I’ve criticized those people who say that atheism is like religious fundamentalism, as well as those believers who demonize New Atheists as “fundamentalist atheists.” How can nonbelief be “fundamentalist”? But after reading a new piece by Wendy Kaminer in Spiked, I’m not so sure. Now I’m thinking that some types of atheism—the brands wedded to rigid ideologies that have nothing to do with religion per se—might be called “fundamentalist.”
Kaminer’s article, “The self: fear, loathing, and victimhood,” is about self-styled victimhood—not just of oversensitive college students who criticize the cultural appropriation of sushi, but also of Christians and, yes, there’s a paragraph on the victimization complex of some atheists. Kaminer’s an equal-opportunity critic, and she notes this:
Visit a progressive campus immediately before attending a Donald Trump rally or browse a right-wing Christian website and your head will be spun by polarised versions of reality and victimisation.
Kaminer, a long-time liberal, feminist, rationalist, atheist, and expert on the self-help culture of America, is always worth reading. I’ve finished three of her books.
After surveying the pervasive rise of the Victimhood Narrative, and suggesting why it emerged, Kaminer concludes that courts must protect equality but not prevent “hate speech” or offenses to “dignity and emotional well-being”, something that the Perpetually Offended demand. (Kaminer was a long-time member of the governing board of the American Civil Liberties Union, a group I hold in high esteem since it defended us in Coyne et al v. Nixon et al.)
I’ll leave you to read her piece yourself, but a few passages from it got me thinking about Fundamentalist Atheists. To wit:
There are, after all, substantial advantages to declaring yourself disadvantaged. Victims never have to say they’re sorry. Apologies – and accountability – are for victimisers. Victims are creditors, owed not just compassion but practical relief, like the power to censor whatever they consider offensive speech. The expression of unwelcome images or ideas in the presence of self-identified victims is labelled another form of victimisation, as student demands for trigger warnings and ‘safe spaces’ suggest.
. . . Free inquiry is unnecessary to people convinced they have absolute truth on their side. It’s considered unfair or abusive to people presumed to require the suppression of contrary ideas in order to be ‘free’ to express their own. In this perverse and nonsensical view, freedom lies not in de-regulating speech but in re-regulating it, to protect a growing list of victim groups.
Do those paragraphs remind you of anything? They sure do to me—those dogmatic atheists on the Internet who not only insist that certain viewpoints are ideologically correct, but that you must conform to them, passing purity tests to be acceptable, and that those who merely question those views are to be demonized and cast out. Such people never apologize or revise their narratives when they’re mistaken, and they never say they’re sorry for vilifying someone unnecessarily. In a very real sense, they see themselves as victims, “owed not just compassion but practical relief.” They also arrogate to themselves the power of censorship: determining who is and who is not allowed to speak. They mock free speech as “freeze peach.” Yes, fundamentalist atheism is deeply infused with the Victimhood Narrative.
Finally, the Fundamentalist Atheists are convinced, as in Kaminer’s description, that they have absolute truth on their side. But that truth is not about God, as the religious atheist-bashers claim. Rather, it’s about politics and society. For the True Fundamentalist Atheists™ are those who insist on not only wedding atheism to social problems, but to social problems whose solution cannot be questioned. They are at once victims and authoritarians.
I do think that atheism and liberalism, born of Enlightenment values, are natural partners. Both are based on reason, doubt, and empiricism. But there are also conservative atheists like S. E. Cupp, and one can make a case that atheism might fit with a pragmatic conservatism. It’s just that conservatives see society as benefitting from actions and ideologies different from those espoused by liberals. (I happen to think they’re wrong.) I thus prefer to keep my nonbelief separate from my liberalism, except to say that I think religion is best effaced by creating societies based on progressive values.
There are real debates to be had about these issues: debates about immigration, about feminism, about abortion, about affirmative action, about Islam, about how to deal with faith, and so on. By all means let the public forum ring with discussion and argument. But let us not demonize our fellow unbelievers for not holding the Right Views. Let us not call them “douchebags” or “scum” or “toxic sludge.” Yes, by all means debate them, but do not demand that they be fired, that they be no-platformed, that they be cast into the darkness with curses. Let our views be aimed at helping society—global society—rather than at demonstrating our own moral purity. Let us remember that society benefits most when speech is free rather than constrained. And let us echo what Oliver Cromwell said when writing to the Church of Scotland in 1650 (paraphrased):
I beseech you, in the bowels of Ceiling Cat, think it possible that you may be mistaken.
For atheism is more closely wedded to science than it is to social welfare, and if science tells us anything, it’s to keep in mind that we may be wrong.
234 Comments
Which is why I believe that progressives of today are *nothing* like the idealists of the 1960s who were fighting for equality and in some cases their very lives and the lives of their loved ones (Vietnam).
Victimhood culture.
To add to this, when PCC was out marching in the 1960s, was he worried about how uncomfortable it might make him if his ideas were questioned? Did he look at university as a home first and an intellectual environment second?
I dug up this quote:
the safe space, Ms. Byron explained, was intended to give people who … calming music, pillows, blankets and a video of frolicking puppies, as well as … that really go against my dearly and closely held beliefs
Is this how you go about changing the world?
Or the girl from Yale who stated that University is a home first and has F all to do with intellectual pursuits?
The culture of today is very different from the culture of the 1960s.
Today, if you claim to be oppressed, or to stand for the oppressed, you are rewarded for it. “Activists” today seek to *silence* others vs challenge their ideas. They want to be protected from ideas and to assert their moral superiority by demanding that conflicting ideas be made to ‘go away’.
A very thoughtful post, Cindy. I was in graduate school at the University of Chicago in the late 1960s, and what I encountered there was the very opposite of what students find or wish to find today in their colleges, undergraduate and graduate. In fact, I could have used a little bit of comforting in my first year, given that at the MA English orientation we newbies were told that a good many of us wouldn’t be around the following year. Washed out of book camp and probably sent to boot camp. Not good enough, which meant not intellectual enough, for the one; perfectly good cannon fodder for the other (O,Canada!).
I made it through somehow and got my doctorate, but not without almost continuous anxiety. Some of my cohort thought the graduate faculty were just plain cruel, which was true, and left on their own. Others toughed it out in search of a career as a professor.
My long-winded point is that this toughening helped me in two important ways: demonstrating in the streets of Chicago for good causes and against a lot of scary people, and fitting my mind and will up for a career of teaching and research. I must wonder whether young students now will be able to cope with being blindsided by reality–for they will be.
“I must wonder whether young students now will be able to cope with being blindsided by reality–for they will be”
This is exactly right.
Same thing happening in the public schools: Oh, we have to let them get away with X, because it’s either cultural or because the parents are in denial and we can’t offend them. Exactly how is that helping a kid get prepared for adult life? You don’t to hit people you disagree with in real life.
More like victimhood cosplay if you ask me.
sub
Right. Save that for the policies of Republicans which earn those labels.
But seriously, I don’t think I know any atheists that behave that way, and, if I did, I would probably ignore and dismiss them.
I believe that famed skeptic and atheist Rebecca Watson referred to Dawkins as ‘toxic sludge’
Well, he can be toxic (on Twitter, where I refuse to join) but sludge tends to deny his brilliant, decades long career. His recent book is delightful.
Dawkins has been accused of being toxic on Twitter to be sure, but I wonder, is it just a manifestation of a form of this rising victimhood so many are espousing these days? I can’t claim to having read every tweet, but those that seem to inspire ire just don’t strike me as that toxic. Toxic only to the uber -sensitive types who feel you can’t say ANYTHING in the negative toward someone or something. It’s possible I just don’t understand it all, though. I’m trying to learn those ways of the world I’ve heretofore not been privy.
That’s generally what I’ve felt, too, about his “controversial” tweets. That protesters often insist on denying the existence of any gradients when it comes to certain behaviors certainly fits your characterization in your third sentence.
You speak the truth.
I am having a conversation right now, with a feminist on The Friendly Athiest.
She basically told me that Tim Hunt deserved what he got, because the joke he made was based on ‘sexist stereotypes’ and that, apparently, if some people don’t find it funny then it *has* to be a slur. I guess that makes Steven Colbert the most evil shitlord ever, no?
She also keeps referring to Dawkins as a ‘horrific’ sexist’ for Dear Muslima and the recent video. That because the video mocks *some* feminists, that it is anti-feminist period. I keep asking her that if this is the case, then surely she would condemn a video mocking transphobic TERF feminists, no? (she is a regressive leftist fem, so she goes to great lengths to prove how she stands for the oppressed). She won’t answer. Hah.
I don’t think that I can bear to waste more time on her though. Not good for my blood pressure! That’s why I like it here, friendly disagreement!
The trans issue is where the insanity becomes fully exposed. When you have professional biologists attacking anyone who thinks that a trans M2F person is not the same thing as an actual woman with two X chromosomes (an objective biological fact), you know the world is in trouble.
BTW, when I first heard about the TERF-vs-TIRF fight, my immediate thought was that this is exactly like early Christianity — basically they were coming up with all sorts of questions about the nature of the deity and the nature of Jesus that had no clear answers in the holy texts, which meant that there was a split every time something of the sort came up. And every time there was a split, there was a vicious fight over it, with people even getting hurt physically on many occasions. In the end some of those fractions died out completely, others remained alive until today. I see exactly the same thing here — the question “Oh, crap, how do we deal with trans people?” comes up, and then the divisions and excommunications begin.
What’s funny is, regressive leftists think that abusing people will somehow convert them. Or, maybe they just like to abuse people because they feel morally superior.
At any rate, as I have pointed out here, a few times in the past, I used to be one of those leftists who unequivocally supported trans rights. However, after being attacked for stating that ‘female bodied people get pregnant’, I chose to research the issue.
1) TERFs are not the evil that regressive fems make them out to be. They have some very valid points, such as, yes, XY chromosomes and a penis are in fact male. Their other point, that if we let biological males (who refuse to transition) have full access to women’s private spaces, based on ‘gender identity’, ie, ‘how they feel’ that perverts *will* take advantage of this!
2) Regressive leftists try so so hard not to be seen as anti-trans, that they will outright lie, I am sure of it. I went to a popular feminist blog, and, under a fake nym, showed “Stefonknee” (TW: google it) to a friend of mine. I thought that she was a sensible person. I was wrong. Apparently, Stefonknee, who is a 52 year old man who dresses up like a 6yo girl (if that girl was a stripper), is totes a real woman for sure, and should have the right to wave ‘her girlpeen’ around in women’s changerooms. I was stunned. I no longer talk to that person!
3) After Dawkins pointed out that XX/uterus/vagina/ova = female and that XY/penis/testes/sperm = male, he was bombarded with thousands of tweets pointing out that he *knew nothing of biology or evolution*. These people are delusional. It is a religion with them. A matter of faith.
Worst of all though, they are blind to their own biases. They can rip apart a particularly dishonest pro life argument, yet they use the same tactics as pro lifers when making their arguments. They are very similar to pro-lifers, actually. It’s creepy. (Probably because both groups are regressive thinkers)
You can’t say enough for friendly disagreement! (And interestingly, this just happens to be one of the (ahem) “safest” places on the web for female posters. Imagine that.)
Funny point re Colbert! 😀 For that matter, most of late-nite TV talk shows would be guilty, and SNL would need to be symbolically killed.
Had to Google TERF, but now I think I may have done so once before. I suspect there might be a reason it slipped my mind…Well, I always appreciate brave folk such as yourself reporting back from the front lines.
From the way Dawkins described his child abuse experience, and his reaction to it at the time, IMO it would have been wrong for him to demand it be considered equally bad as some of the much more damaging cases of actual child rape. From personal experience, I think the way that the definition of rape has been stretched to ridiculous ends only diminishes the suffering of some horribly treated victims.
There, that’s my feminist blasphemy for the day.
I see nothing wrong with friendly disagreement.
It should not hurt to be told that you are wrong, and to, hopefully, if you *are* wrong, learn from it. Nice people tell me that I am wrong all the time, and I re-think my position. It doesn’t hurt.
But all too often, egos are on the line, and people double down on stupidity instead of admitting error.
And yeah, if you go ballistic on someone over their perceived ‘wrongness’, they are unlikely to change their minds. They will simply resent you, and they too will double down. Real productive, that.
I had to google TERF too. First thing that came up was “Out of respect for actual RadFems, the trans community has stopped supporting the appropriation of the radical feminist identity by what is essentially a hate group. Thus, we instead use Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists (TERFs).”
