Atheism+, wtf?!

Dave!

Just saw David Grimes on Twitter say this...

David Robert Grimes ‏@drg1985
@DublinBusGroan I'm just going to avoid the whole mess. I was an atheist without their support club for years, don't need it now

Which led me to read the article he was referring to...

In the passionate world of American atheism, the venom usually directed at believers has now been turned against the wrong kind of atheists.

The cause of this freethinking furore? A new movement called Atheism+. According to its website, "Atheism+ is a safe space for people to discuss how religion affects everyone and to apply skepticism and critical thinking to everything, including social issues like sexism, racism, GLBT issues, politics, poverty, and crime."

A+ was born when Freethought blogger Jen McCreight (the mind behind Boobquake) made a passionate call for a "third wave" of atheism, one that extends atheist activism into progressive politics and calls for a part of the movement to be one where women can exist free from the harassment that has plagued women publicly involved in the atheist movement.

The founders of Atheism+ say clearly that "divisiveness" is not their aim, but looking through the blogs and voluminous comments in the two weeks since A+ was mooted, trenches have been dug, beliefs stated, positions staked out and abuse thrown. A dissenting tweeter is "full of ****", while, according to one supporter, daring to disagree with Atheism+'s definition of progressive issues and not picking their side makes you an "asshole and a douchebag".

It took 700 years from Constantine renaming Byzantium in his own honour to papal legates circulating letters of anathema that split the Roman and Orthodox churches. Atheism, in its public, online life, has started exchanging internet anathemas – perhaps we should call them inathemas – in little more than a decade.

People are being told to wipe the spittle off their chins, take their heads out of their asses. The Life of Brian's lines about the various fronts for the liberation of Judea are being oft-recycled. 140 character brickbats are being thrown on Twitter under #atheismplus.

PZ Myers, soft-spoken in person but trenchant in print, said of A+ critics:

"It really isn't a movement about exclusion, but about recognising the impact of the real nature of the universe on human affairs. And if you don't agree with any of that – and this is the only 'divisive' part – then you're an asshole. I suggest you form your own label, 'Asshole Atheists", and own it, proudly. I promise not to resent it or cry about joining it. I just had a thought: maybe the anti-Atheist+ people are sad because they don't have a cool logo. So I made one for the Asshole Atheists:
A*
"

Fellow Freethought blogger Richard Carrier goes further. When one commentator suggests "atheism does not have the luxury of kicking people out of its movement", Carrier gives him a rare old quilting in most splendid prose:

"Yes, it does. Atheism+ is our movement. We will not consider you a part of it, we will not work with you, we will not befriend you. We will heretofore denounce you as the irrational or immoral scum you are (if such you are). If you reject these values, then you are no longer one of us. And we will now say so, publicly and repeatedly. You are hereby disowned."

How like Pope Leo's letter to the patriarch of Constaninople in 1053 accusing him of "many and intolerable presumptions, in which if – as heaven forbid – he persist, he will in no way retain our peaceful regard". Even at this most serious moment for the future of Christianity, the pope managed to resist the urge to call the patriarch immoral scum, an asshole and a douchebag.

One of the joys of atheism's outlets on the internet was that they were clever, deft, funny, tolerant and irreverent. It was certainly robust and not for the faint-hearted.

Those of us who do not wish to extend our atheism into someone else's definition of progressive politics may take rather unkindly to being described as immoral scum, useful but unsavoury body parts, and outdated contraceptive devices. In the week when American atheism made its appearance in the Economist's editorial pages, it seems to have been sowing the seeds of that most religious of events – a schism.

St Paul would be laughing his head off, had a Roman soldier not already deprived him of it. "See," he might now write after reading those modern epistles, the blogs, comments and tweets around the birth of Atheism+, "how these atheists love one another."

And I had a quick glance at PZ Myers' article too (stopped reading PZ's blog a few years ago, as I find him to be an asshole himself).


Is this bullsh*t all following on from Rebecca Watson being "accosted" in an elevator at TAM?

So the term "atheist" is now apparently being narrowed to include only people with liberal social leanings, and other specific characteristics and political inclinations? And they can't laugh at offensive (sexist, anyway) jokes either.

Sarky

It's bollocks. Hopefully it'll implode horribly soon enough and we can all get on with merely not believing in god.

The little microcosm of "internet atheism" (bloggers, etc.) seems to be becoming more and more like a religion.

