Atheists, be ashamed.
I find it ironic that self-described “atheist” men are far more hateful and awful towards me online than conservative Christians are.
— Feminist Frequency (@femfreq) October 17, 2014
I find it ironic that self-described “atheist” men are far more hateful and awful towards me online than conservative Christians are.
No, I’m not annoyed with Sarkeesian: I’m annoyed that the atheist movement has gotten this bad.
Here’s a lovely representative response:
@noelplum @pzmyers I'm annoyed that anyone is still asserting the atheist labels implies anything other than a lack of belief in gods.
— Miles Grimes (@TheDecentTech) October 17, 2014
I’m annoyed that anyone is still asserting the atheist labels implies anything other than a lack of belief in gods.
Right. ‘The dictionary doesn’t say atheists have to be decent human beings, therefore I’m going to be more annoyed that you have this expectation than at the fact that some atheists are hateful numpties.’
Whatever happened to the rational idea that we should look at our failings honestly and strive to correct them? You know, when Francis Bacon set out to tell the world about how science should be done, he didn’t just pull a sentence out of a dictionary and be done with it. “Inductive reasoning is best, rah rah rah!” No — he wrote at length about the pitfalls, and spelled out the preconceptions to which we are prone.
The idols and false notions which have already preoccupied the human understanding, and are deeply rooted in it, not only to beset man’s minds, that they become difficult of access, but, even when access is obtained, will again meet and trouble us in the instauration of the sciences, unless mankind, when forewarned, guard themselves with all possible care against them.
The idols of the tribe are inherent in human nature, and the very tribe or race of man. For man’s sense is falsely asserted to be the standard of things. On the contrary, all the perceptions, both of the senses and the mind, bear reference to man, and not to the universe, and the human mind resembles those uneven mirrors, which impart their own properties to different objects, from which rays are emitted, and distort and disfigure them.
But I guess atheists have moved so far beyond mere scientists that self-awareness and recognition of their own errors of perception no longer matter — “There is no god!” is the great All of their philosophy, and no other consideration need be made.
Well, at least we’re better than the theists in one thing: our dogma is shorter and easier to memorize.
Dear anyone who feels like whining that PZ is spending too much time criticizing atheists and not enough time criticizing christians: this is why.
QFMFT.
Me too.
Yep as has been pointed out for years now with gamer culture “nerd” as basically become this. People who felt like the underdogs growing up shit on the other oppressed groups.
I guess Ayn Rand can’t have been the only human being in history to come to atheism because they felt the golden rule was too much of an imposition on their freedoms. For that reason, I’m not at all surprised that there are people whose attitudes and behaviours I find reprehensible who also happen to call themselves atheist.
While I’m not at all ashamed to say I’m an atheist, I am embarrassed to think that for some non-atheists, that can put me into the same category as people I truly despise.
hyrax @1:
Seconded!
Melissa McEwan put it like this:
Melissa McEwan put it like this:
hyrax #1
Thirded
My only counter would be that “Christian” is considered “normal” and not always stated, but I’ve spent enough time around internet atheism and GooberGate to know that’s not what’s going on here. She’s right, and it’s fucking shameful.
I used to take such pride in being an atheist because I knew better than *those* people. I think I’m just learning that being an atheist doesn’t make me quite as clever as I thought it did. There are much more important things to be clever about.
There’s definitely a strain of atheist men for whom their atheism feels more like an extension of their ego (or an ego-booster to make them feel smarter than everyone else) than any real deep skepticism of religion and its impact on society, gender, race, etc. I’m thinking Ayn Rand fanboys, many MRAs, and their ilk.
bricewgilbert @3
Gabe from Penny Arcade is a pretty good example of this. In this post he talks about his process of realization that this is what he has become. It doesn’t excuse the horrible shit he’s done, but he’s at least started the process of not being a bully.
Ah yes it is “atheists” but christians without parentheses. No true scotsman, dear Sarkeesian?
Yup. Honestly, there’s religious people who behave better than so many vocal atheists/skeptics/$insertLabel. What’s the point then?
If our beliefs about the supernatural don’t help us being better humans, then probably that is not what humanity needs the most, then probably it’s not such an important fight?
I agree wholeheartedly with the direction of the post but not the shame. I do not feel shame for something that comes from the mouth of an individual who goes by the description, Atheist. I feel shame from within when I fail to meet certain standards, basic standards that I have set for myself. When I choose to lie instead of sharing the truth, for instance; then, there is shame. But do not ask me to feel shame as an Atheist groupie because some fucktwit has been especially offensive to somebody I admire. I will get angry at the offense but shame, for fuck sake? Get a fucking pulpit if you are going to speak like that…. Long live Sarkeesian and our PZ too!
Or it’s proper punctuation. (On Twitter?? Something is surely amiss!) The phrase is self-described “atheist.” You describe people/places/things with words, and you can mention those words (as opposed to using them) by putting quotes around them. So there’s no indication those are scare-quotes, just regular quotes. And if people describe themselves that way, then it isn’t just an assumption she’s making about them — she has it in evidence that they think and talk about themselves as such.
Also, those aren’t “parentheses.”
@Anthony K
Well, my own religious experience was as a Neo-Pagan. Social justice was a thing. Feminism was a Thing. Women (qua women*) were more highly respected in that community** than in any other sphere of life in my own experience, then or since. The sexism and misogyny pervading organized atheism/secularism came as an utter shock to me, and, frankly has been the worst I’ve experienced in any other sphere on- or offline in my whole life (including the years I spent as a kid in Catholic schools, hanging out in comic stores, and trying on religions for size with friends from different cultural backgrounds, going through basic training in the military reserve, or working in the IT field). Here, even self-described progressives and “allies” are willing to give the worst harassers and misogynists and even rapists shelter–and not just shelter but thought leader thrones. They’re willing to entertain people who advocate taking away women’s rights to bodily autonomy and give them platforms to “debate” the worth of what they know are just non-sentient, unconscious globs of cells. It’s disgusting and disheartening.
*And that includes trans women– e.g. I used to go to a women’s weekend retreat thingy once a year and one year a trans women asked if she could attend. I think she was half-expecting to be turned down, but no. She was welcomed by all the women there as one of our own and I’m pretty sure she had a really good time. That was back in the 90s, when antediluvian notions about transgenderism were even more mainstream than currently.
**e.g. We had a problem with one of the guys being a bit of a harasser–nothing comparable to the stories about predators at atheist conferences. He crossed the line once (honestly I forget the details now but I think it might have been an unwelcome groping). We had a meeting where anyone was welcome to attend and say their piece (say maybe between 2 and 3 dozen people, including a good number of men). He was shunned. Barred from attendance at any meeting, social outing, party, ritual etc. We told all the other groups in the city what had occurred as well as the organizers of all the major gatherings and festivals. He was persona non grata after that. And there was absolutely no dissent. Even from the guy, who had been pretty active and had been a founding member of the group. No pushback. No whining about freedom. No call for anyone to report to the police before action could be taken. No backlash against the victim. No online attacks (even though the group did a lot of social stuff online). This was circa late 90s.
dreamingrobot, you have a coherent point to make? Go on, enlighten us on what she did wrong.
@ brett
That pretty well sums it up. I’ve come to think of that brand of atheist (and not necessarily just men) as the Pentecostalists of non-belief.
They’ve seen the light and are therefore prepared to judge, harass, and silence anybody who dares disagree with .. whatever the hell it is they’ve seen. Criticism only proves they’re right, because you haven’t had that direct
conversionde-conversion experience! Shut up or else!Also meant to add… I really hope Greta is right.
borked link should go here….
*slinks away*
PZ: as much as I love you and the rest of the horde, I am just about ready to give atheism the raised middle finger and move on. I would feel a lot less ashamed of calling myself a Quaker than an atheist.
PatrickG @19: More that they don’t believe in God because if God existed, it would mean someone would have the moral authority to tell them what to do.
I don’t know why it took me so long (not this long mind you, I’ve realized this for a while now) to notice that the intersection of gamers and atheists is full of these sorts who are anti-feminist, misogynists, hyperskeptics and so on.
And here I was feeling liberated that these two identifiers helped me find communities online. The solution for me of course is to speak up against the people who don’t represent me, support feminism and diversity in games and atheism and not get defensive or back down from ever making an impact, no matter how small it might feel, if the opportunities arise.
So here’s to feminist gamers and atheists and humanists. That’s the group I want to belong to and will support and will make it clear as often as I can.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Sarkeesian tweeted that out just after the latest “thunderf00t” video went up. Its titled “Anita Sarkeesians ‘MASSACRE’ threats, real, or FAKE?”.
oh? you should probably explain further. why don’t you think it’s a coincidence? please keep in mind that correlation is not causation, though.
and if it’s not a coincidence, then why is that significant?
You’re right, I probably should explain further. I don’t think it’s a coincidence for a few reasons:
1. Thunderf00t has a large fanbase full of rabid idiots, and he just released a new video about her.
2. Sarkeesian has indirectly referenced him before and linked to another youtube video debunking his stupid criticisms of her.
3. I did a twitter search for her handle and found lots of thunderf00ts rabid idiot fans tagging her with their abuse and sometimes linking to his latest steaming pile of shit.
I’m not sure how significant it is. I agree with the majority of posts on this thread saying that atheism has a huge problem. If it didn’t, then these people wouldn’t be able to even watch his videos without wanting to wretch, much less feeling the need to spread them about on social media. I was just noting that this is where it’s most likely coming from in case anybody was interested.
I was reading the infamous ISIS Dabiq.
I thought about the threats against Sarkeesian for her Utah speech.
The anger and the obliviousness, the arrogance… They are the same.
I thought this would have not been possible with atheists.
I thought atheism would have been an effective counter to the religious crazies
I was wrong.
Religion, faith, are not the enemy.
Our obliviousness is, and I am not even sure how to define it.
I used to think theists were lying when they said atheists had no moral compass and just wanted to behave badly without consequence, but maybe they just met these atheists. There do seem to be far too many of them.
AtheistsChristiansMuslimsHindusHumans can be utter arseholes if they haven’t learned to have a decent moral compass.I suppose it is ironic, actually… though I guess conservative Christians are probably more likely to be on the “games are evil” bandwagon than on the “criticism of games is evil” one, so maybe that would explain it? In much the same way that our nonpatriots will cheer along with anything that points out misogyny in religion while dismissing it in themselves, it would make sense that some conservative Christians would agree with things that paint games in a bad light while ignoring those same problems in their own sects. Mind you, I have no data to back this up, so it could just be a thing.
Honestly, I think the only reason I haven’t totally rejected the label ‘atheist’ by this point is that none of the others describe my position.
Ceesays,
I’m seeing that as significant because it is another data point confirming hr claim.
And I wouldn’t be surprised if that had also been a trigger for her tweet
I didn’t buy this because the guy has a long history of going, “I’m sowwy.” whenever his feet get put to the fire for the shit he does and everyone going, “I like your convention so that’s okay, you little scamp.” He’s gotten away with it since he entered the public eye. Now, if the guy were to stand up and say it loud and long, “Fuck off Gamergaters. Don’t come to my convention or read my comic.” then I might believe it.
