Jeremy Stangroom

Movement atheism has always been, to its detriment, tribal. However, many of those now levelling that accusation are a big part of the story of its tribalism. There's a lot of motivated forgetfulness and rewriting of history going around.

Also, many of those who have turned against new atheism have simply swapped one tribe for another. They remain just as intolerant of dissent as they were in their previous incarnation as "gnu atheists" attempting to silence & shame their critics.

It probably isn't a coincidence that many of those originally attracted to movement atheism came from religious backgrounds. You can take the person out of religion, but it's much harder to take a religious mindset out of a person.

The messianic fervor, the fondness of binaries (in-group/out-group, righteous/sinner, woke/fascist), boundary policing, self-righteous moral puritanism, intolerance of dissent - it's all the stuff of religion.