rationalskepticism.org

Will S wrote:It's amazing how the religious community had it so easy for so long. No wonder they complain about 'militant atheism/secularism'!

If Dawkins (particularly, though the other ‘Horsemen’ too) has accomplished anything, it is to make the questioning the place of of religion in the public sphere acceptable. That process will continue, regardless of whether religious people complain about "shrill attacks", providing we don't let up. It's easy to forget how unusual it was to hear anyone question why bishops should get asked to rule on questions of public ethics by right.

xrayzed wrote:

Horwood Beer-Master wrote:

xrayzed wrote:Social trends are often cyclical...

That doesn't mean that beardy simply declaring that we're in such a cycle, and that the cycle has peaked, is anything other than baseless intellectual laziness and/or wishful thinking.

True.

I don't know if it's peaked or not. I'd needed to see some data before making that judgement. But even if it is true "has peaked at this time" doesn't equate to "going away", nor imply it might not return stronger than ever in the future.

I’m not convinced this is anything to do with ‘social trends’ – “New Atheism” was always a media trend, and these do pass, as the needs of media organisations for something “new” change. The conversation has certainly moved on, with more of a discussion between atheists about tactics but this is something we can be happy about, since it is normalising atheism as the default stance (in my opinion and experience).