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Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris and Dennett wrote books, participated in debates, and basically reimagined atheism as a political movement. Then the question of socia

by dlss 10y ago

Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris and Dennett wrote books, participated in debates, and basically reimagined atheism as a political movement. Then the question of social justice's role in atheism split the community in two via progressive purging. Splitting the community resulted in movements with significantly less political capital, and the main thinkers moved off to other projects. It's fairly political, so even though a lot of it happened online you'll still have a hard time of getting a clear picture. "Elevator Gate" is the obvious starting search, http://www.conservapedia.com/Elevatorgate http://www.conservapedia.com/Elevatorgate seems to be the most complete single page I can find as an introduction.

wybiral 10y ago
conservapedia.com seems mildly biased on this subject, in the sense that it's entirely biased from a creationist perspective. For instance: http://www.conservapedia.com/God http://www.conservapedia.com/God > "Other than creation itself, God is revealed in several ways, including conscience and special revelation (the Bible, and prophets). Most importantly though, God is revealed in Jesus Christ, who is the Son of God." I don't expect them to paint a friendly portrait of Richard Dawkins.
- dlss 10y ago
  Yeah, I wasn't trying to recommend them. They just did the leg work of digging up the quotes and putting them on a single (huge) page for linking, which I thought was what you were asking for.
  - wybiral 10y ago
    Thanks. I got confused because the parent post mentioned the "downfall" of "the Atheist community in the US" as opposed to an outspoken atheist who said something stupid online and got publicly ridiculed for it.
    - dlss 10y ago
      > I got confused because the parent post mentioned the "downfall" of "the Atheist community in the US" Yes, I was the person who wrote that, and this is what I meant. > as opposed to an outspoken atheist who said something stupid online and got publicly ridiculed for it. ... which then resulted in infighting over if it should be ridiculed, a mass exodus of the thought leaders, and general dwindling of the community. Seriously, Dawkins was shunned by major atheist conferences over his comments in my earlier link. Many atheists then shunned those conferences for shunning Dawkins. When's the last time you saw new material on athiesm in the news? Your answer is almost surely "before elevatorgate"
      - wybiral 10y ago
        Ah, see, I don't view atheism as a community or as a political movement. It's just a personal believe (or lack thereof). And I don't see any evidence that this has declined.
        ThomPete 10y ago
        There is an atheist community no doubt about that. The bright movement was a good example and then followers of Dawkins, Harris Hitchen et all which roams places like Reddit are by every definition of that word a community with a shared amount of argument, interest and an idea of outside the community.
sqeaky 10y ago
I think you read the atheist situation incorrectly. When any group grows so large it splits. There are more atheists in the US than ever and the polls indicate that number is growing. The majority of atheists never had the goal of maintaining one large political power base, and the authors you mentioned mostly wanted adults to stop believing in fairy tales and wanted little to do with political power. I don't see any failure in atheism other than the amount of time it is taking to gain societal acceptance in the south, which seems to have nothing to do with this discussion.
- dlss 10y ago
  > I think you read the atheist situation incorrectly. When any group grows so large it splits. There are more atheists in the US than ever and the polls indicate that number is growing. Re: group size being the primary cause... maybe? There are plenty of non-split groups that are larger than the size the atheism community was before elevator gate, and most split groups (say, programmers divided by programming language) seem to coexist relatively peacefully. To me, that suggests the size hypothesis is wrong. It'll need more variables if you'd like to explain the atheism community situation this without using elevatorgate (ie "a huge divisive political battle") as the primary cause. Re: atheist headcount, this is why I referred to the "atheism community" rather than atheism generally. While I'm glad that atheism has grown, I find myself missing the conferences :/
  - sqeaky 10y ago
    Size and no reason to unify. There are Democratic, Republican, Communist, Apolitical, Spiritual, Agnostic, Antitheistic, Christian, Rich, Poor, Socialite, Introverted, Moral absolutist, Moral relativist, Vegetarian, Carnivorous and many more Atheists. Reading that list you will note that there are Christian Atheists. People who claim to be Christian but reject the idea of god. They are... atypical people. Pretty much people from any and every walk of life just say "Oh, that god thing was silly, well time to move on", and then they continue with their life. Why would anyone expect this group to be cohesive on anything except that one thing that literally define the group "the lack in belief of god". We can't even agree if we reject god or just don't see any evidence for god. Now that we are big enough that me, living in Nebraska, can just run into atheist on the street, there seems no pressing need for an active community. I suspect many other feel the same way and smaller activist groups are picking specific battles. > coexist relatively peacefully Is there some violence I missed?

