The Trumpification of atheism


Amy Roth makes me sad with her perspective on the history of involvement with skepticism and atheism. How do you destroy a movement? By making enemies of the people who care about it.

Then Richard Dawkins made fun of Rebecca in the comment section of another blog. Literally within moments of that happening all of the women on Skepchick who were active writers at the time (most of them long gone now) became targets of an online hate campaign. It literally happened so fast that I didn’t have time to process it. One day I was a Dawkins and SGU fan who was dedicated to making the world better by encouraging more people to get involved with organized skepticism, atheism and critical thinking and then the next day I told I was part of a clique of radical feminists who should be raped and killed.

Atheism as a movement suffers from some serious internal contradictions. Atheism is largely an intellectual position, but the movement has aspirations to become popular and common, so it has to appeal to a broad base. Unfortunately, rational evaluation of an idea is rarely the key to popularity. You need to associate this one idea with something deeper, more universal, and more applicable to every day life. Morality. Humanity. History. Community. There are a thousand ways we could make reason and evidence-based decision making a part of our lives.

But you aren’t allowed. A significant fraction of atheists have looked at a dictionary and decided that atheism means denial of gods and absolutely nothing more. We have a noisy contingent that denies any consideration of broader meaning. But how did you come to this conclusi…HUSH! But doesn’t the absence of higher beings mean we…QUIET! Doesn’t this mean the human community is even more…ZIP IT! But there are deep implicati…SHUT UP! I AM AN ATHEIST BECAUSE THE DICTIONARY SAYS SO, AND IT DOESN’T SAY I HAVE TO DO NOTHIN’!

Then we have atheist scientists, our intellectual leaders, who spit upon philosophy.

They also look down upon those ‘soft’ sciences, sociology and psychology (well, except maybe evolutionary psychology, the quack discipline that is used to justify stereotypes with pseudoscience), and regard as the ideal model the make up of the National Academy of Sciences. They’re Top Men, they must know what they’re doing.

But if we’re not going to reason the population into rejecting religion and joining the community of rational thought, how are we going to expand the movement? And trust me, every atheist organization is very big on polls and numbers that go up.

That’s easy. Look at Donald Trump. The easy way to grow an intellectual movement in an anti-intellectual country is the appeal to jingo, to authoritarianism, to prejudice. We’ve been cheerfully doing that since the terrorist attacks of 2001. And it works! At least, it works in the sense that it’s a short-cut to recruit more people who are happy to call themselves atheists.

And that’s what we’ve got. We’ve got Slippery Sam Harris cooly talking about torture and nuclear bombings and racial profiling, all with a molecule-thin veneer of deniability to allow him to deny, while drawing in fans who have no problem with racism and war. We had Christopher Hitchens who…let me tell you about a recent argument over Hitchens. It shows how little reality matters to so many of our fellow atheists.

I mentioned that Hitchens was a belligerent neocon who supported modern wars of destruction in Islamic countries — that he thought Muslim civilian casualties were worth it in the effort to eradicate the Muslim radicals. If you’re at all familiar with his writing, you know this is an uncontroversial interpretation of his views, and if he were still alive, he’d probably tell you of course, while sneering at you for asking such a stupid question.

Read Richard Seymour, or Norman Finkelstein, or George Packer on Hitchens — they’ve got lots of direct quotes. Or read Hitchens himself. He was never embarrassed by his support of George W. Bush and the ugly, futile war in Iraq.

But in the bizarre ongoing canonization of Saint Hitchens, pointing out the hideous qualities of some of his most prominent views is unforgivable. The very militaristic proposals that make Hitchens popular with militant anti-Muslim atheists must be denied…by those same atheists. It’s enough to make your head spin.

So I pointed to a talk I attended, in which Hitchens raved about the need to pursue more war until he Jihadists all surrendered, by the methods currently employed by the US military. This was in response to this question from the audience:

You suggest that we should fight islam, we should try to limit fundamentalist Islam, that’s a serious problem…[Hitchens interrupts for a bit]…how actually does bombing and killing Muslims lessen their numbers or limit their fervor?

That distracting interruption was key; without it, the question is clear. We want to stop fundamentalist Islam, but how does bombing Muslim populations accomplish that?

Clever polemicist that he was, Hitchens distorted that to mock the question: The numbers of those bombed will decline. Yes, but the question is about how we reduce a specific subpopulation by indiscriminate bombing of the whole population. Hitchens doesn’t care. He has an opportunity to riff on the machismo of war.

When the side of Jihad said, can we take these casualties? When they worry, have we alienated the people? … They will get to the stage where they realise they have made a mistake, all the evidence in Iraq is that al-Qaeda have already discredited and disgraced themselves, and it’s a matter now of just hunting down and killing them, which I think is a pleasure and a duty.

This, somehow, is cited as proof that I lied when I said Hitchens goal was wholesale war to cow Muslim nations into submission. Because he was clearly talking only about killing Jihadists or al-Qaeda members, not Muslims in general. Those bombs must be really smart, that they only target people with certain ideological views. Or perhaps they pictured Christopher Hitchens, boldly strolling through Fallujah, Luger in hand, executing bearded fanatics one by one.

So we now have an atheism that cheerfully denies reality to declare that Christopher Hitchens was practically a pacifist, because it’s so important to defeat Islam. We have an atheism where it is acceptable to rail against feminism, because feminists should be raped and killed. We have an atheism that sees racism and sexism as an irrelevant sideshow to the important business of getting “In God We Trust” off our money. We have an atheism that uses the mutilation of women in foreign countries as a tool to shame Western women who ask for equality. We have an atheism that sees science-denying, anti-government radically conservative organizations as fertile recruiting grounds. We have an atheism that worships revered authorities and ostracizes anyone who dares to question them, who notices that they are flawed human beings rather than unblemished idols.

But the number of atheists in America is slowly going up, the polls show. Winning! Huuge numbers, huuge. Leading in the polls. People love us.

I don’t think the Donald learned his schtick from us, or vice versa, but it sure looks like we’re riding the same authoritarian/populist bandwagon.

Comments

  1. Vivec says

    I definitely get a lot of those like, “dictionary atheist” types that coincidentally end up being really anti social justice too. The first and last time I went to my university’s atheist group was when I was told that they were skeptical about transgender people and would not, in fact, use my preferred pronouns.

  2. says

    The taxonomy of belief seems to be a futile exercise. Pursuing it leads to schisms, destructive comparative judgments, ridiculous demands for purity of belief,etc. Humans, in my experience, do not have other than beliefs and values that are smeared, rather than delineated. They change over time. That seems apparent. So why should there be flavors of atheism? Is there really a checklist for atheistic purity? Who cares?

