Friday, February 24, 2012

On Divisive Atheists and Some Freethought Bloggers

In February 2002, four years before his book The God Delusion was released in 2006, Richard Dawkins called atheists to arms in a TED talk. His talk wasn’t aired until April of 2007. He makes it clear he wants a campaign much like the gays used to gain acceptability in American society. His final sentence was, "let's all stop being so damned respectful."

At that point there was a split among atheists. A line was drawn in the sand. Although I admit that his approach has been very effective in getting people to take notice of atheists, at the same time I object to the demand that other atheists must adopt that same attitude or approach.

This trajectory led to the development of the Courtier's Reply, since neither Dawkins nor PZ Myers, or other philosophically or theologically untrained atheists could answer the flurry of arguments coming from Christians. However, the Courtier's Reply has it's problems as I have argued. See also right here.

This divided atheists into two camps. It didn’t have to do so, but it did. From then on there was an aggressive “in your face” type of atheism and also a “friendly” or accomodationist one. You were either on one side or the other, and if you were on the “wrong” side there was hell to pay. It probably came to a head with Phil Plait's talk, "Don't Be a Dick," at TAM 8. But in the process even Plait ended up dividing atheists, as I argued. And I suggested what he should have said.

All one side had to do was acknowledge the value and contribution of the other side, and I did. Ridicule can be effective in changing minds, okay? Activism is important for defending the rights of atheists, agreed. I value that type of atheism very much so. I am an inclusive atheist, valuing these approaches within certain reasonable guidelines.

Other issues have separated us. As a result, one by one the leading atheists fell by the wayside until I argued there was no atheist community and no atheist movement. That, of course, didn't sit well with some atheists.

There are atheists who are economical conservatives, those who think there was a historical Jesus who was later mythologized, Buddhists, metaphysical Platonists, and metaphysical naturalists. There are apathetic atheists and even those who think religion is a good thing. There are activists and there are academics who have their different specialties. There are former Christians who are now debunkers.

Whether atheists realize this or not I am a true inclusivist, the likes of which none of these line-drawers can understand. Many atheists just don’t understand me so I’ll stop expecting them to. The dividing line for me is ignorance and divisiveness itself. Power and politics have no traction where I’m concerned. If you want to claim to speak for me, or tell me what I should think or do, and then bristle when I demur, we’re going to have trouble. And I don’t give a damn who it is anymore. If you want to pick a fight with me then you’d better start off being right. At least then you have a chance to win your case (Okay, maybe I’m a bit arrogant, but so what?). I’m not trying to pick a fight. The fight found me.

I don’t suffer fools gladly. I don’t care much for divisiveness either. I don’t care much for people who claim that it’s "my way or no way." Again, power and politics have no traction where I’m concerned.

I am single-mindedly focused on destroying the power and influence of evangelical Christianity in America today. I think that should be the major goal of atheists, and I think this goal can be shared by even the apathetic, at least in principle, as well as those who think religion is a good thing. We can agree that evangelical Christianity is bad for America, bad for our future, bad for science, and bad for the world.

There is a new dividing line, first introduced by Skepchick, coming from Elevatorgate. Diversity is now seen to be an important value among many atheists, and that's a good thing. There are those of us who appreciate diversity and others who don’t get it yet. Atheists who don't get it yet are blasted and ostracized, even though as far as I'm concerned, this is a societal problem. In some cases this reaction is warranted but calling for a boycott of Dawkins's books and lectures seems unwarranted to me. Now I am perceived to be against diversity too. Well, nothing could be further from the truth. Anyone spreading that lie is someone who cannot even read as far as I’m concerned. But then that’s my dividing line. I’m against ignorance. And I am most emphatically all for inclusiveness.

I did a search at DC for the times I have said I’m a feminist somewhere inside a post and here's what I found. This is still the case with me, even if I don't always take up the charge.

The thing about feminism or racism or gay bashing is that these are societal problems, not just atheist ones. We find them almost everywhere. So it’s right to educate people, atheists as well, about the harm white heterosexual men and our attitudes do toward minorities. I’m so appalled by it that sometimes I'm ashamed to be a white heterosexual male. At the same time I find these issues to be peripheral ones (albeit very important ones) from my goal of single-mindedly focusing on destroying the power and influence of evangelical Christianity in America today. If I focus on doing that then these other hurtful attitudes will be partially debunked as well.

