024]

>>15244014
>rebel! but only in the pre-approved ways that don’t harm the status quo
>also die in iraq

[Anonymous No.15244028]

>>15243979
Atheism had hype when it was contrarian, now that it's socially acceptable nobody gives a flying fucking about it. We will see some sort of religious revival within the next 2-3 decades i'm sure

[Anonymous No.15244051]

>>15243059
Harris isn't a neuroscientist, he did his PhD and never published after that. His popular books are opinion pieces unconnected to his qualification. Dawkins was an actual biologist when he was young, but soon became a public educator rather than an active researcher. Not that there is anything wrong with that, he is a very good populariser of the field when he sticks to it and doesn't get into his anti-religion apologetics.

[Anonymous No.15244070]

>>15244007
You are the one who questions it numbnuts, is the dementia acting up again

[Anonymous No.15244081]

Atheists are just lazy anti-intellectuals that want to feel smart by agitating people then telling them to "prove it!!1" They don't understand that they are the ones making a claim. They claim that God does not exist. Outside of the shallowness of their own lives they have no evidence for this. They have no evidence for their claim that God does not exist. They are not open to the idea that God does exist - they claim He doesn't.

The man of faith makes no claim. He has faith and for this he needs no evidence. This is called belief. The man of faith believes. He has faith.

Atheists are nothing more than dumb agitators.

[Anonymous No.15244092]

>>15244017
It's not a pointless argument when it influences actual policy decision, your both sides bullshit makes no sense

[Anonymous No.15244096]

>>15244081
>They have no evidence for their claim that God does not exist.

Now atheists are the ones that have to prove that "God" doesn't exist instead of religions proving their beliefs.

[Anonymous No.15244119]

>>15244081
AYTEIST BTFO!!!!

you guys are fucking spastics. Most "atheists" don't give a fuck. I could care less if jesus wants to judge me at least he doesn't stop me watching cat girl penetration.

[Anonymous No.15244136]

>>15244092
I'm talking about the existence of God not some moral questions. Not all atheists have the same moral compass and neither do people who believe in God

If a Christian say's I believe in X because of God and then the Atheist who disagrees with X tries to fight against it by saying God does not exist (Which is automatically improvable) then that is pointless debate

[Anonymous No.15244147]

>>15242145
New Atheism was more than simply an anti religion movement; it was opposed to everything it considered dogmatic thinking and everything it considered irrational. It is no coincidence it saw its meteoric rise during Bush and the Iraq War. It offered a seemingly intellectualised world order that was conducive to liberalism, if you subscribed to 'reason' then all the world's problems like famine and war would stop. It was very political and very Utopian.

[Anonymous No.15244153]

>>15244147
>anti dogmatic
>must be dogmatic
Ideology is ideology

[Anonymous No.15244173]

>>15244136
>If a Christian say's I believe in X because of God and then the Atheist who disagrees with X tries to fight against it by saying God does not exist (Which is automatically improvable) then that is pointless debate
It's not pointless rational argumentation can change people's minds, this is a fact. Plenty of atheists are former theists who changed their mind.

[Anonymous No.15244193]

They were effective because they had no public resistance. People especially youth were concerned about religion and what they'd been taught about the world. These guys offered clarity while BTFOing traditional figures that argued for the status quo. People say they only hit idiots but Hitchens publicly BTFO even high ranking Catholic Church members

[Anonymous No.15244203]

>>15244173
Most people stop believing in God for other reasons (tragedy in life, non exposure to any religion growing up, PTSD from religious fundamentalists etc). Rational arguments like Teapots in space just reinforce already established atheists or lapsed religious people who never had faith to begin with, the same way the cosmological arguments just supports already religious peoples views

[Anonymous No.15244236]

>>15244203
You are forgetting that the Academia wasn't always atheists. In the middle ages the majority of intellectuals were Christians, and the shift in philosophical beliefs was accompanied with a shift in political beliefs. Again, this view that rational argumentation is pointless because no one ever changes his mind is demonstrably false, and I don't know why you cling so dearly to it.

[Anonymous No.15244279]

>>15243389
Because the American heretics are retards who can't debate or argue their own faith. Watch Hitchen's interview with Father George Coyne, Father Goerge actually comes off rather well in that.