    One of the worst things humans do to one another is found in the attempt to make others believe something and then punishing them when they don’t. Matters of conscience are fluid and a life well-lived is spent mulling over one’s beliefs, testing them against each other, testing them against experience in the world. The people who do that–artists, mostly, I suspect–live much richer lives than those who cling to rigid dogma.

  3. Dreaming of an Atheistic Newtopia says

    The problem is that arseholes were always there, as the atheistic demographic extended, more and more came into the fold…and one characteristic that arseholes have is that they are very good at creating an atmosphere that repels non-arseholes while attracting other arseholes. Their proportion is probably about the same as it was before, the problem is that they have taken over many environments, driving away everybody else, which leaves lots of non-arseholes scattered and unorganised, and many organisations riddled with toxic bullshit.

  4. Donnie says

    Skeptical about transgender people

    Seriously? What the fuck does this even mean? Transgender people do not exist? People are either “male” or “female” based upon their dangly bits orientation of inside / outside their body? As a middle aged white guy, I only learned about the difference between sex and gender within the past decade or so, and I understand the difference. Gender is a sliding scale. How can one be “skeptical” if that?

    I mean, what the fuck does it matter if one asks you to use a specific pronoun? In this case, I would classify “skeptical” as intellectually lazy, which seems to agree with the major organizations viewpoint of anything outside the dictionaryy definition of “No Gods”.

  5. yazikus says

    In a thread about the merger on another atheist blog, the usual pit suspects showed up en force. Several commenters like to pretend to be what they imagine ‘SJWs’ are like (and fail miserably), but the other goal seems to put as many slanderous things into full sentences on the internet about the people they dislike, including Roth, Hensley, Watson, and of course PZ. I think they must see it as recreation, but it really is harassment. It is bullying, and it is cruel.

  6. Vinay Edwin says

    I’ve been coming here for a good long while and fortunately have had the opportunity to watch the evolution of atheism through the humanist and equality based lense provided here. It’s a big reason why I’ve come to believe that religion is not the fundamental issue that plagues humanity. It is just one of many manifestations of tribalism. It appears that atheism movement hasn’t been able to break away from tribal appeals as well (with the added benefit of allowing members to pat themselves on the back for being so rational while sneering at others who aren’t). Unsurprisingly, this seems to result in a eagerness to roll around in the mud with all the isms (authoritarianism, sexim, racism, classism etc.)
    The evolutionary wiring in our brain that led us to form social groups based in part on fear and aggression towards the “Other” may have kept us alive on the Savannah but it’s the rot at the root of human civilization.

    I value my disconnect from the fictions of religion but give me the company of a decent human being over the bloviations of the enthusiastic tribal member every day of the week.

  7. Vivec says

    @5
    From what I could gather, it was that they’re skeptical that transgenderism is a thing and not just a delusion akin to god belief. Its not terribly uncommon – there’s some frequent posters on the Atheist Experience blog that have that view too.

    It’s extra unfortunate in my university in particular, because our LGBT center is very faith-heavy and contemptuous of atheism, while our atheist group is really lame about LGBT stuff.

  8. says

    “So you’re an atheist?” the man asked, swirling the orange peel around the rim of his Rusty Nail. “That means you don’t believe in God?”

    “Of course!” Said the guy at the next barstool. “But it’s not just God,” holding his hands apart, “Atheists are SKEPTICS, we believe that all beliefs must be warranted by reason and our senses. Gods, mind reading, ancient astronauts, universal human dignity, feminism, all that nonsense is right-out.”

    “Universal human dignity?” Rusty Nail asked, rolling the words around carefully. The Atheist smiled, “Yeah, see the problem are the SJWs and the libs. They’ll tell you that everyone has some sort of intrinsic, magical value just because they’re a person, and they have rights, and they’re entitled to their religion, and various totally non-falsifiable attributes of their identity exist, like their ethnicity, or their sex, or their ‘gender’ — as if THAT were a different thing.”

    Now the Atheist was on a roll, “but we know all that stuff is political BS. Humans are animals and everything we can reliably say about them comes from biology, and economic models explain all of human behavior. You ever hear about the experiment with the toddlers and the Oreos? It’s scientifically proven.”

    “Oreos?” Rusty Nail was losing the train of thought.

    “See all this talk about ‘tolerance’ and ‘respecting other perspectives’ is really about pretending magic fairies exist just to be polite. Some soft-headed quasi-atheists trying to smuggle the ‘soul’ back into…”

    Rusty interrupted him, “Don’t you think that’s a little harsh? I mean everybody’s entitled to their opinion, right?”

    The Atheist knew the answer to this- “You see that’s the thing. There are no real ‘opinions.’ There’s scientific fact, and anything that can’t be determined by scientific fact isn’t worth believing. So opinions are really just meaningless conjecture.”

    “You must have some opinions, about something. Not everything you believe must be cut-and-dried fact.”

    “Well, I like Dr. Who more than Stargate Atlantis, but I think Stargate Atlantis is an objectively inferior show based on Neilsen ratings. See it’s not really my opinion when the Market decides…”

    At this point the bartender, a petite brunette in tight jeans came over. “You guys doin’ alright?” Rusty had work tomorrow- “Yeah I’ll take the check.” The Atheist just gave her a nod and winked. She smiled and turned around to ring up Rusty’s check.

    As Rusty unhooked his coat from under he bar the Atheist nudged him and whispered, “the trick is you don’t say anything and it makes the woman do all the talking. I’ll send you this website, it’s got a bunch of techniques…”

  9. kellym says

    Amy’s post made me sad at first, too. But I’ve come to accept that groups like RDF, CFI, American Atheists, the NECSS, the SGU, and a few others, will never be welcoming to me unless I agree to be silent about harassment, assault, bigotry, and other injustices. So, I’ve made a clean break with those groups with no false hope that any of them will ever improve. But Amy and a few of her friends/colleagues have carved out a tiny niche where they don’t use the awfulness of the aforementioned as an excuse to do nothing. Instead they improve situations and actually help people. That’s what I want to be a part of.

  10. says

    Even before the Great Rifts™ opened up, I was leery how personalities like Hitchens and Harris were endowed with greater fame and prominence in the community than their support of religious wars deserved. Was this the image we wanted projected of ourselves?

  11. slithey tove (twas brillig (stevem)) says

    You suggest that we should fight islam, we should try to limit fundamentalist Islam, that’s a serious problem…[Hitchens interrupts for a bit]…how actually does bombing and killing Muslims lessen their numbers or limit their fervor?

    I see the tacit metaphor: it may lessen their population quantity. but. it may increase the fervor of the remainders, so the mass of the Muslim psyche my be increased. That to eliminate the Muslim “movement”, eliminating individual members sporadically is insufficient.
    or so I imagine he is trying to imply.
    I’d suggest an alternate approach than outright elimination. Why not try to lure them, subtly, away from the extreme viewpoint to become more accepting of alternative views? UNHEARDOF I know, but let’s try it.

