I normally don’t read or watch blogs or youtube videos with titles along the lines of “PZ Myers is a …”; there are so many of them! And they’re so boring and repetitive and vacuous! But I was stranded in an airport all day yesterday, I was boreed, so I did read Luciano’s “P.Z. Myers Is a Dishonest Social Justice Warrior Who Doesn’t Know What ‘Atheism’ Means”. One small part was so funny it inspired me to create art.
In calling me a “dictionary atheist,” I suppose Myers is upset that I have the audacity to use “atheist” correctly. Moreover, the thing about the logic of Myers’ argument is that he could just as easily be talking about how, for example, nihilists are people, and have responsibilities to each other, and that nihilists’ collective lack of a grand purpose “shapes the pattern of those responsibilities.” This would be absurd, of course, and it shows how porous his definition of atheism is.
Heh. Yes. As it turns out, nihilists are people, and their beliefs do shape the pattern of their responsibilities to other people. Being a nihilist implies certain things about their beliefs and ideas, and how they’re going to interact with the world and others. How can it not?
Well, I suppose it could be the case that someone is using the word “nihilist” as a meaningless label — they picked it from a list of philosophical positions, thought it sounded spiffy, and decided they’d just be one. And then they stopped, didn’t think it through any further, and came to the conclusion that…there were no further conclusions to be drawn from that.
For such people who are Luciano-style nihilists, I thought I’d be helpful and make them a button. Print it out and pin it to your lapel or your hat (fedora, preferably.) Congratulations! You’re a nihilist!
Oh My Goo’ness!
T-SHIRT
I’m such a dictionary nihilist I don’t even believe in nihilism!
Or dictionaries.
Count me in. Seriously. Will have to wait until next month though.
PZ:
Wow Luciano is a fool. He quotes your comment policy for Pharyngula as if its evidence that you embrace an authoritarian mentality.
Then there are your haters in the comments:
and
and of course, everyone’s “favorite” Mykeru:
I’m sure it’s worse than this. I commented after the first article Luciano wrote, but I’m not going to this time. The comments are too infested with slime.
Man, the comments are killing me. It’s like a greatest hits of PZ’s haters.
So much talk of cherry picking and straw manning and not one example.
Color me shocked.
Remind me, who is Michael Luciano and why should anyone pay attention to him?
He also doesn’t seem to know what “authoritarianism” really is, or what “freethought” really is. Standard whine about “redefining” atheism. Standard disregard for the issues of atheism being disproportionately white and male by using the dictionary atheism excuse. He has a quibble in there about his “weird trend” not being about believing in equality and diversity, but in criticizing other atheists who oppose it. He sees that as a strictly political debate, admitting in the process that apparently opposing equality and diversity are both right-wing positions. Which I don’t believe either right-wingers or the anti-equality atheists would like to admit, so kudos to Luciano for exposing that little detail.
And, of course, the most ridiculous part of all: Michael Luciano writes two articles using “Social Justice” as a snarl word right in the title, whining about people who dare to mix social justice with atheism, and then expects us to take him at his word when he says he is “pro-social justice”. I’m sure a lot of dictionary atheists might believe him, because their atheism apparently doesn’t pre-suppose any affiliation with skepticism or logic. But I don’t see why people who have even passing familiarity with reality would be so ready to accept such poor bullshit artistry.
I’d love to see where PZ claimed his book was rivaling The God Delusion. For that matter when was the last time he even promoted it here? Sure, there’s an ad link on the left side of the blog, but that’s pretty passive promotion.
It’s good! Go buy it!
MAKE ME, AUTHORITARIAN.
I have a tree-book and an e-book of PZ’s book.
I don’t have any version of Michael Luciano’s book or Mykeru’s book.
/irrelevant anecdata
—
mykeru is a Japanese rendering of michael
Why would I want do that? Opens Kindle….
I’ve actually read quite a few books that were just lazy rehashings of old blog posts… I can’t think of any I didn’t like. Considering the usual quality of the evil one’s blog posts, I might just buy a copy this weekend.
Waaaaitaminute! How do we know this isn’t all just some false flag operation to trick us into buying the book? Ohhhh, tricksy Myers! But I’m onto you!! I KNOW YOUR GAME!!! YOU WON’T GET MY BRAAAAIIIN!!!!
