Atheism Plus/Free Thought Blogs (FTB)

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Lorentz said:
But while I can enjoy reading some blogs without feeling a need to debate, surely the whole purpose of having a forum rather than a blog, is to allow debate?
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I'd say that the purpose of a forum instead of a blog is to have discussion, but not necessarily debate. For example, sometimes I participate in hobby-related fora and while there's certainly some debating (people are people, after all), I think that's secondary to the 'core mission' of getting & giving advice on various hobby-related problems, sharing experiences, etc.

It's very forum-specific, of course. I'd say that debate is central to the JREF Forum's 'core mission.'

The A+ forum is free to choose a different path than JREF, of course. However, stating noble goals does not keep one to a worthy path, and I think A+ has strayed very far indeed. It's not my intent to defend A+; I'm simply quibbling over whether debate is the whole purpose of online fora.
 
@AA

How old are you? Your assumptions of the reactions of random strangers being asked to tone down the jokes or to be quite seem like how teenagers or college age people respond, not mid-late twenties and on.

I can certainly recall people who reacted the way you describe, but it was always years ago, and never in a setting that would have anything to do with a profession, unless possibly, that profession was video game pro.
 
Mr. Scott said:
However, I spiced it a bit by calling the A+ forum "ceepolkland" because it's one of those forums where a single person dominates and bullies everyone else, and seems to feel they have to answer almost every post and set the tone. I almost never visit there (or FTB) unless someone here provides a link.
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Here's some full ceepolk for ya..It's got everything, bullying, false accusations, dehumanization, the works. It sort of ends with first, an outrageous piece of anecdata by the chemgeek then some serious bafflegab by that same chemgeek trying to say that nobody's saying that criticism of Islam on an atheist site is inherently racist when clearly, it' was said by ceepolk, Kaissaine and GreatBlueHeron.

Then ceepolk lays down some sort of weird law that says you can't criticize a specific religion without making sure that criticism is specific to that religion only. So...no more criticizing Christianity specifically then it's going to be religious people, or fundamentalists all the way...right ?
 
ApostateltsopA said:
Context would be helpful. If you were spending your time in Mississippi harassing church attendees, I'd reserve the same disdain for you that I have for the evangelicals that like to shout from bullhorns at atheist conventions.

If you are making broad, all christian, encompassing commentary, then I'll not bat an eye, unless you are doing it in a place where you'd be making your comments down an axis of privilege at the people who are at the disadvantage.

Specifics matter.
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Harassing people who want to come together to share an ideology I'm opposed to like these people are ? 2 min youtube video featuring a megaphone at 1:10
Yes, I'd probably have disdain for me should I find myself carrying on like that too.

The problem is though, I'm white so if I were criticizing the policies or actions of a church with a predominately PoC congregation I would be doing it from a position of white privilege. If a PoC church were demanding that a woman's right to choice be denied or homosexuals should not be allowed to destroy the sanctity of marriage then what ?

I suppose I could dress as a hobo and "punch up" from a class perspective.
 
dasmiller said:
I'd say that the purpose of a forum instead of a blog is to have discussion, but not necessarily debate. For example, sometimes I participate in hobby-related fora and while there's certainly some debating (people are people, after all), I think that's secondary to the 'core mission' of getting & giving advice on various hobby-related problems, sharing experiences, etc.
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It can be tricky defining the border between "discussion" and "debate", but you're probably right; my bad for overstating.

The rest of your comments I cannot honestly disagree with.
 
ApostateltsopA said:
Allowed? I suspect you are allowed but I think what you really mean is will I criticize you for criticizing Islam.

That would be entirely situational. I would not bat an eye if you were to say all religion is foolish. If you said that Islam creates terrorists and is inherently bad I would call you on a gross oversimplification. I'd also point out the massive number of Muslims who abhor terrorism.

I don't want to put words in your mouth, so I'll ask that you clarify, in what circumstance or under what general setting do you intend to criticize?
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First and foremost, Islam is little different from Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Sikhism et al. There are a large number of normal, reasonable, pleasant followers, and a small core of absolute lunatics.

Let's say I was discussing the attitudes and religious practices of Saudi Arabia, and I called Wahabism barbaric.

