Atheism Plus/Free Thought Blogs (FTB)

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I'm new here so I missed when this thread started, but when I read the title I thought:

"Atheist Plus, now with anti-oxidants!!!"


it's a foolish concept that with atheism comes a set belief system. I'm an atheist and I bet I would disagree with many fellow atheists on an number of things.

Just because we are of the opinion that there was no "creator" doesn't mean we are all social liberals, or anti-capitalists or pro-communist or anti-religion or whatever.

I'm sure there are plenty of racist,sexist, homophobic atheists out there....
 
WillyWonka said:
I understand your point. Mine is more circumstantial evidence based. A lot of the discourse is the same as in the comment section of his blog (and of most FtB I guess). There is certainly no planning, that is for sure, but I see his modus operandi in the way it operates; the berating of people, the banning, the aggressiveness. I am not saying that he is the only one, but as one of a leaders of the radical side of atheism, if he says that this movement is moribund, who ever is left will disappear.
Click to expand...

PZ is the anti-pope?
 
I want to know what the politics they vaguely allude to in their "Ideas we all share" list is. I forget how far back the link to it was but someone must remember what I mean.
 
Let me sing the sond of my people

Hello, everyone.

Let me sing you the song of my adventures on A+ forums. I cant post any the url's because no-15-posts-yet rule, so i post the relevant section of the address.

My first contact with A+ came from the Matt incident, so in the name of science (who am i fooling, i did it for the lulz) i decided to give it a go. Bear in mind, when i entered the forums i was still under impression that it was some sort of militant atheistic quasi-political-science-septic HQ that was too aggressive and therefore unpopular to the moderate mainstream.
Boy, was i in for a surprise. In the beginning, i managed to hold one or two somewhat adult conversations, mainly with mods. And it was always the mods, or few of the ever-same faces that post/swarm anyone that have anything to say, at all. It quickly started to feel like the the cast of these ~10 individuals, mods included, are responsible for good ~80% of all 'content' this forum had. But, enough of talking, let the forums speak for themselves.


Note: Posts may not be in chronological order, but ill try to describe my interaction with these 'extraterrestrial' beings as well as i can.

atheismplus.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1684

In this thread, i actually had a adult discussion with a mod, and we agreed to disagree on what term humanist meant. This was one of my first interactions with the place, and i was still just reading topics trying to figure out what is going on. When a trend of posts like these...

atheismplus.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1342
atheismplus.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=225&start=25

...started to hit the radar. Well, all cool and well. Many were emotional and it is understandable, but rarely anyone even so much as tried to analyze or have any kind of thought. Just reactions and feelings.

atheismplus.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1998

This threads reaction to joke about history. They called it racist :jaw-dropp
My mind shorted out for a moment, i could not come up with explanation why they reacted like this? The only reason i could think of is that no one of these people that commented knew what the word "racist" means. As you can imagine, i needed both of my hands to facepalm. :covereyes

atheismplus.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1701&start=25

So then came up the humor thread, and i decided to see how far the humor here stretched. I think Ive outdone westprog on troll-o-meter when i manage to slip in a GNAA video about black gay men in space. Funny enough it was not the GNAA thing that earned me the first temp ban, it was mentioning of underwear in a twist. At that point a creeping realization started to dawn in on me: i was in the lair of people so far detached from this world, that phrase "as my arse is from the dark side of the moon" don't do it justice.

And then finally...


atheismplus.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1979

I stepped on the land mine of A+ and all became clear to me. This forum was not, and never will be a place that they so advertised to be rational and skeptical. It is a cotton wool lined hugbox that prohibits any sort of thought that might even remotely upset any one of the core members (but utterly ignore any actual victims, as some threads have shown).
The sheer ferocity and vehemence that these people employ to clear victim of any and all agency and self determination is astonishing. Ive seen support groups for rape and suicide attempt victims, and this place was a sick and twisted parody of it - all the effort in here is concentrated on perpetuation the status of victim. Any and all attempts at addressing the underlying core problems that causes more victims were branded as victim blaming.
If the A+ "movement" consist of these kind of "movers", i honestly cant see them achieving any kind of social justice. For the simple fact that none of these issues are ever discussed objectively.

Well, this ends my first post and tale of my adventures in the lair of stupid.

-Dilla
 
Mad Dilla Huntter said:
Any and all attempts at addressing the underlying core problems that causes more victims were branded as victim blaming.
If the A+ "movement" consist of these kind of "movers", i honestly cant see them achieving any kind of social justice. For the simple fact that none of these issues are ever discussed objectively.