As for the bad atheists: I think the only thing we can do is attack Thunderfo… er, the women-haters ideas until they either smarten up or become cultural relics like the KKK.
Many atheists only differ from fundamentalist Christians, in that they lack that shred of humility required to conceive of a being greater than they are.
Brett@10
I always say that there are two kinds of atheists–scientists who don’t believe in god because there is no evidence and infantile solipsists who can’t stand the idea of someone more important than they are.
Another thing going on here, Christians at least are brought up to respect women even if they don’t actually respect them. Kind of like the people who have a fondness for their slaves as long as they don’t act up.
Hyperdeath @ 84
Your comment appears concise and accurate, though is it really humble to believe that the postulated greater being is desperate to have a personal relationship with the believer?
On balance, I suspect that the believers are actually still less humble but its pretty darn close to call. When it comes to hypocrisy though, the “atheist” side is streaking ahead despite the apparent fundagelical head start.
Turns out it doesn’t take religious belief to make you an asshole (although it certainly helps!); all you technically need is an unwillingness to not be an asshole.
People outside the US tend to forget that you have this vocal Ayn Randian brand of impotent solipsists who roughly fulfill the dictionary definition of atheism, while failing on any other scale of social responsibility(cooperation, empathy, reciprocity). Their massive occurrence in the fora of the gamer sphere is a localized and generational phenomenon. Nasty nevertheless. Getting one darn thing right (often for the wrong reasons) doesn’t mean one has to embrace those guys. There are, to paraphrase John 14:2, many rooms in the house of atheism. I don’t feel any solidarity with people who fail basic social ability tests, and are proud of that fact – it’s a pretty impractical position, except when one is in a friendly forum, surrounded by other wannabe rapists and mouse click-killers.
@kevinalexander, 35
Just wondering… by scientists, do you mean people who engage with the scientific process and skepticism, making sure separate their biases from their conclusions as much as possible, or people with degrees in the sciences who actively engage in research? ‘Cuz I think that might be a false dichotomy if it’s the latter.
Actually, maybe if it’s the former too – it’s probably possible to reach the conclusion that there’s no reason to believe in gods without being particularly skeptical or solipsistic.
I’m annoyed you have to specify what it is you’re annoyed about. There was a time I would have that it was obvious. Alas, those blinders were flung aside long ago.
This is like the reaction to Obama. See, Obama’s just a politician, but because he’s a Democrat and black, bigots assumed he was ushering in a new age of enlightenment in which they had no place. So the racists and bigots had to pour out their worst possible hatred for all to see, for years now. In reaction to something that never happened. He’s just a politician.
Anita is facing a similar backlash, seemingly of cornered animals fighting for their right to hate, kill, rape, humiliate, and control women. So they have to argue that they have a right to do all those things. In reaction to video game reviews.
In both cases, though, the overreaction taught us much more about the problems we really need to clean up in order to build our next age of enlightenment.
What is the point of being an atheist if it doesn’t mean there are consequences that help you be a better person because of it? It’s a pretty serious belief to pick up and then just let it sit there.
“We disagree about the existence of an all-powerful judge of morality and the immortality of the self, but that’s totally not going to change how I act toward other people, brah.”
It is as if people choose to be labelled atheist so they can say there is no ‘daddy’ figure up in some sky telling them what they should or shouldn’t do; and, now that the person knows he won’t be punished, or grounded, he’s going to be the bully he always wanted to be and nobody can stop him. Atheist doesn’t mean there are no repercussions. Ethics and morality don’t come from a cloud hopper but the people around you with their own ability to do what they want. And I, as an atheist human being, say threatening or allowing people to be threatened based on what is between their legs is no different than someone threatening people over what is in their heads (religious belief). You might be a self-described atheist, but I also personally describe you as a terrorist who unfortunately just happens to live in a country that protects your right to harm women psychologically and physically (stress alone causes health problems even if you never touch a woman).
What PZ said.
For awhile I could not understand why these people are so angry if some atheists want to promote social justice. No one is forcing them to join up. I can only imagine it is fear. Fear they will have to admit what d-bags they are, fear of giving up privileges they’ve enjoyed, Fear they will be found out and become irrelevant.
ekwhite:
The Quakers I have known are all good people. Nevertheless, it’s at its core a theistic and faith-based movement, which is problematic. If you’re looking for a label, why not humanism? Take a look, for example, at the IHEU’s “Amsterdam Declaration”. The bad behaviour we’ve seen from movement atheists, while 100% compatible with simple dictionary atheism, is hard to reconcile with humanist principles. That’s not to say that all self-identified humanists live up to their principles — but you could say the same of all groups with worthwhile principles.
They forget, but they’ve got them too, in force. Thunderf00t is British, and let’s not miss the fact that there are swarms of oblivious Brits who will leap in to inform us that no, “c*nt” isn’t a sexist slur at all…they’ll call their mum that if she’s late with the tea. A substantial fraction of my atheist hate mail is coming from the UK and Australia.
@inflection
Yep. Strictly speaking, being an atheist doesn’t even mean being a secularist. If you’re really taking your value-free atheism seriously, you can’t even argue for separation of church and state on that basis. You’ve go nothing.
AAAaarrrrrgggghh!!!!!!
It’s like they’re trying to make “atheist” synonymous with “sexist asshole” and succeeding! God damn it. The fuckwads. And what can I say or do to change the perception? I criticize the asshole when I can, I send support messages (but, not being an asshole, I’m not making a point out of being an atheist while doing it, so nobody really knows). I certainly can’t say: “We’re not all like that…” I can’st say: “just a minority, no more than any other group..”, because these are just excuses. I really think I’m just going to stop using the word. Which is sad, because I only became really comfortable with it fairly recently, and now I’m uncomfortable with it for a completely different reason. Guess I’ll just say I’m a secular humanist now. Or maybe say I don’t believe in god, but not use a label at all.
williamgeorge @33
Yeah, I put my point poorly. I meant he gave a good explanation of victimized nerd turned bully. Not that he was really making any progress in becoming a decent human being.
I think we still have at least one advantage over the religious (I mean, other than the obvious ones). When we argue over our schisms, we don’t have any dogma to provide excuses for them. The assholes can point out that the dictionary doesn’t preclude their assholery. But since our dogma is, in some sense, as short as our title, they don’t have anything to hide behind either. They can’t justify being assholes. All they can do is say that our title is insufficient to condemn them for it. Maybe that’s true, in a very narrow way. But I have more than one title.
Anyway, I think the main difference between me and the assholes is mostly the same liberal/conservative divide we always run into. They think it’s okay to harm others unless there is justification to forbid it. I think it is not okay to harm others unless there is justification to do it. Conservatives, libertarians, etc. default to defending the rights of the actor. Liberals default to defending the rights of the acted upon. I don’t mean to imply those roles are always well defined. But that’s why moral reasoning can be hard.
When I acknowledged that I was an atheist, I didn’t just pat myself on the back for achieving the low-hanging fruit of reality. I had to reexamine almost everything I believed and had accepted as true to figure out what to toss and what to keep. Over a decade later, that is still an ongoing process and one that will likely never end. There are so many preconceptions and biases that crept in (some in part from my religious upbringing, others just culture in general) that many I just simply don’t recognize until they are pointed out. Funnily enough, that included the idea of gods being non-existent.
Even funnier still was that the idea that I didn’t have to do any of that was one of the first items on the list to contend with. It turned out easier to reject than the whole god thing. Atheism may not imply more than a simple lack of belief in god(s), but I’d suggest that reason and rationality certainly do. It’s simply what happens when he have new information or evidence, assuming one is reasonable and rational.
@Ibis3 (#17): Yeah, long before I really considered myself an atheist, before I knew there was organized atheism, I stumbled upon a community of pagans on AOL (yeah, it was that long ago) and it was a great place to hang out. The community was incredibly welcoming and supportive of all kinds of people. The only problem was that Christian trolls felt the need to pop in and try to save all our souls, so it’s also where I learned the habit of excoriating Christian apologists. All in all, I expect part of the reason I keep coming back here is that it reminds me of that community. Overall I think pagans have much better diversity and inclusiveness than atheists, or just about any other group identifier you could come up with. But back then I didn’t find their actual beliefs all that silly, though when I realized some of them actually thought they could really do magic I started feeling less comfortable. Now, I could probably hang with such people again, but if paganism was the organizing principle, I’m afraid I couldn’t bear the silliness. So I’ll just pick and choose and hang out with people who aren’t sexist, homophobic, transphobic assholes, regardless of their group identifiers.
BTW, Chrome apparently thinks transphobic is misspelled. Am I spelling it wrong, or does Google not believe in it?
@PZ, 46
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLyxmD_UAK4
I thought he was one of those oddly-accented Canadians? Oddly accented for a Canadian I mean, like those people in that part of America who sound apparently like ye olde englishe britse, not that Canadians have odd accents.
Mind you, Nick Griffin, Pat Condell, Piers Morgan… we’re lousy with terrible people over here.
Aww, boo, I thought youtube links automatically embedded here. It’s just the Skywalker family reunion; “that’s impossible!”
Athywren@35
Since I’m not a professional scientist but still like to consider myself one I use the term in the first sense that you mention i.e. I try to constantly examine my biases skeptically.
I believe that there are seven billion and one universes. There’s one real one and one that gets created in the imagination of each of the seven billion people in the world. As a scientist I try to keep reforming my version to fit as closely as possible to the real one.
Athywren:
Also keep in mind that the US has about 5 times the population of the UK, so I’d have to name about 20 complete assholes just to make it even.
The sad thing is that I’m sure I could easily do that.
The proper response to the dictionary atheists is “you’re not wrong, you’re just an asshole.”
Screwdog @49: I get yah now.
Is it really so ridiculous to identify and attack the main instigators of anti-feminist memes that filter their way through the internet? It is mostly coming from major youtube atheists, like thunderf00t. People who have enormous audiences that they effectively wield as weapons to harass. They know what they’re doing. This doesn’t happen by accident.
Probably a stupid idea but I’m planning to start a blog or youtube channel just to tear that asshole a new one for his latest video. I’m under no illusions that i’ll be especially competent or that’ll it’ll be in any way effective. I’m not much of a writer and have no audience.
PZM@46,
Only too true, although I think British arseholes are less likely to justify their arseholiness in explicitly Randian or libertarian terms: they are generally atheoretical arseholes. There are a few self-described libertarians of the American stripe, and I once knew a Randian*, but they don’t have the kind of prominence they do over there.
*The game designer, Steve Jackson, not to be confused with the game designer, Steve Jackson. It was a long time ago, so he may have grown out of it.
No gods, no god-given morals. No gods, no hardwired “purpose” for men and women to justify sexism. It’s simple like that.
Ding ding we have a winner
New Atheists arguing for dictionary atheism are shooting themselves in the foot.
