This new interview with the gelato guy gives me absolutely no reason to change my opinion.
During the interview, Drennen said he felt people cannot reach others with such shows that mock others. He does not know how atheists expect to reach others by using mockery and ridicule.
…
No human is perfect and we all make mistakes. Drennen, like many other Christians, believes he is not perfect, just forgiven. The question is by whom is this young businessman forgiven? In the Christian worldview, God forgives a person, but who forgives him in a secular society? Can people forgive the mistakes of others, which they might find deeply offensive and hurtful?
After Drennen’s statement, concerning mockery and ridicule, I asked him how he would feel if he walked in on PZ Meyer’s talk concerning Junk DNA, given that it deals with Evolution. He was not sure, especially after everything PZ said online. Part of it depended on how PZ talked about Christians, if at all, in his speech.
It seems to be an obligatory opinion of people who believe in mockable and ridiculous things that they will oppose mockery and ridicule. I’m afraid there is no magical exemption — there isn’t a set of stupid beliefs that you get to set on a pedestal and declare that no one can call them stupid. Go ahead and retaliate by mocking and ridiculing the stuff I consider important, like science and evolution and reason and empiricism. I will joyfully leap into that fray.
I know that in that absurd Christian worldview, their god is an instant forgiveness pump — say that you love him and believe in him and he dispenses an imaginary exculpation card automatically, until the final judgment when he might just decide to torture you forever because you didn’t love him enough — but I’m not going to work that way. You don’t get to recite a few rote regrets and expect me to echo back some banal formalities at you. But here’s the good news! I won’t set you on fire and stab you with a pitchfork no matter how idiotic you are!
I’m also not going to tailor my opinions to pander to Andy Drennan’s delusions. It’s only going to work in reverse: I’m now feeling regret that I didn’t dump on religious foolishness at all in my Skepticon talk, and I kind of resent that if I speak there again next year, I’ll feel compelled to toss in a few mocking references to the inanity of Christianity just in case Andy shows up, even if they aren’t relevant to the subject at hand.
That works both ways, of course.
How do the fundie xians expect to reach people with hate, lies, hypocrisy, bigotry, and ignorance?
Hmmm, well they are but not in the way they want. All that is driving people out of the religion at the rate of millions per year.
“As you sow, so shall you reap.”
In other words, Drennen is someone who apparently can’t be “reached” if he feels his beliefs are not the ones being mocked, although he has no problem with mockery and ridicule if it’s applied to other belief systems. Well, fine and dandy for him then, but he doesn’t get to speak as to the overall effectiveness of mockery and ridicule as an inducement to having people reconsider their beliefs, however, because what works for him isn’t going to apply to everyone. The number of emails PZ has published here and comments in various posts from former believers who’ve explicitly noted that it was the ridicule and mockery of their beliefs that got them to reconsider their positions speaks to the fact that ridicule and mockery can work, so it obviously works for some people.
If anything, this interview disappointingly demonstrates that Drennen still seems to be missing the point: just because he is a member of a religious majority, it doesn’t mean that his beliefs are going to be treated as a special exception. Skepticism isn’t going to make an exception for Christianity (or religion in general) and if he finds it personally offensive, well, most people would be offended upon finding not everyone views their own personal cows as sacred, but being non-offensive is not the point of skepticism, applying a critical eye to fantastic claims is.
Which makes it sound more and more like a notpollogy. It’s a disservice to the author if they’re not going for that
So Drennan still believes the best way to avoid mockery is to shame and otherwise try to stop other people from mocking ridiculous ideas, rather than trying to avoid holding ridiculous ideas.
I, a Springfield local, still agree with PZ and JT. I don’t see a reason to forgive. Drennan may be sincerely sorry for the overreaction, but that seems to be as far as it goes. He doesn’t understand or feel sorry for the real problem.
I guess we could hang up cardboard signs stating that religious people are not welcome at atheist conventions instead. That always seems to work.
So mockery is bad.
But saying that people are evil and deserve eternal punishment for not believing the same thing that they do is A-OK. That’s a big horrible double standard there, actually it’s not even. Mockery is nothing compared to that. It’s weaksauce. Not even a blip.
What these Christians (and other religious individuals) need to realize is that it was them that set the limitations on what should and shouldn’t be acceptable or not in this debate, as they have the cultural power. And like it or not, mostly anything that I’ve seen coming from the atheist side is quite frankly very tame in comparison to a lot of the stuff I’ve seen coming from the religious side.
Go ahead and retaliate by mocking and ridiculing the stuff I consider important, like science and evolution and reason and empiricism. I will joyfully leap into that fray.
Exactly. Religious people ask me all the time how I would like it if someone mocked my beliefs. I can’t seem to express how much I look forward to that. I’ll never for the life of me understand why anyone would want to live in a world where their beliefs deserve respect just based on the fact that they are their beliefs.
Anyway, if you promise to go all Hitchens on Skepticon next year, I promise I’ll make the trip.
Should not happen? But his type of Xianity (at least) is about how evil non-Xians are, and many Xians too.
It’s why this never gets resolved, that telling you that you’re an evil person who is less than themselves, and who deserves to burn for eternity, is what we’re supposed to respect and not ridicule.
No good evidence or argument exists to respect it, anyhow.
Glen Davidson
Raven #1:
Exactly. I doubt Drennen has even bothered to think about the reverse of his statement, that Christians like him should not expect to “reach” atheists or non-Christians if they are treated with discriminatory practices by Christians like him. No one’s saying that he doesn’t have a right to be offended – that’s a natural defensive human reaction. What he didn’t have a right to do was, even for a moment, use his offense as a justification for discrimination. It might be an explanation for what he did, but it’s not an excuse, and all this press from Drennen is just reinforcing the impression that he still thinks it’s an adequate excuse.
His Christian God may be fine with blanket forgiveness in exchange for as little as “loving and accepting” said deity, but I think that’s too easy – forgiveness is something that should be earned, especially between people who are strangers with no prior relationship upon which mutual trust has been established, and between whom there is a history of mistrust and oppression. It should not be just extended in exchange for lip service.
In case anyone hasn’t read it, Camels With Hammers’ post on the topic of forgiveness was thorough and well-written. https://proxy.freethought.online/camelswithhammers/2011/11/23/on-not-pologies-forgiveness-and-gelato/
That “forgiveness” is just fealty to an imaginary sky daddy, and is thus worthless from pretty much any measure.
Maybe this is well-trodden territory from the other threads which I didn’t feel like reading, but I think the entire concept of “forgiveness” is incoherent. What has happened in the past is in the past and is done. To me, it’s a matter of gauging whether someone has learned from it, and giving him/her the chance to not do it or something like it again in the future. I don’t know if that maps one-to-one onto the concept of “forgiveness”, but I also don’t think that everyone necessarily deserves that from everyone. Not everyone is going to like you, and they’ll have their reasons. Sometimes all you can do is move on.
I have a better idea. Stay out of the kitchen, since you obviously can’t stand the heat.
Perhaps it’s that “forgiveness” is sort of bundled in with the concepts of “redemption” and “salvation”, and seen as this universal need. I don’t feel comfortable in the position of granting forgiveness to anyone, I’d rather just let my actions speak for me.
That’d be pretty spiteful. The man’s an ass (made even more obvious by the linked interview) but not enough so to side-track a lecture or talk just to make him feel unwelcome.
It’s reassuring to know that isn’t something you’d do and resent feeling the impulse for.
Andy never asked forgiveness. He made excuses and then claimed that he was forgiven by God, so it didn’t matter anyway.
Sorry, Andy, NOTHING IS SACROSANCT with scientists, especially superstitious nonsense.
The Pint, well as far as Skepticism goes this is true: “just because he is a member of a religious majority, it doesn’t mean that his beliefs are going to be treated as a special exception.”
The problem is most of the majority Christian population of the US are indeed given special excemptions to spew their bulls**t touting their prayer and god beliefs. Atheists are the last and most discriminated against group left to address the question of discrimination against a particular group.
I liked the notion of mocking and ridicule as motivating methods to cause re-evaluation of one’s religious beliefs.
I, for one, never had to be ridiculed as I was for 2 years from ages 8-10 in an orphanage run by Pentecostal Fundamentalists, and had church 3 times each day, 7 days a week. And I often was called a troublemaker, and godless brat, and beaten severely physically for my impudence against their GOD. Out of self protection, I played the game after a while, for a while at least until I could lesve, as I began to hate being beat up by the adult staff members. As soon as I left there and was in a less Xian indoctrinating environment(a Methodist orphanage), I felt much better and turned my back on the dumb ideas of saving souls for Jesus, their prime prerequisite for not getting beat up.
I was not in a position to resist those forces at that time, but as I got away from all that and was able to be on my own after graduating high school and college, it was clearly stupid to believe in the GOD of the Xians, or any GOD for that matter. No, I didn’t need mocking or ridicule to question my beliefs, all it took was for me to see(at the tender age of 8) that on the one hand the Pentecostal staff talked about GOD’s love and on the other hand physically abused me almost every day for just asking relevant questions they could not answer and so used me as their punching bag to make up for their unconvincing GOD arguments.
just because people need to be constantly reminded that ridicule IS an effective strategy in changing behavior and thinking:
http://www.iwp.edu/news_publications/detail/ridicule-an-instrument-in-the-war-on-terrorism
So to this guy, existing and having views different than his counts as ridicule and mocking.
Tempest. Teacup. Whatever. Seems like we have more important things to worry about than bunching our panties up over some ice cream dude who worships an invisible sky asshole. Posting about how you don’t accept ice cream man’s apology because foad ice cream guy just pulls you down to their level. Hell, (wrt other blogs) making blog posts about how you *do* accept apologies from ice cream guy because cwajga? just drags you down too. Forget ice cream guy, he is not the macguffin you are looking for. More science please. More bits on social justice please. Less on tempests and teacups please.
Nobody has the right to not feel insulted. Drennen apparently thinks he has that right, at least as far as his religious beliefs are concerned.
One of the comments on Mriana’s blog says: “To be fair, Brother Sam’s show wasn’t there for the entertainment of Christians.” This is a major point (one that, alas, Mriana deftly sidesteps). Br. Sam was lampooning the type of church meeting which Drennen had attended. Br. Sam was mocking something Drennen holds dear. Drennen got angry and reacted in a childish manner.
Later Drennen realized that what he did was wrong, illegal, and/or over-reaction so he took down his sign. But he still doesn’t understand the point that he has no right not to feel insulted. Quoting Mriana:
First of all, some people are reached through mockery and ridicule.
Secondly, being a mature adult means accepting that other people hold views and opinions you do not. It’s perfectly acceptable to argue with those holding different opinions. It is not acceptable to punish those people by withholding commercial service from them.
Lastly, Drennen is tone trolling.
I don’t believe Drennen understands why some people refuse to accept his apologies. He’s still feeling his religion shouldn’t be ridiculed and until he realizes that it’s a legitimate target for ridicule, then I, at least, do not accept his apology.
Raymond, was it UPC? Growing up in a UPC church, I can only imagine with horror what it must have been like to be under their control 24/7.
Art Vandelay:
Are they daft? Religious people insult atheism all the fucking time. “The fool says in his heart there is no god”, pot-shots about “scientism”, moronic creationists mocking evolution, the constant assertion that atheists are atheists because they don’t want to adhere to Christian morality. What world do they live in?
Rey Fox quoting interview:
Didn’t one of his previous apologies mention the fact that he went there expecting them to talk about their skepticism regarding UFOs? Is he just excluding UFO belief from “any other worldview” or was he seriously wanting to sit on a skeptical lecture about UFOs that, in no way, suggested that belief in UFOs was ridiculous?
Mriana brought it up to him directly and made him think about it:
mox #18
Your concern is noted.
Neighbor: “You stole my car and the wrecked it?!”
Me: “Don’t worry. PZ Myers forgave me.”
Neighbor: “I’m so blessed.”
You know, at the beginning of this whole affair, I thought PZ was overreacting. Why not just accept the apology and let Gelatoguy fuck off back into obscurity? But then I’ve read more of PZ’s and some others’ thoughts (Daniel Fincke of Cammels With Hammers and JT Eberhard) and realized that I was completely in the wrong.
Gelatoguy is the one who keeps digging that hole. He fucked up, he apologized, but he has no right to demand the acceptance of his apology or shift blame on others. He obviously still thinks that his action was a justified overreaction. And he doesn’t even seem to realize what all those mean atheists who won’t accept his apology are actually talking about. It seems the story is going to turn into a typical martyrdom of a poor persecuted Christian who gets abused for a minor mistake.
“Can people forgive the mistakes of others, which they might find deeply offensive and hurtful?”
Is this a question to be answered?
If Drennen is asking this then the answer can be yes people can forgive others. But only on a personal basis does the forgiving have any meaning.
It’s not a magic trick to forgive but it may as well be sometimes.
this is becoming like the woman/elevator debacle.
Looks like Drennan is doing the best he can sincerely and this blog is going for blood or some other extreme.
Let it go people. Just try to fuckin’ enjoy what is left of your day.
This is priceless. The level of false equivalency here is stratospheric. We mock christian beliefs as irrational, but more often than not christians tell us that we are going to be tortured for eternity for not believing in their god. They say it in all seriousness,and they say that we deserve it for thinking for ourselves.
Of course, GelatoGuy doesn’t agree;
Unfortunately for GelatoGuy, the bible is pretty specific about unbelievers going to hell, so the ranting preacher is technically simply following the teachings of that nasty book of fairy tales accurately, it is GelatoGuy who is cherry picking in order to make his religion appear less obnoxious than it is.
I also couldn’t help but notice the “even Muslims” bit – how generous of GelatoGuy to grudingly admit Muslims to the human race…
GelatoGuy really is off with the fairies. When did anyone state that they expected him to renounce his beliefs? They called his religion irrational, which it manifestly is since it flies in the face of evidence. They may even have stated that belief in a magic sky fairy is foolish, which is also a fair assessment, but this still doesn’t amount to anyone trying to coerce him to give up his beliefs. This sounds like an admission of the truth behind GelatoGuy’s actions – he is simply offended by the mere existence of atheists. He sees the very fact that we do not believe as he believes and are not shy about saying so as a threat to his
delusionsreligion.How typical that the theist whining about mockery and supposed intolerance is the one who is trying to silence all voices that dissent from his unevidenced faith.
@mox, sounds like it is time to start your own blog so that you can fill it only with stuff you consider relevant.
Translates to: “I’m not infinitely better than you, just lots and lots better.” Christian humility at its finest.
Like, if PZ says only atheists have Junk DNA, while Christians have god-given, purpose-bound DNA, the talk might be just about acceptable.
Drennen’s claim is just false to fact. You absolutely can reach people with mockery, even with mockery of them. One of the things that kicked me out of woo belief was reading writers, I think Greta Christina was a main one, who insulted what I was believing just as much as she insulted the religious stuff I already knew was bull. Sometimes a joke is just what you need to draw people’s attention to how ridiculous something is. When used well, humor is like a jumper cable for the mind, it shocks people and their brains start up again.
Sometimes humor just offends people instead; they get mad and their brains shut down instead of starting up. That’s why it’s not the only tool in the rhetorical kit. But you can’t say “Waah waah, you atheists shouldn’t use an important part of public discourse because it makes me feel bad.” And the way he phrased it, making it sound like he was only trying to give us helpful advice – isn’t that called a “concern troll”?
I’d actually forgiven him for the sign, sort of – I mean, I still thought he was a jerk, but whatever, people are stupid when they’re angry. But now his bigotry has generated a media platform, and he’s using that platform to spread a message that aims to inhibit atheists from speaking. This is his legal right, which denying service to Skepticongoers was not, but it’s also much more harmful and wrong than not serving ice cream to atheists for ten minutes.
Sounds like Andy is too ignorant to realize that unless one is dealing with a creationist’s idea of “junk DNA”, there is no reason to bring up neither atheism nor christianity.
