I have no doubt that some Incels have moved beyond a naive belief in "ascension", but it is a small minority.
However, whether we still believe in "ascension" or not was not my point. What I find revealing is the choice of word, regardless of whether one still believes in the event it refers to.
When it was coined, the word "ascension" was not "just a meme", it was what the entire Incel universe revolved around (gymmaxxing, looksmaxxing, PUA strategies, SEA maxxing, etc). The fact that the word was borrowed from the religious vocabulary shows that those who coined it understood (dimly and half-unconsciously) that their obsession had religious undertones. Those who enthusiastically adopted it and spread it far and wide had the same thought process.
Like I said before, the term is supposedly "tongue-in-cheek", but this is a disguise. Making a nervous joke to try to hide the fact that you care too much about something is a common occurrence. It almost always backfires and ends up putting a bright glare on what you attempted to hide.