A bunch of atheists becoming Christians because they’re freaked out by trans people is the kind of thing I wish I was studying from 200 years in the future rather than experiencing directly.
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No, they become “cultural Christians” who do not believe in god but believe that there is “something special” (white, patriarchal, colonialist) about Christianity.
consider how the roman empire converted Christianity into a tool of empire, followed by the Spanish and other empires whom used Christianity as a critical tool to legitimize the empire and its actions. and finally the utilization of the bible to justify slavery and the genocide of Native Americans.
yeah. im reminded of how one of the purposes of religion is a store of ancient knowledge and experience. like tribal religions hold a lot of ancient wisdom in them. but here they are pretending the hierarchical class aspects of the bible are ancient knowledge that need to be followed.
Yeah, I was thinking, "this feel like people who were either really poor example of atheists, or really poor examples of Christians." Turns out it can be both.
Holy shit it's Hank Green. Feels weird to see you talking about this after I got used to other figures talking about it instead, but I suppose that being its own bubble has been its own problem.
I'd name names but suffice it to say, they're now being investigated for financial ties to Russia.
LMAO! It might be because many “atheists” are/were “spiritual”. Like they didn’t believe in a specific good but still were superstitious and science critical. Just a thought
Crazy how this also happened to atheism:tm: 200 years ago except back then atheism was always very explicitly white protestant supremacist, the best example being literally Bruno Bauer's "The Jewish Question"
This trend in "new atheism" isn't remotely new for atheism
The New Atheism movement ended up being a lot like the religious equivalent of Crypto bros.
A bunch of dudes sitting around talking shit about an old system but all of their suggestions turned out to be "we replicate 95% of the old system but now I'm on top."
Hank, those atheists were never atheists. They were zealots under another system. The system doesn’t matter, only the zealotry. They’ve been complete arseholes since day one, all they want is to be arseholes. We mentioned at the time but got called apologists for this and that.
I know Dawkins used to be just this huge huge deal, but his main thing was bullying people of faith, and now his lot have a new group to bully. The trick is to spot the bullying. These people have been disgusting for a long long time.
I used to be an atheist, I still am too! But if a stranger asks I say pagan because there’s the sun, there’s the moon, there’s the wind, and there’s the “new” atheists pissing in the pond of humanity and improving nothing - all objectively true and real and provable.
How does that even make any sense? If you think trans people are an abomination worthy of changing your beliefs over, then wouldn’t their existence be evidence against the existence of an omni-benevolent Deity?
In their twisted perspective trans people don't actually exist, it's all mental illness and conspiracies to corrupt children. The common refrain of 'God is perfet, humans are imperfect' papers over a lot of gaps in the roof over the church.
These people were never atheists and are not currently Christians, at least in terms of actually holding beliefs (or lack thereof) associated with those systems.
Rather, I think they're just opportunists. They claim to believe whatever they think will benefit them. Their true belief is found in the words of Voldemort: "There is only power, and those too weak to seek it." (That author is a good example of what I'm talking about.)
First I'm hearing about it too.
It makes no sense.
I could understand them joining some kind of hate group, but to adopt a whole-ass RELIGION just because some of them are also in that hate group? I can't imagine the train of thought that leads them to that conclusion.
I don't know, but the closest thing I can think of is the trajectory of the skeptic community, which started out as being atheists opposing fundamentalism, then became "liberal but anti-SJW", and finally settled on right-wing politics
It’s another step, where they suddenly get really defensive of western values and start defending and then identifying with Christianity. They have so many alliances with Christian nationalists now they have to find common ground, and Christian nationalists don’t care much about Jesus, actually.
Oh so you mean aligning with Christians politically, sometimes even going as far as validating their theological grounds. But short of literally becoming Christian.
Got it.
Sorry when you said "identity with" I misread it as "identify as"
This bothers me on so many levels, like not only are they not trying to understand trans people but that is just going to conflate all the wrong things together more. We need to be more understanding and genuine. (non-transphobic christian btw)
I don’t think they were atheists to start with. Rather, they lack the critical thinking required to avoid superstition. Poor souls. Oh wait. We don’t have souls.
Some people's worldviews aren't based so much on a set of principles they believe in but rather on joining the "team" that hates the same people as them. The "rational skeptics" dunking on creationists 10-15 years ago are now "cultural Christians" so they can trigger the libs or be anti-woke or w/e.
