So I’ve been sucked into a live text interview on the Raving Atheists forum — they’ve finished with me and spat my well-chewed carcass out now, so everyone else is welcome to come on over and squabble over the scraps.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
They should have given you a good yelling to for stealing me away from them.
Hope Choobus was kind.
Didn’t RA go off the deep end and become a whackjob of the Dawn Eden school? *shudder*
You forgot Charlize Theron and Milla Jovovich.
Yeah. The original Raving Atheist went into some kind of religious loopiness, maybe as an outgrowth from the pro-life stance — I don’t know the details. Suffice it to say, the atheists on the forums weren’t satisfied with the RA’s douchebaggery, and we got our own domain — ravingatheists.com (note the plural) to carry on the tradition of rude relentless and raving.
Apparently I should be over there right now inflating PZ’s ego while simultaneously crashing the server (119 online last count).
Question:
PZ:
Absolute gem.
Inkadu, you bastard! You said you were waiting tables!
That’s cool you went along. Though I think our community over at richarddawkins.net would be better and our trolls are more tasty and less filling ;)
As an admin I would bribe you to consider dropping by one day. Anything we can do for ya, keep up the good work!
Thanks again for the chat, PZ, it was awesome. And thanks to all of your readers that dropped by our humble forums!
“Religion is an act of sedition against reason”
I like that.
Blogs are jealous mistresses.
I don’t know if it struck someone else also… but it was mighty funny seeing a bearded PZ as a ‘junior member’ over at Raving Atheists… Junior member has such a newbie feel to it… They could have perhaps given him a special status, like Senior Raver, or Squidworth or something…
“I believe in A, and PZ is the prophet” says alfred e. newman, MAD
By the way, the last sci..com/pharytail/science post is sept. 8. ??
like, wazzup widat? aint dis posda be a sains blawg?
A thousand theists and you’d pick Dawkins? I mean, sure, I’d rather hang out with Dawkins, too, but I suspect that Hitchens, asshole that he is, is far, far more familiar with the operational end of a barfight than the esteemed Dr Dawkins.
After all, there is a thousand of them, you’d need someone to cover the flanks.
Yeah. RA went nutty. He didn’t post as often and his position was downright and he stopped “insulting beliefs”. It was kind of an outgrowth of his pro-life stance, though the back story was kind of kept away. RavingAtheists however are perfectly fine and keeping the raving alive. I remember the day I delisted RA’s blog from my favorites.
Will y’all forgive me if I pimp the Brights for a moment? I can’t resist commenting on this portion of the transcript:
A nominal organization that permits a diversity of approaches is exactly what the Brights Movement “meme” is about. Aside from the tiny non-profit called “The Brights’ Net,” whose job is to maintain the Internet infrastructure, the “movement” is meta-organizational. Use the word “bright” and you get to use the the-brights.net’s resources to promote whatever sort of organizational experiment you want. Ideally, as more people register the more powerful the network becomes. But nobody “owns” — or can presume to represent — that community any more than anybody can be said to represent all people who call themselves “liberals.”
The goal is to get the name Bright recognized as a demographic, a political bloc, unified on certain key issues (i.e. godless naturalism is good, useful, moral, worthy of equal respect and citizenship). Maybe that name won’t be the one: maybe it will end up being “humanist” or “atheist” or “freethinker” or “heathen.” But somehow the constituency must be built. The Bright meme is to get us rallied around the things that unite us (naturalistic worldview) instead of things that historically have tended to divide (weak vs. strong atheism vs. agnosticism vs. humanism vs. secular humanism blah blah blah).
No, this is not enough. Naturlism/reason/atheism must be promoted to the people at at large. The pro-theocracy faction wins not because it lobbies Washington DC but because it lobbies the grass roots at every level of society, who in turn provide the means to lobby every level of government from the school board to the president. Brights — or atheists, or freethinkers, humanists, because the label isn’t nearly as important as the meme — must do the same, or we will lose.
Atheists should indeed have some sort of organization, but “Brights” is a terrible term — pretentious, obnoxious, whiney. At least that’s the impact it has on me.
The scraps? Is there any breast left?
Bob
Proof positive that PZ is good at thinking on his feet.
Or 10 arms, perhaps. In a wrestling ring that would be consider unfair. But OTOH creationists can be so slimy and salvador that every natural advantage can be exploited.
Good thing the ink is mightier than the fart.
So, two pluses and a negative. But “obnoxious, whiney” is not the impression I get.
Hmm. Pretentious, obnoxious, whiney would be something like “I’m Bright and Beautiful, but you doofuses don’t accept that.” But that is a bit more.
I think PZ’s suggestion of freethinker is naively too broad, since you can be non-dogmatic yet support a philosophical gods concept. But if it is agreed under the concept that empirical facts would lead to at least an agnostic position it would fly. (Wikipedia certainly takes that position.) That would also nicely separate “non-dogmatic” and “freethinker”, giving the later term its own meaning.
So actually a freethinker is a skeptic that has accepted the default positions current facts lead to.
Proof positive that PZ is good at thinking on his feet.
Or 10 arms, perhaps. In a wrestling ring that would be consider unfair. But OTOH creationists can be so slimy and salvador that every natural advantage can be exploited.
Good thing the ink is mightier than the fart.
So, two pluses and a negative. But “obnoxious, whiney” is not the impression I get.
Hmm. Pretentious, obnoxious, whiney would be something like “I’m Bright and Beautiful, but you doofuses don’t accept that.” But that is a bit more.
