Elevatorgator
small, mindless undead
chaotic evil
Armor class: 14
Hit points: 1d4
Speed: 10ft
Attacks: annoying whine
Weaknesses: die at a touch from any female party members
Yesterday, I was complaining about the low information content and tedious predictability of most atheist content on YouTube. It was only a matter of time — less than 24 hours — before some regressive numpty chimed in to blame women, trans people, and Atheism+, claiming that atheism has turned into a religion. He hasn’t learned a thing in over 15 years.
@SmilingSynic
The atheist content on social media peaked fifteen or so years ago, until the introduction of Atheism Plus made the movement “jump the shark.” Indeed, the welding together of atheism (and other expressions of anti-theism) with social activism and progressive ideology turned much of the movement a quasi-religion holding laughably anti-scientific, mystical positions on, for example, human sexuality, in the form of gender identity. Atheism as a movement even adopted tactics found in religions/cults, including the shaming of those like Richard Dawkins who questioned, rightly, the basis of the transgender movement (in scientology, Dawkins would have been identified as an SP, or Suppressive Person, lol). Atheism used to be AGAINST religion, until the movement was hijacked by some who actually turned into something much LIKE a religion. I have zero interest in modern atheism as a movement, and am now embarrassed that I used to listen to podcasts on the topic.
No, Atheism+ was a great idea, ahead of its time, and most atheist organizations have adopted its principles to some degree. It was merely howled out of open existence by regressive twits who harrassed the organizers, joined it to undermine its membership, and who were appalled at the idea that mere women could fight back against a hierarchy that denied them a proper role.
Dawkins has since identified himself as sympathetic to Christian religion — he just hates those wicked Muslims. If anyone has become a religious proponent, it’s the supporters of an authority-based belief system that exists to oppress outsiders.
I think Modern Atheism As A Movement is now embarrassed that dull-witted trolls such as @SmilingSynic now claim to be the only True Atheists, in opposition to those bad anti-scientific atheists who think that women and gender identity and progressives are real.
Dawkins was and is a huge disappointment.
He now calls himself a “cultural christian”, meaning not a believer but nevertheless buys into the whole rest of christianity. You can also tell here that his mind is failing.
There is no such thing as a christian ethos. Christianity fragmented at the time of its founding and has been splitting ever since. There are now something like 45,000 sects and they don’t agree on anything. Before we took their armies and heavy weapons away, they used to fight wars among themselves.
They don’t even agree on such basics as the number of xian gods. It can be 1 or up to 5, counting Mary and satan.
Dawkins isn’t much different from many or most people who claim to be xians anyway. Do you really think the fundies of the GOP really believe in jesus or care about what is in the bible, which they never read? They never walk their talk.
True.
We are still here.
Atheism is the low hanging fruit of modern thought.
It doesn’t take much knowledge of the real world to realize that the gods don’t exist. We can easily explain everything with what science has found out about the world. And the universe looks exactly like it would if the gods don’t exist.
Dawkins and a lot of other atheists and atheist leaders managed to find the low hanging fruit and run with it. Which counts for something I guess. For one moment they could speak truth to power.
Moving beyond that turned out to be impossible for him and the others though.
They can’t accept human equality or let go of the bigotry and hates they were taught when they grew up.
I did larf when I read that.
Sounds like this person is another one of these people whose interest in atheism went pretty much as far as “No one’s gonna make me go to church, or tell me what I should and shouldn’t do!”
All logic aside, I can’t stand hymns and Xmas carols, nor can I buy an “ethos” based on superstitions & archaic hierarchy.
“Cultural Christian” is such a nebulous term, an educated person should be too embarrassed to even use it without irony.
I doubt Richard Dawkins would feel he has anything culturally in common with Ethiopian Christians, besides the label “Christian,” despite the fact that they are also “Cultural Christians.” Except, in their case, they actually believe in the religion.
It’s intentionally vague, because that allows it to be used as a unifying slogan, but as soon as you ask people to define it, it turns out nobody agrees on what it’s supposed to mean.
raven @2
No, they only imagined they were speaking truth to power. For one thing, they are part of The Power — i.e., a few of the many privileged beneficiaries and components of the power structure. All they were doing was shouting pseudo-provocative slogans, like shouting F*** in Times Square. There was no way any of them was going to actually do something that would put them at odds with the source of their luxurious lifestyles.
@6 Walter Solomon
Well yeah, because the Ethiopian Christians are generally specifically Coptic, and Dawkins’s cultural Christianity is being the Anglican church’s pet atheist specifically, trotted out to spew pablum about how terrible that Muslim call to prayer is, unlike those pretty pretty church bells.
