Around 20 years ago, during the mid-2000s, YouTube clips featuring new age atheists “owning” and “wrecking” religious scholars, theologians, historians, philosophers, and researchers made the viral rounds. Figures such as Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens were among the most prominent, strident, and stentorian voices of this movement. For a brief but intense period, the fervor surrounding these four self-proclaimed atheists was palpable. Many young men, quasi-interested in public intellectualism, gravitated toward these debates and revelled in the “Hitch-slaps” and the famously bewildered expressions of Dawkins and Harris as they dogmatically defended logic, reason, and rationality against perceived assaults.
Yet, like a flash in the pan, this passion and zeal for new age atheism seems to have nearly vanished from both public discourse and the algorithmic landscape. Aside from a few echoes in the digital space—such as figures like Alex O’Connor—the intellectually and philosophically charged atheism of the mid-2000s has largely been sidelined in the marketplace of ideas. Many have grown tired of its repetitive arguments, arrogance, and, at times, ostentation. But why? Why did a movement that once held such force lose its momentum? And why, conversely, has there been a noticeable resurgence of Christianity and religiosity more broadly?
Before exploring these questions further, it is important to clarify that the intent here is not to reopen theological, moral, philosophical, or cosmological debates. These remain long-standing areas of inquiry along the lengthy axis of discourse and debate surrounding God. Rather, we should examine why a once feverish movement has come to such a dramatic and public halt.
Lack of Meaning and Structure
New age atheists often evoke a certain stereotype—a young man who skips school, dismisses the gravity of the future, basks in temporary glory, and allows a carefree, structureless existence to dictate a fleeting reality. Someone, for example, like Alex O’Connor, to “steel man” his presence in the discourse, is indeed an important voice. He pushes scholars and theologians to refine their positions and make their arguments more robust. However, O’Connor, emerging in an era in which young men and boys in the West have been increasingly disenfranchised, vilified, and left uncertain about their place in society, offers little in the way of meaning or structure.
Most men are simply trying to feed their families, raise healthy children, be better than they were yesterday, and work multiple jobs to make ends meet. The luxury of philosophizing about the cosmological origins of the universe is not afforded to most. While the staggering wonder of our existence certainly warrants intellectual and metaphysical inquiry, the majority of young men lack the time or space to engage in such abstract contemplation. Instead, they are crying out for a framework of meaning—a logotherapeutic quest for purpose that helps them become better fathers, husbands, sons, uncles, and human beings.
The short O’Connor clips that appear in a rare moment of downtime may be entertaining, but they quickly become platitudinous and hollow. Once O’Connor equips you with a few rhetorical points to “own” your coworker or graduate-school peer, what remains? What sense of meaning or structure do new age atheists provide? After the brief high of mocking a religious interlocutor and congratulating oneself for being irreligious, what is left?
This absence of meaning and structure is highlighted by the profound and lasting effects that figures like Jordan Peterson have on men and boys in the West.
Peterson stands in sharp contrast to Dawkins or O’Connor. While he too engages metaphysical questions, he places great emphasis on the essential and pragmatic value of the Judeo-Christian moral framework. He challenges young men to take on responsibility, to sacrifice, to believe in something transcendent, to embrace the growing pains of maturation, and to set and pursue meaningful goals. These elements are notably absent from the atheistic movements that occasionally re-emerge in popular discourse. Such movements are often empty, structureless, and existentially anxiety-inducing—all traits detrimental to the everyday lives of young men.
The great irony, of course, is that figures like O’Connor often believe they exist within a moral, ethical, and structural system independent of the Judeo-Christian tradition. Yet the moral architecture of the West is fundamentally built upon Judeo-Christian principles and structures. To claim an existence within an atheistic moral framework is, therefore, largely fallacious and untenable, making it effectively impossible to provide young men with a meaningful or sustainable structure.
Lack of New Ideas and Arguments
New age atheism has also experienced stagnation. The protégés and successors of the original “Four Horsemen” rarely offer new or exciting contributions to the discourse. The same can frankly even be said for the original progenitors of this movement. Dawkins continues to fixate on the plausibility of miracles, challenging his opponents on beliefs such as the Virgin Birth or the Resurrection. O’Connor repeatedly applies philosophical and logical arguments to the question of God in ways that echo decades-old discussions.
Debates with philosophers and theologians such as William Lane Craig consistently expose a limited capacity among new age atheists to engage willingly and meaningfully within a theistic analytical framework. This intellectual stasis has, understandably, exhausted their audience. Once Hitchens finished rebuking the historical atrocities committed by human beings in the name of God, Harris ceased his tirades on the immorality of religion and the virtues of meditation, O’Connor laid out his philosophical case, and Dawkins took a breath, having become red in the face after railing against miracles, listeners were left with a sense of déjà vu. We’ve heard this material before. The atheistic discourse had begun to sound like an old record on repeat. And each time it loses potency.
These movements fade for good reason. Without engaging their claims and limiting the analysis here to the phenomena, that is, the rise and fall of their appeal, it seems clear that they lack both structural meaning and new contributions, especially for young men.
William Horton is a Guest Writer. He is a doctoral student at Queen's University, Ontario, Canada. A Roman Catholic layman, his writing has appeared in EdCan, Canadian Teacher Magazine, Areo, The Good Men Project, Philosophy News, Voegelin View, and Quadrant.
