I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the nu-atheist movement slowly turned in to the incel-blackpill-4chan fascism we’re dealing with now. A lack of religious belief doesn’t in any way make someone a bad person and we should be criticizing organized religion and all the harm it’s done. But the cynical dudebro atheist culture had a distinct ideology - it wasn’t about science so much as using the concept of science as validation for a bitter, joyless view of the world.

I remember when people in that scene loved to talk about how no one’s pets actually loved them, and people who deluded themselves into thinking their dog wasn’t just using them for food were idiots. That’s just science, are you triggered snowflake? But in reality, actual science has shown that your dog does have a positive emotional connection to you, one that goes beyond seeing you as a provider of necesities. So why would these self-proclaimed logical, rational men ignore the actual science in this case? Because they have been raised in a culture that rewards cruelty and dominance. Genuine scientific thinking involves abandoning your preconceived notions and coming at a subject with an open mind, but they never did that. They just looked for validation for what they already believed - everyone is inherently cruel and selfish, nothing has any meaning, we come into a heartless world for no reason, fuck kill and die and nothing matters.

This deliberate rejection and mockery of any kind of sentimentality, spirituality or connection with the land and other living beings is unhealthy. It’s settler-colonial manhood taken to it’s logical end point, an angry refusal to genuinely feel anything, trust anyone or make yourself vulnerable in any way. It’s the mentality that human beings are all enemies who gain from each other’s suffering. It isn’t actually based in logic or reason, just a long oppressive ideological history, and it really isn’t surprising that it became violent as fast as it did.