Atheism+ (as it now seems to be called) is not such a new invention. And in fact, atheists appear to hold differing views, as is exemplified by the following video:
I do believe that an unconditional commitment to human rights is definitely something an Atheism+ movement could be well-justified to pick up.
“The question is not: Are they moral?, nor: Are they smart? The question is: Can they suffer?” – (almost) Jeremy Bentham
Walter Solomon@6–
Indeed. Christian ethos, depending on the time and the place, means turning the other cheek, loving thy neighbour, forgiveness, refusing to cast stones, helping the poor…but also crusades, auto-da-fes, witch trials, forbidden book lists, scientific suppression under threat of torture, slave trading, colonial subjugation, working abandoned children to death and burying them in unmarked mass graves, enabling and protecting paedophiles, denying women’s autonomy, and so on.
As you say, identifying oneself as “culturally Christian” is pretty meaningless without also identifying which aspects of Christian culture one means.
I have identified as A+ since its first public appearance.
The “A” bit is just simple atheism, the “I don’t believe you” response to god claims.
The “+” bit is basically “so now what? How should we be without gods to tell us?”
I like it.
However the people eith personalities that like white cristian nationalism can make the “+” bit mean some pretty bizare and aweful things.
“As you say, identifying oneself as “culturally Christian” is pretty meaningless without also identifying which aspects of Christian culture one means.”
He did that: https://age-of-the-sage.org/quotations/quotes/richard_dawkins_cultural_christianity.html
Dawkins is a cultural Church of England, High Church style.
That is the only sub-species of “Christian” that he recognises as “Christian”.
He also considers the King James Bible to be a good example of English Literature.
The characterisation of gender identity as “anti-scientific” and “mystical” by transphobes is so bizarre.
It’s a neurological attribute. Like handedness, or sexual orientation. Are these things “mystical” because they sometimes vary from the norm?
The term comes from science – coined by Robert Stoller (who was a man of his time and regarded “transsexualism”, like homosexuality, as a mental illness). It simply means one’s understanding of oneself as a woman or man, or other.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Stoller
Gender identity has been formally studied for more than half a century – scientifically! – and we know it has a biological (as well as social) basis, forms around the age of three, and is extremely resistant if not completely impervious to any external manipulation (i.e. conversion therapy doesn’t work and is harmful).
https://dictionary.apa.org/gender-identity
Indeed, we can observe other species “know” whether they are male or female without being taught (instinctively, not intellectually). It would be an extraordinary claim indeed to posit this sense of self is entirely absent in humans alone.
What the fuck is anti-scientific or “mystical” about humans having a psychological attribute we would expect to find in a sexually reproducing species?
Also, Dawkins did not “question… the basis of the transgender movement”. In support of his bigoted buddy JK Rowling he absurdly claimed sexual differentiation in humans is a simple binary – first by invoking chromosomes (not binary), then gametes. Ignoring that some people have no gametes at any stage in their lives. So still not binary.
He finally resorted to saying it was “pretty damn binary” – i.e. not.
And these clowns call others “anti-scientific”.
(Even if sex were binary, it would be irrelevant to the movement for trans equality and acceptance.)
@15 Silent Bob
I hesitate to make a quick comment on a topic that requires a long essay, but I’ll try to be brief.
First, you are completely correct that debates over the way “sex” is defined have nothing to do with the medical, scientific, legal, or cultural issues of transgender identity.
Second, I am a lowly cardiologist, but I have a social science PhD as well, so I am somewhat attentive to the differences between technical/scientific terms and concepts on the one hand, and ‘popular’ or everyday language on the other. One of the benefits of technical/scientific terminology is that it invites, even requires explicit and clear definitions. Not “true” definitions – simply explicit definitions. To say that “sex” is gamete size and behavior approaches a technical definition that is neither true nor false: it is simply useful or not. However, as a technical definition it challenges us to imagine what a “spectrum” might be: even the point that some people produce no gametes doesn’t mean that there is a third “sex” – it simply means that, from a reproductive biology point of view, such individuals do not produce either male or female gametes. That’s all. A definition of homo sapiens might be defined in part as a mammal with two arms. The rare person born with only one arm, or no arms, does not entail that human arms are on a spectrum.
Finally, I’ll note that as a cardiologist I do not specialize in trans issues, but my understanding from colleagues that do is that psychotherapy is, in fact, the first level of management of trans identity. Children and adolescents, especially, can benefit from psychotherapy, to resolve uncertainty about gender. Our statistics on gender and trans identity are complicated enough, but get even worse when we consider the people who were uncertain about their gender identity but through therapy decided that they were not trans.
