The oxymoronically-named Union of Catholic Christian Rationalists (UCCR) has joined the yammering pack of believers that keeps telling us that New Atheism has died, when, in fact, it did its job and then moved on. It’s like saying that suffragism failed and has died out! The New-Atheist-dissers are trying desperately to explain the failure of a phenomenon that not only succeeded in changing minds, but whose proponents, no longer consumed by a need to point out the lack of evidence for gods, have moved on to other things.
You can read this tripe by clicking the UCCR articlebelow. Excerpts are indented, and my own comments are flush left. The piece is also archived here in case they want to correct stuff like their mis-naming of Rebecca Watson.
Here’s their intro (bolding is theirs):
Why did New Atheism fail?
Numerous observers have tried to explain the astonishing failure of new atheism, despite a society that was intellectually lazy, affluent, and consumerist, and that agreed with them on everything: the supposed anachronism of religious thought, the bigotry of moral judgments, the violence generated by religions, and the unhealthy mixing of politics and religion.
And yet, as the rationalist Scott Alexander observed, “in the bubble where no one believes in God anymore and everyone is fully concerned with sexual minorities and Trump, it is less painful to be a Catholic than a fan of Dawkins.”
Indeed, Alexander continues, only in the case of “New Atheism”, “modern progressive culture turned toward the ‘new atheists’ and, seeing itself, said: ‘This is truly stupid and annoying.’”
UCCR was born precisely during the years of fame of the “new atheists,” out of the need to provide a tool for believers “surrounded” by opinion-makers, intellectuals, and journalists. We followed the evolution of the phenomenon and its deflation, despite predictions that it would dominate the scene.
Having familiarity with the topic, we suggest five decisive factors to explain the disastrous end of “New Atheism.”
They are of course more biased against atheism than they are familiar with the topic. I’ll condense the five factors; there is more text at the site:
1.) The election of Obama
It may seem incredible, but former U.S. President Barack Obama delivered the first major blow to the “new atheists.”
First of all, his election removed the “common enemy” that had ensured unity within the movement.
Before 2008, the glue binding activists was the much-hated conservative George W. Bush. Biologist PZ Myers and Richard Dawkins (today bitter enemies) appeared together publicly to oppose Bush and became idols celebrated by the progressive establishment.
Secondly, the Obama administration—supported by major media and cultural circles—pulled the rug out from under them: it reshaped American (and thus Western) culture by making criticism of Islam politically incorrect.
In fact, “New Atheism” emerged in the aftermath of September 11, and for years Islam was the preferred tool for generalizing about religious violence.
Under Obama, however, it became a minefield, and the first to step on it were two leading figures, Sam Harris and Michael Onfray, who began to be viewed negatively and portrayed as racists even by progressive media.
Obama was elected in 2008 and, as you see below, America’s rejection of established religion was well underway by then.
2.) Rejection by the academic world.
After the publication of his bestseller “The God Delusion” (2006), Dawkins, together with the other “horsemen,” began to denigrate agnostics and “moderate atheists,” accusing them of tolerating religious opinions and refusing to take sides.
Over time, the entire academic world was accused of cowardice for not joining the attack on religion. One example was Coyne’s media campaign against the agnostic historian Bart D. Ehrman, author of works defending the historicity of Christ.
Another emblematic case was the media pressure by Sam Harris in the New York Times and against the scientific community to prevent the Christian geneticist Francis Collins from remaining head of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
The attempt of “New Atheism” to enter and influence the academic world was explicitly stated at the 2006 Beyond Belief conference.
But the resounding failure was confirmed by the deep embarrassment expressed by non-believing academics themselves. For example, Nobel laureate Peter Higgs stated: “The problem with Dawkins is that he focuses his attacks on fundamentalists, but clearly not all believers are like that. In this sense, I think Dawkins’ attitude is fundamentalist, from the opposite side.”
Having lost the academic world, all their visibility depended entirely on media support, which gradually began to crumble, as seen above.
In fact, in the last relevant survey I could find, published in 2010, 23% of American college professors were agnostics and atheists, compared to just 4% of the American public. If there were no reporting bias, the rate of nonbelief among university academics is about six times higher than that of the American public in general. Once again, the authors of this dire piece are not using data as evidence, but simply ad hominem arguments—mostly detailing people’s criticisms of Dawkins and Sam Harris. But given the continuing rise of “nones” (which may have hit a temporary plateau but has not decreased), these are post hoc rationalizations. As faith slips away from Americans, it’s not enough for religionists to hold on to their personal beliefs—they need the support of like-minded people to make them think they’re on the right track.
