Inspired by some of the discussion in this thread. I don’t think it’s appropriate place for that discussion there, but hey why not have a separate thread for it
If I think religion is not good in general, am I Reddit and cringe and basically Richard Dawkins?
The key difference is that there’s a certain type of atheist that is essentially Christian in every sense aside from actually believing in God. They tend to have a lot of racist ideas about any religion that isn’t Christianity and criticize them far more harshly than Christianity. I think these people are worse than your average religious person, and I would most accurately describe myself as a staunch anti-theist.
It’s interesting to read manifestos and stuff from the French Revolution; people like the Jacobins were fighting as much against the Church as the aristocracy.
Christianity has historically been a way of extracting rent for the church, and atheism therefore has been associated with left-wing movements that wanted to strangle kings with the entrails of priests and whatnot.
strangle kings with the entrails of priests
While I agree with the other posters on here that “Reddit atheism” has become synonymous with a brand of cantankerous old white guy western chauvinism with godless characteristics, I take issue with the definitions that stop at “smug assholes about it” because that definition frequently gets wielded against users on this site, including in the linked thread.
Guys, gals, and enbies, I don’t know if you’ve read some of the things the rest of the fediverse has to say about us but we are frequently accused of being smug assholes because we refuse to mince words or follow liberal rules of politeness when calling out bad shit, and it shouldn’t be controversial here to acknowledge that religious institutions generally are responsible for some bad shit and apply the standard Hexbear irreverence.
I agree there’s a time and a place and said time and place is when the religion is a culturally dominant force enabling oppression as is absolutely the case with Islam and less so when it’s a cultural identity of a group fighting extermination, as with the Muslim Palestinians and the Rohingya, for that matter. I think certain users have trouble navigating that distinction but I’m not interested in going to the mat about it so I’m not calling anyone out specifically. Y’all can figure it out, look for the
Personally I take issue with fedoralords who were raised Christian constantly spewing hate about Muslims while having suspiciously Christian reactionary takes on everything.
when the religion is a culturally dominant force enabling oppression
Ok…we can all think of a few examples…
as is absolutely the case with Islam
Hmm…a Christian country and a Jewish ethnostate are committing Genocide against a Muslim populace, but yeah Islam is a good example of cultural domination and oppression.
Have there ever been any Muslim societies that weren’t super oppressive as a result? What happened to them?
Personally I take issue with fedoralords who were raised Christian constantly spewing hate about Muslims while having suspiciously Christian reactionary takes on everything.
I think we can agree that those folks fall under the “Reddit Atheist” moniker
Hmm…a Christian country and a Jewish ethnostate are committing Genocide against a Muslim populace, but yeah Islam is a good example of cultural domination and oppression.
Did you read the linked thread? They were specifically discussing Islam. Christianity and Judaism are also awful and I’ve caught some mild flak for suggesting that Christian communists need to deeply examine their own religion and then bin it. I’m no defender of Dawkins and his weird notions of “cultural Christianity.”
Have there ever been any Muslim societies that weren’t super oppressive as a result? What happened to them?
I’m assuming this is rhetorical but they probably got rubbed out by ones that were, same with the most others. Religion in and of itself doesn’t create oppressive institutions, it just provides a convenient set of tools to enable existing ones. The peaceful communities tend to be an exception and even supposed good examples like the Amish are super patriarchal and oppressive to women despite their relative lack of power.
Did you read the linked thread?
Yeah lol, I’m in the replies there too.
My point is that it seems hypocritical for westerners to single out Islam, or otherwise imply that Islam is particularly bad, considering that the west (America) is the cause of so much of it. America has wiped out so many progressive or revolutionary Muslim states and installed repressive regimes in their place.
So if religion is to blame, then these are ultimately the crimes of Christianity.
But I don’t think it’s fair to blame religions. It seems imperialists could weaponize any belief system at all. Even the most innocuous religion, only preaching peace and love, could be co-opted and used as a smokescreen for endless bloodshed. That’s kinda what happened with Christianity – a pacifistic anti-imperialistic religion got co-opted by the empire it was resisting, and used to further imperial endeavors for centuries.
Or like in Dune, when the liberatory religion of the Fremen gets co-opted and used to launch the galactic jihad.