[Anonymous No.15244289]

>>15243856
This. Dumb American heretics are the very worst that Christianity has to offer, and are the worst possible representations of the Christian faith as a whole.

[Anonymous No.15244290]

>>15244236
When did I say people don't change their minds? The philosophical/political shifts you are talking about took hundreds of years and actually flipped back and forth (see France post revolution or America) so why are you making out that History follows a linear atheist path?

The point i'm trying to make is that a religious believer does not have the same view point as an atheist. Even if you make the most rational argument in existence on why God does not exist it's not going to convince a genuine believer who basis his belief on faith. The basic atheist/agnostic arguments have already been explored and are obvious even to the medieval mind. New-atheism is just parroting things that have already been said.

So again. It's a pointless argument, both sides have laid down their reasons and it's up to the individual to make a choice

[Anonymous No.15244294]

>>15244096
This is a literature board. How is it that you are not able to parse my words?

[Anonymous No.15244410]

>>15243274
>Hitchens became a neocon imperialist
Another example of the strange Trotskyist-neoconservative pipeline

[Anonymous No.15244431]

>>15242145
New Atheism was a reaction to GWB. It's kind of irrelevant now.

[Anonymous No.15244622]

>>15242145
A reaction to the Evangelical movement at large and the last gasp of political relevancy that Christianity had in the form of the Bush presidency.

[Anonymous No.15244689]

>>15244410
It’s not strange, both are just fronts for jewish interest and neocon is more acceptable than trot so the need for a rebrand

[Goyim No.15244722]

>>15244689
Irving Kristol
Bill Kristol
David Frum
Richard Pipes
Daniel Pipes
David Horowitz
Richard Perle

CBS Sumner Ostrovsky Rothstein
Google Sergei Brin
Youtube Sergei Brin
NBC Soviet Ralph Roberts
Fox Leninist Rupert Murdoch
Israel PM Benjamin Milekowsky

Makes you think

[Anonymous No.15244798]

>>15244722
Not allowed to think, might notice something

[Anonymous No.15244808]

>>15244722
>Leninist Rupert Murdoch
people on here are really weird sometimes

[Anonymous No.15244815]

>>15244722
>the Israeli PM is Jewish
Drawing some powerful connections there

[Anonymous No.15244844]

>>15242174
>Because religion is philosophically insufficient and practically ineffective
Another lie made by coomers to justify their degeneracy. Religious people live better lives on every single metric, there are dozens of papers on this

[Anonymous No.15244867]

>>15244815
Jewish leaders are possible in western democracies but a non jewish leader is unthinkable in israel

[Anonymous No.15244869]

>>15243926
Harris only sounds smart because his dad forced him to study the dictionary everyday from the age of ten. Dawkins is an actual moron on philosophical matters, the “God delusion” is one of the worst non-fiction nooks I have ever read

[Anonymous No.15244882]

>>15243274
Dawkins is actually pretty smart when it comes to his field, the problem is that he's emotionally very immature

[Goyim No.15244885]

>>15244808
Look it up he used to have a statue of Lenin. Neoconservatism is just Neocommunism

>>15244815
>Milekowsky
Its a Russian name just like the other media/internet owners

[Anonymous No.15244890]

>>15244869
*worst fiction books

[Anonymous No.15244900]

>>15244028
Nobody ever really gives a fuck about commonly accepted points of view. Atheism is so accepted as the norm now among young people that it scarcely warrants any conversation, except when it's juxtaposed against the minority that are religious. You are correct in saying that there will probably be a religious revival though. A hyperindividualised society where people feel no sense of belonging can't possibly last long, no matter how true their beliefs are.

[Anonymous No.15244914]

>>15244900
Well, non of their beliefs are true in the pragmatic sense

[Goyim No.15244919]

>>15244900
Atheism was set up by Jews as a haughty solution to Bush's Evangelism and Bin-Laden's Islamism. Except Bin Laden explained he was just retaliating Bush's Zionist leaders behind the scene.