Let me give you an example from one of the contributors at DC. Her name is articulett. She is an administrator here. She has a master’s degree. She is educated, intelligent and forceful in how she argues. She is indefatigable, long after I tire out. You want diversity like I do? Then let’s place people like her front and center. That is, was, and will forever be my point.

Ed Babinski lists a number of women who speak out against religion (many of whom I had not heard before), seen here, and also seen here. I'm all for it. I encourage it. We need more of them, the better credentialed the better I like it, which is, was, and will forever be my point.

To see what prompted this from me look through William Dembski's outline of the relevant posts, should anyone want to trudge through them all. There are others.

I have argued that when emotions rule, all the rules of logic don't apply. I made this argument in the case of Christians who argue based on emotions. I think it applies to us all. When emotions get in the way very few of us reason very well. Mine got in the way, and for that I sincerely and honestly apologize to everyone. Again, I'm very sorry, especially to Natalie Reed, whose emotions got in her way as well. I don't like being personally attacked, and I still feel this is what was done to me. But I also find emotions ruling some of the commenters, a few who usually have much better critical thinking skills than most others. I would like to put this to rest now and get back to doing what I do best, please.

Dembski’s unrecognized problem is that Christians have been going at each other's throats for centuries, even though they alone claim to have an inspired book from the one true God. My claim is that people are just people, that the church and it’s numerous divisions over power and politics simply imitates what we see everywhere else in human society. If there was a God who illuminates the minds of believers and inspired a book of divine truth, then why is it that the history of the church is indistinguishable from what we see among human organizations as a whole? It’s just what we do, sad, but true.

[First posted 2/23/12]

10 comments:

  1. Comparing Dawkins position to that of Myers is an entirely false analogy. Dawkins made a generic call that we should all stop walking on eggshells - that which does not merit respect should not be given false respect, more or less expressed by the Hitch axiom "That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence". Stop pandering to nonsense - call it for what it is.

    Dawkins position is ideologically neutral. As atheism, skepticism and Freethought are - and this is the key difference between Dawkins and Myers.

    Myers is anything but ideologically neutral. Not only is Myers re-writing the definitions of the above to conform with a narrow ideological agenda, he is also being extremely abusive in the process to people in the community who point out that it is wrong and presumptuous to tamper with definition, and arrogant to assume to speak for the entire secular community and drive it into kind of cultish monoculture where dissent from orthodoxy is not tolerated. Myers and Freethoughtblogs have even redefined ad hominem to justify their abusive and malicious behaviour.

    Dawkins may be a flawed man, but he is an honest man, humble enough to admit error on the rare occasions he makes them. And Dawkins does not seek to drive a wedge into the ground and create a dualism of good and evil based on ideology. Myers is a pure Manichean ideologue and has the hubris of infallibility that dare not be questioned - no longer caring about evidence or reality. The secular world must be clearly demarcated - black and white, good and evil, "you're either for us, or against us", no middle ground, no compromise, and damn the cost. Really, this is chalk and cheese.

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  2. greylining said:

    "Myers and Freethoughtblogs have even redefined ad hominem to justify their abusive and malicious behaviour."

    Actually, they have redefined a lot of words and concepts to meet their ideological fanatacism and to justify their hate-mongering behaviour, including: troll, MRA, misogynist/misogynistic, sexist, logical fallacy, truth, skeptical/skepticism, critical thinking, and more.

    They have also, effectively, changed the meaning of feminism. Well, they change that on a daily basis depending on the bonnet-bee of the day, and they absolutely refuse to be pinned down by denotatively defining femism in any practical, useful, meaningful way. And if you fail to meet whatever their feminism du jour is, you are not just not a feminist, you are a practicing, hateful, MRA, anti-feminist.

    It is not a stretch to say that they exemplify such Orwellian inventions as Newspeak, including its critical tenets of doublethink, crimestop, thoughtcrime, blackwhite, duckspeak, and so on.

    "you're either for us, or against us"

    This is very much the indoctrinal rally call for the true inner Party members of FTB.

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  3. Ohhh, Ohhh, Guys!
    You could totally be, like, the anti FtB's!
    There is DEFINITELY no yes-man groupthink going on at Loftus Unleashed! Listen to all that dissenting opinion and rational argument!

    John Loftus acted like a child because he felt slighted by relevant criticism. Unless you want to argue that the whole issue was started by everyone jumping on the "turning my guns" comment, which it most certainly was not, then what you are left with are fair criticisms that didn't deserve calling someone a "diversity hire".
    His continued "not-pologies" just underline exactly how incapable John is of exhibiting anything resembling mature self-examination or personal responsibility.
    Maybe the people at FtB are dicks. Cool. Whatever.
    But when John misbehaves and acts like a child, their dickishness doesn't forgive his childishness.

