Atheism+, wtf?!

Dades

It annoys me even more that I'm now talking about it all.

Agreed. I wish I'd kept my distance. Now I feel part of the problem rather than the solution.

bnt

I have to admit to being rather puzzled by all this. If I wanted to be politically-active, I would be already. As pointed out, Atheism+ ideas overlap with Humanism in a major way, and I would have joined them if it interested me. As things stand, however, I'm just an atheist with a job, a life, not much energy, and even less interest in telling other people what to do (or not to do).

Doctor DooM

Just to make it perfectly clear, in case it becomes misquoted, my comment about priests and priestesses was completely ironic.

I would consider myself a humanist, but I cannot abide being told, effectively, I am an asshole and a potential rapist if I don't succumb to an organisations remit. I find it laughable, I'm not even angry, I'm bemused by the whole thing.

I could (and probably do) agree with everything this organisation stand for, but on the basis of the above, would have nothing to do with them.

Galvasean

bnt wrote: »

I have to admit to being rather puzzled by all this. If I wanted to be politically-active, I would be already. As pointed out, Atheism+ ideas overlap with Humanism in a major way, and I would have joined them if it interested me. As things stand, however, I'm just an atheist with a job, a life, not much energy, and even less interest in telling other people what to do (or not to do).

As an atheist I like to to decide which side to take on any topic by a case by case basis. Being preached to from on high by a organisation sounds too much like a religion for me.

ShooterSF

Pfft if I can't make sexist jokes Im out. I make sexist jokes about men and women often and the funniest are the ones that underline the stupidity of believing such things by exaggerating them. I also make racial jokes that do the same. Many a Paddy Irishman included. Jokes are jokes are jokes. They are independent of our real feelings and I'm not going to censor one part of my humour to protect people who choose to get offended by them.

decimatio

It really annoys me when people claim that by not supporting Atheism+ that somehow we are automatically against feminism, equal rights etc.

I very strongly support equal rights for women. I don't think what Atheism+ is promoting is equal rights, rather they are promoting special rights. So their feminism is not what I consider to be feminism or at least what I thought feminism was.

The problem with these people is that there's only one way, their way. Believe it or not but its entirely possible to disagree on some issues logically and rationally.

Kivaro

Oh yeah.
Well, I see your Atheism+ and I'll raise it a plus.

My Atheism is Atheism++
Which all good programmers know is far better than Atheism+.

decimatio

Kivaro wrote: »

Oh yeah.
Well, I see your Atheism+ and I'll raise it a plus.

My Atheism is Atheism++
Which all good programmers know is far better than Atheism+.

Damn you and your object orientation. Functional programming ftw!

You can also take your automated garbage collection and shove it! If I want to free some memory ill do it myself like a real man.

You kids these days with your fancy GUIs and IDEs. When will people learn the one true way is a CLI environment and vi, possibly emacs.

Sarky

>>> GOD=0

Hey, that was easy.

Bannasidhe

Thank God I don't twit tweet or read blogs.

:pac:

robindch

Dave! wrote: »

Some blogger says she's being abused, and so doesn't want to blog anymore

Atheism+ launches, claiming it's a "safe space". A few weeks later, a founding member quits because of the hatemail, most of which I'll wager is on account of Watson's "mouthiness". To compensate, Watson says she'll "get twice as mouthy".

Can't see this lasting for much longer.

.

equivariant

decimatio wrote: »

Damn you and your object orientation. Functional programming ftw!

You can also take your automated garbage collection and shove it! If I want to free some memory ill do it myself like a real man.

You kids these days with your fancy GUIs and IDEs. When will people learn the one true way is a CLI environment and vi, possibly emacs.

