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

[Audley Strange]

This gem from someone called Jadehawk is one of the funniest things I've seen in a while.

"If we wanted to have the same conversations over and over, we could have saved ourselves the effort of even creating A+."

Ah yes a forum where everyone agrees is going to spark a lot of novelty. It's not me is it?

I mean I know I'm against their bitter naive ideology, but surely my bias against that doesn't mean that's not a particularly dumb statement does it it?

[Coito ergo sum]

This gem from someone called Jadehawk is one of the funniest things I've seen in a while.

"If we wanted to have the same conversations over and over, we could have saved ourselves the effort of even creating A+."

Ah yes a forum where everyone agrees is going to spark a lot of novelty. It's not me is it?

I mean I know I'm against their bitter naive ideology, but surely my bias against that doesn't mean that's not a particularly dumb statement does it it?

That's something you see all over Skepchick's blog, FtB, etc. -- they think that once they've stated their, obviously correct, argument, then the debate is over. Those that keep on offering rebuttals are trolls, and those that are new to the argument are ignorant and need to just catch up.

[Audley Strange]

Yeah. I'm just wondering what the point of having a forum at all rather than say something like a facebook group? It seems pointless if essentially your rules state that everyone must agree, not argue, be polite and hate everyone who is not. Even to the point of reporting their behaviour on other forums to mods.

How long before they start extending that to the smaller meatspace atheism community? Is Dawkins going to find himself PNG amongst American Atheist conventions? Is Thunderfoot going to find himself banned? Shit are Gawdz and Aayan going to be ousted because they post here?

This is going to be one horrible mess before its over.





ORPHEUS! Four hundredweight of your special reserve popcorn this way my man.

[hadespussercats]

I feel like joining there would be like getting an ear tag for tracking.

I don't know if that feeling is reasonable. I don't think I have a particular "presence" in the atheist online world. I belong to three, and one defunct, atheist forums. I have a private blog that I suppose could be called atheist-- I have an OUT campaign 'A' in the sidebar (that no one sees but me, since the blog is private.)

On the other hand, I've been around, having opinions. People have heard of me. I got called out in particular during PZgate.

Maybe I could use an alias. I am curious about the goings-on, and sympathize with much of the politics. But... I really don't like this "We're watching you-- don't be naughty or you won't be on the good list" policy they're forming.

[Audley Strange]

Therein is the problem Hades. I'm sure there were many Germans who thought the policies of national socialism were a good idea. Belief in a protectionist left leaning statist government sounded appealling to many even some jews. Certainly Hitler's mob were not utterly condemned by the entirety of the political intelligensia either at home or abroad. Even though his "Kill all the jews" policy was stated pretty unambiguously.

Good intentions and moral sounding values are not evidence of sound minds or good or moral behaviours from those that preach them. (See Christian Child Abuse)

The Hecate of McCreight Christina and Benson seem absolutely disturbed to me and I think that any movement, no matter how reasonable sounding it might be, who has as it's leadership a trio of paranoid feminist crackpots who can't even defend their own convictions is worrisome enough. To have that Dick Carrier give it the George Bushit proclamation without the three of them pronouncing publically that he's a fucking idiot, makes me even more suspicious. Then when you read their Leviticus you realise they are, in fact, no different from white or any other type of seperatists.

You see it appears to me that the establishment of atheism plus is not based on a need to do good, but a need to removes oneself from criticism of one's ideology because one has assumed that such ideology is absolutely correct and those criticising it are not in error but in fact part of an EVIL conspiracy. This is why they have to deflect criticism. They cannot respond to it because they know, as I think almost everyone knows, that fundamentally there is no issue, no problem and their ideology has no serious intellectual heft. Thus all they can do is malign the person making the criticism, let their echo chamber provoke them and then when they respond in kind ban them as an evil-doer.


It's is not their goals that are necessarily repugnant, it is them as people. I choose not to ally myself with fascists of any faith who demand to tell me how to and what to think and what to say or be against them.

[Gerald McGrew]

Really?

My understanding is that one of the reasons for Atheism+ is to create a safe space and to not associate with haters. However, I am reading the current forum rules and do not see any provision on whether documented bad behavior on other sites is a factor regarding participation on this forum. Greta Christina has the following provision in her comment policy and I believe you would do well to adopt something similar:

9: Do not behave atrociously in other blogs. If you are barely walking the line of acceptable behavior in this blog — but you have a pattern of foul, demeaning, sexist/ racist/ etc., insulting, violently threatening, or otherwise reprehensible behavior in other blogs — you will be banned from this one, with no second chance, and no warning.

Given that we already have a slyme pit regular participating in this thread I think this is a good time to ask the question. IMO if someone is a regular participant on a hate site then you should consider very carefully if they are welcome to participate here.

I believe they have officially entered Poe's Law territory. Fucking unbelievable.

[Taqiyya Mockingbird]

Yeah. I'm just wondering what the point of having a forum at all rather than say something like a facebook group? It seems pointless if essentially your rules state that everyone must agree, not argue, be polite and hate everyone who is not. Even to the point of reporting their behaviour on other forums to mods.