@ 51 Jeremy
Anyone with a scrag of self-introspection would do what you did, and look for other solutions to problems and questions that used to have religion-based answers.
As one of “dictionary atheists”, I simply content that that doesn’t make atheism in itself a coherent philosophy. Look at ethics alone, and you’ll find at least a dozen fundamentally different theories, none of which rely on supernatural powers. Same with many other fundamental principles. The problem with the “atheist movement”, as I see it, is that it creates a package deal… if you assume one position, you’re assumed to have all the others.
To take an alternative example, if you told someone, “I’m against control,” and they then went on to ask “So why are you anti-abortion?” What do those things have to do with each other? Not a thing, except that they’re part of a pre-conceived PACKAGE of ideas, that may not have any bearing in reality.
kevinalexander @35:
That doesn’t leave room for the various atheists who don’t fit into either category, like myself.
I never even knew there were two Steve Jacksons! I thought it odd the creator of Games Workshop lived in Texas.
Who the hell is Noel Plum, and who does he think is “really” to blame for misogyny?
Slight derail:
kevinalexander @ 55
You wouldn’t happen to have any testable, reproducible evidence to back up that great steaming pile of newage, would you? If not, shut the fuck up and go peddle your solipist bullshit elsewhere.
Jeremy Shaffer @51:
QFT!
Akira @65:
Noel Plum is an annoyingly pompous twit who used to comment here til he got the banhammer. I was so happy to see him go. IIRC he was one of those “I have these women in my life so I can’t be sexist” type persons.
@optiuum (#59): “It is mostly coming from major youtube atheists, like thunderf00t.”
I basically don’t watch atheist videos on YouTube anymore unless I know where the creator is coming from in advance. It seems far too often that Atheist + YouTube = misogyny. I know that’s too much of a generalization, but I don’t think I’m missing much by following it.
@kevinalexander, 55
Fair enough… I still disagree, because I’m fairly sure it’s possible to be an atheist for bad reasons without being infantile solipsists, but at least you’re not calling everyone without a science degree a solipsist.
@consciousness razor, 56
Just make sure that you’re specific when you mention Alex Jones in your list. We have one over here too, and, while I’m not exactly sure where she stands on lizard people, she’s no Alex Jones. Except for the name thing.
@Akira MacKenzie, 65
I don’t think kevinalexander was actually saying those 7 billion universes exist outside of people’s imaginations. Pretty sure it was just a metaphor for people’s various ‘maps’ of the universe. I’ve been wrong before on topics like this, but that’s my suspicion.
I’m struggling with something here.
My growing sense is that people develop a moral/ethical framework irrespective of their religious/theistic beliefs. You see theists who are kind, moral, sensible people — the greater majority of them are. You see the shrill, angry hypocrites over there, too–they’re the loud ones (looking at you, Ken Ham).
You see sexists in theistic communities and in atheistic communities. Racists, check. Homophobes, check. If you took the entire adult population and stratified them by Dawkin’s 1 to 7 belief scale, my sense is that you’d see a little over-representation of racism/sexism/homophobia at the far left end (in other words, at “1–There definitely is a god”). But after that, those negative moral/ethical markers would be represented about proportionally everywhere else along the scale. Including at the 6.999…. end (or beyond, where my atheistic beliefs lie).
In other words, we’re nothing special. Atheism neither attracts nor repels people with undesirable moral/ethical frames of reference. It’s simply a non-sequitur. But the thing is, it’s a non-sequitur everywhere else along the scale (except the far other end).
Religion has been described by me as the process by which you get god to agree with your every opinion. I don’t think people look to religion for guidance as much as they do for validation of their already-set beliefs. And even though the preachers are very glad to take your tithes and tell you what to do; you wouldn’t belong to a church that conflicts with your core values (possibly with Catholics excepted–I know plenty of Catholics who disagree with the church’s positions on birth control and etc.). The preachers are quite literally “preaching to the choir” — they’re merely echoing the congregation’s already set moral code. When they stray from that set code, that’s when schisms develop…witness the conservative bishops being upset with Pope Francis about his recent pronouncements about gay unions.
So, when “dictionary atheists” say that atheism doesn’t require any particular ethical/moral framework, what they’re really saying is “my ethical/moral framework is independent of my a/theistic beliefs”. And, in a sense, I think that’s true. Though it’s my sense that “dictionary atheists” can indeed be seen as synonymous with “sexist/racist/homophobic/etc atheists”. Their moral framework is not defined by their atheism — they’re placing those negative values into their disbelief, not the other way around.
The issue then becomes an “is/ought” problem. If you’re an atheist, and your moral/ethical framework “is” contains all those negative moral/ethical markers (sexism probably the most prominent), what can be done to move you to the more-beneficial “ought” markers? Certainly not by arguing over the definition of atheism.
And for what it’s worth, I do think people can change for the better (I certainly have), so I think it’s worth the effort to engage the dictionary atheists. And to call out their casual “isms”. And to hold the “leaders'” feet to the fire when they say something that indicates they have an untenable moral/ethical framework.
Tl:dr– it’s not the atheism, it’s the morals/ethics.
Akira @ 65
As Tony! said, he used to comment here til he was banned and now he’s a regular at HetPat. Go fig.
@4 paralipsis
I’m sure she’s not; I tend to think of these people as “solipsistic atheists”. It puzzles me to no end how they seem to think they should be treated with respect, dignity, fairness, etc. while refusing to behave the same way toward others; after all, the theists at least can reason “God told me I’m the best” and (with that flawed premise) justify their special pleading. What grounding do solipsistic atheists have?
@-1, some twitterhead:
Significant correlation justifies probabilistic implications. Cope.
@10, brett
You might want to look into the social psychology literature on “Social Dominance Orientation”, starting (but not stopping) with the sections in Altemeyer’s free PDF book. (Google should cough that up easily enough.) While Altemeyer’s RWA metric shows positively correlation to religiosity, the SDO measure developed by Sidanius is effectively uncorrelated. SDO is also correlated to gender (although nowhere near as strongly as RWA is to religiosity). If the higher-SDO irreligious are more likely than lower-SDO irreligious to join an atheist/skeptic type group, this would explain some of the anomalous results on prejudice from Alemeyer’s “Atheists” study, the tendency of such groups to lean male, and why there seem to be so many jackasses.
I doubt the current research will be directly useful to reducing their frequency, but I suspect it might indirectly illuminate how to do so.
I was misremembering Noel Plum until Tony! reminded me of that person. For some reason I thought they were a charming #GamerGater who crowed about forcing women off the internet. Turns out they’re a totally different asshole, though to my recall Noel Plum was also a blustery Misogynist.
You can’t just say “there are theories” in ethics that justify sexism and expect us to take your word for it.
Radium Coyote at 62-
Yes, and we’re dealing with people without a scrag of self-introspection and using their dictionary atheism as an inoculation against having to do so.
And people on this side of the Deep Rifts agree with that. There was that whole Atheism + thing a while back.
That was sort of the point of the atheist movement, a package of ideals that could easily be summed up. Granted, they were pretty simple, geared toward the promotion of secularism and countering and debunking the preconceived notions about atheism and atheists that had permeated the culture. It’s debatable about how much success that has achieved but that was only a first step, even if it was originally meant to be the end goal. Eventually the energy involved was going to have to go else where and since it was already tooled up to counter cultural biases, particularly those of a theistic or religious bent, what is often derided as “Social Justice” was a natural next step.
The problem with the atheist movement wasn’t any sort of package deal. The problem was that there were and are personalities involved who asked questions (like why aren’t there more women involved, for example) and didn’t like the answer they got back from the people it was asked of.
One could be assumed from the other, in this case, because being anti-abortion means you want to remove one measure of choice from another. Hence you are attempting to control, through the imposition of limitations, the actions another person could take, which runs counter to “I am against control”. Does that mean it’s necessarily a contradiction? No. There could be justifiable, logical, and rational reasons a person who is against control might be anti-abortion. For starters, someone saying they are “against control” is vague as all get-out, rendering it utterly useless to assume anything about what the person means.
The same ambiguity is true of dictionary atheism. That is why there needed to be an atheist movement in the first place. As the dictionary atheists love pointing out, all atheism means is the person lacks a belief in the existence of god(s). Ultimately, as much as it may be true, it is useless. It only informs what one does not believe. It is up to them to figure out what they do believe and why.
FFS, it’s not the definition that is under debate, it’s the implications. “Redefining atheism!11” is a red herring and a strawman by dictionary atheists who only want the implications they’re comfortable with (like: religious people should stop telling me what to do) and not the ones that might lead them to reexamine their beliefs.
@44:
That’s probably a major contributor to the vitriol.
They’re defending “time honored memes”. They’re also a$$holes.
As I recall from his posting here, he’s one of those ‘Now, let me explain (at great length) why none of this is actually sexism’ types.
So I’d guess he doesn’t think anyone is actually to blame for the misogyny heaped towards Anita, but would instead have an immensely long and boring explanation for why actually its just trolls, not sexism, and so no one should actually pay attention to it.
Also, he’s another fellow Brit who’s clueless on this whole issue. *sadface*
I think that one of the problems with some of the general discussion that I am seeing here is that society still does not have really good language for discussing morals and ethics outside of religion. At the very least it does not have much in terms of easily accessible and intuitive language that anyone can get into.
I’ve mentioned from time to time that I basically see Religion as human social behavior. On many levels we are religious as atheists because we are running the same social hardware and software, but we have not separated the symbols from the substance that is common to all religions.
To me the religious narratives that some atheists tend to focus on are actually details. The relation that they have to what Religion is can be compared to the variables in an algebra equation. It’s the form of the equation and the behavior of the graph that matters, the equation is the form of human social behavior in different examples. The specific variables are just manifestations of specific religions, and you can stick other social structures like large professional sports organizations, governments in there to an extent (mascots are not real but they add to the social experience).
There are common denominators to religious, and other human social behavior that will tell us how morality and ethics works in a general sense. If you compare enough of them and look at the right brain science the forms of the social “equations” will start to take shape.
The narrative is how you get everyone on the same page. A religious narrative is like a fandom in a lot of ways. There is a story that everyone gets personally connected to and that sparks the formation of a community. I think the explosion of art, stories, and other ways to make things more personal (or put ones person into the story somehow) are important too. A common narrative is really important and while things like Cosmos are useful, it gets better the more personal it gets and the more of life it covers.
The holy books are sort of analogous to “choose your own adventure” books. Except here they are “choose your own emotions/feelings” and operate to manipulate the group on an individual basis, or in large groups at once depending on the delivery. Because so many have spent so long investing emotion into those words they act like little tools to manipulate oneself and one another. They are also fuzzy in the interpretation but this is a feature because that makes them more useful in emotional manipulation.
Some other significant variables include: the role of authority, relationships between different authority levels, moving around emotion functionally to make the group efficient (positive/negative emotion, exaggerating/minimizing emotion intensity for effectiveness…), sacrificing individuals for the sake of the group (consenting and unconsenting)…
I’m sure there is a whole lot more.
Athywren@69
You are right. I was oversimplifying.
