Atheism Plus/Free Thought Blogs (FTB)

[UnrepentantSinner]

These are not insignificant people, they have a large presence on the internet and from what I read, at atheist, secular, skeptic and rational conferences.

No they're not. The vast majority of people, even atheists, have no idea who the hell they are and, of those that do, many don't care. There's a podcast/blog/YouTube circle jerk that is rather small, insular and insignificant.

And yes, they do get invited to speak at conferences - attended by less people in a year than pack a single mega-church on any given week.

 

[Orphia Nay]

I just read through this whole thread.

I'm an atheist, but I don't feel the need to join a club about it. And certainly not a club (A+) within a club (feminist atheists) within a club (FTB) within a "club" (Atheism).

The URI got word-filtered. Try this:
http://goo.gl/4cHQ2

Good article.

For those who don't have time to read it all, these are my favourite bits:

"Atheism isn’t a community, it is a loosely corralled mass of cats who have only one thing definitely in common. That they don’t believe in god. When you start tacking on other things you start losing people. You narrow yourself down, you create fractures and oppositions. In this case you’re also setting yourself up as being ‘better’ than other people."

and

"And how are you helping exactly by creating a splinter group and propagating the myth that atheism is somehow a hotbed of misogyny and violence towards women?"

 

[zooterkin]

I agree, it's a good summary. Is it confirmation bias that a lot of the blogs talking sense about the A+ thing seem to be by Brits? Because the society is different, we don't feel the need to self-identify or gather together as atheists; that's the default position for most people. There is a significant overlap between skeptics and atheists, but it seems to me that those behind the A+ idea, who may be associating together as atheists, are mistaking the reason for their common values as being due to the atheism rather than other factors. Things like a primarily atheist conference calling itself "Skepticon" only help to further muddy the waters. There's a distinct lack of logic and critical thinking.

 

[Orphia Nay]

Interesting point, Zooterkin. I was also thinking a half-formed thought that A+ is like the USA's congenital partisanship. The need to identify oneself through an organisation.

 

[chillzero]

Has anyone seen any figures behind these repeated assertions that the skeptic/atheist/humanist movement is dominated by 'old white men' (with the implication that this is somehow a detrimental thing)? I see a lot of female bloggers, for instance, and many young men, and I personally know plenty of non mysogynist skeptic men who I don't feel should be made to feel as if they present a problem to me, or to the atheist/skeptic/humanist community.

 

[Wolfman]

Has anyone seen any figures behind these repeated assertions that the skeptic/atheist/humanist movement is dominated by 'old white men' (with the implication that this is somehow a detrimental thing)? I see a lot of female bloggers, for instance, and many young men, and I personally know plenty of non mysogynist skeptic men who I don't feel should be made to feel as if they present a problem to me, or to the atheist/skeptic/humanist community.

I'm making a slightly different assertion in the A+ forums...I'm pointing out that while women may be proportionally underrepresented at atheist/skeptical events, minorities seem to be even more proportionally underrepresented. By focusing on the issue of females, essentially all they're doing is changing it from a "white man's movement" to a "white people's movement".

I've attended TAM; I've been a speaker at both the American Atheists national conference and the American Humanist Association conference; and while the Humanist conference had a better mix of different ethnicities, none of them were even close to proportional representation by non-white ethnicities. Blacks have limited representation; hispanics and asians seem almost non-existent (Paperskater being a rare exception at TAM).

For me, any new 'movement' that is gonna' talk about equality, justice, discrimination, and inclusiveness, must make this a priority. Yet thus far, I see almost no desire or interest on the part of the A+ community to do anything about this.

I guess that changing from a "white man's movement" to a "white people's movement" is a slight step in the right direction...but I'm personally gonna' wait for something with a less limited vision than that.

 

[zooterkin]

I'm making a slightly different assertion in the A+ forums...I'm pointing out that while women may be proportionally underrepresented at atheist/skeptical events, minorities seem to be even more proportionally underrepresented. By focusing on the issue of females, essentially all they're doing is changing it from a "white man's movement" to a "white people's movement".