Practically speaking, I think being completely anti-religion is counterproductive, since the vast majority of people (especially in the global south) have some kind of religion. You have to meet people where they’re at. Also, it’s kind of a bad look when it’s mostly militant atheists in the global north condemning the opiate of the masses.
Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.
My point is that it seems hypocritical for westerners to single out Islam, or otherwise imply that Islam is particularly bad, considering that the west (America) is the cause of so much of it. America has wiped out so many progressive or revolutionary Muslim states and installed repressive regimes in their place.
It wasn’t my intention to single out Islam or imply that it was somehow worse than any other religion, just note that we shouldn’t be giving it a pass just because it’s currently widely held among countries and peoples that are currently engaged in anti-imperialist struggle. It’s also worth noting that these areas had secular socialist groups as well; Palestine had such groups until Israel decided to prop up Hamas as its preferred enemy. The Iranian revolution also had a mix of factions, not all of which were Islamist.
But I don’t think it’s fair to blame religions. It seems imperialists could weaponize any belief system at all. Even the most innocuous religion, only preaching peace and love, could be co-opted and used as a smokescreen for endless bloodshed. That’s kinda what happened with Christianity – a pacifistic anti-imperialistic religion got co-opted by the empire it was resisting, and used to further imperial endeavors for centuries.
It’s not like Christianity was the innocent victim here; the early Church was happy to go along with the Roman Empire so long as it got a favored position. The modern notion of Jesus as a peace-and-love proto-hippie is contradicted in many places in the Bible (generally the parts that get glossed over nowadays), and there’s probably a reason why the current flavors of Christianity rose to dominance while the harder-to-corral gnostics were stamped out. I don’t think it’s reasonable to conclude that all religions are equal here - there’s a reason we’re not complaining about Zoroastrianism and Jainism right now - but it is my contention that religions tend to have common features that make them useful to imperialists, including a mandate to spread, the promise to followers of an afterlife that justifies the suffering incurred in this one, and a way to reinforce in-group/out-group divisions and paint the out-group as deserving of extermination and that the ones that are culturally dominant now have achieved that by successfully leveraging these ideas.
Practically speaking, I think being completely anti-religion is counterproductive, since the vast majority of people (especially in the global south) have some kind of religion. You have to meet people where they’re at. Also, it’s kind of a bad look when it’s mostly militant atheists in the global north condemning the opiate of the masses.
The idea that religion is too entrenched in the Global South to be deposed has a whiff of paternalism and glosses over the secular and indigenous religious movements that have had to struggle against the dominant, colonially-imposed religion. The construction “militant atheists” is also pretty rich given the explicitly religious coding of the recent major conflicts (Bush described the Iraq invasion as a “crusade”) and that similar terminology was wielded against the “godless” USSR.
And then:
The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.
I think we largely agree.
My issue with the “militant atheism” (not meant pejoratively) is just when it’s directed towards the marginalized or countries of the global south. I have no problem with implenting state atheism in the wake of the revolution. Even on reddit, it was fine when it was directed at Christian fundamentalists in America, who wield substantial power. There was a sinister rhetorical shift with the reddit crowd and now it’s just Nazi shit.
and there’s probably a reason why the current flavors of Christianity rose to dominance while the harder-to-corral gnostics were stamped out
I suspect the “gnostics” were much closer to the original ideas than the Nicaeans were. Also Jesus gives me some real apocalyptic cult vibes.
The idea that religion is too entrenched in the Global South to be deposed has a whiff of paternalism and glosses over the secular and indigenous religious movements that have had to struggle against the dominant, colonially-imposed religion.
I kinda assumed things like indigenous religions would be included in the category of religion but I guess it’s a good idea to make a distinction between organized religion centered on a strict institution like the Roman Catholic Church and disorganized (?) religion. I am mainly just acquainted with one form of European “paganism” and I don’t really know much about pre-christian religion in general.
The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness
Agreed. I apologize if I’ve been overly combative. I’ve been seeing some surprisingly islamaphobic takes lately and may have overreacted.
I’m not even at all religious, and was myself one of those fedoralords. I just can’t help but side with the underdog lol (it’s why I side with the gnostics).