Sorry to ramble – Sunday morning…..
@davetaylor,
A physical spectrum shows up in brain structure.
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0383/11/6/1582
I have identified as A+ since its first public appearance.
The “A” bit is just simple atheism, the “I don’t believe you” response to god claims.
The “+” bit is basically “so now what? How should we be without gods to tell us?”
I, at least, have always taken it for granted, ever since I first decided I was an atheist around age 12, that the “+” always went with the “A” — that once you decided you were an atheist, you immediately had to start thinking “so now what?” Even children understand that decisions like that have consequences, even if we’re not yet ready to fully understand and deal with them. That’s what we have to ask with every important life-changing decision we make anyway, from adopting a belief, to changing a belief, to giving up a belief. I don’t see how anyone can avoid that next step, except maybe by withdrawing from the world and never interacting with anyone else again.
And that’s what makes me so contemptuous of all those (alleged) atheists who cried about the “A+” idea and said (in effect if not up front) “Why do we have to get on board with all this social-justice and responsibility stuff? We just wanna be atheists and hang out with each other and look down on all the believers! You A+ folks are causing Deep Rifts and dividing our precious community by demanding we do anything more!” I’ve heard people almost literally saying they want their atheism to be as irrelevant as possible, and that it should never have any effect on…anything. That’s why I tended to think the labels shouldn’t be “A” vs. A+”; they should be “A” (normal atheists) vs. “A-” (people who want to pat themselves on the back for being atheists but don’t want it to matter much beyond that).
Raging Bee:
Well, the ‘what’ is one shan’t believe the claims made about goddish-type morality or mores on that basis.
That is a corollary of being atheistic, but one can of course still adhere to them in a ‘cultural’ sense.
So, it’s not a basis for anything, it’s merely the lack of a particular belief.
Privative, as I noted.
I never did, though I was happy for movement atheism to be a thing.
I reckon it mostly achieved its goal; it is now a credible path.
But I think you do like the community/movement aspect.
Rather similar, I think.
Past tense, I notice. Presumably, that means you no longer think that.
BTW, most of my friends are apatheists.
Atheists, but they certainly don’t give a fuck either way.
I reckon that’s what is normal for atheists.
(Of course, there is the coward’s way: ‘agnosticism’ — as in, well… god(s) may be existent actual deities)
Well, the ‘what’ is one shan’t believe the claims made about goddish-type morality or mores on that basis.
That is a corollary of being atheistic, but one can of course still adhere to them in a ‘cultural’ sense.
Yeah, that was pretty much my point.
Past tense, I notice. Presumably, that means you no longer think that.
No, it means I’m no longer hearing (until now anyway) the arguments to which that thinking was a response.
Ah, ok.
Thing is, in that case, “That’s what we have to ask with every important life-changing decision we make anyway, from adopting a belief, to changing a belief, to giving up a belief.” is not applicable.
Apatheists don’t overthink that, any more than me.
I mean, yes, I look down on goddists, but hey! I also look down on flat-earthers.
Best as I can (and could) tell — and I opined heavily here at that time — A+ is a combo of atheism, humanism, and being nice.
I do all that, but I don’t have a rulebook.
Or a movement to either lean on or support.
You were around 12 in 2011? Wow. I was 42.
I’m sorry, John, but what led you to think I’m saying I was 12 in 2011? Maybe you should get some sleep before trying to respond to my comments…
That’s when that sort argument started raising its voice, that’s what.
Past tense, see?
I was around at the time, as was this site.
A+ was a reaction to that in Aug 2012.
I remember that well.
(Accommodationism disputes a few years before that, too)
—
Also, be aware my timezone is UTC+10.
(Not even slightly sleepy in the middle of the day)
Anyway, if I can interrupt the trolling of the usual verbose idiot…
the guy who invented “Atheism +” has come to be persuaded that the “deep rifts” were deliberately engineered by Epstein and flunkies. (While, like a good skeptic, acknowledging the tinfoilhattiness of it all). I don’t find it implausible given what we’ve learned about the nepotism and cliquishness of the atheism movement of the time.
(He wrote an expose of Lawrence Krauss, for those who are unaware.)
Background:
https://science.thewire.in/science/lawrence-krauss-sexual-harassment-allegations/
(Content Note: The article was written before McCreight transitioned and so deadnames him.)
@17. Why not? Brain structures are highly variable. And note that the article you link to associates brain differences to gender, not to sex. There is no doubt that “gender” — a psychological trait — is experienced and performed as a spectrum, from very masculine to very feminine. We all know dykes and the “girlie men” of Hans and Franz. Nothing new there.