  12. says

    Reposted this all over the place. I’m with you on the money thing. It’s such a distraction, when there are real issues to worry about. However, I tend to agree that atheism shouldn’t be the banner we ride out under. It defines us as what we aren’t. I’d much rather see a push to get people involved in Humanism as an alternative to theism.

  13. Dreaming of an Atheistic Newtopia says

    Humanism as an alternative to theism.

    But it isn’t. Those two things are not mutually exclusive. I’m all for the promotion of humanism, it’s generally a wonderful thing to promote, but it doesn’t address atheism or antitheism adequately, and those things are also important to me, i’m not going to abandon them on behalf of some other goal, i want to address all of them. The same goes for feminism, LGBTQA rights, anti-racism, and a long etc. These are all beliefs and positions that are interconnected.

  14. says

    “Humanism” is more specific than “atheism,” but there are toxic elements lurking under both banners. At some point the word we use to organize under becomes somewhat arbitrary, because all the concepts are interconnected anyway.

  15. says

    My point is that all of these things that we care about directly relate to seeing human beings as responsible for other human beings, but are not directly related to atheism. I know plenty of atheists who believe in colon cleansing, anti-vax, anti-Gmo, etc. and while I think they are idiots, I can’t deny that they are atheists: just atheists who fail to apply skepticism equally to all parts of their lives.

  16. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    My point is that all of these things that we care about directly relate to seeing human beings as responsible for other human beings, but are not directly related to atheism. I know plenty of atheists who believe in colon cleansing, anti-vax, anti-Gmo, etc.

    The same baggage occurs in Humanism. Usually multiple definitions are required to accurately define someone.
    I would describe myself as an atheist-humanist-skeptic-progressive.

  17. consciousness razor says

    It defines us as what we aren’t.

    This bullshit always gets on my nerves.

    It does that only in the same trivial sense that theists are defined as not atheists. So what? Fact is, either there is a god (at least one) or there isn’t, not neither and not both, so one of those two systems must give us a true positive statement about reality, because we’re distinguishing between the factual claims the two make about it.

    Certain ideas (numerous ideas) have this sort of logical structure, and there’s nothing wrong or problematic about that. Is there? I mean, it’s like complaining about a description of a lightbulb as “off.” What’s the problem? The one I’m referring to is off, and by saying so, it’s not being “defined by what it isn’t” (namely on), because we have no reason assume that on is the more natural state or the preferable state. (But if you actually thought theism is the more attractive alternative, in terms of what it substantially is or what it means, then say that.)

    Besides, you could just as well describe it by saying the circuit is “open” rather than “closed,” neither of which sounds more positive/negative than the other, because of the words we happened to use, even though they are still describing the same two logically incompatible possibilities as “on” vs. “off,” or “on” vs. “not-on”.

    Or, I could’ve talked about everything other than the lightbulb I just referred to — then that big positive group of actual tangible stuff means precisely the same thing as not-the-lightbulb-I-just-referred-to. Or if I wanted to be extremely inefficient, I could’ve initially described everything there is with the exception of the one thing I actually intended (that bulb) and talked about whatever the fuck’s going on in that gap, or whether there is anything in it. (The answer could certainly be “no.”) It makes no difference, because the “not” operator isn’t itself a thing that you need to worry much about, or certainly not place any value in it all of the time, as long as you notice it and understand it when it’s being used.

    That’s just the way things are, and (but!) there’s nothing we can do about that. It’s not even clear what you might want to do about it, if we could do something. Sorry?

    I’d much rather see a push to get people involved in Humanism as an alternative to theism.

    Well, if humanism meant that theism is false (just as theism means atheism is false), that would clearly make it an “alternative.” But humanism isn’t like that.

  18. whellandowd says

    Actually, this site has long promoted a very insular, biased and rigid view of of what atheism is and how atheists should behave. PZ has serious problems with Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens, Hemant Mehta, and practically anyone with equal or greater visibility than he himself enjoys, yet gleefully champions the startlingly brain-dead, science-illiterate Rebecca Watson for whatever indiscernible reason…oh, that’s right, it’s because as long as she is as radically leftist as PZ is, he’ll cheerfully overlook how badly mistaken she has been time after time.

    I have taken issue with some of the output of each of the people PZ mentions above, but if it’s valid to liken their behavior to that of the indefatigably ignorant and odious Donald Trump, then it’s equally valid to compare Ms. Watson to an overachieving Special Olympian.

  19. tonyinbatavia says

    I love how the ass wad @20 begins their post with “Actually.” If only they had added “Well,…” before “actually,” we could award them with a Complete Fuckhead Achievement.

    Wait. What? The nym is “whellandowd.” Complete Fuckhead Achievement achieved! You can’t be any more fuckheaded than that.

  20. Dreaming of an Atheistic Newtopia says

    @whellandowd
    There, there, have a cuppa, stop crying and then fuck off.

    Clearly the real racism is pointing out racism, the real sexism is pointing out sexism, etc…if only we could be as open and inclusive as the racists and the sexists.

  21. Saad says

    whellandowd, #20

    if it’s valid to liken their behavior to that of the indefatigably ignorant and odious Donald Trump, then it’s equally valid to compare Ms. Watson to an overachieving Special Olympian

    Actually, you’re doing a pretty good Trump impression yourself with that comment.

  22. moarscienceplz says

    whellandowd,
    Please return to whatever rock you crawled out from under.
    That is all.

  23. says

    sigaba
    Thanks, that made me laugh

    +++
    whellandowd

    the startlingly brain-dead, science-illiterate Rebecca Watson for whatever indiscernible reason

    Have you considered becoming the new water manager for Flint? You really have that well poisoning down to a T

  24. opus says

    Now that I think of it, Rebecca Watson is totally illiterate in the science of Humpty-Dumpty-ism*. His point is well taken.

    *“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’

  25. says

    I enjoyed Hitchens at first, because I thought he was scintillating with droll wit. Later I realized it was just sneering.

    His attitude toward the islamic world (“drain the swamp” “kill them” etc) started to really shock me. To the point where I wondered if he had somehow forgotten all of the fine people and experiences he claimed to have met and enjoyed in the middle east.

    I think his choice to become a US Citizen was an appropriate milestone on his transformation from internationalist to parochial warmonger. He became an American in every way, including the American fondness for bombing civilians from a safe altitude and the American love for a good war.

    I’m sad he’s dead but he looked like he was going to continue to embarrass himself further. At least his passing disrupted that equine circle-jerk with Dawkins and Harris; that was setting up to become something truly hideous.