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(and many other similar comments)
…Maybe it’s the laughter that Christians object to. My natal fundie branch, like many others, didn’t care much for good music, good food, fantastic art, bright clothing, dancing, non-missionary-PIV sex, or basically anything enjoyable that showed a little imagination or diversity. Maybe atheists HAVING FUN (at their expense) is just too horribly threatening!
I’d feel a lot less hated if Christians merely LAUGHED at atheists/gays/kinky/whoever instead of all the other crap they pull.
@Mox
Less ignoring of atheist discrimination from knuckle-dragging fucktards like yourself, please.
@ Carlie #22:
Fair point, and I’m glad that she made him think about it. I do wonder, however, if Drennen has stopped to think about why he thought it would even be ok for those moments to put up that sign – that because he is a member of a majority, that he could get away with putting it up in the first place, and then backing off with a mea cupla. At the very least, I’d like to hope that the whole experience has got him thinking about the fact that not everyone shares the same beliefs as him and why it is that many atheists reacted so angrily to his actions (much less why many of us are angry about what his actions reflect regarding the experiences of non-Christians in this country).
I gave up xianity because the people were so damned mean. Couldn’t take the abuse anymore, and couldn’t wrap my head around the nasty stuff, so now I’m a pagan. Of course, atheists will scratch their head at pagan beliefs, but ours, at least, are fun.
mox:
If you don’t understand how being refused service in a public establishment is a social justice issue, I’m not really sure I can explain it to you.
Anyone else notice that PZ’s last name is spelled Meyers, not Myers?
In the article that is, not in real life. I haven’t had my morning cup of coffee yet, sorry.
As I see it, the guy would deserve some kind of forgiveness if he had actually learned from his mistakes and become a different person as a result. It appears to me that he quickly took down the sign when he realised that it was illegal, and therefore, as a consequence he might get his arse sued off, and also that he was pointlessly turning away hundreds of customers with pockets full of money.
If you hold to a religion that includes talking animals, magic food, dead people coming back to life and the daft notion that you are going to carry on being alive after you are dead, I really don’t think that you can complain when people take the piss.
Noöne is asking you to forgive him. The question was about how Dremmel would reäct to a PZ Meyers, who I assume is some kinda firebreathing hellmonster.
Incidentally, I hope mr Dremmel is out on the barricades denouncing Pat Robertson and Bush Sr, since
@Anri 36: It’s not a social justice issue. Any private business is allowed to refuse service to anyone (with some caveats) for any reason. The only way this is a social justice issue is if Atheists are a federally protected class, which we are not.
sili #40
Anyone else notice that both Drennen’s and Myers’ names are misspelled?
No dogs nor niggers allowed.
Forgiveness, in Christianity as I understand it, doesn’t work on its own. You have to repent first, and work to make amends. Then, possibly, whoever you wronged might forgive you. (In theology, that would be God; in everyday life, that would be your neighbor.) It’s not a “get-out-of-sin-free” card.
(I don’t think that’s particularly unique to Christianity, obviously — I just think Jesus phrased it particularly well in the Sermon on the Mount.)
By all means: Please be as smug, condescending, and rude with regard to peoples’ beliefs as you can. When people think of atheism I don’t want them thinking of the nice librarian that helped them finish their homework or the geology professor who takes them out to lunch. I want them thinking about the shrill neckbearded, philosophically bankrupt assholes on the internet who think using terms like ‘sky fairy’ to characterize theism is a potent way of communicating. Then sit back and lament that atheists aren’t liked by the general population for some reason. But flying spaghetti monster am I right?? :-D
So, perhaps bad examples make good examples sometimes.m :)
(Oh wait.. Someone told me that smileys were something bad. Oops. My bad.)
Any private business
I wonder if the person who wrote that understands what the key word there actually is?
PRIVATE.
does your business cater to the public, oh, i dunno, like a retail ice cream outlet perhaps?
then it isn’t private.
duh.
I chose two of the flavours he likes, which showed we have something in common as far as ice cream goes, adding, “Everybody likes ice cream”. For the record, I chose White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake and Pumpkin Cheesecake.
They may damn you to Hell for all eternity, but everybody likes ice cream. So it isn’t all bad.
Unless you’re lactose-intolerant of course.
neckbearded?
ROFLMAO
philosophically bankrupt
yeah, because religion sure isn’t.
project much?
I’m sure Woolworth is gonna be soooo grateful to you for that.
–o–
I know, ’tis.
Icthyic, so, since religion is philosophically bankrupt, that excuses PZ? I don’t get it.
Oh, mox, even the supreme assclam, Crockett Keller, backed off his refusal to not train liberals and muslims.
People who don’t want their minds changed are not the people to look to for advice on how to change their minds. Duh.
Mox #41
I see that you’re not only a concern troll, you’re an ignorant concern troll. Atheists are a federally protected class. Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Pub.L. 88-352, 78 Stat. 241) outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion or national origin in restaurants, hotels, theaters, and all other public accommodations engaged in interstate commerce. In Torcaso v. Watkins 367 U.S. 488 (1961) the Supreme Court found lack of religion to be protected by freedom of religious expression under the First Amendment.
Wally, you do know that atheist were hated centuries before there was an internet?
Thanks ‘Tis, I was looking all over my stash for that!
BWE, a lot gets past you.
“But here’s the good news! I won’t set you on fire and stab you with a pitchfork no matter how idiotic you are!”
Your mockery feels pitchfork-fiery to people who are members of a community defined by the shared agreement to not mock each other for uncritically believing patently ridiculous beliefs, as long as they are mutually shared.
Those people value their tribal identity far more than objective reality, and they find your mockery painful. Which is OK by me — I never liked them anyway.
sweet plastic jesus, I just noticed Mox is ENTIRELY wrong in his whole post.
not only wasn’t this business private, but atheists ARE recognized, by SCOTUS, as having the same protection as if they were a “religious” class.
did you actually need me to cite the case for you, Mox, or are you capable of using google to find it for yourself?
oh, hell, for the lazy, like Mox, here’s the MOST recent case in affirming support for the already established precedent:
http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F3/419/678/617423/
I can’t easily locate the original case that set the precedent, but it had already been established many decades previous that for the purposes of the first amendment, atheists were covered as a group just like any religious persuasion is.
Mox, your ignorance is showing.
cover that up, please, it’s fugly.
Are “people who attended skepticon” a protected class or are we supposed to conflate that with “all non-religious people”?
Hey everybody, stop ridiculing the ridiculous!
Wally doesn’t want that.
What a fucking dumbass. Not allowed to discriminate on the basis of religion. Discriminating against atheists is discriminating on the basis of religion.
Yeah, I doubt that that would happen. They would think of those people as “The good atheists”, the exceptions to the rule. They will think we are evil even if we are completely silent. Even if we didn’t fucking exist. It’s part of the fucking Bible that people who don’t believe in God are stupid and immoral. Do you think that they would disregard that just because they met an atheist or two that was nice to them personally? It’s about as likely as racial stereotypes vanishing even when most people who know people of the relevant races notice that those people don’t fit the stereotype. Why let a few outliers ruin perfectly good prejudices?
Well, since he was addressing a comment that implied that the two things wrong with the mean atheists like PZ are that they are “shrill” and “philosophically bankrupt”, and we’ve already dealt with the arguments about tone a million fucking times…yes. Yes, the fact that religion is far more philosophically bankrupt than any individual atheist could dream of being deals with that complaint quite well.
Wally #60
Since the original sign emphasized that Drennen ran a “Christian business” and that he felt insulted by Brother Sam’s atheist program, it could be argued that the discrimination was against atheists. In fact, I am arguing that.
I can’t easily locate the original case that set the precedent
nevermind, Tis posted it.
Yes, the fact that religion is far more philosophically bankrupt than any individual atheist could dream of being deals with that complaint quite well.
frankly, I didn’t even see the need to respond.
it’s just BWE, after all.
I don’t know. What kind of skeptics attending Skepticon would be expected to not be welcome in “my Christian business”? When GelatoGuy has admitted his reason for putting up the sign was an act called “Atheist Revival”? You are far too late in the game to pull this particular charade.
He pointed out it was a Christian business because Skepticon was mocking his Christian religion. Stop pretending that attending your pseudointellectual circlejerk was analogous to Muslims attending the hajj.
If we keep it up, then maybe it will start functioning like humor aimed at everything else: people see it, then have to think about why they hold this belief or opinion in order to properly defend it against the attack. As opposed to the brain simply shutting down and returning the “You can’t make fun of my religion, that’s MEEAN!” reaction.
I want people to think of atheists as honest and passionate. I want atheists to be able to say what they mean about their thoughts on their own web sites and at their own conferences.
How is “sky fairy” not potent communication? It conveys the idea in a powerful way that forces the listener to try to figure out what separates his/her deity of worship from every other unevidenced fairy tale out there. If it’s somehow wrong or misleading, then the burden is on you to point out how it is.
And by the way, PZ has plenty of beard on the rest of his face.
What Andy Drennen and his fellow apologists (among them many self-procrlaimed atheists and skeptics) don’t seem to understand is that no matter how extensive, how heartfelt, how sincere, or how humble the apology, it just is NOT possible to “un-punch” or “un-slap” or “un-slur” one or a group after the act has occurred. Perhaps we should be thankful that Andy didn’t keep a loaded shotgun behind his gelato counter…
a protected class or are we supposed to conflate that with “all non-religious people”?
who’s “we”?
It’s the beginning of the holiday season, and I was feeling generous. I doubt it will happen again.
You can infer from the sign, which said Skepticon was not welcome in this “christian business” that the writer of the sign did not want to serve non-Christians. As such, the sign was discriminitory against all atheists (and really, all non-Christians), which is definitely illegal.
Crap, is it Non Sequitur Day again already?
So, we can score you a missing the point and two being dead flat wrong‘s in three short sentences. Record, do you think?
Since you apparently don’t believe that refusing to serve a segment of the population due to personal bigotry is a social justice issue, may I ask just what you’d consider to be one?
Not all social justice issues involve legal solutions – hence the term ‘social justice’.
Please be as smug, condescending, and rude with regard to peoples’ beliefs as you can.
I was just thinking how smug, condescending, and rude that statement is.
Wally’s pregnant.
Me:
I should also state that I don’t feel comfortable asking forgiveness from anyone, and would rather let my actions speak for me. Not to say that I’m above apologizing, and I understand the importance behind such actions and the importance of sincerity therein, but just leave the notion of “forgiveness” out of it.
Nah, he’s just got a turd in his pocket.
Which means he was excluding people from his business on the basis of religion. He conflated the entirety of Skepticon with “not-Christian” and excluded them with that explicit intent, based on his religion being mocked. This is still illegal, even if we can’t say for sure that “Skepticon” meant “atheists” (even if it was fucking likely). Your handwaving is pathetic.
I think you’re holding out for a free raspberry and rhubarb gelato. WTF is a gelato anyway? Firefox says it isn’t a word.
And by the way, PZ has plenty of beard on the rest of his face.
yeah, I’m still curious about that one.
neckbearder?
is that a colloquial insult?
I’ve never seen it before.
I had to look it up:
from the urban dictionary, of course.
‘Tis:
QFT.
I’ve seen GelatoGuy’s “apologies” as simple damage control from the start, now it’s morphed into a “I’m a good christian man, a young business owner, stop mocking me and my religion!” exercise. Just the standard whine of leave my beliefs alone, you nasty people who manage to offend me through your mere existence. The nerve!
Nah, he’s just got a turd in his pocket.
well, he certainly doesn’t seem happy to see us, so that must be it.
Google is your friend:
https://www.google.com/#sclient=psy-ab&hl=en&source=hp&q=gelato&pbx=1&oq=gelato&aq=1&aqi=p-p1g3&aql=&gs_sm=c&gs_upl=1446l3678l0l6465l6l6l0l0l0l0l340l1245l0.3.2.1l6l0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.,cf.osb&fp=a2761fc5b398cc1a&biw=1280&bih=797
What? I am supposed to attend Skepticon at least once in my life? No one at my atheist mosque informed me of that.
It’s just fucking icecream? BTW: I read the interview, and it wasn’t so bad. He’s the ice cream guy. He sells ice cream.
Now if the hotdog guy up in Madison didn’t sell me a hotdog because I said I was atheist, that would be another story!
Wally:
Nice of you to magnanimously grant your sacred permission. Without it, we’d surely be lost.
If these people don’t speak up about atheism, how will anyone be able to think of them as atheists?
Terms that make people sit upright in their chairs are – kinda by definition – potent ways of communication. If you don’t like them, you are perfectly free to shield your delicate eyes and cover your perfect unsullied shell-like ears from the mean mean meanypants on this blog.
As has been said many a time – for those that actually bothered to read the blog, rather than making a Drive-by Dump of Dumb – atheists sitting quietly at the back of the bus an minding their manners hasn’t really gotten us all that far in the last several thousand years. On the other hand, getting up on our hindhooves and shouting loudly enough to be unable to be ignored… that’s getting us somewhere.
I hate to tell you this, but the people it’s mostly pissing off are the bigots.
Pissing off bigots is a good thing.
Feel free to continue to be a doormat to the theists – murmur polite protests under your breath as they wipe their feet on you. If that’s your self-worth, by all mean, shine on you crazy diamond.
But if you ask me to do the same, I’ll laugh in your face.
Gee Wally, have you always been that stupid or did you burn out your cerebral cortex with drugs and alcohol?
1. Atheists are one of the most hated groups according to recent polls. The other 3 are <b<fundie xians, the Tea Party, and Moslems.
The fundies have discovered the secret to being disliked. Hate, hypocrisy, lies, bigotry, and ignorance all help a lot.
2. The No Religions are increasing rapidly as people drop the xian religion.
Fundie xianity is redefining itself as a social problem. One day they will be like the FLDS. Weird groups of dysfunctional people living in out of the way places and oppressing their women and children. The rest of us will be appalled but have no real idea what to do except keep our kids away from them.
There’s something about the mythology that’s been bothering me. Christianity is based on the idea that in order to absolve humanity of its sins, God (in the form of Christ) was sacrificed but then he came back and ascended to heaven. Did… did God call backsies?
I wouldn’t know. However, I wonder whether you could know?
Feel free to earn our contempt, horror, and amusement.
Oh wait, you already have. And no one can stop you.
Xians, creating atheists since 33 CE.
BWE, I am just going by the whines and howls that you have left on this blog. Also, pay attention. I am not the only one who has questioned your intelligence.
Man, that article was poorly written. It took everything I had to read the whole thing.
BWE #90
Obviously Janine’s comment got past you.
Down to trivial insults already, are we. They don’t make very good trolls these days. In the old days back in 2010, we could be getting death threats by now.
BTW, even my cat just said you are stupid.
Wally:
Really?
I figured he was upset that Sam Singleton was accurately portraying his religion.
Of course, with religion, it’s really hard to tell.
Candidly, if you were to look over the list of speakers, I think you’d see there’s nothing ‘psuedo’ about Skepticon’s intellectuals. We actually have some pretty smart people there.
Of course, you might not have agreed, and might have been disappointed by the presentations when you attended.
Um, you did attend, right?
Because otherwise, you’d be talking completely out of you ass.
And that’s unpossible.
Right?
many good points have been made about the expectation that christians have of not being made fun or feeling insulted by ridicule and mockery while at the same time they “testify” how all others who do not accept their god are condemned to eternal damnation and that is OK we should not feel insulted we should just get down on our knees and accept their god as real.
sorry but that is impossible I have not that ability any more the doubt that was always present has not diminished but grows stronger day by day.
As to the forgiveness thing that is their deal with their god not me or anyone else. No one is obliged to forgive anyone because they ask for it and if the apology is accepted no I am not required to forget it either.
I live in the real world where many people do not think as I do. I try do put that aside most of the time when dealing with people most of the time it just does not matter. So I could by his ice cream given the facts as I understand them now.
