Morale of the atheist movement

Groups/organizations which unsuccessfully meet challenges and/or face future challenges which they believe they cannot successfully overcome, often become: dispirited, experience infighting, become pessimistic and also become less effective.

From a global perspective, the world's percentage of atheists has been shrinking and many secular countries have experienced a significant amount of immigration from the citizens of religious countries (see: Desecularization and Global atheism statistics).

Eric Kaufmann, a professor at Birkbeck College, University of London whose work focuses on how demographic changes affects religion/politics, points out that that the atheist population has a sub-replacement fertility rate while religious fundamentalists have high rates of birth (See: Atheism and fertility rates). .

On December 23, 2012, Professor Eric Kaufmann who teaches at Birbeck College, University of London and whose academic research specialty is how demographic changes affect religion/irreligion and politics, wrote:

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I argue that 97% of the world's population growth is taking place in the developing world, where 95% of people are religious. On the other hand, the secular West and East Asia has very low fertility and a rapidly aging population... In the coming decades, the developed world's demand for workers to pay its pensions and work in its service sector will soar alongside the booming supply of young people in the third world. Ergo, we can expect significant immigration to the secular West which will import religious revival on the back of ethnic change. In addition, those with religious beliefs tend to have higher birth rates than the secular population, with fundamentalists having far larger families. The epicentre of these trends will be in immigration gateway cities like New York (a third white), Amsterdam (half Dutch), Los Angeles (28% white), and London, 45% white British.

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Various schisms occurring within the atheist movement and widespread infighting, has had an adverse effect on various atheist organizations (See: Atheist factions). Divisions within the atheist movement have caused a marked decline in the movement (see: Decline of the atheist movement). For example, atheist organizations have experienced large drops in donations to their organizations (see: Atheist organizations and fundraising).

Numerous atheists have declared that the "atheist movement is dead" or that it is dying (see: Decline of the atheist movement)

Most atheists are apathetic when it comes to sharing atheism with others - especially when compared to evangelistic religions such as Christianity (see: Atheism and apathy).

Eric Kaufmann, an agnostic professor whose academic research specialty is how demographic changes affect religion/irreligion and politics, wrote in 2010:

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Worldwide, the march of religion can probably only be reversed by a renewed, self-aware secularism. Today, it appears exhausted and lacking in confidence... Secularism's greatest triumphs owe less to science than to popular social movements like nationalism, socialism and 1960s anarchist-liberalism. Ironically, secularism's demographic deficit means that it will probably only succeed in the twenty-first century if it can create a secular form of 'religious' enthusiasm.

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In March 2015, the atheist philosopher John Gray in an article at The Guardian titled What scares the new atheists reported:

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Today, it’s clear that no grand march is under way...The resurgence of religion is a worldwide development...For secular thinkers, the continuing vitality of religion calls into question the belief that history underpins their values."

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In 2018, the atheist PZ Myers quotes an atheist activist who declares: "It’s quite depressing that movement Atheism has turned into such a joke. I valued it so much once." Furthermore, Myers says the atheist movement is in "shambles" and this is "quite depressing" for him.

YouTube atheist Thunderf00t

YouTube atheist Thunderfoot said about the atheist movement after the Reason Rally 2016 had a very low turnout:

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I'm not sure there is anything in this movement worth saving. Hitchens is dead. Dawkins simply doesn't have the energy for this sort of thing anymore. Harris went his own way. And Dennett just kind of blended into the background. So what do you think when the largest gathering of the nonreligious in history pulls in... I don't know. Maybe 2,000 people. Is there anything worth saving?

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In recent times, the number of people attending atheist conferences has grown smaller. Atheist David Smalley wrote: "And we wonder why we’re losing elections, losing funding, and our conferences are getting smaller."

Atheists, demoralization and politics

Atheist Dr. Gordon Stein wrote:

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Atheism has long ceased to be a rare and oft-ignored philosophical outlook...It has transformed itself into an active political programme with clear objectives which, though they vary from state to state, unequivocally include the elimination of state religion, religious education, and the enshrinement of scientism."

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Atheists commonly use the political realm to advance their atheistic ideology (see: Political activities of atheists).