  26. says

    she is as radically leftist

    I didn’t know that saying women deserve equal treatment is “radically leftist”! Are you sure you’re not mistaking “common fucking sense” for radical leftism?

  27. says

    and it’s a matter now of just hunting down and killing them, which I think is a pleasure and a duty.

    You know, as soon as you start talking about human beings like this, you should stop. If you think it’s a pleasure to kill them, no matter how bad or evil these people are, you have lost it.
    Killing human beings might sometimes be a necessity, but it must never be a pleasure. Because if something is a pleasure you don’t stop easily…

  28. says

    Giliell @34: For all that he claimed that it was “a pleasure and a duty”, I never saw Hitchens beating a path to his local recruitment office while he was still alive. I guess we can add “chickenhawk” to his list of bad habits…

  29. sugarfrosted says

    @32 I seen weird Hitchens apologia, including that somehow him wanting to kill muslims was not bad because it was influenced by hatred for Islam. IT’S TOTES DIFFERENT, you see. (He was self described rationalist, but you know the MIRI-esque cultist variant.)

  30. says

    The nym “whellandowd” seems to mean something but I do not get it. Is there some meaning to the word or is it some wordplay that I have not met yet? Could someone please explain for curiosity’s sake?

  31. yazikus says

    @Charly,
    It seems to be a play on the phonetics, and when read aloud sounds like ‘Well Endowed’, which is a euphemism for ‘big penis’.

  32. unclefrogy says

    the comment about tribalism sums up the real differences and the root of the conflict in most of society including “the Atheist Movement”.
    There is a large element of us vs them in all of our self identified groupings.
    While there is a element of outward reach I suspect that there is a much stronger element of defensiveness in the identification and the fervor that is encountered. When you separate yourself from the larger society for some fundamental (to you) way it is much easier to see yourself as cornered, trapped and threatened.
    I would say from what I have read here that at least that atheism is not a prerequisite for the study of biology or the other sciences but that the deep study of the sciences lead one to abandoning of traditional religious explanations of reality to include gods.
    So to I think that as with many here there is the growing understanding of the unity of all people into one interconnected species hastened by our growing international trade relationships and the increasing ease of communications have gone a long way to lesson the hold of tribalism on ourselves and more easily identify with others experience around the world and across beliefs.
    It is the growing understanding that we are all the same
    that we are all in this together
    the nature of “this” is not defined by any simple tribal rule we identify with.
    If we are to make a successful transition to a interconnected world we must abandon that tribalism and to do that might eventually require abandoning religion as we know it.
    while many will come to the point of abandoning religion first before the realization of the commonality of all people most will probably only come to it by the path of tolerance and integration with “the other” .
    letting go of the things we learn as little children is not an easy thing they tend to feel very true and absolute and very threatening to overcome. hence the tendency of violent defensiveness. We learn to need the other for self identification.
    uncle frogy

  33. laurentweppe says

    Christ, “whellandowd”. The assholes aren’t even trying to hide anymore.

    But isn’t it precisely what “Trumpification>” is all about? Assholes drop the mask, stop pretending to be motivated by lofty principles, and bluntly admit that they want to subjugate those who aren’t like them?

    ***

    I enjoyed Hitchens at first, because I thought he was scintillating with droll wit

    Wit is like IQ: having a high IQ doesn’t informs much about your intelligence: it mostly shows how good you’re at answering IQ tests’ questions.
    Likewise having a lot of Wit doesn’t informs much about your intellectual integrity: it just shows that you have a good enough command of a given language.

    His attitude toward the islamic world (“drain the swamp” “kill them” etc) started to really shock me

    I wasn’t.
    Disgusted sure, but shock implies surprise, and I wasn’t surprised at all: there’s always been among atheists a subset of self-proclaimed “brights” unapologetically wallowing in the mud of Lake Wobegon:

    The thing about authoritarians is that -when they’re literate- they tend to (over)use hyperboles in order to make their desire to browbeat their neighbors into submission look like passionately held lofty principles: “Religion Poisons Everything” sounds a lot more idealistic than “Religion sucks, therefore religious people are inept morons who deserve to be subjugated by their intellectual betters“.

    I was barely aware of Hitchens’ existence until his cheerleading for W increased his visibility, and by then, his mix of bellicose & hyperbolic anti-religiosity, enthusiastic support for post-colonial fire-and-brimstone militarism and propensity to react to dissent and criticism by shouting elaborate strings of insult like some middle-school bully who happens to get straight As in English classes were setting off all my “Fucking Authoritarian Douchebag on a Ego Trip” alarms.

    ***

    You know, as soon as you start talking about human beings like this, you should stop. If you think it’s a pleasure to kill them, no matter how bad or evil these people are, you have lost it.

    If you think it’s a pleasure to kill people you feel have wronged you, you are seeking vendetta.
    Now I, for one, can perfectly understand why one mays desire bloody revenge. If someone’s demanding blood for blood, I’m not going to pretend that this person is some monstrous, unfathomable alien creatures whose though process are too inconceivable to be understood or explained.

    But that primitive revanchist impulse is intrinsically incompatible to all the school of thoughts born from the enlightenment.
    Now demanding bloody revenge in the immediate aftermath of a terrorist attack, or the slaughter of civilians by a callous army, or the execution of dissenters after a bogus trial by a tyrannic regime, that’s simply anger getting the better of oneself: that’s bad, but forgivable, especially if the person pull herself together afterward.
    Perversely wearing one’s bloodlust on their sleeve, continuously advocating for always more retaliation in the weeks, months, years that follow, like Hitchens did, on the other hand, while continuously pretending that He epitomized enlightenment values better than anyone else… Well, that’s pure perfidy

  34. says

    I’m told I should look at Hitchens’ 1992 article on Columbus Day, from The Nation. I shouldn’t. I should just stop reading Hitchens’ old stuff altogether, because it’s just awful.

    Christopher Hitchens awrote against left wing opposition to American imperialism in
    an article ‘Minority Report’ in The Nation magazine on October 19 1992 (also quoted in Steven Salaita, p. 68). He said:

    “Those who view the history of North America as a narrative of genocide and slavery are, it seems to me, hopelessly stuck on this reactionary position. They can think of the Western expansion of the United States only in terms of plague blankets, bootleg booze and dead buffalo, never in terms of the medicine chest, the wheel and the railway.”

    Hitchens further wrote:

    “I can never quite decide whether the anti-Columbus movement is merely risible or faintly sinister… It is sinister, though, because it is an ignorant celebration of stasis and backwardness, with an unpleasant tinge of self-hatred.”

    What happened was wrong but reality is that it wasn’t just Britain who committed wrongs against Ireland; the whole of Europe had a disproportionate and violent command over the world’s natural resources. Christopher Hitchens further said:

    “The transformation of part of the northern part of this continent into “America” inaugurated a nearly boundless epoch of opportunity and innovation, and this deserves to celebrated with great vim and gusto, with or without the participation of those who wish they had never been born.”