I am baffled, bewildered and bemused. Actually, I’ve been that way quite a lot lately. I think I detect a whiff of ‘no true Scotsman’ in there somewhere.
cr
I’ve some across atheists who think every atheist should think like them, and are pretty abusive about the ones who don’t. They’re really hard work. I’m avoiding one at the moment by replying here instead of to a comment on my own website.
I deal with them now by trolling them.
I have *tried* to talk to them in a sensible fashion, and I am just accused of bigotry, dogpiled, and banned. It is stressful. And you know that they will twist your words around, so you spend half the time qualifying *every* statement.
It is amazing how they frame things too. Like, with some of my examples on this very thread, you can be accused of hatred and even murder (yeah, I am serious) for using the wrong *word*. (And no, I am not talking about slurs)
Yeah! I’ve just been abused for saying “Islam is the most dangerous religion.” What I actually said was “Islam is currently the most dangerous religion.” And there were all sorts of caveats around that too. I make a point of being really precise and tight with my language on my own site, but they still manage to twist things. It drives me nuts.
JT Eberhard, over at WWJTD on Patheos, once had to qualify an essay for his blog with 5+ footnotes, explaining that no, he was not really racist/sexist/pure evil/yadda yadda for expressing his views.
Oh yeah. The subject: the treatment of journalists by Melissa Click and friends.
No pax tonight, then?
/@
😀
I did get back to him later. 🙂
Isn’t there any room for just letting people be? I spent way too long in religion – and its judgemental attitudes, categorizing every sin, and calling people out for every error. All too often those sins were just people being themselves, or having different opinions, or sometimes just being less than perfect people.
I hate the thought of the atheist community becoming just as punitive.
On the other hand, people are people, and we are essentially individuals that are part of a group that has to reinforce its superiority as the “in” group whilst denigrating the “out” group.
Tiresome, actually.
^^^^^
I spent 25 years in a zone of total scrutiny by my peers looking for the slightest deviation in orthodoxy, and me trying my best not to deviate. I’m totally done with that.
It astonishes me to see the same thing in some atheist communities. It deserves the sharpest critique.
That is, 25 years as a religious fundamentalist.
I’d love to let it be. But I think letting a lot of little things slide is what lead to this.
For years, I thought it was unfair that anti-male or anti-white bigotry was treated with a shrug, compared to how people reacted to anti-black bigotry. But it wasn’t actually hurting me, so I didn’t think it was worth arguing over.
But now, those sentiments seemed to have metastasized into something that is a bigger problem. They’re not trolls, and they aren’t just going to go away if you stop giving them attention.
They’re like religious crusaders. Fanatically believing that they are righteous, and driven by that belief to take action no matter the costs to themselves.
Even if we were to ignore them, then that’ll just leave the actual bigots to oppose them. And any ideological battle that features anti-white racists against anti-black racists (or misogynists vs. misandrists, etc…) will end badly for everyone.
Well put.
Also, it has to be kept in mind that the reasonable people are at an inherent disadvantage in this situation, because usually they have better and more pressing things to do. PZ Myers can become a SJW crusader because he does little other than write blog posts and teach the occasional course. Actual working scientists, who should be the ones getting a real rude awakening from these recent events and doing something about it, are too stressed from all the demands of their work, and just don’t have time for such fights. Often they’re not even aware of how crazy the world has become (this shirtgate and other episodes like that). Which leaves the gender studies people free to do whatever they want and impose their ideology on others — they have the time, energy, and commitment to do it, and they will only become more vile because the other group that has time, energy and commitment to fight them are the crazies on the other side of the spectrum
I am trying to finish my next paper right now and my efforts have been completely trainwrecked over the last few days because I realized how far down the rabbit hole we’ve traveled. Do I want to work in a future university where evolutionary biology is essentially a forbidden subject unless it never mentions human behavior and human sexual dimorphism, and I have to carefully watch my every word in order to make sure that nobody gets triggered, which is what we will inevitably head towards if this continues? I am not a PC person, and I refuse to submit myself to brainwashing. But can I do anything to change that? Doesn’t seem like I can, the ship looks to have sailed. Because of those ever-increasing demands on people’s time and because the fight for professional survival gets more and more cutthroat every year, meaning that nobody can afford even the slightest misstep until they get a secure position in which their employment is untouchable, it looks most likely that the intersectional ideologues will continue marching forward with their crusade for social “justice” on campus unopposed.
To be fair, PZ has a very heavy teaching load, and it is good stuff that he teaches.
As for the future in academia, I would not worry re walking the tightrope of being politically correct. Remember your peers and the administrators are from your generation or older.
The worries are of course an under-supply of external grant funding, and perhaps an over-supply of PhD candidates.
The funding situation and the over-supply of PhDs are feeding into the problem, I had that in mind in the previous post.
In that kind of environment you have to keep your mouth shut and do everything possible to avoid attracting even the slightest negativity.
Also, my generation is in fact not the one you’re thinking about, but the next one, i.e. I am not even a professor yet, let alone having tenure.
Administrators being from the older generation does not at all give me confidence about the future — if that was going to be the solution, the problem would have been nipped in the bud a long time ago. Instead I’ve seen way too many cases of administrations capitulating to unreasonable demands. Which is not to say there have not been a few places that have stood their ground, but those are definitely not the majority.
It’s pretty clear that administration is not on the same ‘side’ as academia (at least in the sciences) anyway; in universities and especially museums the administrative positions have increasingly out-multiplied and outspent the research and teaching posts in the last couple of decades.
Also, what hope from the older generation? – trust nobody over 30… 🙂
Atheism is an epistemological / metaphysical position on the existence of god(s). Nothing more, nothing less.
It disappoints me when atheists decide that being an atheist mens having to adhere to a narrow moral vision. Why would anyone want to emulate fundamentalist religion? It seems even more absurd because at least with religion there’s an explicit doctrine to be fundamentalist about. There’s no link between not believing in god(s) and specific moral beliefs, so it really doesn’t make much sense – and that’s not even getting into any of the problems that specific moral beliefs have.
The only exception I can see are for those who reject a God on purely moral grounds, and thus their atheism is an issue of moral importance. But even then that doesn’t give moral warrant over the rest of us, nor is it a good reason for being an atheist.
You’re technically right on the definition, but most atheists — at least the ones who read atheist books, websites, and belong to organizations — value the position primarily because of how and why they arrived at it. That brings in values: reason, science, humanism, human rights, church/state separation, etc. What’s been called “dictionary atheism” can’t get into any of those areas. Atheism has to be ‘something more’ or it’s pretty much inert.
The problem I think isn’t agreeing on basic values, but on how to best live and exemplify those values. And I think some ways are more obviously wrong than others. So, from what I can gather, does everyone else. Maybe then the real trick is try to remember that the Other Side almost always has some sort of point, and that a lot of error has more to do with the situation they’re in (or have been in) than What They Are.
Then why not just talk about science and reason and humanism then? Atheism in that way is a sense of identity, and that sense of identity isn’t going to be the same between people. Values in the broad sense tend to have general agreement because they are broad. But how that boils down to specifics is always going to be a problem, and that’s where highlighting dictionary atheism is so important. It’s inert, yes, and that’s a feature not a bug. Those values don’t translate to specifics, and that’s where the issue lies. The inert version doesn’t try to coerce you into a narrow vision of how society ought to operate, or to punish people for not being in 100% agreement with it.
I agree that we ought to think The Other Side has some sort of point – most of the time for most things people have their reasons. And I’d go further as to say morality binds and blinds, preventing us to see that others may have a point.
As long as atheists are banding together as atheists — in organizations, on websites, in groups, on blogs, etc. — then there has to be a reason why. Pretty much anything you can come up with is going to go beyond the dictionary definition. If nothing else, so-called movement atheists need to defend the idea that we should out ourselves as ‘atheists’ and get together.
Agreed, but I think we should be clear about the distinction. There are three main reasons for this.
The first is that as atheists, there’s no entailment of any of those sociopolitical issues. We bring them as individuals and as collections of individuals, but they aren’t atheistic in nature.
Second, since we all come to those values in our own way there needs to be room for overlapping concerns and competing concerns. What to think about free markets or microaggressions or whether it’s morally problematic to even disagree with someone doesn’t really fit with what concerns one might have to make them speak out in the first place. People may even approach the same general concerns and disagree vehemently on specifics, and that ican be a problem when people take disagreement of specifics with disagreement of broad values.
Third generally speaking those issues transcend atheism and maintaining a strong identity with atheism may be counterproductive to outsiders and put off would be allies who have some of the same priorities.
I agree. Atheism may only be non-belief in gods but that position, and the reasons that you hold that position, are foundational to your world view and inform all of your thinking in a significant way.
In the context of this discussion I don’t know if it is useful, or even accurate, to argue for “dictionary atheism.” While it is certainly true that there is a lot of variation among atheists it is also true that there are many commonalities among significant percentages of atheists too. And some of those commonalities have significant bearing on “how to best live and exemplify those values.”
I don’t know. I really think the only thing atheism does for my moral system is tell me that religion is not the place to get it. The actual construction of my moral system came/comes from other considerations.
But doesn’t it seem likely that the aspects of your mind that resulted in you arriving at atheism also figure significantly in arriving at the moral system you have constructed?
And, when unpacked, and there is a lot of unpacking to do regarding this simple statement, isn’t leading you to decide that religion is not the place to get your moral system a pretty big and complex thing?
I am not claiming that atheism should have a codified belief system like a religion or other ideology. I’m just saying that atheism, and the reasons we arrive at it, does have a significant impact on our ethical / moral views.
I don’t know if I’d call it complex, but I suppose my thinking that moral systems should be based on earnest attempts to ascertain truth, which rules out religion, could be described as foundational. But I’m still hesitant to link atheism with the actual formation of my morals because many theists form the same morals for the same reasons. The theist and I are both appealing to something other than our ontological stance regarding god in the formation of some of our ethical views.
I am absolutely anti-absolutist. Everything is analog and messy. I agree completely that theists and atheists arrive at very similar morals for many of the same or similar reasons. But that doesn’t seem like a definitive argument against what I am trying to argue. I am arguing that there are likely to be noticeable trends, not clear lines or clear demarcations between groups.
darrelle:
In the context of this discussion, no one cares about noticeable trends. If there are trends, great. If people want to band together because of some commonality, great. We are not even talking about that. We are talking about attempts to enforce a dogma. That is one of the key essences of “fundamentalism” in religion, so if there is such a thing as a “fundamentalist atheist” (and I waffle on this), they are people who are enforcing dogma. If someone is not enforcing dogma, this term definitely doesn’t apply to them.
If there are such people, it’s not atheism they are enforcing dogma over, it’s politics. The only way that atheism enters into it is the insistence that atheism somehow entails (not merely noticeably trends with) their political dogma, so that anyone who doesn’t accept the dogma is, at minimum, a sworn ideological foe and more likely an “asshole” or worse.
@gluonspring,
Perhaps you are correct there with respect to the context of whether or not “fundamentalist atheist” could ever be an accurate term.
But that is not what I have been talking about. As I related somewhere else here, that is not the context for my comments on this subthread. The intended context for my comments is whether or not the conclusion “atheism” and, more importantly / significantly, the broader underlying aspects of a persons mind that result in the conclusion “atheism,” have a significant impact on a persons moral / ethical beliefs. This side discussion started with a comment by Sastra near the top of this subthread.
Some people are saying no because, for one example, many atheists and believers have largely very similar moral / ethical beliefs. I’m saying yes.
@darelle:
I suppose it’s necessarily true that causes and effects in life are a big tangled mess and, technically, everything has an effect on everything else. But that seems to me to come close to being tautological, and weak in terms of explanatory power. As kelskye write elsewhere, my atheism is, in this sense, involved in my formation of music or food preferences.
The reason I started this argument was to show that, contra those whom Jerry is calling fundamentalist atheists, the narrow conclusion of atheism doesn’t necessarily imply any specific moral views that must be adopted by anyone who calls him/herself an atheist.
Although respect for truth (not atheism pet se) will play a part in how I go about choosing justifications for my moral views, I think morality is actually justified with more “tangible” (concrete?) considerations. As I wrote earlier, if someone asked me why I don’t punch strangers in the face, “because I’m an atheist” would be a weird and unsatisfactory answer.
Geez. Sorry for consistently misspelling your name, which I’ve just noticed.
🙂 I’m not picky. It is rare that people spell , or pronounce, my first or last names correctly.
darrelle:
Oh, it’s easy to get lost in these threads.
If that is the topic, that seems trivially true, just as class or education or even the specific list of books you’ve read have an effect (lots of people have their moral universe greatly altered by reading a single book, say 1984, for example). It might not be a conscious effect of the form “I’m an atheist therefore…”, certainly, but the effect is there. Even implicitly, there is an effect in lack of a perception of an ultimate arbiter… you have to accept that you’re on your own, which has implications.
