Atheism Plus/Free Thought Blogs (FTB)

[Stout]

It's not just that they accept anecdotal evidence. It's that their anecdotal evidence trumps yours. Post on A+ about something a black/gay/trans friend said to you, and prepare to get a kicking. That kind of anecdote doesn't count. It's what someone you never met on the internet tells you that you're meant to listen to.

Yes, that's all part of the PC script. "As the self appointed representative of ( insert oppressed group here ) I"M TELLING YOU...this is how the world works.

Deviate from that, however, and your oppressed status won't protect you, the PC only want to hear what they want to here, hence all the deletions and bannings for straying from the script.

 

[westprog]

Yes, that's all part of the PC script. "As the self appointed representative of ( insert oppressed group here ) I"M TELLING YOU...this is how the world works.

Deviate from that, however, and your oppressed status won't protect you, the PC only want to hear what they want to here, hence all the deletions and bannings for straying from the script.

There's seems to be a perverse desire to abandon the world of 2012 and to insist that we all live in an episode of Mad Men, where all women executives are assumed to be secretaries and black people do only menial tasks. It's annoying because there are interesting discussions to be had about gender and race, which don't reduce to "everything's fine now", but pretending that we all still live in 1955 is just silly.

I found this book, for example, a very useful guide to racial issues, because rather than start with anecdote and theory, it researches what actually happened, and continues to happen.

 

[sir drinks-a-lot]

I rather dislike the tendency of some atheists to attribute to atheism anything more than the rejection of god claims--Alain de Botton, I'm lookin' at you.

Agreed. The word "atheist" is already confusing enough - when used without qualification does it refer to strong atheism, weak atheism, agnostic atheism, etc. Why clutter it up with a "movement" or a manifesto?

Secondly, not all atheists use critical thinking, and not all atheists are "against homophobia", for example.

And, finally, for someone to go through the trouble of announcing that they "care about social justice" seems downright silly. As if there is another group professing to not care. It reminds me of those "Hate is not a family value" bumper stickers, which tacitly suggest a large opposition. I have yet to see my first "Hate IS a family value" sticker.

 

[Stout]

There's seems to be a perverse desire to abandon the world of 2012 and to insist that we all live in an episode of Mad Men, where all women executives are assumed to be secretaries and black people do only menial tasks. It's annoying because there are interesting discussions to be had about gender and race, which don't reduce to "everything's fine now", but pretending that we all still live in 1955 is just silly.

I found this book, for example, a very useful guide to racial issues, because rather than start with anecdote and theory, it researches what actually happened, and continues to happen.

Bizarre innit ? It's almost like they're creating a stereotypical western society just so they can attack it. Take colour blindness for example. We say "we don't see colour" meaning that we see a person, be they black, white Asian, whathaveyou. The PC come back with..nooooooooooooo that's bad, we require you to see some groups of people as historically and currently oppressed and if you don't you're a RACIST. OK now, we've gotten to where we thought the PC wanted us only to be scolded for this new thing.

So far, the legal aspect of a socially just society is a done deal. No discrimination on the basis of race, gender, ...yada yada, all that's left is to try and change some peoples attitudes. By attacking them.

Now I'm not fussed about them labeling themselves atheists, mainly because I don't take my atheism very seriously. Not that I'm not a strong atheist, I'm just not an angry atheist. To pervert the idea of skepticism and critical thinking, that's another matter entirely.

 

[westprog]

Bizarre innit ? It's almost like they're creating a stereotypical western society just so they can attack it. Take colour blindness for example. We say "we don't see colour" meaning that we see a person, be they black, white Asian, whathaveyou. The PC come back with..nooooooooooooo that's bad, we require you to see some groups of people as historically and currently oppressed and if you don't you're a RACIST. OK now, we've gotten to where we thought the PC wanted us only to be scolded for this new thing.

I do feel sorry for the unfortunate naive people who go on A+ and try to talk about working for Obama and having a Hispanic friend and being so well-meaning. They get cut to pieces.

The various ways of being non-racist have changed over the years. Partly this is because people have gradually come to realise that various panaceas, from integration through affirmative action, have not achieved the hoped-for results. The lesson should be that trying to force attitudes on race into a particular straightjacket is always a dead end, not that we happen to have exactly the right viewpoint now.

So far, the legal aspect of a socially just society is a done deal. No discrimination on the basis of race, gender, ...yada yada, all that's left is to try and change some peoples attitudes. By attacking them.

Now I'm not fussed about them labeling themselves atheists, mainly because I don't take my atheism very seriously. Not that I'm not a strong atheist, I'm just not an angry atheist. To pervert the idea of skepticism and critical thinking, that's another matter entirely.