I should add that as I quote and document in Faith Versus Fact, American scientists are 41% atheists, with only 33% believing in God (the other didn’t answer or were “spiritual”). If you look at more accomplished scientists, the rate of atheism rises to nearly 100%. It’s simply dumb to think that academics as a lot have rejected New Atheism.
3.) The response of believing intellectuals
Another reason for the decline of “New Atheism” lies in the entry into the debate of various Christian scientists, philosophers, and thinkers.
A new generation of believing intellectuals succeeded in presenting reasonable arguments in support of faith, showing that the “New Atheists” spent much of their time constructing straw-man arguments about religion, only to knock them down.
In his books, for example, Richard Dawkins strongly opposed a god that no one has ever believed in: the famous “god of the gaps”.
Some of these Christian intellectuals engaged directly with “New Atheism” by publishing books explicitly opposed to it, catching irreligious activists off guard. Among them:
- John Lennox, emeritus professor of Mathematics at Oxford University, author of “God’s Undertaker”;
- Amir D. Aczel, professor of Mathematics at the University of Massachusetts, author of “Why Science Does Not Disprove God”;
- Francis Collins, renowned geneticist, author of “The Language of God”;
- Kenneth R. Miller, emeritus professor of biology at Brown University, author of “Finding Darwin’s God”;
- Owen Gingerich, emeritus professor of Astronomy and History of Science at Harvard University, author of “God’s Universe”;
- Arthur Peacocke, theologian and biochemist at Oxford, author of “Paths From Science Towards God”.
More briefly, we also mention philosophers Alvin Plantinga, William Lane Craig, Robert Spaemann, Roger Trigg, Richard Swinburne, and Richard Schroder; physicists Gerald Schroeder, John Polkinghorne, and Russell Stannard; and sociologist Rodney Stark.
I have to laugh when I look at that list of names. While Ken Miller, who’s circumspect about exactly what he believes, is a good scientist and textbook writer, I’ve look at the beliefs of most of these people either on this website or in Faith Versus Fact. I usually don’t count theologians as intellectuals because most of them adhere to an unevidenced superstition—that there’s a God. They are academics with a delusion. If you want to take frozen waterfalls as evidence for God, for example, read Francis Collins. Or, for a good laugh when you want reasons why people think that Jesus was Lord, read the “evidence” used by C. S. Lewish. For every name they give above, I could give the name of five real intellectuals who are atheists.
This next one’s a corker, and even mentions me:
4.) The “Elevatorgate Scandal”
In 2011, a minor dispute about the behavior of participants at an atheist convention became known as “elevatorgate” and sparked the first major internal feud among irreligious activists online.
Feminist Emma Watson was sexually harassed in an elevator and publicly reported it, but was rebuked by leaders of “New Atheism” for risking negative publicity for their movement.
This episode marked the beginning of a break between the movement and feminism.
The situation worsened when Richard Dawkins made sexist remarks about the victim, hosted on the blog of PZ Myers. The community split between feminists and Dawkins supporters.
At that point, PZ Myers turned against Dawkins, labeling him racist and Islamophobic, alongside Sam Harris.
The media amplified everything and even named Dawkins among the worst misogynists of the year—a devastating blow to the movement.
Gradually, more commentators began to turn against the “priests of atheism”. Biologist Jerry Coyne tried for a time to defend Dawkins and Harris but eventually burned out. Today, much of his blog focuses on cats. . . .
First of all, “Elevatorgate” involved Rebecca Watson, not the actress Emma Watson. Do your homework, Christians! But beyond that, no, Elevatorgate did not make people start believing in God again, or erode the increase in nonbelief, as you can see by looking at the years around 2011 in the two plots below. It was a tempest in a teapot, and there’s not a scintilla of evidence that it buttressed faith, stemmed the rise of atheism, and so on. It just led some people who already hated Dawkins to criticize him even more.
As for me being “burned out” and focusing on cats, that’s ludicrous. I’m as atheistic as ever, and still promulgating it, as I am in this piece. But after I spent three years researching and writing Faith Versus Fact, I grew weary of banging the same old drum, and decided to bang it only when necessary, for example when this moronic article came out. As for “focusing on cats”, you be the judge. Sure, I write about them, but they’re by no means in every post I put up.
And, god help me, we have the last one:
5.) Richard Dawkins
The creator himself turned out to be the worst cause of his creation’s demise.
