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.
Yeah, I was just posting about that somewhere the other day. Some “oh my sweet, summer child” was doubting that such a thing was ever justified and I had to step in as someone who was around when cons used to reek of authenticity and explain that it was bad, it did require public education, and that when cons started ejecting people who were walking biological weapons things improved dramatically.
It ties back in to the whole pre-Halo days, before sci fi and video games and whatnot were main streamed, when you actually could get your ass kicked for being a nerd, so the nerds tended to let almost anyone in to their spaces out of a pure “safety in numbers” attitude and close ranks to defend them when they did bad things, especially to women or minorities. This culture of protecting each other against, you know, literally everyone else was very ingrained and it took a decade or two for people to realize that no actually we can throw the sex creeps and racist wehraboos and other assorted scum out in to the street. Telling people “Use soap or fuck off” was an important part of that process.
For those who weren’t around in 2001; HALO:CE represented, at least from my perspective, a massive culture shift. The X-box, or really HALO, was wildly successful and brought gaming to the main stream in a way it had never really been before, and all other nerd shit followed. Nerds of various kinds used to be a fairly culturally isolated and mocked subculture, but suddenly everyone was in to all our shit. It was a very disorienting couple of years.
Yeah, I feel really bad for the incel lady. It must be horrible looking at that movement and thinking you had a hand in it, however small and well intentioned.
when cons started ejecting people who were walking biological weapons things improved dramatically.
Ha ha ha ha ha…story time? This sounds hilarious.
You might enjoy the story of the MTG tournament where a man got banned for crusading against exposed ass cracks.
