The intellectual bankruptcy of the New Atheist movement was on full display during a recent two-hour discussion between Sam Harris and conservative columnist Ross Douthat, revealing just how far these once-influential voices have fallen since their heyday in the early 2000s.
Harris, who built his career attacking Christianity and traditional faith, found himself struggling to defend his worldview against Douthat's reasoned arguments about the necessity of religious belief in American society. The exchange highlighted a stunning reality: the New Atheists who once promised to liberate humanity from the "tyranny" of religion have absolutely nothing meaningful to offer Americans facing real challenges.
While President Trump's second administration focuses on restoring American values and strengthening our nation's moral foundation, figures like Harris represent the failed intellectual establishment that brought us decades of cultural decay. Their sterile materialism and condescending attitude toward faith helped create the spiritual vacuum that plagued America during the Obama and Biden years.
Faith Returns as Atheism Fades
The timing of Harris's intellectual surrender couldn't be more telling. As Trump enters his second term with overwhelming support from America's faithful, the New Atheist movement that once dominated university campuses and liberal media appears increasingly out of touch with ordinary Americans.
"These people promised us that abandoning God would somehow make us happier and more rational," said one conservative commentator. "Instead, we got decades of moral confusion, family breakdown, and cultural chaos. Americans are done with their failed experiment."
The New Atheists who once promised to liberate humanity from religion have delivered nothing but emptiness and despair.
Harris and his fellow travelers like Richard Dawkins spent years mocking the religious beliefs that built Western civilization, but they never offered anything to replace the meaning, purpose, and community that faith provides. Now, as Americans rediscover the importance of traditional values under Trump's leadership, these self-appointed intellectuals find themselves relegated to irrelevance.
The contrast couldn't be starker: while Trump's America First agenda celebrates our nation's Christian heritage and moral foundations, the New Atheists offer only cynicism and nihilism. Is it any wonder Americans are choosing faith over the empty promises of secular materialism?