I have received a dreadful rebuke. A user on reddit has announced that I have driven him to become an MRA.
against atheism+ which is largely a feminist ridden anti-male/mensrights movement, hiding behind the guise of atheism.
like PZ myers, a popular atheist/science blogger who is probably responsible for my becoming an mra. i had been following his blog, because it seemed pretty reasonable. posts like burning a dawkins’ book along with the koran/bible to show that it’s not something to take so seriously.
however, one day i saw him posting about feminism, i thought "women’s rights, nothing wrong with that"
then he said something along the lines of "if you are a man, you aren’t even ALLOWED to talk about sexual equality." and i lost all respect for him. just because i’m male doesn’t mean i can’t understand anything, or that i shouldn’t be allowed to have an opinion.
timewarp to the future, he is a popular voice in the "atheism+" movement, which is as i said, pretty feminist/anti-male.
I said what?
All right, I want you all to bow down in gratitude and thank me profusely because I have single-handedly driven yet another fool away from our brand of atheism. You are welcome. You can send checks directly to me, or you can find my paypal account.
“Sexual equality”? What the hell is that?
Sounds like a dig whistle to me – an MRA dog whistle for “Not getting laid is a violation of my human rights”.
Wow. Atheists are weak these days. Not just in logic, but in the ability to stand up to someone with whom they disagree. “Oh, I’m an MRA because someone said I’m not an authority in gender issues.”
If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the tauntaun, I always say.
Fun! You’ve got yourself your own puppet, PZ!
Now say something like, “If you’re a man, you shouldn’t ever eat six D-Cell batteries, or you’re sexist!” and watch the magic happen!
I am a feminist. I am active on the Atheism Plus boards. I am not anti-male.
No, the people that make me froth with rage are the BAD PARAPHRASERS. Put me down on the permanent list of people who are anti-paraphrasing.
Please, if you have lousy reading comprehension, learn to read things twice. Please do not attempt to quote people if you don’t remember the words. Jeez, people, learn to cite things accurately, I’m begging you!
[pulls open front of shorts. looks.]
Well, I guess I’m safe. I’ve never talked about (or written about) sexual equality. Human rights? Yeah. I’m not even sure what sexual equality is. Is this another one of these glaring pop-culture gaps in my knowledge?
PZ Myers is probably responsible for me longer being an MRA* so I suppose it all balances out in the end.
* I didn’t realize I was one until I started lurking here
I could say that this is all part of a nefarious plan to poison the intellectual vigor of the MRA movement by diluting it with people like Mrmojoman0, but that would be a rather redundant undertaking.
Oh, it’s like a game of telephone. This is what “shut up and listen” has morphed into now.
Bwahahahaha!
Suuuure he wasn’t a whiny MRAsshole before. A man discussing sexual equality said “something along the lines of* men aren’t even allowed to about sexual equality” and -poof- just like that he became one. Sounds legit.
*aka “nothing remotely like”
Is there an “I used to be a fan of PZ, but…” article on TVtropes yet?
Wild Old Caveman:
I’m another one. I thought I was a feminist. This site taught me what feminism really is.
Damn, Caine. That actually makes sense.
Why does this sound vaguely like the atheists converted to Christianity via a Chick Tract? “I was an evil atheist who worshiped the devil and gamboled and was a liberal environmentalist and then I read this beautiful piece and Now I am a Christian who Believes in the One True Truth of the Trinity!”
When Ron Lindsey talked about shut up and listen he obviously took it to me shut up forevermore and listen, yet when asked for examples he cited PZ, a man that regularly talks about feminists issues… which should have been a big clue that the shut up is only temporary and that his initial understanding was wrong.
Now we have this guy who say that PZ said that men aren’t even allowed to talk about sexual equality (by which I suppose he means gender equality), yet PZ is a man who regularly talks about gender equality… which should have been a big clue that he probably misunderstood what PZ said.
This reminds me of creationists when they claim that the second law of thermodynamics means that evolution is impossible. The fact that both it and evolution are widely accepted by scientists should be a big clue to them that they don’t understand at least one or the other (in this case, they don’t understand either).
It is of course tempting when you see an apparent contradiction in someone’s position to jump to the conclusion that they either are hypocrite or that their position is inconsistent and thus wrong, but this should really be a cause for pause and re-evaluating whether you understand their apparently conflicting position as while an inconsistency is possible, so is a misunderstanding.
Of course, an inconsistency means the other person is wrong whereas a misunderstanding means you are wrong so it’s tempting to assume the former rather than do the work that might prove you wrong.