As far as I can see their is very little understanding of others nor empathy in the christians religion though some times there is a kind of pity for those who di not share their “salvation” which I find even more condescending. All in all they are pathetic and repellent.
uncle frogy
PZ, obviously you don’t need to forgive this guy but it seems like the conversation is now over and that you in part ended it. Imperfect, ignorant apologies are often offered but if they are in some way sincere they can not be said to be cutting off the person apologized to.
I happen to agree about your assessment of his apology in that it’s content is warped. But denying his sincerity simply ends the conversation. And his mind is exactly the sort that would benefit most from your thoughts.
I may be incorrect in my assessment. So I’m only asking that you ask yourself weather he ended the conversation or if it was you that ended it?
I think this post would have been better as a persuasive one rather than a declarative one.
You know an ice cream man should stick to just doing what he does, because then I really love him, I love his truck (it’s neat-a-neat-a-neat)and I love his chimes (they reel and they rock).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nu3TvC9CH18&feature=related
One more time….!
I don’t think the issue is whether or not PZ Myers forgives this guy in his heart, but whether PZ is willing to just let the issue die.
It looks to me like the gelato guy had never really thought about atheists before. He had a bad first experience with atheism that led to him being something of a dick. Then he realized he was being a dick, talked with a lot of other atheists, and realized that atheists are actually mostly pretty good people. Then he offered us all a discount on gelato. Sounds like an ally to me.
So I guess my question is why publicly shaming this guy is so important and what you’re all actually getting out of pulling this “never forgive, never forget” crap.
Good. The reflex to forgive persons with more social capital because they said the magic words (in this case, the exasperated faux-apology) is a problem, and part of how social power is maintained, because it gives the person with more social capital a way to force the person with less social capital to accept and participate in oppression.
Andy is not an ally I would trust.
I would suggest that you be very careful about those people you call allies.
So I guess my question is why publicly shaming this guy is so important
how about an example looking at the flip side of the issue?
why was Rosa Parks so important?
If you can answer that, at all levels, you can understand why Andy becomes a useful object lesson.
if not, perhaps you really don’t completely understand what the struggle for civil rights is all about.
there are a lot of excellent books on the subject though.
did you need some references?
Please notice that this is a response to comments made by Andy Drennen in a recently published interview. It’s not as if I’m running an anti-gelato campaign; if he wants to keep on whining, I’ll keep on slapping him.
@tchomp tchomp tchomp
If you read the OP:
He gave another interview, PZ did nothing except comment upon it. GG is the one with the issue.
dick is an unwelcome gendered epithet on this blog, you would do well to pick a new one in future.
it’s a horrible catch 22, ain’t it?
maybe you should just give up?
*fingers crossed for flounceage*
There are ways to fight privilege without being an obnoxious prick.
@tchomp tchomp tchomp
You really don’t have a clue, do you?
There are ways to fight privilege without being an obnoxious prick.
name them.
go on.
and while you do that, do be aware that ridicule has served well for changing behavior for thousands of years.
if you aren’t aware of that, I’ll probably mock you for your ignorance.
maybe it will convince you to be less ignorant.
#70. Ichthyic says:
‘a protected class or are we supposed to conflate that with “all non-religious people”?’
who’s “we”?
#76 ‘Tis Himself, OM says:
Wally’s pregnant. ROTFLMAO!
AND then Rey Fox says
“Nah, he’s just got a turd in his pocket.” and again ROTFLMAO
Fundamentally it is unreasonable to expect people to be allies all the time. There are times when allies are going to screw up. That’s life.
If you’re unwilling to accept any flaws from allies, you’re going to find yourselves very, very alone.
Here is a suggestion, name the non obnoxious ways to fight privilege.
But there is one problem, every success fight for civil rights were criticized for being loud and obnoxious.
Also, in case you missed what StarStuff! said, drop the gendered insults. Or many of us will be very obnoxious to you.
Fundamentally it is unreasonable to expect people to be allies all the time.
you keep using that word. I don’t think it means what you think it means.
A person whose first reaction to something he does not like is to act like a bigot is not some one whose actions I can trust.
Andy is not an ally.
Neither are you.
As if what he saw was for him or people like him. It was for people who have to deal with religious bullshit all the time. For one weekend they got to go and enjoy the company of people like them and laugh at religious stupidity without someone freaking out about it (well, until gelato guy came around). This wasn’t supposed to convince or (de)convert anyone.
Why do religionist always have to make everything about them?
What gives you the idea that Drennen is an ally?
As for not accepting flaws from allies, most of us do. For example, many of us were disappointed by PZ’s reaction to the bunny cartoon. He blamed the shit storm on group dynamics instead of all of the guys who insisted that there was no way the cartoon could be sexist. Despite this, none of us have left the blog nor has PZ been disowned.
But did he ban street preachers from his shop? Why not?
Heh. I may not be the smartest guy out there but i’m smarter than you. Perhaps you could show me where you think i’m demonstrating a lack of intelligence?
Can I get a GODDAMN! Brother Sam Singleton.
#100 tchomp tchomp tchomp says:
…but whether PZ is willing to just let the issue die.
Aside from the previous criticism that PZ did not pursue this…
It is important that PZ address the obvious persistent ignorance and bigotry in even the apology from this guy. We can’t let it rest though tone might be an important consideration. Ridicule can’t be used to exclusion most of the time.
‘Tis, this is tchomp, tchomp, chomp’s idea of an ally.
It is at #100. As Ichthyic pointed out, this person has no idea what an ally is.
tchomp, get a clue please. Gendered insults (such as dick and prick) aren’t welcome here. Try asshole or some other useful epithet.
RE: Ichthyic:
Rosa Parks was placing law enforcement agents in a position where they had to shame themselves in front of the entire country by enforcing an unjust law, or where they had to render the law unenforceable by showing that police were not going to actually recognize that law. That’s the entire point of civil disobedience. If you are civilly but publicly disobeying a shameful and unjust law (such as the Jim Crow laws), the police become complicit in your message whether they confront you or allow you to go forward. There is no parallel.
I dunno where you got your ethics from, but I always thought that objectifying human beings is generally unethical.
Well, for one, I think that increased visibility of a moderate face of a demographic is pretty important and has always been important in terms of combatting privilege. If you want to fight white privilege, is it more effective for people of color to publicly ridicule all white people, or is it more effective to work for greater visibility of people of color in politics, science, media, etc? How about fighting male privilege? Or whatever?
Furthermore, building bridges between communities and fostering discussion is an important part of fighting privilege. You have to fight people, not privilege. Privilege is bolstered by distrust and social segregation, and this sort of bad-spirited rhetoric just reinforces that distrust and social segregation. If you want to fight Christian privilege, the way to do that is not to show people how wrong Christianity is and how mean atheists can be to Christians who don’t fall into line, but to show Christians that belief in God or any specific god isn’t really all that important when it comes to getting along with other human beings.
You want an example, fuckface? Here is one. PZ has expressed his disappointment with many of the regulars here. Being the sycophants that we are, we pointed one that he was mistaken in his assessment. And you, fuckface, keep asking PZ if he is embarrassed by us.
That is a demonstrated lack of intelligence on your part.
But I suppose that you will not get it.
This incident is starting to look like the final moments of a broken marriage. Nobody can win this thing. Don’t worry about Mr. Drennen’s motives it time to step away.
RE: Caine who namechecks Baudelaire in a pretentious sort of manner:
Oh, I’ll cycle through all sorts of anatomical terms. You, for example, are an inflamed and festering vermiform appendix.
Some one who does not understand that many people thought that “uppity Negroes” were considered to be very obnoxious. Rosa Parks did not know her place.
Also, get rid of your romantic notions. Rosa Parks admired Malcolm X and the Black Panthers. And she kept a gun at her home.
Caine, I see that you already have a new friend.
Hmm. I thought i only asked that once. I could be mistaken but i dont see how that is relevant to my intelligence level.
Also, janine,
no u.
This might have been a useful analogy except for the fact that Andy and PZ did not have a relationship to break up.
BWE.
Bored now…
Hmm. Well, sorry i couldnt keep it interesting enough for you.
@tchomp tchomp tchomp
So, any event of the type that so raised Mr Drennen’s hackles are off limits? Do we need to have a guide book on the sensibilities of various groups so that we don’t cause distress and alarm if one of them happens into a sceptic event?
Good luck selling your manifesto to the xians, UFOlogists and assorted sceptics. Your fan letter to Caine in 127 labels you neatly enough, you are an irrelevance.
RE: Janine:
There’s a difference between marching on Washington for the right to vote and telling someone they’re a horrible person because they haven’t apologized the way you want them to apologize.
Who says I’m tailoring my opinions to his delusions? BTW, I apologize for misspelling your last name PZ. I’ll try to correct that. However, I left my personal opinion out of the article. His opinion has no affect as to what I criticize concerning religion, but I do have one question: Do you think his actions was up there with someone who abuses and/or molests a child in the name of religion or does not stop abuse and/or molestation in the name of religion? To me, that is completely and totally unforgivable, esp when one knows about it and does not stop it all because they believe it is “God’s will” that the abuse and/or molestation happens. I also find it inexcusable to accept the apology of someone who kills in the name of their religion. Andy did not do either of these crimes. Again, I feel this is a case of where we put the bar concerning what offences are unforgivable or inexcusable.
Secondly, since you believe that his action was illegal discrimination, and you feel that strongly about it, then why not talk to Dan Barker, the ACLU, the AU, and other such groups and see if you can get a civil case against Andy in court for having a sign, which discriminated, up for 10 min. If the FFRF, given Dan Barker was there and all, takes the case, which I doubt they will given the circumstances, but if they do, what is it you expect a judge do to Andy? Flog him? Lock him up and throw away the key? Get a stauros, turn it upside down, and hang him? ROFLMAO! Sorry, I shouldn’t laugh, because I know you are angry PZ and might even have fun hanging the man, but seriously, what good is hanging onto that anger over a sign that was up for 10 min. and the man end up regretting it after he did it? What psychological good is it going to do you? IMO, I do not think it will help you psychologically to hang on to your anger in this case. IMO, we would do much better to go after those who continue to abuse and/or molest children and women in the name of religion, as well as those who perpetually discriminate and do other crimes in the name of religion.
I don’t think holding a grudge against this man is psychologically healthy, esp when there are worse religious crimes than what this man did. I rather save my anger for the clergy and congregations who abuse women and children- ie WBC. I think they should be closed down and arrested for what they do to children. Such actions cause more damage, psychologically and physically, than a sign up for 10 min. and then taken down out of remorse.
I rather have a “witch hunt” and open season on WBC, Catholic priests, and alike people who abuse and enable abuse (sexual, psychological, and physical) of children and women in the name of religion (which includes many of my relatives), then go after one single man, who reacted irrationally to an atheist comedian’s act.
You may think I’m wrong, which is your prerogative, but I rather pick my battles and this one is not it. If discrimination and censoring of free speech is your battle for even 10 min of your life, then by all means, go at it, PZ, but it’s not my battle. However, if he made the sign permanent, then yes, I would want to file a discrimination suit against him, but what is the point when he retracted it? I don’t think a judge will do anything about it at this point, so I do not see the point of hanging on to such anger.
tchomp:
Good creative usage. See? No need for gendered or ableist slurs, Cupcake.
Serendipitydawg:
Oh, it’s no big deal. I’m pretty sure I know who our Idiot du jour happens to be. As long as they manage to stay on topic and check their epithets, I don’t care.
I see your problem. You seem to think that a specific type of apology is needed by us.
Here is the point; any kind of apology does not ameliorate Andy’s action. Andy’s attempts of trying to justify what he did just makes him look more pathetic. While Andy might learn from this episode, the truth is this, Andy is a horrible person.
For the record, PZ, I did think what he said concerning seeing one of your very educational talks was extremely close-minded, because the fact is, Creationists are just plain ignorant of science and stupid for not getting a REAL education. They do not want to face the fact that their god had nothing to do with them being here and that their concept of a deity is a myth created by humans. Andy really should see one of your speeches concerning DNA and Evolution, without worrying about criticism of Xians.
RE:someone else with a pretentious handle:
I don’t think I said anything at all about “limits.” I just don’t see how it’s helpful. Similarly, it wouldn’t be helpful to walk into someone’s place of business shouting “habibi habibi jihad jihad” or whatever, whether or not they’re Muslim. It’s just a duodenal move.
Tchomp, tchomp, tchomp has started shorting out so quickly.
Re: Janine
I’m pretty sure if this guy stumbled in and said “I have seen the error of my Christian ways and I reject Christianity in full and pledge to dedicate the rest of my life to the study of science and atheism” you guys would be a lot more forgiving.
Well it’s good you can judge a person’s entire value as a human being on the basis of a ten minute temper tantrum where no one was hurt and no permanent damage was done.
So Gelato Guy gets a pass because there are worse people out there? I suppose that courts should let petty shoplifters walk free, then, because of the existence of armed bank robbers. PZ is, I’m sure, quite well aware of the difference between Gelato Guy and, say, child-raping Catholic priests. For instance, he hasn’t called for the arrest and prosecution of the former, and has for the latter.
(emphasis added)
Seriously? You’re going to go there? If so, make sure to take your complementary porcupine for the trip.
Wally @ 45;
I know there is the three post rule here, but I think that your first post burned through all the benefit of the doubt you are going to get.
I don’t believe you. As a rationalist, I don’t claim that I can read minds, but I have seen this line of argument before – vague threats that our ‘shrillness’ will lead to our ostracision, and that we had better shut up or things will get worse and we will have done it to ourselves – always from religious apologists invested in keeping us quite. You are betrayed by your own words. You invoke ‘nice’ atheists, and then say that you don’t want people thinking about the fluffy, ‘nice guy’ face of atheism, but rather the supposedly “philosophically bankrupt assholes on the internet” so that negative public opinion can be mobilised against non-believers – by your own admission, your goal is the vilification of all atheists, including the nice, quite ones who don’t rock the boat.
But vocal atheism doesn’t help with that goal. Oppressed groups throughout history have only cast off their shackles once the established lies about them were dispelled. We have been feared and hated for millennia with no good reason, and quiet, inoffensive atheism has done nothing to change that. What it has done is create an environment where the most ridiculous canards about atheism could go unchallenged. Where religious apologists like you could create ludicrous strawman versions of atheism to prop up their own nauseatingly self-righteous piety, and no voice would be raised to challenge the lie, or so few voices that they could easily be ignored.
And that’s the point. Quiet, well behaved atheists are easy to ignore. They sit there and do nothing to fight the bigotry that demonises them in the hope that no one will ever know that they are anything else but another theist – that religiosity on their part will be assumed and their life will be made easier, while all the while atheists as an abstract group are blamed – without evidence – for everything from child sacrifice to genocide, and anyone who does stick their head above the parapet gets treated like a monster simply for daring to be openly different.
But the open atheists, particularly in an age when technology makes it so hard to isolate us from one another, are a different thing altogether. We don’t let the lies pass, we don’t settle for insincere not-pologies, we don’t allow the theists to rest on their unearned privilege. We won’t be silenced, and as a result we are always a voice countering the convenient image of the subhuman atheist monster that the clergy used to find so very useful as an all purpose theological and pseudo-moral punching bag.
We are wise to the gambit of saying that our outspoken nature is not helping because we know the truth – religious apologists like you are afraid of outspoken atheists, because you are used to fighting a false boogeyman, a effigy that existed only so that you could burn it for your own ends. You don’t have the first idea how to deal with someone who doesn’t simply roll over for you, and the old fall back of torture and mass murder courtesy of the likes of the Inquisition is off the table, while threatening atheists with hellfire is more likey to result in derisory laughter than anything else.