Akira@65
I see by the word ‘newage’ that you didn’t understand what I said. New Age people actually believe that what they are saying is true ,that unicorns and such actually exist. Science was invented because we can’t trust the confabulations that are our lot owing to the way our brains work.
@70, Kevin Kehres
Ish. Contrary to your conjecture, some “undesirable” moral traits seem correlated to RWA mindset, which in the west is correlated to religiosity. (This may not hold universally; in the USSR, high-RWA was correlated to communist party support, and thus likely to atheism. Contrariwise, this anomaly can be resolved in so far as such Communism meets other criteria of a religion.) However, other such moral traits are correlated to SDO, which in turn is uncorrelated to religion — much as you conjecture.
So, perhaps you’d consider the rephrasing: there are some undesirable moral/ethical traits for which people who carry them are neither attracted to nor repelled from Atheism.
@70, Kevin Kehres
I’m inclined to agree. However, that appears a hard problem.
Furthermore, it appears one which can provoke the Commentariat’s least rational fury. Beware; here be dragons.
@80, Brony
You might find it interesting to compare the six types of atheist identified by Christopher Silver to the Six Ways of Being Religious framework of Dale Cannon. My impression is that four of the types map one-to-one, one of Silver’s types combines the other two of Cannon’s, and the last of Silver’s types (Apatheist) is unrepresented in Cannon’s framework. This near-conformal mapping would seem to support your conjecture.
@Alex #47
Heinous Dealings covered this angle a few days ago.
Top Five Arguments the Atheist Agenda Doesn’t Have the Right to Use
If you’re a dictionary atheist, even advocating for atheism itself is just trolling, something you must be doing just for the lulz.
I’ve noticed this too. For years, I worked with conservative christian young men, and they always treated me with respect and as an equal, even though I was the only woman on the “team.” In that work place, I never heard misogynistic slurs or jokes, and I became very close friends with my peers. Now, I work with a group of liberal, atheist, gamer men (they are not involved with the atheist movement at all, but they all consider themselves atheist). I hear misogynistic slurs every single day. Every female client who comes into contact with our office is judged on her appearance as soon as she leaves. When I call them on it, it turns into a joke because of course they aren’t racist, sexist, or homophobic. Not in their own eyes, anyway. All of that stuff is for rednecks and old people as far as my coworkers are concerned (except when they seem to be arguing that these prejudices don’t even exist at a significant level anymore).
It’s not even just that they are gamers. One of my conservative friends from my former workplace is just as much a gamer as my atheist coworkers, but when he started writing a story and doing artwork for a video game, he sent me loads of emails and facebook messages asking my opinion (and his other female friends) of his female characters because he wanted to get it right. I’m not saying he is a typical case for a conservative christian, but people’s prejudices involve a lot more social conditioning than just religion. Or even politics.
Brony:
You can mostly use everyday words as they are commonly understood. We have language; people just don’t learn how to think about it. (And so many writers learn their craft well enough, but believe that’s sufficient to make them adequate thinkers, which is a problem all on its own.) Morality is after all something that every person deals with every day in completely mundane situations, not just some rare or mysterious thing that few ever need to contend with — so we’ve developed plenty of ways of communicating about it. And until you come across these bizarre (and not genuinely ethical) ideas about a god judging you while you masturbate or whatever, it always involves two or more actually existing moral agents, meaning they always have the potential to communicate with one another about it. They have a shared world and shared experiences that this moral issue is about, whatever it may be, so it’s not as if they need to just babble at each other nonsensically.
In any case, part of the problem is that it’s not really good inside of religion. I figure you probably meant that people tend to use religious language or thinking because it’s a dominant part of their culture which can be hard to let go of, but the way you phrased it could suggest something else.
The rest of your comment I didn’t really understand.
Bingo! I recall he was also one of those “You have used bad words so clearly I am morally superior and more rational than thou” types. If anything, being oh so politely misogynist is slightly more creepy [Quid pro quo, Clarisse.] than the obvious dudebro sexism. I think he finally got banned for the sheer tedium and obsessiveness of his issues with feminism. IIRC it was in a thread whose OP was some dude who was harassing Rebecca Watson via twitter. Then he (or a friend of his) actually showed up and tried to defend their behavior with “I didn’t call her a b**1h, I only called her a feminazi. I’m NOT sexist!!” Oh how we laughed and laughed while merrily turning the horde shredding up to 11.
From a guy who identifies himself as “FreeCommunist” online:
At this point, I don’t think there is anything, no matter how reasonable, Sarkeesian could do that would not attract hate. It’s depressing.
Tethys @ 88:
Noel Plum / Jim was banned in this thread. He was irritated that there was a ban on gendered slurs here, so he couldn’t express himself properly in regard to Natalie Reed.
Religion is not the problem. Merely a symptom of the problem.
The problem is authoritarian thinking and entitlement.
Atheists infected by these are no better, and often worse (since religions often contain elements that moderate the above if ever so slightly) than religionists infected by the same.
@ abb3w 84
Thanks! I’ll take a look and think about it. With a surface skim I can see some of those have analogs among the religious and in other groups. Anti-theists are on offense for example.
@ consciousness razor 87
Sorry, that comment was not as well formed as I thought. Let me add some context. My previous comment was sort of part defining the situation, and part strategy.
It seems to me that this part of the atheist community has two problems. The religious who we are sort of “traditionally” conflicting with, and other atheists that are very resistant to equal exposure and power with other genders, racial minorities, and frankly lots of other things that conservative christians have problems with outside of the religion itself. That problem has a common denominator and framing everything by that is the most effective way to proceed. I think that common denominator is in social psychology and other aspects of brain science, but there are probably many sources that can inform this.
The core problem for atheism as a whole has to do with the fact that the atheist community seems to be at a crossroads and has to make a choice. If we want to gain ground we need to switch from the “social rebel” position that was needed to get a social foothold, and switch to something that emphasizes what is common between the religious and us. So I agree with you one fifith, because there are more than two moral agents here and I think our language needs to reflect that strategically.
The first agent is religious fundamentalists and conservatives that are obsessed with rules, but their rules are wrong because they don’t reflect reality and so we have broken societies.
The atheists we are dealing with seem to fall into two camps. The first camp (agent two) are essentially “conservative atheists” (Dawkins et al) and they are holding on to old social rules that result in broken societies. They can be partially lumped in with the religious fundamentalists, but the fact that the narratives are different needs to be taken into account for strategy. They are verbally abusive but I don’t think they really want to see anyone hurt.
The second atheist camp (agent three) are a different matter, they like abuse, don’t care about abuse, or don’t see what they do as abuse. We see them as “attackers” functionally. Some of them are going to be warrior-atheist-conservatives that want to prevent us from gaining ground socially. But some of the others are the reverse of religious conservatives. They essentially want the benefits of society, but don’t want to follow the rules or face the consequences for rule-breaking. They are willing to break the social contract in many ways to win socially.
Then there are religious liberals (agent four). We agree with them on social issue to a large extent, but don’t share the narrative. They could be allies with respect to the others in many ways.
The last group (agent five) is us.
So we do in fact need new language, or new language strategies anyway. Because there are at least five important groups with different perspectives that need to be effectively dealt with.
When I first heard of the American Steve Jackson, in connection with the bizarre 1993 court case described in the wikipedia article, I assumed the Steve Jackson I’d known in late 1970s Brighton had gone to follow his Randian beliefs in a more congenial environment!
Atheists cannot speak against:
– Non religiously motivated homophobia
– Racism
– Any economic theory
– Irrational behaviors and ideas
– Astrology
– Homeopathy
– Antivaxxers
Ehm…
I’ve got a couple of Fighting Fantasy books that I got before I knew the difference, and was both confused and disappointed that they apparently used a totally different game system than all the other Steve Jackson stuff I had.
Iyeska
I bow to your superior search skills. :) The poor, poor lad is so oppressed by bad words. It’s abuser logic at its finest. He reserves the right to use sexist slurs, but objects to being called out on my use of sexist slurs, and the droning years long hate grudge he will direct at anyone for objecting to sexism is completely their own fault for not allowing him to use sexist slurs. I am both creeped out and having schadenfreude that the pusillanimous, tone troll Mr. Plum is still miffed that he was banned nearly 2 years ago.
Dammit, missed a error in preview. That should read “objects to being called out on HIS use of gendered slurs” in # 96, not MY use of gendered slurs. I prefer my environment to be completely free of gendered slurs and gendered bias.
There was one other thing I was trying to convey.
There are “best practices” when we it comes to human social behavior. The quotes are there to indicate that we don’t really want all of them because not everything that is effective will be desirable. For example victim blaming is probably a pretty effective way to make a group stronger, but fuck that idea. I put victim blaming in the same category as murder. It works, but it’s not what I consider part of any decent society.
Having a knee-jerk dislike for Religion is counter productive because there is probably a lot there that we can learn in terms of best practices. Such repulsion to Religion can probably also bleed over into how one thinks about religious people, but not everyone will be equally susceptible to that. I honestly see Religion as something we can slice up and take what we want from as we treat the religious as friends and allies as much as possible.
For example the religious are great at strengthening emotional resolve and determination in group settings. That is a neutral thing. Some have fear of it, but if people are aware of what is going on I don’t see how it’s a problem. So I will be checking out Sunday Assembly at some point because group fellowship is something humans do.
There is a lot more that we can take from Religion. The concept of holy books is probably the most dangerous, but who here has not memorized things like logical fallacies and other powerful text? The narrative is the one I care about the most. I’m not sure how to make something as powerfully engaging as possible to the largest group of people, but I’m sure that one has rules too. If we figure out how they work we can probably do some amazing stuff.
@PZ #47
“They forget, but they’ve got them too, in force.”
Beg to differ, I was not talking about assholes in general, but specifically about Libertarians, Ayn Rand people. Neither Pat Condell nor thunderf00t are such, Libertarianism is an overly US phenomenon, with a little dissemination in the UK and down under. Most of the hate mails you mention are by people who live in countries dominated by white, male, cis standards, and perceive their privileges are endangered.
Quite contrary to the general perception, most atheists and “nones” live quite peacefully in Europe and Asia, not in the US. Globally, atheism is of many colors, not reducible to elderly male whites. But of course the Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese have better things to do than interfere in US gender wars…
Ugh, then why the fuck is there even a movement? We don’t believe in community, just that there is not god. We don’t believe in ant political stance, just that there is not god. We don’t believe in rationalism, or empiricism, or the scientific method, just that there is not god. The only thing we collectively have to talk about is that there is no god. So why the fuck do we even bother?
I’m not going to be ashamed by a bunch of vocal atheists online being misogynists any more than I would be ashamed if I found that a bunch of the most vocal ice cream lovers were murderers. To me it sounds the same as people shaming vegetarians (and atheists, ironically) by pointing out Hitler was a vegetarian. Yeah, that may be so, but those things probably don’t have any kind of causal relationship, so I won’t let people’s attempts to poison the well stop me from being what I am without shame when it’s nothing about which to feel shame.