Or if I were to decry the radicalisation of children in the Gaza strip and West Bank.

Or if I were to complain about FGM in Indonesia and Africa being closely tied to the particular branches of Islam in those regions.

Would any of those be ok? All of them? If they aren't ok, why not?

I merely ask because of the ridiculous (and highly racist) "Religion of brown people" nonsense Ceepolk has enforced over on A+.

Like I said in a post a few pages back, I absolutely agree with about 99% of A+'s stated goals, I agree with things like Schroedinger's rapist etc etc, I'm just disgusted by how A+ acts and talks. They're no more for social justice than my shoe is.
 
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ApostateltsopA said:
Why do you think she did not behave as an adult?
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She didn't take personable responsibility in trying to defuse the situation and that fact led to very serious repercussions to her and the accused.

The two men were already in violation of the code of conduct for the location, which is why the organization took action against them. Why do you feel they deserved a respectful response from her, personally and in private, when they were showing no respect?
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I don't know about you but I'm human and I'm grateful for the times when I was acting poorly that someone else acting a bit more mature well let me know without running to the nearest authorities. There was no need for this guy or Arias to lose their jobs. Both were unnecessary and unwanted consequences. Not sure what's so difficult to understand that you had to even ask the question. You do know that to people unnecessarily lost their job, right? Humans can save themselves much heartache by simply acting in a grown up fashion. She was not capable of doing that at the conference. Too bad for here. BTW: It looks as if they were being thoughtless. Most of us are thoughtless at some times. It doesn't make us monsters. We just need to be brought back into reality. The jokes were in appropriate. That doesn't mean they would have beat her up or spit on her.

Would it? If everyone who was put upon by people being jerks spoke to those jerks they might, if I am being charitable, get a response where the jerks stop being jerks because they didn't realize they were being offensive. Personally I think they would react with indignation and anger. They would probably then double down and the whole thing derails. However by calling them out publicly, they lose the advantage of numbers and their behavior, and all the nasty behavior from like minded people, is on display for all to see. So the hollow claims of 'There isn't really a problem' can be seen for straw and the actual problem can get some attention.
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Rank speculation. You are honestly ascribing motives and behavior you cannot know in an ad hoc fashion. We are civilized human beings. We can be friendly to each other while asking for a little consideration. If she was able to get them to smile for their photograph without tearing her head of I don't doubt she could have kindly asked them to clean up their language.
 
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ApostateltsopA said:
Context would be helpful. If you were spending your time in Mississippi harassing church attendees, I'd reserve the same disdain for you that I have for the evangelicals that like to shout from bullhorns at atheist conventions.
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Is... anyone doing this?

If you are making broad, all christian, encompassing commentary, then I'll not bat an eye, unless you are doing it in a place where you'd be making your comments down an axis of privilege at the people who are at the disadvantage.

Specifics matter.
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So if there is a church preaching hatred against, say, homosexuals in a poverty-ridden country such as, ooh, I don't know, Uganda, I'm not allowed to address this as barbaric and monstrous because privilege?

MarkCorrigan said:
Like I said in a post a few pages back, I absolutely agree with about 99% of A+'s stated goals, I agree with things like Schroedinger's rapist etc etc, I'm just disgusted by how A+ acts and talks. They're no more for social justice than my shoe is.
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Just a quick mention of this, Schrodinger's Rapist is essentially Stranger Danger reframed for radical feminist paranoia in which all crimes come from the patriarchy and all victims are ultimately women.

It's sensible to be wary of strangers who may or may not have malicious intent towards you, it's not sensible to only be concerned about a single specific crime. You don't have Schrodinger's Mugger or Schrodinger's Highwayman or Schrodinger's Insurance Fraudster or Schrodinger's Hub Cap Thief. It's related to the weird notion of "rape culture".
 
squealpiggy said:
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Just a quick mention of this, Schrodinger's Rapist is essentially Stranger Danger reframed for radical feminist paranoia in which all crimes come from the patriarchy and all victims are ultimately women.

