Today’s theme is how elated I am to not be officially involved with the atheist movement anymore:
- Secular Party of America Voter Fraud – The Executive Board of the former “National Atheist Party” committed voter fraud in order to change their name to the “Secular Party of America.” Well, there’s another atheist organization I’ll never trust again!
- D.J. Grothe threatening legal action against WTinc – After Sasha Pixlee wrote about Grothe making a joke about drugging and gangraping him, Grothe has responded by threatening legal action and holding ready-to-be-published vaccine outreach research hostage. Obviously when your image is on the line, the best thing to do is to withhold research that could save the lives of children. That will surely make you look better.
- Conspicuous Silence After the Death of Narendra Dabholkar –
“Can you imagine the outcry if Dawkins, Randi, or Harris had been violently slain for their beliefs? Twitter, the blogosphere, and all major organizations would be promoting the story. For months, not a day would go by without a new piece written about their fine work and untimely or violent demise. But the community has been relatively silent following the death of Narendra Dabholkar. Hopefully as time goes on, we will all find ourselves recognizing him for the voice that he was, and for the work that will inevitably impact the country he called home.”
You can read more about Dabholkar’s work and assassination in Greta Christina’s piece, A Martyr of Modern Skepticism: The Assassination of Prominent Atheist Narendra Dabholkar.
- Richard Dawkins under fire for ‘mild pedophilia’ remarks – Yeeeeesh. PZ and Alex Gabriel point out the hypocrisy in Dawkins’ moral relativism – he doesn’t want to judge people from an earlier era with modern principles, unless those acts were religiously motivated. Of course.
- Richard Dawkins: Retract your trivializing statements regarding victims of sexual abuse – There’s a petition you can sign to show not all atheists agree with Dawkins’ statements.
- My Time With Richard Dawkins (Or, Why You Should Never Meet Your Idols) – Dawkins refused to speak at the Reason Rally if Rebecca Watson was there. This was written before Dawkins’ latest foot-in-mouth disease, but I find it illuminating. Who’s the one making blacklists now?
- On Being Disillusioned By Heroes… or, No, I Am Not Bloody Well Happy to Hear Horrible Things About the People I Admired – Before you accuse certain atheists of having “confirmation bias” and wanting to see the worst in people like Dawkins…read this. All of this. I wish I didn’t have to type up any of the above stories. I look forward to the day the atheist movement stops being so horrible.
“I look forward to the day the atheist movement stops being so horrible.”
The best choice, IMO, is to always look forward, never back. The atheist movement is so deeply flawed with arrogant patriarchy (and its accompanying misogyny) that it will likely never be worth the effort.
Push forward with Atheism+ as the current best alternative.
The “atheist movement” isn’t a movement. It is a disparate collection of people with the only commonality being a belief that they do not have.
This isn’t a happy grab bag. :( Why no news about the pokébank?
On a brighter note, I am glad you are posting again. I had given up checking your page some time back, and missed your comeback.
I don’t understand why there needs to be an “atheist movement.” What does atheism have to offer that is worth organizing for? As a humanist who happens to be atheist, I’d much rather join a movement with a wider message that can be embraced by all who care about education, science, and tolerant, humanistic values.
As a teen coming out of a very fundamentalist church, I was angry and very much an antitheist. I have matured and just don’t get it now. I realize I was being just as dogmatic and intolerant as the people I was criticizing for being dogmatic and intolerant. I’d rather be amongst good people, whatever they believe, than be bunched in with assholes because of what we don’t believe together. Silly, if you ask me.
Eric Staats @5,
One answer your question can be found on Pharyngula a few days ago. If you haven’t read it, I recommend it.
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2013/09/06/the-future-will-not-be-the-past/
Why don’t you complete your disassociation with atheism and disband the atheism plus forum? You would be then be appreciated.
What thetar @ 7 seems to be saying is, “If you don’t like something, go away and remove any trace you were ever there.” Perhaps they should consider following their own advice, when it comes to Jen’s blog?
Personally, I appreciate what Jen’s started with atheism plus.
As for the link dump, I had seen most of these stories individually, however there’s a sense of ‘oomph, that’s a lot to take’ when seeing them all together like this.
Because, of course, Jen is so likely to be concerned with the sorts of people in the atheist movement that hate A+, and wants to be appreciated by them. It’s not as if they’re not the reason she disassociated from the movement in the first place, or anything.
Sheesh.
Folks, please do not drive Jen away again!
Why on earth would the National Atheist Party want to change their name? It’s NAP! Everyone loves naps! But SPA? Come on, spas are expensive. I’ll take a good nap over wasting hundreds of dollars, any day.
Well, I don’t know. I DO like naps but I’m likely to get a pedicure at a spa. Hm….
Voter fraud, on the other hand, I cannot get behind EVEN if I get a pedicure out the deal – and I strongly suspect that I’m not.
@ Flewellyn: Ever wonder why none of the significant names of FTB never visit your shitty forum? They hate it as much as everyone else who isn’t a member of it does.
I don’t know who you are, or what your problem is, but is this quote your idea of a constructive contribution? Because it’s not very original or very thoughtful. In fact, it’s just another bit of mindless internet noise.
I had written about the NAP over a year ago and how their goal was not to allow disagreement with theists, but to see if they can advance an atheist view in politics. When I tried to participate they were rather stubborn that the NAP would aim to bring on theists in their fold and vehement disagreement was not encouraged at all.
Worst case of misplaced charity — my donation to their cause.
@4. paul : On a brighter note, I am glad you are posting again.
Seconded. Me too. :-)
Dawkins is a scientist and he makes mistakes or he is not doing it right. Is he learning?
Not to derail, this list really makes for glum reading, but surely there’s plenty of good (including pro-feminist, pro-equality) stuff that “official” atheist orgs have been doing? And plenty of pro-feminist bloggers who are members of said orgs getting their voice out there?
I’m not asking for a cookie for DJGrothe for not having acted bigotted all the time, but it seems odd how a few years back the movement looked so bright and open. We weren’t going to make the mistakes Churches make, weren’t going to suffer from the biases of religious belief.
*tries to squeeze out a point*
Darn it, the fact that these battles are going on – perhaps a few years down the line there will be more good stories to report than bad?
Atheists, and humanity in general could use more people like Jen. We fight for nothing unless we fight to make everyone’s lives better, and yes: It does mean fighting more bad ideas (ie. misogyny, the tendency to put people on pedestals*) than religion.
*that tendency is basically religion itself, mind you.
At least we are starting to recognize our problems. No one should be beyond accountability, regardless of whether they’re on our “side” or not.
Gaaah. Yes, depressing.
I’m also having the depressed “what, Dawkins is a jackass in a way I wasn’t expecting him to be?” reaction. I’ve never met Richard Dawkins, but I’ve met his wife, Lalla Ward. I’m fairly shocked by Dawkins’s rude, hostile, unmotivated blacklisting behavior towards Rebecca Watson… largely because I would have expected Ms. Ward, a very smart and extremely polite woman, to chew him out over such behavior.
Dawkins is quite appropriately learning as he makes grotesque remarks and is shown that they’re wrong, but his unjustifiable antipathy towards individuals shows no signs of abating.
Speaking of Douglas Adams, I suspect that Dawkins, in perpetuating bad and unacceptable social behavior, is falling into this ancient cognitive trap described by Adams, regarding :
“• Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. Anything that’s invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. Anything invented after you’re thirty-five is against the natural order of things.”
Many of us miss your fantastic blogging. Hope to read you again soon.
Thought this might interest you.
http://deadstate.org/kentuckys-creation-museum-in-financial-trouble-due-to-declining-attendance-video/