I’m not sure it does. Maybe I’m weird because I never had a theistic conception of morality to lose, but if I think of how what I call moral has evolved over time (and indeed how I think about morality), at no point does my atheism figure in. I can see the hands of my parents, my peers, my culture, my experiences, and books that touch on the topic all factor in, but I can’t see any thread of an atheological flavour.
But maybe I’m weird.
Does God have a hand in your morality? No? Well, that’s where your atheism figures in.
”It’s the morality that atheists reject that makes atheists’ morality the best!” 😁
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Seems trivial at that stage – similar to where my atheism figures into my music tastes and how I choose what foods to eat.
@kelskye Feb 3 3:07am
Indeed. I think the other side of this argument gives too much credence to the theist’s claim that moral systems must take into account the question of god.
@ musicalbeef,
Do you mean “too much credence to the theist’s claim that their own moral systems must take into account the question of god?”
If that is what you meant, what about, for example, the animus towards LGBT persons, same sex marriage and similar that seems to come disproportionately from believers? It seems very plausible to me that their commitment to their religion plays a significant role in that. Both as a cause and a means of justification.
If you meant in general, I can’t speak for anyone else but I have never been a believer and gods just have never figured into moral or ethical thinking. Not that I consider gods briefly then dismiss them, it just never occurs to me to consider them period.
And sure, I have no doubt that much of the time many believers don’t consider their god either. But sometimes some of them do. And it seems to often be something fairly nasty that society would be better off without.
@ darelle:
Yes, I meant in general, but in the sense that you and Sastra seem to be advocating, ie, that one’s position on the question of whether there is a god or not is necessarily something that is important in forming one’s ethical views.
Sastra and I seem to have converged below on the idea that it’s not atheism itself that is important here, but the broader enterprise of looking at the world rationally. I think it’s a good idea to make that distinction. Developing a moral system will certainly be affected by one’s idea of what counts as legitimate epistemology, but I don’t see why it has to be affected by the narrow conclusion (reached via that epistemology) that there is no god.
« Developing a moral system will certainly be affected by one’s idea of what counts as legitimate epistemology, but I don’t see why it has to be affected by the narrow conclusion (reached via that epistemology) that there is no god. »
I answered something similar elsewhere; it’s affected by the fact that you rule out (or at least, do not grant special privilege to) what a god or his child/prophet (ostensibly) said about morality. A believer, like Collins, might claim a very similar epistemology, but they’d look through the lens of their belief, influencing their conclusions. Especially if it’s a polarising lens.
In short, the narrow conclusion of atheism removes one source of (potentially significant) bias.
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Not granting special privilege to religious claims is a good way to put it, but I’m not sure I’d include that in the “construction phase” of creating my moral system. I’ve come to the conclusion that punching strangers in the face is immoral because of considerations like empathy and the golden rule, not because I reject god-claims. And in fact I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that a theist will say something worth listening to regarding morality. It’s not the theism itself that makes their moral systems bad, it’s that the bad systems contravene the entirely god-neutral criteria we’ve established for determining good behavior, criteria like the golden rule.
@ musicalbeef,
Yes, I read that and it made me chuckle because I agree. Sastra wrote nearly exactly what I have been trying to say. That’s why I kept stressing “the reasons you arrive at atheism. Sastra is just better at it.
I do think, as Ant has expressed, that the mere position of atheism is more relevant than you believe, but yes, the “larger mindset” that resulted in the conclusion “atheism” is clearly more broadly relevant.
If there is such a thing as fundamentalist atheism, the only thing it could properly be, to be “fundamental”, would be so called dictionary atheism (a term PZ Myers uses to disparage people who accurately describe atheism).
To clarify, by my less than clear “context of this discussion” I meant the subthread that Sastra started in the comment to which I responded.
I haven’t yet come to any firm conclusions regarding the term “fundamentalist atheism,” but I agree with your point. However, it could be argued that people like PZ Myers are fundamentalists (he certainly acts like a typical caricature of a firebrand fundamentalist xian about certain things) and atheists, therefore fundamental atheist. (that’s not supposed to be taken entirely seriously)
I think you misunderstood (or have misremembered) PZ’s point there – or at least his original one. A “dictionary atheist” was a person who when asked “/why/ are you an atheist” replied “/because/ I don’t believe in god”, rather than actually enumerating any good reasons for their atheism.
PZ’s argument was then that if you were an atheist because you had taken the common gnu atheist path of treating “God’ as a hypothesis and rejecting it for lack of evidence, then you /ought/ to take the same evidence based approach to other ideas, esp. about equality and other social justice issues. Which seems a laudable goal.
But then it went downhill when PZ /et al./ asserted that this would “inevitably” lead to a certain set of stances on those issues, and if you didn’t share exactly those stances you were doing it worng, weren’t a “proper” atheist, and deserved opprobrium.
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The whole project is subject to scope creep, and thus why the disparaging use of dictionary atheist is little more than a rhetorical tactic. If the point is simply that atheism doesn’t exist in a vacuum and is interdependent on wider cognition, then that observation is trivial. The reason to limit the definition of atheism to the relevant epistemological and metaphysical concerns around atheism is because it’s all too easy to co-opt moral, ethical, and political issues into what should be a discrete concept.
What seems to me the problem is that the rationality of the atheistic position acts as a sort of halo effect on other beliefs. That is, we disparage dictionary atheism not because issues like social justice are atheistic in nature, but that we ought to think of social justice on those same rational grounds. But it doesn’t work that way epistemically-speaking since moral issues aren’t equivalent truths about the world we derive from reason, but there’s a heavy dose of intuition, experience, and cultural contingency built in. By equating the two processes, it skips over the problems of trying to equate the two enterprises, and that’s really unhelpful on a domain where specific beliefs between individuals greatly diverge.
A better case could be made that atheism is a subset of the same rationality that attacks homoeopathy or ghost sightings. But morality and politics are largely normative domains, and what counts as rationality in both has some resemblance and far less warrant.
Indeed.
And even the non-normative parts that are in principle addressable by some sufficiently advanced science, questions about the real world effects of choice X or policy Y, which are surely objective facts about the world, are really difficult to discover. To treat these things as knowns beyond any reasonable debate is simply unwarranted and, I feel, anti-rational.
@gluonspring
In principle, I agree. However, there are two concerns.
1. In practice, we tend to conflate the normative and non-normative elements. (Harris pointed out in The Moral Landscape that brain scans reveal we don’t distinguish between facts and values. ) So it’s hard to be rational about just one aspect of it when our values are tied up in the normative rather than the empirical. Just look at the revulsion to evolutionary psychology – there are plenty of self-identifying rationalists whose mission it is to take down any evolutionary psychology paper to do with gender differences. Did they suddenly become experts in the field? Probably not. More likely is that those papers go against the normative values they have about how we ought to treat gender.
2. Even if we agree on what is, that rationality has a limited utility. It cannot determine to a strong degree what our values are, and thus only has a limited utility into the kinds of conversations people want to have. When the fights of values happen, rarely are the facts in dispute. Take ethical veganism – no-one is denying the suffering the animals endure, it’s over the relevant moral significance of that suffering. If the facts aren’t in dispute, then you’re pretty much left with the normative aspect of it. And, yes, one can be rational about the normative. We just can’t be as rational as we think we can be, and therein lies the heart of the issue.
Well, as I said, “it went downhill”.
But I don’t think that the those “normative” issues completely defy a scientific approach. We might figure out optimal social behaviors using game theory, for example.
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In the story, Job complains about God thus:
This is what it was like to grow up in a fundamentalist religion, where everyone you know is on God’s team… watching.. scrutinizing you for deviations from orthodoxy or sin, and with God in his Heaven doing the same. To me, the biggest practical benefit of the atheist view of the world is precisely that the universe doesn’t actually give a damn about me. It may maim me horribly or kill me, but it doesn’t care. It’s not AFTER me.
From where I am coming from, being inert is a feature, not a bug. I don’t want my non-belief to mean anything else. My life, maybe, but not my non-belief. Sure my non-belief affects my morals, but it doesn’t bind them. And a thousand times more than that I don’t want some busy body telling me what my atheism MUST mean. Pox on that. I’ve been there, I’ve done that. I am completely through forever.
This is what it was like to grow up in a fundamentalist religion, where everyone you know is on God’s team… watching.. scrutinizing you for deviations from orthodoxy or sin, and with God in his Heaven doing the same.
Anecdotal evidence:
In my travels, I have noticed that the fundie atheists, more often than not grew up in fundie religious homes.
They may not believe in a God now, but they did not grow out of a fundamentalist, authoritarian way of thinking.
If that is so, it’s really sad.
My own anecdotes don’t match that though. The people I’ve encountered online who have a rigid view of what everyone must believe and accept to be part of the atheist club seem more often to be lifelong atheists. But I confess that I only know the history of a few such people.
If I were guessing, I’d guess there is no correlation, that lots of humans just have a authoritarian bent, that’s it’s a flaw in our brains, and it comes out whenever and wherever it can. That the best you can do is struggle against it constantly.
If I were guessing, I’d guess there is no correlation, that lots of humans just have a authoritarian bent, that’s it’s a flaw in our brains, and it comes out whenever and wherever it can. That the best you can do is struggle against it constantly.
HOW DARE YOU DISAGREE WITH ME
BIGOT
/BANHAMMER
In all seriousness however, you are correct.
It is no doubt a combination of factors, but we just have to accept that there are authoritarians out there, and that they will act this way no matter what group they are a part of.
Speaking of authoritarians (which they clearly are, for the most part)…maybe they tend to have a soft spot for Islamists not only because they (the Islamists) are oppressed brown people, but also because they kind of admire that culture. It’s *so* authoritarian. It must be appealing to them. Sure they differ on the specifics, but they must appreciate how strictly enforced their moral codes and speech and thought restrictions are. And remember, most authoritarians are authoritarian followers, not authoritarian leaders. They want to be told what to think and how to act. It’s comforting and reassuring. This is a very good analysis of authoritarian psychology – http://members.shaw.ca/jeanaltemeyer/drbob/TheAuthoritarians.pdf
I detest authoritarians far, far more than religiosos per se. (Though of course a lot of authoritarians are religious and vice versa). I think ‘either at your feet or at your throat’ ** is an apt description.
I can’t think of any good cause that authoritarianism won’t subvert, or any bad that authoritarianism won’t exacerbate.
(**I stole it from Churchill who used it in a quite different context. I think my usage is more appropriate)
cr
But what you just expressed so eloquently is neither inert nor empty — you’re advocating for freedom, self-determination, and tolerance. Those are values which aren’t necessarily included or derived from “I do not believe in God.”
If you believe that there are — or one could logically conceive of — atheists who don’t agree with what you’ve just written — but should — then I think you have to recognize that you’ve just added “more” to the definition. In order to have a substantial discussion on atheism I don’t really see a way not to.
We only feel the need to have substantial discussions about atheism because of the prevalence of and consequent privilege afforded to theism. If nobody believed in a imaginary sky boss, I think a substantial discussion about atheism would make as much sense as a substantial discussion about not collecting stamps.
You may argue that given the prevalence of theism, a substantial discussion about atheism is just what we need to have if we want things to change, but my point is that that’s only a contingent necessity. There’s nothing inherent in atheism that requires we have substantial discussions about it in order to develop moral systems, worldviews, etc.
Atheism as a conclusion is only a byproduct of the way we got there. I could certainly see it relegated to true but irrelevant — but the larger mindset or worldview still of vast importance.
Agreed. I think this is what Kelskye and I have been arguing.
Agree!
And there is a niche for those who wish to point out the ubiquity and harm of religion, and that’s where atheists might better spend their time, rather than reinventing humanism.
You’re technically right on the definition, but most atheists — at least the ones who read atheist books, websites, and belong to organizations — value the position primarily because of how and why they arrived at it. That brings in values: reason, science, humanism, human rights, church/state separation, etc. What’s been called “dictionary atheism” can’t get into any of those areas. Atheism has to be ‘something more’ or it’s pretty much inert.
Isn’t that what the A+ “movement” was all about? What’s with the pathological need to make every “dictionary” atheist conform to what you think atheism should be?
How exactly do you know that “most” atheists value your social positions? How do you know the way “most” atheists arrived at their atheism?
I’ve been specifically discussing what’s been called “movement atheism.” If an atheist doesn’t care about some aspect of “reason, science, humanism, human rights, church/state separation, etc.” then I’m hard-pressed to understand why such an atheist would choose to join or hang out in any atheist forum whatsoever. And in all the forums I’ve personally been involved in (listservs, bulletin boards, websites, blogs, groups, and organizations) there’s always been a running theme on one or more of the above. If your experience is different, I’d love to know what was discussed.