It's sensible to be wary of strangers who may or may not have malicious intent towards you, it's not sensible to only be concerned about a single specific crime. You don't have Schrodinger's Mugger or Schrodinger's Highwayman or Schrodinger's Insurance Fraudster or Schrodinger's Hub Cap Thief. It's related to the weird notion of "rape culture".
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I just wish we could leave Schrödinger out of it. Even a cursory understanding of his quantum entanglement joke leads to an erroneous impression of what the SR adherents are spouting...even the wikipedia entry on the cat:

... According to Schrödinger, the Copenhagen interpretation implies that the cat remains both alive and dead (to the universe outside the box) until the box is opened. Schrödinger did not wish to promote the idea of dead-and-alive cats as a serious possibility; quite the reverse, the paradox is a classic reductio ad absurdum....
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This gives the impression that the "Stranger Danger" meme is ridiculous with the superimposition of rapist/not-rapist status simultaneously...that assuming any given male that you don't know is as equally likely a rapist or non-rapist simultaneously is absurd...but, no, they're serious.

Calling it Starling's Rapist would possibly clear that up, unless people remember "Silence of the Lambs"...at least there wouldn't be an erroneous initial impression lended by the co-opting of Schrödinger's Cat.
 
Lorentz said:
What problem? One person took offense and went a big - and to my mind unjustifiable - step beyond just reporting it. Few others would have taken offense, which means by the definitions I'm used to, it was not actually "offensive" (yes, I realise A+ uses a different definition, but I don't think that is, or should be, a commonly accepted one).
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To digress a bit yet mark on what you noted above; a few years ago I read an interesting book by a swedish psychiatrist, the book was called (my own translation of the title mind you): "No one takes crap in the Land of the Easily Offended".

While his reflections are more to do about contemporary swedish society, I feel it translates well to "western" ones in general. The basic gist of the book is his observation of a trend in people using more noisy and authoritive means to express their offence and public damnation their offenders, in the paralleled trend of people becoming increasingly sensitive to the slightest hint of criticism or offence in all its possible, percievable forms. I remember one example which he also used in passing in the book, about a school teacher got handed in a wooden dildo made by a couple of the boys in her woodwork class (seventh or eight grade). The police, local authorities and social security et al were called in swiftly as all hell was raised around this horrible act of sexual harassment (they were on the brink of being expelled). Apparently, nowadays you don't get sent to the principle's office for pranks like that, or a good slap on the head. No, you're more likely to get the full weight of the law and society's moral-panic down your head.

The lesson or 'sense morale' of this is; don't mess with the easily offended. Contemporarily, society backs them up progressively, in any society that expresses the symptoms of being 'The land of the Righteous Comfortoholics'. You won't just be taken very, very seriously. More than likely, you'll be taken to court.

As it is, I tend to agree with the author of the formentioned book that there is a problem today with the spiraling sensitivity and mass moral-panic over the smallest and most mundane of debacles (the discussed author is David Eberhard, former chief psychiatrist and the author of the books "Ingen tar skit i de Lättkränktas Land", "I Trygghetnarkomanernas Land" and "Normalt?" (unfortunately, they aren't translated to english yet).
 
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Jono said:
The lesson or 'sense morale' of this is; don't mess with the easily offended. Contemporarily, society backs them up progressively, in any society that expresses the symptoms of being 'The land of the Righteous Comfortoholics'. You won't just be taken very, very seriously. More than likely, you'll be taken to court.
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That does match with impressions I had. It seems a weird trend indeed; almost like a subculture spreading its oversensitive tentacles across borders. The first signs I saw of it, about a decade ago, were in the U.S., does that match your impressions?

I don't think however that this trend exists uniformly in Western societies. I haven't noticed it at all in my own country, nor in France or Germany (not that I'm an expert on those last two; I may just have missed it).

None of this is data, merely highly subjective impressions. Just don't dare contradict me, or I will be highly offended! ;)
 
MarkCorrigan said:
I merely ask because of the ridiculous (and highly racist) "Religion of brown people" nonsense Ceepolk has enforced over on A+.
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The more I think about it, the more I think that in principle, it's neither ridiculous nor nonsense.

The A+ forums are clearly a venue for decrying White Privilege (In the West). Digressions into the topic of Brown Privilege (Elsewhere), necessarily dilute the message and purpose of the A+ forum space and are off-topic in spirit, if not in letter.