Well, this ends my first post and tale of my adventures in the lair of stupid.

-Dilla
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Actual victim support groups aim to remove the stigma of victimhood and to make the victims feel empowered again so they can resume normal life. Victims are referred to as "survivors" and the overall goal is to stop them from feeling victimised once and for all.

What A-plus (and they're not alone in this) are doing is fetishizing victim status and turning victimhood into a virtue.
 
after reading that I am sorely tempted to join their forum and use my opening post to say :

WHICH ONE OF YOU HOT TAMALES WANTS TO MAKE DADDY A SANDWICH?
 
squealpiggy said:
Actual victim support groups aim to remove the stigma of victimhood and to make the victims feel empowered again so they can resume normal life. Victims are referred to as "survivors" and the overall goal is to stop them from feeling victimised once and for all.

What A-plus (and they're not alone in this) are doing is fetishizing victim status and turning victimhood into a virtue.
Click to expand...

I like to wallow in self pity and drown in a pint of ice cream now and then, too. But these guys are taking that to a whole new level.


StankApe said:
after reading that I am sorely tempted to join their forum and use my opening post to say :

WHICH ONE OF YOU HOT TAMALES WANTS TO MAKE DADDY A SANDWICH?
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Every new poster must be approved by the ministry of correct thoughts (mod) before he can post. You have to behave good the first few post before mods will green light you and let you post without screening process.

But, if you pull it off, do post links and accompany your HOT TAMALE post with this link: youtube.com/watch?v=xJk4ozazAQo.
 
Judging from the threads you linked if I posted that video they'd all have a communal stroke over the stereotyping(mexicans liking tamales and wearing sombreros), treatment of women as objects (the peppers) and ,of course, how the thermometer is actually a phallic symbol used to strip the power of heat away from the aformentioned female pepper characters.


so, yes I will do that if I decide this trolling exercise is worth it. :-)
 
Dude. Bro. Dudebro.

You don't troll a forum like this with GNAA. Half the time they've got their heads so far up their asses they won't see it for what it is anyway, and when they do clue in they'll just ban you.

You troll them by leading the chorus. By being the voice of unreasonable zealotry. Your goal is to provide and encourage viewpoints and "solutions" so offensive and over the top that about half of the established members start thinking it's going too far. Then you get the other half to happily turn on them for being privileged and bigoted, and kick back with some popcorn to watch the fireworks.
 
We are trolling them by not trolling them, its an insidious plan that will alienate all the non-troll new members while sparing us all the effort to troll.

In all honesty tho, Ive done my little dip in the A+ pool. I was not going there to troll, but to test the ice and see what all this was about. A+ are now so insulated, so hypersensitive that you don't even need to troll them anymore. As it stands now, A+ is a run away chain reaction of stupidity gone critical-mass: Chernobyl of brain farts of our time.
 
Beelzebuddy said:
You troll them by leading the chorus. By being the voice of unreasonable zealotry. Your goal is to provide and encourage viewpoints and "solutions" so offensive and over the top that about half of the established members start thinking it's going too far. Then you get the other half to happily turn on them for being privileged and bigoted, and kick back with some popcorn to watch the fireworks.
Click to expand...

:)

There was going to be words there but I didn't want to distract from the perfect paragraph
 
squealpiggy said:
Actual victim support groups aim to remove the stigma of victimhood and to make the victims feel empowered again so they can resume normal life. Victims are referred to as "survivors" and the overall goal is to stop them from feeling victimised once and for all.

What A-plus (and they're not alone in this) are doing is fetishizing victim status and turning victimhood into a virtue.
Click to expand...


In which case, would it be too much to say that A+ may be a potential legal train wreck?
 
There has been some sound rational criticism of Atheism Plus and the Atheism Plus forums on this thread. I hope that I've helped to provide some of it.

But talking about trolling them for lulz is more than a little distasteful.

Read this thread first: http://atheismplus.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=864.

Got the picture? Some of them, you might see as whiners with no real problems. But all of them are in pain. Might some of that pain be self-inflicted, such as by convincing one another that any perceived slight to them whether deliberate or not is an expression of personal hatred and contempt? Perhaps. But that doesn't make it any less painful.

Now that it's clear that they're not about to come boiling out of the Freethought Blogs like some kind of army ants, and force you to start believing in God again unless you use gender-neutral pronouns... let them be.

For the love of humanity, let them be.

Respectfully,
Myriad
 
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