    This blog stands as a testament to how much John believes he doesn't need to own his mistakes.

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  4. George, I don't get many comments here, but thanks for your thoughts.

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  5. George: Two (and now three) comments in general agreement with each other do not constitute groupthink - it means only that there are at least three distinct refugees from FtB who were separately and soberly appalled by what's going on over there, and made a comment on it over here. FYI, if you'd been following the whole saga, you would know that John Loftus made his decision to leave FtB considerably before the fracas you mention above, a decision that was taken as implicit criticism by some of the FtB community; and things blew up from there. The tenor of your comment is absolutely typical.

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  6. John, I ran into your blog about an year ago, and found it quite different from the science-based atheist blogs that I normally follow. Since I am an ex-Hindu, I have just-about-adequate knowledge of and interest in Christianity, but I recognized the value offered by people like you to the movement (a commenter had actually explained this quite elaborately).. I saw a very interesting video on Hector Avalos and biblical studies, a very funny/informative interview of you with Robert Price etc. I remember you wondering why you are not promoted by the rest of the movement (you specifically mentioned Friendly Atheist). When you announced that you were gonna go to FFTB, I was thinking ..Damn. I knew FFTB's diversity is sham. Its not diversity of opinions.. its diversity of people. Even as an Indian (living in the US), I dont need that shit.

    2) All ideology is to be repeatedly questioned. If religion is wrong, and we have been so fooled by it, why should we think that something else in our lives is not to be questioned? What if our human psychology is such that it fools us in many other areas, not just religion Diogenes questioned everything!

    Look at the Myers' idiot group. They call themselves skeptics, and write shit like this twitter exchange, in which they bad-mouth and dismiss outright Lionel Tiger, professor of Anthropology at Rutgers, who has studied feminism and men's issues for decades.
    John.. I know you want to think of yourself as a feminist.. but have you really studied it? You immersed yourself into the study of religion, and feminism deserves plenty of study as well, esp because it hides behind an innocuous and just-sounding front.
    The Redstockings Manifesto from 1969 is a pretty good indicator of what feminists think. They are ideologically blinded idiots (there are actually psychological grounding for this behaviour, but thats an advanced topic). They can never refute scientific theories that challenge their narratives,such as this one from Roy Baumeister, called 'Is there anything Good about men'.

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  7. Astrokid, my goal is to change the minds of believers. I don't think most of the atheists at Freethought Blogs know what that means. They are doing the rest of us a great service, no doubt, but they are talking to themselves for the most part, and they don't know it. Their vision is myopic and navel centered, which has led them to be a divisive force within atheist communities.

    Their goal of diversity is a good one which I share, but it's a societal problem not just a problem within any particular atheist community. I doubt very much they will change the minds of any believers by focusing on issues of diversity.

    I taught college ethics and in that class we discussed feminism. I also have read quite a bit on the topic. I could learn more though.

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  8. Whinter,
    I was unaware that we were only considering a single post on this blog. Sorry, you are correct, within the narrow confines of a single post with 5 comments on Loftus Unleashed, there is too small a sample size with which to draw a "groupthink" pattern.

    Listen, I am as conscious as most that here is a level of tribalism over at FtB. That is a fair analysis. I also don't think that the only goal of atheist blogging is to de-convert theists. Certainly creating community is as noble a goal, and this is more along the lines of what FtB seems to accomplish. It does so, as should be expected of any effort to bring people together, at the expense of others who do not share some common values. There will, as atheist communities become more common, be more than one subgroup of atheist thought. There will be those who want to maintain the cultural status-quo just absent religion. There will be those who will argue that as we shed religion we ought to shed some of its more illogical social constructs as well. There will be those who want to kill them with kindness, there will be those who want to be more proactive. I can stand behind any of these initiatives- and I obviously have my own opinions about them- I only require a logical defense for their utility. The "groupthink" accusations you want to throw around at FtB but avoid when talking about yourselves require, I think, an inability or reluctance to logically defend your assertions. I don't think that is the case at FtB and for this reason find that charge to be (to enact Godwin's Law) the intellectual equivalent of saying that Western culture "groupthinks" that Hitler was evil.
    I think you misuse the term, and I sarcastically pointed that out. Perhaps I should have been more clear.