Richard Dawkins was the most prominent figure, a YouTube celebrity and tireless preacher. After “elevatorgate,” however, he became a target of internal criticism.
His downfall, however, came with social media—especially Twitter. Without editorial filtering, the zoologist revealed aspects of himself that had previously remained hidden.
With nearly a million followers, his sexist and racist remarks, his defense of “mild pedophilia”, encouragement of infidelity, and criticism of mothers who give birth to children with Down syndrome did not go unnoticed.
For years he has become a mockery online, especially after opposing the transgender movement.
According to Vice, “he has dishonored atheism”. His books have flopped, and even his most important scientific theory, the “selfish gene”, has been challenged by physiologist Denis Noble.
Yes, people have found plenty of “reasons” to go after Richard Dawkins, and he’s become the lightning rod for believers who hate atheism. But nowhere in those criticisms, or in this very piece, do we see any refutation of Richard’s main reason to be an atheist: lack of evidence. One would think that a genuine reason for rejecting atheism is that new evidence for a personal god has appeared. It hasn’t, and even a new line of anti-atheistic arguments, Intelligent Design, has come to nothing.
As for Dawkins’s books flopping, I’d suggest the authors look up the sales of The God Delusion, Climbing Mount Improbable, The Blind Watchmaker, and others. All of them were bestsellers, and all gave arguments against religious belief.
Here’s the summary of the piece:
Primatologist Frans De Waal accused the “new atheists” of being “obsessed with the non-existence of God, going on media campaigns, wearing T-shirts proclaiming their lack of faith, and calling for militant atheism.”
But he also asked: “What does atheism have to offer that is worth fighting for in this way?”
This is the question that remains. Defining oneself as “anti-” allows only limited survival; without offering meaningful answers to life’s meaning, failure is inevitable.
Philosopher Philippe Nemo wrote a remarkable epitaph for “New Atheism,” which we reproduce in full:
“Despite attempts to eradicate Christianity, atheism has died a natural death; it was not killed, since the modern world has given—and continues to give—it every opportunity to defend its cause and offer humanity new reasons for living. Opportunities wasted, because it failed to keep its promises, did not fulfill the intellectual programs that constituted its only attraction, and did not succeed in showing that man is less miserable without God than with God.”1.
This is ridiculous, of course. First, nobody, including the Great Satan Richard Dawkins—thinks of atheism as something that gives their life meaning. It is simply a lack of belief in gods: an abandonment of religious superstition.
And what were the “promises” that New Atheism made? None, as far as I can tell. They maintained only that if you accept things based on evidence, you’re not going to embrace religion. And as the power of science grows (it’s one reason people give for leaving religions), so the grip of belief loosens.
The rise of nonbelief in America is documented in the two plots below, one from Pew and the other from Gallup. The plots (summaried in The Baptist News!) show the rise of the “nones”—people who don’t embrace an established church—as well as the fall of the ‘not-nones,” that is, people who do adhere to an established church.
Yeah, nonbelief has really fallen in America since the first New Atheist book (by Sam Harris) in 2004. NOT!
One question for readers:
Why are so many people eager to proclaim the death of New Atheism?
This is a Gallup plot:
And a Pew plot:
Crazy stuff. I remember attending a talk by Owen Gingerich when I was in graduate school—around 1980—expecting to learn some astronomy. And I did, for the first 45 minutes. And then, unexpectedly (to me, at least) Gingerich announced that he was going to change direction for the next few minutes.
Boy did he change direction! At this 45-minute inflection point, Gingerich completely abandoned science and reason and started telling the audience how everything he had said before reinforced his belief in God. The audience squirmed. I squirmed. In the question period I asked him why after 45 minutes did he abandon the methods of science and reason, replacing them by personal belief? Apparently he had gotten this question before and squirmed out of answering by diverting to something else.
It’s amazing to me how seemingly perfectly rational people can change mental gears and become perfectly irrational when it comes to God. They are either intellectually dishonest or intellectually limited. Not sure which.
It seems to me that news of the death of the New Atheism has been greatly exaggerated.
Wishful thinking! Without which religion would evaporate.
PS: Ayaan Hirsi Ali is going rather-disappointingly all-in on religion, in her re-booted Restoring the West Substack. The latest piece is saying that belief in things like objective truth is founded in “Judeo-Christian values”.
I think she’s making a mistake, in that by trying to fight “wokeness” with Christianity she lessens her appeal to the many non-religious people who would otherwise support her.
