One of the great tragedies of the influence of the New Atheists on organized Humanism in the USA is that it twisted the priorities of what is, by rights, the most significant progressive movement in all US history.

If you look at the great founding figures of US Humanism - figures like Adler, Dewey, etc. - you find people deeply connected with all the founding institutions of US Progressivism, and people whose humanistic philosophy was implicated in every way with their social activism.

Now, when we face the multiple challenges of political crisis, epistemic crisis, economic crisis, and ecological crisis, there is literally no better response than progressive humanism, which was tailor-made to address these very challenges.

The New Atheism, which quickly (and increasingly today) revealed itself to have anti-humanistic assumptions and elements, distorted US Humanism and turned its focus away from imminent dangers and toward imagined ones.

Although understandable after 9/11, the focus on Islamist extremism and the ills of fundamentalism was never justified by the actual threat posed, while we mainly missed dangers like home-grown white supremacy and deeply-ingrained injustices in America itself.

Which is, I suppose, yet another reminder that Humanism is not about religion and not fundamentally about challenging others' beliefs, but about addressing the pressing needs of human beings in our own societies, as a matter of pressing ethical concern and political necessity.