[Anonymous No.15244933]

>>15242145
Is was crowded out due to the requirements on one hand to be accepting of muslims and on the other the mocking of Christianity, of which 2 pictured are not even from christian heritage families (not sure about dennet).

Such a juxtaposition would’ve been too much and they were quietly shelved as their role had been mostly done

[Anonymous No.15244959]

>>15244919
Except jews support both islamism and evangelicalism. The must create a triangle of tension, with themselves curiously absent

[Anonymous No.15245048]

>>15242174
>admits atheism is pragmatically less effective
>still gets ankle-bitten by swarming religitards
Can we just all cool it with the zealotry, atheists and spiritualists alike? Please?

[Anonymous No.15245077]

>>15242145
Money... Turned out there was market for the promulgation of their ideas. I think it was irresponsible of them (money tends to do that), even though I agree with them for the most part ontologically.

[Anonymous No.15245135]

>>15244096
It’s very easy to prove for yourself that this material world isn’t all there is but there’s no metric of evidence that atheists would accept that quantify this. Instead of taking the rational/scientific approach of being agnostic since there’s no conclusive proof either way they lead into using the same faith based qualitative critics that they criticise theists for using.

[Anonymous No.15246485]

>>15243753
based

[Anonymous No.15246932]

>>15242781
Ironic since a lot of the new atheist are basically neo cons.

[Anonymous No.15247089]

>>15244070
He's retarded, but you didn't parse his obvious sarcasm.

[Anonymous No.15247176]

>>15242145
>They always seemed so happy making the same arguments over and over
Poor ones at that. I was into Christopher kitchens because I was young and had hatred, or immaturity in my heart. His quips peeked my interest. But I saw him lose to an Oxford theologian mathematician. And that changed my tune.

[Anonymous No.15247183]

>>15245135
Yea, S H A D O W P R O J E C T I O N

[Anonymous No.15247186]

>>15247176
Link me senpai

[Anonymous No.15247218]

>>15247186
this was about ten years ago, and I cannot find it. But I think the Guy had a Scottish accent. But really, all you have to do is study monadic predicate logic, proper philosophical argumentation, and know a tiny bit about Christianity to realize that a lot of his arguments are straw-men that plead to the emotional side of the anti-religious dogmatist. Which I was at the time.

[Anonymous No.15247233]

>>15245135
>It’s very easy to prove for yourself that this material world isn’t all there is
how

[Anonymous No.15247525]

>>15244081
You can’t prove a negative by definition anon

[Anonymous No.15247616]

>>15243074
I barely read that post and don’t care about the topic, but if you’re not going to contribute anything then don’t fucking reply you worthless trog

Your participation on this website provides antivalue and if you had any sense of decency you’d kill yourself in order to allow more bandwidth for the actual content-producing users

Inb4 Turing-test-failing meme response like “seethe”

[Anonymous No.15247629]

>>15242781
What are you talking about re “the current state of heterosexual marriage as a family raising institution”

[Anonymous No.15247997]

>>15246932
well, many of them are ethnic, ableit nonpractising (as if that means anything) jews

[Anonymous No.15248015]

>>15243059
Dawkins is alright when he writes things like The Selfish Gene but particularly cringe when he writes shit like The God Delusion.

[Anonymous No.15248042]

>>15247629
50 percent of marriages end in divorce these days. Hardly a stable zone to raise children in, is it?

[Anonymous No.15248114]

>Rebel
lmao in other words he was a nonentity.

[Anonymous No.15248268]

>>15244081
Of course the man of faith makes a claim, you absolute moron. Everyone has beliefs, the difference is that with faith one selectively suspends their empirical standards for belief.

god exists = positive, -extraordinary- claim
god doesn't exist = negative claim

Neither side should be excused from making arguments, but there is a much greater burden of proof upon the extraordinary & positive claim.

[Anonymous No.15249113]

>>15242145
>Why were people so excited about atheism a few years ago?
American Christians were a major support bloc for GWB. Once Obama got elected the Atheists were no longer needed and lost their political cover.

[Anonymous No.15249234]

>>15242145
>Dawkins
Became jaded when he saw the results of his philosophy (England a nanny state overrun with wogs)

>Harris
A good Public Intellectual I think but lost his megaphone when he was no longer needed to Own The Christians.