I mean, it really shouldn’t be a surprise. Or, maybe it’s just not for me. I was an atheist before I knew what the word was, because I realized sometime in elementary school that there was no reason to believe in a god because all the people who claimed there was one just had no evidence to convince me. Honestly, though, that didn’t make me a better person. It didn’t even change my moral code. Why should it have? I didn’t connect the morals I was taught as I grew up with the religious underpinnings. Of course, it made it easier to let go of the bad ones once I encountered evidence that they were bad, but even then it was hard because one’s moral opinions are often wrapped up in one’s ego (conflating “you did bad things” with “you’re a bad person”). Still, it took a couple decades to get to the point I am now from that initial “I don’t buy this ‘god’ thing.” That’s why I don’t expect atheists to be any better than anyone else, because an atheist may only have found themselves unconvinced about “this ‘god’ thing” and have yet to go further, if they ever do.
What can we do about it? Well, it’s not as if we can redefine “atheist” to exclude misogynists, as much as we might like to. We’re not a Catholic Church of Atheism thay can excommunicate those who don’t fall in line. Ragequitting the atheist movement, as it were, certainly won’t help. We’d still be atheists even if we think of another word for it, and then the only people advocating for atheists and atheism would be misogynists. Really, more involvement would probably be better; we started out pretty fragmented and disjointed, so in order to instill values in other atheists we would have to become more cohesive, to the point in which we could more actively recruit new atheists and give them a template, so to speak, of what rational and civil morality is like and we would have to be pervasive enough to apply real social pressure to those who are immoral, which can be done easily in smaller, close-knit communities, but require more effort for larger movements. We could also just accept that atheism is simply “not theism,” and, like theists we will have many separate and often opposing sets of dogmas. You can’t criticise Christianity for the caste system, for instance, just by saying “well, it’s all theism,” so if there were a feminist, antiracist, antihomophobic, antitransphobic, etc, atheist philosophy, adherents could hardly feel shame that the Atheist Mysogist Temple adherents are being assholes on the internet, again.
Why can’t we shove them to the side, and present a more progressive face to the public. Never say they don’t exist, just say they are immature fuckwits who shouldn’t be heard?
That would be nice if we could do that. It’s a challenge when so many people that are popularly associated with atheism *cough* Dawkins *cough* Harris *cough* make public remarks that are either straight up bigoted, or at least completely ignorant of the entitled position they are made from.
Shove them to the side too. If their speaker monies dry up, maybe they will actually shut the fuck up and listen…
Now we know how Christians and Muslims feel when they are called ignorant or hateful based on they worst of them.
@bigwhale: “Now” we know? Lots of atheists have encountered, and continue to encounter, anti-atheist prejudice regularly. Even before Dawkins was on the scene, although from my personal experience he’s definitely made things worse. (People who complain about atheists to me end up directly referencing The Dawk as evidence that atheists are terrible… to which I just have to grind my teeth and say “yes, we KNOW, believe me a lot of us just want him to shut up.”)
Michael Brew @ l0l
So, the representation of atheists to those who would otherwise be sympathetic to our issues, by virtue of the overwhelmingly negative experience at the hands of those who identify as atheists, causing those potential allies to call out behavior which happens at a greater frequency at the hands of those in this group, doesn’t cause you shame?
I also quoted the ice cream part because seriously false equivalence. How it fails is there is no ice cream lover activist group attempting to remove the privilege of the non-ice cream lovers within society whose image is important, even if it’s not entirely fair to characterize every ice cream lover activist as a murderer, a prevalence of those types does that group no favors.
PZ @47
Another reason to be ashamed of my countrymen (and I’m betting it is men, in this case).
May their ears turn into arseholes and shit all over their shoulders.
@107
No, because the point of the analogy was that in both atheism and ice cream, the bad behavior has nothing to do with the shared position. Christians can go ahead and feel shame at misogynist Christians even if they aren’t because the Bible explicitly teaches misogyny, thus revealing that there is something about their beliefs about which they should feel shame. What about atheism are these idiots revealing that should cause me shame for being atheist? Nothing, because not believing in gods in no way constitutes an endorsement of misogyny, racism, classism, etc. I have other labels that can be applied on top of atheist to cover those positions without contradicting the atheist label. So, no, I won’t feel ashamed at being an atheist because some other, unrelated atheists are being hateful; I’ll be angry at the misogynists who do that stuff and disappointed that they contribute to the mistaken view that atheism and bigotry are somehow uniquely intertwined.
I just realized: this isn’t an appeal to the dictionary. It’s far more stupid. It denies that atheists tend to be secularists, in favour of gay marriage, and all kinds of other political beliefs that tend to be shared by atheists, if not by all of them.
Yet, you won’t acknowledge that atheists leaving the impression that we’re behaving this way in a more apparently overwhelming way, moreso than those philosophically predisposed to patriarchal beliefs. But yeah, just as long as you feel something that motivates you to do something, I really don’t care to pick the nit of the primary factor for your reasoning to anger.
I’m ashamed for the fact that atheists aren’t as a whole better, that I have chances to speak up but didn’t take them in the past because I’m afraid, that I let these assholes rule the conversation. I mean, there’s plenty to be ashamed of without it being directly related to the behavior of those people who are still part of our community. I can be ashamed without being personally responsible for their behavior, as well, and it has nothing to do with whether they do so in spite of or inspired by atheism.
And yet, there’s plenty of Christians who are not misogynists. What excuse do atheists have?
.
I’ll echo Jacob Schmidt; if the only thing that matters to atheism is the lack of god, then a movement is not necessary, political action is not necessary, and all the three remaining Horsemen should just pick up their ball and slink back into obscurity.
@101/Michael Brew
Honestly, if atheism’s message ultimately comes down to, “We’re as shitty as every other group on the planet!” then I don’t see why I should care if atheism is advocated for or not. Sure, I like separation of church and state (etc), but it’s hardly as if one needs atheism to advocate for that. I want to be involved in a group that at least has bettering the human conditional as a goal because ultimately that’s what I care about.
For years I was informed that the whole reason that “God doesn’t exist” was important to atheists was because the belief that God did exist lead people to engage in harmful behavior, and that removing the belief in God could lessen this harm. For example, I was told that religion lead people to oppress women, and that women would have it better off if we removed religion. Only now I’m being told that atheism doesn’t care about women and that I was silly to ever think that atheists would care about women. If it turns out that only the second is true (and it’s looking more and more like it is), then I seriously misunderstood the atheist movement and should never have gotten involved in it in the first place.
Delete Test
’m not sure how significant it is. I agree with the majority of posts on this thread saying that atheism has a huge problem. If it didn’t, then these people wouldn’t be able to even watch his videos without wanting to wretch, much less feeling the need to spread them about on social media.” The quote is speaking of Thunderf00t. A lot of “Freethoughtblog” stuff going here. Ms. Sarkeesian’s USU cancellation has some controversy to it, as there is strong current that her threats are not real. As is any academic, nor scientific basis for her videos. She is a grifter, she got 160K for videos that those who support her I am sure feel are fine.
Maybe it is time she stepped away from the self-promoting hype she created, spend real time researching her arguments. Qualitative is not Quantitative evidence. The difference is a serious person versus a “non-serious” person. If there are irregularities in Thunderf00ts work, critique it and post your work. Ms. Sarkeesian’s reputation is non-existent and her 15 is almost over. “Gamergate” will force a serious review of corp support that is already underway. She would be best served by her minions to get her to complete her 160K worth of videos and step back away from the keyboard. As well as stop hustling media attention, it is classless and proves she is a fool.
zx74125800
You know, just because you and TF and a bazillion other conspiracy theory fuckwits keep repeating that it still does not count as evidence.
I’m sure you can give us some well researched evidence that indeed this threat is fake. And by fake I mean invented by herself.
It never ceases to amaze me how many people there are who are totally willing to say things in the form of “There is no evidence for XYZ even though there is, however blah blah blah bald completely unevidenced assertions because I say so. What? The evidence is all over the place, it’s completely ubiquitous but actually finding it and presenting it would be far too much work. QED. Also: thinly veiled threats but we’re totes not misogynists.”
Gamergate will never do a damn thing except try to harass women off the internet because that is why it exists. It’s targeted Sarkeesian, Quinn, Alexander and people who have come out in support of them. Meanwhile Ubisoft refuses to even give review copies of Shadow of Mordor to gaming publications unless they promise positive reviews and submit them to Ubisoft for approval before publishing and nary a word is even said about that by ‘Gaters. Because the reality is they’re totally fine with that because Ubisoft makes manly man games and, when pressed about why there are no women in their games, makes asinine excuses about how they don’t know how to work their 3D modelling suites well enough to make female characters.
Every time I hear this, I mentally rephrase it as “we would love it if the threat were real”.
Because I have absolutely no doubt that the morally-challenged shitspigots* who advance this view wouldn’t blink an eye if the threat turned out to be 100% real. In fact, I have absolutely no doubt that they’d immediately blame Sarkeesian (or any other public figure occupying a similar space) for her own murder. Ever so carefully framed as “Well, sure, that’s awful, but it wouldn’t have happened if ….”.
Also, what Gilliel and Seven of Mine said re: both hyperskepticism and the double standard regarding same.
* Thanks Tony! for the go-to moniker.
Quick add to say: The above quote is taken at zxFuckface @117
zxFuckface can also fuck right off, particularly with the “back off from the keyboard OR ELSE” rhetoric. These half-assed insinuations of threat are beyond cowardly.
throwaway @112
But I did acknowledge it. That they make atheists look bad by acting that way just pisses me off; it does not shame me. And @113, the reason it doesn’t shame me is that I have enough to feel ashamed about that I am personally responsible for. It does no one good to take on the shame of other people’s actions who I have nothing to do with but share a category which itself does nothing to contribute to the poor behavior. Being pissed at their behavior motivates me to act while being ashamed will just make me depressed and demotivated.
vaiyt & Eristae @114&115
Well, no, atheism doesn’t really have a message other than “I don’t buy the ‘god’ thing.” Theism has no more message than “there is a thing called a ‘god.'” It takes additional propositions on top of that to get to things like “personal creator god who made men better than women and hates gay people and blended fabrics.” Being an atheist isn’t enough to make you a better person, aside from having a more accurate view of one particular aspect of the world which is certainly important. If we want atheists to be more moral, we need to go out there and make it happen by pushing an additional ethical philosophy that is compatible with atheism. Bot every atheist is likely to agree and maybe we’ll get as many atheist philosophies as there are theist religions, but that seems to be the way humans are right now. Hopefully, with time, the best philosophy for everyone will emerge as dominant, but people are going to have to work for it a heck of a lot harder than just convincing people there is no god. That’s only the first step.
Been done. He is an intellectual farce. Nothing but bombast and hot air. Proven time and time again.
Thanks for acknowledging your misogyny, and showing you post is worthless drivel to be dismissed as such. Your own evidence is lacking, nothing but opinion and attitude, just like TF.
I nad to see it by mylself. So I read the article and the comments.
