Quintus wrote an RoK article about a French Catholic priest that was secretly an atheist but didn't reveal it until after his death via a long book he wrote attacking not just Catholicism but all forms of religion and theism:
http://www.returnofkings.com/71823/is-atheism-good
The points the priest make is the sort of common atheism talking points you see today but I suppose back when he was writing they were still fresh and original. What really was interesting to me weren't negative thoughts, him talking about what he didn't believe in but his positive thoughts, what he DID believe in. It looks like he believed in a sort of socialistic/Communistic society where property is shared and society provides for the needs of all it's citizens. So not was he original with his atheist stance he was also original with his proto-Communist ideals so I shall crown him the King of Hipsters. Quoted from Quintus' article:
"He cast his vote in favor of a communistic utopia. Man could be happy if he abolished the ideas of privilege and property, for these were the root of all evil. All property should be nationalized by the state; every man should have his health and welfare guaranteed; and possessions should be held in common."
I wanted to know a bit more so I went looking for more information about the man and I found this long but very educational article about his testament: http://newpol.org/content/jean-meslier-a...ion-nature
"Jean Meslier invents the visibility of the class struggle. On one side, the peasants, the workers, the poor, the wretched, the people suffering at work, strangled with multiple taxes and fees, mentally, spiritually, physically, enslaved every day; on the other side, the priests and the kings, the bishops and the princes, the gendarmes and the people of justice -- he writes, "people of injustice" and names them: notaries, prosecutors, lawyers, clerks of the court, controllers, stewards of the police, sergeants, judges, the powerful accomplices of offenders -- the fee collectors, the tax collectors, and the other "vile rats of the cave," the nobles, the "rich idlers," who play with the goods of this world, eating, drinking, dancing, joking, diverting themselves and laughing in the salons. These powerful people avail themselves of the most beautiful lands, the most beautiful houses, the most beautiful inheritances; they live from their rents and from taxes violently levied on the workers -- which does not prevent them from always wanting more and more."
" To this he links as well the abolition of private property. Fifty years before the Rousseau's critique of Discourse On the Origin of Inequality Among People, Meslier makes private possession and enjoyment of wealth responsible for all evil. Because with it, the most cunning, the craftiest, the meanest and the strong join forces to triumph over the poor and develop means of exploiting them.
Once private property is abolished, common wealth will be realized -- "to enjoy in common." All that is obtained by work, the fruits of prosperity and of talent, will be treated as common goods of the commune. And the unit at a base? The family. But it is a cell, a link in the chain. By itself it does not constitute the goal of rural communism but its organizing kernel. The village ought to correspond to the family organization. And the villages, through legislation to maintain peace, create situations of social prosperity and happiness in common life. It is a prefiguration of the perpetual peace of the Abbot of St. Pierre -- itself the model of Kant's notion".
Do any of the things sound familiar? They sound like pretty much the playbook for the left since Karl Marx put similar thoughts down on paper.
The reason I'm bringing this all up isn't to debate whether these things are good or not but instead to further explore what the connection between atheism and these sort of values are. A lot of people in this thread have written various reasons which seem sound to me but they only seem to apply mostly to SJWs of the modern sort. Here's a guy writing at the very beginning of the Modern Era who has pretty much the same values they do and it was long before there was Twitter/Facebook for you to impress your leftist college activist friends. This was also pre-French Revolution so leftism as an active movement wasn't even around yet so it's not this guy was jumping on a bandwagon. What my readings about this priest suggests to me is that there is indeed some sort of connection between atheism and SJW ideology beyond the social ones that were brought up in this thread such as virtual signalling and wanting to be a martyr for a cause (this guy if anything went really out of his way not to be one).
http://www.returnofkings.com/71823/is-atheism-good
The points the priest make is the sort of common atheism talking points you see today but I suppose back when he was writing they were still fresh and original. What really was interesting to me weren't negative thoughts, him talking about what he didn't believe in but his positive thoughts, what he DID believe in. It looks like he believed in a sort of socialistic/Communistic society where property is shared and society provides for the needs of all it's citizens. So not was he original with his atheist stance he was also original with his proto-Communist ideals so I shall crown him the King of Hipsters. Quoted from Quintus' article:
"He cast his vote in favor of a communistic utopia. Man could be happy if he abolished the ideas of privilege and property, for these were the root of all evil. All property should be nationalized by the state; every man should have his health and welfare guaranteed; and possessions should be held in common."
I wanted to know a bit more so I went looking for more information about the man and I found this long but very educational article about his testament: http://newpol.org/content/jean-meslier-a...ion-nature
"Jean Meslier invents the visibility of the class struggle. On one side, the peasants, the workers, the poor, the wretched, the people suffering at work, strangled with multiple taxes and fees, mentally, spiritually, physically, enslaved every day; on the other side, the priests and the kings, the bishops and the princes, the gendarmes and the people of justice -- he writes, "people of injustice" and names them: notaries, prosecutors, lawyers, clerks of the court, controllers, stewards of the police, sergeants, judges, the powerful accomplices of offenders -- the fee collectors, the tax collectors, and the other "vile rats of the cave," the nobles, the "rich idlers," who play with the goods of this world, eating, drinking, dancing, joking, diverting themselves and laughing in the salons. These powerful people avail themselves of the most beautiful lands, the most beautiful houses, the most beautiful inheritances; they live from their rents and from taxes violently levied on the workers -- which does not prevent them from always wanting more and more."
" To this he links as well the abolition of private property. Fifty years before the Rousseau's critique of Discourse On the Origin of Inequality Among People, Meslier makes private possession and enjoyment of wealth responsible for all evil. Because with it, the most cunning, the craftiest, the meanest and the strong join forces to triumph over the poor and develop means of exploiting them.
Once private property is abolished, common wealth will be realized -- "to enjoy in common." All that is obtained by work, the fruits of prosperity and of talent, will be treated as common goods of the commune. And the unit at a base? The family. But it is a cell, a link in the chain. By itself it does not constitute the goal of rural communism but its organizing kernel. The village ought to correspond to the family organization. And the villages, through legislation to maintain peace, create situations of social prosperity and happiness in common life. It is a prefiguration of the perpetual peace of the Abbot of St. Pierre -- itself the model of Kant's notion".
Do any of the things sound familiar? They sound like pretty much the playbook for the left since Karl Marx put similar thoughts down on paper.
The reason I'm bringing this all up isn't to debate whether these things are good or not but instead to further explore what the connection between atheism and these sort of values are. A lot of people in this thread have written various reasons which seem sound to me but they only seem to apply mostly to SJWs of the modern sort. Here's a guy writing at the very beginning of the Modern Era who has pretty much the same values they do and it was long before there was Twitter/Facebook for you to impress your leftist college activist friends. This was also pre-French Revolution so leftism as an active movement wasn't even around yet so it's not this guy was jumping on a bandwagon. What my readings about this priest suggests to me is that there is indeed some sort of connection between atheism and SJW ideology beyond the social ones that were brought up in this thread such as virtual signalling and wanting to be a martyr for a cause (this guy if anything went really out of his way not to be one).