<div class="header-image"></div> <table class="table-header"> <thead> <tr> <th colspan="2"></th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td>2025-05-04</td> <td style="text-align: right;"><a href="About.md" class="internal-link">About</a></td> </tr> </tbody> </table> # The Collapse of New Atheism  10 years ago I wanted to start a creative endeavour of some sort. Be that a podcast, a YouTube channel, a blog... it didn't matter. I needed to start *something*. And it seemed natural that it be centred around atheism, as much of my attention had been drawn to it for decades by that point. It's strange that now, after so much time and finally getting my writing chops back, that atheism is not really even in my purview any more, although I do still consider myself an atheist. The New Atheist movement gained in popularity throughout the 2000s, sparked by the 9/11 attack in America. The planes flying into, and destroying the World Trade Centre towers, was seen as being motivated by religious fundamentalism, and perhaps by removing the religious element, attacks like this needn't happen again. The New Atheists were driven by an optimistic naivety, but for 10 years it grew in popularity, with much publicised debates on the topic and other events growing ever-more common. People were being won over by the arguments made against dogmatic religion, and belief without reason. YouTube was a major factor too. Social media existed, but, other than Facebook which was used primarily as a way to keep in contact with people already in preexisting social circles, it hadn't yet caught on as a passtime or a way to alleviate boredom while waiting in lines. YouTube personalities, however, were becoming very popular, and some began to eclipse the popularity of mainstream television shows. And there was no shortage of knowledgeable people, such as science professors, making videos about atheism.  It's impossible to place too fine a point on how this movement was changing the way many people saw the world. It's easy to see how foolish it all might have been now, but in our defence, the Internet had only just started to become commonplace. It was the first social movement to spread almost exclusively online. It's only apparent now, in 2025, that these movements have an expiry date. In 2005, though, it felt like the beginning of something that was unstoppable. People coming online for the first time all got exposed to ideas they'd either only minimally, or never before encountered. Imagine a southern pastor included in an email chain with a link to Christopher Hitchens debates. There was a saying back then: The Internet is where religion goes to die.  *Christopher Hitchens articulates the absurdity of Judeo-Christian belief* I look back on the movement as a whole as being overwhelmingly positive. Atheists weren't shouting people down, maligning them, or ostracising anyone for simply disagreeing. On the contrary, the goal was always to convince others just by talking. More importantly, this strategy actually *works*. New atheism was instrumental in legalising gay marriage. When Obama first took office in 2009, same-sex marriage was opposed by the majority of the American public. In fact, the majority of *Democrats* agreed that gay marriage should remain illegal. Obama himself said that he was [either against it, or that he was undecided](https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2012/may/11/barack-obama/president-barack-obamas-shift-gay-marriage/), depending on to whom he was speaking. This all changed after 2012 when he was re-elected. The world had become enamoured with the theism/atheism debate, and gay marriage, along with the treatment of homosexuals throughout history, was included in many of these discussions. In my opinion, the New Atheist movement peaked with the 2012 Reason Rally in Washington DC, (although, with the death of Christopher Hitchens in December of 2011, it was already on shaky legs). The reason Rally was a massive success, that really brought Atheism to the mainstream.  Before this, there were, of course, [TED talks](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBFHVOLhxOk), [public debates](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZRcYaAYWg4), and even some spots on Bill O'Reilly's Fox News show talking about the "[War on Christmas](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxhBt5ner6o)," but after the Reason Rally, at least for a couple of years, the debate became ever-present. You couldn't go a day without happening on the discussion in some form or other. The lead-up to this, the catalyst, is really at the hands of Hitchens and the other [Four Horsemen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Atheism#The_%22Four_Horsemen%22), consisting of Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett. Hitchens in particular had a gift beyond anyone else for debate, even the others of the Four Horsemen. And he could smell bullshit a mile away. I can't help but think that he would have been a massive thorn in the side of the social justice movement. Moreover, I don't think he would, or *could* have been cancelled. His wit wouldn't have allowed it. In 2012, the year of the reason rally, there wasn't yet a "social justice" movement. It was largely accepted that the bigotry and racism of the past was now relegated to a small