I know you want to shut us up, but that ship has sailed. You and your ilk don’t have the power to silence us anymore, and with every passing year the moral bankruptcy of your church becomes more evident to the world at large, and the gaps you try to squeeze your god into get ever smaller. The power of religion is failing. It may not be tomorrow, it may not be for a couple of generations, but the days of religious privilege are numbered, and I think that, at some subconscious level, you realise the fact.
The homosexual rights movement famously said; “We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it.’
I don’t think that they would mind if I borrowed and slightly adapted that slogan;
We’re here, we’re godless, get used to it. I don’t care if it offends your sensibilities. I don’t care if it makes you stamp your foot in impotent rage. Atheists are out of the closet now, and there is nothing you our your church can do about it.
Janine:
Trolls, no stamina these days.
obdec: Get off my lawn, you kids!
Icecream in Italian.
(Literally “frozen”.)
Heh. Habibi means “my darling”.
No. I need to see that Andy has changed his ways. That would not be enough.
Just as I will judge a parent who slaps an annoying child or a person who yells racist insults when confronted by a group of black people, I will judge a person by their “ten minute temper tantrum”.
Also, just so you know, I am judging you. And when you answer, just keep in mind that I do not give a flying fuck what you think. You have not given me a reason to do so.
Caine:
No doubt. It does raise the idiot flag and wave it vigourously enough to save some time, which is handy.
David:
:snorfle: That would make things interesting.
I think that increased visibility of a moderate face of a demographic is pretty important and has always been important in terms of combatting privilege. If you want to fight white privilege, is it more effective for people of color to publicly ridicule all white people, or is it more effective to work for greater visibility of people of color in politics, science, media, etc? How about fighting male privilege? Or whatever?
what WAS valuable was having WHITE people ridicule OTHER white people for their racism.
it still is, oh clueless one.
http://www.iwp.edu/news_publications/detail/ridicule-an-instrument-in-the-war-on-terrorism
I already posted this, but it’s a quick and dirty summary of the efficacy of ridicule. Hell, if you’ve ever read ANY Shakespeare, how can you not fucking understand the value of ridicule?
and, before you continue, NOBODY HERE CRITICIZES THE USE OF OTHER TACTICS.
what we are criticizing you for, is your ignorance of the value of using mockery and ridicule itself as a tactic.
was all of Skepticon nothing but one example of mockery after the next?
not fucking hardly.
so, in summary then:
I mock you for making a strawman of what the arguments actually are, in whole.
and I mock you for your ignorance in understanding the value of ridicule as a specific tactic.
here’s me, mocking you.
[insert relevant picture here]
RE: Janine:
Well, he got mad and said he wasn’t gonna let atheists buy his ice cream. Then he realized that he was being a dick, apologized, and offered atheists 10% off his ice cream. That seems to reflect a change in his ways.
Well, the child abuse angle is non-analogous. But in terms of the hate speech, I thought you were all about people saying anything they’d like and were all about defending people’s rights to be publicly offensive.
Ooh ooh, since you’ve judged me, please tell me more about what sort of person you think I am! Tell me what you think my religion, ethnicity, gender, sex, sexual orientation, political leanings, etc are! I am dying to know!
Dammit! I miss that earlier!
Fuck you, mrianabrinson, for even implying that PZ or anyone else here wants Andy harmed or even dead.
All I want for Andy is that he is so deeply shamed that he rethinks what he believes.
I see your problem. You seem to think that a specific type of apology is needed by us.
yes, that does seem to be a common theme in these threads.
maybe it needs to be put in large font or bold or something?
here:
ANDY’S APOLOGY IS NOT RELEVANT TO THE ISSUE AT HAND
if you actually READ what PZ is saying, he clearly doesn’t give two shits about WHAT Andy’s apology is.
I myself thought he was quite clear. I suppose it could be debated he wasn’t, but the idea that any of us here are looking for the “right” apology is just inane.
RE: David:
Or “my beloved.”
See also the meme’ing of the pepper-spraying cop from UC Davis:
Photoshop Justice
Misclicked and left out the quote from my link above:
RE: Ichthyic:
Blog post title:
Oh well carry on then.
And he still tries to justify his initial action. Not say that it was wrong. That it was justified.
No. It is not. It is about being able to control your actions. Andy has shown that he has poor impulse control.
I cannot and will not say a thing about any of those things. But right here and right now, I do declare you to be an assclam.
Well, janine may be bored but i am fascinated by this whole affair.
All I want for Andy is that he is so deeply shamed that he rethinks what he believes.
nope, I myself do not even want that, excepting that ALL OTHER self proclaimed “Christians” do the same.
like I said, Andy’s apology is, and should be, irrelevant.
that Christians feel justified in discriminating against non Christians is the issue, and using Andy to demonstrate that they DO, is absolutely the best way to address this issue.
let me re-explain:
The mere fact that Andy felt justified AT ALL… EVER, in discriminating against non Christians in a business that caters to the public is the issue here.
This is why, rightly IMO, an apology is not only unaccepted, but it is simply irrelevant.
If Andy goes off and tries to convince his fellow Christians that discrimination is fundamentally un-american, that would be just fine and dandy. It would, however, be irrelevant to his previous behavior, and it’s his previous behavior that is the object of discussion, not his current behavior, not his future behavior.
RE: Janine:
Well, he initially believed that atheists were rude people who shouldn’t be allowed to buy ice cream at his ice cream shop. Then he felt deeply shamed by his behavior. Now he has changed his behavior and has told everyone that he is willing to sell them ice cream…at a discount!
So I think this qualifies.
When you screw up an apologize, you’ve usually pretty much shot your wad. You have no control over whether or not your apology is accepted, or whether it will be deemed enough. What’s going to land on you is going to land on you, and that’s what’s happening to Gelato Guy. Everyone gets to decide personally whether they will let bygones be bygones, or engrave this on their heart like “Calais” on Mary Tudor’s.
But after hearing Greta Christina’s wonderful talk about atheist anger, in which she lists a number of major–sometimes life-or-death–things that we have to be angry about, I’m not sure I’m willing to bear a grudge about this until my arteries harden. This is one little xian asshole out of how many millions of them? And apart from the insult, he did no real harm. I doubt anyone at the conference was in danger of starvation for want of a gelato. In fact, he handed us a golden PR opportunity.
The question is, what do we do with that? We can flex our muscles, make an even huger deal of this, show everybody that we are a constituency not to be trifled with, even though making an even bigger deal of this will no doubt bring him thousands of xian customers, eager to assure him that the did the right thing. Or we can forgive him and demonstrate that we really can be “good without god.” There’s a case to be made either way.
Blog post title:
do you always judge books by their covers, too?
if so, what did you make of the National Geographic Magazine issue that had:
DARWIN WAS WRONG!
plastered all over the cover?
idiot.
RE: Ichthyic:
What in the shit.
Ichthyic:
QFMFT.
priceless.
Assclam, you keep missing the fact that Andy keeps trying to justify his action. But a discount goes of so fucking far to cover up the fact that Andy thinks that he was in the right.
Also, read what Ichthyic has to say at #162.
Also, you remain an assclam. No matter what your religion (or lack of), gender, sexuality and race might be.
Why am I not surprised that Caine understands what Ichthyic is saying but that the assclam is confused?
What in the shit.
you obviously have problems with reading comprehension.
shall I simply it for you?
problem: Xians discriminate against non Xians.
observation on point: Andy
solution: All Xians stop, forever, discriminating against non Xians.
point:
What Andy does after he discriminated does not alter the fact that he did.
I’m sure that’s still too complicated for you, though, so how about an analogy?
hypothesis: Racists discriminate.
observation: Someone discriminates based on race.
conclusion: There is evidence to support that racists discriminate based on race.
the observation is not countered by whatever comes next, even if the person becomes the next big civil rights advocate, and marries a person of the race they formerly discriminated against.
it still serves as an example of a racist discriminating based on race.
I *hope* that’s clear at this point; if not, I, or likely nobody, can help you.
Janine said:
No thanks. I prefer to make love, esp with a man.
Suing him is harming him? I thought that was deeply shaming him. Anyway, the comments I am reading sound like people want revenge. I admit a public flogging would cause serious damage to his person, but it would also cause shame, if not more anger on his part.
BWE:
worthless.
Anyway, the comments I am reading sound like people want revenge.
then you have very poor reading comprehension skills.
might I suggest this:
http://howtoimprovereadingcomprehension.com/
And this justifies your contention that any of us want Andy harmed or killed how?
And I repeat myself here; fuck you.
Its amazing how people find value in different things.
Janine:
I wish people would pay more attention to what Ichthyic is trying to get across. It wouldn’t matter if Andy issued an apology a day for the rest of his life, that is not the point.
The point is that bigotry against atheists is considered to be perfectly acceptable by a majority of people. That’s the problem.
I suspect Andy has gone from damage control to “let’s play this!” now, as I have no doubt he’s getting plenty of business from fellow Christians, consoling him over those nasty, mean atheists.
Janine said
Many people who were raised Xian do have stunted developmental growth or even missed some developmental stages because of religion, but don’t tell them that, because their reaction might be a 3-5 y.o. temper tantrum.
Its amazing how people find value in different things
quite.
Though it does seem pretty consistent that nobody finds value in your posts.
exception proves the rule?
Not accepting an apology = wanting revenge?
Not wanting to give money to someone who hates people like you (even if he apologized) = wanting revenge?
I don’t think that word means what you think it means.
How dare you say that! Andy is our ally! Just ask TTT.
mrianabrinson:
If that’s the case, your reading comprehension level is abysmal.
It’s amazing how you continue to contribute nothing of value or interest to this thread.
No. Nor have I even hinted that it was.
This is simply bizarre. I haven’t threatened the guy with anything.
I’ve said I don’t accept his apology. That’s it.
I know I’m so important to him that that rejection is tantamount to torture, it seems, but really…get some perspective here.
Icthyic, are you pretty sure that no one finds value in my posts, or do you mean no one who matters?
Shame is suppose to get him to rethink what he believes? I’m sorry, but wouldn’t an actual education about mythology be a better way or going about it? Most people who study religion and mythology end up being atheists. That is a sure way to get a person to rethink their beliefs.
Janine:
It’s that personal relationship with reality. It does things, man, it does things to my head!
And he still tries to justify his initial action. Not say that it was wrong. That it was justified.
No one has complete control of their actions. Everyone does things they regret. In the scheme of things, I think putting up an angry sign targeting attendees at a convention is pretty low on my list of priorities. I hate to play the oppression olympics, but come the fuck on. Protest against police brutality, racial profiling, SB 1070, HB-56, the Citizens United decision, etc. But you’re getting your hackles up over a sign that didn’t even target atheists in general and calling this the civil rights fight of our generation. Why? What does that serve?
Oh come now, I’m sure you’ve got this image in your head of who I am. Just go out and say it.
Well I thank you for your concern.
BWE, are you sure that your post have value, or do you mean hurr durr derp?
No.
I’m sure you’ve got this image in your head of who I am. Just go out and say it.
why don’t you project that for us on the screen there, boyo?
I’m curious as to what pops out.
are you pretty sure that no one finds value in my posts, or do you mean no one who matters?
strangely, I said what I meant. go figure.
The Southern Baptists has been shamed into lying about the racist origin of their sect. Just like ridicule, shame can work.
Now, tell us why you think that we want Andy to be physically harmed?
@146 Gregory Greenwood
That is an epic slapdown Greg.
I wish I could control my sentiments as well as that when writing a reply or response to theist dribble on t’nets!
But the inane and puerile nonsense they trot out just cracks me up.
Of course the reason theists hate and whine about incoming derision, mockery, ridicule and scorn is that they have nothing cogent to fight it with.
The spluttering of ‘be nice atheists and shut up…does not work any more…oh woe woe and thrice woe!
The laughter hits home in a manner that a thousand well constructed polite essays on atheism and brain dead theism can never achieve.
People are laughing at their belief, that is the bottom line their belief is so ridiculous that folk are actually laughing at it, that is something they never had to face before, and they are shocked and embarrassed to the core, they really cannot not counter it, except by doing something illegal and childish, that is all that is left…perfect methinks.
As for chummy getting pouty about term ‘sky fairy’ …well tough titty.
It is a fictional magik fairy that for some obtuse and vague reason they drool about and that according to their legend lives in the sky and watches you wank and abolut !…what else should it be called?…seems apt…spot on in fact.
A twisted perverted sexually inadequate peeping tom of a sky fairy!
Except theists wince at the name, therefore I shall insure that the term ‘Sky Fairy’ will never be forgotten in internet land.
Respect they demand ….laughter and ridicule they shall receive…seems proportional…if not truly biblical!
I’ve said I don’t accept his apology. That’s it.
well, you did say more than just that, thankfully:
“It seems to be an obligatory opinion of people who believe in mockable and ridiculous things that they will oppose mockery and ridicule.”
which is quite quotable, btw., though I probably would modify it:
“It seems obligatory that people who believe in mockable and ridiculous things will oppose mockery and ridicule.”
I could easily imagine Twain saying something quite similar.
RE: Ichthyic:
So this guy did something once for 10 minutes that he immediately felt ashamed of, and now he deserves to be publicly ostracized forever and made an example of.
Why this guy? I mean, there are many people out there who are much worse and who haven’t changed their ways. I mean, come on, this guy offered everyone discounted gelato as penance.
I mean, I’m generally on the side of thinking this guy was a bit of a bile duct for putting the sign up, but I think you guys need to rethink this crusade for a few minutes.
Just in case people didn’t know, BWE is also from TalkRats, although I wouldn’t class him with the rest of the trolls from TR. BWE has always been this dense.
“He [Drennen] does not know how atheists expect to reach others by using mockery and ridicule.”
What a bunch of shit. I would reply, I do not know how christians expect to reach others by using condemnation, judgement, and a puerile false love.
I bet this used rubber, Drennen, would think nothing about a public christian display of gay hostility, feminist hostility, or islam hostility.
By the way, in earlier postings I would have called Drennen a douche bag. My mind has changed on that because too many American pejoratives are implicitly or explicitly derogatory to women. That is why I called Drennen a used rubber. I don’t think the phrase is very catchy though.
PZ: it may be useful to have a contest on the best term for a used rubber. You could call it the Drennen competition and award a Drennen Prize for the best name for a used rubber.
Is starstuff an insult bot? At any rate, i wouldnt presume to judge the quality of my posts.
RE: BWE:
Don’t let the haters get you down. Haters gonna hate.
Is BWE a mindless troll? At any rate, I wouldn’t presume that s/he could use proper grammar and punctuation.
Um… sarcasm about the importance of you accepting his apology? I know I was being sarcastic, which doesn’t come across very well in writing. I don’t know if your acceptance of his apology is really that important to him, unless he perceives you as an “atheist leader”, which would mean, if that is true, he does not know what it means to be a freethinker. Part of being a freethinker is to think for yourself without anyone, like a preacher or leader, telling you what to think or do and by the same token allowing others to have their own opinions. I wish he would renounce his religious beliefs, but he’s not going to do it by us imposing our non-belief on him and I’m not sure how slapping him down is going to change his view of atheists, despite your anger concerning his sign being justified. I think it would solidify it, but then again, maybe there is something I don’t understand about your POV. Of course, if you were to say he is saying, “Sit down and shut up” and that needs to be addressed, I agree wholeheartedly. I already said I was not going to sit down and shut up concerning the abuses the church and it “sheep” commit, without apology because they believe some invisible man in the sky said so. Such statements just make them puppets on Sesame Street.
Thank you caine. I am also from AtBC, the now defunct RDF, secularcafe and sciforums.
Wait, why do you people hate TalkRational so vehemently?
How fucking hard do you have to work at missing the point. In the US, there is a christianist society. Being an atheist is about the worst thing a person can be. (Think I am kidding. There are people who think that murderer are forgiven by god, because they accept god.) Andy has been given a free license to discriminate against atheist.
And, as Caine, pointed out, there are probably fellow christians who are going to Andy’s shop and sympathizing with him about how mean and nasty we are.