I think PZ’s suggestion of freethinker is naively too broad, since you can be non-dogmatic yet support a philosophical gods concept. But if it is agreed under the concept that empirical facts would lead to at least an agnostic position it would fly. (Wikipedia certainly takes that position.) That would also nicely separate “non-dogmatic” and “freethinker”, giving the later term its own meaning.
So actually a freethinker is a skeptic that has accepted the default positions current facts lead to.
I know this is very off topic, but it is an interesting item in the latest Science:
All in the Wrist?
The origins and affinity of the small-bodied hominins, Homo floresiensis, remain widely debated and enigmatic. Are these the fossils of a primitive species that somehow persisted in isolation on Flores until the Holocene, or pathologic modern humans, or something else? Tocheri et al. (p. 1743) show that the wrist bones of the original specimen are markedly primitive and completely unlike those of modern humans or of Neandertals
“I think PZ’s suggestion of freethinker is naively too broad, since you can be non-dogmatic yet support a philosophical gods concept.”
Not to mention that many secularists can still get dogmatic over other issues (especially political ones).
I associate the term “freethinker” with overweight, bushy-bearded, old guys on fixed incomes, who live in nudist enclaves in Arizona or Florida, and who frequent online “liberal” or “green” social networks and dating services.
Hey baby, I’m a real freethinker….
PZ, you thought I’d never call back after last night…but, see, you were wrong.
Thanks so much for such a wonderful evening. You are more than welcome to stop by anytime!
#15, you have a point about the need for organizing, PZ makes it too. But I never did like the name “Brights”, it just sounded too arrogant and elitist for me.
What’s the mildest, most inoffensive, least assertive religion you can think of?
Heh. Lousy damn Quakers.
I think of the word as being more “shameless” than “whiney.” :^) And I’d ask you to think about why it’s pretentious and obnoxious: isn’t it just for the fact that it suggests that the owner of the term thinks he or she is in fact correct and is willing to say so? And “Bright” to my mind isn’t nearly as awful as, say, “compassionate conservative.” (Maybe we should all label ourselves “altruistic atheists.”)
And how can we win at politics if we’re not willing to be shameless and obnoxious and self-promoting? I know it’s an attitude that doesn’t appeal to the cautious, skeptical inquirer in most of us, but politically what has caution ever done for us?
Maybe the scarlet letter campaign will do the trick instead. I really don’t care that much about the word, it’s the idea behind the word that matters. The reason I’m hawking it here is that I was struck by the fact that PZ was expressing a desire for exactly the kind of organizing structure represented by the Brights in the same breath that he was dismissing them.
I don’t know if I am an Atheist, a Skeptic, a Freethinker, a Bright, an Agnostic, a Spinozaist, an Einsteinist, a Humanist, a Secularist, a Non-Dogmaticist, a Naturalist, a Materialist, a Rationalist, a …
What’s in a name ?
But I know two things :
1. the vast majority of the world’s population believes in all sorts of supernatural agents
2. the vast majority of the world’s poulation has no understanding whatsoever about what we humans have achieved in our understanding of nature.
So, whatever they call themselves, if some people want to try and change this, they can count on me.
How about the word “sagan” for the “new” atheist ?
It takes a role model from our time.
It has many good connotations.
It hints at “sagacious” and “sage”.
It reminds of intelligent, probing, skeptical scientists.
It supports the rational, realistic, inquisitive life.
It is pleasant and friendly, yet firmly resists woowoo.
It needs extraordinary evidence.
It gets off its knees and reaches for the stars.
How about the word “sagan” for the “new” atheist ?
Now that has potential. And the rhyme with “pagan” brings to mind Quakers* and Shakers. (Between the pagans and the sagans, I wonder who gets the oatmeal and who gets the furniture?)
*PZ’s least favourite religion, by deduction shown above
Maybe he dislikes Unitarians the most….
I enjoyed reading the thread over there. Thanks for taking the time to be “Raved” at.
OT: Googleism – a ‘religion’ for the 21st century. (Via UserFriendly’s LOTD on Friday.)
I don’t know if Carl would approve, but I could easily see myself being a godforsaking saganite. :D The trick, of course, is getting enough people to call themselves the same thing so that the census takers and political pollsters are forced to factor us into their calculations.
Nothing wrong with “scientist” is there? Or would the degreed professional end object to its reference extending to anyone who respects the means by which we learn from nature? I certainly cringe when the term “non-scientist” is often employed to refer to those who are firm enthusiasts but don’t formally practice it or haven’t got the pedigree. Its as much an enlightened/emancipated frame of mind as its a profession, isn’t it? Or shouldn’t it be?
“Brights”? Blagh.
The term ‘freethinker’ goes back a century or two(or three?) in New England.
Re: #27 – “How about the word “sagan” for the “new” atheist ?”
Saganist. Then the fundies can have fun equating/confusing that with Satanist.
— CV
Zen > iPod
.
(Between the pagans and the sagans, I wonder who gets the oatmeal and who gets the furniture?)
What? No bad puns about Wicca (wicker) Chairs?
It is to weep!
I’ve just found your blog. I’m interested because I’ve just started a blog called http://hiddenknowledge.net, and of course this must include the religion delusion.
I’ve said this before, but adoration of Richard Dawkins’ A, and becoming an organization will eventually lead to another religion. The Atheist Religion. If you set anyone up on a pedestal, you will eventually find that they have feet of clay.
You know what you believe, and if enough of you believe it, you will create change.
Bright’s disease is blindness in the voldemort world. (too kitsch). I like pantheist, but I will settle for Sparkle. (what the hell is a Sagan) 1% of the population knows it. Thinkers are the icing. People are the sparkles. Too much icing = not enough cake.