PZ:
I’m a bad sycophant of your most holy feminaziness. I have not bought this book.
Athywren @14:
Don’t be silly. Everyone knows that PZ is not a zombie.
He’s a sparkle-in-the-sunshine vampire.
::ducks and runs from the tentacled overlord::
Here’s Mykeru’s comment that Tony! presented. Just one little tweak was necessary. Read it and see if the same things comes to mind for you that did for me:
By fucking god, it is like the criticism we have of almost EVERY major authority figure in the atheist and skeptic movement right now. But Mykeru think’s they are clever by just pulling a “NO U” and sending our arguments against Shermer, Harris, Dawkins, etc. back at PZ. Great fucking work. Originality for the fucking win.
You know, I find it amusing that some atheists despise social justice. Especially when you consider that we are a minority, and a despised one at that.
I dunno, sounds like some jealousy happening. Or maybe the dictionary atheists are feeling just a little too defensive. As if the truth has a sting to it.
Well, up until right now I was having one of those days where I was despairing for the state of humanity. Now I’m thinking about Peter Stormare’s character in The Big Lebowski, and that’s a fine tonic for a shitty day.
#18 gijoel – despised, hated, dreaded. We sure are. And you’d think that it would be enough to trigger some empathy for other such groups, or at least enough to give some thought to it. But no.
@Tony, 16
OH DEAR GLOD! That’s the worst thing it’s possible to be! O_O
I mean, except for a Shirtless Werewolf… they’re pretty damn creepy too.
They’re the “started on third base but think they hit a home run” of the atheist community. Mostly white, male, privileged ones who have started with tremendous advantages. They have not had to experience the kind of mistreatment that other atheists have experienced, and mistakenly think their relative peace and ease despite being part of a despised minority is a sign that they have somehow managed to overcome oppression and adversity by their own personal efforts. To them, those others who complain about social justice just aren’t boot-strappy enough. It’s not surprising at all that many of the anti-social justice atheists are libertarian atheists. Privileged individuals who already got theirs, who look on everyone else as moochers and leeches.
gijoel @ 18 and dhall @ 21
How many times hav we got to tell you? An atheist is only someone who doesn’t believe in a deity, it has nothing to do with how actually marginalized and deposed atheists are! Stop trying to inject your pinko commie Social-Justice-For Atheists agenda into Atheism!
12. chigau (違う) ,
And here I thought it was something Greek, like Mycenaean or summat.
Anyway, who’s this Myers fellow? Aren’t they usually upset at PeZe Meyerese?
Sorry, let me try that again:
gijoel @ 18 and dhall @ 21
How many times have we got to tell you? An “atheist”is only someone who doesn’t believe in a deity, THAT’S ALL! It has nothing to do with how marginalized and despised atheists actually are! Stop trying to inject your pinko commie Social-Justice-For Atheists agenda into Atheism!
It depresses me to think that the true face of atheism is Phil Mason’s pale, sweaty, nervously giggling, women-hating visage.
He just means the dictionary definition of “pro social justice.” Nothing more.
Hmm. I think you solved a problem for me here… I’m gonna steal this, only I’m going to use Glob. Oh my GLOB.
He sounds more like a libertarian.
Jafafa Hots
Oh, my GLOB! You guys are stealing my
songlines!I am to nihilists as deists are to atheists – pretty damn close. I do think we can make our own purposes in life, but I am always aware those are just diversions on the rocket ride to the abyss. But they are very important diversions. It can be a good idea to take light things seriously and serious things lightly. YMMV.
Isn’t it odd that atheism is fast becoming the very stereotype that theists, particularly Christians, have long cast non-believers: selfish, greedy, and sexually libertine; ready to commit rape and assault to sate our hedonistic desires?
Be careful if you get in the habit of saying Glob instead of God. There will be occasions when that is inadvisable. Oh Glob, Oh Glob…
PZ, if you can find the time you should shred the balance of Luciano’s blog-post, particularly the parts Tony Q has quoted.
I’m sorry, is dimbulb here implying that one could possibly justified in dumping a slacker boyfriend?