Ceepolk, of course, does an abysmal job of explaining this in an informed, un-bigoted way.

Also, now that the spirit of that forum has clearly evolved into "A Safe Space for People to Vent about White Privilege in Canada and the US", they should probably put that clearly in writing to avoid needless confusion and confrontation. They should probably also not let Ceepolk write it up.
 
theprestige said:
The more I think about it, the more I think that in principle, it's neither ridiculous nor nonsense.

The A+ forums are clearly a venue for decrying White Privilege (In the West). Digressions into the topic of Brown Privilege (Elsewhere), necessarily dilute the message and purpose of the A+ forum space and are off-topic in spirit, if not in letter.

Ceepolk, of course, does an abysmal job of explaining this in an informed, un-bigoted way.

Also, now that the spirit of that forum has clearly evolved into "A Safe Space for People to Vent about White Privilege in Canada and the US", they should probably put that clearly in writing to avoid needless confusion and confrontation. They should probably also not let Ceepolk write it up.
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A+ was always about decrying white/male/cis yada yada privilige, that's what a social justice safe space is all about.

The only acceptable way to criticize the way brown people do things is to frame it in such a way that they "have" to do it because the west is making them. Iran want's nuclear weapons ?? only to defend themselves from the west. N. Korea is pounding the war drums ?.....US out of the Korean Peninsula. Other than that SJ is about how much our society sucks, and sucks hard.

So why don't they have a one page post clearly outlining the A+ culture instead of that stupid basket of links ? Why are they flying an atheism flag instead of an SJ one ?

The idea is to lure the well meaning and unsuspecting in so the core group can bash the hell out of them before banning them.

It's all about getting emotional revenge on society for their crappy childhoods and Christian parents.
 
Diogenes said:
I just wish we could leave Schrödinger out of it. Even a cursory understanding of his quantum entanglement joke leads to an erroneous impression of what the SR adherents are spouting...even the wikipedia entry on the cat:

Quote:
... According to Schrödinger, the Copenhagen interpretation implies that the cat remains both alive and dead (to the universe outside the box) until the box is opened. Schrödinger did not wish to promote the idea of dead-and-alive cats as a serious possibility; quite the reverse, the paradox is a classic reductio ad absurdum....
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Sorry to digress, but every time I hear about Schrödinger's cat, I immediately think of this:

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/113/the-story-of-schroedingers-cat-an-epic-poem

the only place it goes off the rails is when they try to rhyme "got 'em" with "atom";)
 
I can try to share my perspective on the line of the "don't attack the religions of marginalized people." I'm currently having a discussion on the topic on atheismplus, so I know this opinion isn't universal over there.

There has been a significant amount of hate crimes and discrimination against muslims* in the US. I'm sure we all agree that the small number of murders and larger number of assaults are wrong. Many of you also probably agree that some or all of the discrimination against muslims is wrong. Given that, some criticisms of Islam do more to marginalize people than to actually criticize the religion or the evil done in its name. One particularly egregious example would be the claim that all muslims are terrorists. I think a lot of Sam Harris's criticisms could also fall into that category.** To the extent that criticisms are designed to or have the effect of marginalizing people (rather than their incorrect/harmful beliefs), those criticisms are problematic.


*or people thought to be muslims
** See Harris's discussions with Scott Atran or Bruce Schneier
 
Stout said:
A+ was always about decrying white/male/cis yada yada privilige, that's what a social justice safe space is all about.

The only acceptable way to criticize the way brown people do things is to frame it in such a way that they "have" to do it because the west is making them. Iran want's nuclear weapons ?? only to defend themselves from the west. N. Korea is pounding the war drums ?.....US out of the Korean Peninsula. Other than that SJ is about how much our society sucks, and sucks hard.

So why don't they have a one page post clearly outlining the A+ culture instead of that stupid basket of links ? Why are they flying an atheism flag instead of an SJ one ?

The idea is to lure the well meaning and unsuspecting in so the core group can bash the hell out of them before banning them.

It's all about getting emotional revenge on society for their crappy childhoods and Christian parents.
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Nail. Head. Bang.
 
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