    So he had no problem with killing Muslims and American Indians.

  35. chrislawson says

    Cat Mara@35: Hitchens was not a chickenhawk. He put himself in personal danger to express his beliefs on several occasions. Having said that, this should not be taken as a defence of Hitchens’ jingoism for murderous anti-Islamism, imperialism, or sexism (he was guilty of all three). It’s a great pity. He really was a phenomenally gifted writer and he wasted so much of that talent defending injustices.

  36. says

    That’s an interesting quote from Hitchens @43. By that reasoning I can’t criticise anything that happened before I was born, because if it happened differently there’s a chance I might not exist.

  37. sugarfrosted says

    @45, I’m unsure how that’s supposed to be an argument against anything but changing the past through time travel.

  38. Pascal's Pager says

    Remember folks, progress= cultural genocide. Thanks Hitchens, I was trying to get the taste of vomit into my mouth today.

  39. Athywren - This Thing Is Just A Thing says

    I have to admit, some of my biggest lessons about humanity have come from watching my illusions about the superiority of atheism and skepticism as philosophical, intellectual and social movements collapse into rubble and dust composed of an unfortunate amount of mental asbestos. I used to think someone claiming to be a skeptic or an atheist was a sign of the availability of a challenging discussion – someone I could probably learn something from. Now it just brings up a different checklist of topics I have to be careful about raising because of the ignorant, knee-jerk reactions, and long winded, intricately crafted and utterly fallacy-riddled rants I can expect to have to deal with.

    Hell, it doesn’t even seem like atheists have to have the first clue about what the word ‘theism‘ means anymore – a couple of months ago I was involved in a discussion on google+ (Oh no, a plus!) where some atheist guy was arguing that someone else was wrong to call themselves a pantheist, and should instead call themselves a deist, because theism required the belief in a single, all powerful god. Apparently they hadn’t reached the polytheism section of their R.E. classes yet. Or the deism section, for that matter… although, having said that, I don’t remember there being a deism section in mine, so I guess that bit of snark fails.

    I suppose there’s one possible good thing to note, though? The True Atheists, standing strong against SJW heresies, and the various dehumanist movements that tend to be more or less associated with them, like to claim that any neutral party, upon first encountering The Truth, will side with them. Obviously I’m on a side now, as far as there are sides to be taken on such things beyond, “I don’t really want to be an arsehole,” but it seems like I’ve been AFK for pretty much every major drama in the skeptic & atheist communities over the past 5 years, and, for the majority of them, my first discovery of them was when friends (er, well, ex-friends and strained associates by now – they don’t really take disagreement well, and I finally defriended my token facebook MRA a while back for unticking the last of my “reasons to remain friends with people online” checkboxes by descending to total conspiracy theorism over feminism) on the other side of the ‘deep rifts’ introduced me to them with the Truthy spin, and my reaction has never been to side with them. So I think if we reach a point where “skeptic” is a word that means someone who tries to look for more information before taking a stance on issues, rather than whatever the hell it means right now, I think we could find ourselves in a position where someone calling themselves a skeptic could be reassuring again, but for good reasons this time… although I guess we should always want to be wary whenever someone claims to be a skeptic, but that makes me incredibly sad. Not that a thing making me sad is a good reason to reject it.

  40. jacksprocket says

    Laurentweppe @40: that’s what I wanted to write (mostly) but aborted several times. The kind of dialogue we should be having.

    Athywren @49: I don’t know what’s the backstory to that, so although I can “feel your pain”, I can’t understand what you’re on about.

    @everyone,: isn’t it obvious that skeptic is a label like any other, and that anyone can stick it on themselves?

    Watch and pray, as the Christians say, but do it in an eyeball-skinned way.

  41. Bitter Scribe says

    IMO, we atheists should not worry too much about wide acceptance. This country is too soaked in religion for that ever to happen. I just try to take satisfaction in the fact that my approach to the universe is the rational, correct one, and that while we atheists don’t have quantity, we have high quality.

  42. starfleetdude says

    Without skepticism atheism would be nothing more than a contrarian position. Before you can be a genuine atheist, you have to consider the question from a neutral stance, objectively weigh the evidence, and then make a decision to be, or not be, a theist. So I don’t think it’s atheism all the way down at all, or that atheism implies anything other than a judgment about a theistic deity. I think what has to come first is a willingness to critically evaluate the evidence of our senses (augmented senses included), and fit that evidence into a working theory that relates to the question being asked.

  43. says

    This has been on my mind lately.

    I put Tim Whitmarsh’s Battling the Gods: Atheism in the Ancient World on my list of best books read last year. One remark of his, which I don’t have the time to search for and quote right now, suggested that atheism didn’t coalesce into a movement in ancient Rome because it wasn’t linked to rising social forces, as opposed to the situation in the “modern” era.

    Another way of putting this, of course, is that atheism/skepticism during the past few centuries has had some success as a movement in part (not entirely) because it’s, net, been useful to the forces of capitalism, imperialism and white male supremacy. At a basic level, atheism/skepticism is and remains (potentially) subversive, but as a human movement it can be, and has in large part been, coopted and used. To this extent, it’s been a non-threat, and even a support and partner, to Christianity.

    Those of us who reject this employment of atheists/skeptics/secularists as the useful idiots of corporate capitalism, imperialism, white supremacism, and patriarchy have to continue to work in the tradition of atheist subversiveness, with the knowledge that we won’t be well supported financially, given media attention, or accepted in the halls of power, and that if we are it’s likely we’re being instrumentalized.

  44. says

    I’m told I should look at Hitchens’ 1992 article on Columbus Day, from The Nation. I shouldn’t. I should just stop reading Hitchens’ old stuff altogether, because it’s just awful.

    By the way, one of the most important potentially subversive aspects of atheism/skepticism in ancient Rome, according to Whitmarsh, was that it called into question the imperial claim that Rome was part of a divine plan, destined for greatness and power. Contemporary atheists seem to want to claim subversive credentials while holding to an idea of exceptionalism, the divine mandate being unstated or translated into secular language.

  45. DanDare says

    The problem is that however much we want atheism to drive freethought and skepticism and deeper thinking about social concerns it doesn’t. Having movement atheism or atheism plus doesn’t work because they conceptualize atheism as some sort of base.
    What would work better is a movement about thinking skill at its base and the use of evidence and goals of exploring social issues and equity and science.
    Such a movement would have atheism as a simple consequence.

  46. whellandowd says

    tonyinbatavia @ 21 — there were a number of content-devoid, aggrieved comments in response to my own, but you win the inanity contest by a landslide. Calling someone a fuckhead three times over while failing to address anything I said suggests that you should spend more time titrating your Celexa dose and less in this carnival of sycophants.