So this guy did something once for 10 minutes that he immediately felt ashamed of, and now he deserves to be publicly ostracized forever and made an example of.
Oh, I do so love quoting Clint Eastwood:
“Deserve’s got nothin’ to do with it.”
Is BWE a mindless troll?
nope, just the regular kind.
his posts are too vacuous to determine if he actually is mindless or not.
Um… fuck you yet again. You were implying that PZ would enjoy lynching Andy. If this was your attempt at sarcasm, you need to do a much better job. As it stand, it makes you look like just an other assclam.
Janine, thank you for summarizing the fundamental doctrines of your movement in such a concise statement.
Thank you BWE. I am also from Who Gives a Fuck, the now defunct Do You Really Think We Care, Punctuation Is Important and You’re Not a Very Fun Troll.
sarcasm about the importance of you accepting his apology?
yes, because you simply refuse to understand what the point is, so it was worth at least trying sarcasm.
I see that failed too.
some people are just impenetrable.
Janine said
I don’t know that you do, but how much shame do you want the man to endure? He is ashamed of what he did, but he is not ashamed of his religious views. To make him ashamed of his religious views seems the equivalent of making atheists ashamed of their lack of belief- something the religious often attempt to do and sometimes it works, clear to the point that atheists stay in the closet. While the idea of closet Xians seems like a nice turn of events, it seems a bit contra-productive in getting them to face reality. It is one thing to live in Wonderland while in plain view, but wouldn’t it be something else to live in Wonderland while in hiding? Personally, I rather see what they are doing and address it as it come up in plain view. Shaming him into the closet out of fear or whatever isn’t going to get him to change anything. It might be more to the point to have him see Greta Christina’s talk on “Why Atheists are So Angry”. That might get him and other Xians to sit up and listen.
Non sequitur. But I expect so little from you.
How fucking hard do you have to work at missing the point.
I’ve concluded some people don’t have to work hard at this at all; I think they are just naturally gifted.
BWE, thank you for continuing to contribute nothing of interest.
Jim:
Douching was a terribly anti-woman practice designed to make women feel ashamed about their natural body odor. Repeated douching can wash away the lining of the uterus, making it not just pointless but dangerous. Douching can lead to infections and increases the risk of ectopic pregnancies and pelvic inflammatory disease.
Douche and douchebag* make very fitting insults in certain situations. Think about it.
Also, you can see here.
*We’re a bit more creative here, we like douchecake, douchecanoe and douchebisquit, among others.
Mriana, shut up.
This tired complaint about how being mean-n-nasty (always exaggerated) won’t effect any change has been debunked over, and over, and over, and over. Repeating it doesn’t make it true, and it doesn’t make us unreasonable just because you have an emotional aversion to candor.
Stop the fucking tone trolling.
I don’t know that you do, but how much shame do you want the man to endure?
I’m curious as to even what *shame* you think the man is actually enduring presently?
what I see is him getting tons of free publicity for his shop, at the minor expense of having his discriminatory behavior pointed out to him, which most of his peers would have agreed with from the outset anyway, and the rest are in such a tiny and temporal minority wrt to his actual business that they simply don’t matter in comparison to the free publicity.
oh man, poor Andy is really suffering.
but then…
NONE OF THAT IS THE FUCKING POINT ANYWAY.
I see that mrianabrinson gave an answer. But not to my question.
And even that answer is so off the mark. Yes. I want Andy to be ashamed of once having been a bigot. I want him to learn enough that he feels remorse. But in order for that to happen, he fist has to become a better person.
Why is this so difficult to understand?
RE: Janine:
Ok lemme put some chips on the table and ante up because trust me, my hand is a lot better here than yours.
There are a lot worse things to be in the US than an atheist.
What’s the chance that, just because you’re an atheist, you’re likely to be shot by police officers in routine traffic stops? Is it more or less than the many African Americans and Hispanic Americans who are murdered by cops just because of the color of their skin?
What’s the chance that, just because you’re an atheist, you’re likely to be illegally detained by national security personnel and interrogated? Is it more or less than what you have to worry about if you’re a Muslim?
What’s the chance that you’re going to be brutally murdered by a partner because they find out you’re an atheist? Is it more or less than the 25% chance that trans people have to fear?
And. So. On.
No, he discriminated against a convention because some of the people there said things that he felt were disruptive and insulting in his place of business. Then he realized that this wasn’t the right thing to do and changed his behavior. Within ten minutes. Ten. Minutes.
That’s not someone acting on “license to discriminate.” And that’s certainly not someone who was targeting all atheists.
Janine said
1. I already told you, no thanks. I prefer men, but I’m sure I could find you a lesbian woman more than willing.
2. I did not say that PZ wants to lynch Andy.
3. Cussing people out because they do not agree with you, like you do, also makes you look like an “assclam”, whatever kind of creature that is. I haven’t found such an animal, but OK, whatever. PZ needs to come up with a real picture of such a real creature. That would be an interesting animal for sure. As it stands, it looks like we have Chimps and Bonobos within the atheist community. You’re not the Bonobo.
You’re welcome. If it wasn’t for the idiot party from TR, that wouldn’t have been necessary.
Oh, and just because the idiots from TR are idiots, I’m Sinister at TR and I haven’t been active there in ages.
/derail
The xians don’t know either.
Hitchens: Xianity lost its best defense when it stopped burning people at the stake.
Since the xians lost the power of the noose, bullet to the brain, or stack of firewood, it’s been all downhil for them.
They long ago discovered that, while it is hard to convince people that the Invisible Sky Fairy exists, they don’t have to. It’s much easier to torture and murder atheists, apostates, heretics, and freethinkers.
You know what I find fascinating? That Andy went of his own volition to Sam Singleton’s Skepticon performance. He sought this place out. He has no right to expect it to conform to his personal tastes, yet people are acting as if he’s got a reasonable complaint about an entertainment mocking his beliefs! He didn’t have to attend. No one was “in his face.”
What the fuck wimpy atheists – is there anything you won’t roll over for?
BWE, thank you for continuing to contribute nothing of interest.
…or relevance, or accuracy.
in fact, even a sarcastic “thank you” isn’t worthy of effort.
a simple “fuck off” suffices. and will be forever hence my response to BWE.
consider it said, in perpetuity, even if I never bother to actually respond in writing to BWE ever again after this post.
Actually those aren’t my chips. My chips include being targeted for mass shootings by white supremacists and having to face illegal detentions and threats of being forcibly and illegally deported because of my ethnicity.
Last I checked, no one was talking about forcing atheists to show their papers.
Last I checked, no one was talking about forcing atheists to show their papers.
are you trying for the army of strawmen, or will you stop at a simple squad?
Josh:
Repeating and emphasizing in the vain hope Mriana will get a fucking clue already. The Intersections awaits you, Mriana.
Oh, and Mriana? We get that you didn’t come right out and say PZ wanted to lynch Drennen. What baffles us is how frequently (almost universally) the “nice” people like you vastly exaggerate rhetorical barbs by comparing them to violence. It’s really remarkable. I think it says something about the skewed perspective some people have about rhetoric and when and how it’s deployed.
Shorter me: why does your mind go to violent hyperbole by default?
RE: Mriana:
I’ve seen a lot of bivalves and “ass” is not really the orifice they bring to mind.
What’s the chance that, just because you’re an atheist, you’re likely to be illegally detained by national security personnel and interrogated?
what’s the chance you’ll be discriminated against?
oh wait, dreadfully sorry, there I go, talking about the point instead of your strawman.
fuck off.
RE: Ichthyic:
You’re the one who is saying this guy violated your civil rights by putting up a sign for ten minutes. I’m just pointing out that I can be arrested under suspicions of being Hispanic so maybe you don’t know shit about what is and is not a civil rights movement.
Josh said
1. No
2. I never said anything about anyone being mean-n-nasty. I’m not sure where you got that out of anything I said.
3. I am not trying to troll, but it is interesting how you assume that. Everyone is entitled to their POV. I already said many times over that PZ is entitled to it. So I don’t know what you are talking about with this assumption that I am talking about “mean-n-nasty”.
You’re the one who is saying this guy violated your civil rights by putting up a sign for ten minutes
are you saying he didn’t?
because that would be lying.
please, toss me more strawmen.
it’s cold today and they burn ever so hot.
Caine said
I know I’m walking right into this, but what the hell are you talking about? Maybe I’ve lived in the Ozarks too long or very few are understanding what I’m saying.
Uh… he’s getting dissed on a blog. A fairly well read blog, but PZ doesn’t have the audience that say Jon Stewart would. Heck, PZ doesn’t even have the audience that Stephen Hawking would.
As for “forever”, if Gelato guy never says another word about it, is anyone going to care much past checking out his shop (or not) at Skepticon 2012?
Old joke. I was ignoring it. And fuck you.
And yet you, yes, you brought up the topic.
Tone troll, I cussed at you because I hate false civility when countering extremely stupid shit.
Also, just so you know, many of the most hateful and vile shit I have seen had to swear words.
Find a decaying porcupine corpse and ram it up your ass using a vigorous circular motion.
1. He did, in fact, violate the civil rights of atheists. Under American case law, upheld by the Supreme Court. This is not controversial, it’s not a gray area, it’s a plain unavoidable fact. That you find it less egregious than other such violations does not make it not one.
2. You don’t need to compete in the Oppression Olympics. No one is taking away your legitimate grievance about being arrested for being Hispanic when they note a civil rights violation you find less problematic
3. Many of us here are, in fact, veterans of civil rights movements with regard to race and sexual orientation. Get off your high horse – you’re not the Only Wronged Victim of Discrimination, and your experience does not negate ours or make us stupid.
Uh… he’s getting dissed on a blog.
it’s irrelevant.
the “punishment” factor is nothing but a red herring.
…and it’s far from fresh.
don’t even bother to address it any more.
Stop bullshitting Mriana. I’ve got your number. You go on and on about how PZ’s reacting unreasonably (does he want him lynched?) but because you didn’t utter the specific words “mean-n-nasty” I’m totally bonkers and have no reason to infer that you meant to characterize PZ that way.
Are you stupid or a liar? You’ve done this several times in this thread. It’s the hallmark of passive-aggressive behavior.
Own your opinions.
But that is because and ONLY because we have no identifying physical characteristics. In America, we have been called non-citizens by our elected officials, we have been blamed for earthquakes, hurricane and tsunamis, for being the cause of the religious feeling the need to rape little children and the cause of other religious people flying airplanes into buildings.
So I’m not really sure what you are trying to get at.
Hey Ichthyic, multiple choice test! The rest of you can play along at home, too!
Who’s most likely to be the victim of discrimination?
1. A Muslim
2. A Hindu
3. A Mexican-American
4. An African-American
5. A woman.
6. A gay man
7. A trans woman
8. A rape victim
9. An internet atheist.
Take your time.
Stop with the Oppression Olympics tchomp. It’s stupid, it’s offensive and insulting to all people who experience discrimination, and it’s not necessary. No one here will indulge you. Why are you doing this?
Josh:
That’s a fact. One that seems to get conveniently handwaved by the faitheists.
tchomp tchomp tchomp says
You just hit the nail on the head, tchomp. While the sign reminded me of something out of the 1940s when Jim Crow existed, it was not like any of us were arrested and our First Amendment rights were violated. I even told Andy, that his sign, esp since I have sons who are 1/2 Black, reminded me that time. That is what it was, but only for 10 min. If he kept it up longer, then he might be in violation of Civil Rights or something to that effect. Thus, there is no argument about that, but he did not keep it up longer and none of this would fly in a court of law, esp after he apologized. I don’t know where anyone gets the idea of “mean-n-nasty” either. So, I am not sure why anyone wants to keep pushing the issue and shame the man when he’s already been shamed. I’m just wondering just how much more do people want Andy to pay for what he’s done. He’s not going to convert to atheism, so we just have to live with that fact, whether we like it or not. We are sadly stuck with Alices in Wonderland and do not see that changing anytime soon, even if we do publicly shame each and everyone of them everytime they make a childish action.
To be fair, tchomp, I can’t separate my atheism from my gender.
If threatened with rape, is it because I’m atheist or female?
RE: Randide:
Yeah okay.
So has the President of the United States of America. The problem is not that “ohnoes atheists are universally reviled” but that the right wing is full of complete psychopaths. The Gelato Dude doesn’t come across as a complete psychopath. He comes across as a dude who was insulted, did something stupid, realized that he was generalizing against an entire group of people on the basis of a single experience, and immediately changed his behavior, and has since had a lot of good things to say about atheists.
Hmmm.
Josh:
Check your email.
So I’m not really sure what you are trying to get at.
he’s claiming victimhood.
he thinks it relevant to the actual argument.
it’s not.
EOS.
Who’s most likely to be the victim of discrimination?
yet another idiotic red herring.
I sense an entire argument from ignorance as a followup.
the relative violence (and it IS relative) of civil rights violations has fuckall to do with whether rights are being violated, or what the effects of privilege are.
I have friends that have been forced to move from their neighborhoods because of discrimination, in the form of violence, directed at them. The source of that discrimination is exactly the same as that of Andy.
We can compare scars all day if you want.
it doesn’t change the fact that they are scars.
If you’re somehow thinking that fighting for civil rights for non-believers takes away from fight for rights for YOU, then you have it entirely backwards.
fighting for civil rights is a fight for ALL of us. not just for atheists, not just for hispanics, or blacks, or gays, or even, the religious!
Would you criticize the ACLU for fighting FOR the rights of religious leaning people?
I hope not, because they do, and it helps ALL of us.
so, either stop with the red herrings and showing us your fake scars, or get lost, because you’re not helping.
Josh said
I’m beginning to think you enjoy reading more into what is said than is there and even picking fights where none is really necessary. You can’t read my mind, so making such assumption is only becoming as the saying goes: You do know what assume means?
tchomp tchomp tchomp says:
Holly shit, guys! Do you see this counter-argument?! This person must be a fucking master debater! Don’t fuck with this badass!
While PZ sounds oddly stiff here – always a bad sign – every single charge laid against his slight stiffness, and it is slight and well-within his rights, really comes off as either an attack on a (wrongly-) perceived misstep or simple (and perpetually full-of-shit) concern trolling.
Religion – and abuse of power generally – depend on two things:
1. Telling people the boundaries of sexually-realated activities
2. Telling people when they can laugh (and especially when they cannot).
This sad, stupid, deluded Xian “Republican” gelato-maker (and I’m surprised he doesn’t call it “Freedom Ice Cream”, although perhaps he would have when Bu–sh– wars were initiated, if he had enough ‘Mer’kin “business sense” at the time) has now settled where all such people do: into a not-pology where he is the victum of suffering worse than anything in Dante – after all, his feelings were slightly hurt for a minute and he had some momentary qualms about his asshole-ishness!
Let’s drop this into the compost with the cracker and let it rot its course.
The most basic freedom is the freedom to mock.
And the most basic measure of an adult human being is developing a thick enough skin to accept mockery, and applaud and enjoy well-done mokery when its pointed at oneself and one’s most cherished beliefs and possessions.
In many ways, much of the time – and Xians know it as well as anyone – life really IS a big joke.
You do realize that there are people who read this blog who fits any of the first eight categories? Do you also realize that most of them think you are full of shit.
As for number nine, not only am I an internet atheist. I am also one in real life.
Assclam.
God damn it. You don’t have to like my argument, but do you even read? It’s been pointed out that YES, the sign was a violation of civil rights (note: no one here is claiming a First Amendment violation. Do you get that?) under American law. Seriously. You don’t have to believe me; you can verify this for yourself.
Now you’re going to get on the Oppression Olympics too? You understand, do you not, that your having half-black children does not negate the existence of other kinds of civil rights violations, right?
Caine: email noted and appreciated. How pathetic.
Sorry BWE but you’re just not as insipidly stupid as Wally. You need to up your game to be really taken seriously as the “troll on the block”. It’s a tough market… what can i say.