>Dennet
Unlike Harris, not a good Public Intellectual and disappeared from public view once he was no longer needed to play the part of the Wise Bearded Man against Bush's Evangelical supporters. I don't know how much he cares.

>Hitchens
Probably would have gone the same way as Dawkins if he hadn't conveniently died.

[Anonymous No.15249348]

>>15242734
This. Harris is fine (a lot more interesting as a technocrat than an atheist, but whatever) and Hitchens can actually make interesting points. Dawkins is just general shit, and should've stuck to STEM where he belongs.

[Anonymous No.15249397]

>>15246932
Exactly. If you ask an atheist why they support global hegemony and wars, you'll get a neocon response that just switches "God" with "reason".

[Anonymous No.15249422]

>>15244410
I'm fully convinced that all these former-Trotskyist neocons are just accelerationists purposefully pushing idiotic policies to ensure capitalism's collapse. Never forget that Reaganomics was put into practice by a former-progressive Hollywood elite.

[Anonymous No.15249437]

>>15249234
>Became jaded when he saw the results of his philosophy (England a nanny state overrun with wogs)
lol pretty much. He recently said that maybe after all we do need God for some people.

[Anonymous No.15250488]

>>15242930
/thread

[Anonymous No.15250518]

the atheist movement was a reaction against the evangelical movement, which used to be much more stronger in the bush and Reagan eras. But the evangelicals lost to the gays when they got gay marriage and were put on the back burner.
Then obama was elected and the creature known as the sjw became the new moral police and so the atheism movement declined

[Anonymous No.15250978]

>>15249397
Bullshit. There are loads of Christian/jew warhawks. Religious differences remain probably the most prevalent call to war (even if as a proxy for more worldly reasons). Atheists don't believe in spiritual martyrdom or divine command. I'm not anti-religion, but c'mon now.

[Anonymous No.15251816]

>>15247089
Quantify your statement of my being “retarded” empirically otherwise your assertion is without merit

[Anonymous No.15251854]

>>15245135
>If I presuppose something is real, no one can disprove it
It's all so tiresome

[Anonymous No.15251859]

>>15243931
>The hat meme did not turn people to God. It made people turn away from atheism which is a good thing
Atheism is simply not believing in a god. It's not an ideology in itself, no matter how bad you want it to be.

[Anonymous No.15251865]

>>15244081
No, atheists are those people that look awkwardly polite when you bring up your magic jew shit to them for no reason.

[Anonymous No.15251880]

>>15244081
How did you arrive at a position of belief in one form of god and not another (of the hundreds of mutually exclusive forms)? I'm going to guess 100% arbitrary circumstantial reasons

[Anonymous No.15251882]

>>15249348
Harris is objectively the dumbest and least interesting one of them

[Anonymous No.15251891]

>>15247525
Can you prove that statement?

[Anonymous No.15251897]

>>15251882
>If I phrase my opinion as objective it causes it to have more weight
read more, post less pleb

[Anonymous No.15251899]

>>15251897
It is objective. Seethe more, post more so I can enjoy it

[Anonymous No.15251912]

>>15245135
>I neither believe nor disbelieve in anything!
Yeah we get it, kid. You're very special and much smarter than the rest of us dumb opinion-havers. Now why don't you go play in traffic?

[Anonymous No.15251915]

>>15242930
THIS

[Anonymous No.15251928]

>>15242930
>God gives out cancer
>All those children in the cancer ward had it coming

[Anonymous No.15251962]

>>15244081
*beep* *beep* *beep* woah guys my retard radar is giving me crazy readings over here

[Anonymous No.15251992]

>>15242145
Harris is top tier cringe. At least the other three are entertaining.

[Anonymous No.15252116]

>>15242734
Harris is just as much a pseud as the other guys. I can respect some Denett and some Hitchens but all of their takes on religiousity are boring, unoriginal and stupid

[Anonymous No.15252166]

>>15248042

The rate of infidelity and divorce among homosexuals is just as, if not higher. I fail to see how 'if its good for the goose it's good for the gander' is applicable as an argument to legitimize (or de-legitimize) gay marriage.