Sure, and who’s going to stop you from having an opinion, anyway, Mr. Random Angry Internet Douchebag? However, the fact that you’re clearly a subliterate moron who doesn’t understand anything should give you pause before trying to share that opinion with the public. Especially if you object to being laughed at.
Another
onearsehat bites the dust…Goodbye and good riddance. Progressive atheism is better off without the likes of Mrmisogynistman0.
This whole story sounds suspiciously like all those preachers who say they used to be atheists.
*Ron Lindsay, not Ron Lindsey. All hail Tpyos!
@15 Ya beat me to it.
Translation.
Seemed pretty reasonable. It was super LOLZ when he made fun of Ray Comfort and Ken Ham and then like…. he said something I disagreed with. Then I could tell he was a lunatic.
Isn’t it amazing that he apparently didn’t think to ask questions in the comments? Not even clarifying ones that wouldn’t single him out as being next in line for the feminist Castratotron 9000. Seems like dim bulbs never ever make the attempt to actually understand the ideas of their opposition before they speak out against them.
Ever since this whole thing started I have been seeing links to MRA behavior and the tactics and thought processes behind many creationists and religious people. It makes me think that rather than building up their critical thinking skills, many of these types of atheists have simply built up skills in making fun of silly religious people.
Welcome, Wild Old Caveman!
PS: I had no _idea_ cave men wore crash-hats and breeches while riding in their English saddles! The things I learn around here!
Count me as another one turned away from the dark side with the aid of PZ and many commenters and links. I don’t think I was an MRA, but I was a Nice Guy, and defended sexist jokes and language because “no subject is out of bounds for comedy”, or “freeze peach”, or some such drivel.
Wait, hold up a second. “Gamboled”? Og is gonna have to explain how “skipping or frisking about; frolic” plays into this. I’m pretty sure I want in.
Yeah, that PZ, I used to read his blog and it seemed alright lots of talk about croco-octo-ducks and swiping crackers from priests and things and then he came through Seattle and I went to a “beer meetup” and he spent the whole time drinking ALL THE BEER and oppressing us men while his hordes of feminist attack dogs taunted us and womansplained at us and we weren’t even ALLOWED to say a word and I mean I just lost all respect for him because just because I’m male doesn’t mean argle bargle BARGLE and that’s why I’m now an MRA so there CHECKMATE FEMINISTS timewarp to the future he’s grown satan horns and is lord emperor of that atheism+ thing which like I said is full of angry feminists and if feminists are evolved from monkeys why are there still monkeys kthxbai
*draws a deep breath*
When the womenz are talking the menz balls are shrinking.
I’m sure this is Rebecca’s fault.
I’ve decided that there’s one aspect of gay rights/women’s rights/trans rights/ rights movements IS distinctly unfair.
The oppressors* don’t get to decide when they’re “even.”
They don’t get to decide when they’ve “given enough.”
They don’t get to decide when society is “post-X.” Sorry, but for generations they’ve proven pretty poor judges of what’s “fair.” Suck it up. The folks who’ve been at the bottom will let you know when it’s “enough.”
(*Disclosure: white, older, cis-male who’s doing the best he can.)
anti-Men’s Rights Movement, anti-Men, feminist. Totally all the same thing.
(And yet how they RAAAAGE if we so much as imply that anti-feminism or MRAism is anti-woman).
And THAT is what turned this fine fellow into an MRA? PZ telling men to shut their gobs for one fucking minute fundamentally transformed this feminism supporting gentleman, and PZ didn’t even need radioactive isotopes, gamma radiation, or cosmic rays? MRA origin stories are lame. Just a tale of how one brave hero refused to stop running his fucking mouth, because he is entitled to keep running his mouth if he so desires, and decided to say “fuck women’s rights after all” because a man on the internet wanted him to stop. Brave heroism at its finest.
Travis#19
Yes, I’ve noticed that a significant subset of atheists are atheists because it gives them another group of people to feel superior to. There’s a strong overlap with libertarians.
@27
Also skeptics
Ogvorbis
Perhaps Mrmojoman0 was also an MRA all along but once he learned enough to recognize this in himself he failed to take the next logical step to deal with it, blaming the messenger instead.
Funny diva
Thanks, very observant. The helmet is a wise choice for those of us who ride crazy horses – I had a concussion from an earlier fall when that photo was taken but hadn’t noticed yet.
What I find vaguely disturbing is how our little snowflake can’t be bothered to capitalize anything except “PZ” and “ALWAYS”.
well. There’s your problem.