I agree that we agree. I also started out as a fedoralord so you have my sympathies, haha. I’ve observed a small but persistent tendency to fedorajacket on here so it’s made me a little defensive on the topic, so I also apologize if I’ve been combative. I’ve been slowly drifting away from online atheist spaces so I might have missed some of the shift (although I was around for Elevatorgate and the conservative/progressive schism, so it’s not like I’ve been totally unaware. Unfortunately it seems like the progressive voices in the movement are getting somewhat problematic, but that might just be my own leftward shift). I think there’s still a major need for cultural projects and gathering spaces that don’t rely on religion as a scaffolding but it seems like they’ve been difficult to make material outside of a few conferences and I’m not much of a conference-goer.
I suspect the “gnostics” were much closer to the original ideas than the Nicaeans were. Also Jesus gives me some real apocalyptic cult vibes.
Gnostic Christianity had some interesting ideas for sure. I think they were probably oddballs from the beginning, but I won’t claim any particularly strong knowledge on the subject.I kinda assumed things like indigenous religions would be included in the category of religion but I guess it’s a good idea to make a distinction between organized religion centered on a strict institution like the Roman Catholic Church and disorganized (?) religion. I am mainly just acquainted with one form of European “paganism” and I don’t really know much about pre-christian religion in general.
I have a bit of an underdog bias here, too. I don’t think there’s anything particularly special about indigenous belief systems but their persistence does illustrate that the Global South isn’t monolithic in its belief systems and there have been strong movements to preserve cultures and belief systems in the face of persecution that I think (or at least hope) has resulted in more benign manifestations of belief than their culturally dominant counterparts. I was a major archaeology nerd when I was a kid so I knew about all the Egyptian deities and read a bunch of folklore. They all have their skeletons, but I think we can appreciate their contributions to cultural richness when we’ve reached the point where we can view them as fictions and lenses through which the world was shaped and understood.
Reddit atheism was called out at the time for being a veil for Western (and even Christian) chauvinism. It was mainly used as a justification of imperialist wars on Muslim countries.
This critique has born out, as Reddit atheist types (Dawkins, Elon) have since self identified themselves as Christian Chauvinists.
There’s a lot of answers here, but I think this is the most useful.
There’s lots of different ways to be atheist, but Reddit Atheism is a specifically Christian phenomenon; (typically) people who were raised in Protestant Christian culture, and stopped believing in God without really examining any of the other beliefs and underlying assumptions that came with it.
“Reddit Atheism” is a type of “crusader atheism” (I’m pulling this term out of my ass). When atheism takes on the form of a “civilizational” project, that we, the enlightened, must impose on them, the backward superstitious hordes. As a social mechanism it isn’t much different from how Christianity was used as a justification to bulldoze indigenous cultures, to justify colonialism as a righteous project to “save” the nonbelievers.
White man’s
burdenatheism.I think this touches nicely on the inherently chauvinistic/eurocentric view of reddit atheists, who will excuse their chauvinism through the very thin veil of “progress is when all societies are western, and the more western you are, the more progressed the society is”.
Reddit atheism requires you to be a smug asshole about it.
But doctor I am a smug asshole
This says a lot about theism
Reddit atheism is primarily informed by Islamophobia and unexamined western bias. Misogyny too. It’s the same thing as any other reddit version of something, it’s insufferable, liberal, and racist.
When you ask what makes a reddit version of something, just imagine a middle aged cis American white man who makes $300k per year and owns several rental properties. Imagine the kind of worldview he would have and apply that to whatever.
I disagree, while those are all big problems in the “reddit atheist” community, I don’t think they’re required. I was the perfect image of an annoying smug Reddit atheist and it was because I was convinced that racism, sexism, xenophobia, and most of societies ills were outgrowths of religion.
I was mildly Islamophobic but living in the southern US and growing up going to a Southern Baptist church my main feelings on Islam were “Not my problem.” Focusing on Islam as evil when living in the southern US feels like worrying about your neighbor down the street’s house flooding while yours is on fire. I’ve got my own problem to deal with right here, and that problem is evangelical Christianity.