and insignificant subsection of society, barely clinging to their robes. The last battle, same-sex marriage, was already onstage, and it was framed as a religious one. The New Atheists were in a perfect position to assist with this battle, and there was no hesitancy in picking up arms in this, the final battle in the war of individual and civil liberties. And just when atheism was finally getting, not just national, but *international* attention, it just all went away. What happened? Atheism had finally become a mainstream topic of discussion. And because it had grown so large, there was room for branching out in different directions. There's only so much to say about the existence, or non-existence, of supernatural deities, and much of the conversation was turning to the wisdom of teaching religion in classrooms, religious festivals in public spaces, etc. There was a growing shift in the movement too, from a focus on atheism to being about social justice issues. Once the gay marriage argument was settled, and became finally legal in the US, it seemed that all the social justice fights were over. There were no longer any laws that excluded, or prohibited the freedoms of, any one group of people in the west. This did leave a sudden, gaping, hole in many people's day to day activities. Charities, activists, and other organisations, not to mention people online, had devoted much of their identities into fighting this fight. And when the fight was finally won, the lack of conflict left a vacuum that needed to be filled. At this point, atheist organisations could have just gone back to being about atheism, but they had thrown in with the gay marriage debate in such a way that its momentum carried them further away than they realised and the movement couldn't just stop with it. Inertia had taken hold, and with all the social justice charities and activist organisations tripped over themselves looking to fill the hole left behind, atheism organisations followed suit. The momentum was clearly pointing the mainstream conversation toward social issues, leaving atheism itself a relic of the past. (For the curious, [Atheism+](https://bigthink.com/articles/myths-and-truths-about-atheism/) exemplifies this shift in focus). Public attention had also begun to wander. Atheism had really run its course and other discussions were attracting attention. Social justice narratives began to take the place of the now obsolete gay-marriage debates. Feminist Tumblr blogs started spilling out into other platforms, such as Twitter, and YouTube videos. Hitchen's warnings of Islamophobia were being realised.  *Christopher Hitchens on Islamophobia* Atheist conferences began to focus less on atheism, and more on feminism and other social justice issues. Codes of conduct were being enacted, as if these conferences were attracting dangerous people.  *How feminism castrated New Atheism* YouTubers who previously made content about atheism started talking about social justice. Many, like Thunderf00t in the *How Feminism Castrated New Atheism* video above, criticised the direction the movement was taking. Sargon of Akkad, The Amazing Atheist, Armoured Skeptic and others were all YouTubers on this side of the fence, criticising what many saw as a social contagion taking hold. Before the #metoo movement ever came to be, atheism started its own cleansing, cancelling some of its most prominent advocates. Richard Dawkins himself was attacked in 2011 for defending a man who asked a woman out for coffee in an elevator after they left a bar together. This event became known as "[Elevatorgate](https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Elevatorgate)." Michael Shermer, Editor of Skeptic magazine, was accused of having drunken sex with someone after a conference in 2013, who [later described the encounter as rape](https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/08/08/what-do-you-do-when-someone-pulls-the-pin-and-hands-you-a-grenade/), since she was "too drunk to consent." David Silverman, Former president of American Atheists was fired for sexual misconduct, again using alcohol as reason to call it rape. The [Buzzfeed article](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/peteraldhous/david-silverman-atheist-fired-sexual-misconduct) coloured its description of the allegations significantly, to which [Silverman dedicated an entire website](https://web.archive.org/web/20190909172720/https://firebrandforgood.com/metoo/) as a response. Both Lawrence Krauss, Physicist & author, and historian Richard Carrier too, had [similar](https://www.bchumanist.ca/on_lawrence_krauss_and_sexual_misconduct_in_atheism) [accusations](https://the-orbit.net/almostdiamonds/2016/06/20/summarizing-current-allegations-richard-carrier/) written about them. Richard Carrier actually filed a [defamation counter-claim](https://allegedlythewebsite.org/timeline). You'll notice that these accusations were all centred around one atheist conference or another. It's worth noting that these conferences were [used by a lot of attendees as places to hook up](https://the-orbit.net/greta/2012/07/03/unmixing-messages/). Many of the people there had come from severely restrictive religious backgrounds, and, having shed that part of themselves, were anxious to explore facets of life previously unavailable to them. Sex was a big part of