I, too, wish to understand what is evil about gamboling. D:
Why isn’t there a Former Fans of PZ subreddit/community/forum yet?
“This whole story sounds suspiciously like all those preachers who say they used to be atheists.”
I strongly suspect there are more atheists who used to be preachers than there really are preachers who used to be atheists. Does anyone have any data on that?
They are in hiding, afraid of FTBullies.
Well, if PZ had said that, I’d probably
become an MRAwonder if I should stop reading his blog. Because that would just be a silly thing to say!Fortunately, I was trained early in an arcane skill known as “reading”. I don’t recall PZ ever saying anything like this in the 2 years I’ve been reading here.
On the off chance, I figured I should check if he actually did say this. So I used another arcane skill known as “the internet search”. The only relevant hit I got from [“pz myers” AND “sexual equality”] was … this post.
But I did find this amusing lil diatribe (1 yr old) by David Sloan Wilson, yelling at PZ and asserting that because different species have different sexual dynamics it is useless to implicate human religion in the systematic disenfranchisement of human women, and therefore PZ should shut up (SPOILER: It’s not religion, it’s evolution!):
I’m sure people here have seen this turdtastic piece before (again, a year old), but it was fresh to me and made me cackle maniacally. The whole piece is rather amusing, in a despair-science sort of way. Plus, this, also, too:
Can I donate to FTB to get a picture of PZ frocked? How much would I have to give?
Even IF PZ said these words (or something even resembling this reasoning), and even IF that would lead to a dislike of him… why would that lead to someone becoming a MRA?
I guess it is just easier to blame others for your own faulty reasoning.
Actually, to be perfectly fair, there once was a time lo these many years ago, before Rebecca Watson caused everything in the world to go wrong, that PZ asked on SciBlogs: Where are the women?
He didn’t want to hear from men speculating about why women weren’t attending conferences and all that, he wanted to only hear from women (oh! the huge manate!) He even said:
Of course, the internet exploded instantly. Such a pity the comments are gone, there was such a HUGE amount of ape-shitting going on from “silenced” men, but in a follow up post PZ posted a very rough breakdown I did of the comments (http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/07/07/we-have-been-scrutinized/) – unfortunately my blog died years ago and that data is lost forever (*sniffle*), but it was interesting how many of the comments were whining about men being “silenced”.
Here’s the thread on the old SciBlogs:
The Woman Problem
Mayhaps this is what our good Reddit friend was referring to?
Whatever the case is, thank you oh mighty PZ, for your fool-driving skillz.
I should note that further application of the esoteric internet searching skill reminds me that not only did PZ post about that piece a year ago, but I read it at the time. I blame my evolutionarily-driven hasty posting.
Still, something that stupid deserves a point-and-laugh every now and again, so I’ll just rest on my laurels now.
PatrickG @ 36:
Wow. “None of this variation can be explained by religion.” Just wow.
Turdtastic, indeed.
@ Gen:
Fair, my recollection skills are apparently low tonight. I’d forgotten that PZ did, at one point, for the purpose of one post and the comments on said post, request that men not weigh in.
Which leads me to the inevitable conclusion. PZ IS A NAZI! Way to drive me away PZ!!one!11!!
@ MrFancyPants: You should read PZ’s takedown of that post. :)
Hey, it’s his blog. If he wants to ask men to step back and let women comment for a while, that’s his perogative. Or women/men. Or cats/cephalopods.
@Artor @34:
If you take people who explicitly identified as “atheist”, then no more than ~5% of American Christians were atheists in the past. If you broaden that to “religiously unaffiliated”, it could be as high as ~15%. But in the few cases where I’ve asked people who asserted that they were once atheists and then became Christians, they appeared to have confused “not currently being a devout Christian” with “being an atheist”. It’s like the polling data that say a significant fraction of self-identified atheists also assert a belief in some sort of god – there is an unfortunate amount of confusion as to the meaning of certain words.
_
Rather like how this man who claims to have mojo has not understood what PZ has written.
I’d also like to know about how many people are both preachers and atheists. Then, among those, how much they use the “I used to be an atheist” trope, versus how much they use the (non-existent?) “I used to be a preacher” trope.
The least he could have done to establish his “I used to be a fan of PZ” credentials was to get the cracker incident right. Sheesh.
I LOL’d.
Deen,
So do I understand this correctly, he was never a true PZ fan, is what you’re saying?
Commiting the no true PZ fan fallacy, are we? bad skeptic!