This, I believe, is in part by the design of conservatives crippling the ability of our educational systems to properly inform our children about these things. So nobody feels equipped to handle what they don't understand so they turn to religion, which simply demonizes it all.
The typical conservative response of ‘ad hoc’ belief that correlates with your beliefs. “If secularism doesn’t justify my hate, surely another ideology/belief will.”
My guess is that they believe less about the Christian worldview and more about its moral precepts. Basically they love to use religion as cudgel against undesirable groups of people.
I heard an interesting take that atheism is a deeply Christian thing, because to reject the existence of God you need to first internalize him as a concept. Pagans's world view for instance is completely different. Atheists reject Christian God specifically. They are more Christian than they think.
the idea that there are only 2 genders and that they are rigid classes assigned at birth, is a religious construct. it has no basis in the scientific understanding of what gender or sex are.
the "athiests" who follow this religious view slowly drift into more and more religious extremism.
I agree. Gender is neither scientific nor real. For one thing the parts don't always match up. Someone might have a female brain in a male body or vice versa. People should be allowed to chose their own identities and be themselves
gender is real its just way diferent than whats typically belived. that feeling that trans people have when they know that they were given the wrong gender, that is true gender. not everyone has it but it is a real phenomenon.
thats not accurate.
if that was true queerness and peoples gender expression wouldnt exist.
they wouldn’t have the internal revelation of “i like men , not women” or “i am a woman not a man” i “reject both i feel neither” these emotions do exist and they are very strong for those people.
Didn't know this was a thing. Completely disgusting. Not sure why Atheism, leftism, and being supportive of LGBT, anti-racist, etc do not simply synergize more frequently? Every single one of these groups is oppressed by right wingers and Christians. Should be easy to form a coalition to my mind.
fun fact about atheism: for the first 150 years that people publicly admitted themselves to be atheists (1770-1920) the dominant strain of atheism was almost completely divorced from scientific arguments/reasoning and was argued for on moral, historical, and metaphysical grounds. 1/2
New Atheism being argued for by appeal to science is a very different kind of thing and maybe actually is far more vulnerable to these kinds of panics because it isn't based on a very strong moral/philosophical grounding so much as on a "chipping away" of God 2/2
My ex is an atheist, but over the years as he has moved politically to the right, he's also gotten more into the Bible. I suspect he still doesn't describe himself as Christian, but I think he's kinda "all but the spiritual parts" at this point.
The funny thing about Richard Dawkins is that I hated him when I was an Evangelical, and now that I'm an exvangelical and a leftist, I still hate him, just for different reasons.
He's been doing that schtick for years. I remember seeing him explain how church bells ringing through a town sound inherantly pleasant while the muslim call to prayer sounds inherantly threatening and evil. Just... no awareness of his own biases whatsoever and no desire to build that awareness.
in the 00s as a very, science-oriented atheist, i remember looking up to people like dawkins. i've since lost all respect for a lot of new atheism. i just can't respect people whose bigotry is so strong that it overpowers their rational tendencies.
Whereas my very Christian mom said she missed the sound of the call to prayer when she left the middle east. Because it’s beautiful, and she isn’t a raging bigot.
He's called himself a 'cultural Christian' for years. For example, I remember him saying this in his debate with Rowan Williams (the former Archbishop of Canterbury)
As one of the olds I was part of the internet atheist thing in the 00s and even then one could tell Dawkins was a douche and a half. He wasn't as explicit with it as he is now but one could tell back then.
The whole "new atheist" thing back then was just atheists acting like ass holes.
as somebody who was once christian & studied apologetics in depth, this kills me. these people don't care about god whatsoever, they just want an easy excuse to dehumanize others. it really makes me want to pull my hair out.
I find it deeply frustrating and discouraging as an active Christian myself too. It's like... How did you miss the point so strongly that your belief hinges on how much you can hide behind it like a shield while you use it as an excuse to hurt and hate people
i'm constantly finding myself perplexed by these people. i do so enjoy calling out their hypocrisy as often as i can, though. they can't truly profess to be christians while making such a mockery of the teachings of christ, and i let them know it every time.
I haven't heard of this, but I think it may be for the same reason many people turn to religion: to seek certainty or community in response to societal changes, or it could be to gain some moral grounding (in their mind).