Traditionally, atheists have leaned left politically politically (see: Atheism and politics and secular left). At the present time, the secular left is losing power in the Western World and other regions of the world (see: Decline of the secular left).

Eddie Tabash

The American atheist activist Eddie Tabash said at the 2010 Michigan Atheists State Convention:

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In every generation there has been a promising beginning of a true vanguard movement that will finally achieve widespread public acceptance for nonbelief. Yet, in each generation there has been an ultimately disappointing failure to actually register the naturalistic alternative to supernatural claims in the public consciousness... Now given the confounding extent to which religion is entrenched in our society, it could take a minimum of 100 years of sustained, intense effort to even begin to cut into the current monolithic stranglehold that religion has on American mass culture,

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The likelihood that the American atheist population will engage in 100 years of sustained, intense atheist activism is remote (see: Atheism and apathy and Views on atheists and Demographics and trends in American secularism).

Also, a 100-year sustained and intense effort of atheist activism would require a high degree of cohesiveness and cooperation among atheists. Tabash said in a speech to the Michigan Atheists State Convention, "Since we are a bit of a cantankerous, opinionated lot...". See also: Atheist factions and Atheism and social skills

Tabash said in a 2007 speech to the Atheist Alliance International organization:

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The other likely future is one in which by a shift of only one vote on the United States Supreme Court, we will essentially become a theocracy in which all branches of government we be freed to favor religion collectively over nonbelief.

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Currently, President Donald Trump is allying with evangelical Christians and the balance of power the on the United States Supreme Court is tipping towards the conservative side (see: Donald Trump and evangelicals).

At the American Atheists 2018 convention, David Silverman, ex-president of the American Atheists organization, gave a speech entitled, "How the mighty get back up". The speech alluded to the pro-religious rights agenda of the Trump administration (See: Donald Trump and American atheists). During the speech Silverman said regarding American atheists, "We are suffering a level of defeatism that I have never seen before" (see also: Secular leftists and psychogenic illness). Later in 2018, Silverman was fired due to allegations of financial conflicts and sexual assault (see also: Atheism and sexism).

Eric Kaufmann wrote in his 2010 book Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth? concerning the United States:

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High evangelical fertility rates more than compensated for losses to liberal Protestant sects during the twentieth century. In recent decades, white secularism has surged, but Latino and Asian religious immigration has taken up the slack, keeping secularism at bay. Across denominations, the fertility advantage of religious fundamentalists of all colours is significant and growing. After 2020, their demographic weight will begin to tip the balance in the culture wars towards the conservative side, ramping up pressure on hot-button issues such as abortion. By the end of the century, three quarters of America may be pro-life. Their activism will leap over the borders of the 'Redeemer Nation' to evangelize the world. Already, the rise of the World Congress of Families has launched a global religious right, its arms stretching across the bloody lines of the War on Terror to embrace the entire Abrahamic family.

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Growth of religious fundamentalism

See also: Growth of religious fundamentalism and Growth of evangelical Christianity

Religious fundamentalism has risen to worldwide prominence ever since the 1970s. In 1970, the percentage of the global population which are atheists began to shrink also (see: Desecularization and Global atheism).

According to Eric Kaufmann:

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It will be a century or more before the world completes its demographic transition. There is still too much smoke in the air for us to pick out the peaks and valleys of the emerging social order. This much seems certain: without a new [secular liberal] ideology to inspire social cohesion, fundamentalism cannot be stopped. The religious shall inherit the earth.

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At a conference Kaufmann said of religious demographic projections concerning the 21st century:

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Part of the reason I think demography is very important, at least if we are going to speak about the future, is that it is the most predictable of the social sciences. ...if you look at a population and its age structure now. You can tell a lot about the future. ...So by looking at the relative age structure of different populations you can already say a lot about the future... ...Religious fundamentalism is going to be on the increase in the future and not just out there in the developing world..., but in the developed world as well.

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Conservative/fundamentalist religion and creationism

In June 2014, the American atheist Sikivu Hutchinson wrote in the Washington Post that atheist organizations generally focus on church/state separation and creationism issues and not the concerns the less affluent African-American population faces. Hutchinson also mentioned that church organizations do offer significant help to poor African-Americans. See also:Western atheism and race