Confirmed. This site in now irrelevant and will fall in oblivion into the nexts months. Enjoy debating between yourselfs on the “dictionnary atheist” sinners.
So long.
Bye-bye. You obviously had nothing cogent to say.
All right who forgot to close the door? There seems to be a draft of assholes leaking in.
zx@117
“Irregularities” is a very nice way of putting it. His videos contain no logic or coherence. If you can’t see the flaws in his videos, then that’s on you. Plus he is so emotional, if he’d just calm down maybe he would get his point across more clearly.*
treblig@124
Ah yes, the you are all so irrelevant you are all fading away and are losing support, yadda yadda. If this is true why are you here? Let us fade away. You anti-SJWs have been saying this for years and we aren’t going anywhere. We will continue to call out sexist, racist fucknuggets. If you don’t like it, try not being a sexist racist fucknugget.
*Note: Ironic comment. I love how women are accused of being emotional, but tfoot and witch hunt Dawkins are held up as “rational”.
@124
So this place is irrelevant and just an echo chamber of people debating amongst themselves….as opposed to dictionary atheists who are a churning cauldron of intellectual innovation and advancement . Ah no, wait, they are the people who have spent yeaaaaaaaaars just congratulating each other on how much they don’t believe in obviously preposterous bullshit, and doing fuck all else. Yeah, so much relevancy and such diverse commentary….
Enjoy “debating” with your fellow atheists on your dictionary atheist stance. I expect it’s something like:
-Hey i don’t believe in gods.
-Me neither!
-High five, man!
-Hey guys, i don’t believe in gods either.
-Seriously? High fiiiiive!
Repeat ad nauseum….
zx74125800 & treblig are just trolling assholes passing through, probably having picked up on the ongoing temper tantrum on the sexist side of the atheist or gaming communities. Ignore ’em.
I think that the collapse of this blog has been prophesied by misogynist nobodies as often as the end of the world has been prophesied by doomsday preachers. And as accurately.
@zx74125800
We know where that “strong current” comes from. It comes from the same fools who swallow the bullshit Milo Yiannopoulos (a corrupt journalist if there ever was one) pulls out of his ass.
She asked money for her videos. She’s making videos, despite all the whinging from people who didn’t pay her. Meanwhile, professional Anita-hater Davis Aurini asked for a MONTHLY donation superior to Anita’s TOTAL Kickstarter value to make an anti-TvW docummentary, and your lot is happily parting yourselves from your money to support them.
Any day now…
Sorry, bub. Corporations all over are already realizing that you’re fools. Intel apologized for caving in to your bullshit. You won’t do anything to combat corruption in video game journalism because you’re wasting your time on an imaginary enemy. Oh wait, you define “corruption” as “SJWs want to take away my vidya waaaaaaaahhhhh”. Silly me.
Are you a fucking idiot? You know who transformed Anita Sarkeesian in The Great Satan of Whiny Nerdery? YOU. Nobody elected her the boss of online feminism. It was your lot (the same who founded #GG) who went after her like a pack of screeching macaques and got every feminist on the internet to rally behind her. Good jorb.
@122/Michael Brew
Then I’m going to reiterate my point: if I accept this point, I don’t see any reason why anyone should invest their time and energy in an atheist movement. I don’t see why I should care if, as you put it, the only people advocating for the atheist movement are misogynists. I don’t see why that’s something I should invest in fighting. I don’t see why “more involvement would probably be better” for me or for anyone else.
People are wrong about a lot of things, and I don’t have the time, energy, or inclination to run around trying to correct them on everything. From your point of view, I don’t see why I should care if anyone is wrong about “the ‘god’ thing.”
Or is that what you’re arguing? That we shouldn’t have an atheist movement?
Y’know, I don’t spend as much time on comments boards as some. But I HAVE come across Americans insisting that Brits don’t think c*nt is offensive. (Presumably because the same Brits you refer to told them so.) Several Brits, including myself, then interjected that we had always found it pretty damn offensive. I think obnoxious people in Britain are probably more likely than Americans to use the c-word, but it is still recognised a sexist term (not to mention a highly offensive term) when they do. – And yes, it is definitely a sexist term. What are these guys one about?
Any swear word can sometimes be used jovially with friends. But that doesn’t mean that the word loses its offensive side. Part of why these words have the force they do is because of their usual offensiveness. If you endearingly call a friend a “mad bastard” because they do something foolish or unexpected, you may have no intention of offending them. But the reason why those words were chosen was to twist their usual offensive tone. So yeah, language is fluid and context matters a lot, but there’s a difference between saying “some people use those rude words all the time and often mean no harm by it” and saying “those words aren’t really rude”.
fatpie42 @ 132:
I don’t know what they’re on about, but I do know that we’ve had threads at Pharyngula in the past where some Brits will proclaim that ‘c*nt’ isn’t sexist.
Actually, almost every thread that complains about the use of the c-word. The misogynists are a persistent bunch.
Eristae
Works for me. Progressive movements, there’s a big need for those. Movements that support secularism, human rights, good government, education, social, economic, and environmental justice, etc. That movement(s) there’s a great need for, but I don’t really see any need for an atheist movement per se. As is being seen in Japan and much of Western Europe, if you have a secular government, a reasonably functional economy, a decent public education system and a working infrastructure, levels of religious belief tend to drop on their own.
I disagree. The problem is that we don’t have a secular government, and we have aggressive intrusions on civic life by really idiotic ideas that are sanctified by their association with religion.
We desperately need a healthy atheist movement, and instead, we’ve got this sick, clumsy atheist mob that too often sides with the idiotic ideas.
Dalillama @ 135:
Sure, but here in the good ol’ US of A:
Secular government? NO
A reasonably functional economy? NO
Decent public education system? NO
Working infrastructure? NO
Also, No safety nets, No good, reasonable healthcare. Not doing so well.
I agree. Plenty of religious Christian progressives are perfectly happy discarding the ideas of secularism when it doesn’t benefit them (“Oh, it’s a non-sectarian prayer, so it’s okay. Stop being so militant, atheists!”), so a progressive atheist movement is also needed to keep that in check. Dictionary atheists are lousy defenders of secularism, too, since it’s a strictly non-essential goal that they may not want to care about, either.
PZ, Iyeska
Quite. That’s rather my point: What the U.S. needs, really, really badly, is a functioning progressive movement, which advocates for the things I listed. I don’t really see that we have any need for an atheist movement, per se; as many people note when these discussions come up, there’s certainly progressive Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, etc. around, and while they might beleive a number of right silly things, as long as they’ll stand up for things like education and justice, I’ll put up with a fair amount of annoying bullshit.
ck
To be perfectly honest, I’m even willing to put up with that kind of crap if it gets us closer to a functioning economy, infrastructure, justice system, etc.
Eristae @131
Not necessarily. I would certainly like atheist advocacy as far as trying to reverse the opinion among many that I, as an atheist, am prone to eating babies and must be kept away of politics, schools, and children. And, certainly, I would like it if assholes advocating for atheism didn’t make it harder by giving anti-atheists fodder to say, “look, being an atheist does make you an immoral rapist” (and never mind that religion has an immoral rapist problem… they have a lot better PR). That being said, a lot of the advocacy important to atheists is carried out by secularists and science-supporters, the majority of whom are not atheists and who may not even care for atheists or atheism at all because secularism and science benefits the religious as well, which those with sense recognize. Rational skepticism is probably the most important, which can also be supported by theists, and as an added bonus the practice of skepticism tends to lead to an atheist conclusion. So there may not be a need for a specifically atheist movement. I feel it might be better, at least in the short term, to have more atheists who represent feminist, antiracist, etc. values though we’ll probably never be rid of the assholes as long as they exist in the population-at-large. Heck, that may make it more important so we can drown them out instead of vice-versa.
Nerd@123:
I feel dirty saying something that could be considered a defense of him, but the “intellectual farce” was at one time considered a solid enough contributor to free-thought that he was invited to blog here. He at one time actually had stuff to say that was actually worth listening to. Now he’s just a misogynistic fucking asshole.
Which has become so depressingly common of late…
Dalillama, Schmott Guy wrote:
I’m not. Everytime the religious left forces a retreat from secularism to dodge the charge of being atheists, the religious right uses it to carve out a religious exemption for their bigoted and anti-women agenda. Outside of Rev. Barry Lynn, I’m hard pressed to name any religious politicians or leaders who are willing to stand up to this.
There is one thing that might make this easier to deal with in the long run. We’ve seen this before.
I’ve been struck by how the arguments that I have seen resemble the arguments of creationists. Dear Muslima was a version of christians telling us that we should focus on religious abuse in other countries where it was worse. Nugent’s first defense of Harris sounded a lot like catholics with respect to pedophile priests by drawing attention to all the good atheists are doing. It’s the same sort of reasoning. It’s similar bullshit with in-group and gender aspects (some of them feel misplaced “betrayal”). It’s disgusting, but it’s not like there is no history to work off of.
I can’t help but feel that all that work against the creationists has paid off some though given the rise of the nones. Since it’s the same work different people maybe there is reason for optimism. But I would not be the one to know that very well.
Well, personally I’m not so sure he had anything to say. I get the impression his critique of creationists was hyperbole and attitude, and not serious evidence based critique. When then same methods were applied against feminism, I wasn’t surprised. He had a one schtick routine, couldn’t deviate from it, so nothing was really there that was cogent and evidence based.
::re-reading thread::
Brony @92 and 98, those are really good comments and breakdowns, thank you for posting them.
vaiyt wrote:
I do love reminding the Status Quo Reprobates that they’re responsible for making Anita Sarkeesian’s kickstarter such a success. If it weren’t for them, who even knows if the kickstarter would’ve even been successfully funded? Thanks to them losing their shit over it, it blew past every goal she had set, and she started getting invited to speak at venues that would otherwise have never known that she even exists.
So, congratulations to all the SQRs out there! You proved that the Streisand effect still works, and greatly amplified the very voice you wished to silence. If I had a fedora, I’d have to tip my hat to you folks.
@ZX Spectrum, 117
The FBI’s comment on those threats: “normal for this woman”
So…
1) This has been reported to the FBI.
2) They’ve had enough reported that they have enough data to consider it normal for her.
3) The threats aren’t real.
Maybe I’m ignorant of US law, but isn’t wasting law enforcement officers’ time an offence? If all three of those are accurate statements, why isn’t she being investigated and charged for wasting their time?
@nich, 142
Sure, when he’s talking basic biology with creationists, he’s pretty good (or at least he seemed to be… haven’t bothered checking in for a few years now, so I’m not sure how right I was before) and his pure science videos, or those aerial videos he did with RC planes were pretty cool. But the problem isn’t in his strengths, it’s in his weaknesses, and they weren’t obvious at first. He used to present well because he was dealing with his area of expertise, his hobbies, and the incredibly easy target of creationism. As long as you’ve got a decent bit of charisma and can work some technical magic with video editing, you’re going to do well in that kind of situation – it’s when you step outside of your comfort zone that problems can spring up. The problem with Mr f00t is that he’s now far outside of his comfort zone, but he’s completely unaware of and unconcerned by how clueless he is.
