A few days ago on September 8th, I published an essay imploring US President Donald Trump and other advisors to him to abandon their promotion of Christian nationalism through the America Prays Initiative. In this essay I pointed out that the popular belief the USA was founded to be a Christian nation is mistaken, and that the US Constitution was purposefully written to prevent the federal government from promoting Christianity or any other religion, because combining state and religion had historically led to violence. The timing of my article was deeply unfortunate in that it was prophetic.
Yesterday afternoon, a co-founder of Turning Point USA, Charlie Kirk, was assassinated during a rally at Utah Valley University by a gunman from a roof, using a long rifle. At the time of this writing the FBI has recovered the rifle, but have not yet made an arrest. The murder of Charlie Kirk has sent shockwaves throughout the country, as in addition to his work with Turning Point USA, Kirk was a popular YouTuber whose channel had millions of views, most of which showcased Kirk sitting at a table on a college campus engaging in debates with college students about political issues.
The relevance for Atheists, and my earlier essay, is that Turning Point USA is a major political opponent of all Atheist activist organizations, as Turning Point USA is an advocacy group for both Christian nationalism and an opponent of the present day form of American Progressivism i.e. Wokeism (for lack of a better word. The political philosophy is characterized by an activist stance against racism, sexism and other forms of oppression as defined by New Left political ideologies such as Critical race theory, third wave Feminism and Intersectionality, that have become prominent in the contemporary Black Radical Tradition since the 1990s. As such the term ‘Wokeism’ today is used as an umbrella term to label a belief in a wide range of various New Left ideas rooted in Marxist thought, including Third wave Feminism, Epistemic Decolonization, Jacques Derrida’s Deconstruction theory and the Critical Theory associated with the Frankfurt School).
Turning Point USA is the main rival to Atheist campus activism organizations such as Secular Student Alliance, a nonprofit that has leadership over-laps with and funding from groups such as Humanist international / American Humanist Association and American Atheists.
Turning Point USA has been a particularly painful thorn in the side of Secular Student Alliance, which has seen its membership dwindle and lost over half its number of affiliated chapters during the same time frame that Turning Point has experienced explosive growth, not only in that its annual budget far balloons SSA (which only spends hundreds of thousands, whereas TP spends over 80 million a year) but that its chapters exceed 800 while SSA has less than 300 chapters. Charlie Kirk is thus, as one of the primary leaders of the organization, someone whose views are rejected by virtually all Atheists.
Atheism activism is chiefly done through groups with names such as American Humanist Association, whose manifestos and other promotional material claim the groups and their members universally condemn violence while preaching of upholding the sanctity of human rights and dignity. So it would be an easy assumption to make that the majority of Atheists would condemn the murder of even their biggest political rival, yet it is unfortunately not the case in actual practice because the flowery language of documents such as the Humanist Manifesto is invoked selectively to defend behavior that these Atheist activists want to justify (such as anti-LGBT violence or abortion rights, etc), and it is ignored on occasions when deemed convenient to ignore. The capricious nature of the AHA brand of humanism is one of the main reasons I have never joined AHA or other affiliated groups, and instead developed my own secular Atheist moral philosophy, Chivalric Humanism, which has consistency in its moral teachings due to the emphasis on virtues.
It should be obvious, but I will say it directly; I fully condemn the murder of Charlie Kirk, or anyone else, for exercising their First Amendment rights to express their views, however unpopular they may be. I condemn murder in principle, really. I did not write my earlier essay to suggest violence is justified against Christian nationalists, politician or not. I only meant to point out that intertwining religion and government has frequently led to violence in past Western nations, because there is no singular form of Christian denomination. There are hundreds of different Christian denominations and they all disagree with each other, and no one of one religion wishes to be dominated by others of a different religion. And today there are many other people of different religious viewpoints, and none wish to see themselves be compelled to support a rival religion. But in no way am I suggesting this violence is justified, especially not in a Republic such as the United States where we have the First Amendment protections guaranteeing all the right to express their viewpoints, religious, political or otherwise. Such violence is condemnable and I will make the case in this essay that Charlie Kirk’s death should be universally condemned by all, including by Atheists.