Reddit atheism was just thinly veiled islamophobia. Everyone showed their ass after 9/11
I think religion kind of stinks, but I have vastly more important things to get mad about. Like capitalism. I’m more of the mind, “Well, as long as you aren’t hurting anybody, that’s pretty low on my priority list.”
I think that’s the difference between my atheism, and Reddit Atheism™. I don’t think gods are real, but holy macaroni, I am not gonna make that my entire identity. I have negative juice in the tank I’d need to debate it with anybody.
Reddit atheism is white nationalism under the pretense of philosophy. Famous examples are Asmongold going on a rant about inferior cultures. Richard Dawkins recently said he is a cultural Christian and there is no genocide in Gaza.
What they meant was “we hate brown people” but they wrap it in a few layers of pretend.
It is largely a consequence of liberalism and the focus of trying to prove the white man is scientifically superior by figures such as Darwin.
Here is a large video addressing it https://youtu.be/xPgTeq8d8tg?t=31m25s
This is correct, reddit atheism is basically just islamophobia / western supremacy dressed in an atheist garb.
It’s basis comes from the 90s-2000s US imperialist wars on Iraq and the Middle East, and defenses of western imperialism from an anti-religious standpoint:
Hidden beneath a superficial rationalism, they provide a seemingly intellectual defense of imperialism, push islamophobia, and use it to create a smokescreen for the injustices of global capitalism. 2,3
I used to think so too but the actual past was far earlier than 90’s imperialism. It was at the core of the ‘enlightenment’.
Darwin was notoriously obsessed with proving the white man (not woman) was the ultimate specimen.
The video I linked covers quite a lot more history, I timestamped the colonial era but even figures such as Hegel which inspired Marx had some pretty edgy ideas about religion and race. That is discussed in a segment before it.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
I have legit misgivings about religion but even I see how hawkish new atheists and their types are. Got dawkins cheer leading imperialistic actions and calling himself culturally Christian. How does one take it? Not to mention how phony the other so called horseman of atheism are. I mean look at this shit
That culturally Christian thing pisses me off so much, because it’s not even an unhelpful phrase in general, the problem is that he’s proud of it.
I’ll fully acknowledge I am “culturally Christian,” but that is in no way a value judgement, just a factual observation that I grew up Christian and still celebrate Christmas and Easter and shit. In the same way someone is “culturally Jewish” if they celebrate the big Jewish holidays but don’t believe in god or go to temple.
But the thing is that you poke into “cultural Christianity” a little bit and it falls apart instantly, the same way that whiteness does.
There’s very little tying some of the most Christian regions in the world together (like Poland, Italy, the Philippines, Latin America, the US, Russia, all very devout places in very different ways) except for some vague agreement on doctrine and dogma, and not even that.
It’s always a shorthand for western, european imperialism, because sure as hell they’re not thinking about Egyptian coptic Christians when they’re identifying with “cultural Christianity”
BI (before internet) being an atheist meant being in complete ideological isolation. If you tried to discuss it with anyone you would be ridiculed and sometimes even physically threatened. Theists had complete domination. Atheist = devil worshiper/commie. These people developed a persecution complex that dates back at least to Giordana Bruno but probably much earlier. The first real online social networks were newsgroups which were almost entirely academic and darpa techie nerds. I got my first internet uni account around 1997 and gnu atheist rationalists were already controlling the online (newsgroup) narrative by then. For the first time in history they had an advantage and they kinda went mad with power. Reddit and other early social forums were just the graphical web extension of newsgroups.
Iirc there were some obscure social networks BI like Center for Inquiry and James Randii foundation and they quickly took control of the atheist/rationalist online narrative. People like Michael Shermer, Penn Jillette, Richard Dawkins etc. As a 90’s kid I was initially excited because I thought I found my people but I was also becoming a baby leftist and I noticed the far right influence. I believe the right/left split was already there ( Feynman/Randii vs Carl Sagan/Steven Gould) but there was a sense that control of the internet was at stake. A massive war for control raged during the naughts (some really funny shit happened lol) and finally came to a head around 2012 with ElevatorGate. The scorched earth take no prisoners nature of ElevatorGate pretty much destroyed whatever was left of the internet atheist power structure.
finally came to a head around 2012 with ElevatorGate. The scorched earth take no prisoners nature of ElevatorGate pretty much destroyed whatever was left of the internet atheist power structure.
fucking what is elevator gate
Avoid going down the elevatorgate rabbit hole if you value your sanity. The same people involved in elevatorgate started GamerGate.