The term “new atheist” was coined as a pejorative term some twenty years ago, so surely the very fact that it was presented in this way offers clues that it could just as easily be dismissed when convenient. I don’t like the term new atheist, precisely because it requires atheists to identify so as to comply with this definition not of their making but, regardless, as the article points out, far from being dead it’s actually succeeded so well that the label is no longer required.
As far as I’m concerned atheist is the only rational position.
I sort of agree.
Depending on when we think “New Atheism” started it has (at best) had little effect on the loss of belief.
Also I am not clear on what “New Atheism” is.
As to Cats and Jerry:
While it is true Jerry has a fixation on cats
I would argue there is also a fixation on ducks
Gastronomy in some form
Israel – Palestine conflict
Prejudice in general and Jewish peoples in particular
The news at large
Free will. I wish Gerry would focus on this more.
Nature and evolution in general
And of course silly religious practices.
I’m sure I have missed some.
Was there such a media campaign?
I heard that philosophers were nearly all atheist. But that only works if you don’t count theologians as philosophers 🙂
I am unable to conduct a media campaign–I have onlly this webssite for crying out loud. I criticized Ehrman, but that is not a campaign! I do not count theologians as philosophers.
It’s a People magazine / tabloid article but not on a stand in the check-out lane.
Heavy on he-said/she-said, light on important stuff – and in total, superficial.
I think there is a significant subsection of people in religious communities who are attempting to reassert their moral authority to the public, proclaim their “spiritual superiority” over others, and be recognized as the “correct leaders of society” for it. In short, they are attempting to dump on secularism as a blatant means of procuring power without merit.
There are also people who announce their religiosity as a means of absolving themselves of the harm they’ve caused others. Whatever they’ve done, they can always claim it was because they were “lost” or “didn’t have God.” It’s important for these types to point out how “lost” everyone else must be as an atheist or agnostic to add a pretense of credibility to how “lost” they were to hide themselves from consequence (and to promote how “good” they are now that they “have God” and therefore must be forgiven of all wrongs, even if it were something they ought to go to prison for.)
But at its most benign (and likely the most prevalent reason,) I think certain religious folk just want to feel vindicated for their investment in a faith that has no basis in real life. It’s necessary for them to pretend that people are “coming back to God” after “a secular experiment” for them to feel correct in how much of their lives they’ve invested in faith, prayer, and adhered to certain beliefs that may be causing more harm than good, things that they may know deep down are wrong, unfair, or just plain impractical.
Also, it’s just spiteful and small-minded that anyone would criticize ailurophiles. Unlike a god, there have been multiple instances of ceiling cats that have been well-documented by photo and video recorded evidence.
I wouldn’t be surprised if that UCCR article was written by ChatGPT or whatever AI program slobs use to produce errant piffle.
As for why so many people are eager to proclaim the death of New Atheism: it’s their coping mechanism. The religious right desperately wants to believe that religion will rebound if they bash atheists enough, whereas those on the left fall into two categories: hard leftists annoyed that most atheists are liberal rather than Marxist, and intersectional leftists who view religion as a sort of therapy and think the religions of the “oppressed” should be treated with kid gloves.
New Atheism’s time in the sun was doomed to be brief. The concurrent rise of social media eventually resulted in the polarization of the left and right, with the extremists defining each side. Neither has much use for New Atheists. The rightists value Christianity for supposedly maintaining the social order, whereas the leftists subscribe to a new religion of intersectionalism and its boasts of social justice. Most of the prominent New Atheists were liberals but not extremists, and New Atheism did not promote a mapped-out political agenda (nor should it have). They were bound to be sidelined in age of rage and extremism.
The article on New Atheism’s failure contains some significant contradictions which undercut its premise. The most telling one is its inability to decide whether New Atheism failed because it “went woke,” or because it rejected “woke.”
When, for example, PZ Myers broke with Richard Dawkins (and Sam Harris and Michael Shermer, and Jerry, etc,) he didn’t argue that they weren’t true New Atheists who didn’t belong in the movement. He quit the movement, renouncing New Atheism and directing his attention towards social justice causes he believed were informed by atheism. Others did the same, for similar reasons.
I’m assuming that the Catholic Christian Rationalists (who I think aren’t actually Catholics but some other version of Christianity) don’t believe that Christianity “failed” because people have left – or because people have harshly criticized it. Obviously.
The article also waffles between “they attacked reasonable moderate Christianity” and “they only attacked fundamentalist Christianity and seemed unaware of more reasonable versions.” Pick a horse and ride it, people.