They have a lengthy discussion going on which is focussing on the fact that anyone using skeptical techniques will inevitably agree with them in every possible way.

 

[Stout]

The various ways of being non-racist have changed over the years. Partly this is because people have gradually come to realise that various panaceas, from integration through affirmative action, have not achieved the hoped-for results. The lesson should be that trying to force attitudes on race into a particular straightjacket is always a dead end, not that we happen to have exactly the right viewpoint now.

It seems the only to "prove" one isn't a racist is to go around loudly calling other people racists. It is, as you say a dead end and I highly suspect the whole PC structure is set up with that in mind. Other than full on Marxism with everybody being the exact same shade of grey, the SJ model is unworkable in the real world.

I've gone from asking "what do you want me to do about it ? " to wanting to examine the deep dark underbelly of the PC mind and wanting to know, what they're doing about it. I'm not seeing to much, other than complaining. Yea, sure, you can go to the big demo about the environment but don't you think the world would really be a better place if you didn't burn all that fossil fuel flying to Macchu Picchu for a holiday ?

Silence....or a quip about cultural understanding, or, the worst of all, the claim that the personal doesn't matter, only the political does.

They have a lengthy discussion going on which is focusing on the fact that anyone using skeptical techniques will inevitably agree with them in every possible way.

I've been trying to follow that thread, unsuccessfully. Sure it sounds intellectual however I haven't seen anything compelling enough to make me want to drink the A+ kool-aid. It reads more like they're patting themselves on the back for being "good" skeptics

 

[Walter Ego]

The subject of Atheism Plus and the schism in the atheist/sceptic community came up this week on The Atheist Experience tv show. Hosts Russell Glasser and Don Baker look like they'd rather be talking about something else, anything else. (Check out their facial expressions at the beginning of the video when the topic is mentioned). Lots of hand waving, rationalizing and denial that a problem even exists.

 

[Wildy]

Damion (who also posts on JREF) has just finished a good 3-part series on his Skeptic Ink blog, contrasting his experiences on the A+ forum and the Slymepit. A brave soul, Damion. ETA: Here is the link to Part 1.

http://skepticink.com/backgroundprobability/2012/10/30/a-tale-of-two-communities-part-13/

Initially I thought I had to read another 12 parts, stupid misinforming url...

Anyway, thanks for that link RebeccaBradley. I like in part 2 where we see Atheism+ make an excellent impression on their forums. I was so impressed that I'm going to continue my choice in not making an account since that's clearly the best option.

 

[Stout]

The subject of Atheism Plus and the schism in the atheist/sceptic community came up this week on The Atheist Experience tv show. Hosts Russell Glasser and Don Baker look like they'd rather be talking about something else, anything else. (Check out their facial expressions at the beginning of the video when the topic is mentioned). Lots of hand waving, rationalizing and denial that a problem even exists.

"I think you better separate the movement from the movement that has that website's name"

Ay the 8:00 minute mark.

WTF ???

 

[zeggman]

Hey, Look at me. I took on the (female) president of the Florida Humanists and now I am a gay misogynist MRA.

(Trigger Warning: Video of me talking into the camera.)

I got 45 seconds into this, realized there was still 14 minutes to go, and bailed. Please, if you can, state your point in a couple of lines. I really don't have the time for rambling videos; I'm an old white man.

 

[zeggman]

As did I - but while I found it interesting, I would far prefer to read the same thing in text form which would have taken a quarter of the time and conveyed exactly the same information.

+1. Except for the "as did I" part.

 

[zeggman]

I somewhat disagree. One of the disadvantages of a text-based medium is that it can be hard to convey tone accurately. This is not the case with audio or video, however, especially when you can read body language and hear the tone of voice being used. Sarcasm, humor, and humility is often missed or mistaken when dealing with text only.

If body language and tone disambiguated everything, people would never say "Are you kidding?"

 

[qayak]

Bizarre innit ? It's almost like they're creating a stereotypical western society just so they can attack it. Take colour blindness for example. We say "we don't see colour" meaning that we see a person, be they black, white Asian, whathaveyou. The PC come back with..nooooooooooooo that's bad, we require you to see some groups of people as historically and currently oppressed and if you don't you're a RACIST. OK now, we've gotten to where we thought the PC wanted us only to be scolded for this new thing.

So far, the legal aspect of a socially just society is a done deal. No discrimination on the basis of race, gender, ...yada yada, all that's left is to try and change some peoples attitudes. By attacking them.

Now I'm not fussed about them labeling themselves atheists, mainly because I don't take my atheism very seriously. Not that I'm not a strong atheist, I'm just not an angry atheist. To pervert the idea of skepticism and critical thinking, that's another matter entirely.

