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I find it interesting that The Motte tends to treat atheism with kid gloves that are not reserved for other belief systems. For example, the idea that there is no difference in intelligence between different genetic groups of humans is widely called out here as being simply wrong. Which it almost certainly is, in my opinion. But consider the idea that methodological constraints actually are a metaphysical theory, or further implying that shoes are atheists. These ideas are, I think, even less likely to be true than the idea that there is no difference in intelligence between different genetic groups of humans (at least the latter can be empirically shown true or false; the former is just a category error). But atheism on The Motte is usually not met with accusations that it is as absurd, indeed perhaps more absurd, as any flavor of wokeism. Nor is the history acknowledged that New/Internet Atheists almost certainly led to a willingness to embrace relativism everywhere and ultimately wokeism by the masses of "laypeople". Wokeism gets often and in my opinion properly pilloried on here for being nonsensical on the level of correspondence to objective reality, but atheism typically gets a free pass. Even the philosophers on here mostly refuse to really call it out as being absurd when the topic comes up.
Does this happen because atheism is largely not viewed as a threat anymore (since its birth of wokeism is already in the past) and because since wokeism is this community's main out-group and atheism is vaguely internet-weirdo-aligned in the modern West, people here tend to follow the principle of "the enemy of an enemy is my friend"? Or, to be more charitable, maybe it is because wokeism can fairly easily be criticized on the level of normal scientific investigation, whereas the claims that atheism makes go so far beyond typical constraints of the scientific method that one actually does just quietly make an exception for it because its claims are fundamentally viewed as being orthogonal to scientific investigation (and people just fail to ever mention such)?
Ok, try Agnosticism now.
The claim that "I don't have full knowledge of the origins of the universe and its current metaphysics, but I see enough reason to not believe any of the explanations of any of the major belief systems regarding either of things" is extremely strong against most apologist theological jibber jabber.
This is independent of the analysis as to what programming is the best for a population if you want to optimize for variables such as long-term survivability, social cohesion, "meaning", etc. Just a statement about the truth value of the origins of the universe and its metaphysics. The mistake Atheists make is failing to acknowledge this and dumbly asserting that ---- Religion != Literally True, therefore Reglion (based cultural programming) = bad software----
I wouldn't even say the above is bad reasoning. Your disbelief in the truth comes at a great cost an overwhelming majority of the time. This cost might not be bourne by an individual in a lifetime, but it will inevitably arrive, randomness will eventually produce a version of you that is ceteris paribus but with access to the truth.
So, even if we don't ridicule the agnostics, why don't we ridicule the atheists more?
I think you are proposing a ridiculous question.
Who is this "we" and what is this "ridicule"? For the vast conversation space where ridicule is a viable and effective strategy, the difference between Atheism and Agnosticism is far too technical, the pragmatic prescriptions of both being the same doesn't help either. And in a space where the technicalities matter, ridicule doesn't work.
What do you want done exactly? If you are proposing that Atheism is just as ridiculous as Wokism, then I'll register that I don't actually agree and probably a large chunk of the Motte doesn't agree either, hence the lack of ridicule towards Atheists, the type that you see towards wokes.
Why not? And why did you immediately retreat to agnosticism instead of robustly defend it in the first place?
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