Why is the atheist movement in decline?

[historia]

Consider these recent comments from several prominent atheist activists:

You know lately when I look around on social media, and in the media in general really, I see these proclamations. Proclamations that the atheist movement is on life support. It's dying. It's probably beyond saving.

. . .

As an atheist activist myself, I can understand myself why some activists have just left the party. They just got tired of it. All the politics and the posturing and the trolls and the bad faith operators out there. They have seen first hand that atheists are not immune to scandal, to ugliness, to irrationality, to this unhealthy rage.

If you look at the major atheist groups right now -- like the national groups, the ones that are doing the real activist work, like American Atheists or Secular Coalition -- they are not bringing in the kind of donations they used to. Most of them are starved for cash. They're downsizing left and right, because people aren't just giving like they used to.

And I talked to a lot of the major donors out there and they said, "Well, we're kind of tired of seeing the atheist community just fight amongst itself and not really get anything done. We'd rather not give money if we don't think it's going to go somewhere."

It is a hard time to be an atheist activist . . . We are suffering a level of defeatism that I've never seen before . . . I have heard "it's over" so many times it makes me sick . . . This apathy is infecting us and it's hurting us . . . That has resulted in a splintering and a faction-ing of the movement that I've never seen before . . . We're in a bad situation and it's getting worse.

Atheism has squandered its momentum on a defensive old guard and apologists for neglect of events happening in our world. I’m going to have to suggest that we all abandon it.

Question for debate: Why is the atheist movement in decline?

[Goose]

Question for debate: Why is the atheist movement in decline?

I'm speculatig a bit here but I think the New Atheist movement has hurt atheism more than it has helped.

[Jagella]

[Replying to post 7 by ElCodeMonkey]

I'm really glad to hear that you're aware of social issues we atheists should be addressing. It's important for us atheists to be already thinking about a just an equitable society that we can build.

[Jagella]

I think good education, advancing technology, and greater interaction among all humanity is naturally killing off the magical thinking that most religions bring to the table. Let's not replace fantastical myth promoting organizations with anti fantastical myth promoting organizations. Let's just just leave all these organizations in the dust bin where they belong and carry on with our future.

I agree. Some of the best "anti theist" organizations might be universities like MIT and Cal Tech. Since religion is based on misinformation, then informing and educating people people is one of the best ways to kill off religion.

[Jagella]

I'm speculatig a bit here but I think the New Atheist movement has hurt atheism more than it has helped.

If that's true, then people would be converting to Christianity as a result of what people like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris have been saying. I don't think it's likely that people are converting for that reason if they are converting at all.

[Goose]

I'm speculatig a bit here but I think the New Atheist movement has hurt atheism more than it has helped.

If that's true, then people would be converting to Christianity as a result of what people like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris have been saying.

That doesn't follow at all. If the New Atheists have given atheism a somewhat poor reputation then that might explain why some atheists see atheism as being in decline.

[Jagella]

If the New Atheists have given atheism a somewhat poor reputation then that might explain why some atheists see atheism as being in decline.

As far as I know the large majority of people complaining about the new atheists/atheism are god believers. Logically, if the new atheism was giving atheism a bad reputation, then Christians would love it. But they hate the new atheism because it's a wrecking ball demolishing their beliefs. Personally, I'm very pleased with the new atheists. If I wrote a book like The God Delusion or God is not Great, then I'd be very proud.

But truth be told, it isn't so much atheism that has so many apologists whining; it's anti-Christianity that they can't stomach. If Dawkins wrote a book called The Allah Delusion, then Christian apologists wouldn't mind one bit. Christian apologists don't care what god you have doubts about as long as it isn't their god. So as much as they gripe about atheists, they would still gripe if every atheist started believing in gods that Christians don't believe in.

[historia]

It's failing because it never convinced atheists like me to join in. I don't want to be part of a "movement," I don't want to be represented by atheist leaders, and I don't want to go to a conference to meet other atheists.

It does appear that many atheists have never been particularly interested in supporting an organized atheist movement.

But that wouldn't, in itself, explain the situation described in the OP, in which people who previously supported the atheist movement have now become disillusioned with it.

And yes, the "anti-SJW" sideshow is a major turn-off.

How so? And why do you describe it as a "sideshow"?

[historia]

as far as I can tell more people than ever before are leaving religious beliefs behind.

Indeed, world-wide, there are more people today who are religiously un-affiliated than at any time in history.

Of course, there are more religiously affiliated people today than at any time in history, too. That's because there are simply more people today than in the past.

So regarding the quotations you posted, it appears to me that some atheist groups might be having problems with in-fighting or garnering public support.

Yes, the question under consideration is why?

[historia]

This is a bit of a misrepresentation.

How so? Are the people cited in the OP not, in fact, atheist activists? Are their descriptions of the decline of the atheist movement inaccurate?

Atheism is on the rise last I've seen,

The percentage of the world's population that identifies as atheist or agnostic has been steadily declining since the 1970s.

activism could potentially be in decline because many are tired of the name-calling antics of outragism.

Perhaps you can explain this further.

[brunumb]

The transcript below is from “Through the Wormhole� S05E01 and concerns analysis of religious census data from around the world. The whole episode focuses on God, but the part referred to below starts at around the 19 minute mark.

Danny Abrams* is an applied mathematician at Northwestern University. Religious affiliation has been tracked via census reports in many countries for up to 250 years in some cases and we can see how the sizes of religious groups have grown and shrunk. We looked at 85 regions around the world and in every case, every place where it’s ever been measured, the fastest growing religious minority is the non-affiliated, the group of people who don’t affiliate with any religion at all. To find out if this trend will continue, Danny plugged census data from nine different countries (Australia, Canada, Finland, Ireland, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Austria, Netherlands, New Zealand) into his mathematical models and made a surprising prediction. Religion is heading towards a tipping point. According to Danny, by the year 2050, in 6 out of the 9 countries he studied, religiously affiliated people will be a minority. The wheels of society are making people align. A non-religious majority looks set to emerge.

* https://www.mccormick.northwestern.edu/ ... iel-CV.pdf