I love this one, from a new piece in the Christian News (my emphasis):
Soon after Gonzalez’s move to BSU was announced, evolutionists once again chastised the school. Jerry Coyne, a staunch atheistic evolutionist, suggested on a Sunday blog posting that “BSU should keep an eye on Gonzalez to make sure he doesn’t teach [intelligent design] in his science classes.”
“I don’t believe in academic freedom for anyone who teaches religiously based woo as science,” Coyne wrote, “just as I wouldn’t for someone who taught astrology in a psychology class or homeopathy in medical school.”
Someone should write a computer program to generate these slurs, with choices from three columns like the following:
A
radical
militant
shrill
strident
staunch
dogmatic
B
atheistic
evolutionary
C
atheist
evolutionist
Darwinist
communist
Add your own.
you forgot “fundamentalist” in A
Evangelical, orthodox, proselytising, preaching and ‘religious’, too. You know, as if those things were bad.
Plus arrogant, smug, mocking, sanctimonious, pompous, self-satisfied, humourless, self-righteous and lacking in doubt.
Ha ha making a web app to generate this wouldn’t be too hard though I am a mediocre developer at best. It would be like the Deepak Chopra wisdom generator.
It’s “epithets”, Jerry.
/cranky editor
That was so mangled it was clearly a typo!
That’s what they all say, you mark my words, young whippersnapper . . .
No, no! it’s EPITHREATS!
Nicely done. I tried to come up with a good joke bit couldn’t.
Column c
Nazi.
Because creationists invoke Godwin’s law more frequently than Rush Limbaugh says something stupid or Hugh Hefner has seen tits.
Sounds right. But now I’m curious: who’s in second place, Rush or Hugh?
Column A: Fascistic
…or, has that term been lost to history, now that Mussolini and Franco are pretty much forgotten?
Even more so since modern American corporatism is a damned close match for the Fascism the two of them were championing….
b&
+1
Lost? Bill O’Reilly is the epitome of a fascist!
Here you go.
(I added a couple, and prompt the user for his/her birthday to seed the random number generator – just to add a personal touch.)
#!/usr/bin/perl
@adjective1 = ( ‘radical’,
‘militant’,
‘shrill’,
‘strident’,
‘staunch’,
);
@adjective2 = ( ‘atheistic’,
‘evolutionary’,
‘soulless’,
‘dogmatic’,
‘angry’,
);
@noun = ( ‘atheist’,
‘evolutionist’,
‘Darwinist’,
‘communist’,
‘extremist’,
);
print “Enter your birthdate (YYYYMMDD): “;
$seed = ;
srand($seed);
print $#adjective1,”\n”;
$slur = $adjective1[rand($#adjective1)]
. ‘ ‘
. $adjective2[rand($#adjective2)]
. ‘ ‘
. $noun[rand($#noun)];
print “You $slur!!!\n”;
Nice! You need to add socialist to the @noun list 🙂
“Leftie” too.
I thought I’d just leave it incomplete, so others could add their own favourites.
Fun for the whole family!!
If you add “atheisty” in the first column, then if you are REALLY lucky, it might generate: “atheisty atheistic atheist”.
Oh that’s t-shirt material there!
Devout godless scientismist?
And gotta work “Satanic” and “heathen” and “Devil-worshiping” and the like in there, I’m sure….
b&
Only three?
Can’t you be a radical science-promoting, self-confessed devout evolutionary Darwinist-style atheist with Marxist leanings and Communist sympathies and probably pacifist tendencies?
Why, you’re practically a humanist!
“One of Satan’s mindless, barking slaves, Jerry Coyne..”
Sub
Radical fundamentalist materialistic Marxist-Darwinist atheist socialist scientism-loving well-funded outspoken shrill strident militant evolutionistic academic intellectual.
Yes? How may I help you?
(I’m joking, of course; I’m not well-funded ;-))
This is making me hungry for Chinese food.
+1 Me too. It’s also a good combinatorial diversity question for my biology students 🙂
It’d be great if they started calling you a “radical atheistic atheist,” or, a “militant evolutionary evolutionist.”
Side note: I’ve never heard one of you guys called a communist before.
I’ve never heard one of you guys called a communist before.
