Not A Blast But More A Retro Petard From The Past - I'm Noticing At Least a Blip in 00s era Neo-Atheism On The Internet

LOOK AT WHAT THIS MEMBER of the "Ethical Society" recently said in a comment on that fun Youtube channel I recently posted a piece from here. 

@ZenBearV13

5 months ago (edited)

“Religion is the first — and worst — explanation we came up with.” - Christopher Hitchens

As a member of the Ethical Society of St. Louis, I agree with the premise you advocate here. Religion is not an isolated system of beliefs but a part of our development as sapient beings that must be integrated into our understanding of our future. It doesn’t deserve special reverence, merely conscious consideration.

Considering the video starts with a question of whether the listener or someone they know suffers from a condition called "angry 17-year-old-atheism," which Christopher Hitchens based his entire journalistic career on spreading (I can't figure out any other reason he'd have had that long gig at The Nation, and I used to read him all the time when I subscribed) before he branched out to a Bush II era neo-con theme, maybe being the last of a long line of Trotskyites who took that baby step from one depraved ideology to a similar but far more lucrative depraved ideology,  I'd say this guy's answer to that question is "Yes." 

Christopher Hitchens?   Really?   That liar and journalist whore who went from being a Trotsyite to a supporter of the worst neo-cons and crypto-fascists?   One who, I will guarantee you, would be supporting if not actually Trump, then much of what the Trumpzis are doing if not on anything else than on the basis of his financial interest and getting his drunken mug on right-wing media.   The man who, among many other things, supported the Bush II regime and its entirely illegal and catastrophically bloody and permanently consequential invasion of Iraq, defending their motive of getting hold of Iraq's oil? 

That's who members of the "Ethical" Society hold up as a valid judge of ethics?   It's like holding up James Randi as a figure of science, as many a true believer in materialist-atheist-scientism apparently still does.  Only that's relatively less dangerous.   I was mildly interested in following up on the "Ethical Society" and its members during my long look at 00's era new atheism but I started losing interest in it as it went out of style and fewer of those stuck in angry 17-year-old style atheism mentioned it as their their attention drifted to newer shiny objects.  I have been tempted to do the same critique of the Fieldston School in NYC based on its product, the one I've slammed elite Catholic Education and the prep--> Ivy sysem on.  I may have mentioned the "ethics" of A.G. "Dash" Sulzberger, the man whose journalistic ethics at the New York Times apparently are identical to those of Jeff Bezos, as one of them in the past.   The Fieldston School strikes me as a kind of atheist religious prep which has about the same relationship to "ethics" that the elite Catholic preps have to the Gospel of Jesus, these days.   Based on its product.