We unbelievers have been falling behind the church for far too long, and it is high time that we abandon some of our hitherto core principles in order to play catch up. I’d like to modestly propose a few reforms which should help us recruit more people to the cause faster.
1) More unity, less diversity – We can have unity of purpose or diversity of ideas, but not both. We must stop focusing on just a few traditional issues (such as secularism and science outreach) and create a comprehensive platform of beliefs and principles to which everyone is expected to adhere, not unlike the Baptist Faith and Message or the Catholic Catechism or the famed Atheism Plus link basket. Atheists must henceforth take a firm stance on all live political issues, brand dissenters as slimy subhuman sewer dwellers, and summarily excommunicate undesirables from the movement. Anyone who is insufficiently progressive, in exactly the right sort of way, has no place in our movement going forward.
2) No more “freethought” – The idea that everyone gets to think freely, applying logic and reason for themselves on any given subject, invariably leads to infighting on well-settled moral and legal issues such as whether women are really human beings and what sorts of messaging will be tolerated without organized reprisal on other people’s websites. If we are going to fulfill our mission with strength and unity, we have to start differentiating clearly between goodthink and crimethink, and punishing the latter with the severest of social sanctions: no-platforming efforts, blacklists, blocklists, and petitions to get people shitcanned from unpaid volunteer work. No more sharing unorthodox ideas without comment on social media, we have to clearly signal our possession of orthodox beliefs upfront using proper framing and psychological priming, to include detailed prebuttals or at least the use of services such as DoNotLink to make it clear that what you have shared is so profoundly wrong that it is unlinkable in good conscience. It is not enough to have a comprehensive platform if we fail to conscientiously police those of our thoughts which might lead to unwanted ideological diversity.
3) Eliminate civility – Efforts to calmly discuss contentious issues must be eliminated forthwith. The only way we can make progress is to declare the truly important issues (see point #1 above) completely off the table for debate, and scream bloody murder at anyone who dares to disagree. Civil discourse is the language of systematic oppression, whereas righteous anger (however incoherent) is the language of liberation. We need more venues in which to express our righteous anger, and less of this shameless dudebro philosophizing which has never done any good for anyone, anywhere. Perhaps we can host outrage theater revival services in place of the smarmy do-goodness of the existing Sunday Assemblies. We need more atheist street-preachers shouting at our opponents, and less of that “come reason with me” bollocks they do in places like Harvard. Everyone knows you cannot liberate anyone with appeals to cool reason.
These are just a few ideas to help us get started. We are also going to need our own colors and symbols (I’m partial to bundles of wooden rods) and probably loyalty oaths and salutes as well. The top level leadership can work these details out once the annual HEADS meeting anoints a Supreme Pontiff of Atheism. Personally, I welcome the New Order and look forward to being freed from the unending burden of having to work all these issues out for myself.
