The Atheism Plus "movement" -- good, bad, ugly?

[Bella Fortuna]

In response I propose Atheism++. It's Objectivism oriented

That joke's only been made about ten times already, do keep up.

[Seth]

God, I'm really enjoying watching the Great Atheist Religious Schism as it occurs. This will be legendary and will be spoken of often in the annals of religious history.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

God, I'm really enjoying watching the Great Atheist Religious Schism as it occurs. This will be legendary forgotten and will be spoken of often rarely in the annals of religious history pub on a very slow Friday night.

[Robert_S]

I was really rather provoked to take a second look at things after reading this post: http://freethoughtblogs.com/camelswithh ... 4/no-hate/

I feel a lot of pressure from all sides of the atheist community to denounce the specific behaviors of this or that specific person or group of people.

But I really do not want to. I don’t want to make fights about ideas and values within our community any more personal than they have to be. I think all the personalization and individual recriminations have nearly completely stalled any constructive dialogue in the community. My only interest is in saying the following three things:

1. I disapprove of anyone using insults (including allegedly benign ones like “asshole”, “stupid”, or “douchebag”) or slurs against any one else (and I include words like “cunt” and “bitch” in that category).

2. I don’t hate or think monstrous the people I disagree with, and I will not abandon my friendships with people over their resorting to insults, even though I think that’s wrong.

3. What I am against is hatefulness in all its forms. I think that interpersonal and inter-tribal abusiveness is fundamentally what is destroying the solidarity in our movement. Misogyny is a terrible species of this poison, but the the poison is deadly in all its forms. The only true, honest, and rationalistic solution is for there to be a unilateral ceasefire from abusiveness.

It continues and I found reading it to be worth my while.

[Robert_S]

These passage I found particularly poignant:

There are a lot of people who think that it’s okay to abuse other people as long as they are bad people. The astonishing and repulsive self-righteous and often self-serving judgmentalism of this irks me to no end. While I study moral philosophy, vigorously propound my own ethical theory, and offer moral judgments on any number of abstract topics or stories in the news, I am deeply suspicious of moralism. I do moral philosophy because we must do moral philosophy but not because I like what a sense of moral superiority does to corrupt a person’s character.

also:

And when we think we are in the moral right, we are oh so tempted to start venting all the darkest, nastiest, and cruelest parts of ourselves with a good conscience. And this is why moralistic people are scary. Because too often the only thing separating them from their enemies is their drug like feeling of being the righteous ones. Their hatred can be just as strong. And if they stop being restrained by deference to abstract forms of justice that keep them in check, their actions can be just as harmful to those they hate.

This is why my moral stand in the controversies that embroil this atheist blogosphere is against hatred. This is why I fight myself daily to avoid demonizing my enemies or denouncing my friends when they make errors. I don’t think all the personal acrimony is worth it honestly. I feel all those frustrations and angers of course. I am a people person by nature. I can’t tune out the emotions people send my way as though they weren’t coming from real live human beings.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

It's a very good article, Rob. Sad that there aren't a few more of that mind over there. And over here for that matter.

[Bella Fortuna]

It's a very good article, Rob. Sad that there aren't a few more of that mind over there. And over here for that matter.

This.

You always manage to find the good stuff, Robert. One of the things I like best about you.

[laklak]

You always manage to find the good stuff, Robert. One of the things I like best about you.

Well, that and the great hat.

[Robert_S]

You find awesome stuff more often than I do Bella. I merely try to emulate you.

And XC: There are a few more voices like that over there. I found a lot of admirable and thoughtful bloggers over there who also dislike the vitriol. Would I expect them to leave all of a sudden just to distance themselves from the behavior of some other people no matter how highly placed? They have a community over there too. I also suspect some people here with different views maybe don't want to stick their heads up right now.

I'm not being particularly brave at all here. I know that I won't be ostracized for saying any of this and my experience has been that this is an accepting and supportive community overall.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

I am sure there are plenty like that over there - there usually are. It is sad that their loudest voices tend to be quite different - same everywhere, I suppose. Except here, obviously...