Caine, Fleur du Mal says:
Sorry for the derailing. Carry on.
Oops – wrong thread.
Nevermiiiiinnnnd.
Well, it is interesting to me to find such a well formulated statement of the fundamental truth around which the movement rallies. The statement was:
It might not be interesting to you if you were already taught the truth of it, but to me, who doesn’t believe it, it is interesting to see it so clearly stated.
In order to be an atheist, does one need to believe it?
And at least one President expressed the idea that atheists are not citizens.
And many people try to credit religious beliefs for giving the power behind civil rights issues of various sorts and in the process, eliminates the people involved who have no religion.
RE: Josh:
lol lookit dis.
My point is that there’s a difference between the fight against civil rights violations and the fight against privilege. What this guy did was ugly. It was ugly not because he somehow “felt he had a right to be a jackass to all atheists” but because it invoked some actual nasty crap. As Mriana pointed out, a sign on a window saying “no ___ allowed” hurts more than just atheists.
Furthermore this wasn’t a civil rights violation because it specifically targeted attendees at a specific convention. I’ve heard plenty of stories of attendees at sci-fi or comic or anime conventions being turned away from local businesses because they are disruptive. It seems to me that it’s bad business practice, but it happens and it’s not a civil rights violation. If the idea went through this guy’s head that he wanted to discriminate against all atheists and that he hoped to get away with it because he lives in a Christian-normative and Christian-centric society, then that’s a sigmoid colon move on his part. But it’s still not a civil rights violation.
Did he act in a privileged manner? Yes. Did he act in a manner that offended people? Yes. Was his apology warranted? Yes. Is it wrong to be offended by the sign he put up? No.
But calling this a civil rights violation is inaccurate. No one’s rights were violated. No one was kicked out of his gelato shop for being an atheist. No one was turned away for being an atheist. Furthermore, when atheists pointed out how his sign was offensive, he apparently graciously took it down and apologized.
You want to be offended? Go for it. You want to tell him that no apology is going to make you less offended by his action? Go for it. You want to continue to hate the guy because of this really minor offense? Hate your hearts out. No one’s stopping you.
But it’s not a civil rights violation. And if you think it’s a civil rights violation, then you need to go back and actually learn what civil rights are and what it means for civil rights to be violated.
Well, it is interesting to me to find that you’re capable of writing a post longer than two sentences.
It might not be interesting to you if you already know you’re a fuckwit, but to me, who doesn’t pay much attention to trolls, it is interesting to see fuckwittery so clearly expressed.
In order to be a boring troll, does one need to be such an idiot?
My point is that there’s a difference between the fight against civil rights violations and the fight against privilege.
then your point is, as I said, a strawman.
It’s pretty clear you intend to make yourself into a complete idiot so carry on.
Mriana, I was actually mostly on your side until you started writing in this thread. I’ve been in southern Missouri many times. A good chunk of my family is from there, and many of my friends, and many of them still live there. I understand the mindset that’s there, and how these kinds of things can happen, and how tightly people might be in a little bubble and go off the handle at having their ideas challenged, and I can certainly understand going there to give Andy a chance to explain, and I thought you did a good job of trying to prod him a little bit into understanding.
And then you started writing here.
What the flying fuck? Where did all of this violent imagery come from? PZ said he wouldn’t accept Andy’s apology and wouldn’t go to his gelato shop from now on. How the bloody stinking hell did you go right from there to insinuating that PZ wants to hang him?
That is seriously vile.
He’s not mad; he’s contemptuous. There’s a difference.
Janine:
Being a haffer, I note with interest that my race didn’t even make the list*. I suppose the idiot thinks we’re extinct.
*Although I do fit three on the list. Like yourself, I not only play an atheist on the internet, I’m one in real life! Oh my!
Can you please show me where I have written something objectively inaccurate? You have made it quite clear that you don’t like what I post. I am sorry it makes you unhappy.
if you [don’t] think it’s a civil rights violation, then you need to go back [and read what he said he was responding to]
fixed that for ya, idiot.
Paul Zed says:” there isn’t a set of stupid beliefs that you get to set on a pedestal and declare that no one can call them stupid. Go ahead and retaliate by mocking and ridiculing the stuff I consider important,”
Pull the other one, it’s Watson shaped.
Pteryx:”Uh… he’s getting dissed on a blog.”
But getting dissed on blogs is a “hate campaign” nowadays isn’t it? According to Myers anyway. Perhaps christian dude should be getting in contact with the authorities in case Myers comes near… he seems to be going over the edge.
I am sorry it makes you unhappy.
fuck off.
Here is a hypothetical situation. I own a small business. I have a run in with a muslim and I feel offended. I put a handmade sign up that states this: “I Run A Christian Business And I will Not Serve Sandniggers”. After ten minutes, I take down the sign and I apologize. And in my apology, I blame my action on the muslim.
What reason do you have that I have not violated any one’s civil rights and what reason do you have that my apology is sincere?
Thank you, tchomp. I think you said it very well and it was exactly what I’ve been trying to say before it all got blown out of proportion into something I never said or thought to begin with. This whole thing hurt people on both sides, as I said before, but right now, IMO, it is perpetuating in giving atheists a bad name, due to some people’s attitudes and I do not think that will help the atheist cause at all. It’s OK to be angry with the harm religion does to people, but I think we need to move on to something else in religion that does more harm than what Andy did. I am more angry about those things than I am concerning Andy’s sign, although I was briefly disturbed and upset by it. You said it very well. Much better than I did.
Says the person who turned this:
Into this:
Can you please show me where you’ve written anything interesting? You have made it quite clear that you cannot blockquote very well. I am sorry that you can’t see that what you write has no affect on my happiness.
RE: Janine:
Also not a civil right violation.
but I do have one question: Do you think his actions was up there with someone who abuses and/or molests a child in the name of religion or does not stop abuse and/or molestation in the name of religion?
Fuck you.
I had a therapist who tried to tell me that I should be grateful I was only gang-raped, because one of her patients had been raped by a serial rapist who liked to stab his victims with a screwdriver. Sorry, but someone getting stabbed while they’re raped does not make another kind of rape less fucking bad and wrong, you moronic shit-for-brains!
Getting discriminated against–and this piece of shit christard discriminated against an entire class of people–does not make his actions any less wrong or bad.
It doesn’t matter how bad some other stuff is THIS FUCKING INCIDENT IS STILL FUCKING WRONG YOU AMORAL DOUCHEBAG!
Got it?
For fucks sake, just how fucking stupid are you sniveling pieces of shit?
Pull the other one, it’s Watson shaped.
how many times did PZ respond to the mockery various asshats made of Watson?
well?
seems to me he had no problem with dealing with mockery of that kind.
so, strawman.
thanks for playing though.
IMO, it is perpetuating in giving atheists a bad name, due to some people’s attitudes and I do not think that will help the atheist cause at all.
wait, that’s what you think tchomp said?
reading comprehension problems are contagious.
With just one statement, Munkhaus has matched the stupid that so many trolls have worked so hard to establish.
so you don’t accept my apology?
BWE:
So you don’t accept that I don’t give a fuck?
And at least one President expressed the idea that atheists are not citizens.
no, that’s actually a violation of the establishment clause.
goddamn you’re a fuckwit.
Hmm. Christians are pieces of shit because of their beliefs?
And if Bush the Elder had his way, we would not have civil rights to violate.
Thank you for playing, fuckface.
Ichthyic says some good stuff, like this:
But there there’s this:
This is the point where I disagree. It seems to me that people are conflating “accepting an apology” with “forgiveness”. An apology is the acknowledgement that you did something wrong. It can be grudging as you like, but it’s still effectively a surrender, and accepting an apology is acknowledging that surrender. Argument settled, we are in the right, we win. Bang the gavel, case closed, you lose.
Forgiveness is a different issue, and much bigger. For that, not only does he need to apologise, but also take further action. Perhaps change his ways, perhaps make reparations. And since he’s been so ungracious in continuing to push the issue and make it clear that his apology was forced rather than genuine, forgiveness doesn’t look like an option.
Also, if he does want the issue to drop, then he should shut up about it. And especially stop trying to justify it, because every time he does that, it’s a new offence.
Ichthyic’s main point about holding him up as an example is quite valid, and I agree there. Bang the gavel, case closed, you lose – AND you are now part of the permanent record, and may be held up as an example. History is not erased with judgement.
so you don’t accept my apology?
you’re not funny.
never were.
Hmm. This troll is worthless for anything other than mild amusement?
Listen, if you’re too prideful to admit that you are wrong, just go away. No need to trump your previous stupidity with proof that you don’t know what you are talking about in regards to anything.
No, Carlie, that wasn’t meant to be homophobic. I honestly am attracted to men. That’s not being homophobic, that’s being heterosexual, because that is what I am. I’m sorry if you took that to mean I do not like homosexuals. That is hardly true and I have some very good friends who are homosexuals and transsexuals. I’m just not turned on by the same sex anymore than they are turned on by the opposite sex. That’s just the way it is. Some people are homosexuals and some people are not.
I’m not racist! I have friends who are black!
Alethea H. Claw, the problem is this, many people would like to treat an apology as a clean slate, as if the offending action never happened. Also apologies can be used as an excuse to not change your actions.
I said I was sorry, what more is needed?
Here’s the deal. When you make responses this dumb, any response looks like trolling. I accept that your opinion is your opinion. I do not accept the fundamental doctrines of your movement as truth. Does that make me a fuckfuck? Or, assuming I am an idiot, that that make me a piece of shit? Or assuming I am brilliant but disagree with you, does that make me evil?
A civil rights violation is a violation of one’s civil rights, that is, one’s rights as guaranteed by the law. For example, I have a right to free religious expression, a right to free speech, a right to an attorney, a right to not be forced to testify against myself, a right to privacy, a right to require that law enforcement agents get a warrant before searching my stuff, a right to not be fired for the color of my skin, my religious beliefs, gender, sex, or sexual orientation, and so on. These are rights because they are guaranteed by law.
So if someone violates those laws, that’s a civil rights violation. For example, if someone is fired from their job for being an atheist, that is illegal. It is a violation of one’s guaranteed civil rights. It is a civil rights violation.
So now show me the law that says that you have a right to never encounter a sign on a business that offends you.
This is the point where I disagree. It seems to me that people are conflating “accepting an apology” with “forgiveness”.
no.
I’m not, and that’s not the point, either.
His apology is irrelevant.
my forgiveness is irrelevant.
all that IS relevant is using Andy’s original behavior as yet another datapoint; yet another example of how xians feel justified in discriminating against non believers, for whatever reason; in this particular case, simply because he felt his beliefs were being mocked.
that’s all there is to it.
I don’t accept his apology, because it simply isn’t relevant.
I spelled this out quite clearly, and even said that if Andy went on to try and convince his fellow xians to not discriminate, that it would be fine and dandy. Hell, I’d be happy to grant kudos; even buy him a beer.
….but it wouldn’t be relevant, and I wouldn’t accept his apology for the same reason.
The Gelato Dude doesn’t come across as a complete psychopath.
Psychopaths at least have an excuse for acting like they do because they’re–you know–suffering from mental illness. What’s this scumbag’s excuse for acting like a bigoted piece of shit, huh? You ask me, he’s WORSE than a psychopath, because he’s supposed to fucking know better.
I mean, seriously, did you think that through at all before you decided to smear the mentally ill?
He comes across as a dude who was insulted
He doesn’t have the right not to be insulted.
did something stupid
And fucking illegal. You forgot the illegal part, asswipe. It’s illegal for a business serving the public to discriminate against anyone on the basis of the CUSTOMER’S religion, shit-for-brains. The sane people here have provided the statutes that back this up. Why are you being a willfully obtuse piece of shit and ignoring that?
realized that he was generalizing against an entire group of people on the basis of a single experience
In an illegal way.
and immediately changed his behavior
But not before doing something fucking illegal and discriminatory FIRST.
and has since had a lot of good things to say about atheists.
Name them. He’s said a lot of backhanded bullshit that is still trying to excuse his stupidity, from what I’ve seen. But then, I’m not a Step n Fetchit for religious bigots. Maybe if you’d stop sucking up to the bigots, you’d see this turd for what he is: A self-serving bigot. People who aren’t privileged bigots don’t put a sign like that up in their shop in the first fucking place, moron. That’s what you’re too fucking stupid to get.
And, no, I don’t have to forgive the bigot. You wouldn’t expect a black person to forgive this shit stain if he put up a sign that said NO NIGGERS ALLOWED. Not unless you were a racist or a pandering asswipe.
Fuck off.
I bet that they can even use your bathroom.
(Is this too much of an in joke?)
I do not accept the
fundamental doctrines ofthe strawmen I erect of your movement as truth.fuck the fucking hell off.
Here’s the deal. When you make responses this worthless, any response looks pretty funny. I accept that your opinion is stupid. I do not accept the fundamental stupidity of people like you as valuable. Does that make me smarter than you? Or, assuming you are an idiot, that makes you bad at trolling. Or assuming you are still an idiot but can form words, does that make you mildly entertaining (but still bad at blockquoting)?
You are a dishonest like spleen weasel. Andy was offended by a skit. In response, he put up a sign that violated civil rights.
You are a waste of meat.
So now show me the law that says that you have a right to never encounter a sign on a business that offends you.
do you NEVER tire of the endless parade of strawmen you keep re-erecting?
I’m sure you’d even let them use your bathroom. This does not excuse the vile homophobic crap you’ve smeared all over this thread, Cupcake.
Aquaria, I was a victim of incest which was enabled by Fundamngelicals, who said it was God’s will. That is far worse than anything Andy did, so before you get yourself worked up and say that what Andy did was up there, I call BULLSHIT! What Andy did was no where near that and I say go fuck yourself and don’t even try to compare what he did to that, because I will flat out call bullshit on you. You all wanted to see me get angry, there you go. You all just got it because sexual abuse enabled by Xians because they believe their god willed it, is far worse than what Andy did. So if you think I should not forgive Andy because it was up there with that, then you are all full of SHIT! What Andy is forgiveable in my eyes, but any religious nutter who abuses a child sexually, physically, and/or psychologically is unforgivable. If you think I must agree with you all, then that is not freethinking and is just as bad as Fundamngelicalism.
PZ, I apologize for my blow up, which has nothing to do with you, but all do with Aquaria’s bullshit statements of comparing what Andy did with sexual molestation. She’s full of shit, IMO.
RE: Ichthyic:
So George Bush Sr. is now “Congress” and an offensive but stupid public statement with no legal basis is now a “law regarding the establishment of religion.”
You’re fucking daft.
mrianabrinson #270
You’re absolutely correct there, Mriana. It hurts The Atheist Cause™ to have atheists objecting to being discriminated against. It hurts The Atheist Cause™ even more when atheists object to displays of Christian privilege and said atheists make their objections on a public blog. And then these very same atheists drag The Atheist Cause™ in the mud by not accepting an apology. How ever will The Atheist Cause™ survive?
Fortunately we have concern trolls like yourself to uphold the noble traditions of The Atheist Cause™. Keep up the good work, Mriana. The Atheist Cause™ will only survive in you keep a stern eye on the wicked atheists who dare to come out of the closet.
Your concern is noted, cupcake.
When you make responses this worthless, any response looks pretty funny.
huh.
you’re right.
I chuckled.
mriana, now you’re being disingenuous as well. You tried to score snark points off of someone else’s sexual orientation. I am seriously disappointed in you. You seemed like a decent person until this thread came along.
Janine @ 294:
I owe you a drink. ;)
So George Bush Sr. is now “Congress”
he was president of the US when he said it.
strangely, the establishment clause applies to him too.
it also applies to schools.
but schools aren’t congress…
whoah!
see what I did there?
Bullshit apology. You said that shit about PZ having fun hanging Andy long before Aquaria showed up.
As for the bit about worse things happening. All of us has worse things happen to us then what Andy did. That does not fucking excuse what Andy did.