There are also numerous factual errors, but I don’t want to get too longwinded. Bottom line, New Atheism was and is characterized by believing 1) Science has something to say about whether God exists and 2) faith is not a virtue, but a vice. That hasn’t gone away.
” Today, much of his blog focuses on cats . . .” Keep up the good work, PCC(e). Your followers are particularly taken with yesterday’s picture of a cat looking hungrily at cooked shrimps.
For us, things like this fill the catnip-shaped hole in our souls.
Well said!
That was one wide-eyed kitty! Shrimp!
Oh goodness. I read the entire above b/c I like gymnastics and we see some Comanici level twists there, a bolus of motivated reasoning, lost connections, a weird obsession of Mr. Dawkins, and just… nonsense.
His misreading of the Elevatorgate incident is very telling.
Of course, it WAS important b/c it was a rift between hard left woke atheists and… the rest of us atheists. Nobody on either side of that was looking for, or admitting, any kind of god! Wow.
D.A.
NYC
I found this a case of shadow boxing.
Atheist like my breed don’t really care as Jerry said, we have moved on too, onto more immediate and near concerns or just, interests.
It is how we live as atheist more to the point that matters not how to pick religionist apart but when confronted, it is simplicity at it’s best.
The sincere belief in no gods.
“New atheist” are old now or gone… but not after shaking it up, high five! NEW atheist are now the likes of my children.
They can’t even get their own criticisms right. Rebecca didn’t claim to have been ‘sexually harassed’, and saying she “publicly reported it” is a bit strong. She casually mentioned in a video that she was made to feel uncomfortable, she didn’t even name the guy, and she only commented to tell men “don’t do that”. I thought the video was very mild.
I found Dawkins’ ‘Dear Muslima’ piece patronising and sexist, but no one is perfect, and over time he has done far more good things which outweigh that bad move, and Rebecca has done the opposite, so I don’t follow her nowadays.
“PZ Myers and Richard Dawkins (today bitter enemies) appeared together publicly to oppose Bush”
I loathe PZ and find him creepy, but if there are things that we agree on, then why wouldn’t we both speak on the same topic? Wokies don’t seem to understand that you don’t have to agree with someone on every single topic before you campaign with them on points where you agree.
I don’t think there’s a drop in atheism, I just think atheists who used to campaign proactively rarely feel the need to campaign diectly against it now, even if we are vocal about the horrors committed by people who claim to be religious. It’s about the warped ideology that some people think is religion, not religion itself.
As you say, we just get on with living our lives. Religion is irrelevant to most atheists, I rarely think about it.
Agreed on all that stuff. Elevatorgate was never reported as sexual harassment, although I recall it was a situation that would make one uncomfortable.
And I was thinking too that New Atheism never failed or died or whatever in that its message is still widely accepted: Organized religion is irrational, dangerous, and a net evil. There should be advocacy to oppose it. It might have seemed a radical and excitingly new position decades ago, but it seems pretty mainstream now. It doesn’t seem that dead to me, anyway.
Yes, it’s not dead just because we aren’t campaigning about it. It’s like Jerry said about suffragism, we don’t campaign about getting women the vote because it’s part of normal life now, but if someone tried to remove that right, we would be back on the streets again.
A guy stepping into a lift with a woman alone and inviting her to his hotel room in the early hours of the morning would make most women uncomfortable. It’s totally inappropriate. Chat to her in public in the bar, don’t wait until she gets in a lift alone. With all the kerfuffle going on about it I was very surprised when I watched her video and saw how casually she referred to it. Her simple ‘don’t do that, guys’ must have triggered quite a few men.
To be fair, if the sexes were reversed I think many decent might be perturbed to be approached by a woman in such a way, although I suspect women wouldn’t trigger men’s fear as much.
When she, PZ etc set up the New Atheism chat place I didn’t join as they proscribed a lot of expressions and ideas. I didn’t realise at the time, but with hindsight it was probably the beginning of social justice warriors trying to censor others and starting a purity spiral that ostracised people for not mindlessly following every part of their set of standards.
It was ridiculous when they banned using the term ‘female’ to refer to a woman. That term is used regularly for a woman in Scotland. I refuse to have my language policed for no logical reason.
If this UCCR article wasn’t written by AI, it should have been.
