Speaking of atheism in general not having a narrative behind it, let alone a unifying one, i was also surprised by the OP "narrative." But, there was a later explanation:Gadianton wrote: ↑Sun Jul 23, 2023 8:41 pmI think the biggest overall problem is that there isn't even a narrative of atheism. Secularism? Sure. But "atheism" literally has nothing behind it. Free mentioned the new atheists, but these guys weren't taken seriously by academics and they had mixed success with the unbelieving public. I never read any of their stuff. Secularism is interesting -- how did secularism arise? Does that parallel the rise of religions? ...honorentheos wrote: ↑Sat Jul 22, 2023 10:46 pmMetanarrative would be a less loaded term that captures what you are arguing for, in my opinion. Well, less loaded on a board where religion is it's raison d'etre. It is equally loaded philosophically but there is history around that argument between modernism and postmodernism you might find interesting.
[bolding added by me.]FR wrote: ...I remember attending an atheist meet up once almost 20 years ago and there was way more diversity, quite a few political conservatives but yes mostly moderate liberals, yet mostly they were discussing science. There were a lot of engineers, doctors, professors, and biologists, etc.; but at some point atheism decided to become Atheism Plus and then it started to push out atheists who had been part of the movement for decades because these atheists would not join the new quasi-religious Metanarrative of far-Leftism (let's call it). As my opening post points out, this new "cultish" Metanarrative has been discussed by many atheists from Bill Maher who compares the new quasi-religious Leftism to Maoism (see: https://youtu.be/yysKhJ1U-vM) to Anna Kasparian, a host on The Young Turks (TYT) who talks about realizing a new far-Left ideology that she considers destructive has sprung up, saying at one point "I feel like I just woke up and got out of a cult." She goes on to point out that extreme far-Leftism is basically "cultish," maybe not "literally a cult" she says, but then goes on to basically explain what I am saying.
So it seems that the discussion was meant to be of "the new quasi-religious Metanarrative of far-Leftism," which some defined as "cultish" and to which some atheists may subscribe, rather than a narrative for atheism in general.
It seemed quite a leap to go from the OP description of atheism, which seemed far more over-arching than the above excerpt, to a description of humankind as homoreligious, or even quasi-religious, but the above excerpt does provide some insight.