It's all just so... petty. So, so petty. For people who claim to be beyond the shackles and restraints of a religion, they're sure working hard enough to build new shackles and restraints around themselves. It's just petty.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

im just said hitchens isn't around any more to comment on this.

it would have been glorious

magicbastarder

well, look at what happened google+.
sticking a + on the end of your name does not make you in with the kids.

Gbear

Banding together is fine and secularism certainly needs to be fought for, as well as plenty of other social causes that atheists often commit to, but bringing them under the banner of "atheism" is just surreal and weird and unsettling.

That you don't believe in god shouldn't really affect how you go about "fixing" society. It's just an incidental fact.

ShooterSF

I didn't bother with the 2.0 upgrade and am not going to bother going for any pro "plus" version either. The free Atheism 1.0 Basic will do just fine.

Doctor DooM

If you don't agree with us 100% you're intolerant?

Lol.

Please come back venomfangx, we need someone for these eejits to focus their ire on.

dlofnep

It's being going on on twitter for a few weeks now - bunch of egotistical morons.

This is why women shouldn't be allowed to vote.

robindch

Women are allowed to vote? Where?

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

iceland. the first thing they did was make it a capital offence to sexualise women

General Relativity

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

iceland. the first thing they did was make it a capital offence to sexualise women

Bastards!

Sin City

Thats the funniest thing Ive ever read.
Atheism + lol, do as we say or your out, sounds familiar

robindch

Dave! wrote: »

Is this bullsh*t all following on from Rebecca Watson being "accosted" in an elevator at TAM?

Basically, yes.

Watson discovered: if you declare a problem, then exaggerate it, then pretend to resolve it while actually seeking power, then a lot of people who should know better will give you power.

doctoremma

I came across this the other day, while reading that thread about ethical atheism. I assumed that that manifesto had been inspired by this Atheist+ movement, to the point where I nearly called it out - but decided to be nice in the end.

Anyway, Atheism+. Yeah great. Because people have realised that some atheists (now to be referred to as "atheists-"?) are assholes and they don't want those atheists- giving the atheists+ a bad name.

Not sure how a lack of belief in god is supposed to be inextricably linked with your personal ethics. For some people it can be, for some it isn't. Getting annoyed that atheists- are quite as right on as atheists+ is futile.

We haven't even got a defined political movement associated with atheism, the last thing needed is a schism.

parrai

The thing is, it's feeding off the ire of people, who by the sounds of it, are full of hatred. In the world we live in, this emotion is thriving. With the internet, this can only get bigger. It sounds as though, 'militant' atheists are rising.

This looks as though atheism is imploding on itself, separating the wheat from the chaff, so to speak.

Doctor DooM

parrai wrote: »

The thing is, it's feeding off the ire of people, who by the sounds of it, are full of hatred. In the world we live in, this emotion is thriving. With the internet, this can only get bigger. It sounds as though, 'militant' atheists are rising.

This looks as though atheism is imploding on itself, separating the wheat from the chaff, so to speak.

Actually, I'd say the vast majority of atheists, including me, simply don't care, other than it's a bit silly.

It's small people jostling for power in a small world.

Improbable

Given the comments made by PZ Myers in his article, particularly towards the end, it would appear that a great deal of the focus of this new atheist+ movement is on feminism. Specifically, it does indeed seem to arise from the general brouhaha that was elevatorgate. One particular comment from PZ really did irritate me:

http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/08/27/following-up-on-last-nights-atheism-discussion/

"they don’t hate women who fit their narrow, limited version of what a woman should be. It’s just those uppity, aggressive, rude feminist women that they think need to be raped into submission. And that’s you, guy. And it’s all those other anti-feminists who turn apoplectic with fury whenever the issue of treating women as diverse human beings with personalities and intellectual interests and ambitious goals beyond worshipping your penis is brought up."

So you either think that the atheist+ movement is a good thing or you think that feminists need to be raped into submission. Nice false dichotomy there. How about those of us that see atheism and feminism as two separate issues that should not be conflated?

The problem is that if you start forming groups on the basis of "Well, I'm a feminist and an atheist and a liberal, so I'm going to make a feminism and atheism and liberalism group", this is exactly what you risk doing. The divisiveness is plain to see on the internet. It's becoming a sort of all-inclusive set of worldviews where if you belong to the club, you agree with all of its views. What if someone is a feminist and agrees with your goals on that but is a theist or a conservative and therefore doesn't want to join your group on that basis? Feminism is feminism, atheism is atheism and liberalism is liberalism. I see no reason why those 3 separate things should be considered inextricably intertwined.

doctoremma

magicbastarder wrote: »

well, look at what happened google+.
sticking a + on the end of your name does not make you in with the kids.

