Hahahaha yeah tell that to Dave Silverman and Annie Laurie Gaylor and Dan Barker and Greg Epstein and JT Eberhard and Teresa MacBain and the staff of the SSA and –
oh you meant just the ones you don’t like. Ohhhhhh.
Of course, almost none of them actually do have a “career” in atheism or make a primary income from atheism. So that makes your advice kind of pointless. But never mind, the spirit of it is clear enough.
Another asshole demonstrating his disconnection from reality, and limited capacity for critical thought.
Wouldn’t their favorites like Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, Shermer, etc. count as having a career in atheism? Their outspoken views and atheism-themed books are their driving source of income, aren’t they?
Harris is the only one who quite fits the criteria, I think – although I guess you could also include Dawkins now that he’s not teaching (but even there – he has a lot of books that are not about atheism). Hitchens wrote about a thousand things. Shermer has an academic job, I think, and he writes about skepticism, not really atheism.
Interesting how a lot of these “FtB’re doin’ it for the internet bucks” types are anonymous/unknown/irrelevant tweeters/bloggists who, I’m sure, would love to be career atheists in their own right or at least get more attention themselves (otherwise, why four freakin’ hashtags in a one-off snide little tweet-turd?).
Not only is it a massive double standard (as many of the Brave Heroes™ [coughPhilMasoncoughAngryAtheistcough] themselves meet the definition of professional atheists or “atheist clergy”), it also smells like rank jealousy.
But the only reason they’re anonymous and unknown and irrelevant is because we stole all the slots. It’s a god damn outrage and something should be done about it.
Why should we be suspicious of such people? It almost seems like the standards are set to specifically target FTB. “Be suspicious of anyone whose names starts with “Ophelia” and ends in “Benson.” Why? Because.
Nobody on FtB makes a living as a professional atheist, so including us in the comment makes no sense.
PZ @ 7:
Yup. I was also thinking “that’s incoherent brow-furrowing bollocks” at the time I wrote #4.
There appears to be absolutely nothing off-limits to these clowns when it comes to tarring this place (or Skepchick or any random commenter with a functioning bullshit detector); no conspiracy is too implausible, no lie too outrageous, no offline machination too incredible if it appears to impugn the mighty FtB monolith. This sentiment’s already been expressed ad nauseam, but the fact that self-described skeptics can indulge in obvious fantasies and unapologetically clutch at straws so they can justify character assassinations (arising from what should’ve been minor disagreements but which were inflated into Deep Ideological Rifts, FFS) should make any reasonable person’s head spin.
Hankstar [Mandrellian] – Vanilla Ilk-Shake @8:
And it frequently does. I’m reminded of NonStampCollector’s final post:
Check out the guys youtube page. Most of his favorited videos are thunderfoots anti-women/feminist videos, and other anti-women/feminist videos.
He’s just your average poor lost dumb sonova.
Perhaps if you combine the income from professional victimhood with that from professional atheism, it might be enough to pay your cable bill.
Geez, that NSC post (I mean, the stuff he cites) is discouraging — a bunch of self-identified skeptical atheists ranting like some of the stupidest fundy creationist wingnuts.
I am somewhat wary of “professional” atheists and skeptics — but not for the reason the tweeter wants me to be.
I’m concerned that people whose livelihood depends on employment with skeptical/atheist organizations, and/or on speaking fees and book sales to those audiences, are more reluctant to “rock the boat” by calling out bad behavior within the community. Too eager to invite back speakers who harass. Too eager to shake the hands of known harassers and “welcome” them to a convention.