Tuesday, July 19, 2016

New Atheism is dead. The atheist movement is anemic. Now what?

The major news and commentary websites have been publishing stories such as: Is the New Atheism dead? (The New Republic, November 4, 2015) and  Growing criticism by atheists of the New Atheism movement (Oxford Press, March 10, 2016).

As noted in a previous post,  I mentioned that YouTube atheist Thunderf00t said about the atheist movement after Reason Rally 2016 had a very low turnout: :
I'm not sure there is anything in this movement worth saving. Hitchens is dead. Dawkins simply doesn't have the energy for this sort of thing anymore. Harris went his own way. And Dennett just kind of blended into the background. So what do you think when the largest gathering of the nonreligious in history pulls in... I don't know. Maybe 2,000 people. Is there anything worth saving?
 In 2015, the atheist author Joshua Kelly wrote:
 ..since the death of Hitchens: angry atheism lost its most charismatic champion. Call it what you like: New Atheism, fire-brand atheism, etc., had a surge with the Four Horsemen in the middle of the last decade and in the last four years has generally peetered out to a kind that is more docile, politically correct, and even apologetic
New Atheism is a rhetorically militant form of atheism. It is a reaction to the growth of religious fundamentalism in the world (religious conservatives have more children), the global resurgence of religion and a failure of the secularization thesis which posited that religion would fade away (See: Failure of secularization thesis and global resurgence of religion).

For all intents and purposes, New Atheism is dead. And there will be no resurrection of New Atheism. And although militant atheism is hanging on in China, given the rapid growth of Christianity in China, I see militant atheism falling in China and then subsequently in Vietnam and North Korea. So sometime in the 21st century militant atheism will be effectively dead as a force in the world.

Given: the current implosion of militant atheism; New Atheism dying and being replaced with milk toast atheism in the Western World;  atheists/agnostics shrinking as a percentage of the world's population; the immigration of the religious into secular Europe (who are very often resistant to assimilation); and the pessimism of many atheists as far as the atheist movement; the name of this blog - "Combating atheism" - seems obsolete.

Lately, the major news outlets have sparse reporting on the topic of atheism. And the few news stories they do have are often negative towards atheism or boring stories reporting on trivial matters. In short, "Atheism: The excitement is not raging."

There will be no glorious future battles in relation to atheism vs. religion, but rather a slow global attrition of the dying breed of atheists. This will be combined with a withering away of atheist influence in the media and the educational systems of the world.. The 21st century will be a horrible century for militant atheists and antitheists.

The growth of atheism in the twentieth century began with a bang due to the militant atheism associated with the Russian Revolution and the subsequent formation of the Soviet Union. The decline of atheism will be death by a thousand cuts due to demographic changes in the global population (See: Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth?: Demography and Politics in the Twenty-First Century by Eric Kaufmann, Belfer Center, Harvard University/Birkbeck College, University of London).

Periodically, I may choose to post to a newly created blog entitled Examining atheism. However, reporting on the losing atheist movement "team" could quickly grow to be tiresome.so it will be infrequent after awhile (given the amount of infighting going on they can hardly be called a team).

Today, this blog received over 1,400 page views which is not bad for a new blog with only 14 posts.  At the same time, given the current state of affairs, a blog named "Examining atheism" is a better fit. In the 21st century, the rickety building of atheism won't be able to withstand the gale of the global resurgence of religion - especially the gusts of wind caused by the global growth of evangelical Christianity and the global growth of creationism.

""The trends that are happening worldwide inevitably in an age of globalization are going to affect us." - British Professor Eric Kaufmann on global desecularization

In the meantime, enjoy the video below by Lester Lewis & Singing Rose Ministry.  

Jesus is the winner man - the winner man all the time!

2 comments:

  1. My, is this author in a state of denial. The nonreligious population in the US grows every year, churches continue to close their doors, and the strength of the white conservative voting block continues to decline. The religions of today become the myths of tomorrow, as it has always been. Just ask Jupiter.

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    Replies
    1. Is the term nonreligious the same as agnostic or atheists? If so, why? Are the majority of the "nones" theists? If not, why not? See: http://www.conservapedia.com/Nones

      Is the scholarly consensus that "strong religion" will grow in the USA and has it grown in recent years? If not, why not? See: http://www.conservapedia.com/American_atheism#Vegard_Skirbekk_and_Anne_Goujon_religion.2Firreligion_demographic_projections and http://www.conservapedia.com/Growth_of_evangelical_Christianity

      In an age of globalization, will world trends affect the Western World (due to immigration, world communication, etc}? If not, why not? If global atheism shrinking in terms of market share? If not, why not? See: http://www.conservapedia.com/Desecularization

      Lastly, and more importantly, please provide proof and evidence that the atheist movement is strong in the USA. That is something you failed to do. You merely stated that author of this article is in denial.

      Do you have any proof and evidence of your claims or do you just assert them? I will not post further material of yours unless you support your claims.

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