From this week's readings so can't guarantee a perfect recollection...

The + part came from various people defining themselves as "atheist plus feminist" or whatever and such the bandwagon began, "atheist + anti-homophobia" and so on. When shortened as it has been, it couldn't look more arrogant.

doctoremma

Improbable wrote: »

It's becoming a sort of all-inclusive set of worldviews where if you belong to the club, you agree with all of its views

And where have we seen that idea wreaking havoc...

Improbable, I couldn't agree with you more.

parrai

Doctor DooM wrote: »

Actually, I'd say the vast majority of atheists, including me, simply don't care, other than it's a bit silly.

It's small people jostling for power in a small world.

Exactly... it sounds as though the concept of atheism is about to step up a gear

fitz0

I wonder if they can see the ground all the way up there on their horse. The old stereotype of the arrogant atheist couldn't be more visible in this 'movement.' I'll be content with my lower unaffiliated atheist status.

Doctor DooM

parrai wrote: »

Exactly... it sounds as though the concept of atheism is about to step up a gear

Eh... it can't really, atheism just means not believing in a god.

People can build what they want around that, but it won't change the fact that that's all the word means.

I would say, for example, Doctoremma (just chosing due to similarity in names) and I would agree on plenty, but I bet we'd have plenty we argue on. We're perhaps more likely to agree on quite a few things because we both share an amount of rationalism at the root of our atheism- again I am assuming- but we could easily also believe in fairies. Because all atheism is, at the end of the day, a belief specifically that a god doesn't exist.

For example there was that gay hating atheist group in America which tried to promote itself by starting a war with the Texan Atheist group, who rightly basically ignored them. Only a matter of time til they have a go at this atheism+ group. Sigh.

Zamboni

I detest that a lack of belief in any deity now seems to involve having set opinions on topics such as abortion, gay marriage, etc.

Improbable

doctoremma wrote: »

And where have we seen that idea wreaking havoc...

Improbable, I couldn't agree with you more.

Exactly. My biggest concern with this is that people are going to become divided on important issues, like feminism, because groups such as atheism+ fail to differentiate between feminism and atheism and liberalism. Those issues are not mutually inclusive. You can subscribe to one without subscribing to the others. While it may bring the issue to the forefront, I don't think that it will necessarily do so in a positive manner and that in the long run, it's going to be more harm than good for both atheism and feminism.

parrai

Doctor DooM wrote: »

Eh... it can't really, atheism just means not believing in a god.

People can build what they want around that, but it won't change the fact that that's all the word means.

Yes, but this is more about power I think.

Cyclepath

Improbable wrote: »

...
The problem is that if you start forming groups on the basis of "Well, I'm a feminist and an atheist and a liberal, so I'm going to make a feminism and atheism and liberalism group", this is exactly what you risk doing. The divisiveness is plain to see on the internet. It's becoming a sort of all-inclusive set of worldviews where if you belong to the club, you agree with all of its views. What if someone is a feminist and agrees with your goals on that but is a theist or a conservative and therefore doesn't want to join your group on that basis? Feminism is feminism, atheism is atheism and liberalism is liberalism. I see no reason why those 3 separate things should be considered inextricably intertwined.

Yeah, this is the part that annoys me. Why not throw in your favourite colour too? The more you try to combine multiple beliefs into a single platform, the more you start to resemble a political party.

I assumed that, as Atheists, we could all agree on not believing in the supernatural, and a general desire to rid our lives of the negative effects of supernatural beliefs.

It's depressing that these fools sniping at each other are just diluting the message and denting our credibility.

Doctor DooM

parrai wrote: »

Yes, but this is more about power I think.

Of course it is, but it'll probably fail for the reasons above.

They certainly have no power over me, and do not represent me.

joseph brand

Quote by amacachi
I wouldn't be atheist only the farm takes up most of the day and at night I just like a cup of tea.

I don't think I want to get involved in all this Atheism+ sh*te.

Is this just a case of some individuals who are hungry for power? They know what's best for us? Will they want us to send donations? (collection basket)

calls for a part of the movement to be one where women can exist free from the harassment that has plagued women publicly involved in the atheist movement.

Is this feminist Atheism?

parrai

Doctor DooM wrote: »

parrai wrote: »

Yes, but this is more about power I think.

Of course it is, but it'll probably fail for the reasons above.

They certainly have no power over me, and do not represent me.

Absolutely, but now they're really going to give atheists something to discuss. The days of sitting and laughing in unison are about to take a twist. 'Us and them' are about to enter the equation. This is just an observation.

I see and accept your point.