    I found this nonsense by laurentweppe @ 40 particularly noteworthy:

    “Assholes drop the mask, stop pretending to be motivated by lofty principles, and bluntly admit that they want to subjugate those who aren’t like them”

    How any sentient person could divine this from anything I wrote is a complete mystery, but it compels me to point out the PZ consistently demands, at times directly, that any atheist with a voice behave just like he and his ites do. Sometimes this manifests as directing barbs at other atheist authors and bloggers who somehow fail to meet the Pharyngula standards of ultra-leftist principles (and I’m not talking about the clear-cut fuckheads who make unwanted sexual advances at large meet-ups, as Shermer is reputed to have done). I used to laugh when fundies would scream about “radical atheists,” but they have a point, and Pharyngula is Exhibit A.

    There is idealism, and holding to strong principles, and beyond these there is crossing the line into both unwarranted slamming of people who disagree with PZ on certain fine points and — worse still — embracing dangerously stupid people merely because they are sufficiently dismissive of the same people PZ is.

  47. says

    it compels me to point out the PZ consistently demands, at times directly, that any atheist with a voice behave just like he and his ties do

    Citation needed.

    Because you seem to have a real confusion going on regarding the difference between “criticizing someone who has views with which one disagrees” (presumably a trait all freethinkers should consider a virtue) and “demanding lockstep compliance with one’s own views.” You appear to be sharing Dawkins’ growing propensity to scream “thought police” and “witch hunt” in response to any criticism of any kind, which is many things, rational not being one of them.

    There is idealism, and holding to strong principles, and beyond these there is crossing the line into both unwarranted slamming of people

    Yeah, we all know how they operate over at the Slymepit — the folks who full-on harassed Jennifer McCreight right out of blogging altogether in their collective freakout over A+ — but you were saying something about PZ?

    I’d also ask for citations regarding these alleged “dangerously stupid” people, but you’ll probably need some higher-wattage bulbs for your projector first.

  48. Lady Mondegreen says

    @whellandowd

    You made no substantive response to PZ’s post; you just made assertions and accusations. There’s no reason anyone here should engage you at all, let alone engage you on a level deeper or more serious than your own.

    You’re boring, son. Up your game if you want to be taken seriously.

  49. tonyinbatavia says

    Asswipe @57, since you said nothing of value @20, your comment merited the exact response I gave it. However, if you actually thought you had a substantive point that needed to be addressed, allow me to amend my comment to say that you are the least self-aware fuckhead this site has seen in a while, and that’s saying something. So, I guess you have that going for you.

    Meanwhile, feel free to actually share something substantive, then I’ll consider responding with content. Until then, it’s way more productive to just point and laugh.

    Finally, since we’re keeping count, let’s make this official: That’s two fuckheads, one Fuckhead Achievement achieved, one ass wad, and one asswipe. I would add ranting paranoid misogynist, but that’s just redundant.

  50. says

    @whellandowd 57
    One does not get to demand content when they offer nothing to be responded to.
    From your 20, which is entirely opinion without substance.

    Actually, this site has long promoted a very insular, biased and rigid view of of what atheism is and how atheists should behave.

    What is one being insular towards? Why it is “rigid” and not appropriately strict with respect to something specific (assuming these words even match whatever is in your head)?
    And “bias” is tired and old because if everyone is biased (and we all are) there is nothing to do but become aware of how they work and to be able to specifically point to where a bias is altering something wrongly, as well as take our own into account.

    PZ has serious problems with Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens, Hemant Mehta, and practically anyone with equal or greater visibility than he himself enjoys,…

    This is pretty much picture perfect avoiding of substance with an attempt to hide it behind childhood level “you’re just jealous!”

    …yet gleefully champions the startlingly brain-dead, science-illiterate Rebecca Watson for whatever indiscernible reason…oh, that’s right, it’s because as long as she is as radically leftist as PZ is, he’ll cheerfully overlook how badly mistaken she has been time after time.

    No mention of any specific mistakes, just someone who thinks insults and the application of an end of the political spectrum constitutes an argument. Insults and substance would be one thing, but this is nothing but emotionally overwrought abstract impressions.

    …I have taken issue with some of the output of each of the people PZ mentions above, but if it’s valid to liken their behavior to that of the indefatigably ignorant and odious Donald Trump, then it’s equally valid to compare Ms. Watson to an overachieving Special Olympian.


    Only if one offers something solid to analyze. Childhood level rumor-mongering , emotional characterizations, argument via “OOOOO! LIBURAL!” and simple insults are not that.

  51. says

    To offer something towards the more interesting conversation earlier I agree about “tribalism” being an issue but I think that the term is misleading because there is nothing wrong with forming groups (and I think that “tribes” might be a little problematic). In fact a lot of what we are doing on this side of the Deep Rifts is choosing to associate based on behavior. We want to exclude people who engage in some behaviors and ways of thinking and we want to encourage other behaviors and ways of thinking as a group. I think that it’s good to own it and be able to talk about it.

    I think one part of the problem is in how the groups are defined, and being able to understand how you and other people define the groups they belong to. It’s like bias, the thing we call “bias” is basically “irrational illogical bias”. If decisions are made for good reasons and evidence it’s still the same brain process that drives decisions in particular directions and that needs to be done well. The same is true for how we perceive and think about our in-groups and out-groups and that will take ways of thinking like learning to recognize fallacious and distorted thought.
    The people whining about “SJW’s” are doing the same thing except in their case they are defining themselves in opposition to people who want social justice (what they are whining about never seems to match the definitions I see linked and matches their own behavior much better). Xenophobes and bigots like Harris who need to define a threat by an entire religion, or like Dawkins who automatically suspect children of being up to no good and defensively compare them to terrorists with no cause but religion are displaying how they define groups of people. Seriously, that Dawkins example could not be more obvious as it could be nothing else but xenophobic bigotry driven by emotional anxiety from a group of people who are not innately violent. He offered nothing but “oh yeah? here’s another muslim kid cutting a head off!”, instead of anything rational about why that kid looked like they were up to no good. Hell at that level of reason we all might as well preemptively do something about England since they certainly caused a lot of damage as a group.

    A second part is the psychology of authority, both exercising it and following it. #57 and #20 are quite comparable to Trump because it was the same kind of content. Emotional impressions, assertions, mere insults the names of groups and people that psychologically trigger delivered with an air of authority and no examples, reasoning or logic. People used to operating in that context will still be that way even if they become atheists. The business world, the political world, you can even see it in sports. It’s a real kind of thought and it needs to be understood. I saw tons of it from the people complaining about our side of the rift because that’s all they have when they are defending begin able to maintain shitty behavior, on a de facto level at the minimum.