As I understand it, Atheism+ wasn’t formed to mandate conformity and require that all atheists join it. It was supposed to be a special interest group for those atheists who wanted to focus their own activism on social justice issues (as opposed to apologetics, church/state, science, the paranormal, etc.) They weren’t saying that nothing else mattered, at least not most of them, and at least not at first. But I could be wrong, I didn’t follow it all that closely.
I believe that the proponents of Atheism+ stated that they were on the “right side of history” and that everyone and anyone who disagrees would soon be left in the dust.
A+ ate it’s own, because the quest for 110% ideological purity only serves to pit people against one another.
That or they are just narcissistic children who gain social status through claims of being the most oppressed of all, so that it becomes a competition to find fault with others, no matter how small.
I feel the love right from the beginning.
A+, and really, all socjus ideas run into problems because of intersectionality.
Basically, the opperssion olympics.
Victims are always right. Victims are angels, pure as the driven snow. Victims can never do wrong. As a victim, you now have the to bully others because hey, a big bully hurt your feelings! Don’t they know that YOU are the most oppressed? Now is the time to fight for your rights!
So what A+ and people who think like A+ do, is they ‘other’ anyone who doesn’t lick their feet. And they end up ‘othering’ each other, because they are all jockeying for #1 victim status.
Arseholes.
And as with other forms of cultism, members try to prove their virtue within the group by being more and more orthodox, and by showing less and less tolerance for heterodoxy by others. Hence the insular dog piling on anyone perceived as not towing the line in some of the FTB forums, a free license be mean and intolerant to others in the name of niceness and tolerance.
“As I understand it, Atheism+ wasn’t formed to mandate conformity and require that all atheists join it. ”
As the people who were on board with A+ from the beginning told me, it was to separate out the asshole atheists from the non-asshole atheists (their words)
Was awfully nice of them to do so. Funny, you don’t think of assholes being nice, most of the time.
However, assholes are necessary, or you end up being full of shit.
I don’t think this metaphor will stand being taken much further…
😉
cr
At the time, I thought they were talking nonsense (“how does A+ sort out the assholes?” I questioned, and didn’t get any sort of satisfactory response as to the magic sorting powers of a label), but sure enough they demonstrated that the label does a very good job of that. Though perhaps it was not in the way they intended. 😛
Assholes belong to A* …
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You still haven’t answered my question about how you know the motives of “most” atheists.
You said “…but most atheists…” How could you possibly know this? I think what you meant was “most atheists I hang out with on Pharyngula, Butterflies and Wheels and Skepchick.”
I thought I did answer your question, you even quoted me. I wrote:
I’m talking about ‘movement atheism,’ which would include both Rebecca Watson and Thunderfoot. It’s pretty safe to say that, despite their differences, both of them would probably pick one or more motivations for being an engaged/activist atheist out of a grab bag which includes “reason, science, humanism, human rights, social justice, church/state separation, etc.” They would then disagree on the details — and who’s doing it “right.”.
Even atheists who only read a book or two have a reason they liked (or didn’t like) the book. It’s tempting to claim that every atheist has a story behind why they don’t believe in God. But I was cautious and only said “most” — and lowered it even more to those atheists who voluntarily consider and talk to other people about the fact that they’re an atheist.
And I suspect that’s why you think I’m not answering your question; maybe I’m not quite saying what you think I’m saying. I’m not advancing a particular social justice position and insisting that all True Atheists believe the same thing about feminism or racism or how to best spread atheism around that I and my cronies do. I’m trying to look objectively at the entire field of engaged/activist atheism and see what broad and general agreements seem to cut across the feuds.
“Why am I an atheist?” Bring out the big, broad grab bag, the one which involves philosophical inquiry and commitment.
The alternative is an atheist who simply adopts atheism as the momentary path of least resistance and they’ll happily convert to anything else as soon as it becomes marginally more convenient to them. “I used to believe in God, but then the Secular Students gave me some pie and told me there was more if I wanted but I had to join. Gee, what’s that tempting smell coming from the Campus Crusade for Christ Cru booth?” I don’t think we can really call that a “motivation” for being an atheist. That’s more like “narcissistic drift.”
Well said, Sastra. (That’s almost a pleonasm.)
I think the situation in Europe and at the antipodes (rhymes with octopodes) is even more polarised. With such high numbers of “nones” in those countries, “movement” or “activist” atheists are even less representative of the whole. I’d really like to see the evidence (of course!) but my feeling (tentative hypothesis) is that the majority of the atheists amongst the “nones” are apatheists – “apathetic atheists” – who have simply never seen any reason to be a believer and rarely have any rational or emotional justification for /not/ believing. I also suspect many of those are not unhappy with religious privilege, except when it’s scandalous.
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@ Ant
I think you’d be about right. Here in NZ, the churches generally don’t interfere in politics – I think they feel it would be improper, and probably divisive within their own membership – so most Kiwis, who probably wouldn’t define themselves as atheists but are only ever seen in church for weddings or funerals, can pretty well ignore them most of the time.
(A few elections back, a cult, the Select Brethren, decided to issue pamphlets supporting one political party. The backlash was severe).
cr
“The only exception I can see are for those who reject a God on purely moral grounds, and thus their atheism is an issue of moral importance.”
Surprisingly that never occurred to me, or I never thought seriously about it. I wonder how many of those who wed certain moral positions with their atheism came to their position on the existence of God primarily based on their disagreements with religious ideology.
If you want to justify atheism nothing beats science, but first graders logic can do the job.
Atheism doesn’t make you a better or worse person.
Fundamentalist/militant atheists are those you don’t like. I like Dawkins and his provocative style, so I don’t think he is a fundamentalist. Experiences may vary.
Sorry Mike, previous was a reaction to some other post.
I have a friend who “used to be an atheist.” When I asked her about it, it turned out that she rejected God because she had been a Communist and thought the Abrahamic God was authoritarian and immoral. When the Communists were unkind to her, she found theists with a nice, loving God and switched. Reason and evidence never came into it and she says it shouldn’t: you make your decisions with your heart and have faith it will guide you correctly.
My atheism did not come from a critical examination of things (the universe, morality, religion). I’d say my morality is very little changed from what it ever was. (Dawkins’ “new 10 commandments are a great starting place — but they just explicitly stated what I already knew and felt.)
I was raised in a liberal Xian church in the US Midwest. I probably took it fairly seriously until I was in my late teens.
It was the exposure to ideas I experienced at university that killed religion for me. Including Phil 101 (yes, engineers do take Philosophy courses!) which helped my thinking and made me examine this whole god thing for the first time, really.
I stopped believing (completely); but I didn’t identify as an atheist until much later — after I read The God Delusion which crystallized my thoughts. (So much for the idea that the Gnu’s books didn’t have an effect.)
I sort of drifted into atheism as I learned more about the world; got out of my little family bubble. World travel really helped too. I had no withdrawal pains leaving religion behind.
That is one thing various philosophers, especially since the 19th century, and, sigh, some theologians too, seem to have gotten right.
You can eliminate religion but that does not mean it will be replaced with a rational sober perception of reality. Much more likely, it will be replaced by a secular religion, just as irrational and ideological only missing a deity and a holy book (though the latter is not a strict requirement).
The various attempts to establish a communist utopia demonstrated that very well over the course of the 20th century. Communism was indeed a classical secular religion, and one that had many many parallels with Christianity — replace the prophets with Marx, Lenin, etc., the Second coming with the global socialist revolution and paradise with what Earth was supposed to look after it, and it’s basically the same promise.
I got familiar with the concept of a secular religion and how certain real historical phenomena can be classified as such some time after the new wave of atheism appeared a decade ago and prior to that I did indeed believe things were on the right track, and even after that I sort of hoped we can avoid falling in that trap again (note that I’ve been a conscious atheist since I was ~5, which was the first time I encountered the idea of religion, thus I am not a new convert but it was still refreshing to see a movement I agreed with come to the scene so forcefully).
But the Atheism+ fiasco shattered those illusions, and now I have come to the conclusions that a truly rational society is only possible under extremely special circumstances that are not likely to ever occur, and even if it were to develop, because those circumstances are so unstable, it would not last long. The Atheism+/SJW crowd is just as good, if not in fact a better representation of a fundamentalist secular religion that committed communists used to be.
The human brain just does not seem to be wired for cold rational analysis of the surrounding world, and we have to admit that.
Well said.
There also seems to be this idea that if you are on the left, that you are therefore liberal and open to ideas. And that anyone who is conservative has a ‘mental disorder’ and is authoritarian. (There was a study on this)
Hogwash, I say. Authoritarian personalities exist. And those personalities can come out conservative or leftist. They can be atheist or religious. They are not exclusive to RWNJs only. The left has its own fundies.
What about Scandinavia? Has real religion been replaced by secular religion there? My brief visits there, combined with what I know about places like Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, make me think that these are good rational societies.
That is a good question — I don’t know what the situation is on the ground. But I do see all these reports about a Swedish politician proposing a law that would require all men to pee while sitting on the toilet seat so that it is more convenient to women, boys being banned from playing with LEGOs so that they are not given unfair advantage over girls in life, and other absolutely insane stuff of the sort, how crime and rape by immigrants is not reported by the police, etc. etc.
Let me stress again, I see reports — I don’t know what the situation is on the ground, and it certainly does not help that those countries speak such unpopular languages making it not at all easy to get a true understanding of what is actually happening. You may know better if you have visited in person.
But if all of those reports are true, then places like Sweden are basically confirming my point — it seems to have been taken over by the crazy feminists, i.e. it might have been a rational society for a few decades but is either no longer one or won’t be for much longer.
Regarding Sweden, I found this quote on another forum.
(Sorry for the wall of text)
A person who lives in Sweden wrote:
frooty: Just to give some background to this and recent news regarding Sweden and the immigration stuff:
The murder of the immigrant-worker is just one, one small part in all of this. Of course, it didn’t help that the Chief of the Police after the murder came out on national TV and voiced his sympathies with not only the murdeded victim, but also the murderer (“What traumatic experiences has this person been through?” etc) – but that’s far from everything.
The Cologne attacks which resulted in the We Are STHLM scandal have been a watershed moment for Swedish media, who are now suddenly reporting about the problems regarding immigration and criminal immigrants in a way that was completely unthinkable just 3 months ago.
Among some of the things that has been reported on recently:
On top of the murder, there have been riots at some immigration centers, just recently a group of immigration workers had to barricade themselves inside a room from a mob of 15 or so immigrant “children” who had become upset and armed themselves with various blunt objects. Reportedly because they had been denied to buy candy… The situation at the immigrant centers are pretty dire as it is, there are daily reports of fights and abuse, in some counties it’s been reported that 30% of all incidents requiring police assistance now occur at immigration centers.
frooty: Almost daily there are also now news of young girls (as young as 10 in some cases) being sexually assaulted in the public, especially at public bathing houses/indoor pools – resulting in several places having started to gender segregate pools etc. Pretty much nothing of these incidents have lead to arrests or convictions. Often these assaults are reported being committed by “unaccompanied refugee children” – which oftentimes, just like the recent “15 year old” murderer, are anything but children.
3 months ago though, it was a “myth perpetrated by racist hate sites” that many of the unaccompanied children really weren’t children – media looked like this (this is from a Swedish anti-SJW blog that due to the recent controversies decided to make a English post explaining to a foreign audience just how bizarre the situation in Sweden has been. These screenshotted articles are all from around 3-4 months ago, before Cologne, and before the government had decided to try to limit the immigration, when media still was in propaganda overdrive mode trying to raise sympathies for the immigrants).
On top of that, there’s been several cases of gang rapes where the perpetrators were convicted but not deported. For example there was a case where a woman was gang raped and beaten by 6 Eritreans, where she eventually threw herself out of a window of the apparent on the second floor to escape – 5 of them were convicted and sentenced to 10 months for not reporting the rape (dunno how to translate this crime, I think you get the idea), and one of them were convicted for the brutal rape and sentenced to 5 years – none however were deported, since they all came from Eritrea and had deserted from the mandatory military duty. Sweden prides itself in that we are “civilized” and don’t practice the death penalty – and therefore we cannot deport anyone to a country where they might be killed…
frooty: r thing that happened is that recently it was revealed that the police leadership have decided to make all incidents where immigrants were involved into special crime code 291 (called Alma). The police leadership then classified everything under this crime code – Meaning that neither the public nor the media have even access to basic statistics about for example how much police resources are being used up by the recent, huge immigration wave. In an internal PM, the police leadership expressively stated “Nothing shall get out”.