Now to the lay observer it may seem unnecessary for anyone to need to devote a lengthy essay to convince Atheists that they should universally condemn the assassination of Charlie Kirk and even mourn his death, as it should be obvious to even the most ethically impulsive person that murder is wrong. Yet it is not so. As an observer of popular Atheist culture through social media tracking, I have noticed that popular Atheism, that form of Atheism promoted by high profile Atheist activism groups such as AHA, has long since been hijacked by people who, with one hand zealously defend the First Amendment protections when it is comes to the subject of separation of church and state, but with their other hand clap for Christian conservatives to be denied their own rights. This class of Atheist activists have gone far beyond the scope of the firebrand Atheism originally envisioned by the New Horseman decades ago, and transformed into something else entirely: a hateful Atheism. That is to say, a twisted form of Atheist political ideology that has become a category of hate group ideology. I struggle to name it precisely, but it is a recognizable form of anti-theism mixed with the most extreme of Marxist Critical Theory (or “Wokeism”, if you will) to justify violence against ordinary citizens exercising their First Amendment rights. It is promoted through support and membership in groups such as Antifa, whose ranks are, I must unfortunately admit, heavily populated by Atheist identifying people.
There are even smaller yet sadly influential variant of this hateful Atheism, such as the Efilism anti-natalism, which I have condemned in a prior essay as well after an Efilism supporter attacked a fertility clinic.
As a politically moderate Atheist myself, I would like to say this extreme form of Atheism activism is a minority among Atheists, but it is impossible to measure what percentage of Atheists in the USA align with this extreme version. What I can say is that, from my vantage point, most online Atheist groups are moderated by people who favor this extremism and Atheism related social media feeds are primarily filled with posts, memes, videos and other media that champion this form of extremism. Likewise I have seen tremendous overlaps between violent hate groups like Antifa and Atheism spaces, especially online where memes promoting Antifa ideology are frequently shared. So it is unsurprising for me to see that the assassination of Charlie Kirk has resulted in a tremendous number of these people to expose their true colors. At present it’s probably more rare to find an Atheist group where people aren’t applauding Charlie Kirk’s assassination; so rare, that even on Pages that have condemned the assassination, the comments sections have numerous Atheist identifying people who are criticizing the Page for not rejoicing while also posting other hateful dialogues.
As this is a bold claim I will be spotlighting a few examples of what I am describing. This spotlight is necessary because without it some readers may be unconvinced this is occurring. Yet taking a cursory glance at the online Atheism space, far too many Atheist identifying people are expressing glee that Charlie Kirk was murdered.
Some examples,
On the reddit community r/atheism, the mods have had to put a temporary ban on all posts and comments related to Charlie Kirk due to the volume of posts applauding Kirk’s assassination, which breaks reddit’s terms of service and risked causing the subreddit to be shut down. I didn’t think to screenshot any of these now removed posts before deciding to make this article.
Secular Student Alliance made a post condemning his murder, but then restricted commenting on the post and removed all comments. It then made a post about another recent school shooting in Denver, whose comments are full of SSA members applauding Charlie Kirk’s murder. Some samples of this,
Atheists for Liberty, one of the few Atheist organizations that did condemn the murder and expressed sympathy for Charlie Kirk, received on that post several unhinged comments.
The large California based advocacy group Atheists United posted what I view to be an unhinged video rant onto their Facebook Page where the spokesman tried unconvincingly to hide his smirk as he claimed he could not comment on Charlie Kirk’s murder because he didn’t have “enough facts” but then proceeded to rant about how the country needs to outlaw guns because they are used to murder people. The person in the video is disingenuous; Kirk was assassinated at a rally, so what more info do you need to condemn the event? You claim you need more facts but the only fact that matters is he was murdered while exercising his First Amendment rights. The implication here is that the Atheists United spokesman just doesn’t want to condemn his murder because he disagrees with Kirk on gun control and other topics.