    You might also note that I said that "UNLESS YOU WANT TO CLAIM" before I brought up the hullabaloo at FtB, so I don't think you really comprehended what I was, in fact, saying. I suppose that when one comments, he is best to pander to the LCD. I was attempting to say exactly what you point out- that John took some fair criticisms upon his exit as being personal attacks, and the conversation devolved from there.

    You and John and others are welcome to find FtB not to your tastes. That was bound to happen. You do not get to demean people who fairly criticize you just because they criticize you without incurring some judgement from others. FYI

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    Replies
    1. George: "I was unaware that we were only considering a single post on this blog. Sorry, you are correct, within the narrow confines of a single post with 5 comments on Loftus Unleashed, there is too small a sample size with which to draw a "groupthink" pattern."

      Okay, let's look the whole sample. Took me five minutes. Of 33 comments in total, we'll discount 3 by John himself. Of the remaining 30, 14 are anti-John, ranging from mild snark to not-so-mild snark. Sixteen are pro-John, ranging from short and appreciative to substantive criticisms of FtB. 16/30 hardly qualifies as what you called "yes-man groupthink going on at Loftus Unleashed".

      I notice that you did not bother to address any of the substantive criticisms, but rushed in with the kind of jeering snark that is very much the default mode of discourse on FtB.

      George: "You might also note that I said that "UNLESS YOU WANT TO CLAIM" before I brought up the hullabaloo at FtB, so I don't think you really comprehended what I was, in fact, saying."

      Yes, I comprehended very well, and you're still wrong. John gave notice he was leaving FtB at a time when he, personally, was not under attack; but at a time when FtB in general was trending towards vicious, abusive flame wars (eg, Elevatorgate, Bunnygate), vitriolic attacks on such respected atheist-activists as DJ Grothe and Edwin Kagan, and the rise of a culture of hyper-offense among both the bloggers and commentators. His decision to leave was taken amiss, and THAT's when the attacks on him began, gradually at first. Of course, any self-defence from those selected for "othering" is regarded as further evidence against them, and less reason for the attackers to examine how justified the original attacks were. And so it goes, and so it went.

      George: "The "groupthink" accusations you want to throw around at FtB but avoid when talking about yourselves require, I think, an inability or reluctance to logically defend your assertions."

      In fact, if you look back at what was actually said, you were the first and only commenter throwing around accusations of "groupthink". I'd say more, but John Greg, below, has already said it: "The issue is not so much one of group-think (to some degree, as you suggest, group-think is unavoidable), it is the slandering, shaming, pillorying, hate-promoting behaviour, along with the remarkabley 1984-ish editorial and linguisitc practices carried out by the FTB and Skepchick bloggers and commentors that is the real issue."

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  9. In reply to George W.

    George W said:

    "Certainly creating community is as noble a goal, and this is more along the lines of what FtB seems to accomplish. It does so, as should be expected of any effort to bring people together, at the expense of others who do not share some common values."

    Perhaps, but the narrowness and intellectually stunted shape of that community, along with the method of exclusion, renders the supposed goal specious and deeply, deeply, flawed.

    "I only require a logical defense for their utility."

    Which is quite specifically something that is missing from such myopic, hysterical, intellectually stunted, and ideologically fanatical and malformed places like most of the FTB blogs and Skepchick.org.

    "The 'groupthink' accusations you want to throw around at FtB but avoid when talking about yourselves require, I think, an inability or reluctance to logically defend your assertions."

    You are missing the point. The issue is not so much one of group-think (to some degree, as you suggest, group-think is unavoidable), it is the slandering, shaming, pillorying, hate-promoting behaviour, along with the remarkabley 1984-ish editorial and linguisitc practices carried out by the FTB and Skepchick bloggers and commentors that is the real issue.

    "I don't think that is the case at FtB and for this reason find that charge to be (to enact Godwin's Law) the intellectual equivalent of saying that Western culture "groupthinks" that Hitler was evil."

    No. You are wrong; yes, I know that sounds pompous, but it si simple fact: you are wrong.

    "You do not get to demean people who fairly criticize you just because they criticize you without incurring some judgement from others."

    If you think that any of the typical types of criticism that are expressed by the FTB blloggers and commentors could in any way be labelled fair, you are deluded.

    George W., if you think I have somehow misrepresented you, please clarify. That, by the way, is a type of statement and request you will never, ever find on such lunatic sites as the FTB blogs or Skepchick.

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