++1 (I fixed the mistake however)

In fact this whole atheistic squabble reminds me of another great religious war

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Editor_war

I'd wager that all of these Atheism plussers are emacs pussies (if they can even manage that)

doctoremma

PZ Meyers, responding on Pharyngula to a comment (quotation marks):
"Im in that awkward position where i do agree with most of the values and dislike the misogynist idiots but see no value or reason to mix atheism and the other values. For me atheism just is the simple disbelief and my political values stand apart from it."
Now you see, that’s just stupid. There are lots of atheists who take this blinkered stance that atheism is just one specific idea about rejecting god-belief, and it has absolutely no philosophical foundation and should have no political or social consequences. And that’s nonsense. This commenter is deluding himself as thoroughly as any god-walloper.
If there is no god, if religion is a sham, that has significant consequences for how we should structure our society. You could argue over how we should shape our culture — a libertarian atheist would lean much more towards a Darwinian view, for instance, than I would — but to pretend that atheism is just an abstraction floating in the academic ether is silly.
.............…......................

So, I still don't buy it. If you lack belief/religion, there may well be a need for discussion about how to determine the 'rules of society' (although I think this movement to secular governence is already in full swing). But being atheist by no measure dictates what your own personal view on, say, same-sex marriage will be.

Chairman: Do we agree that we need to legislate for gay marriage without evoking religious law?
Committee: Yes.
Chairman: Do we all therefore agree that gay marriage should be allowed?
Committee: Hang on a minute, not necessarily.

It's the 'therefore' that's annoying me.

Dades

PZ Meyers wrote:

There are lots of atheists who take this blinkered stance that atheism is just one specific idea about rejecting god-belief, and it has absolutely no philosophical foundation and should have no political or social consequences.

Being an atheist may have political or social consequences. However, even if we were to assume it does, you cannot suggest that those views will be the same for every atheist.

Therefore attempting to forcibly associate atheism with certain political or social viewpoints is a nonsense.

Kooli

Dades wrote: »

Being an atheist may have political or social consequences. However, even if we were to assume it does, you cannot suggest that those views will be the same for every atheist.

Therefore attempting to forcibly associate atheism with certain political or social viewpoints is a nonsense.

Yet people on this very thread on others on this board forcibly try to insist that atheism MUST be about rationality, skepticism and a search for objective evidence.

For some it is, for some it isn't, right? Yet no one jumps in in that instance to insist that this is an irrelevance, and atheism is simply a lack of belief in god and nothing else. I've said it before, but I think that line constantly being trotted out is intellectually dishonest, and an attempt not to be held to account for anything that atheists do or say, and I wish people would stop using it. (or if they don't stop using it, then at least use it consistently)

Doctor DooM

Kooli wrote: »

Yet people on this very thread on others on this board forcibly try to insist that atheism MUST be about rationality, skepticism and a search for objective evidence.

For some it is, for some it isn't, right? Yet no one jumps in in that instance to insist that this is an irrelevance, and atheism is simply a lack of belief in god and nothing else. I've said it before, but I think that line constantly being trotted out is intellectually dishonest, and an attempt not to be held to account for anything that atheists do or say, and I wish people would stop using it. (or if they don't stop using it, then at least use it consistently)

Actually I did, I specifically stated earlier on that some atheists could easily believe in fairies.

I then went on to say that atheism is just a lack of belief in a god.

Improbable

Kooli wrote: »

Yet people on this very thread on others on this board forcibly try to insist that atheism MUST be about rationality, skepticism and a search for objective evidence.

For some it is, for some it isn't, right? Yet no one jumps in in that instance to insist that this is an irrelevance, and atheism is simply a lack of belief in god and nothing else. I've said it before, but I think that line constantly being trotted out is intellectually dishonest, and an attempt not to be held to account for anything that atheists do or say, and I wish people would stop using it. (or if they don't stop using it, then at least use it consistently)

I've said it before but allow me to repeat it here. Atheism does not have to be about any of those things, but it often is because those things DIRECTLY tie in with atheism. They are concepts that are tied together very strongly. Faith is belief without evidence so obviously, topics that are based on evidence such as ALL of the ones you listed are going to intertwine with atheism. But in no way does atheism lead or tie in directly to feminism.

robindch

Kooli wrote: »

Yet people on this very thread on others on this board forcibly try to insist that atheism MUST be about rationality, skepticism and a search for objective evidence.