Atheism for a Better Humanity made a similar post, justifying Kirk’s death because of his views on firearm ownership.
This media highlights why many people cannot take present day Atheism activism very seriously, because the same people who spend their time lecture others about human rights and dignity then turn around and justify the same violations against those they dislike for political reasons. Then they use tragedies committed by evil people to justify why guns should be outlawed, even though evil people still murder others in countries where firearms are heavily restricted. In fact, it’s more likely that only evil people end up with firearms in these countries, leading to authoritarian dystopias like North Korea where the people are enslaved by their government.
The truly irrational thing is Atheists United and other Atheist organizations which have taken a political stance on the Second Amendment want to argue in their activism that the First Amendment should not be infringed because it is a right of the Constitution but then they also want to turn around and say the Second Amendment should be infringed for the same justifications as those who want our freedom of speech and religion to be infringed — because they want to criminalize the activity that is presently protected as a right. You cannot have it both ways; you cannot justify First Amendment protections on the basis that it is a Constitutional right, and then ignore that the Second Amendment is also a Constitutional right while advocating for its elimination.
It is tragic for the Atheism movement that this is what Atheism representation has become, a dysfunctional mess of obvious contradictions. It’s not wonder SSA has been in decline.
Here are a few more of these Atheist activists, many of which aren’t even posting accurate representations of Charlie Kirk’s real political views. These all have thousands, some tens of thousands, of Page followers.
Then of course we have Seth Andrews, speaking out of both sides of his mouth, unable to hold himself back from insulting Charlie Kirk even a tiniest bit and acting as if the man was some kind of monster when in reality he was a debate bro who never committed any crimes against anybody. Suggesting his murder was some kind of “gift” of victimhood. He wasn’t gifted anything you fool; he was ruthlessly murdered.
Then there is this post from American Humanist Association, which at first glance might seem to be condemning Charlie Kirk’s murder, but doesn’t expressly reference him. Yet the comments are full of AHA members who do reference him, claiming his speech was a form of violence and therefore justify his murder.
What I have shared has been a small sample of what I have read online. I could go on posting more, but I believe this is sufficient evidence to support my claim, that popular Atheism activism has become flooded by people of poor moral character who promote and encourage violence against people merely for exercising their First Amendment rights — the very same rights that permit these Atheists to live freely as an Atheist in the United States. And that is hypocritical, and it results in their Atheism activism losing all credibility and claim of any moral high grounds.
The worst thing about all of this, is that these people justify the common stereotype of Atheists as immoral evil people. When Atheism social media feeds are principally populated by self-identifying Atheist people applauding a man for being murdered for expressing his political views, it makes it more difficult to convince non-Atheists that Atheism philosophy is a genuine alternative to superstitious religions like Christianity. I mean, look at what the effect has been on so many Atheist people — they clearly have no moral compass, and their beliefs are contradictory. They want to cite the First Amendment as a shield for their Atheism and their activism against Christian nationalism, but simultaneously, they want to approve of Christian nationalists and conservatives assassinated for exercising these same rights. Their justification is absurd, their sense of right and wrong a mere sheet in the wind blowing in any direction.
The lunacy of all of this is that First Amendment advocacy is intertwined with historical legitimate American Atheism; indeed, free speech advocacy is the bedrock of the foundation and history of Atheism. Period. There is no place for Atheists in a society where it is morally acceptable to murder others for dissenting viewpoints, as Atheism is 100% a dissent against the popular beliefs of most every other human that has ever lived and who presently do live. Atheists are among the smallest minority groups in the world, and a society where vigilantes can kill others over mild disagreements is not a society where Atheism can freely exist.