Yeah… he was all like, women’s rights, huh! You learn something new every day. Plus, it sounds like a nice line to score with the ladies – if it’s not too much of a hassle, if you catch my drift.
I used to be a redditor, then I read reddit. Now I am a crazy femistasi gynocrat a-plusser. Therefore reddit is inferior and wrong.
The above message had tags for not being sincere, but I used the wrong ones. I am a failure.
You can send checks directly to me, or you can find my paypal account.
Time to check my eyeglass prescription again…
I read the above as “…or you can find my PAPAL account”
Pope Pee-Zed the First! {grin}
–MAB
I used to like squids but you turned me into a fish, crab, and shrimp rights activist, PZ!
Done intentionally in order to mock the stereotype ex-atheist-turned-Christian trope meme.
You know, I realize that just because you may be on the same side of some issues as the KKK or the Phelps that it is not necessarily an argument against the position your taking, however it sure would make me take a good long look at what my position was if I shared a side with assholes like this.
I’ve also found out how little I used to know about equal rights here. Although I like to think I’m far better at recognising when my opinions are born of privilege and adapting them accordingly*, I’ve also come to accept that this very privilege will always prevent me from completely understanding what it’s like to be really discriminated against.
* I’m a white middle class cisgender heterosexual well educated able bodied neurotypical married man living in an industrialised democratic nation. I’ve got just about every privilege it’s possible to have without being one of the obscenely wealthy few.
Yeah, me too. I have to remind myself of that from time to time, and it gets me every time what a coincidence this is.
Fun fact: Nobody can turn you into an asshole.
Yeah, same here. I used to hang out at Fark and make terrible photoshopped “comics” that were all “LOL I can say terrible things because I don’t really believe it.” Elevatorgate slapped me out of my delusions once and for all.
Apparently his babelfish is defective. It appears to translating normal, reasonable midwestern Anerican English into an inversion of Limbaughese.
PZ (inadvertently) turned me into a feminist activist! I had been following his blog, because it seemed pretty reasonable. Posts that denounced anti-choice senators or called attention to the inequalities faced by women around the world. Stuff that needed to be taken seriously.
But then he posted a well-reasoned defense of Rebecca Watson’s gentle attempt to set boundaries for herself and the interwebs exploded. And kept exploding. Seriously. It was like the big bang of polite social requests.
All of the ARGLEBARGLE responses (which included delightful little gems like first amendment rights, the complete extinction of the human race, and higher than statically possible forgivable neural disorders.) turned me into a feminist.
So far my biggest forms of activism have been not returning to TAM, no longer supporting the JREF, and recently canceling my donations to CFI. It’s not much but it’s a start.
emphasis added
One would think the fact that PZ is a man who often talks about feminism should be a clue that PZ doesn’t think men aren’t allowed to talk about feminism. Assuming one thinks at all.
@Gen, Uppity Ingrate.
The storm of comments are preserved by the good people at Archive.org (Wayback Machine):
http://web.archive.org/web/20100914235044/http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/06/the_woman_problem.php
To add to what other users have said, PZ very much deserves credit for creating the venue in which this community has taken root and for taking feminist thinking seriously and giving it a pretty good platform. But my personal outlook on this stuff has been shaped more by the community than by PZ himself I think. That is to say the commenters here are the ones who have taught me a great deal about feminism and helped me to not be a creep or a “nice guy”.
At the same time the idea that I should treat women like people and not fabulous chimaera has made me much more confident in dealing with women and smoothed over many of my insecurities around dating and romance. My social life has been a great deal more rewarding and satisfying as a result.
It’s amazing what can happen when you shut up and listen.
There’s one that is actually unfair: the people who are organized and have established subcultures and bodies of theory and critique get to decide which of the axes you might be at the bottom of “count.” That’s utterly tangential to Mrmojoman0’s additive-inverse-of-a-point, though…
I found an incident where a woman does say that the opinion of a man doesn’t count because he’s a man. You can thank/blame Rebecca Watson for finding this one.
Doesn’t really support the anti-feminist viewpoint, though, since this same woman slams other feminist women for being “libfem pimp apologists”. Turns out, complete raging assholes can call themselves feminists, too. Who knew?
ck,
you can find an incident of a mule mobbing a squirrel if you look long enough, that doesn’t mean that it’s a widespread problematic attitude in society on the level of the patriarchal bs that is in all of our heads.
I know you know that, but just sayin’ –
Nothing supports the anti-feminist viewpoint. It wouldn’t support the anti-feminist viewpoint if she otherwise were a perfectly reasonable person according to your standards.