How long before they start extending that to the smaller meatspace atheism community? Is Dawkins going to find himself PNG amongst American Atheist conventions? Is Thunderfoot going to find himself banned? Shit are Gawdz and Aayan going to be ousted because they post here?

I think that is precisely what they mean to do. Look at Dick Carrier's latest blog, in which he proclaims:


[

Here I will make it as simple as possible. I have added this new requirement on my booking page (and this is just my own personal speaking policy, I don’t expect anyone else to adopt it):


........
Note that I will not speak at events run by organizations that are unwilling to repudiate sexism, racism, and homophobia, or that do not endorse the values of reasonableness, compassion, and integrity. You do not have to make a public statement or policy on this. You don’t even have to specifically mention it. But I must feel comfortable that you are an organization that shares these values. And I will assume you are, unless I have reason not to. But if you consider my taking a stand on this to be divisive, don’t ask me to speak at your event (unless it is specifically to debate our moral differences in a reasonable manner). Otherwise I will work with any organization that approves of this value statement, even if it is not an atheist organization or is even an explicitly religious organization.

.......


This goes for individuals as well as organizations, although that will simply be a matter of which company I would prefer to have wherever I happen to be, and not a condition of speaking anywhere (since it’s a free country and I fully expect assholes and douchebags will inevitably be anywhere). It will also be a condition of who I condemn or disown on my own time and in my own venues. In short, if you reject this value statement, you are simply my ideological enemy, and I will give you no quarter. I’ll respect your legal and human rights, because I believe in that. But don’t be shocked if I am not friendly.

This includes if you mock or make fun of Atheism+ or belittle it with stupid dumb-ass shit like calling it Stalinism. That makes you an asshole. Point blank. Plain and simple. We are simply not going to let the Atheism movement become like chat roulette (a point well made in How Not to Build Inclusive Communities).

Soooooooooooo....if I bother to go to the American Atheists Con in Denver this weekend, are Greta and PeeZus and Dillahunty going to be laying down the law to all us real, meatspace atheists who don't give a rat's ass about their imaginary crystal cyber towers on the interwebs? I bet THAT goes over great here in the Wild, Wild West where we don't take shit from puffed up self-important cyberdouchebags.

[Animavore]

Not Dillahunty! Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo................!!!!! Don't tell me he has joined those fuck-me-I'm-a-nice-guy atheists?

[hadespussercats]

Therein is the problem Hades. I'm sure there were many Germans who thought the policies of national socialism were a good idea. Belief in a protectionist left leaning statist government sounded appealling to many even some jews. Certainly Hitler's mob were not utterly condemned by the entirety of the political intelligensia either at home or abroad. Even though his "Kill all the jews" policy was stated pretty unambiguously.

Good intentions and moral sounding values are not evidence of sound minds or good or moral behaviours from those that preach them. (See Christian Child Abuse)

The Hecate of McCreight Christina and Benson seem absolutely disturbed to me and I think that any movement, no matter how reasonable sounding it might be, who has as it's leadership a trio of paranoid feminist crackpots who can't even defend their own convictions is worrisome enough. To have that Dick Carrier give it the George Bushit proclamation without the three of them pronouncing publically that he's a fucking idiot, makes me even more suspicious. Then when you read their Leviticus you realise they are, in fact, no different from white or any other type of seperatists.

You see it appears to me that the establishment of atheism plus is not based on a need to do good, but a need to removes oneself from criticism of one's ideology because one has assumed that such ideology is absolutely correct and those criticising it are not in error but in fact part of an EVIL conspiracy. This is why they have to deflect criticism. They cannot respond to it because they know, as I think almost everyone knows, that fundamentally there is no issue, no problem and their ideology has no serious intellectual heft. Thus all they can do is malign the person making the criticism, let their echo chamber provoke them and then when they respond in kind ban them as an evil-doer.


It's is not their goals that are necessarily repugnant, it is them as people. I choose not to ally myself with fascists of any faith who demand to tell me how to and what to think and what to say or be against them.

Is it Godwin, the inevitability of the Hitler reference?

I don't see this situation quite like you do. I think the founders of the forum/movement really have been dealing with an overwhelming amount of internet hate and trolling-- to the point where to me they seem trigger-ready, unable to distinguish sometimes between hatefulness and simple dissent.

I mentioned the Decameron earlier-- I think the analogy is apt, on a number of levels. They're creating an escape, a closed community where they can share refined (and occasionally not-so-refined) stories and cultivated camaraderie, while on the other side of the doors the rest of the world (with our "diseased" minds-- I think I remember that phrase actually being used) can go hang. There's a moral quandary there-- choosing to be part of an elite, deciding the rest of the world doesn't deserve to survive.

Like I said, that actual language is being used-- as a metaphor, of course (though I imagine some feel it literally.)

But I don't think the ones posting that way have thought through all the implications-- like how very Atlas Shruggish they're being.

And maybe I wouldn't mind so much, if moderates like me weren't being tarred with the same brush as MRAs.

