I’ve been noting this phenomenon within atheism for a long time: the “angry atheist” and the obsessions and irrational fanaticism of the anti-theist sub-group of atheism (very prominent online): whose modus operandi is to demonize and slander Christians, Christianity, and the Bible 24/7. Believe me, I know about this firsthand. Right now I’m catching hell in not just one but two threads (one / two) on the Tippling Philosopher blog (both with over 600 comments), in what I call “feeding frenzies”: all-out personal attacks and attempted collective destruction of an individual as the biggest scumbag in the history of the world.
Why?: because I dared to disagree with their political obsessions and a piece by a guy who claimed over 100 contradictions in the accounts of Jesus’ Resurrection. And (horror of horrors!) I wouldn’t shut up when I was “supposed” to. Nothing makes the anti-theist, obsessed sort of atheist (which are not all atheists, mind you) more angry than disagreeing or (worse yet) directly refuting their fallacious and fact-challenged positions.
I simply block folks on that blog as soon as they attack me [not my mere opinions] (so I haven’t even read the vast majority of the attacks against me), and I ban them on my page if they can do nothing but ad hominem, manure-slinging, bigotry, and verbal diarrhea. And of course that makes them even more angry: madder than hornets, that I have less than no interest in their juvenile attacks, and because I expose them for what they are. I’m an “uppity” Christian and conservative, you see: not knowing my place and when to shut up and be sanctimoniously lectured by my atheist and liberal overlords: all of whom know vastly more about the Bible and Christianity than I do.
So it was refreshing to run across a former blogger on the Patheos Nonreligious forum, Matthew Facciani. I happened to see a post of his, entitled, “My Final Blog Post: Reflections on the Atheist Movement.” Alas, it is no longer online, because he stopped bloging at Patheos, after five years and more than three million page views. But I found an archived copy at Internet Archive. I suspected from the title that he might make some of the same points of criticism I have been making, and sure enough, he did. Here are extensive excepts:
I also had my issues with the atheist movement. Specifically, I spent too much time countering the myth that “religion is a mental illness” and general ad hominem attacks on theists. Despite meeting plenty of smug atheists, my time in “the movement” has taught me that atheists can be just as irrational as any other group. I’ve also been vocal about my issues with the sexism and racism in the atheist/skeptic movement as well. The atheist movement has been dominated by older, white, cishet men. And this large, homogenous section of the movement has had a pretty narrow and stale approach to social issues (while also holding many leadership positions). After Trump got elected in 2016, I lost a lot of interest in this movement as there seemed to be many more pressing issues than debating theists and petty arguments in the atheist blogosphere. I wasn’t alone in this sentiment as many of my atheist activist friends also moved on to other elements of political & social justice activism.
In addition to being tired of spending so much energy in “the movement,” I also just became tired of regular blog writing in this particular format. Writing a blog made it very clear which topics become the most popular: current events that evoke negative emotion. A path for writing popular blogs is to write about topics that will galvanize a particular group of people. For atheists and progressives, this usually means sharing the rage inducing things that Trump and other conservatives/theocrats did. While it’s important to cover these topics, I also find it pretty unfulfilling and emotionally draining. Too much online media encourages anger and sensationalism because of the current click-based incentive structure. I really didn’t want to contribute to that type of rage-click-motivated ecosystem anymore. I’ll refrain from going on too much of a rant about my concerns regarding online media, but I’ll just say that it is unfortunate how strongly ad revenue & clicks drives our information ecosystem.
Well-said! I am sad to see Matthew leave Patheos, because he would have continued to be one of the voices for rational sanity in the atheist sector. But I can only dimly imagine (from my own experience as an outside critic) the living hell he must have gone through if he attempted to make any internal criticisms of the anti-theist atheists.
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Photo credit: gregkorg (4-21-18) [Pixabay / Pixabay License]
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Summary: Atheist Matthew Facciani. wrote a post, “My Final Blog Post: Reflections on the Atheist Movement.” He made many of the same points of criticism I have made against the widespread “angry” demeanor of online atheists for over twenty years now.
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