Of course, many Christians support trans rights and want to include them too.
I don't know how an atheist can turn to faith though. To me that is simply impossible, and I can't help but think they don't have the ability to think for themselves. Rather, they follow what others around them are doing.
I’m an atheist and anti-Christianity, can’t ever imagine why I’d wanna sellout and not a bigot, these cultural Christian types seem like they think that sharing bigotry is ok
Seeing the catholic reverts tweak out because Pope Francis might be kinda okay with gay and trans people?
Saying "he isn't the pope!"
Yes he is. He is your guy. You chose this faith. You (are supposed to) think he's infallible. Everything he says goes
Sorry to be that guy, but that's not how it works with the Pope, it's a common misconception - the "infallible" part is only when he specifically announces something in this manner, and AFAIR this hasn't been invoked in decades
It kind of reminds me of my Stepfather... he was a vocal Atheist from long bef he married my mother. He was sliding into memory issues/dementia when she died - and suddenly became an Evangelical Christian. Don't know if he forget he was Atheist, or was so freaked out by her dying he found religion.
Their beliefs are not really about Christ's death and resurrection.
But instead their idea of "Western civilization" and its preservation is holy to them.
Wait what? Is this a real thing thats happening in noticeable numbers? Ideally just be a good person but even failing that you can be transphobic and not Christian. That's very weird to change your religious beliefs due to hate instead of actual belief
He didn't take the opportunity to revoke "If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them." when he had the chance. So, not so much.
The bible has been through generations of retranslations and a huge chunk was written after Jesus died. A lot of people believe that that may have been a mistranslation. The original was supposedly “If a man lies with a boy…” It was speaking out against pedophilia rather than homosexuality.
On the other hand if your point is that the bible is a collection of generations of retranslations, and anonymous stories written significate period after the preported events, and thus is not a basis for scientific, historic, moral, ethical or spiritual truths. And...
Except that this piece is from PRE-christian writings. IF it is against pedophilia, than it says that a child who is raped should be put to death. That is even more reprehensible.
this!! so many “christians” focus entirely on lines that are mistranslations (or made contextual sense at the time) just to have a reason to hate others, and from what i understand about jesus i really don’t think he would approve of that 😭
As someone who was raised in a Christian family, it feels weird to consider "atheists who became Christains because of culture war nonsense" as anything more than LARPers or something.
As a trans Christian its truly exhausting to have people like that flooding into our communities. There have been a ton of intra-denomination fights all over NA over this stuff.
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I'd name names but suffice it to say, they're now being investigated for financial ties to Russia.
😬
This trend in "new atheism" isn't remotely new for atheism
A bunch of dudes sitting around talking shit about an old system but all of their suggestions turned out to be "we replicate 95% of the old system but now I'm on top."
That sounds like a lot to unpack I can’t even comprehend it.
It makes no sense.
I could understand them joining some kind of hate group, but to adopt a whole-ass RELIGION just because some of them are also in that hate group? I can't imagine the train of thought that leads them to that conclusion.
I need to see it. You know, for science.
Got it.
Sorry when you said "identity with" I misread it as "identify as"
Boo 🏳️⚧️
moral opportunists, not serious people
the "athiests" who follow this religious view slowly drift into more and more religious extremism.
if that was true queerness and peoples gender expression wouldnt exist.
they wouldn’t have the internal revelation of “i like men , not women” or “i am a woman not a man” i “reject both i feel neither” these emotions do exist and they are very strong for those people.
*He says different hateful things now, but the underlying reactionary hatefulness is the same.
DAWKINS SMASH!
The whole "new atheist" thing back then was just atheists acting like ass holes.
That really sucks.
its so weird how they just cannot tell that they are being religious zealots.
they follow science or religion based on whims and convenience.
Of course, many Christians support trans rights and want to include them too.
Saying "he isn't the pope!"
Yes he is. He is your guy. You chose this faith. You (are supposed to) think he's infallible. Everything he says goes
Anyway I think that's funny
Their beliefs are not really about Christ's death and resurrection.
But instead their idea of "Western civilization" and its preservation is holy to them.
-Actual Atheist, not the organizing/clubby kind
Thankfully, it doesnt look like it is likely to reverse the multiple decades of decline in organized religion.
Makes sense
Can i ask where did you get ths from?
Anyway: Trans rights are human rights.
these are atheists? think again, mate...