that. It's also understandable that there would be some regret for those who were unused to casual hookups. Feminist social justice allowed victim and cancel culture to take full advantage, and persecute consensual hookups as "males abusing their power." Each of the above cases is an example of this. The end result was the obliteration of New Atheism. It's really too bad that atheism was one of the casualties of #metoo and the social justice movement. If it could have managed to avoid the shrapnel of #metoo, it would have been in a perfect position to argue against some of the more absurd ideas of the last 10 years, just as it was in the perfect position in the fight for gay marriage. In fact, that's what it started to do, until the #metoo accusations discredited so many prominent atheists. It was all over after that, as no one would speak up in fear of losing their career, or be relegated to obscurity. In those earlier days, the 2014-2016 era, it really did begin with the overreach of feminism, or "intersectional feminism," as it was referred to back then. The first time I ever heard of anyone saying free speech should be abolished, or treating all races equally was itself racist, it was from the mouths of feminists. Back then, these ideas were not yet in the public sphere. They were still fringe ideas, mostly kept to collage campuses.  *Student reporter clashes with "safe space" defenders at the University of Missouri, 2015*  *ReasonTV report on the 2015 Yale University Halloween costume incident* These were the sorts of videos that many atheist YouTubers were highlighting, trying to point out that eventually these students were going to be integrating themselves into society at large, and bringing these ideas with them. At the time, this was looked at as being alarmist, the general thought being that this was just a college phenomenon, and was nothing to be concerned about. Those sharing these videos, raising the alarm, were castigated as villains, being called misogynists, racists, and other epithets. But over the next 10 years they proved to be right, even as most tried to distance themselves from the anti-feminist cultural critiques upon which they had focused so many of their videos. Without someone like Hitchens to rally behind, a reputable figure unafraid of public backlash, who fearlessly defended his point of view no matter how unpopular it may have been, everyone just crumbled to public pressure, and allowed western culture to be steamrolled under a puritanical malevolence more pervasive and vicious than any Satanic Panic could ever be. Perhaps the mistake of New Atheism was, in fact, that it actually centred itself around *atheism*, which in hindsight was probably doomed to die anyway, internal feminist rot or no. Perhaps what it really needed to be was a calling out of dogmatic ideology in general, not just theism. I wonder if it would have been better able to ignore the righteous name-calling and silly accusations of the puritanical "woke" left if it was better armoured with reasonable arguments that could recognise dogmatism in general, not just religious ideology. ## Afterthought One last thing I'd like to talk about here, briefly, is Richard Dawkins' views on Christianity. There is a bit of hypocrisy there, that most people were willing to set aside. The fact is that he actually enjoys the religion, even if he doesn't believe in it. Over the centuries, Christianity has been the source of a vast library of literature, countless museums' worth of art and sculpture, and hours enough of music to fill a lifetime. Dawkins appreciates all this culture very much, as I think many atheists do. Christmastime especially, is a wonderful time of year, that does bring people together. As commercial as it is these days, it's still nice to hear the familiar carols, walking around a mall dressed in winter coats with gifts to loved ones tucked under an arm. Christmas trees, and kids lining up to sit on the lap of someone dressed as Santa. It hearkens back to simpler times, I think. It gives reason to appreciate friends and family who, at other times, might be taken for granted. All this is thanks to Christianity. And as Sargon points out in the video below, without believers, these traditions may very well die out, or at the very least become a shell of what they were. With the very reason for their being stripped away, nothing would remain but the commercialisation. For these traditions to truly continue, it requires enough of the population to actually *believe* in the religion that is the source of their existence. This is the obvious fact, having remained hidden in a blind spot outside of the New Atheist peripherals, that is now becoming impossible to ignore. With the rise of other ideologies eager to replace Christianity as its population dwindles, I can't help but think that New Atheism really wasn't pointed in the right direction. Religion wasn't necessarily the proper target. Dogmatic fundamentalism should have been the true target. And while religion sometimes *is* wrapped in a dogmatic fundamentalist package, it is also sometimes harmless. In fact, sometimes it is good for a society to have. There are other, sometimes secular, ideologies that are far more dangerous. We need a movement that points out *these*.  *Richard Dawkins laments the loss of Christian tradition*