  52. says

    The dictionary atheists are *technically* correct (“the best kind of correct!”), but that also renders most of their arguments moot.

    It’s true, atheism is just a negative, or a lack. But the question this raises is “what, then, takes its place?” Luckily most people, even nominal theists, default to a sort of ethical naturalism which, while usually unexamined, is internally consistent enough and workable enough to persist.

    I don’t think the problem with the people PZ is calling dictionary atheists is that they *are* dictionary atheists; it’s that their answer to the above question is “fuck you, bra.”

  53. rorschach says

    SC @ 53,

    Another way of putting this, of course, is that atheism/skepticism during the past few centuries has had some success as a movement in part (not entirely) because it’s, net, been useful to the forces of capitalism, imperialism and white male supremacy. At a basic level, atheism/skepticism is and remains (potentially) subversive, but as a human movement it can be, and has in large part been, coopted and used. To this extent, it’s been a non-threat, and even a support and partner, to Christianity.

    Rings true.
    I’m rereading Marx, Trotzki and Engels these days and I’m just like “yes of course” all the time.
    These atheists who deny social equality, equal wages, who are not at all concerned with social matters and for whom gnawing at female ankles at conventions does not constitute a noteworthy offence, might as well be voting for the Abbotts/Reagans/Blairs of this world. They may be voting for them already, for all I know.

  54. rorschach says

    SC,
    exchange some literary recommendations sometime, wrote some down from your website, Im still around….you have my email :-)

  55. says

    If all the “atheism is just a lack of belief” and “skepticism is just about testing claims” people were honest they’d simply shut up. Why have organisations for that? If this is only about that one claim, there are literally zero consequences coming from that.
    Why is prayer in school bad?
    Why shouldn’t there be a religious test to be deemed fit for office?
    And what about absolute monarchies?
    You need to have an additional moral value that links those things and if you do, you need to state your moral opinion on a matter of related issues. If you say a religious test for office is bad because it discriminates against atheists and discrimination is bad, you need to declare your stance on other forms of discrimination as well. What about women? PoC? LGBTQ people?
    Alternatively you can say “discrimination against atheists is bad’Cause I am one and everybody else can go fuck themselves” which is what mainstream atheism seems to be doing. Plus whining about those horrible minority folks who won’t help them in their glorious fight for finally getting ALL the privileges of white dudes.

  56. says

    @63

    The dictionary atheists are *technically* correct (“the best kind of correct!”), but that also renders most of their arguments moot.
    It’s true, atheism is just a negative, or a lack. But the question this raises is “what, then, takes its place?”

    It has been my experience that atheism holds great appeal to geeky babymen with a libertarian worldview and so they tend to fill that void with themselves, their desires, and their egos. A deep solipsism that shades their interactions with the world a deep color of “Me”.

    So when we realize this, someone like Phil Mason going off the deep end on a rocket after getting booted from FTB makes sense. Everyone up above is blaming this problem with tribalism, privilege, and common societal ailments, which does make it easier for them, but the root is their self-centeredness.

    View them as two year olds in the guise of adults and all they do makes sense.

  57. says

    A few years ago, before everything fell apart, I was very optimistic. I dropped my mainline protestant pantheism for atheism. I thought atheism would finally be accepted by the broader section of society. I was a progressive decades before I called myself an atheist.

    And then I saw the bishops and gurus of atheism turn on progressivism. I have a warning on my Twitter that if I see the words “regressive left” being used as epithet, it is an instant unfollow.

    I never liked Hitchens. He was a good wordsmith and polemicist, but as soon as he signed on with the Iraq War, I hated him as much I hate George W. Bush and everything that presidency represents. He didn’t believe in God. So what? He also supported the destruction of Iraq. This war has done nothing but defame the United States, and it hasn’t done the Iraqis much good, seeing as they are all now pawns in the proxy wars of Iran and Saudi Arabia. I guess he couldn’t figure this out, because you know, Islam is the enemy.

    I’ve actually stopped calling myself an atheist, even though in dictionary terms, I am one. I steal from Bill O’Reilly and call myself a “secular progressive.”

  58. says

    williamgeorge

    It has been my experience that atheism holds great appeal to geeky babymen with a libertarian worldview and so they tend to fill that void with themselves, their desires, and their egos.

    And it’s telling how quickly they jump to pseudoscience like evopsych or “race realism” or just plain unevidenced assumptions like “behave like a wasp to scare off rapists” whenever they’re challenged.

  59. says

    Today is another day that the acolytes of St. Hitchens are furiously insisting that he was not endorsing genocide, that he was only advocating murdering people with strong religious opinions that he disliked, which makes it all right.

    I’ve been blocking a heck of a lot of assholes on Twitter and email.

  60. says

    Well, PZ has said nothing here that I disagree with. And it is because of this type of behavior that I identify more as a humanist and less as an atheist. Being an atheist describes what I am not. Being a humanist describes what I am.

  61. says

    PZ @ 71:

    he was only advocating murdering people with strong religious opinions that he disliked

    Oh, well there’s a sound basis for murder – dislike. Golly, that wouldn’t lead to anything bad at all. Nope.

  62. MJP says

    I see dictionary atheists as just one small step above “bigfoot skeptics.” They go after an easy target just so they can tell themselves that they’re one of the Smart People.

  63. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    Maybe we need to start calling the dictionary atheists, Atheists minus. They lack consideration of the consequences of their decision to be atheists, and don’t appear to think every other human is their equal. Definitely negative qualities.

  64. permanganater says

    PZ’s OP: “…We have an atheism where it is acceptable to rail against feminism, because feminists should be raped and killed.”

    I might be missing some context to this bit.

    Is it meant as obvious (but reasonable) hyperbole to sort of emphasise the point that there are sexist people in positions of power in organised atheism, or is this actually position (secret or otherwise) of some in the so-called “mainstream” atheist community. Don’t yell at me, pretty please. I conceded I might be missing the point or context here. Thanks.

  65. rorschach says

    Nerd @76,

    Maybe we need to start calling the dictionary atheists, Atheists minus.

    Not very catchy, but you have a point! To me, it’s more like atheism minus thinking, since homophobia, misogyny and racism(and the us vs them mindset) are all part of the holy books, if you call yourself an atheist you should have figured out that those are wrong too, since you already bravely figured out the god part was wrong.

  66. Dreaming of an Atheistic Newtopia says

    @77 rorschach
    The last few years are all the evidence you could possibly dream of of the fact that none of those things are exclusive to religion. Sure, they are part of many of them and are actively promoted by many, but they are not the product of religion, they are integrated in religion. The scores of homophobic, transphobic, misogynistic, racist atheists have done a great job in showing how you definitely don’t need gods to be an arsehole…just as long as you also do without reason, evidence, empathy, etc…
    The “Atheism minus” is very accurate…it’s atheism floating in the ether…it’s missing context and reality…it’s atheism without humanity.