Even if I were allowed passage, it sounds like I'd basically be inviting some semi-anonymous overseers (really, anyone from the forum) to monitor my behavior wherever I went on the web. One dirty joke of the wrong variety, one ill-timed quip, one moment of criticism, anywhere, and I'd be booted from the garden. No warning, no appeal.

No appeal.

[orpheus]

Even if I were allowed passage, it sounds like I'd basically be inviting some semi-anonymous overseers (really, anyone from the forum) to monitor my behavior wherever I went on the web. One dirty joke of the wrong variety, one ill-timed quip, one moment of criticism, anywhere, and I'd be booted from the garden. No warning, no appeal.

No appeal.

Possibly more than that, too. Remember that they have proposed a rule that says, in effect, that anyone posting anything threatening, or attempting to gain illicit access to the forum (sockpuppeting, obviously, but also posting under anything but a) your real name or b) the pseudonym you use everywhere else on the net) - anyone who does these things forfeits all rights to privacy, and they can publish all your identifying information.

No, seriously. This is what they are proposing.

[orpheus]

Look at Dick Carrier's latest blog, in which he proclaims:

Here I will make it as simple as possible. I have added this new requirement on my booking page (and this is just my own personal speaking policy, I don’t expect anyone else to adopt it):


........
Note that I will not speak at events run by organizations that are unwilling to repudiate sexism, racism, and homophobia, or that do not endorse the values of reasonableness, compassion, and integrity. You do not have to make a public statement or policy on this. You don’t even have to specifically mention it. But I must feel comfortable that you are an organization that shares these values. And I will assume you are, unless I have reason not to. But if you consider my taking a stand on this to be divisive, don’t ask me to speak at your event (unless it is specifically to debate our moral differences in a reasonable manner). Otherwise I will work with any organization that approves of this value statement, even if it is not an atheist organization or is even an explicitly religious organization.

.......


This goes for individuals as well as organizations, although that will simply be a matter of which company I would prefer to have wherever I happen to be, and not a condition of speaking anywhere (since it’s a free country and I fully expect assholes and douchebags will inevitably be anywhere). It will also be a condition of who I condemn or disown on my own time and in my own venues. In short, if you reject this value statement, you are simply my ideological enemy, and I will give you no quarter. I’ll respect your legal and human rights, because I believe in that. But don’t be shocked if I am not friendly.

This includes if you mock or make fun of Atheism+ or belittle it with stupid dumb-ass shit like calling it Stalinism. That makes you an asshole. Point blank. Plain and simple. We are simply not going to let the Atheism movement become like chat roulette (a point well made in How Not to Build Inclusive Communities).

Taqiyya, thank you for posting that. Is this Carrier fellow well-respected for his work? I ask because, apart from anything else, he's a dreadful writer (if this is typical of his prose). I used to work as an editor, and my brain began to hurt halfway through his proclamation. It's terrible advertising for him as a supposed intellectual. Also, "stupid dumb-ass shit"? Really? I have no problem with rude language. Indeed, it can be quite effective (e.g. in many of Hitch's works). But here it's just juvenile.

[orpheus]

ORPHEUS! Four hundredweight of your special reserve popcorn this way my man.

(Uncle Orph'sTM popcorn - "You can believe us, because we never lie, and we're always right." )

[Seth]

Even if I were allowed passage, it sounds like I'd basically be inviting some semi-anonymous overseers (really, anyone from the forum) to monitor my behavior wherever I went on the web. One dirty joke of the wrong variety, one ill-timed quip, one moment of criticism, anywhere, and I'd be booted from the garden. No warning, no appeal.

No appeal.

Possibly more than that, too. Remember that they have proposed a rule that says, in effect, that anyone posting anything threatening, or attempting to gain illicit access to the forum (sockpuppeting, obviously, but also posting under anything but a) your real name or b) the pseudonym you use everywhere else on the net) - anyone who does these things forfeits all rights to privacy, and they can publish all your identifying information.

No, seriously. This is what they are proposing.

That likely qualifies as criminal cyberstalking if they do it, and it's certainly actionable. But then again you'd have to be an idiot to give them any actual personal information in the first place, so it's sort of caveat emptor.

What I don't understand is all the hoopla. They're a bunch of marginalized nutbar extremists. Let them have their forum and their trademark and just ignore them. There's what, a dozen of them at most? They're no more threat to atheism than the Westborough Baptist nutbars are a threat to the Catholic church.

If you quit acknowledging them, they'll soon fade into obscurity because they're radicals.

[Audley Strange]

Not Dillahunty! Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo................!!!!! Don't tell me he has joined those fuck-me-I'm-a-nice-guy atheists?

Yes, but to be fair he's not been entirely unreasonable in his words as compared to some he's supporting.

[Pappa]

What I don't understand is all the hoopla. They're a bunch of marginalized nutbar extremists. Let them have their forum and their trademark and just ignore them. There's what, a dozen of them at most? They're no more threat to atheism than the Westborough Baptist nutbars are a threat to the Catholic church.

If you quit acknowledging them, they'll soon fade into obscurity because they're radicals.

Very well put Seth. I couldn't agree more.