There’s several competing ideologies currently fighting for that position.
Since the late 90s, the Hitchens branch has been strong, although it has weakened slightly about 1.5 years ago after a decade or so of growing popularity. Members include Dawkins, Bill Nye, Bill Maher, the dark matter guy whose name I keep forgetting, and a few others, to varying degrees. I’ll have to put Dennet in there as well.
Singularity is a popular religion as well, with a number of branches of its own although singularity itself is a branch of the cybernetics religion each with many branches.
One group tends to have ‘pure reason’ as its religious focus and sees itself in direct competition to existing religions.. Cybernetics is more technologically focused, some AI focused, some human augmentation focused with less caring about what other religions do.
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fyi: the first group I mention will want to burn you at the stake for even suggesting they are a religion. But, just as Trump is a politician that claims to be “not a politician” such is the case here as well.
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Yeah I’d put Sam Harris in the first group although he’s also starry-eyed like the second group is. I actually get three groups at first, but the third group was more of an overlap between the two.
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It’s a new religion. How can I explain it to you? I don’t know. It’s the kind of thing that when you’re not an adherent to it, you can see it. But if you’re a follower of it in some fashion even loosely, you believe that talking about how bad religion is and “we’re not a religion” actually means they’re not a religion. But they’re a religion.
Looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck.
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Not a point-by-point refuting but a quick search brings up an article that gives you a sense of what I’m talking about. One thing to also consider: When people convert to a religion they’re not being told they’re converting to a religion but to ‘the Truth” — all the OTHERS are “religions” – but *ours* is just The Truth.
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