Most of what you’re counting as victories for atheism seem to point more to secular reductionism or Enlightenment values than to atheism per se. I suppose there’s an argument to be made that that sort of thing is implicitly atheist, but I’d be more comfortable saying that it represents a cultural tendency that might be excluded by some religious frameworks but basically runs orthogonal to religiosity as such. Most of the people originally spearheading the Enlightenment weren’t atheists, although I wouldn’t call many of them traditional religionists by any means.
Put another way, it’s possible for atheist identity to be socially condemned but secular praxis not to be. Here in the US, it’s not at all hard to find nominal Christians that nonetheless rely on secular reductionist models for pretty much all decisions not involving actual religious ritual; I’d even call that the norm in many segments of society. If you’re feeling generous, you could also add a selection of moral issues that reduce to complicated sociological questions without much in the way of empirical backing.
Most of what you’re counting as victories for atheism seem to point more to secular reductionism or Enlightenment values than to atheism per se. I suppose there’s an argument to be made that that sort of thing is implicitly atheist, but I’d be more comfortable saying that it represents a cultural tendency that might be excluded by some religious frameworks but basically runs orthogonal to religiosity as such. Most of the people originally spearheading the Enlightenment weren’t atheists, although I wouldn’t call many of them traditional religionists by any means.
Put another way, it’s possible for atheist identity to be socially condemned but secular praxis not to be. Here in the US, it’s not at all hard to find nominal Christians that nonetheless rely on secular reductionist models for pretty much all decisions not involving actual religious ritual; I’d even call that the norm in many segments of society. If you’re feeling generous, you could also add a selection of moral issues that reduce to complicated sociological questions without much in the way of empirical backing.
Exactly.