But isn't that what happens with most causes like this, racism, feminism, etc.?

First people are told their behaviour is racist, why it is and why race shouldn't matter. They look at it, often agree and say "You're right, race will no longer have a bearing when I look at people!"

And they make a really valiant attempt at doing it and things go along fine until someone says that they are racist because they aren't taking into account the past tribulations the particular race they are interacting with has been subjected to.

So, you are racist if you consider a person's race in how they treat them and you are racist if you don't consider it. It's a no win situation.

It is just too much work for most people to stay engaged with. Most just tune out and look at racial police as fringe nut jobs. Which is pretty accurate.

I gave up a long time ago. Simply put, I don't care what happened to your grandparents beyond the belief that it was wrong, terrible and should never happen, so I am not going to go out of my way to make it up to you and I am going to tell you to go **** yourself if you tell me I am obligated to, or worse yet, racist, because I won't.

Which is why my impression of A+ is that it is made up of a bunch of whack job social misfits who suddenly feel they are the protector of all social issues and want to wield their new found, faux powers in the most attention grabbing ways possible.

The fact that they are mostly confined to their own tiny section of the blogosphere is enough for me. There are far crazier, and more dangerous, idiots out there.

 

[Stout]

Then we reflect on the fact that, around here at least, the words police officer, fire fighter and letter carrier have been in use for over a decade. We scratch our heads wondering, does Olivia live in some sort of backwater berg that didn't get the gender neutral pronoun switchover memo,or is she just dragging up old terms to try and make a point ?

Aww crap, it looks like I'm going to have to eat that, One of the mods over on A+ just used the word fireman.

or a fireman risks their own life to save another

Source, third post down.

 

[Stout]

+! on that post qayak, my sentiments exactly.

 

[westprog]

+1. Except for the "as did I" part.

I'm now reinstating my no videos rule*. If you can't say it in text, I don't want to know. Life's too short - literally. There's a lot of interesting stuff out there, and every video I view costs me four essays.

*Obviously, this doesn't apply to Germans jumping into frozen swimming pools. I find that this information is best conveyed in a visual medium.

 

[Walter Ego]

I got 45 seconds into this, realized there was still 14 minutes to go, and bailed. Please, if you can, state your point in a couple of lines. I really don't have the time for rambling videos; I'm an old white man.

Gee, that's too bad. That means you missed the part where I talked about boring old white guys.

ETA: Sorry, that's a different video. Here it is, cued up to the relevant section so you won't fall asleep before I get to the point.

 

[zeggman]

Gee, that's too bad. That means you missed the part where I talked about boring old white guys.

ETA: Sorry, that's a different video. Here it is, cued up to the relevant section so you won't fall asleep before I get to the point.

Wow, thanks. I just wasted another minute hearing you dance around offering irrelevant context but no substantiation for your claim that old white guys are boring -- something that you stated succinctly before you took the trouble to cue it up. No need to waste time cueing up the next one, I don't think I'm going to be clicking on your videos. If you have something to say, I'll be happy to read it here.

 

[Humes fork]

"Can We Reclaim The Movement?"

One cannot reclaim something that wasn't ever in one's possession, so I suppose what she means is "Can We Hijack The Movement"? Answer: Probably not. It is evident that the movements they desire to "reclaim" aren't receptive at all to the idea of being controlled and patronized by people trying to force their political views on everybody.

I don't get it. Did these people read, say, The God Delusion, and came away with the impression that it was a call for certain brands of left-wing politics? Atheism not important to "what we do" (whatever they are doing)? Read something else then!

If you are in the US and want to push (your version of) social justice, then linking it to atheism seems like a really bad idea.

"Beyond that, skepticism logically should include social justice. Skepticism and atheism should be linked in people’s minds with social justice because skepticism leads naturally to social justice."

Skepticism doesn't naturally lead to any ethical or political view whatsoever. It's a philosophy about how to evaluate the validity of claims by objective means. Nothing more, nothing less. It doesn't imply nor contradict any political, ethical, or religious convictions or views of the world. Skepticism can be applied by anybody. And it can be applied to anybody's claims. Nothing that you claim is immune to skepticism, whether it's about social justice or anything else.

I agree. These people need to read their Hume.

 

[Edx]

The subject of Atheism Plus and the schism in the atheist/sceptic community came up this week on The Atheist Experience tv show. Hosts Russell Glasser and Don Baker look like they'd rather be talking about something else, anything else. (Check out their facial expressions at the beginning of the video when the topic is mentioned). Lots of hand waving, rationalizing and denial that a problem even exists.

Wow. My estimation of them went down a fair bit.