Atheism is a conclusion concerning the universe, not an starting premise.

That said, if you start off with the kind of premises and logic that produces a conclusion like atheism, then you're quite likely to share many other beliefs with other people who self-describe as atheists. However, pretending that everybody does share these other beliefs, or even worse, that everybody must share these other beliefs, lest one be "an asshole", is, at best, a fairly dishonest thing to do.

doctoremma

Kooli wrote: »

Yet people on this very thread on others on this board forcibly try to insist that atheism MUST be about rationality, skepticism and a search for objective evidence.

Atheism is not about rationality/skepticism/evidence, atheism arises from the application of those principles to one's musing on the existence of god.

Support for same-sex marriage may arise from the application of the same principles to one's musing on whether gay people should get wed.

Support for same-sex marriage does not arise from atheism.

They are two different outputs which may come from the same set of basic principles. They are correlative, not causative.

ETA: Ha, it's always nice when people you respect produce almost exactly the same response as you...

Cyclepath

Kooli wrote: »

Yet people on this very thread on others on this board forcibly try to insist that atheism MUST be about rationality, skepticism and a search for objective evidence.

For some it is, for some it isn't, right? Yet no one jumps in in that instance to insist that this is an irrelevance, and atheism is simply a lack of belief in god and nothing else. I've said it before, but I think that line constantly being trotted out is intellectually dishonest, and an attempt not to be held to account for anything that atheists do or say, and I wish people would stop using it. (or if they don't stop using it, then at least use it consistently)

+1 Although the strict definition of Atheism is a non-belief in god(s), it has some logical spin-off consequences for people who call themselves Atheists. We do tend to become exercised at the negative effects of religion and so on.

However that still doesn't mean that we can start adding in other unrelated critical theory frameworks to make up a new version of Atheism. Atheism is about an absence of belief, and perhaps the consequences of faith. It is not about Feminism, Capitalism, Socialism, Marxism, Structuralism, Post-Modernism, and so on, which are far more complex theoretical constructs.

I just think we need to maintain the purity of Atheism because our central platform is that we dismiss a theory rather than posit a theory. As Christopher Hitchens said: "That which can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof."

Dades

Kooli wrote: »

Yet people on this very thread on others on this board forcibly try to insist that atheism MUST be about rationality, skepticism and a search for objective evidence.

*Maybe* some people have suggested something like this (links?) but I haven't.

There's a difference between saying atheism is all about rationality, skepticism and evidence and saying you used rationality, skepticism and evidence to arrive at your atheism.

Dave!

Rationality and skepticism might naturally or logically lead to atheism, and it's reasonable to argue against someone who claims that they possess these attributes while retaining a belief in God.

Atheism does not, on the other hand, naturally lead to rationality/skepticism, so I don't think that there are many here who would support that point of view.

Similarly there is no logical path leading from atheism to feminism without some serious mental gymnastics. You have to really want it.

decimatio

Kooli wrote: »

Yet people on this very thread on others on this board forcibly try to insist that atheism MUST be about rationality, skepticism and a search for objective evidence.

Could you point out where anyone here did any such thing? Because I can't remember anyone doing so.

Rationality, Skepticism, and objective evidence can be associated with Atheism but they are in no way necessary.

I have made this point very strongly before. The vast majority of Atheists are left wing (from what I've seen) but that doesn't mean atheists must be left wing in any way. Yet Myers tries to equate the two consistently.

You can be an Atheist and believe in all sorts of rubbish and many are and do.

doctoremma

I've just read this: http://www.centerforinquiry.net/blogs/entry/some_observations_about_atheism_plus/

TL;DR Regardles of the branding, what are this group aiming for, over and above more established and comprehensive secular/humanist groups?

