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

[hadespussercats]

Is Amanda Marcotte a bad person to take sex advice from?

IIRC, she cooks a mean berry tart. which is the sort of thing that usually bodes well for the boudoir.

I hope I had the name correct - she (used to?) run a feminist blog that was interesting, then she worked for Edwards, and somewhere around that I remember her going off the deep end into radical thinking. Again, this is hearsay, but apparently in the ACA podcast "godless bitches" (somehow no one complains about the sexist name) they mentioned something about taking their medical advice (sorry, I think this is more accurate than sex advice) on reproduction maybe (?) from Marcotte, who is not even close to being qualified (as well as, in my opinion, a bit of a nutbag - I can't remember what went on, but I never paid her any attention after that, so maybe she got better).

All this is second hand, so take that into consideration. I've never considered it worth my time to see if it was true or not, but since I had heard it I wanted to put it out there, with hopefully enough warnings. You can look up the Godless Bitches podcast yourself, it was in the first 2-3 I think. I have them, was waiting to listen to them as I had too much to listen to already (I think I was catching up with The Bible Geek at the time) and after hearing some talk, decided to just forget about it. I still have them. If they are followers of the same brand of feminism as Matt (and I see no reason why they aren't), then it would be like listening to Ken Ham. Might be fun and filled with facepalms, but I have better things to listen to.

Just my opinions, and I could be 100% wrong.


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Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon, right?

Well, sex advice is different generally from medical advice, you're right.
I enjoy AM's writing. I disagree with her on certain important points. But the rest of this sounds like it isn't really my business.

I don't know the Godless Bitches. I'll have to check that out.

When I first heard about it, I liked the idea. I generally like Jen and Tracie on the ACA, and figured a podcast by them and Beth (Matt's wife) might be interesting. If they have gone the same version of feminism as Watson and company, then I'll pass.

ETA (if this works, haven't used it before) - I think it was her. Someone over at the Slymepit brought up her extreme reaction to the Duke case (innocent until proven guilty never entered her mind), but I'm still not sure of all the facts on that, so I really can't say much regarding that, except to say punishing someone before they go to trial (even "suspected" terrorists who are American citizens) is wrong.
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IIRC (again, sorry I'm not more precise), AM has tweeted/posted that the women who fully support abortion rights for all, but who don't think they'd choose to have one themselves, are all hateful slut-shamers.

And not simply women who believe in choice, and make a choice not to do something.

So, yeah, she can be way too global/totalitarian for my taste. But she's thoughtful, and I enjoy reading her work, generally.

[ralu]

I think the best Blog Hog has managed on feminism is a short article about what an annoying whiny victim character she finds Sansa Stark to be.

What? Really? Sansa Stark? A fourteen year old girl who watched her prince charming kill her dog, her father, who was imprisoned and kept as a pawn and a toy by a sadistic mommy's boy, who was physically and mentally humiliated and almost raped is a whiny victim character? Yeah I guess she was lucky no one wore a "It's Grim up North" T-shirt to Joffrey's Name Day Tournament, that would have been a real reason to whine eh?

Really. You know its about feminism because its in the title, and its tagged as such. I guess wordpress has a character limit which forbade "inane wittering". Jen also gets the story wrong and accuses Sansa of being a "tattle-tale" when trying to save Neds life. Sansa also doesn't do enough to fight the patriarchy. Perhaps she is a chill-girl?

Its here. Fair warning, the irony burns.

http://freethoughtblogs.com/blaghag/201 ... nsa-stark/

[Pappa]

I think the best Blog Hog has managed on feminism is a short article about what an annoying whiny victim character she finds Sansa Stark to be.

What? Really? Sansa Stark? A fourteen year old girl who watched her prince charming kill her dog, her father, who was imprisoned and kept as a pawn and a toy by a sadistic mommy's boy, who was physically and mentally humiliated and almost raped is a whiny victim character? Yeah I guess she was lucky no one wore a "It's Grim up North" T-shirt to Joffrey's Name Day Tournament, that would have been a real reason to whine eh?

I like you son. You can come to my house and fuck my sister.

