My view, it seems, has been dismissed
Because I am an atheist;
It’s strange—that’s not my view they list—
They call it mine; they quite insist,
Although I never said it.
They know the way the godless act
With lots of noise and little tact
Beyond debate, it’s known as fact
By learned types—to be exact,
Philosophers of reddit.
They’ve seen the way it always works
The utterly expected quirks:
When on his own, he merely lurks
But in a group, they act like jerks—
“My allies will protect me!”
I’ve seen it too—I won’t deny
They act like jerks; I don’t know why.
But think again (I hope you’ll try)
Cos here’s the funny thing—oh, my!
Those atheists reject me!
An amusing little thing happened yesterday. My previous post got linked to by two different subreddit areas (forgive me if my reddit vocabulary is incorrect; I am not a reddit regular. Cuttledaughter loves it, but I guess I have plenty to do here), with very different reactions.
First, it was posted on the “bad philosophy” area. I’ve never seen that subreddit before yesterday, so I don’t know any of their customs or traditions or characters, so I really have nothing to compare it to; I am not complaining about what was said, because I don’t even know if it was meant in earnest (as they say it is “not a place for learns”). But, that said, some of the comments were very dismissive of atheists. Not me in particular, mind you–indeed, those comments read as if they had never read my blog at all (which is overwhelmingly likely, as I am a very small fish in a very big ocean), including the post they were commenting on. Rather, they spoke of atheists and gave the example of the reddit atheism area–a very different place from here, I gather–and disparaged the typical atheist as represented by the reddit atheist.
Meanwhile, the other reddit link to my post was in the “atheism rebooted” area, where it gathered a grand total of two comments, only one on topic. The other, though, was the interesting one:
There is a reason I avoid FTB like the plague… A+ is a huge reason.
Now, you might have noticed that my blogpost itself had absolutely nothing at all to do with A+. Doesn’t matter.
The people giving atheism a bad name already reject us; it’s just too bad the outside world (well, in this case a philosophy subreddit) still groups us with them.
Dana’s right–the rifts aren’t deep enough yet.
Great line.
I know the feeling. I avoid reddit like ebola. In fact, I’ve never even been there. Or heard anything good about it. Or even heard much at all. The few descriptions were fever swamps of gibberish and not worth the time.
“Together we stand” rings so hollow
There’s no single cause to hold true
No doctrine for all to just follow
To define Her, Him, Me and You
Defined best by something we aren’t
Divide us? Well, why even bother
Whatever the label, I’ll warrant
Most still self-include in “the Other.”
A+ is almost entirely absent in FTB these days. It’s only present in the minds of its opponents.
I am A+.
My blood bank told me.
@ #3 Trebuchet
The name “A+” is seldom mentioned, but the malign mixture of atheism and social justice is being pushed as strenuously as ever.
@5…Ah yes, because what could be more inhuman that social justice?
Give me social injustice every time in my atheism. Social justice is for wimps.
Atheism (-) is just fundie xianity without the xianity.
It’s an easy transition. There is very little xianity in fundie-ism.
@raven,
You might also say that atheism is just rational christianity without the christianity, with the justification that there is very little rationality in christianity anyway.
jennyzipcode @ 5
Because what could be more poisonous to the cause of atheism than an expectation that people treat each other decently, amirite?
@9: I can’t even imagine the thought process of a person who uses the term “malign” to describe the term “social justice”.
All I hope is that she never babysits my family’s kids. Or is their teacher. Or their grocery store check-out clerk.
No I couldn’t.
This doesn’t make sense.
Even if I was drunk or stoned, I still couldn’t.
Yeah, me too.
Must be a Loonytarian or sadist or something. Or a fundie xian. A fringe minister who is working on his rap sheet, Flip Benson, equated social justice with demons and satan or some such a few days ago while attacking and disrupting a Unitarian church service.
Some people do hate the idea of equal rights and opportunities without regard to race, gender, orientation, age, or religion. We call them the GOP/Tea Party/Fundie xians but they have many other names.
There you go. Flip Benson hates the idea of social justice so much, he called the Unitarian church the Synogogue of satan after invading and disrupting them. (I suspect he doesn’t much like Jews either.)
They were asked to leave and the police were called.
Sadly, Cuttlefish, I’ve come to believe that you may be right about the rifts not being deep enough as well. As always, lacking your gift for language I’m left to using simple set diagrams and cartoons. All relevant sets aren’t included of course, but some of the chief ones are represented.
http://pictoraltheology.blogspot.com/2014/07/euler-gy-for-movement.html