It's a fair criticism. With matching aims, why does this group consider themselves so "radical" (PZ Myuer's words, not mine) when compared to national humanist associations? What's "radical" about Atheism+?

Zombrex

I actually joined the Atheism+ forums, under my old handle "Wicknight"

Its not as bad as you would think from the initial circumstances of its founding. I think a lot of members have perhaps realized that they aren't going to be taken seriously if it is just a place for blind group think and have dialed back a lot of the With us or Against us rhetoric.

It still has problems, of course. There is an "Education" forum where people are supposed to post more question type posts, eg "WTF is feminism anyway?". This leads to a lot of calls on the Main forum from some of the more, er, opinionated posters to go to the education forum if they don't agree with a specific opinion you express (last one I saw as you had to accept all female oppression is motivated by misogyny or you had to piss off the education forum to learn why you are wrong for not accepting this).

Of course all sites have people like that. What it needs is a bit closer moderation, since it is really only the mods who should be making such a call. Eventually mods step in but it can take a while and threads have been derailed by this piss off to the education forum type posts.

But over all it is not that bad, and it is nice to have a place unlike Skepchick and the FtB where you can talk with people without constant abuse being hurled at you.

The biggest issue I would see it is that frankly it all seems some what pointless, it already seems like it is running out of steam. There is a lot of talk about changing things for the better but not a lot of direction on how to do this. Reminds me a bit of the Occupy movement (the organized bits at least) where people didn't really seem to know what exactly they were doing or trying to achieve. Or the Christian forum, where they complain that all the atheists get in the way of the real discussion they want to have, but then this discussion never materialises when they are left alone.

Still I've had some interesting discussions on the site, including things like legalization of prostitution and animal rights, so it isn't all just feminist group think. I've even learned a bit, and probably the best thing is that through links on the site I've been exposed to some very interesting blogs and vlogs.

Anyway, my 2 cents, thought I would just lend a bit of balance. You misogynist bastards :P

pauldla

It all seems so Bigendian to me. Sodding athiests. To me, the term "Atheism+" makes about as much sense as the term "War on Terror", and I suspect it will about as useful. But without the body count and imperialism, of course. I hope.

Kooli

Zombrex wrote: »

It still has problems, of course. There is an "Education" forum where people are supposed to post more question type posts, eg "WTF is feminism anyway?". This leads to a lot of calls on the Main forum from some of the more, er, opinionated posters to go to the education forum if they don't agree with a specific opinion you express (last one I saw as you had to accept all female oppression is motivated by misogyny or you had to piss off the education forum to learn why you are wrong for not accepting this).

Just on this point, I think that's standard practice on many sites like this that are anti-oppression and supposed to provide a 'safe space'. Any site with that type of agenda will attract people who will flood every thread to argue the central tenets of the group or of social justice in general (the worst of which been the 'white men are actually the most discriminated against group' lot). So it is easier for those involved to have an education/FAQ section (like a charter, but it has to be more in depth because these are usually really complex issues) to point someone to instead of derailing every discussion with 'education'.

Having said that, I haven't actually looked at this site. But I do know this is a standard practice that often works quite well.

Sponge25

The problem I have with Athiest is they complain so much about Christians ramming Christian ideology down their throat when Athiests are just as bad if not worse.

By all means, be Athiest but keep it too yourself.

Ofcourse we can discuss it here etc and debate it but in person don't constantly try too ruin someones beliefs just like you wouldn't appreciate them trying to make you believe!

Is their a God? Almost certainly not but I don't consider myself Athiest, I consider the question so annoying I don't apply any term to myself. If you call yourself an athiest and are always talking about it, you apply huge importance to religion just like a Christian, cool you're Athiest, just forget about it!

Anyone know what I mean!?

Athiesm to me is like a religion without a deity!

Rev Hellfire

Feck sake Kooli,

Keep the door closed behind you, look what you've let in.