[Hermit]

When you say "no," do so clearly and kindly. Please do not fall into
the trap of putting down people who find you attractive- they must be
total idiots to have come onto you, right? Being politely asked is a
compliment, not an insult. When we are embarrassed because we need to
say no to a polite inquiry, let's just own our own embarrassment. It's
not the other person's fault if she thinks you're nifty.

And this, for me, puts the whole elevator thing in a nutshell, and starkly illuminates the infuckingcredible batshittery of elevating an invitation for coffee at a conference to this internet/meatspace shitstorm and coup d'etat. The son of a bitch, by her own admission, said, "don't take this the wrong way", paid her a very nice compliment, and said he'd like to get to know her better. Why? Because he found her interesting -- ANOTHER compliment. What does she do? Wig out, vlog it into cyberidjitspace, and wage war in as public and damaging fashion as she possibly can against everyone who says "hey, waitaminit...".

Nutshell indeed.

I am happy to report that I have skimmed over or skipped past most pages of this thread, and will continue to do that here and in the several other threads concerning people like Watson, Thunderfoot et al with a need to become serious and important persons. I'm not saying that atheism, scepticism and feminism are issues of no importance, but the behaviour of the aforementioned protagonists has less to do with them than a need to get upset about something. It's like watching the antics of a school class that ensue when there is no teacher supervising. Gets boring, even for a patient bloke like me.

[SteveB]

I like this hermit better.

[Bella Fortuna]

I like this hermit better.

The original Hermit is a keeper.

[SteveB]

In this installment of lulz at A+Theism:

[SteveB]

I like this hermit better.

The original Hermit is a keeper.

I wonder if the two hermits can be hermits together...

[hadespussercats]

Yeah, I love how they use the sexist term "don't be a dick" -- as if dicks are inherently bad. That's offensive.

The use of genital and sex words and phrases as insulting epithets is worthy of its own discussion. Would anyone be interested in a thread on that? Should it be in the general/philosophy subforum, or the Language, Culture & Anthropology subforum?

RiverF, I perched a ball at the top of a hill-- it's ready to roll when you or anyone else is!

http://www.rationalia.com/forum/viewtop ... 53&t=39279

[Audley Strange]

I think the best Blog Hog has managed on feminism is a short article about what an annoying whiny victim character she finds Sansa Stark to be.

What? Really? Sansa Stark? A fourteen year old girl who watched her prince charming kill her dog, her father, who was imprisoned and kept as a pawn and a toy by a sadistic mommy's boy, who was physically and mentally humiliated and almost raped is a whiny victim character? Yeah I guess she was lucky no one wore a "It's Grim up North" T-shirt to Joffrey's Name Day Tournament, that would have been a real reason to whine eh?

Really. You know its about feminism because its in the title, and its tagged as such. I guess wordpress has a character limit which forbade "inane wittering". Jen also gets the story wrong and accuses Sansa of being a "tattle-tale" when trying to save Neds life. Sansa also doesn't do enough to fight the patriarchy. Perhaps she is a chill-girl?

Its here. Fair warning, the irony burns.

http://freethoughtblogs.com/blaghag/201 ... nsa-stark/

I can't read it since I won't hit FTB. I do not wish to encourage them. I gave both Skepchick and FTB a fair perusal after being accused of being a misogynist rape cockroach for not organising a wickerman to burn Pappa in.

What I saw was the same wrong headed misinformed pseudo-academic piffle, the same phraseology, reliance on questionable studies and surveys, reinvention of concepts and ideas far from any consensual view knee-jerk reaction and avoidance of criticism that I saw when I was young and stupid enough to be a union rep, a canvasser for a political party. Even at parties and pubs and student unions during the late Eighties they used to prate on ruining everyone's fun. So this is not new to me. I've always been opposed to that brand of female paranoia and demands of special entitlements that the left acquiesced to without much question, it is why I became as cynical about politics as people are about religion. Again, because I can't say this enough, they have taken the ideals of universal suffrage and perverted the concept to be about their suffrage from what ever they choose to blame for their limitations.

