Atheism Plus/Free Thought Blogs (FTB)

[Humes fork]

Depends on how you got there.

That's true.

I should add that Atheism+ is little else than a cyberspace brain fart.

 

[Antiquehunter]

I should add that Atheism+ is little else than a cyberspace brain fart.

A rather odiferous one at that, too. If I farted that one out, I would totally 'Dutch Oven' JMcC.

 

[Axiom_Blade]

What's his address?

Don't mess with McCreight's dad. He'll backtrace your IP, and report you to the Internet Police!

 

[westprog]

Seconded. Personal attacks like that are reprehensible and completely out of keeping with every tenent of skepticism.

No matter WHAT "they said first".

Looking at the endless trail of stupid things people have said, one can't help but wonder how supposedly intellectually advanced people could be so foolish. It might seem very difficult, when subjected to abuse, to refrain from replying in kind - but all it does is create ammunition for the opponent.

Clearly, the kind of person who thinks that telephoning a woman's father to call her a slut is not likely to be deterred or put off by normal insults. Ideally, he'll be identified, isolated, shunned and possibly prosecuted. Sadly the battle lines seem to be set up as far as possible to prevent this from happening.

 

[Myriad]

Hmm.

Here, Ronald Lindsay of CFI points out some useful common ground.

And here, PZ Myers strafes, bombs, and mines that common ground, sows it with salt, and takes off and nukes the site from orbit. All to thunderous applause, of course.

Disappointing but far from surprising at this point.

Respectfully,
Myriad

 

[Walter Ego]

Add me to the list of folks that have a problem with the name. I don't want people reading rhetoric that sounds like it came from a discussion circle at a Marxist, vegan, lesbian commune in up-state New York and associating it with all atheists.

Some of my friends have been Marxists, vegans and lesbians. None were Yankee communards, however.

That's true.

I should add that Atheism+ is little else than a cyberspace brain fart.

A+ is like the 9/11 Truth Movement. Turn off the internet and it goes away.

Dad wrote before: "If someone has enough balls to call my daughter a slut to her face I would quickly introduce them to some accountability – a quick fist to the mouth".
Basically, he was asking for it.

He is a father of the old school standing up for his daughter. His anger is understandable. I'd give him a pass.

 

[Hokulele]

Dad wrote before: "If someone has enough balls to call my daughter a slut to her face I would quickly introduce them to some accountability – a quick fist to the mouth".
Basically, he was asking for it.

Hm, is it misogynistic that he feels she cannot take care of insults herself, but he has to do it for her?

Or is that simply patronizing?

This 3rd Wave of Feminism Atheism is confusing...

 

[westprog]

Don't mess with McCreight's dad. He'll backtrace your IP, and report you to the Internet Police!

I'm generally in favour of dads, who should have a simple policy on people like that. Anybody's father should respond to something like that in the same way, regardless of who she is.

 

[westprog]

Hmm.

Here, Ronald Lindsay of CFI points out some useful common ground.

And here, PZ Myers strafes, bombs, and mines that common ground, sows it with salt, and takes off and nukes the site from orbit. All to thunderous applause, of course.

Disappointing but far from surprising at this point.

Respectfully,
Myriad

It was very clear from the ice cream incident and many others that Myers deplores and despises accommodation, consensus and agreement, and prefers strife, confusion and hatred. Given a fellow human being, he will always try to avoid the common ground and look for a reason to despise him. It's no surprise to find that in his response to Lindsay, he quotes the first part of the blog, then responding to it while ignoring the second part - which dealt with the exact points he was making.

You may not have said these things yourself, but you talk to someone who's friends with someone who made an unpleasant remark which is misquoted here and taken out of context there. So to perdition with you.

 

[Axiom_Blade]

Why have people like Rebecca Watson and Ophelia Benson and Greta Christina and me been targeted this way? Because we have repudiated those people. We know how to repudiate them. We name and shame them. We ban them from our blogs. We mock them. We spit on their names.
...
We reject them categorically. I have filters in place that pick up on their favorite phrases, their pet hate sites, their IP addresses and prefered pseudonyms, and bans them outright. Russell Blackford has not recieved that treatment, but Franc Hoggle has, and Notung, and John D, and Michael Kingsford Gray, and Justicar, and a swarm of others, and anyone who has anything to do with the slymepit or Abbie Smith’s reflexive hatred — you may not know them, but they have a long history of obsession, and many of us know them well. They are irredeemable pests with nothing positive to contribute, only a desire to defend their bigotry.

It's really hard for me to understand what PZ's argument is here. Because you haven't been willing to get into some kind of a shouting-match with some moron on the Internet, like he has, you must support misogyny?

It's clear that he sees himself as some kind of valiant knight, protecting atheism from the scum of the earth. He should take up D&D, instead. It's a much healthier outlet for the imagination.

Reading about all the rude things that the mean people said to him gave me a good chuckle, too. Somebody needs to call the waaahmbulance!

 

[Walter Ego]

It was very clear from the ice cream incident and many others that Myers deplores and despises accommodation, consensus and agreement, and prefers strife, confusion and hatred. Given a fellow human being, he will always try to avoid the common ground and look for a reason to despise him.