At the same time, media has finally started listening to – and reporting – what policemen out in the field have been trying to say for years: There is a huge problem with criminal immigrants children, of which the most glaring problem is that Sweden is extremely generous to under-age criminals, which is being ruthlessly abused.
One policeman told of his experiences in the field, where they oftentimes caught criminal men, clearly in their upper 20s, only to see them released straight out on the streets before the police had even finished the paperwork, because the men had papers or at least claimed that they were under 15. This was a pretty much an everyday occurrence according to several policemen.
One recent major headline really illustrated just how batshit crazy the situation is:
frooty: One man recently cut a woman in the face with a knife, after she had refused to have sex with him. In the court, he claimed he was 16. Even though the prosecutor could show that the man had showed a passport in Germany with his age as 29, and even though the woman and her friend testified that the man had told them he was 21, and even though a medical teeth exam showed the man to be between 17 and 21, the court decided that his age hadn’t been proven beyond a doubt, and that the man therefore should be considered to be 16 – with the result that he was convicted as a youth and therefore released immediately.
The main reason this even became big news is that papers from Algeria arrived, where the man’s birth year was noted as 1991 – so they are going to have a new trial. Media however also mentioned another recent case, as to highlight that this problem was systematic and not just a one off thing – a girl was brutally raped by three boys in September last year, they were completely acquitted and let go because the court thought that the prosecutor hadn’t been able to prove that the boys were older than 15 years old and thus having reached the age of criminal responsibility. At the same time, since their country of origin was unclear, they couldn’t even be deported…
frooty: Basically, the legal systems aren’t working – they are designed to handle a identifiable population that are kept within the state systems, not unidentifiable foreigners who commit crimes without inhibitions while claiming to be underage kids. On top of that resources are stretched thin, there’s not enough policemen in service to handle this load, there is a physical lack of housing where we can house all the immigrants – the houses have literally run out – there’s not enough teachers to handle this large influx of children that supposedly have a right to an education, there’s not enough state workers to handle all the papers, and so on….
So, tl;dr – this mob is basically the result of an increasing distrust in the legal systems and the governments ability to uphold the law. It’s in no way or form defensible, but it’s at the same time hardly surprising that a group of football hooligans decided that the time had come to take the laws in their own hands.
ps. Oh, and about the deportation of 80.000…. that’s just theater, it’s hot air supposed to make it look like the current government is doing something. In reality, the 80.000 number is from the simple estimation that the ratio of denied asylum request will be the same as it’s always been, ie around 50% – it’s only 80.000 because we took in around 160.000… and no, they won’t get deported by force. Even if the police wanted, they don’t have the resources for that.
What will happen is what has happened for the last 5 years or so: Roughly half of the asylum seekers who get their request for asylum denied leave the country voluntarily. The other half goes underground, and tries multiple times to have their asylum request granted – for example the IKEA-murderer committed the murders because his request for asylum had been denied, a second time. Every 4 years, you can try again to get a new residence permit.
If you during this time manage to “root yourself” in Sweden, by for example starting a family, and having kids in school (children to illegal immigrants have the right to education and healthcare, free of charge) that you can show would be very negatively affected by having to move back to your country of origin, your chances greatly increase. This should kinda give a fairly good idea of just how much the police do forced deportations… half a year ago, they had a pile of 17.000 cases, and they barely do a couple of thousand each year….
“Much more likely, it will be replaced by a secular religion”
Yes, because that’s what’s happened in Scandinavia and elsewhere.
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Btw, PCC(E), did you see that religion is projected to become extinct in these (non-Scandinavian) countries?
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Yes, that does remind me of certain set of highly vocal social justice oriented atheists; however, I reject the notion that such people should be called “fundamentalist” atheists. There is nothing fundamental about atheism that in any way entails any set of social or political beliefs. At it’s core, atheism is nothing more or less than the lack of belief in any god or gods. That’s it. That is the only thing that all atheists have in common.
I don’t know what to call reactionary, passive aggressive, delicate flower, social justice atheists that would or could sum them up neatly, but I don’t think “fundamentalist atheist” is the answer.
Jackasses???
Unfair to donkeys! he brayed.
“There is nothing fundamental about atheism that in any way entails any set of social or political beliefs.”
Isn’t that the issue at heart? That there are individuals conflating their beliefs about God with ideas like social justice and putting them as one and the same. Or at the very least, it’s trying to co-opt the present outrage over religion (that’s largely fuelling the rise in vocal atheism) towards specific moral ends.
I agree. It doesn’t seem that atheism is what is driving those people’s behavior, so why call it “fundamental atheism”?
“I agree. It doesn’t seem that atheism is what is driving those people’s behavior, so why call it “fundamental atheism”?”
But many of them claim atheism is driving their behavior, or is a natural outgrowth of atheism. If they believe social justice is a fundamental part of atheism wouldn’t strictly adhering to those fundamentals make them fundamentalists?
“If they believe social justice is a fundamental part of atheism”
IMO they are clearly wrong in that regard, but it still seems they would be atheist fundamentalists.
I mean wouldn’t someone who drank six beer a day because they “believed” it was a fundamental part of being a golfer be a fundamentalist for doing so religiously, or do the rules of golf actually have to include that rule?
I think it’s difficult to say, it’s a heavily social phenomena.
For example, the Bible says nothing about being against abortion (there are even verses that might be interpreted as being okay with abortion). But being against abortion is an important part of being a fundamentalist Christian.
It’s not part of “Atheism” to be a social justice warrior, but it’s not a part of Christianity to be opposed to abortion. Yet we’re fine calling the latter fundamentalist.
I’m not advocating for calling these people fundamentalists. I’m just noting that you can hold something as fundamental to a belief system, despite that system never mentioning that something.
I think that part of the problem may be one of perception. Republicans in the US have managed to create the false narrative that they are the party of Christianity, whereas Democrats are not. And thus Republican atheists seem like a self-contradiction. But are they? I don’t really know, but like priests who loose their faith and must keep their secret lest they by ostracized, I’d think that Republican atheists also have to stay in the closet or face reprisals.
So, while I tend to think of atheists as being liberal and liberal social values oriented, that impression is formed largely by the mainstream and social media presence of atheists who are open in their atheism.
Perhaps, although others here have raised questions concerning the applicability of “fundamentalist” in this context. My point deals with the atheism part. They claim their view is a natural consequence of their atheism but I think they are mistaken. Plenty of progressive, non-traditional theists share their views.
Let’s just cut to the chase and call them “authoritarians”. I think the fundamentalist label fits because they conflate their atheism with their political views and want to make them one and the same, so they are making their atheism into something like fundamentalism, but the term is too loaded with wrong connotations so we might be better off with “authoritarian”.
“Orthodoxy enforcing authoritarians”.
I’d go along with that. Good call.
cr
Actually, “cultist” is more succinct.
I reject the concept (“Fundamentalist atheist”) because it simply makes no sense. There is no doctrine upon which a “fundamental” interpretation might be based.
This framing confuses the fundamentalism with “commitment” or perhaps “activist interest”. It suggests that a “non-fundamentalist atheist” would be one who didn’t care about anything. It is an incoherent concept.
I think you’ve got it right. Perhaps “fundamentalist atheist +” could work, but that is a completely different thing. One is a label for a position on a single, specific binary question while the other is a label for a social group that has created a doctrine that they choose to collectively identify themselves by.
Agreed, fundamentalist atheists are not fundamental about atheism. The freeze peach brigade and others certainly have ideologies that they cannot or will not separate from their atheism. So entrenched is their fusion of social justice and atheism, any dissent or discussion is taken as an attack, and not an attack of an idea, but a sociopathic attack on civilized society.
That said, fundamentalist atheist seems an accurate description.
Would it be fair to call a person a vegetarian atheist or an alcoholic atheist? I don’t think so. That is, the person who is a vegetarian probably became one whether or not he was an atheist. Likewise, an atheist may hold very strong feelings on social issues independently of his atheism. In other words, to call a person a fundamentalist atheist, it must be demonstrated that his atheistic beliefs helped shape his rigid social and political beliefs. I think that in most cases this is difficult to do. On the other hand, it is quite appropriate to refer to a person as a religious fundamentalist since it is usually demonstrably easy to show that his political and social beliefs derive directly from his religious ones.
I’m a vegetarian atheist! Well… not exactly because I eat fish. But you get my point. Perhaps the alcoholic atheist applies more closely. 😉
Pescatarian atheist, then!
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Forgive me if I have missed something, but where is atheism in the above-described atheist fundamentalism? The entire description is about SJWs (who can be atheists, I know, but so what?)
That brand of atheist says that atheism is ineluctably connected with social justice. The cry is “My atheism is intersectional or it is bullshit.” That’s the brand of atheism I’m referring to.
The brand does exist. I just don’t think “fundamentalist” is useful. “Obnoxious”, perhaps. 😉
Orthodoxy enforcing authoritarian.
There is a party line, and deviations from the party line will be punished in whatever ways are available. That’s the essence of what we are talking about here.
Most of the punishment is social shaming, name calling, and ostracization, but sometimes moves on up to harassment and worse.
“Fundamentalist” is destined to be confusing in this context, but the connotation it shares with “fundamentalist” is a rigid adherence to an orthodoxy. Also an Orwellian doublespeak when confronted with this… my fundamentalist religion insisted they were the very paragons of open minded reason and that they weren’t enforcing dogma, just “setting people straight” or something.
I think your characterization hits the nail on the head!
But for public consumption, I’m liking gluon’s suggestion more and more–authoritarian atheists. Seems to characterize the jerks, er, SJW atheists perfectly without implying that there are any fundamentals about atheism.
Yeah, “authoritarian atheists” is better.
Ah, that must be what follows the “+”.
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But I think they only imagine that their atheism has anything to do with their other, intolerant views.
“That brand of atheist says that atheism is ineluctably connected with social justice. The cry is “My atheism is intersectional or it is bullshit.” That’s the brand of atheism I’m referring to.”
Quite. And since the cannot demonstrate that atheism actually entails social justice, I really don’t want to cede any title to them that falsely implies that their social frame work is at the core of atheism.
Fundamentalism used to refer to a specific movement of Protest Christianity. Now the term has expanded to a broader use:
“a form of a religion, especially Islam or Protestant Christianity, that upholds belief in the strict, literal interpretation of scripture.” – Google’s dictionary
Since there is no scripture to atheism, and no way to strictly or literally interpret that non-existent scripture, it is, I think, neither analogous or appropriate to refer to social justice atheists as “fundamentalist” atheists.
Perhaps it is time for another contest for the right term, like the one for accommodation?
Ellen Jamesian atheists?
I’d agree. ‘Fundamentally’, all atheism is is a disbelief in gods. Social justice or human rights or even morals have got nothing whatever to do with it.
So a fundamentalist atheist by that interpretation would exclude anyone who thought that atheism entailed worthy social causes.
I suppose the nearest we would come to ‘fundamentalist atheism’ would be those (and there are some here) who deplore ‘accommodationism’. In saying that, I absolutely don’t mean to apply the pejorative connotations that ‘fundamentalist’ has acquired.
cr
I think I disagree with that last. Most people I know who deplore accommodationism don’t do so because of their dedication to a lack of belief in gods but because they think it is disingenuous, disrespectful and also ineffective or even detrimental.
Hmmm. I think I was considering more the theoretical aspect (which is that accommodationism is strictly incompatible with atheism) while you were contemplating the practical implications.
But anyway, ‘fundamentalist atheist’ is a term I’d be quite happy not to use. Too liable to misinterpretation.
cr
The simplified dialectic goes:
1) Atheism doesn’t accept the existence of gods, and therefore doesn’t accept religious morals which are based on revelation
2)Atheism therefore implies a system of secular morals and ethics, which may include (but may go beyond) what is found in Secular Humanism
3) What goes beyond are the ideas behind the Atheism Plus movement
Look here for Atheism+ manifestos:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/2412
Atheism may imply that morals have to come from somewhere other than religion, but it doesn’t imply that those morals will necessarily be better than religiously based morals. Good moral systems are developed and supported with relevant and meaningful justifications. “Because atheism” is not a relevant and meaningful justification.
Right: I always say that it requires additional premises, including what loosely what is often called a philosophical anthropology, etc. to get any substantive ethics out. For example, I have certain views on the social nature of our species, which are denied by some. I think they are wrong, but that’s where we can then move the discussion to.
Well, I read that document. It’s nauseating.