I was never much for the intolerance that sometimes surfaced on both sides of this divide. It doubly perplexed me that many people who believe that a person cannot “choose” what he believes nevertheless respond with disdain and hostility, while a sizeable number of Christians return the favor, despite dividing the world into sheep and goats who cannot move from the disreputable herd to the favorable flock solely of their own volition. Lord knows I can be pointed enough in my own criticisms from time to time, but I often wonder whether sharp hostility mainly rallies one’s own side rather than persuading others to change their minds.
My apologies if someone posted this earlier and I missed it. Below is an extended discussion—a real conversation rather than a pointed debate—moderated earlier this year between Richard Dawkins and Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury. I don’t expect it to change minds on either side, but I thoroughly enjoyed it, despite my aversion to podcasts, for its intelligence, eloquence, wit, grace, and collegiality.
Thank for posting this video.
I am cat-less but love to watch cat videos. Why? Because they are free of politics of it all. We have agendas, their agenda is to be happy. We have plans, their plan is to do mischief. We have logic, they muddle through the day somehow. And that’s so refreshing.
Absolutely, Matthew. Other animals are honest. When my kitteh doesn’t want me to pet her, she lets me know. Other animals are very direct.
The article is so badly written, as others have commented, that the “author” is probably AI or a 10-year-old. Frankly, I’m tired of believers ‘splainin’ to me what atheism REALLY is and why it’s dead.
They keep on declaring victory, and the percentage of unbelievers continues to climb. All is as it should be.
If this the level of intellectual dishonesty that a god inspired organisation such as the RC church needs to descend to it almost serves as an argument against god.
If the bad behavior of an leader in a group that holds certain beliefs destroys the underlying beliefs then I look forward to the continued fall of Christianity and other religions.
Jerry, I agree with your stats on atheism/agnosticism growing rapidly, but I might use caution on the statistical trends necessarily leading to “truth”. It reminds me of a bumper sticker I laughed at in the 1980’s that went something like this: “Eat shit, a billion flies can’t be wrong”. Yea, only a trivial amount of truth in that statement itself, but still something to consider. Have a good day despite the Italians trying to disrupt it.
“New Atheism” is a particular version of atheism which contrasts with other forms of atheism, particularly Accomodationist atheism. It doesn’t just mean atheism that got popular press, or has surged in growth, or is held by the young.
Statistics showing a rise in atheism may or may not be fueled by the arguments which were made by the New Atheists, which were heavy on science, critical of faith, and concerned about unwarranted deference towards it. My own guess is that a lot of the new batch of atheists are some version of apatheistic drifters— don’t know much about the God stuff, don’t care to think or learn anything about it, and faith is fine as long as the faithful leave them alone.
Good point. In my generation, becoming an atheist was a Big Deal. If you were going to admit to it in public, you better have some solid rationale to back it up.
But not too, too long ago hanging out at a friends place, his teenage son and their friends were just casually mocking religion and God. It’s not the same type of serious topic, anymore.
I suspect it’s only going to become less significant as time goes on. Once sincere believers fall below some critical mass, society in general will see them about like bigfoot proponents, a topic that can be dismissed out of hand rather than the subject of serious debate.
I’ll be the contrarian. New Atheism is fading away. I don’t know if this link will go through or not, but just take a look at Google’s Ngram Viewer for the decline in use of the terms “new atheist” and “new atheism”:
Google Ngram – new atheist, new atheism
New Atheism wasn’t merely just about being an atheist. One of the common complaints among New Atheists was to ask what made it so different from old atheism. Rather, (at least in my opinion) there were two aspects that loosely defined New Atheism – the focus on science, and the activism. It was the books from Dawkins, Harris, Dennet, and Hitchens that really seemed to kickstart the movement. And I remember not just online websites and forums dedicated to New Atheism/skepticism, but a lot of local in-person groups popping up all over the country. Even in my then current town of Wichita Falls, we had a skeptics society that met every month. But I just don’t see that level of active involvement these days. So many of those clubs are now defunct (including the one in Wichita Falls).
As to the why, I think other answers here have mostly covered it. First, the very success of the movement reduced the need for it in the first place. America is a far less religious country now than it was in 2006 when that Wired article coined New Atheist. Various surveys show religiosity declining in America, as well as attitudes towards atheists (slowly) getting better. It’s still not perfect, by any means, but it’s not the same situation as it was 20 years ago.
I do think that Elevatorgate and Atheism+ contributed to the decline. They represented major schisms among what had been a loosely unified group.
I also think part of it is just they way trends come and go. New Atheism had a good run of a couple decades or so. But the enthusiasm that drove the activism has waned, so now we’re mostly left with just “atheists”, not “New Atheists”.