I've attended TAM; I've been a speaker at both the American Atheists national conference and the American Humanist Association conference; and while the Humanist conference had a better mix of different ethnicities, none of them were even close to proportional representation by non-white ethnicities. Blacks have limited representation; hispanics and asians seem almost non-existent

Yes, the same thing struck me at TAM. I think most of the hispanics I saw were on the event and hotel staff, and, at at least one of the TAMs I attended, most of the non-white speakers were from the UK. I think (though it's not something I paid specific attention to) that the mix was better at TAM London and QEDCon.

(Paperskater being a rare exception at TAM).

I can think of at least two others, though they are easy to overlook.

 

[Orphia Nay]

Ethnicity demographics from Alexa:

Green is male, red is female, as far as I understand.

 

[zooterkin]

Ethnicity demographics from Alexa:

[qimg]http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w194/orphia/Evidence/AlexaRandiOrg.jpg[/qimg]

[qimg]http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w194/orphia/Evidence/AlexaRandiOrgAge.jpg[/qimg]

[qimg]http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w194/orphia/Evidence/AlexaRandiOrgGender.jpg[/qimg]

Green is male, red is female, as far as I understand.

I think that only applies to the last graph, though I don't fully understand what they're showing. Is the green the largest group in each category? I'm a bit surprised that "African" appears to be the second largest ethnic group. Any idea how the data is collected?

 

[Professor Yaffle]

I think the central line is some measure of the "average", with green showing how much above average and red how much below average?

 

[Wolfman]

The easiest way to read those charts is that the greater the distance between the two lines, the greater the disparity in representation by each group.

 

[chillzero]

I think the central line is some measure of the "average", with green showing how much above average and red how much below average?

That seems to make sense looking at the graphs, but then my question is the "average" for what? The world? The country? The internet? Attendance at conferences?

 

[Moss]

Green shows when a group is overrepresented, red if a group in underrepresented in comparison to "normal" internet users.

 

[chillzero]

How is "normal" determined?

 

[Moss]

Sorry, no idea what statistical model Alexa uses for that and how granular it is.
I suppose big impact sites like http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/facebook.com shape what is "the general internet population".

 

[chillzero]

Well, another thing is how to identify who belongs in those groups. We aren't forced to provide accurate data on gender, age group, ethnic group to be using the internet either.

 

[Moss]

Well, another thing is how to identify who belongs in those groups. We aren't forced to provide accurate data on gender, age group, ethnic group to be using the internet either.

I suppose those are mostly based on users of the Alexa toolbar, which has the obvious drawback of selfselection and self reporting.

 

[chillzero]

Yeah. I really don't know why skeptics make these calims that it seems to me to be incredibly difficult to verify.

(For the following, I think atheist, skeptic and humanist may be interchangeable)
Plus, if the section of society identifying as atheist is overrun by 'old white men' that says nothing about the quality of those men as 'members'. It also says nothing about whether the lack of other member groups is down to lack of interest, lack of belief (or non-belief to be accurate), or discouragement from using the label. I.E do people not identify as atheists because they are not atheist, or because they are not interested in self-identifying tot that label, or do they actively feel that they are being intimidated away from using the label. If it's the latter, are they being intimidated by the 'old white men' or by other considerations?

We've already identified in this thread that some feminist approaches have been a real turn off to other people, for example.

 

[Moss]

For the record: I was not trying to make an argument, I was just looking at the Alexa statistics and wrote what the help text says about the colours.

 

[The Man]

No they're not. The vast majority of people, even atheists, have no idea who the hell they are and, of those that do, many don't care. There's a podcast/blog/YouTube circle jerk that is rather small, insular and insignificant.

Which is the thing (well one at least) that has always struck me as odd about this, UnrepentantSinner. What’s the threat or damage inherent in being marginalized by a group that essentially marginalizes itself? Spit poison long enough and everything gets covered by poison except for just those margins you haven’t spat on yet. Quite frankly I’ve never heard of any of these people except in the context of them spouting some vile denigration as what they apparently feel to be some motivational tool. Granted though I haven’t heard much of anyone who might be considered part of the “atheist” community (except on this forum of course). The difference of course being that is it worth just being known for your excessive linguistic turpitude just to be known? Evidently some think it is, good luck with that (marginalizing and shaming themselves in their attempts to marginalize and shame others).