ENEMY CIVIL WAR IN 3, 2, 1…
Mykeru’s words are, shifting a few words around, actually a fantastic description of thunderf00t.
Wait, isn’t Mykeru the disgusting shitbag who photoshopped PZ into a picture of an ISIS soldier beheading a woman? Quelle surprise.
One of my favorite comments,
The irony. It BURNS.
Complaining about FTB assuming that “…everybody else’s Atheism is just a flat line, that our belief is just the disbelief in God.”,
…in comments in an article where Luciano is telling everyone that on social matters atheism just means “not believing in deities”,
…an article responding to PZ criticizing dictionary atheists.
This stuff is pretty amazing sometimes.
I remember, from back when I was a Christian fundamentalist, how a certain segment of the more extreme fundamentalist churches used to sneer at “Christians” (the scare quotes would be theirs) who practiced the “Social Gospel”, meaning care for the poor, the downtrodden, the sick, the immigrants, those of other races, etc., as opposed to “True Christianity”, which was all about doctrine and preaching, hellfire and damnation. The language was more restrained than what I’m seeing now in the atheist community, but the meaning was the same; the hate, the accusations of heresy, the lies, the quote mining, the blacklisting of those who dared to agree with the despised “Social Gospel ‘Christians'” or now, the SJWs, hasn’t changed.
We, who were among those SGCs, albeit still fundamentalists in doctrine, were always careful to keep our heads down, to bite our tongues, to do the work in silence.
I expected better of the atheist community. More fool me. Good people are good people, whatever religion or none that they follow. And the bad apples are just as putrid in the atheist barrel as in any of the religious ones.
@ anteprepro
Projection exists for a reason and this is similar. If you toss implications about someone else having your flaws it draws perceptual filters away. If you fill the air with the same message as your opponent (but never in cite-able specifics) with the personal identifiers all changed it confuses where the filters should go.
Unless you are a person that looks for behavior regardless of group affiliation.
Wow, he doesn’t even understand nihilism! If I may quote from the ‘pedia’s take on moral nihilism:
Depending on your flavor of nihilism, anything from morality to reality are social constructs which we collaboratively create. So a nihilist would readily agree they have a responsibility to others, and eagerly collaborate with them to develop a shared meaning. That’s actually implied by the definition, and the author is so clueless on the matter they dismiss that as “absurd.”
Which itself is ironic.
Hj Hornbeck@41: That’s an interesting point. Very often, dictionary definitions are imprecise because words develop additional nuances of meaning through their use as terms of art in various fields.
“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”
Can we call dictionary atheists Humpty-Dumptiests instead?
Probably not*, but he could be presupposing that a certain sort of nihilism is correct. It’s shit either way, not to mention a shitty analogy to atheism, so it doesn’t really matter.
*But what is there to understand, really?
Some (many? most?) moral nihilists wouldn’t agree we do have responsibilities. They’re not necessarily “constructivists” (which is using the term in a fairly unusual way), but to the extent they would say those things are indeed created at all (as opposed to being utterly incoherent non-entities), they’d have to say they’re not responsibilities but some responsibility-appearing things some people (possibly not including them) make up. Of course, some might say such things, but practically speaking I don’t see how anyone could actually live that way.
Some others of a slightly different flavor, a bit more like Nietzsche let’s say, would basically agree to it and be a part of this “creative” process they believe exists, but would still not think these constitute “real” responsibilities in some sense. It’s apparently not magical enough for them, to qualify as the real deal, but they’re willing to play along despite that. (Then what, if anything, are they actually criticizing or not participating in? No idea.) Somehow, “real” ones would supposedly not depend on people or their experiences, because that looks “subjective” on a completely superficial level — and never mind that subjective/objective are themselves superficial categories which were simply made up — thus what we actually have is no good (somehow that’s supposed to be the conclusion, anyway). That is, whatever causes pleasure, happiness, flourishing, well-being, etc. (or suffering, etc.) aren’t factual conditions, statements about them are not truth-apt, or they’re not sufficient to determine what is good or bad. Accordingly, moral questions are in some way outside the scope of a rational investigation of empirical phenomena, either for ontological or epistemic reasons. (Supposing there are ethical or political reasons underlying the claim would make it self-contradictory, so that can safely be ruled out. Coming up with an epistemic foundation which doesn’t entail some kind of value is also difficult to say the least.) I think that is wrong on a lot of different levels — but it’s not quite the kind of wrong you’re getting from wikipedia or whatever.