Why is this so fucking difficult to understand?
Janine,
I guess I don’t see him as asking for a clean slate; just another chance.
He seems highly passive, in a why-can’t-we-all-just-get-along, hand-wringing sort of way. He overreacted and then seemed to regret it for whatever reason. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think it was at least partly the negative response that he received.
I do like how he did say “I was wrong” (even if he immediately followed it by a story of how he came to be insulted) instead of playing the ‘atheist==evil’ card to gain further sympathy and support from other Christians. That is more or less what Wyndgate Country Club did when faced with the Center of Inquiry and Dawkins.
That chance has to be earned.
This is an outright lie. Keep diggin’ that hole, Cupcake.
And Aquaria never said that it was. The comparison was the therapist dismissing her experience because someone somewhere else had it worse being like people like you saying that this case of discrimination isn’t so bad because other people somewhere have it worse. Andy and his actions never came into it.
Your blow up was far upthread of that.
Why is it that atheist accommodationists are never accommodating to other atheists, I wonder?
So, you found reinforcement for your beliefs?
I wonder how you would react if your beliefs were mocked. Hmm.
In before No u.
So George Bush Sr. is now “Congress”
let’s try this:
What if Obama in his next SoU address, stated that he considers that all hispanics should no longer be considered citizens of the US.
Hell, I bet YOU can even find some government official in Arizona saying something similar, right?
would the ACLU file suit?
If you think so, and you should, what would they file suit under?
It’s yourself that doesn’t understand what civil rights are, what the establishment clause has been interpreted by SCOTUS to protect, what the relationship of that has been to the civil rights movement, and YOU who are thus making it just that tiny bit harder to fight for civil rights.
it’s this reason that I find you so detestable, even though we SHOULD be on the same side on this issue.
So, you found another thing to respond to without saying anything interesting. Hmm.
Inb4: if you’re going to do this, do it right.
So, you found reinforcement for your beliefs?
all you’re trying to do is create a strawman and label it “hypocrisy”.
In short, you’re an idiot.
now THAT is a belief of mine, that you really are an idiot, though I have to say it has been constructed from observing years of your inanity, both here and at ATBC.
fuck.
off.
<blockquote<Ichthyic says:
27 November 2011 at 5:24 pm
I do not accept the fundamental doctrines of the strawmen I erect of your movement as truth.
fuck the fucking hell off.
Well. There seems to be a misunderstanding. If I am erecting a strawman here, then I am most certainly in the wrong wrt that post and quote possibly my entire issue regarding the gelatocaust.
Do I or do I not need to accept that “In the US, there is a christianist society. Being an atheist is about the worst thing a person can be.” as absolute truth in order to make you happy?
What could I believe that would make you happy?
I wonder how you would react if your beliefs were mocked.
go ahead.
try and mock my belief that you are a dishonest, idiotic, fuckwit.
at least it would be entertaining.
naww, on second thought, you’d probably fuck that up too. just…
fuck off.
Janine,
You wrote that the chance has to be earned- is there a way for an accommodationist to earn this without giving up their accommodationist position?
He just sounds a Christian one in the interview.
Regardless, his action was wrong and can be held up as an example of Christian privilege. I think I may be more willing to allow him that second chance than others on here- even if I’m unwilling to give him a clean slate.
What could I believe that would make you happy?
Well, you could believe that simply fucking off would make me happy.
but then, I suppose you’d never be able to confirm it if you did.
If you cared about science though, you’d try and run that experiment.
I suggest letting it run for at least a month.
I’ll let you know when I’m happy in your belief.
Hmm. I’m pretty sure I’m succeeding but I don’t think it’s a strawman.
I am open to the possibility that I could be wrong though.
Well. There seems to be a misunderstanding. This troll seems to think s/he is intelligent and has something worthwhile to say. But s/he is certainly in the wrong.
Does s/he or does s/he not need to accept that “No one gives a flying fuck.” as reality in order to get over her/his self?
What could you do to be any more boring? (Maybe learn to blockquote)
I guess you are more forgiving than I am. If he were in my town, I would never go to his business. I have stopped going to other businesses that had bigoted displays.
Well, I guess I will never get to find out how you would react if your beliefs were mocked.
Hmm. I’m pretty sure you’re still failing at blockquoting things but I don’t think you’ll actually fix that.
I am open to the possibility that you could be even more of an idiot than I first suspected.
Well, I guess you learned how to use the “Preview” button, but it’s still fun to mock you.
RE: Aquarium:
Yeah Dahmer had an excuse but this guy and his sign? NO EXCUSE NO FORGIVENESS NO MERCY.
“Mental illness” is a broad category of disparate conditions, and what is considered a “mental illness” varies depending on the decade and the edition of diagnostic manual you refer to. TBH I think it’s a smear for you to assume that all mentally individuals are beholden to how we speak about people who literally have no sense of morality or empathy.
And neither do you! So glad you agree with me here.
Except he didn’t. He put up a sign that specified people from a single specific convention. He never specified anything about religion. If he wrote something like “none of them evil christ-killers, mohammedans, idol-worshippers, or godless heathen apostates allowed” he might be liable in civil court and someone might be able to sue for damages, but we’re not looking at a violation of rights. No rights were violated. There are plenty of cases where people’s right to freedom of religion is actually violated, and fortunately there are wonderful organizations like the ACLU that will stand up for our rights and guarantee that businesses and governments do not violate our civil rights.
Nope.
You can keep saying that but it won’t make it true.
Privilege and bigotry are different things. HTH.
And you guys are accusing me of strawmanning. lulz.
Quite honestly, I would just let the guy go. I think a non-honest apology is better than no apology at all. And it is still better than most intolerant Christians. It is also ‘just’ a not very sincere apology, it is not even an anti-apology or something like that.
tchomp: why do you keep denying that the sign was illegal? Seriously? I literally don’t understand why you’re doing that. It’s been explained that, since it was directed at a class of people (it was most certainly directed at atheists even if it didn’t use the word) on religious grounds, that the US Supreme Court has long held it to be a civil rights violation. For real-why do you keep denying this?
I see the strawmanning asshole is continuing to strawman.
Hey, asshole, why do you keep lying about civil rights? Is it because you’re stupid or is it because you’re an asshole? I do realize these two categories are not mutually exclusive.
@Janine: obviously I don’t think that an apology should mean “wiping the slate clean”, since I said that it goes on the record. Though it may be “clean” inasmuch as the metaphorical case has been judged and closed, the history is still public record and may be used as an example. Or when considering sentence for further offenses.
Do you think that the “clean slate” is part of the forgiveness idea? Perhaps a christian thing, getting washed in the blood and coming out white as snow? Apologise, and the magic fairy makes it all better! I do despise that Xian idea that all you need to do is to apologise, and worse yet, to someone *other* than the one you hurt. Ew.
@Ichthyic, I do see that you have a different issue in mind when you say that the apology is irrelevant. That’s fine, I agree that it’s important, and that the apology is beside the point for that issue. What doesn’t seem to follow is “that’s why I’m not accepting it”. If it’s not relevant, then surely it doesn’t matter whether you accept or reject it. Accepting it does not change your point.
I hope I don’t seem to be harping too much on the language, but I WANT to accept the apology, because I want to draw a line and cry VICTORY! We win! It’s quite fine to note that it’s only one small battle in a hugely bigger campaign, and that the asshat in question remains an unforgiven asshat. But we won *this* one! Yay!
Yes, when dealing with people like Andy, I do think that they expect a clean slate after an apology. Because, FORGIVENESS!
Josh, it’s just because he’s like, on another level, man. Didn’t you see what I said earlier? He’s a fucking master debater! Don’t mess with this badass.
HA! That cartoon is great Starstuff.
I really am vexed by that behavior, though. It’s so bizarre. It’s like continuing to claim Australia abuts India after several people say, “Wait, you can see that it doesn’t, right?”
Janine,
You never answered my actual question. I am really curious to hear your answer.
Is there a way for an accommodationist to earn a second chance this without giving up their accommodationist position?
Er, ignore the ‘this’ in 334. Oops.
Josh:
Remember my email. It’s getting a reaction, so as far as they are concerned, it’s success.
If it’s not relevant, then surely it doesn’t matter whether you accept or reject it.
yes, it does. If you like, call it marketing, though I think that oversimplifies the issue.
We could care less, especially when it was done by a dumb internet troll. Atheists don’t have religious beliefs. But feel free to do so. It’s always fun to watch xian trolls try to think.
It would actually be a huge step up. Many of us get death threats from fundie xians on a routine basis. They are too busy hating, lying, and threatening to kill people to even attempt to say something requiring even minor intelligence.
What question, abeille? Andy is not an accommodationist. The people arguing his case are. I have answered this before. Andy needs to change how he treats people who are not his flavor of christianity and time enough for his actions to show.
A bit harsh? Tough! He chose to act in a discriminating fashion. He has to be judged by his actions.
Because the sign was not illegal.
But you shouldn’t take my word for it. Call up and ask the ACLU.
TTT insists on being wrong and taunts us with the ACLU.
Quite a show.
my friend said the guy has put the sign up on ebay which would make him a kind of douche i guess but if anyone know if this is true?
From the other thread – “BWE” are you stoned beacuse it looks like it to me
Icthyosaurus – you are aggressive DNFTT
I want Greta! Can Greta be the judge? At least she’d make sense and even educate, if need be. In all honesty, I was not being disingenuous. I was being honest. I did not make that remark as a slam to anyone except who I was addressing. I’m sorry if you feel it was homophobic, it was not and you can say anything you want, but you cannot read my mind or sense my feelings. You’re judging without knowing a thing about me. Before you can make snap judgments, you need to exactly what is going through the person’s head. I don’t give a damn about a person’s sexual orientation, but I do give a damn if they are being verbally abusive and sometimes I’ll gladly return it, but believe what you want. I really don’t care. If one can’t laugh at some things, then that’s really not my problem and really don’t care if PZ forgives Andy either, because that also is not my problem. It’s the individual’s problem and I really don’t care to make it my own.
Look at this fucking master debater go! Holly shit, what’d I tell you, guys! S/he’s so good that s/he doesn’t even explain why it’s “not illegal”!
Do you see that gray stuff on the other wall? That’s my fucking mind; it’s been blown.
You are right, we cannot know what is in you head. So we will make due with what you say. You liked that “joke” well enough to use it twice. As well as imply that PZ wants to jokingly hang Andy.
It does not look well for you.
Fuck what ever is in your head.
When even insensitive, oblivious to all nuance me sees what you wrote as homophobic, then there’s a slight possibility that what you wrote actually was homophobic. You do realize you address your “I make love to men” remarks to a lesbian, don’t you?
Damn, having read my post #346 I really wish there was a two minute edit window on FtB.
I’m sorry if you feel my use of the n word is racist, it was not and you can say anything you want, but you cannot read my mind or sense my feelings.
I’m sorry if you feel my use of “c*nt” is sexist, it was not and you can say anything you want, but you cannot read my mind or sense my feelings.
I’m sorry if you feel my use of “f*g” is sexist, it was not and you can say anything you want, but you cannot read my mind or sense my feelings.
(It’s like you’re culturally unaware as well as self unaware. Also, just don’t try to “apologize” if you don’t mean it; it’s pretty fucking stupid and lame.)
You want Greta, mrianabrinson? Try this. Say in a muddled post that she wants to hang a person she has a disagreement with. See the response you will get. Seeing that the readership of her blog and this blog overlaps, I am sure you will get the type of treatment you got here.
Fuck the thoughts in your head.
Janine,
“However, Drennen’s response, concerning the street preacher telling us that atheist were going hell, was that was also wrong, believing that people on all sides, even Muslims, should try to co-exist in this world without mockery, judgment, or imposing their beliefs on others”
“He feels we, both atheists and Christians, also need to work together ”
“Drennen wants to work amicably with atheist to better Springfield, but not in a manner that publicly mocks and tears down others. He does not believe that will better Springfield or the world, allowing us to co-exist.”
I pegged him as an accommodationist based on this.
Which is why I was curious if you felt that an accommodationist could do anything, short of giving up their accommodationist viewpoint, to earn a second chance.
It’s rather obvious you do care, Cupcake, otherwise you wouldn’t have used someone’s orientation to attempt snark, nor would you have found a way to keep stating you’re hetro. No one here cares about who you fuck.
No you don’t. If that were true, you wouldn’t have unleashed all that hyperbolic, violent rhetoric. That was all you, Cupcake.
Yeah Dahmer had an excuse
Dahmer’s excuse was atheism and evolutionism made him do it. And the fundies nodded sagely at this prison conversion, and he sits now in a heavenly chorus, according to their viewpoint.
Fuck your head, mrianabrinson!
I do not give accommodationist (faitheists) a first chance so a second chance is out of the question.
“I do not give accommodationist (faitheists) a first chance so a second chance is out of the question.”
awesome.
Mriana’s logic seemed all twisted to me, until I thought about it as how one might react if one were an atheist in Missouri, copping the flak dished out be the dominant sect, blaming her for the vile actions of atheists who feel they are better than God. He forgives, why can’t they?
Mariana, stop defending Christian privilege. Stop buying the notion that not accepting an apology where there has been no sign of introspection is anger.
BWE:
idiotic.
LMAO if I were accomodationist the I would start speaking to the rest of my family but I have principels
principles
hpw do you edit??
Let me give you an example, abeille. I am queer as well as an atheist. As it stands, many reactionary christians argue that not only should people like me should not marry whom we want, being open about our sexuality is evil.
How can I accommodate this and how could I even have respect for them?
Yes, I resent accommodationists who try to argue that their is a common ground to be had. This can only work if I give up my rights to placate their “outrage”.
Mriana: you’re the one who compared his actions to child molestation in #137. I remind you:
Aquaria in #274 is objecting to your bringing in the much more serious crime of child abuse, which is merely a sad attempt to bring up a far more serious offense to minimize what Drennen did.
There is an appropriate level of response to Drennen’s discrimination, and the atheist community is doing it. Several people here keep bringing up these hyperbolic straw men of lawsuits and torture and execution, which are frankly absurd: what I’ve said is that I won’t accept his apology, nothing more. If I lived in Springfield, I probably wouldn’t buy his ice cream. That’s kinda it.
Maybe you guys should limit your accusations to what we’ve actually done, just as we’ve limited ourselves to what Drennen actually did.
Sorry, I lost the key, and besides, I nailed him to the wall.
What is it with you people? We haven’t thrown him in prison. We’ve publicly objected to his behavior, nothing more. Yet you keep inflating this into a case of the vicious atheists tormenting the poor innocent shopkeeper — you’ve all completely reversed the offense.
But PZ, TTT was arguing that atheists have no right to expect not to be offended. Besides, it was only for ten minutes. And discounts.
Ah, the classical notpology of the “I’m sorry if you were offended” variant. Popularly also known as the “I’m sorry that you’re an idiot” notpology.
Didn’t GG first also issue such a statement?
Anyhoo, on one of the many threads on this topic, some lawyer claimed that the sign was not illegal. IANAL, and I feel like I’d like to call BS on it, but not being a lawyer, I’m a bit hesitant. Do you remember this person and the argument they were making, and whether this could hold or not?
PZ:
QFT and I’m pretty tired of this lame argument. I haven’t done GG’s business the slightest bit of harm, I simply don’t think his apologies are worth anything.
Besides, as I said upthread, I’m pretty sure he’s seen an upswing in business from all the other good Christians and I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s now milking this whole thing for all its worth.
Colour me cynical.
The usual. Happens all the time.
These demented xians are cold blooded, serial killers. Ones who torture and kill slowly with fire.
Of poor, innocent defenceless strawpeople. If there is an afterlife, the fundies are going to be reincarnated as strawpeople and murdered by their co-religionists.
PZ #361
I’ll go even further than that. If I lived in Springfield I wouldn’t attend his church! What do you think of that, accommodationists?