It’s the same with my token facebook MRA, who I recently discovered is also a Gamergater now… joy. I originally became friends with him because he did a pretty impressive job of talking to creationists – the dedicated kind who obviously want to be William Lane Craig when they grow up – even getting them to concede their arguments and agree publicly that evolution is a more likely explanation for X or Y than creationism, just by explaining what biologists actually say about the topic. Of course, they would later come back spouting the same nonsense, but he actually managed to get through to them, and that was impressive as hell to me. Then he turns around and says such simplistic and ignorant crap as ‘patriarchy means “men are to blame”‘ and my face and palm meet with a resounding thud. When I’d comment on his misconceptions, he’d respond that everyone always said that he’s right on about everything until they disagree with him, implying that he can’t possibly be wrong, and that it must just be that they’re not being as rational about whatever it is that he’s no longer right on about as he is. It’s that arrogant certainty in their own knowledge and reasoning abilities that’s the problem. They may not have all, or even any of the facts, they may not have bothered to actually listen to the arguments, but they’re still right and you’re wrong to disagree with them. That’s why thunderf00t is an intellectual farce, because he’s engaging in issues about which he is clueless, he’s not bothering to do the necessary research, and he’s assuming that he can’t be mistaken. He probably still does have stuff to say that’s worth listening to… it’s just not really worth wading through the crap in order to get to it.
No worry PZ, you didn’t do any of this, you’ve got nothing to be ashamed about.
To be frank, ‘movement’ atheists in general are assholes. I’ve yet to meet or even hear of one who isn’t. We think that believing things that aren’t literally true is a conscious choice that people are making and that it has no redeeming qualities, so our not doing that automatically makes us good people (like how whites think they’re capable of not being racist). Because good is somehow still a thing that exists and we have it while others don’t. *eyeroll*
Well-meaning secular progressives have killed tens of millions of people in the past century because we think that being factually correct counts for something and gives us moral authority. But we don’t have a shred of humility or any sense that treating other people a certain way is ever intrinsically wrong. We treat religious people like they aren’t even sentient, and we label people based on one or two opinions they type on a screen (while imagining that they are a certain race, gender, etc. and judging them on that too).
So invite whomever you want – atheism will never be a significant social force because it doesn’t consist of anything. It’s the absence of something, like the old quip about bald being a hair color. We can’t carry social weight like a religion unless we operate like a religion, and atheists shouldn’t even attempt that.
That’s why feminism (and yes I subscribe to feminism) cannot take over atheism – it’s a structured ideology that requires adherence to a set of beliefs and casts character judgments on those who question them. Atheists cannot think that way. Well, it has happened before but I don’t think we should brag about Stalinism. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and our intentions are very good without being tempered by any concept of…dare I say original sin? Or privilege. Same thing.
capricaisburning @ 150
orly?
Liar. Nobody who can say this without sarcasm knows the first thing about feminism.
Who?
No, you can’t think through what atheism means. I have no problem using atheism to be for social justice, as it is a logical outcome of getting rid of the religious trash that dominates our culture.
I pity your lack of thought.
…? Who said it could, would, or should?
Is it?! Since when? The only beliefs that I’ve seen consistently adhered to among various feminists across the internet and in the meatspace are that men and women should be treated equally – and even that is rejected by some, who believe that mere equality is STILL insufficient because then women would merely be as oppressed as men are, rather than moreso. I suppose you could cite things like the wage gap and rape culture, but since they’re supported by years of evidence, it’s hard to claim that these are required beliefs of feminism; rather, they are beliefs that feminists are not required to reject.
Not really. True, many people do get some level of judgement when they question certain aspects of feminism, but, looking at those instances, you generally find that someone is being dismissive of facts, rather than seeking understanding.
Hah!
You think I said that without sarcasm? Of course I’m being sarcastic. I was calling out the various forms of privilege that pervade atheism.
But at the same time, people are really quick to see something they disagree with, decide that it came from a cisgender able-bodied heterosexual white man, and then level privilege at the imaginary white man as an accusation against him personally when ‘he’ isn’t even male or white or what have you. It’s too racist and heterosexist to let go, and bastardizes the concept of privilege by taking it out of the class context and saying that an individual person is ‘being privileged’ in ways that don’t even apply to them demographically.
The internet itself is the cause of this (since people can’t see or hear each other), but it gets real tired when people assume they’re talking to someone with more privilege and hence can say whatever they want. It’s not the concept of privilege that’s the problem.
Evidenceless assertion, dismissed without evidence. You are doing everything you complain about. You therefore, have no point. Just inane complaints.
Atheism alone doesn’t explain why the oppressive aspects of religion are wrong. Anyone could come up with secular excuses for them and a fair number of people (Randroids, for example) do. And all of them pervade less-religious cultures too. I absolutely hate religion and would love to blame it for everything, but all it does is come up with new excuses for behavior that’s common to most cultures regardless of piety.
Commies. Dirty Reds. They’re everywhere. *peers out of window with tinfoil hat on* Not to say any of that flowed directly from Atheism, but nominal atheism didn’t stop people from deifying an idea.
Bad choice of words. Not ‘take over.’ But the atheist movement is being called sexist not just because it is (truly) full of sexists but also because there isn’t more female leadership. The Four Horsemen aren’t stopping anyone from writing books and they can’t make more prominent female atheists or scientists appear in their stead. The Four Horsemen are focused on atheism and science, professionally. Their feminist critics are right, but they only offer criticism and bring nothing to atheism itself. Nobody wants to silence the next female Dawkins, but where is she? Dawkins can’t create her, and him learning not to spew sexist BS won’t cause a similarly prominent female scientist to appear alongside him. And when she shows up, does she want the responsibility of speaking for other women?
It’s not atheism that has a woman problem but women who are facing a religion problem. Atheists are being told ‘there aren’t enough women here’ but that’s not really something atheists are equipped to address. They don’t evangelize atheism – they critique religion. It’s a form of outreach, but it’s not a recruiting tool. I’d like to see more black voices in atheism too – but the arrival of Neil DeGrasse Tyson on the scene was a result of his own upbringing. Atheists didn’t recruit him or pay for his education.
Beliefs that will get one labeled anti-feminist: The wage gap of 77% is not for the same jobs and cannot be addressed by looking at the end result of comparing the whole female workforce to the whole male workforce. It would be a miracle for men and women to be so evenly distributed that you could accurately measure a job-for-job gap. Entire female dominated professions are underpaid, and men dominate in professions that are extremely lucrative but offer no benefit to society. We don’t need more stockbrokers who happen to be women. I agree that ‘equality’ is a problematic goal when there’s no equality within any demographic.
Radical feminists have written endlessly about this – that ‘equality’ is being framed in capitalistic terms and held up as a carrot for women to chase. The discussion about it is dominated by relatively well-off women in corporate jobs. I don’t care if Sheryl Sandberg only makes a few million. Minimum wage jobs are dominated by women, but the wage gap narrative prevents that from being seen as a feminist issue. It’s a case of capitalism tricking feminism into looking at the end result of something and saying that the end result is the cause.
Patriarchy does that too – the feminist model of sexism is limited to misogyny while erasing the (lesser but horrid) harms of the male gender role on those coerced into it. Gendered oppression against men & boys is a rapist factory that women are being told not to peer into. Case in point – compare the Ray Rice’s evil and inexcusable treatment of his wife to the treatment he is paid to take on the field. It makes him think other people can take it.
The other side of it is the assertion that everything bad that happens to women is misogyny. That’s a very shallow description of bigotry based in whites’ understanding of how racism works, and it’s one of patriarchy’s defense mechanisms against feminism. Feminists have been tricked into calling all criticism or sexism towards women ‘misogyny’ because it gives them endless distractions and is such an easy accusation to deny. Harmful effects do not require harmful intent, and ascribing harmful intent to benevolent sexism gives sexists an out – all they have to say is that they don’t hate women. Most people truly do not hate the opposite sex and are still truly sexist.
capricaisburning, #159
You do? Stop doing it then.
How is the desire to improve things for people who are held at a disadvantage in society like a religion? What the fuck are you talking about?
You mean the belief that people shouldn’t be mistreated on the basis of gender? Why don’t you tell us why that’s incompatible with atheism? And I very gladly cast judgement on those who question that belief. All day, every day. You should too.
By the way, I call bullshit on your claim that you are a feminist because of the definition you just gave of it.
capricaisburning @159
Dawkins is actively suppressing Rebecca Watson. He refuses to appear at the same venues as her, giving the organizers an ultimatum: “Her or me.”
So why is Dawkins tweeting so much about rape and other feminist topics? Is that atheism or science? Obviously Harris is making his nonsensical arguments about women because science…or is it atheism? Shermer is approaching potential rape victims in the most scientific method he can devise. ThunderfOOt is gnawing on womens’ legs in the most atheistic manner possible.
This little atheist niche is trying to address women and atheism. Possibly that’s why you’ve chosen Pharyngula to spew your word salad.
Is it international non-sequitur day? I feel like I’m missing something…
The Four Horsemen are focused on
atheism and scienceselling books and getting lecture gigs (and, in one case, being dead), professionally.That is an anti-feminist belief. Well, either it’s anti-feminist or just ignorant.
– Bureau of Labor Statistics Report, October 2013 [PDF]
– Claire Miller article on NYT
capricaisburning #158
Well, if Communist violence was not caused by mixing atheism with a ‘structured ideology’, then I guess your warning about the dangers of feminism ‘taking over’ atheism (#150) were irrelevant at best.
If feminism is just ‘belief that people shouldn’t be mistreated on the basis of gender,’ that is a very low bar to set. All of the sexists at the forefront of atheism believe that superficially and it isn’t enough. They fail to interrogate the sexual harassment in their own ranks.
Feminism doesn’t just consist of belief in gender equality. It also consists of belief in patriarchy (which is obviously real) and other theories that I agree with, all of which go beyond ‘equality’ and are necessary. That doesn’t mean there isn’t also a ton of BS, fabricated stats, and influence from capitalism and patriarchy. An ideology is perfectly capable of throwing its adherents under the bus by preserving the conditions that gave rise to it. I’ve seen it in all the social justice movements I’m involved in. All of them run into cultural defense mechanisms that make them work against themselves.
The majority of prominent feminists believe that patriarchy is the result of conscious design (nope), that it was designed solely to harm women (nope) and benefit men (nope), that gendered oppression is unidirectional (nope), that sexism can only consist of one sex being bigoted against the other, and that women do not play any role as moral agents regardless of racial or economic privilege. They claim that female sexuality has always been demonized and male sexuality has always been exalted (nope – both have always been repressed on hypocritical terms that allowed greater freedom for the elite).
Is this all feminists? Nope. The majority? Nope. The loudest? Yes. And alongside them you have anti-feminists like Rush Limbaugh who influence feminism by stereotyping it, and pop feminists who respond to those stereotypes by deliberately emulating them. There are very few MLKs in feminism, and none of them have a major platform. Everyone wants to be Malcolm X.
capricaisburning, #166
I agree with all of that. It is a very low bar, and it’s sad that the state of affairs are such that the bar has to be set that low.