Anyway, whether or not they agree (or have some estimation of its likelihood, or even understand what they’re talking about), as well as whether some definition is this or that or anything whatsoever, has no bearing on whether are not there are such things as responsibilities, because they can disagree and at the same time be wrong about that. They don’t get to claim this as some kind of self-evident principle of logic, and they won’t get far arguing in circles based on that as an assumption, so it just isn’t relevant.
@41:
As a dedicated absurdist, I wholeheartedly cry “fish” and declare victory in this conversation. Just because the world doesn’t have meaning doesn’t mean you can’t give your life one.
gijoel @18,
Akira Mackenzie @26,
And lack-of-Heaven forfend that we reach out to other atheists and welcome them to our groups. Or should we not have groups at all, because not believing things is something an individual does only inside their own head?
And it would be silly to talk about atheism with people who are questioning their religious upbringing. If they come to the right answer on their own, they pass the test. Only then might we have “meaty discussions”, with the right people, of course.
—————
Brony @38,
You know, it is funny how the elitist atheists have been complaining for years about the inclusive atheists redefining the word “atheism”. They started it with Atheism+, even though the name itself leaves the dictionary definition in place but wanted to augment it with other things.
You can’t please these people. I would have preferred using adjectives instead of math symbols, but I suspect that even that would not have been enough.
—————
williamgeorge @27,
If Mason is the subject of this tweet, as seems likely, he is definitely making that impression:
https://twitter.com/femfreq/status/522933269818404864
@ Scr… Archivist 45
They don’t have a rational or logical position to stand on here either. If all atheism is, is a simple disbelief in a god or gods that does not even suggest doing anything political at all. Not combating creationism, or religious indoctrination, or anything else. You have to move to implications of atheism to do that.
Every time someone brings up the definition in response to desires to include other things in atheist activism it’s a useless exercise in waste of time and energy. Atheist activism implies social atheists, so moving from the definition will have to happen every single time.
I think that being unable to please them is part of the design. If there are social dominance instincts at work here they likely work to counter any loss of power and privilege not matter how small. A threat to the status quo likely strongly impacts motivated reasoning among people used to being dominant so over-reaction to preserve dominance is likely a thing.
I sometimes link to this comic to explain my religious/philosophical views:
https://xkcd.com/167/
Yes, ultimately nothing “matters” in the long run. Doesn’t make coffee any less delicious. (Am I doing nihilism wrong?)
Likewise with their claims to freeze peach absolutism. If they really believed that anybody should be permitted by platform owners to say anything anywhere, they’d never use a spam filter.
On a related note, Mykeru’s twitter account has apparently been suspended.
Yay?
“Left authoritarian”…. So, Mykeru basically wants to call PZ a Communist, but wants to avoid that word for some reason. I’m convinced there should be a Godwin’s law version that applies to communists rather than nazis, because it does tend to have the same exact effect.
@ck
Globwin’s law?
I don’t think anyone here actually read the article.
Ana Rodrigues da Silva@52,
And what exactly would we have got from it? thos eof us who haven’t read it can tell it’s crap from the fact that Luciano claims, wrongly, that PZ defines “atheist” in a way that excludes dictionary atheists. When you’re either dishonest or stupid enough to misrepresent the person you’re slagging off in that way, it’s pretty much certain that nothing you say is going to be worth reading.
Ana Rodrigues da Silva: I summarized the problems with the article after reading through the whole thing in comment 8. You can tell because it has information in it not included in PZ’s single quote about the article. And yet Tony! even beat me to it at number 4, bemoaning the full article AND quoting from the article’s comment section.
You apparently didn’t read this whole thread before making an irrelevant and still demonstrably untrue dismissive comment. Such a fucking hypocrite. Which is absolutely no surprise.
@Ana Rodrigues da Silva, 52
Interesting. I don’t think there’s a fish the size of a kipper.
Ana Rodrigues da Silva @52:
Care to explain how you came to that conclusion? Are you a mind reader?
Tony!:
I have reason to doubt they are even a normal reader.