I’ve quite frequently found my efforts to counter pseudoscience and science denialism dismissed as “far left politics”.
Don’t forget “avowed”!
“Staunch atheistic evolutionist” – where’s the slur? Surely it would only be one, or sound like one, to a religious creationist? With respect, it sounds like a reasonably accurate description of your position so far as I can tell.
I agree — surely Jerry is staunch in both his atheism and his evolutionary approach to biology. The other terms on the lists may be slurs, but this combination seems to be simply descriptive.
I’d be happy to describe myself as a staunch atheist, and although “evolutionist” wouldn’t be accurate for me, since I’m not a biologists, I wouldn’t be insulted by the term. (Certainly it’s better than “Darwinist”, which tries to make evolutionary theory the equivalent of a personal ideology like Marxism.)
“Darwinist” and “Darwinism” have always rubbed me the wrong way, especially when bona fide scientists use them. I’m pretty sure I’ve heard even Dawkins use them seriously.
The implication of Appeal to Authority is too strong, IMO.
I feel the same way about Evolutionist. It makes Evolution sound like an ideology or philosophy, which really grinds my gears for some reason.
We don’t go around calling people Gravitationalists or Electromagnetists.
How about extremes scientisimist!
I wondered where and when “scientism” would appear in this thread.
Heathen, seditious, demonic
Sinning, blaspheming, adulterating
“Scientist”, “professor”, “doctor”
And “athiest” so I can be more athy than the rest.
The athiest atheisty atheistic atheist.
I always savour ‘godless atheist’.
If the cretinists and IDiots had a bit more imagination they could quote mine Chapter 8 of WEIT and make a small adjustment:
Jerry Coyne, though well behaved,
At best is only a monkey shaved.
(with apologies to Gilbert and Sullivan)
Nice!
As long as it isn’t [hiss!] “dogged”.
It would be more amusing if they tried something like “The atheisticly delicious Jerry Coyne, an evolutionary revolutionary, suggested on a Sunday…”
“Card-carrying” could fit in somewhere. It’s pretty meaningless, but it was all the rage during the McCarthy era.
Anyway, all these epithets at least have the virtue of being CATTY.
That’s a good one. And true for every atheist, no doubt. My wallet has lots of cards in it.
Very true, but how meanings have changed with social technology (can’t think of a better word for it). In McCarthy’s pre-digital day, how many cards would a person carry? Other than (possibly) drivers licence, or possibly not, I can’t think of any.
I seem to distinctly remember it was possible to be a fully functioning, non-suspicious individual without needing to carry any ID whatsoever. Carrying ID was a mark of totalitarian countries.
Elitist
I was once called a souless, spiritless,hopeless, nazi atheist by a Jehovahs Witness
You must’ve really annoyed them if you got them to break form the religious insults & move on to the worldly insult of “Nazi”. 🙂
Personally I would object vociferously to the ‘nazi’. ‘communist’ I wouldn’t mind so much since that’s probably what my politics (which are slightly left of centre in any rational country) would get me called in the Land of the Free Corporation. 😉
(I do indeed carry a host of cards but they’re all uncompromisingly commercial / fascist ones – drivers licence, credit card, security access card (several), video rental discount card (ditto), yadda yadda…)
As a gay man and an atheist, I’ve noticed the social cons generally attack both with the same vocabulary. Planned Parenthood, too. — Gays, atheists, and pro-choicers, the social con’s Trinity, 3 elements destroying the soul of the nation.
In past centuries it was sodomites, heretics and witches (along with Jews), so they are fairly consistent.
I’ve also been called “godless”, “subversive” as well as a “reprobate”.
Also add to gays: pagans, “abortionists” (whatever those are!), feminists, lesbians, ACLU as epitomized in Falwell’s disgusting hate speech about 9/11:
I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say ‘you helped this happen.
From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Falwell
Well, an acquaintance (and actually quite a good friend) who is a lapsed Catholic, when he found I was an atheist, apparently couldn’t tell the difference between atheist and pagan. He used to twit me about holding black masses and dancing round maypoles naked. I just retaliated by demanding more virgins to sacrifice.
The thing is, he was apparently serious (about the atheist=pagan link, I doubt he really thought we went if for black masses in this country). This really surprised me as he’s (in other respects) a very well-informed and intelligent guy.