[Badger3k]

Is Amanda Marcotte a bad person to take sex advice from?

IIRC, she cooks a mean berry tart. which is the sort of thing that usually bodes well for the boudoir.

I hope I had the name correct - she (used to?) run a feminist blog that was interesting, then she worked for Edwards, and somewhere around that I remember her going off the deep end into radical thinking. Again, this is hearsay, but apparently in the ACA podcast "godless bitches" (somehow no one complains about the sexist name) they mentioned something about taking their medical advice (sorry, I think this is more accurate than sex advice) on reproduction maybe (?) from Marcotte, who is not even close to being qualified (as well as, in my opinion, a bit of a nutbag - I can't remember what went on, but I never paid her any attention after that, so maybe she got better).

All this is second hand, so take that into consideration. I've never considered it worth my time to see if it was true or not, but since I had heard it I wanted to put it out there, with hopefully enough warnings. You can look up the Godless Bitches podcast yourself, it was in the first 2-3 I think. I have them, was waiting to listen to them as I had too much to listen to already (I think I was catching up with The Bible Geek at the time) and after hearing some talk, decided to just forget about it. I still have them. If they are followers of the same brand of feminism as Matt (and I see no reason why they aren't), then it would be like listening to Ken Ham. Might be fun and filled with facepalms, but I have better things to listen to.

Just my opinions, and I could be 100% wrong.


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Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon, right?

Well, sex advice is different generally from medical advice, you're right.
I enjoy AM's writing. I disagree with her on certain important points. But the rest of this sounds like it isn't really my business.

I don't know the Godless Bitches. I'll have to check that out.

When I first heard about it, I liked the idea. I generally like Jen and Tracie on the ACA, and figured a podcast by them and Beth (Matt's wife) might be interesting. If they have gone the same version of feminism as Watson and company, then I'll pass.

ETA (if this works, haven't used it before) - I think it was her. Someone over at the Slymepit brought up her extreme reaction to the Duke case (innocent until proven guilty never entered her mind), but I'm still not sure of all the facts on that, so I really can't say much regarding that, except to say punishing someone before they go to trial (even "suspected" terrorists who are American citizens) is wrong.
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IIRC (again, sorry I'm not more precise), AM has tweeted/posted that the women who fully support abortion rights for all, but who don't think they'd choose to have one themselves, are all hateful slut-shamers.

And not simply women who believe in choice, and make a choice not to do something.

So, yeah, she can be way too global/totalitarian for my taste. But she's thoughtful, and I enjoy reading her work, generally.

Thanks for that - she hasn't been on my radar since I gave up on her long ago, so I really haven't paid attention to anything she's done or said. I just don't care. I only brought it up since someone else had that I heard about. I used to like her, but once I give up on someone (mainly online) I see no reason to waste a minute on them no matter what they say or whose side they are on. I do recall that tweet now - what a crackpot.


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[Badger3k]

I think the best Blog Hog has managed on feminism is a short article about what an annoying whiny victim character she finds Sansa Stark to be.

What? Really? Sansa Stark? A fourteen year old girl who watched her prince charming kill her dog, her father, who was imprisoned and kept as a pawn and a toy by a sadistic mommy's boy, who was physically and mentally humiliated and almost raped is a whiny victim character? Yeah I guess she was lucky no one wore a "It's Grim up North" T-shirt to Joffrey's Name Day Tournament, that would have been a real reason to whine eh?

Really. You know its about feminism because its in the title, and its tagged as such. I guess wordpress has a character limit which forbade "inane wittering". Jen also gets the story wrong and accuses Sansa of being a "tattle-tale" when trying to save Neds life. Sansa also doesn't do enough to fight the patriarchy. Perhaps she is a chill-girl?

Its here. Fair warning, the irony burns.

http://freethoughtblogs.com/blaghag/201 ... nsa-stark/

I can't read it since I won't hit FTB. I do not wish to encourage them. I gave both Skepchick and FTB a fair perusal after being accused of being a misogynist rape cockroach for not organising a wickerman to burn Pappa in.