[rasetsu]

I'm behind in my reading and having other things to do, so I'll just blurt out what's on my mind. I'm at the point that Coito is discussing the ftb people being aimed at replacing the old guard of the four horsemen — Dennett, Dawkins, Hitch and Harris — with their particular hegemony. I'm not sure I get the impression that it's all that focused an effort. On the one hand, I see how the various social issues, such as feminism and LGBT politics, has ricocheted back and forth in the movement, both dividing and unifying in turn. I suspect that is part of it, an angst at wanting to resolve social and political issues which have resisted resolution, and threaten to fragment and divide the larger community. The other aspect I see reflects a similar issue I have with a local humanist organizer. A while back, she gave a four part presentation on the nature of humanism. During this presentation, the issue of whether or not the humanist movement should or should not organize around a core platform of issues or not surfaced. She, and others, quite rightly, recognized that there is both power and opportunity implicit in rallying humanists around a set of plausibly reasonable bullet points. After all, if humanists can't agree on what is needed, how are they going to persuade others to adopt humanist goals? And difference of opinion is a legitimate drain on the power and effectiveness of a social group. Conformity and cohesion has its benefits. I on the other hand recognized a different danger. In biological systems, when you sacrifice diversity, yes, the species thrives better, as long as the environment doesn't change; if it does, disaster follows. Despite Europeans' grumblings about the relative merits of America, one of the greatest strengths of the American system has always been its focus on freedom, diversity and plurality, even at the cost of, say the effectiveness of a conformist solution. That's the danger I see: diversity and pluralism is a much greater asset than any of the benefits of unity and cohesion. Meanwhile, this organizer, through regular sessions on humanism, continues to attempt to build unity and agreement based on her vision of what humanism should be, while I stand by and watch what, to me, is little more than a slow motion train wreck. Those that champion specific goals are often successful, as the notion of power through unity is very appealing; the values of pluralism and diversity, on the other hand, tend to lose out, or silence themselves to avoid becoming a victim of the conformist juggernaut. That is what I see. Yes, there is a legitimate good to be gained by this, but imho, the dangers and losses are far more serious.

[JimC]

Well said, rasetsu...

[geehigh]

soooo...

the desire for reason, compassion and integrity makes one a Nazi, eh?

Yeah, that's rational...

...and if that it is really all you can see from the points made, then that is as neat an illustration of your weak comprehension skills as can be imagined. Do yourself a big favour and take up another hobby before its too late. If you enter the arena of politics for real (i.e. not riding on the coat-tails of somebody's internet wet-dream) you will be playing with the big girls and boys.

Let's see how Atheism + deals with real political issues in having to run a country with a diverse population and conflicting personal cultural and economic needs. Let's see them deal with environmental, domestic, medical, scientific, and military commitments. Let's see how they deal with religious diversity. We can all envisage utopia behind a keyboard my friend; it's easy.

The best Athesim + can ever hope for is to get somebody to blow their nose on it before throwing it into the garbage with the rest of the used Kleenex.

[laklak]

Exactly who the fuck gave these people the right to speak for me? I've been an atheist my entire life - truly. I never, ever believed in any of that shit. I refused to go back to Sunday school at the age of bleeding 5. And that's longer than a lot of these pompous, self-aggrandizing, pumped up little shits have been alive. Did I miss something? Did somebody die and make them Pope? Who gave them the right to decide what political position anyone self-identifying as an "atheist" must take? Fuck them and the horse they rode in on. These assholes are doing more damage to rank-and-file atheists than any fundy televangelist could ever hope to do. Honestly, once more and with feeling, FUCK THEM.

[Jaygray]

Exactly who the fuck gave these people the right to speak for me? I've been an atheist my entire life - truly. I never, ever believed in any of that shit. I refused to go back to Sunday school at the age of bleeding 5. And that's longer than a lot of these pompous, self-aggrandizing, pumped up little shits have been alive. Did I miss something? Did somebody die and make them Pope? Who gave them the right to decide what political position anyone self-identifying as an "atheist" must take? Fuck them and the horse they rode in on. These assholes are doing more damage to rank-and-file atheists than any fundy televangelist could ever hope to do. Honestly, once more and with feeling, FUCK THEM.

Let's see how they deal with religious diversity. We can all envisage utopia behind a keyboard my friend; it's easy.

The best Athesim + can ever hope for is to get somebody to blow their nose on it before throwing it into the garbage with the rest of the used Kleenex.