Beyond that simple fact, why would anyone who has even a sliver of moral integrity want to join an Atheist group where even a vocal minority of its members support murdering others over disagreements? Why would any sane person want to be associated or aligned with groups that foster a culture like that? It is little wonder that Atheism is in the decline and Christian nationalism has been rising among the youth, because Atheism on the internet is full of hateful angry psychopaths whom you would not want to be alone in a room with, as if you happen to say something that slightly disagrees with their cherished worldview, they will at the very least rejoice if someone murders you for it and at the worst, possibly kill you themselves.
The current popular culture of Atheism as promoted on social media is all wrong. This form of Atheism will never replace Christianity or any other superstitious religion. We will never see a largely secular society where superstitious religions have lost all of their political influence in this form of Atheism continues to dominate. This two-faced hypocritical form of Atheism popularized by people with contradictory beliefs, favoring murder and assassination against political rivals when it benefits them while denouncing suppression of only those who align with their ideas, will never replace Christianity. Not because Christianity is more morally sound and any less contradictory, but because Atheism does not have faith based rhetoric to recruit with, as superstitious religions do. People purposely look past the contradictions of superstitious religions because they can be persuaded to put blind trust into something they know there is little to no evidence for, whereas Atheism cannot adopt such a position, because Atheism is fundamentally rooted in objective Truth. Atheism may not be a religion in and of itself, but Atheism forms the foundation for the life stance of the Atheist individual and it colors all their viewpoints on morality. At present, this popular junk Atheism form promotes a form of morality that is ethically ambiguous at best and completely evil at its worst.
As I have written in my previous essay debunking popular myths about Atheism, it is a popular misconception that Atheism has no explicit moral claims and therefore it has no ethical qualities. In actual fact, Atheism requires a person to possess a normative viewpoint on Truth as a supreme moral principle. Without this essential quality then there is no justification for why a person should not believe in deities when there is no credible evidence for them. Without adopting an ethical stance on Truth, there is no justification for why it is morally wrong to invent fictional religious deities and use them to manipulate others. All of the criticisms that Atheists have against superstitious religion depend upon Truth to be viewed as a positive moral principle. Atheism is also inherently opposed to superstitious religions for this reason, and that necessitates the Atheist to have a different more secular sense of religion and ethics.
So Atheism in practice does have philosophy, and it does have positions on ethics.
Yet, sadly, what we have seen of the popular form of Atheism championed on the internet is contradictory (the rights of the Constitution or other documents such as the Humanist Manifesto are not treated as universal but instead only selectively advocated for, using poorly conceived and irrational criteria to exclude others from these rights when it suits their wants). This popular form of Atheism activism is, in my view, pseudo-Atheism for it is ideologically opposed to the very foundations of Atheism activism.
The door does not swing in both directions; you cannot simultaneously justify your right to be an Atheist using the First Amendment while simultaneously discarding Charlie Kirk’s right to hold Christian nationalist views, which is also protected by the First Amendment. More than this, the assassin of Charlie Kirk did not make an attack only on Charlie Kirk and his Christian nationalist ideals — it was an attack on the First Amendment itself, and so it was an attack on the very concept of universal human rights to free speech. This right cannot functionally exist if there is a culture that views murdering others for their speech as morally acceptable.
Therefore, any Atheist who applauds this attack has adopted an ideological worldview that is opposed to the core principles by which Atheism depends upon in order to thrive. Atheism cannot thrive in a society where it is viewed as culturally acceptable to murder people for expressing unpopular ideas, because regardless of how better Atheism may reflect reality, Atheism still remains an unpopular idea. Murdering people for having unpopular ideas is therefore detrimental for Atheists.
And so, all Atheists should mourn Charlie Kirk. He should be mourned because he was murdered for exercising the very same right to free speech that Atheists depend upon. Setting aside his political viewpoints, we all have the First Amendment in common with him and the danger that exercising that right entails in a society where people promote violence against others for their unpopular speech.
