And thanks corvidd @94 for taking the time to type pretty much what I would have. My biggest ever disagreement with anything I’ve read by PZ is his handling of Robin Williams’ death. Mainly because it was framed as Robin Williams giving a gift to the media, rather than the media exploiting a tragedy. I also don’t think the media cared whether it was moving attention away from brown people, their motives were likely related entirely to profit.

I must say about the “I’ve got to start carrying a knife now” post, I’ve had to do a lot of first aid for various jobs and this plot device always infuriates me. If an accident victim is still talking to you, they’re pretty far from dead. When they close their eyes and go limp, still almost definitely not dead. Even if you can’t do CPR, at least call 911!!! God’s Not Dead is certainly not alone in doing it, but I suspect that TV/Movie trope kills a lot of people in real life.

I just deleted a small novel and I’ll replace it by saying, I wonder if Atheist Ireland actually read the posts referred to in that letter. There are absolutely some things I disagree with but, for the most part, I think his criticisms are spot on. Is it the swearing? I am very happy that the porcupine thing is over with (by deliberate action).

Also, regarding the public face of atheism, there have been multiple occasions where a Christian has attacked me with some Dawkins statement and I’ve had to agree with them (e.g. “It would be immoral to bring [a child with Downs’ Syndrome] into the world if you have the choice.”). Richard Dawkins was very inspiring to me at one time but there are a number of important areas where he’s a complete douche. He can also be very insulting to Christians (not something I generally have a problem with). Hey, isn’t he a fellow at that thinking place?

Alex Gabriel @11:

What that actually sounded like to me was an attempt to justify a Gish gallop.

While that’s a good way to describe it, I think there’s a better one floating out there.

As McCarthy biographer Richard Rovere writes in Senator Joe McCarthy, the Multiple Untruth is a technique comparable in many respects to Hitler’s “Big Lie” since it need not be “a particularly large untruth but can be a long series of loosely related untruths, or a single untruth with many facts.” Rovere adds that the Multiple Untruth is “composed of so many parts that any one wishing to set the record straight will discover that it is utterly impossible to keep all of the falsehood in mind at the same time.”

Or as an Amazon reviewer summed up,

Perhaps the best insight Rovere has into McCarthy is his description of McCarthy’s great innovation “The Multiple Untruth”. Not a single lie or even a few, McCarthy’s lies were so huge and inconsistent, that they were almost impossible to disprove. Any part of it that you knocked down would also make the rest seem the more solid. McCarthy blew so much smoke that people assumed there must have been a fire somewhere.

By cramming in so many claims that required a lot of context to sort out, and failing to provide links (even though he had them. Odd, that…), Nugent made it impossible to keep the entire argument in your head and thus protected it from falsification. The same logic applies to him, of course; these giant lists reassure him he’s the correct one here, and the rest of us are blind to the evidence.

Examples which I believe are unfair/superfluous :

1. The Ronald Reagan reference, while a bit acerbic, wasn’t particularly bad. Expressing an opinion of heightened “contempt” for an individual isn’t really something I’d criticise someone for.

2. The “Nanu Nanu” link. I’m struggling to understand why this was included in the litany. From what I can see “Nanu-Nanu” is a phrase from the 1970’s sitcom “Mork and Mindy”. Perhaps this has negative connotations which I’m unaware of, but I don’t understand why this was deemed offensive/inflammatory.

3. “Virtual non entities”. This is probably the most dubious of all. Why is this noteworthy ? I mean perhaps it’s mildly derogatory, but it’s inclusion is a bit silly and just seems superfluous.

Examples which I believe are partially ameliorated by context :

1. The remark from the “I’ve got to start carrying a knife now” post , although still very strongly worded, was used in response to an unlikely hypothetical. I still don’t agree with the rhetoric, but the context does ameliorate things somewhat.

2. The Christopher Hitchens post. P.Z was actually fairly balanced here, acknowledging Hitchens’ positive attributes while strongly criticising those which he found disturbing. “Bloodthirsty barbarian” is a strong and acerbic description, but given the context, not as bad as it would otherwise appear. That is, if PZ gave an accurate summation of Hitchens words. For example :
“The way to win the war is to kill so many Moslems that they begin to question whether they can bear the mounting casualties.” ( PZ’s description of Hitchens’ argument ).

Examples which I believe are fair criticisms :

1. The Bill Maher reference was a fair inclusion , and criticisms were voiced by several commenters on that particular thread. Describing Maher’s date as arm candy and claiming that he was her “sugar daddy” was disrespectful to both individuals in the absence of evidence that he was dating her simply for status / she was dating him simply because of his fame/wealth. What did PZ know of Maher’s relationship with this woman, or his reasons for dating her ? I suppose it’s not unnatural for those sentiments to come to mind when a wealthy older man dates an attractive younger woman, but it’s unfair and disrespectful to make those unqualified observations absent sufficient evidence.

2. The “Irish wanker” comment was also insulting. Whatever about using “wanker” as a pejorative , adding a suffix based on nationality gives it a sharper sting.

3. The Robin Williams post. I thought Myers was callous and disrespectful in his wording ( although I did note that he began his post with a respectful expression of regret ), but I do understand that his frustration stemmed from a source not without legitimacy; celebrity lives, or in this case sadly a death, do garner a large amount of attention, and that can come at the expense of matters which are of great importance.

In addition to the mean language, factoring in race and wealth here was irrelevant. Robin Williams’ death garnered attention because he was a very famous and much loved comedian/actor. I don’t see why Myers’ needed to bring ethnicity/income to the argument. If Eddie Murphy or Samuel L.Jackson had died I’d imagine the reaction and media attention would have been of similar magnitude.

Brief tangent. Even though some may not agree with the attention given to celebrities, that attention can have very positive effects on people’s lives. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson recently posted details on Facebook about a recent encounter with a fan; he’d just left the gym and was driving away when a car signalled from behind A young guy got out, ran towards his car, embraced him and related that he’d been battling Hodgkins Lymphoma, and that Johnson had inspired him to fight through the illness, the chemotherapy and the stem cell transplants. Now I don’t know if the man in question was inspired by Johnson himself, his in ring persona, his many film characters, or some combination of the aforementioned, but it’s quite possible that his movie roles and WWE wrestling persona played some part in that.

4. The Brazilian priest post was offensive. Expressing pleasure at someone’s disappearance is mean spirited, and the addition of “And as long as I’m dreaming, I’ll imagine myself with an ultralight aircraft and a BB gun” to a dream scenario in which he envisages the world’s priestly population floating themselves in a similar manner to the man in the story, is inflammatory and violent given the implications.

Overall I think this long litany does need, in a number of cases ( if not all ), to be viewed in context, and I’m glad you’ve done what Atheist Ireland should have ( i.e provided links to the posts in which Myers’ comments were made ). Although there are some pretty dubious examples, I think many are valid, and if I do join movement atheism, this type of rhetoric isn’t something I’d be comfortable with or supportive of .

How come that Gemmer is totally able to use the italics tag but not the

tag?

In my defense, I’m holding a newborn in one arm and typing with the other.

@Gen,

Oh, so when Gemmer said that he represented abused clients, he actually meant he defended abusers in court. Well that makes a lot of sense.

No I meant what I said. I’ve represented various people in various roles.

Wow. Very elucidating reading, thanks HJ.

Wow.

Nope.

blockquote

tag?