Who talks like that outside junior high? The document repeatedly talks about the need to be skeptical and employ evidence based reasoning. I wonder what kind of evidence based reasoning goes into concluding that anyone who mocks them is “an asshole”? What does that even mean? If I’m “an asshole”, can I eat in the same building with you, or am I too contaminated? What if I spend 99% of my time supporting Doctors without Borders and only 1% of my time mocking Atheism+, is the 99% all for naught? Can I be a relatively clean asshole? It’s just asinine to try to collapse the moral universe into these categories.
It’s very hard for me to take this person seriously at all.
To answer his masthead question, though, put me down as foe.
“Well, I read that document. It’s nauseating.”
Did you expect anything else?
[/cynicism]
cr
Yes, actually. I’ve read all of this before, of course, but each time I forget just how thick it is with undesirable qualities.
Yeah, there is something really wrong about this “if you reject any item in the extensive litany of values I espouse you are my enemy” ultimatum.
I don’t really see that kind of divisive, overreaching, black and white ultimatum as a good way to promote liberal values. That kind of black and white moralism is the kind I associate with the low effort cognition of conservative conformists.
Hmm, perhaps the atheist plus atheists could be called conformist atheists?
I like to call it ‘consent through intimidation’
They will try to bully you into agreeing. And if you are watching someone as they are bullied, you will be less likely to speak out yourself. So, the regressive leftist is smug in thinking that they have the majority of society behind them, when in fact, people are just too scared to speak out, lest they be pilloried as a bigot.
Thank Ceiling Cat for academics like The PCC, The Dawkins, AHA, M. Namazi, and Gad Saad, who speak out against these bullies.
“Look here for Atheism+ manifestos:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/2412”
Wow, I am very disappointed to find out that Richard Carrier is one of those dogmatic group think “Atheism Plus” pushers. I agree with a lot of the values espoused, but the inflexible group think is something I try to get away from, not head towards.
This is they key quote:
“We care about applying skeptical, evidence-based reasoning to everything, not just god stuff, or UFOs, or [insert special interest here]”
Apparently “everything” does not include feminism itself…
It seems especially odd to be very confident about almost anything that could be broadly described as social science (politics, ethics, etc.), when that kind of knowledge is so terribly hard to obtain. For example, while I think the evidence is on the side of progressive kinds of politics of the sort we see in northern Europe I can not imagine insisting that that conclusion must be accepted as obvious fact. Perhaps, for example, that model only works in Northern Europe because of special features there (e.g. homogeneous society, or lack of difficult history like slavery, etc.) I’m willing to vote to move the US in that direction, but I’m not willing to brand as evil anyone who disagrees because it is just not that kind of slam dunk.
Almost nothing in social science is. How true is the “Blank Slate Hypothesis”, for example? I have an opinion, and can cite a lot of evidence to back it up, but I think it’d be foolish to say that it’s settled and now everyone should get on board with building the world that this “fact” implies.
No doubt some people will always try to use uncertainty itself as an excuse to do nothing or not to take the issues seriously. That’s unfortunate, but that doesn’t give anyone license to lie about our confidence or enforce a dogma about it.
Agree. Consider the unresolved issue of free will and the implications it has for jurisprudence.
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Not only are there atheists who may be viewed as fundamentalists, but evangelical proselytizers. There are those that seem certain their brand of atheism must be
disseminated throughout, not only all atheists, but all people. They seem to want to debate everyone, whether religious or not, to change all others holding different perceptions to their right way.
I am so tired of “…individuals that are part of a group that has to reinforce its superiority as the “in” group whilst denigrating the “out” group”. I’d much prefer
universal acknowledgement that we are all one family. I’d much prefer a view of humanity that can find something good and lovable in (almost) everyone and can overlook or accept less lovable characteristics. Yes. We are all human and, therefore, a mixture of traits perceived by ourselves and others as being good or bad. All so-called perfect beings I’ve learned about are mythical (and even they have flaws)!
You say that as if debating ideas is a bad thing. I’d much rather engage in a robust debate about subjects I care about than pretend that the world’s ideas are all perfectly legitimate because all humans are fallible. There are many ideas that are terrible and lead to terrible consequences. Why should we not argue against them?
(And yes, we need to argue about which specific ideas are bad.)
There are many ideas that are terrible and lead to terrible consequences. Why should we not argue against them?
When Hemant Mehta of the Friendly Atheist published an article by a secular pro-lifer, more than a few readers stated that they would no longer read his blog, because he was giving a platform to bigots.
Heh.
Of course, the secular pro lifer’s points were soundly trounced in the comments. Destroyed. But that wasn’t good enough for the SJWs who ditched TFA. I have heard these same people complain about other blogs that they refuse to comment on – since blogs that permit a difference of opinion without immediately banning dissenters are not ‘safe spaces’. Furthermore, people with the ‘wrong ideas’ should not be given any sort platform from which to broadcast their wrongthink!
What these fundies of the left want is an echo chamber. I don’t really think that they want to change the world. What they want is to never be challenged. They remind me of the SJWs of the right, who also ban dissenters and who, more often than not, don’t even allow comments on their blogs.
Examples of ‘wrong ideas’ that will get you labelled a bigot, and perhaps even banned:
Use of the word “crazy” – some folks find it triggering and hurtful.
Use of the word “transwoman” – is wrong cuz pomo bullshit that I cannot even begin to wrap my head around. But someone wrote a 2000 word essay on this.
Use of the word “trans woman” – see above.
Use of the word “negotation” – rape. Yes, the word is apparently code for rape, and if you use it around victims, despite not knowing this alternate meaning, you are a shitlord.
Use of the word “kindness” – just doublespeak for the right to be racist and abuse others.
That’s not the point. (fwiw… I agree with your view of the folk you refer to). There are stupid, bull-headed, (etc.) atheists out there that drive you and me crazy. But the problem isn’t that they want to argue about everything, the problem is that their arguments are bad. (And, perhaps, that they are unable/unwilling to consider an alternate point of view.) But it isn’t arguing that is the issue.
You and I are working through a disagreement now, it seems, although not about the foolishness of the SJW perspective. Still, one or both of us might change our view as a result of our little argument here. 😉
Oh no, I was agreeing with you.
I just re-read the entire exchange.
I would not even want to say that they ‘debate’ people. What they want is to either force others to conform or retreat to their safe space.
Actually, if they cannot bully you into conforming, into making the *entire world a safe space*, they will just create their own. Which is what they should do, imo. Leave sensible folks alone!
So much for our debate! 😉
Kaminer’s “I’m Dysfunctional, You’re Dysfunction” was hugely influential to me 20 years ago. I’ve long forgotten the details of the book, but I’ve broadly internalized her message to mean: “People think and talk incessantly about changing but they almost never follow through.”
This not only applies to self-help books, but popular business-related books, too, which are very similar. To this day, I have little patience with organizations that spend a lot of time navel-gazing, because it just won’t do any good. Sadly, I’m working for one now.
I just finished reading it.
She sees a victim attitude prevalent in self help movements. There is always someone to blame for your problems.
She also sees a similarity with religion and the self helpers. There is always an undercurrent of spirituality and not surprisingly a selfishness that is like that fostered by religion.
Think personal saviour, God’s desire to bless his children with wealth, health, etc.
I was raised in a religion that encouraged me to look to God to fulfil the desires of my heart. I also always had the Devil to blame for everything that went wrong.
I was trained to be a selfish victim just like the self helpers are trained to be.
What I remember is her observation that the person most likely to buy a self-help book is someone who previously purchased a self-help book. Maybe that was an overall minor point in her book, but it struck me that it meant that the books weren’t doing much good, and people kept searching for the next book that would make everything all right.
I definitely agree that we should avoid insulting people excessively. If they call us filthy scum, and we merely call them wrong, then it’s going to do a lot of good for our perception to people outside of the debate.
There are people like PZ Myers who I think is genuinely a bad person. But I don’t think it’s a good use of time to start pulling him apart. Maybe if I got to know him, I’d simply feel that he’s a good person but misguided. But either way, it’s irrelevant. He regularly makes bad arguments and is rude to other people. His inner character is ultimately known only to him. But his arguments and behavior are there for every one to see. We can stick to talking about that.
This especially comes from a more libertarian atheist. On the right wing, I’ve been unfairly called a racist and sexist for years before all this. All it did was make me less likely to listen to their arguments. After all, if they think I’m a racist, and I KNOW I’m not a racist, then why should I think they’d have any other good ideas? Especially since even if I gave their ideas a fair shot, they’re just going to abuse me the whole time.
On the one hand, a small part of me is glad that the left is getting a bit of it’s own medicine, with constant barrages of claims of racism and sexism.
On the other, far more important, hand I know that’s not the whole truth. The people who called me racist before are almost certainly not the decent liberals of today. I’m as confident as I can be that it’s the same people it’s always been, accusing all dissenters of bigotry, only now they’ve become so puritanical that everyone who doesn’t toe the line is racist. And that no amount of saying for years “I’m against religion because it hurts women” will protect you from claims of sexism.
Now I’m thinking that some types of atheism—the brands wedded to rigid ideologies that have nothing to do with religion per se—might be called “fundamentalist.”
Maybe; for example Marxists are atheists, and you could be fundamentalist about that. But in that case, I think you would call them a “fundamentalist Marxist,” not a fundamentalist atheist.
The atheists who say that “my atheism is intersectional or it is bullshit” think those who disagree are acting like fundamentalists. Those who disagree argue that no, THEY are the ones behaving like fundamentalists.
There seems to be a widespread agreement across the atheist movement that we ought not to act like fundamentalists. Hope!
There is always common ground!
A strictly moral atheist is a boring atheist and one who has an intentional fight with organized religion.
Without science, atheism is a fight against the arbitrary dogma of yesteryears. Even Hitchens demonstrated a pronounced and repetitive engagement with his audiences about the primacy of science as the most endearing aspect of a fulfilling secular life in our modern world.
Professor Coyne has written this: “For the True Fundamentalist Atheists™ are those who insist on not only wedding atheism to social problems, but to social problems whose solution cannot be questioned. They are at once victims and authoritarians.”
There has been much talk in these comments about how to define a fundamentalist atheist. I think this discussion can be much more productive if somebody would actually name names. In other words, I would like to know what quasi-prominent atheists might possibly conform to the definition and the reasons why.
Last week, with the Dawkins tweet of the Big Red parody cartoon, was a good delineation moment — those who attacked him are the people we are talking about here.
A 101 example right here:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2016/01/31/i-cant-take-no-more/
Please note that the Pharyngula post you link to is not about the ‘Big Red’ video tweet. It is about a Dawkins re-tweet of another anti-feminist image. Thus making it clear that the Big Red video incident was certainly not a one-off, but indicative of a pattern of behaviour.
It was not ‘anti feminist’
It was ‘anti certain feminists’ and ‘anti certain Muslims’, basically, the authoritarians who use the same bad logic to force their views on others and silence any and all disagreement.
“It was not ‘anti feminist’”
I disagree with you about that. The image did not say that “certain feminists” are not bothered by the second image.
The cartoon is a satire.
If someone makes a satirical cartoon mocking certain hypocritical Christians, it is a given that they are not referring to every Christian in existence. Satire is often hyperbolic and need not come with qualifiers as the reader is expected to figure it out themselves.
I agree with Cindy! In a cartoon, many things other than blatant labels convey facts about the images. In this case the “feminist’s” behavior labels her a pomo/SJW job.
I’m well aware it’s a different post.
This is the latest development
Also, you can read the comments — several people said that they either have already done so or will destroy their copies of The God Delusion…
Oh, good grief! What next? Burning effigies?
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+ 1 !
+1+1
Also, when you say that “the Big Red video incident was certainly not a one-off, but indicative of a pattern of behaviour”, it sounds like you are disapproving of what he is saying.
Well, I totally approve — someone needs to call them on their BS, so the more he does that the better. But he needs others in position of authority to join.
Also, some with the nickname “gurugeorge” comes to the thread to disagree with them. Check his posts and see what happens to him…
This is a real religious cult…
Two points about that Pharyngula thread you linked to:
1) For a guy who is so PC and “feminist,” he sure has a lot of sexist ads up on his site. (17 hottest NFL wives, alternatives to Botox, 7 movies with the longest on-screen nudity, “she had no idea why the crowd was cheering” – with a picture of a woman tennis player whose skirt is riding up as she bends over, etc.)
2) It sucks that the word feminism is becoming associated specifically with “their brand of feminism” which includes all the intersectional, identity politics, SJW, garbage they’ve added to it. I don’t want to let them have the word. I consider myself a feminist, and Richard Dawkins considers himself a feminist, and probably everyone here is a feminist. Feminism is about equality and respect. I wish people (“on our side”) would stop using “feminist” like it’s a dirty word. Don’t let them have it. They don’t deserve it.
