Exposing the Intellectual Bankruptcy of Atheists Criticizing Religion

[Esquilax]

Aside from being funny on its own, it made me think about it. Did she really think that there was a time when there were fewer gays, as opposed to people just too afraid to admit it to anyone? I hear this "New Atheist" rhetoric along the lines that Aurora pointed out... they think we're a new thing because the previous generations of atheists were not permitted (faced more reprisals than we do, nowdays, even though it is still an issue) to be open about their faith, so the majority could go along comfortably believing we were not there. That illusion has been shattered, and they react in silly ways in an attempt to protect their fragile bubble of illusion, in which the world is full of Good Christian People™, and there aren't more than a few, disgruntled heathens and homos "out there" (as opposed to in their own families, neighborhoods, etc).

This is essentially what I was talking about, and it's the same for every group that shrugs off a previously dominant cultural paradigm and demands their place at the table: this condescending desperation the old guard has for those now out of the closet to "be nice." Uppity women wanting the vote, wanting the glass ceiling obliterated, wanting equal standing? They're so vicious and man-hating! Why can't they just be civil about it?

Black people seeing a problem with racial inequality and refusing to accept it? Why are they acting so violently? It's so unbecoming! We'd treat them better if they'd just be nice instead of protesting!

Atheists refusing to remain quiet about the utter dearth of evidence for religious claims? Oh, they're so unsophisticated, those philistines, they won't pay proper deference to the big figures in our magic cult! If only they'd pretend that our desperate fallacies are some perfectly formed work of intellectual rigor, if only they'd play nice, we'd confer upon them our oh so important imprimatur and assess their ideas with something approaching respect!

It's the same old refrain, every time, because it serves the same purpose: it allows those whose power is being threatened to insinuate themselves into a conversation that isn't about their interests and make it about them. It lets them demand deference when they haven't earned it, dishonestly phrase the narrative as one where they're under undeserved attack by a brutish persecuting class, and insist that the proper position their opposition should take is one of simpering deference to their slowly collapsing ivory towers. The message is a simple, insidious, and toxic one: "Know your place, it is beneath us."

Of course, we all know how that shit worked out for these jokers every other time, because the narrative was never theirs to frame and, very quickly, we learn to see just how flimsy their side of it has always been. But that won't stop them from trying: if there's one thing you can rely on the evangelical right wing to do, it's never learn their lessons or deviate from their control-mad bludgeoning long enough to see it isn't working. Maybe this time will be the time that condescension and scoffing will finally take the place of real engagement, and they'll win one!