I hear that thunderfoot (don’t look that up) broke his brain on Brexit and Covid so now he’s back on center-left but likely still a misogynist. Dawkins, Ham Sarris, Shermer, Jillete et al. just got old and feeble or outright ded like Randii and Dennett. They only pop in now and then to say something like “more jews won nobel prizes than muslims so we should exterminate all muslims” which they’ve been doing since GWOT
there were just a few good ones, like AronRa.
i understand everything now
If you tried to discuss it with anyone you would be ridiculed and sometimes even physically threatened.
I don’t know if this is true. You can read plenty of early/mid 20th century books where characters will outright talk about how they don’t believe in a god. Sure certain areas you could get away with it more, but I think there has always been some prevailing strain of people just going along with the community aspect and not being a believer.
“Reddit” Atheism is when you’re stuck dunking on young earth creationists (who deserve it but are extremely low hanging fruit) while also being islamophobic.
I was raised YEC so reddit atheism was good for me to an extent, but then I had to shed the islamophobia. fortunately I also came down on the right side of “Atheism+” schism, which deserves its own writeup but I’m not doing that.
I feel confident saying I know, as a fact, that the Abrahamic god does not exist. That said, I don’t know how or why the universe exists. Life & consciousness seem to be phenomena which arise naturally out of laws of physics so I have no reason to believe in survival of the self beyond the physical body. It is literally true that we are “the universe experiencing itself” and not something separate from it. That idea is a form of monism which has a rich tradition in eastern religion, and even Marxism!
There are even forms of the idea of reincarnation which I find somewhat compatible with a materialist, monist view of the world. This is a powerful essay on the subject.
My atheism is just “I don’t care”
That is how far it goes.
Sincerely, unironically, I love that for you.
religion had a big impact on my life without my consent so I have strong feelings about it. fortunately it doesn’t come up much so I can also just vibe and not care most of the time.
I think it’s just that Reddit atheists are annoying and thinking too hard about the philosophy and whatnot just doesn’t make sense to me.
that’s totally reasonable. thinking about philosophy helped me grow a lot as a person as I unlearned YEC and learned the true history of the world so it’s stuck with me
deleted by creator
thank you. I don’t feel attacked.
it’s not based on faith it’s based on history. Worship of the Abrahamic god was also associated with polytheistic religion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canaanite_religion. many times in the old testament a prophet chastises isrealites for worshipping other gods of the pantheon, like Ba’al or Asherah. First of the 10 commandments is “thou shalt have no other god before me” and there are a few times in the early stories that god refers to itself in the plural, or is clearly stated to not be all powerful. this is quite different from how we understand God today, how can we determine which view is correct?
There’s also the character of God which is nationalist, racist, abusive, murderous, extremely controlling, qualities that are far more consistent with being invented by a culture which had those same qualities than being the omnipotent creator of the entire cosmos.
Are all the gods of the Canaanite pantheon real or just this one? What about other pantheons? Can we assume he’s more likely to be real simply because a large number of people believe it? That’s not a good way of determining what is true. if an idea cannot be tested directly the next best thing is to trace its provenance.
my point here is that there’s nothing special about “God” any moreso than the deities of other cultures, yet Yahweh gets special treatment but has no more evidence for basis in material reality than Athena, Ganesha, or Nap Anya. I also feel confident saying Loki doesn’t exist and I doubt many would call that out as a belief based on faith.
To me it’s the difference between “There is no god.” and “If you believe there is a god then you’re stupid.” or the only slight variation “I believe there is no god because I’m smart” typically dressed up as “I believe there is no god because I am an entirely logical and rational being and well-versed in all the different logical fallacies, anyone who believes there is a god is not as logical and rational and either needs to be educated or is incapable of understanding the high forms of logical calculus I perform.”.
The smugness and showing off ones atheism as a sign of superiority is what I typically mean when I talk about “reddit” atheism.