It is irrelevant whether you personally believe Kirk’s activism was good or bad; the only thing that matters is that he was murdered for exercising the very same human right that permits one to live freely as an Atheist in America, and which all American Atheism depends upon — freedom of speech.
Yes, Charlie Kirk was a Christian nationalist, in the sense that he viewed America as a Christian nation and believed Christianity to be a supreme moral religion that all Americans should adopt. He was not, however, an evil person who promoted hatred and violence against others or desired to use violence or authority to force people to become Christians. I watched many of his videos over the years, as I found them to be a good way to keep a pulse test of where popular Christian nationalism was. I watched Kirk debate an uncountable number of young people in college campuses across the country, and I have observed over the years his statements frequently taken out of context by his detractors. Setting aside his religious based reasonings, Kirk held what I consider to be fairly moderate conservative viewpoints, and while many people disagreed with him on many issues (myself included) he conducted himself respectfully in his interactions and never advocated for violence against others he disagreed with. He was in many ways a model debater and I wish more Atheists had his composure. I believe his ethics were motivated in a desire to do good for good people, and he wished to see justice for those wronged. I viewed Kirk as a person who could be reasoned with, and I personally held a desire to some day have the opportunity to debate him and perhaps broaden his perspective on those issues I disagreed with him on. Now this can never happen, as his murder has denied him the opportunity to consider new points of views. This also means Kirk has lost the opportunity to use his influence to encourage others to consider these new points of view as well. This, too, is something to mourn. Kirk has been denied the opportunity to change his mind on his views and use his influence to change other people’s minds. Kirk was also, ultimately, a person with a family he loved and who loved him, and who played a meaningful role in many people’s lives. Everything Kirk did for others has now been prematurely halted and any more future potential good he may have done prevented, due to the selfishness of one person who hated Kirk’s so deeply over his viewpoints that the assassin decided themself to be above our laws.
Charlie Kirk’s murder should be viewed as an appalling act of terrorism, meant to instill fear into all American people who engage in lawful participation in politics and speech. It should be universally condemned by every Atheist who values the ideals of human rights. I am appalled that much of popular Atheism social media is full of people happy that he was murdered. I have unfriended and unfollowed several people and Pages who have sought to justify his murder in any way. I have zero tolerance for this behavior. I hope that his assassin is caught and tried in court, and punished with the maximal penalty under the law.
Yet, my view is unpopular among Atheists if we judge by the volume of social media posts on the internet. And that is an uncomfortable revealing of the sorry state that Atheism is in at present. It is ever more clear to me that Atheism activism needs new leadership with new philosophical direction. The current crop of lunatic keyboard warriors who misquote political opponents to justify violence against them, who label anyone of a mildly different opinion a Nazi or some other slur, who spend their hours making meme ragebait, who view themselves so self-righteous they can denounce censorship and violence against their own while applauding it against other ordinary citizens exercising their own free speech rights, they all need to be shut out of Atheist activism activities and communities. They are poisoning the well that is modern Atheism, and they are killing all momentum of the movement. It’s little wonder some high profile Atheists chose to adopt “cultural Christianity” as a placeholder when the popular Atheist culture has become so toxic.
Going forward Atheism activism needs to abandon the hateful hot takes that are championed by people whose moral compass spins in every direction. It needs new organizations that will steer the ship anew toward those essential qualities necessary for Atheists to thrive in countries they live in. Atheism activism needs to return back to the spirit of separation of church and state advocates such as Voltaire, often paraphrased as, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”.
So let us mourn Charlie Kirk, for what was denied him, his family, and his supporters. But also what has been denied all Americans yesterday, the sense that America is a nation of laws and that the right to free speech is universally upheld. Unfortunately this is not the case in the current political climate, and it is not among the Atheist communities at present. We all need to do better.