by dlss 10y ago

wybiral 10y ago

conservapedia.com seems mildly biased on this subject, in the sense that it's entirely biased from a creationist perspective. For instance: http://www.conservapedia.com/God http://www.conservapedia.com/God > "Other than creation itself, God is revealed in several ways, including conscience and special revelation (the Bible, and prophets). Most importantly though, God is revealed in Jesus Christ, who is the Son of God." I don't expect them to paint a friendly portrait of Richard Dawkins.

dlss 10y ago
Yeah, I wasn't trying to recommend them. They just did the leg work of digging up the quotes and putting them on a single (huge) page for linking, which I thought was what you were asking for.
- wybiral 10y ago
  Thanks. I got confused because the parent post mentioned the "downfall" of "the Atheist community in the US" as opposed to an outspoken atheist who said something stupid online and got publicly ridiculed for it.
  - dlss 10y ago
    > I got confused because the parent post mentioned the "downfall" of "the Atheist community in the US" Yes, I was the person who wrote that, and this is what I meant. > as opposed to an outspoken atheist who said something stupid online and got publicly ridiculed for it. ... which then resulted in infighting over if it should be ridiculed, a mass exodus of the thought leaders, and general dwindling of the community. Seriously, Dawkins was shunned by major atheist conferences over his comments in my earlier link. Many atheists then shunned those conferences for shunning Dawkins. When's the last time you saw new material on athiesm in the news? Your answer is almost surely "before elevatorgate"
    - wybiral 10y ago
      Ah, see, I don't view atheism as a community or as a political movement. It's just a personal believe (or lack thereof). And I don't see any evidence that this has declined.
      - ThomPete 10y ago
        There is an atheist community no doubt about that. The bright movement was a good example and then followers of Dawkins, Harris Hitchen et all which roams places like Reddit are by every definition of that word a community with a shared amount of argument, interest and an idea of outside the community.

sqeaky 10y ago

I think you read the atheist situation incorrectly. When any group grows so large it splits. There are more atheists in the US than ever and the polls indicate that number is growing. The majority of atheists never had the goal of maintaining one large political power base, and the authors you mentioned mostly wanted adults to stop believing in fairy tales and wanted little to do with political power. I don't see any failure in atheism other than the amount of time it is taking to gain societal acceptance in the south, which seems to have nothing to do with this discussion.

dlss 10y ago
> I think you read the atheist situation incorrectly. When any group grows so large it splits. There are more atheists in the US than ever and the polls indicate that number is growing. Re: group size being the primary cause... maybe? There are plenty of non-split groups that are larger than the size the atheism community was before elevator gate, and most split groups (say, programmers divided by programming language) seem to coexist relatively peacefully. To me, that suggests the size hypothesis is wrong. It'll need more variables if you'd like to explain the atheism community situation this without using elevatorgate (ie "a huge divisive political battle") as the primary cause. Re: atheist headcount, this is why I referred to the "atheism community" rather than atheism generally. While I'm glad that atheism has grown, I find myself missing the conferences :/
- sqeaky 10y ago
  Size and no reason to unify. There are Democratic, Republican, Communist, Apolitical, Spiritual, Agnostic, Antitheistic, Christian, Rich, Poor, Socialite, Introverted, Moral absolutist, Moral relativist, Vegetarian, Carnivorous and many more Atheists. Reading that list you will note that there are Christian Atheists. People who claim to be Christian but reject the idea of god. They are... atypical people. Pretty much people from any and every walk of life just say "Oh, that god thing was silly, well time to move on", and then they continue with their life. Why would anyone expect this group to be cohesive on anything except that one thing that literally define the group "the lack in belief of god". We can't even agree if we reject god or just don't see any evidence for god. Now that we are big enough that me, living in Nebraska, can just run into atheist on the street, there seems no pressing need for an active community. I suspect many other feel the same way and smaller activist groups are picking specific battles. > coexist relatively peacefully Is there some violence I missed?