There also is a very strong islamophobic undercurrent, where they are trying to justify their racist feelings of superiority towards all the MENA countries by being “equally” as derisive of christians (a.k.a. republicans/red states). I have never seen a reddit atheist extend good-faith, it’s always dunking or debate-broing to flex how “logical” they are.
Nah, because this is a perfect description of me during my edgy atheist phase. Going from that last type of reddit atheist, with the islamophobia included, to converting to Islam after a lot of looking into it trying to “debate-bro”.
So you weren’t on reddit while an atheist but were acting similarly to what I’m describing and that’s the reason for why people don’t mean that when they talk about reddit atheism? Sorry I am tired and want to understand properly.
Sorry, I was on reddit at the time and your description is perfect for that type of person. The “nah” is a colloquialism for “I can’t believe this”, expressing shock at the accuracy.
Right that reading makes more sense in context 😄
Smugness and basically replacing God with “logical thinking”
I disagree with a lot of the commenters here that Islamophobia and focusing more on Islam than Christianity is a key part of it. It’s somehow what a lot of people landed on, but I don’t think those are requirements to be a Reddit atheist.
As someone who was a prime example of a Reddit atheist when I was like 14, my thoughts on Islam were “It’s bad but we can deal with that after getting rid of Christianity.” Why would I care about Islam, only like 1% of the US is Muslim, and they’re not the ones who told me I would burn for eternity at my grandma’s funeral.
I wanted to (and still kinda do tbh) destroy every remnant of Christianity root and stem. Every cross destroyed, every church repurposed or burned. There was a year I decided we should turn Christmas back into Saturnalia. I (frankly, correctly) saw Christianity as the largest cause of harm and misery in history. Turns out capitalism is the bigger cause in modernity, but capitalism was birthed from Protestant Christianity, and I don’t think that’s a coincidence.
Similarly, a lot of Reddit atheists are western chauvinists, which never made sense to me, because I saw (again, correctly) western civilization as the outgrowth of the evils of Christianity, and if only (and this is where I went wrong) everyone could see the world through the logical eyes of atheism everyone would understand that racism and sexism, poverty, war, are completely illogical and would end. I didn’t have the vocabulary to articulate this at the time but I basically believed religion was the only thing holding us back from communist utopia.
All of this is to say I don’t think those are the factors that define a reddit atheist, because I definitely consider my teenage self one, despite not having those beliefs. It’s the smugness, the annoyingness, and the worship of “logic”. It’s commenting annoying shit on people’s social media posts because they mentioned God. It’s thinking that if you can just explain the obvious contradictions in religious texts people will be like “Oh wow, I hadn’t noticed that! This whole thing is silly!” That you can debate-bro people out of their religious beliefs.
Honestly, most of my beliefs haven’t changed I’ve just become a lot less annoying about it. I still believe that Christianity is a scourge on this planet that should be destroyed, and liberation theology and other attempts to sanitize it are not enough to justify its continued existence. I think if you could wave a magic wand and erase every Bible from existence the world would become a somewhat better place overnight. But I now have a better understanding of just how entrenched it is, and how the current causes of harm have disconnected themselves from it, and so it’s hardly even worth targeting. Capitalism grew out of Christianity, but it’s like those contagious tumors that Tasmanian devils have, and it’s spread to infect every other aspect of society, and euthanizing patient 0 now won’t do much. So I mostly shut up about it and focus on the more immediate problem, capitalism.
Turns out capitalism is the bigger cause in modernity, but capitalism was birthed from Protestant Christianity, and I don’t think that’s a coincidence.
Liberal idealism on hexbear, from a longstanding member of this community? You should know better than this. Early colonialism was a mercantilist crime, Cortez slaughtered the Inca for their gold, not because they were pagans. The missionary aspect was a flimsy justification after the fact. The Spanish crown didn’t send fleets across the Atlantic because they were so devoutly Catholic, but because it was highly profitable for their burgeoning empire. Same for the superstructure of the British empire, or for the other imperial powers. Their mix of racism and violent missionarism was the civilized veneer for their realpolitik, not the driving force for it.
