The particular neckbeardy, fedora wearing, Sam Harris listening trend of atheism was a pretty clear reaction to the evangelical psychosis of the Bush administration.
Other geriatrics here can attest that the character of Christianity at the time was way different than it is now. These days, the fascists are more "culturally Christian" and avoid overt bible apologism. But back in the day, these people were constantly on TV spewing young earth creationism and other shit, and they were largely taken seriously. It's hard to believe now how much time was spent "debating" evolution back then. The atheist backlash at least affected discourse aesthetically for some time, making these views laughable, which deplatformed a lot of evangelicals or made them hide their power levels on TV.
Some argue that this brand of atheism justifies imperialism. It does so really only in theory. There really is no material basis for atheists in the US to justify an invasion anywhere in the world. The truth is that Christianity is still a far more powerful force for imperialism. Bush said that God told him to invade Iraq. I don't see any president saying anytime soon that the US needs to secularize a country through force.
If fundamentalist and political religiosity were defeated, then belligerent atheism would dissolve, but the reverse is not true.
Overall, it really does seem like people over emphasize this group of internet no-lifers because of the cultural cringe they manifested.
RationalWiki isn't the worst but it does :bootlicker: Big Yud's cult quite a bit.
Idk who or what Big Yud is. I am less online than you.
But also who or what is it.
I first learned about Big Yud and his cult from offline sources, basically by going to college in the cult's backyard. He's a fanfic writer that wrote "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality" and was paid millions by billionaires for it while palling around with them and starting a crank foundation that ostensibly was made for "AI research" but had no actual educated experts on staff, just a bunch of autodidact jerkoffs who liked to sex pest around with the "pets" they coercively drugged while lobbying for more money from billionaires.
If you ever want to go down the rabbit hole for any reason, there's soooo much more.
https://old.reddit.com/r/SneerClub/
“Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality” was funded by billionaires lmao? Thats incredible. Thank you for this gift.
To the tune of millions, including millions from literal vampires like Th!el .