Suddenly, my Twitter mentions and email are full of the usual assholes who have found a new bone to chew on. It seems the gamergaters and anti-feminists and alt-right twits have discovered that Sincere Kirabo is the Social Justice Coordinator at the American Humanist Association, and they are freaking out about “Humanism+” and how it must be destroyed. In addition, they’re ranting at me because, in their little minds, I must be behind it all, or am about to step in and take over humanism.

I know this will not matter to people so out of touch with reality, but I’m going to explain it slowly and carefully.

This is nothing new. Humanism has always been concerned with morality and ethics. Social justice is something that has always been a major focus. The American Humanist Association has merely launched new initiatives to specifically pursue social justice for black, LGBTQ, and feminist humanists. If this is surprising to you, well, we already knew you were a bunch of ignorant, regressive loons. This is precisely within the purview of humanism, and always has been, and it would only be unusual if a humanist organization rejected the idea of social justice.

Also, thank you for thinking I must be the mastermind behind a social justice initiative — that’s the kind of reputation I would like to have. However, I have had absolutely nothing to do with this program at AHA, and have no expectation of ever being asked to contribute to it. As for all the kooks calling it Humanism+ pejoratively and comparing it to Atheism+, I had nothing to do with the establishment and support of Atheism+, either, although I do think it was a great idea and that it was unfortunate that it was harassed into hibernation by you jerks.

It was a great idea, and it’s still a great idea — to attempt to make it clear that not all atheists were horrible, awful, rotten people. What seems to be a bad idea is the ongoing effort to make it clear that atheism is the domain of horrible, awful, rotten people, and drive all those who despise reactionary bigotry into the arms of humanism.

At least I like humanism. If you think you can remake it in the nature of YouTube atheism, I don’t think you’re going to succeed.

He has made an appearance in my thread ridiculing his superficial approach to history, and has invited me to join in his facebook discussion of the same. Unfortunately, he’s picked the worst time — I’m in Minneapolis, and will be flying off to Korea in the morning.

So far, he hasn’t managed to justify building elaborate and bizarre histories based on the similar sounds of words in Egyptian, Dogon, and Faroese, so I don’t see much point anyway. But you might find the rationalizations of his friends entertaining.

Nature has a short news piece on the Horgan/NECSS spat. I’ve read several of the rebuttals now, and I’m not impressed: I can agree that Horgan’s talk was kind of scattershot, but let’s not go the other way and pretend that organized skepticism is a happy clappy land where all the issues are objectively evaluated and treated with the weight they deserve. There is a terrifyingly substantial number of skeptics who are rank assholes who hate anyone who introduces the concept of social justice into the organization; they are dominated by us privileged white guys, too.

Anyway, the reporter asked me to comment, and I’ve got teeny-tiny mention in the story (which is appropriate, it’s not about me), but since I sent him a longer argument, and I have a blog, I’m including it here.

Steve is correct that there has been frequent discussion about priorities. What he left out, however, is that the conclusion of such discussion has typically been to shout down anyone who argues that there are major social issues that ought to be on the skeptical slate, like war and racism, as Horgan mentions, and I would also add that feminism has been a hot-button issue. Novella is one of the more open people on these topics, so he sees a more benevolent skepticism than I do. I found the intolerance and narrowness of a great many skeptics so frustratingly oppressive, that I had to simply announce that I would have nothing more to do with the skeptical organizations, and stepped away from them as a waste of effort.

There is a fair amount of diversity in the skeptical movement. There are a substantial number of skeptics who buy into scientific racism, for instance, or are climate change denialists, or even, I’ve discovered, a few who believe in flying saucers. At least those latter people get laughed out of the movement, but the others have been dealt with by largely avoiding the topics, because they would bring on too much dissent. And when they do deal with them, they tread far more carefully than they do when addressing psychics or Bigfoot hunters.

On the other hand, Horgan commits the fallacy of relative privation. Bigfoot and chupacabra are silly topics, but as long as a significant number of people believe in them, they are part of the skeptical purview…and they also represent easy learning exercises, a kind of skepticism with training wheels. It’s just that too often, skeptics think they’re smart enough to dismiss UFOs, and then use that cockiness to also dismiss sexism or racism as equivalent. It makes for a very unpleasant environment for a lot of us.

Another concern that should have been brought up is skepticism’s treatment of women. You should definitely get a few women’s voices in your article. Karen Stollznow has had a less than happy experience with organized skepticism; Rebecca Watson has worked happily with Novella in the past, but has some general grievances with both the skeptical and atheist movements. They can tell you about another problem: that chronic harassers are tolerated and even rewarded within skepticism.

I would hope that rather than pretending all of Horgan’s objections are irrelevant, that the next meeting of NECSS makes an effort to include a few speakers who broaden the range and who gore a few dangerously sacred cows, not just the spavined beasts that make for light entertainment.

Another intellectual, a professor of English, Rezaul Karim Siddiquee, was hacked to death in Bangladesh for the crime of being an atheist. The twist here, though, is that he wasn’t an atheist at all.

But according to his daughter, Rizwana Hasin, 23, he was not an atheist.

Siddiquee participated in cultural activities and wanted to open a music school in nearby Bagmara.

“He loved music. A concept is growing in Bangladesh these days that those who are interested in music, culture, are not believers in religion,” she told CNN.

First they come for the atheists, an easy target. Then they go after the artists, the poets, the writers, the musicians, the poets because they love the world too much and are not sufficiently fanatical. Then the teachers and other educators. This is one way to change the culture to make everyone believe as you do: chop down everyone who isn’t as ignorant as you are.

The future Bangladesh of their dreams will contain only people who know how to pray and how to use a machete, nothing more.

Here comes another misbegotten idea from an obnoxious atheist. Bill Maher wants to make another documentary about religion. He wants to call it The Kings of Atheism. Yes. That’s all we need. Another atheist praising an elitist, authoritarian mindset in support of the status quo.

He really doesn’t get it.

Et ses mains ourdiraient les entrailles du prêtre,
Au défaut d’un cordon pour étrangler les rois.

No gods, no masters.

The man is completely tone-deaf. I felt that way about his previous movie, Religulous, too. But he might have a popular formula there, since a lot of atheists seem to be looking for secular priests to lead them.

He gave a talk at a skeptics’ conference, and he called them out on their screwy priorities. You do not question movement skeptics on the importance of fighting Bigfoot.

The references to “Bigfoot” in the headline above and text below were inspired by a conversation I had with conference Emcee Jamy Ian Swiss before I went on stage. He asked what I planned to say, and I told him, and he furiously defended his opposition to belief in Bigfoot.

I can picture this — I’ve seen Swiss in Indignant Fury mode.

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