This is what seriously pisses me off about the “all our problems are due to Christianity” crowd, you become politically illiterate through this shit. “Capitalism grew out of Christianity”, do you think Calvin invented industrialization and capital accumulation or what? ofc he didn’t, he just gave the bourgeois a metaphysical justification for their exploitation and a tool of control for the masses. You got it completely backwards, comrade.
Bang on. I don’t vibe with all of his analysis, but Weber’s exploration of the intertwining of the rise of capitalism and protestant Christianity is very important to understand how they’re inseparable from each other and how often one reinforces the other.
Sociology: sometimes it works, folks.
To dissent from most people, I don’t see any real separation between the two, or more accurately, I don’t see a real separation between Reddit atheism and Western atheism, as in atheism as understood and adopted by Westerners. This becomes very obvious when you talk to and observe Chinese atheists. Pretty much the only thing your average Chinese atheist and your average Western atheist have in common is that they don’t believe in any gods. That’s pretty much it.
But your average Chinese atheist believes in the concept of luck on par with any religious belief. The concept of auspicious days or finding some fortune teller that will give their newborn a name that brings good fortune or diving into numerology isn’t something that Western atheists would do. Feng shui, which many Chinese people believe on some level, boils down to how much luck you could generate by optimizing the arrangement of your home and the location of your building (funny aside, there was some Taiwanese politician who apparently bought some house and did everything he could to maximize the amount of luck it would bring to him through feng shui except he didn’t even live in the fucking house. And it wasn’t an empty house either. It was filled with like statues and other random shit that apparently brings good luck.)
Would your average Western atheist even consider them atheist? I honestly don’t think so because there’s a lot of additional beliefs baked into Western atheism just like there’s additional beliefs baked into Eastern atheism. Western atheism espouses a materialist reality, the disbelief in an afterlife or a soul, an empiricist/skeptic view of the world, confidence in science as the best methodology to understand reality, confidence that there’s almost nothing conceptually out of reach of the human intellect, a strict separation between religious belief and religious practice, and centering religious belief over religious practice. None of these have anything to do with the belief or disbelief in a god.
This comment isn’t incorrect, but the context that you’re speaking of is a bit categorically different than what OP’s question seems to be getting at.
What I mean by this is that the difference between so-called “Reddit atheism” and “regular old atheism” is being observed here less as how both group’s views as atheists differs from Eastern atheism and more as a sociopolitical difference instead, with the former being seen as far more reactionary, smug, and what people would even call a more “militant” form of atheism, depending on how you use that word. The latter, on the other hand, may refer to “I really just don’t give a shit” kind of atheism or, seeing as how we are on Hexbear, atheism applied to leftist, more specifically Marxist and materialist, schools of thought.
To give a goofy analogy, I find that this would be like a person asking, “What’s the difference between vegetarianism and veganism?” and someone responding, “I don’t see a real separation between those two because if you compare it to something like fruitarianism [a fringe diet only consisting of fruit], both vegetarians and vegans still allow for the consumption of things that aren’t fruit, so there’s no real difference between the two.”
I suppose the point of my comment was to say that when people here say “atheism,” they don’t just mean “disbelief in gods,” and that a lot of the extra stuff is related to Western epistemology in general. I didn’t even go over various Indigenous belief systems, which could be seen or is at least compatible with atheism-as-in-disbelief-in-gods-and-disbelief-in-gods-only that is dissimilar to Western or Eastern atheism. A lot of their so-called deities aren’t actually deities as understood by Western religion but purposeful mistranslations by Christian missionaries who tried to shove their creation myths and cosmology into a Christian hole. When some Indigenous elder say something like “Creation gives us mouths to speak the truth” and characterizes Creation-with-a-capital-C as a self-directed process instead of a Creator god, is his religious and spiritual beliefs compatible with atheism-as-in-disbelief-in-gods-and-disbelief-in-gods-only?
It’s like how when people here say “philosophy,” they’re not actually talking about the entire sum of philosophy that encompasses very different philosophical traditions like Chinese philosophy or Islamic philosophy but more specifically Western philosophy or even more specifically, Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment Western philosophy because no one has time to deal with Christian apologia by some French bishop from the 10th century. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that on one hand, you have people who think atheism fits in a particular Western box and on the other hand, you have Western chauvinists who think Muslims are savages who must be civilized by their Western superiors.
