Atheists and free speech?

[historia]

Every year, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) does a survey to gauge the climate of free speech on American college campuses. The raw data and the report for 2023 were recently released.

Consider the responses to this question, broken down by religious affiliation:



Question for debate: Why do you think that atheist and agnostic college students are the most likely (and considerably higher than Christians) to think it is okay to shout down speakers they disagree with?

[TRANSPONDER]

I am still bewildered by this transformation of atheism (which was a subset of reason and the rights to express ideas) into a bunch of yelling hecklers.

The only clue might be that I was equally taken aback by a video of a yelling herbert in a car ranting about how atheism was under attack. I have argued before that the communist states were dogmatic and as impervious to reason as any Theocracy. Yet they professed atheism. But as part of Dogma, not as a subset of Rationalism.

It can hardly be overlooked that a movement opposed to the political Right wing has emerged, and seems to tend towards atheism, not to say Left ideology with particular Dogma. And yelling down the opposition is just what they do. This might explain why the old discursive atheism is being replaced by a new discourteous one.