Couldn’t agree more, paco.
And I feel the same way about the word “liberal.” If we don’t fight to save words that originally connoted admirable (and sometimes unassailable) principles then the groups they define will just be stuck on the euphemism treadmill.
I don’t think he has any control at all over which ads appear on the site.
If a “pattern of behaviour” by Dawkins is evident, it’s a good “pattern of behaviour”.
I once ran into a couple guys I can only describe as “fundamentalist atheists” at a local book fair, manning an “atheist literature” booth. They were hailing passersby, handing out pamphlets, and pushing the sale of books. (This was in the late ’90s, a bit before the advent of the New Atheism.)
These guys were haranguing their audience with a monotonous pitch; they had the glassy-eyed stare you see on Moonies and Hare Krishna adherents. The whole scene left me queasy, feeling a sense of embarrassment for them — a sensation similar to what black friends have described feeling whenever the boxing Spinks brothers, Leon and Michael, would show up on TV, fulfilling unflattering stereotypes.
Sounds more Evangelical than Fundamentalist. I’m not seeing anything in your description that seems “fundamentally” atheist.
I agree. And why compare the atheists to religious fundamentalists when political, environmental, and social groups often do the same thing? I think the idea that atheists shouldn’t “pitch” atheism is a remnant of the view that faith is sacred.
Of course, even someone trying to get people to sign petitions for something noble can go over the top and get too aggressive. Maybe that was what happened here.
A Spiritual friend of mine once told me that “fundamentalism” was “saying you’re right and other people are wrong.” And yes, she included science in that. New Thought, and very self-serving methinks.
I prefer to define fundamentalism as “holding on to a controversial fact claim so strongly and fundamentally that you cannot even conceive of the possibility of being wrong, nor can you engage in honest debate and discussion.”
One could in principle be a fundamentalist anything in some sense, and one can of course hold almost any position irrationally. However, the vast majority of folks people *call* fundamentalist atheists are just the ones with more vocal or more extreme positions *beyond* the just lack of belief in gods.
Just like I try to explain why something is pseudoscience in addition to summarizing the concern with that label, I would try to explain why the vocality or what not is “not helping”, etc.
Political Correctness, be it from the authoritarian Right or the authoritarian Left, is odious and should not be tolerated in an open society. We have a Free Market of ideas where we exchange our opinions. I can’t imagine why an atheist would ever want to impose limits on public discourse. Maybe I feel this way because my atheism led me to become a Secular Humanist. So my worldview embraces Free Speech and the benefits we get from an open exchange of ideas. It seems like we see the desire for authoritarian behavior from those who have fragile psyches that cannot tolerate being exposed to different opinions/ideas. I thoroughly enjoyed having my worldview challenged and my mind expanded by the classes I took in college. My professors didn’t take it easy on me and I greatly benefitted from not being treated like a 5-year-old.
Prof CC, I’m happy to see this post of yours calling for civility and a sense of proportion in how we deal with one another.
It’s really unfortunate how easy it is to become what we hate. I guess, often what we are decrying in others stems from some bad quirk of human nature that affects us all.
For instance, one of the aspects most criticized by “certain” atheist blog communities (e.g. PZ Myers) is the creating strong in-group/out-group categories, always burning bridges instead of maintaining them.
But if you peruse com-boxes like, for instance Michael Nugent’s, and sometimes here, it’s easy to see the same tendency arising. We’ve identified an out-group, labelled them – e.g. SJWs etc – and speak of “them” as distinct from “us.” People mad at the divisiveness and attack on people’s character seem to lock the door, turn the key and throw it away quite easily on that “other group” who are the unforgiving, judgmental ones.
I don’t mean “no one is right” and I tend to agree more with those who criticize
the Atheism +/SJW movement. But there’s a lot of people in every side guilty of a similar type of “identifying and denouncing The Other” type behavior. PZ for instance, I think deserves much criticism for some of the things he said, and also for the general tenor of castigation and divisiveness he promulgated on his blog.
On the other hand, he had written a lot of good things. He continues to produce some interesting/informative or thoughtful posts
even now. I personally don’t want to just slide into “Well, he said THESE things that I disagree with, so he’s an awful human being
no longer worthy of being on the team!”
People gonna people. Fighting my impulse to outgroup, I want to endeavour to take the good with the bad, acknowledging each, in an individual.
Agreed.
I don’t think there is any one person who I agree with completely about all things or disagree completely on all things.
With some people the differences of opinion are minor while in other cases there is a huge gap. However if I focus on what I agree with and work out from there it is usually easy to have a rational conversation.
Even if that is not possible I am trying to keep the door open rather than completely dismissing them and their ideas out of hand for all time, nothing productive can come from that.
Yes. I hang out as a regular on both WEIT and Pharyngula. When they conflict (which really isn’t all that often) each one provides the antidote for getting too sure of the other one.
Well, thanks for putting up with us. Almost all of your posts are gems.
“Yes. I hang out as a regular on both WEIT and Pharyngula. When they conflict (which really isn’t all that often) each one provides the antidote for getting too sure of the other one.”
I haven’t really found that WEIT requires an antidote.
On the other hand, failure to conform to the orthodoxy at PZ’s site, by respectfully discussing the very topic of this thread got me permabanned by a raging PZ Myers. Dissent is met by self-selected enforcement trolls who dogpile on heterodoxy, and finished off by the selfrighteous host with the ban hammer, and a post-ban harangue by PZ himself, which, of coursed, the banned cannot respond to. YMMV.
Yah, it’s an easy trap to fall into. “The oppressed overthrow the oppressors, and justice demands that they punish their former masters”. It leads people in vicious cycles.
One could almost say the Atheism + debacle has been just one big Hatfield and McCoy incident, that started over one woman saying it made her uncomfortable to be asked out in an elevator. Things escalated, and eventually people were fighting because of previously sustained wounds, not because of the actual differences.
The issues arises, however, in that we can’t just lay down our arms and forgive our enemies, any more than we should demonize them and think of them as nothing more than ‘the enemy’. It’s a tight rope to walk, and we’re all going to stumble a little bit.
Overall, there’s no tricks or easy solutions. Too much peace and you’ll get walked over, too much hatred and you’ll become that which you oppose.
In Harry Potter, Mad-Eye Moody demands CONSTANT VIGILANCE of his students, lest they fall prey to dark wizards. But I think it is just as important that we practice that self-same CONSTANT VIGILANCE on our behavior. If we don’t always think about our actions, if we take our morality for granted, then we risk losing ourselves. We risk following the path set long ago, well trodden by every totalitarian unable to tolerate their enemies, unwilling to understand and forgive those they opposed.
How do you keep someone on your team who says about you, “Well, he said THESE things that I disagree with, so he’s an awful human being no longer worthy of being on the team!”?
I would also pose the question whether there is any difference in saying, “SJWs are authoritarian” and saying “John Smith is a horrible human being”. Both are othering statements. Are they equivalent?
Well said, Vaal.
There is a tendency to outgroup. But think we’re less draconian about it. For ex., I don’t see folks here refusing to use the “courtier’s reply” just because PZ came up with it, cf. other folks saying they’ll burn their copies of _The God Delusion_ (even if that’s just empty rhetoric).
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I agree totally. I think Vaal is right that it always pays to be on guard against tribalism which is a very deep human trait. And the echo-chamber effect is very real too. People who don’t agree stop visiting, leaving an ever higher concentration of people who have exactly the same views. That makes those views seem more inevitable than they really are. It’s vitally important to force ourselves to take time now and then to hear what other people are saying, which means going to their venues and listening. It also pays to try to see beyond the personalities. Trump, for example, is… um… very unpleasant… but he’s popular for a reason. It pays to understand that reason (probably that wage earners have been shafted for a long time now by both parties). It is important not to just oversimplify and say, “Well, people are stupid/evil”. Many are, of course, but that’s not the whole story.
That doesn’t mean, however, adopting a false equivalence. I think there are real differences, even moral differences, in different subsets of people. One of those differences is the degree to which we consciously decide to try to tear down other individuals we disagree with. Everyone may do this unconsciously, but to make an overt decision that that’s what you’re going to do is a different thing, and something that deserves to be called out.
Great post. I am going to read some of Kaminers books on your recommendation.
I am currently changing how I consume media and am trying to make sure I read or hear the opinions of people I do not agree with. While many I still find to be ridiculous, there are enough examples where I realise I am being unjust in dismissing some ideas simply because the person putting forward those ideas is someone who I have disagreed with in the past.
I also am trying to stop discussions being ended by people crying “racist”! “islamophobe”! “sexist”! even if justified, if they are legitimately wrong it should be easy to counter with better arguments.
I do try to checkout differing opinions every now and then. The issue can sometimes be that it’s hard to find people who voice them reasonably.
You’ll all to often find places loaded with jargon that you don’t understand, or places that spend all their time insulting their opponents (i.e. you) which means that the trips are unpleasent and often uninformative.
But it’s still worth the effort. Most people aren’t completely bonkers, and have better reasons than the ones the appear to on the surface. It can take some time to get to know them, but understanding is the first step towards friendship.
Honestly, my biggest problem with ‘fundamentalist atheists’ is how unpleasant trying to get to know them is. I find that, on average, they’re a lot less pleasant than most Christians are. Could just be personal experience, though.
When your ‘opponent’ in debate insults and dismisses you or your ideas it is easy to do the same thing back and completely shut them and their opinions/ideas out and only associate with other like minded people.
Unfortunately this (in my opinion) is what has led us to this us vs them mentality were you either agree with someone 100% on everything or they are the enemy for ever.
We see this in politics and really any issue were people disagree (so everything)and it is completely unproductive. I no longer want to be part of a ‘group’ I am going to try and be more of a free agent
Yes, sometimes what you see if you drop in on a group talking among themselves is tribal bonding, not the actual reasons for their views.
Who doesn’t like to coin an insulting term for their opponents like “y’all qaeda”? I mean, that’s beautiful, and captures how those guys make many of the rest of us feel. And insofar as there is a group of people who are opposed to those guys, it’s a bit of tribal bonding to use those terms. Saying “y’all qaeda” reinforces our group identity as people who are strongly opposed to the armed seizure of land. While probably always inimical to clear thinking, this kind of tribal bonding can be useful for motivating people to action or shoring up their morale. So I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect no petty name calling of this form. It always risks becoming a reason-blocking hatred, though, and so someone needs to put a check on it now and then.
On authoritarianism.
Dalhousie Universirty 2015
“(In) the management department, women get to speak first. I think that that is a primary issue that we actually have to look at, how to do question and answer (periods). And we can start today.”
“I think that women of colour should speak first in class,” Ashburn said after the panel discussion.
“When I do activist circles or workshops, I often say, ‘OK, if you’re white and you look like me and you raise your hand, I’m not going to pick on you before someone of colour.’ So I do give little disclaimers, like people of colour will have priority, or if you’re a person with a disability, you’re pushed to the front … I mean, you know, bros fall back,” Ashburn said with a laugh. – See more at: http://unews.ca/ladies-first-smu-prof-suggests-classroom-rule/#sthash.2UVDiBuA.dpuf
SJWs always deny that this kind of thing ever happens. When you show them, as with Goldsmiths, they say it doesn’t count. Heck, half the time they tell you that SJWs don’t even exist!
I came late to realising (or accepting)that this is really an attitude some people have. Having been raised in an environment that was liberal and accepting of others and not to judge etc., I am flabergasted that this sort of thing is considered acceptable by anyone, especially those claiming to be liberals.
Instead of considering everyone equal from the outset, with this type of thinking we immediately label people and identify them by those labels (rac, gender etc). I recall a recent interview with a public school teacher who would not let the male students play with lego, the lego was only for the girls and she said the boys would get to play with the lego “over my dead body”
How did this happen??
sorry, that was “when hell freezes over” not “over my dead body”.
Found an article: http://www.mrctv.org/blog/kindergarten-teacher-will-let-boys-play-legos-when-hell-freezes-over-promote-gender-equality#.ymrm9zt:S2A3
At least this is potentially somewhat better than what happened when I heard the notorious Sandra Harding speak: she did not take any questions from men. (It might have been coincidence or oversight, but one male professor who I knew was pretty obviously patiently waiting …)
There’s no problem that someone won’t go way too far with.
I was once in a meeting run by a “communication facilitator.” All I’ll say was that she did bring us to consensus on at least one matter…
Having viewed the atheist community both pre- and post-God Delusion, I can only conclude that there’s a large number of people out there who only disbelieve in God because they read it in a book. Which kind of misses the point, if you ask me.