What I saw was the same wrong headed misinformed pseudo-academic piffle, the same phraseology, reliance on questionable studies and surveys, reinvention of concepts and ideas far from any consensual view knee-jerk reaction and avoidance of criticism that I saw when I was young and stupid enough to be a union rep, a canvasser for a political party. Even at parties and pubs and student unions during the late Eighties they used to prate on ruining everyone's fun. So this is not new to me. I've always been opposed to that brand of female paranoia and demands of special entitlements that the left acquiesced to without much question, it is why I became as cynical about politics as people are about religion. Again, because I can't say this enough, they have taken the ideals of universal suffrage and perverted the concept to be about their suffrage from what ever they choose to blame for their limitations.

Reading Thunderfoots latest post, there is a video where someone say that someone's right to say things ends when it (basically) offends someone else. Watson says that a problem is that people think that free speech means people must listen to them - I think. It came in around 57 minutes into the video (on his post) and the transcript was rubbish. I'm glad I wasn't drinking when I listened to the tiny bit I did.

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[ralu]

I can't read it since I won't hit FTB. I do not wish to encourage them. I gave both Skepchick and FTB a fair perusal after being accused of being a misogynist rape cockroach for not organising a wickerman to burn Pappa in.

What I saw was the same wrong headed misinformed pseudo-academic piffle, the same phraseology, reliance on questionable studies and surveys, reinvention of concepts and ideas far from any consensual view knee-jerk reaction and avoidance of criticism that I saw when I was young and stupid enough to be a union rep, a canvasser for a political party. Even at parties and pubs and student unions during the late Eighties they used to prate on ruining everyone's fun. So this is not new to me. I've always been opposed to that brand of female paranoia and demands of special entitlements that the left acquiesced to without much question, it is why I became as cynical about politics as people are about religion. Again, because I can't say this enough, they have taken the ideals of universal suffrage and perverted the concept to be about their suffrage from what ever they choose to blame for their limitations.

I think thats a sensible position to take. Looking into it further can only damage your mental health, waste your time and really make you despair of humanity. That's been my experience with it since finding out FTB existed 3 months ago.

I am tempted to write up that full post with everything in it but I get the feeling that nobody would be that interested even if I did. Its all too ridiculous and absurd.

[hadespussercats]

I can't read it since I won't hit FTB. I do not wish to encourage them. I gave both Skepchick and FTB a fair perusal after being accused of being a misogynist rape cockroach for not organising a wickerman to burn Pappa in.

What I saw was the same wrong headed misinformed pseudo-academic piffle, the same phraseology, reliance on questionable studies and surveys, reinvention of concepts and ideas far from any consensual view knee-jerk reaction and avoidance of criticism that I saw when I was young and stupid enough to be a union rep, a canvasser for a political party. Even at parties and pubs and student unions during the late Eighties they used to prate on ruining everyone's fun. So this is not new to me. I've always been opposed to that brand of female paranoia and demands of special entitlements that the left acquiesced to without much question, it is why I became as cynical about politics as people are about religion. Again, because I can't say this enough, they have taken the ideals of universal suffrage and perverted the concept to be about their suffrage from what ever they choose to blame for their limitations.

I think thats a sensible position to take. Looking into it further can only damage your mental health, waste your time and really make you despair of humanity. That's been my experience with it since finding out FTB existed 3 months ago.

I am tempted to write up that full post with everything in it but I get the feeling that nobody would be that interested even if I did. Its all too ridiculous and absurd.

Oh, I bet you'd get some bites.

[Audley Strange]

I think thats a sensible position to take. Looking into it further can only damage your mental health, waste your time and really make you despair of humanity. That's been my experience with it since finding out FTB existed 3 months ago.

I am tempted to write up that full post with everything in it but I get the feeling that nobody would be that interested even if I did. Its all too ridiculous and absurd.

Well first, it''ll take more than white guilt stupidity to damage my mental health and I already despair for humanity. Mind you I love the ridiculous and absurd and am still thoroughly entertained by their "stupid things white chicks say" shtick, but at the same time I think we are giving them undue attention which is fuelling their self importance.

I'll take what I can get though.