How I Grew Utterly Disillusioned with the Atheist ‘Movement’

A decade ago, I was a man on a mission. Ten years had passed since September 11th — that horrible morning when all of modernity was shocked into brutal cognizance of religious zealotry’s full destructive power when weaponized against secular society. Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens were all the rage, having recently published their seminal works (along with Daniel Dennett, earning them the moniker “The Four Horsemen”).

It felt like the world was finally waking up. It felt like atheists, after millennia of hiding in the shadows, could finally walk freely in the sunlight. And I badly wanted to be a part of it.

For a while, it seemed like the daily news cycle did nothing but spoon-feed the cause, with a steady stream of suicide bombings, kidnappings, live beheadings on the Internet, and massive worldwide riots triggered by something as infantile as poorly drawn cartoons.

It felt like society was perched precariously on a cusp, on an inflection point — one that could either tip us into the sci-fi utopia we’d long been promised, or else send us tumbling backwards into a new Dark Age. It seemed as though remaining silent was not an option, for that would be a conscious choice to sit dumbly on the sidelines while history was being made before our very eyes. And I was ready to play.

It was exciting. It was inspiring. It was hopeful.

Perhaps I’ve grown wiser with age, or perhaps simply more cynical. But everything about atheist activism has come to feel pointless, and often petty. The hope of ushering in a brighter future has devolved into just one more excuse for polarization and petty tribalism.

At the risk of alienating a large percentage of my Twitter following, I really don’t understand how anyone can spend their entire day, week after week, month after month, for years on end, simply tweeting out insults to theists. “God is imaginary.” “Muhammed was a pedophile.” “Jesus was a jerk.”

It feels like the equivalent of spending your days tweeting out “The sky is blue.” “The Earth is round.” “Water is wet.”

The truth or falsity of these statements becomes less relevant than the intended purpose behind stating them, the hoped-for effect, or the underlying psychology driving one to do so in the first place. In a word, “Why?”

During this time, I began writing about atheistic topics for various online publications, and I found moderate success in doing so (with page views occasionally in the tens of thousands). I would sometimes find my own words being quoted favorably in other blogs, and it all felt very satisfying and empowering.

That’s also when I began working on my magnum opus, my ultimate literary achievement, my contribution to future generations that would guarantee me a place in the history of intellectual giants. Part polemic, part academic paper, part introductory textbook, it was to be a sort of “atheist bible” — a single grand tome uniting all of science and philosophy and history against irrational superstition, to put it to bed once and for all. I worked on it diligently for nearly seven years.

But while writing it, I discovered a few things that ended up utterly derailing my efforts, causing me to set it aside indefinitely. I still haven’t had the heart to return to it (although I feel continually guilty and pathetic that I haven’t).

My first wake-up call came from taking a deep dive into psychology in an effort to understand the motivations underpinning religious belief. Unfortunately, my own motivation was utterly violated by what I learned about the concept of motivated reasoning.

Essentially, when faced with contradictory evidence to their most cherished beliefs, the vast majority of people will not only not change their mind, but they’ll actually double down on their erroneous beliefs. They’d far rather believe absurdities than consider themselves absurd.

What then could possibly be the point in writing a four hundred page treatise of nothing but facts, evidence, and logical arguments connecting them? None. It’s absolutely pointless. You’re at best, preaching to the choir or whittling away at a few undecideds on the fringe.

The second thing I became aware of was, for lack of a better term, the doucheiness of many “devout” atheists. I suppose it stems from the fact that lifelong atheists like myself are the minority. A large percentage of atheists are former believers who have become disillusioned with either the absurdities or the atrocities of religion (or both).

But as former believers, they still retain a desperate need to belong, to be part of a club, part of a community of like-minded people so that they don’t feel isolated and alone. And there’s nothing wrong with that per se, yet it’s often manifested in the same slavish devotion, the same lack of critical thinking that characterized their believer phase.

I’ve seen this most prominently with the way some atheists seem to essentially deify Christopher Hitchens, tweeting out icon-like images of him along with what amount to heartfelt prayers: “I miss you Hitch.” Or, “What would Hitch do?” and so forth.

News flash: He’s dead. You’re an atheist. So was he. There’s no afterlife. He can’t hear you. I mean, sure, the guy was witty and all, but he’s dead. Get over it.

The last thing that began to sour me on the atheist movement is its ongoing schism into two disparate political factions.

On one hand you have Dawkins, Krauss, Pinker, et al who have apparently become completely consumed with anti-wokeism, transphobism, and other such stances, much to the detriment of both their objectivity and their likeability. Suddenly it seems a social liability to be in any way associated with them. (Although their original ideas ought to be immune to the ad hominem fallacy, such is not the way of humanity.)

And then on the other hand, you have the “Regressive Left” (the very ones that send those mentioned above into such a tailspin) who, in an effort to combat so-called Islamophobia, have embraced Islamic rights over women’s rights, over gay rights, and over the rights to free speech and free expression.

This is made evident in their ongoing campaigns for deplatforming of contentious public intellectuals, and in their mission to insulate delicate ears from all potentially upsetting ideas through censorship, safe spaces, and the elimination of trigger words. It’s so eerily reminiscent of the Spanish Inquisition, this silencing for the sake of shielding others from offense. The lack of self-awareness is both amusing and horrifying.

These days, I find both sides so abhorrent in their abrogation of everything freethinking is supposed to represent, I frankly want nothing more to do with it.

I still consider myself a “militant atheist” at heart (although I more often these days defer to the gentler label of “freethinker”). I still regularly share atheist memes that make me laugh out loud. And I still harbor a desire to see society become more secular, more rational, with a far greater emphasis on employing critical thinking skills.

I certainly haven’t modified my views on the truth or goodness of religion. But I no longer wish to be an activist. I no longer have any desire to be a part of some grand atheist movement.

For deep down, it was always a personal quest. It was always a desire and compulsion to answer what in some sense, truly is the most important question in all of existence — Does God exist? And is he judging us and keeping score?

But having since answered this question to my complete satisfaction, I can now rest content knowing the sky is blue, water is wet, and God is imaginary. And thus, I can get on with enjoying life. I highly recommend it.

Colby Hess is a freelance writer and photographer from Seattle, and author of the freethinker children’s book The Stranger of Wigglesworth.

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