As a Republican Atheist, I will continue voting mostly Democrat until religion is removed from the Republican party

“New” lol yeah no. There’s no one mentioned under 45. It’s fine. They’re dying. It’ll be fine, guys.

Glad to see Mehta not now walking in lockstep with New Atheism. The Torres article was a bit harsh (understandably) and he has some previous friction with Pinker who is a bit of an overblown polemicist coming from his days marketing evolutionary psychology. But every one of Torres’ targets have provided ample fodder over the years. I think my trajectory mirrors that of Eiynah Mohammed-Smith especially regarding Sam Harris. The harsh rhetoric on Islam was more of a selling point not too many years removed from 9-11. Now he and others are a laundromat for distinctly right wing ideas. The IDW sojourn that he subsequently backpedalled did Harris no favors. He sold me on Maajid Nawas who went on to be a huge schmuck.

One person not covered by Torres’ article is Jerry Coyne who has gone regressively deeper down the anti-woke rabbit hole and also seems reflexively obsessed with critics of Likudnik Israeli policies per Palestinian issues being antisemitic.

I'm a political and social independent moderate. I'm liberal on some issues and conservative on others. I don't see how my lack of belief in a god requires me to be a straight up liberal.

It disturbs me that atheists could be right wing or QAnon Trump supporters. I distance myself greatly from all those types of people. They have no logic in any respect. Am I "woke?" You bet. I woke up the first time I heard others talking that way.

Ugh. Pardon my airman mouth but for fuck sake

Acutally, the Wokeists have joined the evangelicals in demonizing notable atheists, usually very unfairly. Even progressives will begin to tire of these ever-more-stringent purity tests.

Pinker is controversial because he is dismissive and contemptuous of anyone who disagrees with his highly debatable propositions, and he presents dubious political opinions as mere objective analysis of data.

I don't follow any of these folks well enough to make a sweeping opinion of them but I like what little I've heard from Pinker. I do think he's a dandy and that suggests he's "sensitive" to being brushed off but a personal trait is hardly a good reason to dismiss an idea. I think his idea about progress is not something to brush off. FWIW, I find many Atheists to arrogant, dismissive, and rather borish but I like their reasoning power. Gore Vidal dismissed Hitchins, as his successor, and he's never gotten over that rebuke. Been trying to prove Gore wrong ever since. The problem is that Gore, himself a bit arrogant, was right to do so as he wasn't yet dead. Kind of insensitive question for Gore, I thought, and it made him bristle. Some faults are at least funny.

Atheism is about believing in zero gods or lack of belief in any gods.

I consider the condition of being atheist to be a response to a single question. It means that a person is not persuaded that a God exists. I would end the definition there.
It does not imply that the person has any particular moral, cultural or political position.
It troubles me that so many people think the word carries or even should carry additional baggage.
That’s why I avoid the word in describing myself. I prefer non-theist.

They’re just a minority.