  67. says

    Hey PZ, I love this piece, you are really spot on here. I was involved in national/international organized atheism from 2005 through 2007, until my spouse had an accident, and I realized there was no place in organized atheism for a poor person. At the time I left, “The Four Horsemen” had peaked in popularity, and new upstart groups and thinkers were getting their voices. I was never into the Four Horsemen; I tried reading their books and couldn’t understand why everyone was fawning over them.

    Then there’s everything you mentioned, and now we have a mega-merger of the two wealthiest groups in the atheist movement. I’m so glad I got out when I did. Nowadays I stick to local-level Humanism, chats in coffeeshops, and nothing to do with any of the big groups. I have my local people, and that’s all I need. I signed up to be a Reason Rally bus captain, but I’m not going to enjoy it.

  68. laurentweppe says

    It avoids the topic of atheism but only because there is so much else to ridicule Hitchens for. Some of the comments are fairly entertaining.

    You can’t ridicule Hitchens for his atheism because he never really was an atheist. As the article you linked shows the man quite obviously worshiped himself.

  69. says

    Maybe we need to start calling the dictionary atheists, Atheists minus.

    Brilliant! If I were more social media savvy, I’d have created the parody Twitter account to troll the other side already:

    Atheism Minus (Atheism-)
    Website : slymepit dot com
    Atheism minus humanity. #womenarentfunny #dearmuslima #lackthecriticalposture #trump2016

  70. says

    So much wrong here. First of all, atheism is not supposed to be a movement of clone minds where everyone thinks the same way, that’s what religions are for. It’s perfectly normal that as number of atheists grows, that number of bad apples atheists has to grow too, because, atheism doesn’t bestow on people perfect morality, nor does it claim to, that’s, once again, religion you are referring to. Secondly, being anti islamist is not same thing as being anti trans people, it is however same as being anti christian. I am trans gender, and this is the main reason I hate fucking muslims, who’d declare me abomination and stone me. I get it, you need to assume that every group of people has nice members, and bad members. And for the better part, this is true. but suggesting there are nice muslims is bordering on suggesting there are nice fascists. Sure, I like Malala, but that’s about it. I am struggling to come up with another muslim who doesn’t send shivers down my spine. I don’t have to be tolerant of people who aren’t tolerant of me. Third, america has severe lack of muslim experience. You just don’t know what you are talking about. As european, I know that ever since islam was conceived in the sick mind of mass murderer child rapist muhamed, islam hasn’t stopped killing people it deemed too different, now nearing 15 centuries. If you do some research, you’ll find that christianity was small, sporadic religion up until rise of islam. Christians literally learned how to murder and torture from islamic teachers. Islam invented slavery. Sure, christians bought slaves, but had muslims not sell them, the slavery problem would definitely be less significant in non islamic world. And it goes on and on. Demagogy is there to excuse islam from any scrutiny, but if you are real atheist, and therefore capable of logical. critical thinking, you will have hard time defending islam. Even muslims have hard time defending islam. They either scream “save us” or they scream “off with their heads”, but you’ll have hard time finding muslim who’s like “actually, this is why it’s good for you that we rape you and murder you”. Islam is not a religion, despite what some think. That’s why islam can cause a split between atheists. It’s horrendous political ideology, and those who recognize that, can only be against it. Those that however live under delusion that islam is a race (it ain’t) feel the need to defend it. You can actually find bunch of persian and egiptian women literally saying they don’t want to wear hijabs and they find it offensive when westerners wear hijab as sign of support. They see it as support of their enslavement, not their religious freedom. And so on.

  71. Saad says

    Wayward Deadpixel, #85

    Islam invented slavery

    Christians literally learned how to murder and torture from islamic teachers

    suggesting there are nice muslims is bordering on suggesting there are nice fascists

    I’ll let your own words serve as a response: “So much wrong here”

    I am struggling to come up with another muslim who doesn’t send shivers down my spine.

    Try meeting them.

    LOL @ “I like Malala, but that’s about it”

  72. Dunc says

    Christians literally learned how to murder and torture from islamic teachers. Islam invented slavery.

    Wow. That’s possibly set a new record for ahistorical bullshit.

    Have you ever heard of a people known as “the Romans”? How about “the Greeks”?

  73. Athywren - This Thing Is Just A Thing says

    @Wayward Deadpixel, 85

    So much wrong here, but I’ve got to be somewhere in half an hour, so I’ll keep it very brief.

    First of all, atheism is not supposed to be a movement of clone minds where everyone thinks the same way, that’s what religions are for. It’s perfectly normal that as number of atheists grows, that number of bad apples atheists has to grow too, because, atheism doesn’t bestow on people perfect morality, nor does it claim to, that’s, once again, religion you are referring to.

    So we should embrace ignorance and incuriosity in the midst of our supposedly skeptical, rationalist movement? O…k.
    Yeah! Let’s throw skepticism from the roof, because having requirements for entry makes you a religion! WOOOO!

    If you do some research, you’ll find that christianity was small, sporadic religion up until rise of islam.

    False. Christianity was the state religion of the Roman empire from 380CE. The first of Mohammed’s revelation events is not supposed to have happened until 610CE. Even allowing for a century to pass before being the state religion of the empire from whom most of European civilisation arose allowed Christianity to have any form of power, it was still another century before Islam even started to think about rising.

    Christians literally learned how to murder and torture from islamic teachers.

    Hah. No. See above.

    Islam invented slavery.

    Slaves existed BCE. Islam did not. I don’t really think I need to expand on that, do I?

  74. says

    Saad

    Try meeting them.

    But that might turn them into a diverse group of people with a broad range of views from perfectly nasty to perfectly nice instead of a homogeneous frightening mob.
    I swear one day they’ll claim that the muslims murdered Jesus

  75. pentatomid says

    As european, I know that ever since islam was conceived in the sick mind of mass murderer child rapist muhamed, islam hasn’t stopped killing people it deemed too different, now nearing 15 centuries.

    And, as a european myself, I know that you are full of shit. I mean, really, islam invented slavery? Christians learned how to murder from islamic teachers? I’d ask for citations, but you’d probably link to stormfront or something. I mean, Jesus Horatio Goosefeather, such ahistorical nonsense… It’s actually kind of impressive… in a really sad, really disturbing sort of way.

  76. Athywren - This Thing Is Just A Thing says

    At the bottom of every email with updates, it says: “Manage your subscriptions:” and then there’s a link which points to your subscriptions.

  77. permanganater says

    Hi. Just seeing if I can post. One comment I made went through moderation after a few days, but otherwise no luck…