Surely having a belief without evidence is little better than having a groundless conspiracy theory.
Good on ye Jerry
… and there are liberal evangelicals, also
Is that other website even still active?
I haven’t visited or even thought much about it since the Great Meltdown.
First they came for the Pronouns, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Pronoun.
Then they came for the Adjectives, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not an Adjective.
Then they came for the…
(Apologies to Maetin Niemöller)
North-Western European countries (such as Scandinavia, UK, Germany) are small national language communites which produce a comparably homogenous society. Media in these countries are politically tinted as well, but cannot afford to cater to a too small ideological subsets of the people. This effect reinforces itself. Once you have a fairly homogenous society, there is more risk than is worth to try to carve out a niche. Such nations have national media, and it is subject to a quasi-democratic process which also keeps them less partisan. State churches were moderated over the centuries. Embedded in this fabric, they cannot veer too much into some special ideology, either.
The USA by contrast is a huge country where it is viable to cater to special niches. Public institutions are often frowned upon, and churches are private. From a European perspective, Churches in the USA look more like cults and sects. They have tight-knit communities, which over time create their own microcosmos. News, music industry and everything else can cater to such special niches and in a way they become their own small alternate reality. As a country created by immigrants, there is also less of default “background culture”. The USA could have one (e.g. “American Dream”) but these small, more agile ideological communities try to combat and overwrite it for their own benefit, e.g. allegedly Christian founders.
I suspect the result of this is that atheists in the USA – once they fell out of religion – seem to lose even their values, too, which were previously rationalized as provided by faith. They have to look for a different community, might even need to swap out their preferred media and news channels, throw away the Christian entertainment and so on. In some sense, they leave their whole old reality behind. It’s much more like leaving a cult, rather than losing interest in a given subject (as it is in Europe).
Because of that—so goes my armychair theory—American atheists are often religious-like in their atheism. Since they had to throw everything away, or so they think, they now look for an Ersatz; an Atheism Plus if you will.
It’s not a bad idea in general. My problem is that the social justice movement is such an alternate reality and cannot communicate anymore with the outside world. As a result, the conflicts invariably turn out to be about the hegemony/prerogative of interpretation and are never about any matters (that matter).
They want to bring their people into positions of influence, and topple the people they perceive to be critical of their postmodernist cult. The real effect of this is that PZ Myers, as one major ranter against “Dictionary Atheism” has never produced any proposals or something that could resemble a manifesto. His faction managed to copypasta a few buzzwords together, then ran off into a sectarian forum where they duked out what kind of pranks are permissable on April Fools day and when offering (virtual) hugs is appropriate.
The overall movement was already better off, since it generally embraced humanistic values, the methods of science and was otherwise skeptical and careful. I still don’t understand what’s wrong with that, and even less understand what’s wrong with the US secular movement.
The first two paragraphs seems spot on to me. I am less sure about the armchair theory, but the heterogeneity of the US is, I feel fairly sure, a big part of why we can’t have a reasonable social safety net… everyone is afraid some rival tribe will benefit at their expense. There is not enough of a sense that “we are all the same” to make it fly.
This is one of the most disheartening things about US society to me. A significant percentage of the population just can’t stand the idea that someone they disapprove of in some way may get something they haven’t paid cash for. It seems to be a serious moral issue for them, as if they find it highly unethical.
It is an issue at many different levels from a Redneck whining about African Americans getting welfare benefits even while they themselves partake, to a white affluent male business owner vehemently against allowing, for no specific work related reasons, his white male employee taking two weeks off when his wife gives birth even though he himself takes off much more time. And much worse of course. The lack of compassion and rationality is damn depressing.
Not that I think this issue is unique to the US, far from it. Just that I am USian and I think this is one of the major issues that is holding us back from achieving that better society we all want.
Indeed.
“postmodernist cult”, btw, is perhaps the best term I’ve heard yet. The idea of a “cult” is perhaps more apropos than the idea of a “fundamentalist”. I suppose most fundamentalists are cultist, but not all cultists are fundamentalists.
I think Social Justice Warrior is a better term than Fundamentalist Atheist; but that’s just me.
Disagree. Conceivably a SJW could be a theist. Moreover, a pejorative focus on “SJW” also taints “social justice” /per se/, which is something we should all care about.
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So a theist SJW cannot be committing the same acts of insanity the atheist ones are right now? I doubt it.
Of course they could; all the more reason for not equating “SJW” with “authoritarian atheist”.
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I agree in principle, but I think it’s too late. By the time I learned what the term “social justice” meant, it already seemed tainted beyond repair to me. The term itself has almost zero positive connotations to me, even though I approve of most (all? I don’t know) of the supposed goals. That’s a pretty big failure of branding.
Oh, but it’s a term that goes way back–and a pretty simple, straight-forward phrasing of an important idea. I think its use in “SJW” implies a specific deleterious mutation of the concept, though, so I don’t mind using that acronym to refer to, well, SJW’s. They have no more to do with social justice (sensu traditional) than PoMo anything has to do with pre-mo anything.
Nonetheless, disparaging the base term is a loss for many other causes that have and still do fly under the banner of social justice. If anything, the SJW’s should be renamed. PoMo fundamentalists?
WE are replete with mangled terms–feminist, liberal, atheist, social justice–that were originally descriptors to be proud of.* Having to drop certain terms because they’re wrongly employed is not only confusing but it can cut us off from much of the historical accomplishments that fall within those labels.
(That said, I often fear those battles are very close to lost, at this point.)
*Well, in the case of “atheist,” only within the atheist community. But there are still those trying to banish the word because of some of its baggage. I’d count Harris among them. To me that implies that we’re ashamed of it.
I have started referring to them as regressive leftists.
I have seen liberal Christians exhibiting the same behaviour.
Good choice, and absolutely (re the liberal Christians)!
I have encountered these regressive liberal Christians at Love Joy Feminism and Slacktivist.
It was at the Patheos blog Slacktivist that I learned that oppressed people are always right, for starters!
And I think that Geoffrey Howe, who has been commenting on this thread, has had some run-ins with the regulars there.
They are an insular little group, and a few of them consider minor disagreement to be tantamount to murder. When you point out, as I did, that going ballistic over minor things is ridiculous, they respond with ‘well I cannot possibly be polite to people who wish that I did not exist’. This, btw is a common strawman erected by the regressive leftist. You point out, and rightly so, that abusive behaviour over minor things (microaggressions) will not help their cause, and they try to characaterize you as a hate filled bigot. Par for the course.
They do love the histrionics and the hyperbole.
“I cannot converse politely with people who want me dead”
“I will not be nice to someone who wishes to enslave me just because I am female”
etc etc
This is why, in many a case, I stick to my assertion that it is not entirely about ‘saving the world’ and more about being recognized for your special snowflakey victimhood.
You wanna save the world…go work in a soup kitchen, don’t argue on the internet.
Hear, hear!
And thanks for the info about certain sites I have to ignore for the sake of my blood pressure. 😉
Although it seems to have gotten a lot of traction lately, the term “regressive left” has always seemed very awkward to me. To what former state are they returning to? I guess they are regressing to a pre-free speech era or something? I don’t know. The term has an inherent bite, which is probably some of why it is popular, but I’m not fond of it.
Ah, I’ve always had a problem with it too, and you’ve put the finger on why.
I’m liking “authoritarian left” better now.
The social justice movement has many well-meaning followers who want to make the world a better place. But most of its “activism” is little more than a self-centered quest for moral purity. Dropping “crazy” from one’s vocabulary won’t improve health services or job opportunities for the mentally ill. Protesting a white singer’s “appropriation” of cornrows or rap music will have zero effect on the actual problems facing African-Americans.
http://observer.com/2016/02/the-totalitarian-doctrine-of-social-justice-warriors/
From the linked-to article:
“Is a vagina “feminine”? Why are there so many gay men who won’t date a “woman” just because she has a vagina – like THAT IS DISCRIMINATION people and it is totally shallow.”
I think I’ve wandered into some strange alternate universe where insanity is the norm… Computer! End programme! Bridge – is there anyone there? Anyone?
Somebody, get me out of here!!!!!
“Is a vagina “feminine”?
Well, not in English, which does not have genders.
But French has a gender for everything, and according to Google Translate it takes ‘le’, so it is in fact masculine.
This leaves me somewhat bemused.
Um.
cr
Since you mentioned other languages, something else that occurred to me.
A core belief of postmodernism is that everything is a social construct, and from that the feminist claim that gender is a social construct comes from. How everything depends on language is key to coming to that conclusions.
I speak two languages, and in one of them, English, there are the words “sex” and “gender”, which allow for the claim that “gender is not the same as biological sex” to be made. In the other, my native one, “sex” only refers to the sexual act, and the equivalent word to “gender” only means biological sex, i.e. the idea that “gender is a biological construct” could never be expressed and most likely even arrived at in that language.
Which, of course, means that the distinction between sex and gender that they so much insist on is a social construct and the result of a linguistic accident — there are languages, and I would be really curious to see if there re any statistics on how many exactly, where biological sex and “gender” cannot be separated, and other where they can because there are two words for sex/gender. And so it happens that it was one of the latter languages that became the world’s lingua franca, the dominant language for scholarly communication, and it was the native language where the feminist movement developed. But it could have been otherwise, gender would ever have been separated from sex, and we would never have had these stupid discussion. As, of course, it should be if we were to stick to science — there are males with XY chromosomes, females with XX chromosomes, and then there are various genetic disorders with different chromosomal configurations, developmental disorders where the sex chromosomes are normal but the outcome is not the expected one, with varying degree of severity, and finally the people who are phenotypically and genetically normal but want a sex change, who in less PC times would be considered to have a psychiatric disorder. Now you would be considered a hateful bigot for pointing this out.
„Sicherheit“ in German means both “safety” and “security”, but that doesn’t mean that German-speakers are unaware of the difference when the word is used in different contexts.
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Yeah..
Well.
I bet you didn’t know that species is also a social construct, didja???
There are otherkin. If you ‘feel’ that you are a wolf, you are a wolf.
If you feel that you are a ghost, you are a ghost.
If you feel that you’re a goddamned dragon, you are a dragon.
And don’t you question these identities, you bigot, cuz feelz trump realz!
Oh, and just becauze you feelz that you are a wolf, a ghost, an otherkin, or that you are in fact 5 people, doesn’t make you crazy or delusional, no. It is perfectly normal, nee, natural, to have such feelings.
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Ok. In all seriousness. What pisses me off the most about these special snowflake assholes is that in their ultra-PC need to not be ableist, they are in fact *mocking* actual serious mental illnesses. What if a schizophrenic person, who hears voices, is told by one of these twits that it’s totes natural, and that he is just a special snowflake and yes, that really *is* Jesus talking to you?
A fine example of pomo thought:
http://everydayfeminism.com/2015/08/not-all-trans-folks-dysphoria/
What I want to know is, how can you feel that you are ‘in the wrong body’ without actually ‘feeling that you in the wrong body?’
And if species/sex are all social constructs, then how the hell can that feeling be *innate*? How can you just *know*that you were born a f*cking dragon? (I usually don’t like to swear, but f*ck, these twits bring out the worst in me).
Just so you know, my daughter is one of these “twits”.
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If it makes you feel any better, I am primarily referring to the tumbrlina otherkin.
They actually harm people with their bad advice.
And yes, they will accuse you of bigotry and even threaten you with death if you dare to disagree.
I think that there are degrees of ‘otherkin’ and some folks are waaay out there.
A friend of mine identifies as a cat. I had a good talk with her about it, and, with some folks at least, it’s kind of a ‘spirit animal’ thing. Also, she was raised by really abusive, fundamentalist parents, and I think that wanting to be a cat is a way of coping. I have met at least one other person like her, on Patheos blogs. This other person is a bully, and was in fact banned from Love Joy Feminism for her vicious bullying. I suspect that she is one of those SJWs who, in feeling victimized, lashes out at others to protect herself.
That article itself has a great term I hadn’t heard before, but which seems to be in good circulation already: SocJus. Modeled after IngSoc from 1984, obviously.
PCC gets a shoutout on TFA:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2016/02/03/a-compilation-of-jerry-coynes-best-arguments-and-comebacks/
JERRY COYNE’S BEST COMEBACKS
Btw, I don’t think that we will ever be seeing a “compilation of best comebacks” regarding any of the most prominent SJWs.
History will remember Dawkins, Coyne, AHA, Nawaz and many others that I can’t list.
History will forget the whiney SJWs. And I think they know this, hence their obsession with bringing the above mentioned folks down
History definitely remembers Pol Pot, keep that in mind
Wow, that was a great shout-out; but then you get to the third comment…