Examples, please.
Support these claims with some sources or citations.
Your last two paragraphs actually make you sound like a MRA rather than a feminist.
capricaisburning @150:
All of this might be true if you said “some movement atheists”, but you didn’t, so the above is not true. There are people who are nothing like the above caricature you’ve painted of atheists in the movement, but I don’t see a way to break through this bubble of bias you’re living in.
This calls for………CITATION PLEASE.
Since you can see the future and all, can you tell me how much money I’m going to make on the next shift I work?
On a serious note, if you haven’t noticed (and clearly you haven’t), working to enhance the wall of separation between church and state is one thing the atheist movement works toward. You’ve have to be willfully ignorant to not realize that.
Yes, and when a bunch of atheists get together and decide that religion has too much power in this country, they can dedicate themselves to combating that religious influence. Which is exactly what atheist organizations have done. Of course you must think they all sit around talking about how there’s no Vishnu, Yahweh, or Xenu. Maybe you should get out more.
Got some evidence for this, or did you just take a look at the world, shurg your shoulders and come to this conclusion without actually doing any y’know, work?
As a feminist who wants to see women treated better in the atheist movement, I can tell you that I’ve not found anyone working to get feminism to take over atheism, whatever the fuck that means.
Oh, and THIS IS A GIANT RED FLAG about your motives in commenting.
Atheists can’t think “we should be more welcoming to women who want to participate in the movement, so we ought to do more to ensure that the atheist movement isn’t mired in sexism and misogyny”?
Oh, and fuck you for comparing people who advocate gender equality with Stalinism.
THIS IS ANOTHER RED FLAG regarding your motivations in commenting here.
It’s so adorable that you’ve used “us” and “we” throughout your comment. From what you’ve said, I don’t see much that I have in common with you. Your comments have a thin veneer of Atheist Dictionarianism, as well as more than a smidge of anti-feminism to them. Did Sam Harris send you? Dawkins? Coyne? Nugent? The Thundering f00l?
False. Utterly and completely false. Also, almost verbatim what MRAs and other arseholes of a similar flavour like to pretend is in any way real.
capricaisburning,
What is your suggestion for feminism? Since you’ve offered your criticism of it, by implication you must have suggestions. I want to hear them, particularly about feminism and atheism.
I missed that part earlier. What do you mean they bring nothing to atheism? You mean they don’t write best-sellers like some of the sexist atheists do? What do you want them to bring to atheism?
capricaisburning @155:
The internet is a sentient being that can cause things to happen? I figured it was people who made the choice to do things online. Huh. I guess we’re all sheep (or shoop) with no control over our actions when we comment online.
@157:
What comment #153 did you read? Something from an alternate reality? Because that’s not what Nerd said.
@158:
So communists tried to take over atheism to commit atrocities? Got a citation for that?
@159:
Looks at the FtB blogroll. Then visits Skepchick. Then look at the female atheists who have their own blogs. Wow, it sure is hard finding female atheists. I’m gonna have to search faaaaaaaar and wide to find some.
“Where is she?”
What a fucking moronic thing to ask. You’re not even trying here.
Why wouldn’t it be? There is clearly an atheist movement. There are clearly people in the atheist movement. Those people are women and men. Some of those people think there aren’t enough women in the movement, and they’ve already spoken up and offered idea on how to make to make the movement more appealing to women. So you’re flat-out wrong to say that atheists aren’t equipped to address the problem of a lack of women in the atheist movement.
THIS IS ANOTHER RED FLAG. Your motivations in coming here and commenting are highly suspect.
At this point you could have a large bonfire with all the straw you’re throwing around.
For someone who claims to be subscribe to feminism, you don’t seem to understand that misogyny has evolved beyond the dictionary definition. It is not just ‘hatred of women’. If you Google ‘misogyny’, the very first thing that comes up is:
Gosh, that sounds quite a bit different than “hating women”. Are you sure you know what you’re talking about? From where I sit, you’re clueless about several things. Yet you’re offering your opinion as if you know what you’re talking about. Tsk. Tsk.
(back at your #150, bc I missed this):
You are delusional. While there are some atheists who do this, there are a great many, including the commentariat here, who do not. Stop speaking in terms of we, when you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.
capricaisburning @166:
Really?
Name several prominent feminists and produce some links showing them expressing these views. I’m not simply going to take your word for it.
And per my point, they’re out of their depth. Harris, Shermer and Thunderfoot are just plain creepers. Dawkins is being vilified more for tone than for his actual ideas about women and sexual assault. Because he’s not a perfect feminist in every way, suddenly he’s the Antichrist and has never accomplished anything. He certainly needs to shut up, but his biggest critics are Rebecca Watson (who is right on the money) and Amanda Marcotte (the worst racist in feminism and a worse misogynist than Dawkins). That’s a very small pool and most of them aren’t in the sciences professionally.
These guys have clout because the bulk of their work pertains to skepticism and they’ve been at it forever. The number of women in their fields of study is still not large enough, and that’s a failure of the education system and society in general. By the time you get to the panel at a convention and see a wall of white guys, it’s too late.
And Dawkins is overplaying his hand trying to no-platform Watson. He’ll find out.
capricaisburning @166:
If this is true, you should be able to produce some evidence in support of this factual assertion. So by all means, produce away. I suspect nothing will be forthcoming, bc this is a common theme with you: making statements of fact backed by no evidence.
****
Saad @167:
Given their comments so far, I’m beginning to think capricaisburning is an MRA in sheep’s clothing. Too many of hir comments make use of the same tired, worn out MRA tropes we’ve seen before. We’ve also seen commenters try to present themselves as fair and balanced when it comes to discussing feminism, but in the end, they out themselves, bc MRAs can’t long hide their disdain for feminism.
So, Dawkins is a feminist and a misogynist?
No, he is criticized for is misogynic attitudes on the subject. You lie and bullshit yourself, but you won’t lie and bullshit us. Dismissed claim.
Also, you forgot to add, liar and bullshitter, they fail to promote and address true equality due to their arrogance and unexamined institutional misogyny and privilege. Claim dismissed.
You are still scripting the MRA fuckwits, and use their dog whistles. You reek of it. Which is why your ideas are shown to the internet dumpster, where they belong.
Who the fuck is saying that?
Wait, wait… you just said earlier not mistreating people based on gender is a very low bar to set. And when Dawkins fails to meet that lowest of standards, you defend him like that? “Because he’s not a perfect feminist…”
The jig is up. Your sheep’s clothing was a very thin veneer indeed.
Why do they need to be scientists? Why did you switch all of a sudden from the category of atheists to the category of scientists?
Yeah, we know. It’s called the result of ingrained, systemic sexism solidified over many generations. That’s what we try to chip away at, with no matter how little of a voice and how little time we have to do it.
capricaisburning @173:
This is false. You’re parroting some of the same pro-Dawkins ideas that his sycophants spew. Dawkins has received criticism because when you think through the implications of his views, the’re decidedly horrible. It’s not about his tone. It’s about the substance of his comments, which you’d realize if you actually thought about what he’s said.
Done for now, but before people continue bringing up the specter of MRAs as if I even care about being compared with them…
There are seriously fucked up evil horrible things that happen to men and boys, that constitute systematic gendered oppression against males (less than there is against females, and perpetrated more by men than by women), and the MRAs are a massive obstacle to addressing any of these problems.
ONLY feminists have done anything productive to address any of it. At the same time, there are other feminists actively working to make these issues worse and painting any concern for males as coming from MRAs even when feminists are doing all the work. It runs the risk of convincing men affected by these issues that the movement they’re looking for is the MRM.
So whatever you think I sound like, the alternative to the things I’m critiquing about feminism is more feminism, not the MRAs.
capricaisburning @ 179
dot dot dot
Speaking of raising specters. Who are these other feminists working to make these issues worse? There’s always a great deal of hand wringing and pearl clutching from certain quarters about these mythical creatures but nobody ever manages to produce one. If these other feminists actually exist, why are you here whining to us instead of talking to them?
capricaisburning
Good choice.
That hole was getting a bit deep.
capricaisburning @179:
Once again, you present a generalized statement of fact back by no evidence. When you do this, people are going to call you out. Back up your fucking assertions!
capricaisburning @179:
If you came here to engage people with any degree of intellectual honesty, and if you actually are a feminist concerned with advancing women’s rights, you ought to be concerned that the message people are receiving is one that many people find synonymous with MRAs. That should be a clue that the shit you’re saying is extremely problematic.
Go away and rethink your approach, bc as things stand, being an ally? You’re doing it wrong.
Wanking be thy name. Nothing but evidenceless assertions that are meaningless per se.
There is no reason to take your claims as anything but lies and bullshit until you provide links to back up your claims.
Not what I’m reading. Nothing but word salad blather of a concern troll type 1.
capricaisburning, #179
I don’t know what that means.
You want there to be more of the thing that you’re criticizing?
Dawkins is an anti-feminist. That much he has left clear, time and time again. His rhetoric is indistinguishable from MRAs, down to justifying gender inequality by making vague appeals to inherent differences (estrogen vibe), supporting other anti-feminists (like CHS and GamerGate), using the plight of some women and victims to bash on others (Dear Muslima, “mild pedophilia”)…
Not to mention he reacts to criticism with ridiculously overblown hyperbole, then he has the gall to turn around and accuse others of “playing the victim”.
So, I mostly don’t have the patience for this, but:
@capricaisburning
Based on what? I can’t say I’ve got her under particularly close scrutiny, so maybe I’ve just missed it, but I haven’t read or heard anything from her to suggest either of these things. I’ve heard the accusations made, of course, by people who’re obsessed with proving that feminists are bad, but never seen any sources to back the claim up.
? No. Not even only feminists have done anything productive to address feminist issues, so certainly not only feminists have done productive work to deal with men’s issues. That’s a ridiculous statement.
It includes but is hardly limited to racist depictions of blacks in print, appropriation of the work of feminists of color, silencing of criticism from black feminists, endless collusion with Hugo Schwyzer (a name you should already know), calling for the arrest of rape survivors if needed to compel their testimony, and comparing FGM to the ‘painful misogyny’ of white wedding dresses. All from feminist sources:
http://theangryblackwoman.wordpress.com/2008/04/25/seal-press-amanda-marcotteproof-that-feminism-and-racism-go-hand-in-hand/
http://thefeministwire.com/2013/03/an-open-letter-to-amanda-marcotte/
http://dearwhitefeminists.wordpress.com/update/
http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2008/04/25/i-guess-its-a-jungle-in-here-too-huh/
http://www.anamardoll.com/2014/02/feminism-arresting-survivors.html
http://www.bustle.com/articles/16597-putting-rape-victims-in-jail-is-not-a-good-idea-and-i-cant-believe-we-have
http://www.blaghag.com/2010/05/clit-cutting-is-not-equivalent-to.html