Agreed. I've come to the conclusion that Meyers is mainly animated by animosity of one sort or another. There's a moment in that video I linked of Myers with "accommodationist" Chris Stedman where the camera zooms into a close-up of his face which is twitching with what can only be described as an expression of abject hatred directed towards Stedman.

 

[squealpiggy]

Hmm.

Here, Ronald Lindsay of CFI points out some useful common ground.

And here, PZ Myers strafes, bombs, and mines that common ground, sows it with salt, and takes off and nukes the site from orbit. All to thunderous applause, of course.

Disappointing but far from surprising at this point.

Respectfully,
Myriad

I think that might be the worst thing I've ever read from PZ. I can't believe he's talking about "sides". There are no "sides". The people making the threats, the people bombarding bloggers with misogynist invective, the people who are engaging in harassment and creepiness, they aren't a "side" in some imaginary battle. They are fringe actors, individuals, trolls, morons. This I think is the biggest mis-step in the whole A+ thing: They imagine themselves as embattled warriors forming a bulwark against a multitude of bigotry. In reality they are barking at shadows and alienating people who broadly agree with them.

 

[Checkmite]

Hm, is it misogynistic that he feels she cannot take care of insults herself, but he has to do it for her?

Or is that simply patronizing?

This 3rd Wave of Feminism Atheism is confusing...

Somebody emails this guy calling his daughter a slut, which makes him upset and angry, and the fact that he got upset and angry is now a vector of attack against his daughter? What on Earth...?

 

[Checkmite]

I thought it was said that PZ is not a member of this atheist plus thing? If that's so then why are we treating anything he says as "policy"?

 

[westprog]

I think that might be the worst thing I've ever read from PZ. I can't believe he's talking about "sides". There are no "sides". The people making the threats, the people bombarding bloggers with misogynist invective, the people who are engaging in harassment and creepiness, they aren't a "side" in some imaginary battle. They are fringe actors, individuals, trolls, morons. This I think is the biggest mis-step in the whole A+ thing: They imagine themselves as embattled warriors forming a bulwark against a multitude of bigotry. In reality they are barking at shadows and alienating people who broadly agree with them.

There's a whole spectrum of people who've said things. The man who contacted someone who had nothing to do with the whole business to insult his daughter is clearly at one end. The likes of Lindsay are at another. Along the way there are all kinds of people, some of whom have made unwise remarks, or personal remarks, or sometimes entirely disgusting remarks. It's obviously possible to do a six degrees of Kevin Bacon and connect them all together. Incidentally, this has been done on both sides. Being present when someone made a remark is considered as being entirely responsible for the remark, if you don't immediately disassociate yourself from it.

People should be allowed to say "I don't agree with that - this is what I think," and that should be taken as their position. Paradoxically, people pleading for more restrained language, without personalisation and insult, are being classified with the people using the vilest language and insinuations.

I've noticed on the comments on the Lindsay blog that a woman named Amy admits to joining A+, and asks why people hate her. She seemed to sincerely believe that it was the case.

 

[westprog]

I thought it was said that PZ is not a member of this atheist plus thing? If that's so then why are we treating anything he says as "policy"?

The post where he "explains" this is a masterpiece. He says that he isn't part of A+, but the people who aren't part of it in a bad way are basically evil. There are a whole lot of people on Twitter getting it wrong, which proves that A+ is right. I think the idea is that if you're just as distanced from A+ as he is, that's fine, but any further and you're a really bad person.

 

[Checkmite]

The post where he "explains" this is a masterpiece. He says that he isn't part of A+, but the people who aren't part of it in a bad way are basically evil. There are a whole lot of people on Twitter getting it wrong, which proves that A+ is right. I think the idea is that if you're just as distanced from A+ as he is, that's fine, but any further and you're a really bad person.

If he says he isn't part of atheist +, then atheist + shouldn't have to answer for anything he says, no matter how outrageous or illogical.

 

[Myriad]

He is a father of the old school standing up for his daughter. His anger is understandable. I'd give him a pass.

I'd agree with this. It's just common sense.

However... is common sense permitted in this matter? I could point out that statistically, the risk of a woman being assaulted by her own father far exceeds the risk of being assaulted by an abusive stranger from the Internet. So, why shouldn't his apparent attitude of paternalistic possessiveness -- or even just his mere existence -- be seen as more threatening, and attract more concern, alarm, and sympathy, than any of the other hostile communications hitherto discussed?

Respectfully,
Myriad

 

[westprog]

It's really hard for me to understand what PZ's argument is here. Because you haven't been willing to get into some kind of a shouting-match with some moron on the Internet, like he has, you must support misogyny?

I've noticed the tendency here to seek out the obviously crazy people to argue with. It's why I stopped going to the conspiracy theory group. It became impossible to engage in a reasonable argument with an opponent. It was just a matter of pointing out the obvious to a crowd of people who agreed. Fun for a while, but eventually pointless. Here we see interminable threads discussing nonsensical mathematical theories. Does anyone come away with their mind changed?

There's clearly no shortage of idiots on the Internet, many of them very unpleasant people. Mostly, they're better ignored. If someone says something deeply offensive on Twitter or Facebook, then best report it and move on. It is unrewarding to engage with someone who just wants to spew the most contemptible depths of his libido.

 

[Checkmite]

Really?