PZ said
That sounds like a reasonable request and I don’t think we should condemn people for their decision or choices in the matter. That is their decision and choice and I think as freethinkers we should allow the other person to make whatever decision and choice they decide to make. That seems the most reasonable and respectable thing to do, whether we agree or not. I don’t think it is necessary that we agree 100% with everything each other says concerning how to handle the matter nor do I think blowing it up into other issues is the best thing either. I admit, maybe I did lose some focus in the matter when I said sexual molestation and abuse is worse than what he did, bottom line is, we are all different and we each deal with things differently, as individuals. Some things are more of a concern to a person than another. We each chose the battles we are most passionate about and I think in the long run it will all work out for the best. I think our passion for particular battles is more effective than when we are not so passionate about a particular battle. For you, your passion lies in what I view as little battles and for me, the big battle is the physical, mental, and sexual abuse of others in the name of religion. In the long run, that may be the most effective means to make changes in society- fight what we are most passionate about. It’s all good.
Mriana, you’ve focused on my complaint about what you said to Janine, but you’ve avoided the topic of your hyperbole that you started out with. Do you stand by everything that you said in your first comment?
lol I assume, if you are like I am, you don’t attend anyone’s church to begin with. Although I’ve met a couple of atheists who do attend church. Why I don’t know.
Over at the Christian Post, Drennen is telling a slightly different story:
http://www.christianpost.com/news/christian-ice-cream-shop-owner-thankful-to-be-forgiven-by-atheists-63020/
Now this is what I call “a much to do about nothing”. Though I don’t see WishfulThinkingRulesAll and his/her minions rallying to support over this. Perhaps they only cherry pick subjects that most suit their biases. Such as any complaints that hint of feminism. Non?
But either way, folks who think PZ should apologise over this, let it go. It’s really nothing.
Gelato Man would have been better off telling you assholes to fucke off. His mistake was apologizing to a bunch of fanatics. People who want to be offended will not be eager accept apologies. Better to hold the upper hand and keep the moral outrage alive.
Oh, johnne, you’re so boring and unoriginal. Congratulations on having no understanding about why people won’t just forgive him.
Being an insufferable, childish dick is not a rationally defensible position, no matter how many time you call the people you mock idiots. It’s not about them. It’s you. Just you. Moreover, you want this to be all about you you you you YOOOOOOOUUUUUUUU. “Look at me! I’m so much smarter than these idiots! Look at me, dammit, NOW. Me me me me me!!!!!!” That’s all I’m getting out that. You and your damn ego. It’s just like listening to a damn Christian fundie.
Maybe your mother should have hugged you more when you were a kid or something. Whatever it is, get over yourself. And please don’t stand too close to the really smart people you desperately envy and want to emulate–I would hate for you to mislead anyone as to what you really are.
@mrianabrinson
I don’t attend services, but some churches have awesome architecture and art. When you’re there, you have to see them.
johnne:
Interesting definition of fanatics you have there. Who knew not accepting
damage controlan apology was a fanatical action.Oh, we’re talking about Christians now? Or do you need to be reminded of who took offense?
I don’t know about you, Cupcake, but I’m not outraged. I’m simply not buying Andy’s shtick nor am I willing to ignore that bigotry against atheists is nothing to be concerned about.
Being an insufferable, childish dick is not a rationally defensible position, no matter how many time you call the people you mock idiots.
neither is constantly parading strawmen, but I’m sure that’s what you will continue to do.
cadedebois:
Sure, once you stop hogging that cross you’re on.
cadedebois:
Don’t use gendered insults here. It’s stupid and childish.
Icthyosaurus – you are aggressive DNFTT
uh, assuming that’s me..
Harrumble!
what did I win?
Based on the name change, you apparently just became a fossil.
Sorry about that.
…Well, to be fair, he WAS forgiven by atheists.
Just not ALL of them. ~;>
His mistake was apologizing to a bunch of fanatics.
*sigh*
another idiot who can’t grasp the concept.
too much privilege, too little time, I suppose.
here’s how I read your statement:
“His mistake was apologizing to a bunch of nigger-lovers.”
because I certainly heard that enough, even as a kid.
I’m sorry PZ but you are wrong. What he did was human and a part of day to day life. What you did was put dogma ahead of humanity.
There is no excuse. Justify away. But for you to not mention the fact that the small mindedness and bigotry is happening from the ranks of your faithful is pretty obvious and I think you and everyone outside the emerald city here can see that. There is a dogma and a hatred being preached here by those who read and absorb your words. It looks like gospel to me. If you want to distance yourself from that, make a point of telling your readers that they are not only preaching hate but are utterly incapable of recognizing that they aren’t using any rational arguments at all, that it amounts to “no u” and that what they appear to be latching onto could quite reasonably be called fundamentalist atheism.
Because you are responsible for the hate they are spewing.
Well, to be fair, he WAS forgiven by atheists.
yup.
go figure.
we don’t act as a flock of sheep under authoritarian rule.
some of see the need for pursuing the principle, others for extending a hand out.
fuck me, but I thought we were all people, you know, with different opinions and whatnot.
I guess we’re all supposed to be a monotonous single entity.
learn something new every day?
some of us see value in BOTH King’s approach AND Malcom’s.
but NONE of us EVER dictated how YOU should react to this event.
Instead, all of us simply explained why each of us made the decisions we did to react as we did.
If you want to go and shake the guy’s hand, go right on ahead.
…but I’m still gonna be here, explaining why at least some of us shouldn’t.
cadedebois #375
I haven’t been condescended to like this since mrianabrinson’s post #370.
Carlie, I just said to PZ that I am more passionate about physical, sexual, and mental abuse done (or enabled, which I left out) in the name of religion. If that is the statement you are referring to, then yes, I do stand by that and will fight that much faster than what Andy did. I would rather take issue with the abuses WBC, the Catholic Church, and others like them commit than fight with Andy. It is as simple as that. I want to help stop and even prevent what happened to me in the name of religion to other young people. Such abuse, in my opinion, is deplorable and those who enable it are just as guilty as those who commit the crime. Even Greta knows, because I told her so, that the abuses the religious have done in the name of their religion really makes me angry.
To be honest, Andy was hardly a blimp on my radar until his 10 min. tantrum went viral on the net. When he apologized, I had to find out if he was sincere and the only way I could do that was meet him in person. It is my opinion that he is sincere and has thought about what he did. I hopefully gave him more food for thought with the questions I asked him and he does not commit a similar act again.
If you mean my sarcasm, no. I was not in the least bit serious about that and I do not know what makes anyone think I was, esp since I made clear that I was not actually serious or at least I thought I did. I really do not wish to argue those things, either, and I will not.
If you mean not criticizing religion, I do not think I ever really said that. I am not against giving criticism where criticism is needed, even if it is in the form of mockery, but we could probably do well if we also sat down and tried to talk to them too. This does not mean I enjoy causing a big fight though. I do not. Nothing stresses me out more than other people’s anger, whether it is justified or not, which sounds bad because I get very angry too. I am just more angry about some things than others. We all do.
Hopefully I addressed your question. If I did not then I am not sure what you are asking.
I’m sorry PZ but you are wrong.
and you’re an idiot.
What he did was human and a part of day to day life.
yup. Discrimination is indeed a part of everyday life.
THAT’S the problem, fuckwit.
There is no excuse. Justify away.
project much? all the rationalization and justifications are coming from Andy. Or haven’t you been paying attention?
oh, wait.
of course you haven’t.
you haven’t paid one whit of attention to what anyone says, on EITHER side, ever.
you just rush in with a preloaded brain full of mush, and spill it on the fucking table.
Because you are responsible for the hate they are spewing.
BWE, I’m only going to say this to you once:
nobody here, not one, single, solitary person, said they hated Andy.
not.
one.
not accepting an apology /= hate.
but then, this has been explained to you a hundred times already, and you simply don’t listen.
you know what I DO hate though?
liars like you.
Have you considered the hate you’re projecting us to have towards Andy, really is all being directed TOWARDS YOU?
yeah, that’s right, I fucking HATE you.
but, then I hate all liars, so that’s not good enough.
you’re a particularly specific, lying, asshat, troll.
so I also hate you personally.
Now then…
can you feel the love?
I am not against giving criticism where criticism is needed, even if it is in the form of mockery, but we could probably do well if we also sat down and tried to talk to them too.
all bases covered then.
you can rest easy.
LOL, how’d this thread get so long in less than 12 hours? Do you people ever go outside? What’s this about the GelatoGuy again? He’s still a moron? Ok. So, what the hell are you people yammering on for? Are there areas of discussion you all missed the last time there was a huge thread about this idiot?
PS – I ate some damn good ice cream today, yes sir, I did. Delicious.
@383 Pteryxx
That’s what made me laugh: He cherry-picks his bible stories and now he’s cherry-picking the reactions of atheists to his apology.
BWE, accommodationist to the bigots
No, asshole, what he did was bigotry. But you’re right in one way. Christians like Drennen like to show hatred of atheists and they do it on a daily basis.
I’m getting less and less annoyed with Drennan and more and more annoyed with accommodationists like BWE and mrianabrinson. They apparently think that bigots should be given a free pass if they mumble “I’m so sorry“. Then everyone can go back to either being bigots and victims (and the victims better not complain or else they’ll make the bigots apologize again).
You’re absolutely correct. The nerve of people objecting to bigotry. They have no right to expect to be treated like normal, i.e., Christian, people. They deserve nothing but scorn and accommodationists like BWE are ready and willing to heap scorn on anyone objecting to Christian bigotry.
Hey BWE, fuck you and the high horse you rode in on. Maybe if you gave a shit about anyone besides your Christian buddies then you’d have a clue about what we’re saying here.
WishfulThinkingRulesAll, can I read just one thread without your whining?
I do stand by that and will fight that much faster than what Andy did.
it’s the underpinnings of what Andy did that LEAD to the justifications for violence against a group to begin with.
why is it you can’t understand this?
racism is justification for violence, just like religion is.
Scott Roeder ring a bell?
these things are NOT separable.
the very idea that one can discriminate against a group, for any reason, becomes in the end, justification for doing violence against that group.
this is why I keep saying, over and over again, that it doesn’t matter what Andy does after the fact, so much as it does that he justified it to begin with by saying people were mocking his religion.
xians are by far and away the majority in the US, and generations of privilege have set up exactly the kind of discriminatory behavior we saw not just from Andy, but from the VAST majority of Americans.
just saying you are an atheist makes you part of the most distrusted “group” in America, hands down.
If it takes making Andy wring his fucking hands about an apology, in order to get more awareness of the fact that discrimination like this happens daily, and how religious privilege enables it, just like white privilege enables racism, or male privilege enables sexism, it needs to be done.
and, what’s more, although it isn’t even about “deserve”, and it isn’t even about collateral harm, in this specific case, it sure as HELL looks like “poor” Andy is getting a ton of free publicity.
It’s simply not enough to expose the bad behavior; it’s necessary to dig into the generations of religious privilege that ALLOW this kind of behavior to occur to begin with.
and yes, this relates to white privilege, and male privilege as well, as they become natural comparisons.
this isn’t about penalizing Andy specifically, so much as it is about taking an example of bad behavior, and using it as a teaching tool.
again, this is why Andy’s apology, and subsequent behavior, are irrelevant.
Hell, I don’t consider myself a racist, but if at some point I made the mistake of putting up a “whites only” sign on any business I run, I wouldn’t blame anyone for using that as example of white privilege (myself being white) then running with it as a teaching tool about how racism is bloody insidious, and how far away from ridding ourselves of it we really are.
or, to use an example from right here, I’ve had people concerned with male privilege use my own posts as examples of such, when I’ve used sexist terminology I wasn’t even conscious of using.
The people used it as a teaching moment, but even if I apologized and promised not to use the offending term or word again, it wouldn’t matter. Those who use my gaff as a tool to teach about the dangers of privilege are quite within their right to do so, and I can see the value in it, even if I don’t see myself as being sexist.
My apologies would be irrelevant to that, and they shouldn’t accept them on those terms.
I hope that makes sense, because I’m all out of breath trying to endlessly explain the point of all this.
But nobonobo, everyone needs a hobby. Whining and tone trolling are what WishfulThinkingRulesAll does best. In fact, that’s all that WishfulThinkingRulesAll does.
what the hell are you people yammering on for?
why, we were all just a-waitin’ fer you to tell us when to stop, sugar plum.
we’ve got to do something while waiting in line for your mom to free up.
we’re all actually in prison, and this is the only chance to interact we ever get.
we’re all on a spaceship, leaving for the newly terraformed Mars. Didn’t you get the memo?
Ichthyic @ 396: QFT. Unfortunately, I suspect your entire point is going to have to be repeated, ad nauseum, until it finally sinks in.
I am still working my way through this thread, but have been thinking about what sort of apology I would actually accept from GelatoMan (whom Mr. Mattir spoke with at length before this kerfuffle and actually liked, fwiw). Here’s what GM could say:
People are free to laugh at my beliefs, even if I am offended by their laughter. Religious beliefs should be private and have little place in public life, especially as a condition of entry into a public accommodation like my restaurant. And lastly, here is a big donation to Americans United for Separation of Church and State and an essay addressed to my fellow Christians about why secularism is desirable and distrust of atheists is wrong.
I suspect that this is not the sort of apology and self-examination that we will be hearing any time soon.
I’m sorry BWE but you are an idiot. What you do is stupid and the worst part of internet life. What I did was make fun of you.
There is an excuse. It’s because you’re a dull fuckwit. But for you not to mention anything interesting or worth my time is pretty obvious and I think you and everyone like you can’t see that. There is stupidity and uneducated opinions being vomited here by you. It looks like dog shit to me. If you want to distract people from that by ranting about nonsense, make a point of fucking off because you’re not even making irrational arguments. You’re latching onto a tried old falsehood of “fundamentalist atheism” without being self aware enough to know that you’re not the first to do so.
Because you like to blame the victim for the hate against them.
let me detail this a bit more…
say I called you a cunt. That would be a great example of using male privilege, and, even if I apologized to you, and the entire female gender, and even RECOGNIZED that I had made a mistake, and even WHY I made that mistake…
Those who wished to use my gaff as an example of male privilege generating sexist insults would be absolutely right to continue doing so, as it would be indeed a good example OF that.
I would not expect them to accept my apology, so long as they wanted to use my gaff as an example, and, since it would be a fine example to use, I can’t rationally fault them for continuing to use it. My subsequent behavior, even if I lead a crusade to permanently remove the word from the English language, is entirely irrelevant to it being a good example of a sexist statement generated by male privilege.
It is indeed hard to learn to separate the idea that someone wants to use something you said or did as an example of bad behavior, from it being a personal attack, but it simply isn’t.
not accepting Andy’s apology allows those of us who wish to explore this specific example of bad behavior the opportunity to do so without being hypocrites.
it’s not a personal thing against Andy, it’s not an attempt at revenge, it’s not an issue of hatred, it has nothing to do with his rationalizations, apologies, or subsequent behavior.
It’s like if you did something particularly dangerous, like refusing to learn how to swim even though you spend a lot of time on boats, say, and the rest of us decided to use your behavior as an example of how that is dangerous, that you could easily drown, etc., and how it came to be that there are others, too, who exhibit this behavior of refusing to learn how to swim, and that it seems to stem from a superstition about jinxing the boat to sink if anyone on it knows how to swim (I’m actually not making this up, btw).
It’s not a personal attack on you if we choose to use your behavior as an example of not learning how to swim being a bad idea, even if you actually DO learn how to swim eventually.
NOW I’m done.
OK, one more thing:
I would not expect them to accept my apology, so long as they wanted to use my gaff as an example, and, since it would be a fine example to use, I can’t rationally fault them for continuing to use it.
likewise, it was pretty clear to me that in the whole “elevatorgate” blow up, that Watson was doing the same thing with her personal experience with elevator guy that we are doing now with Andy.
She did not ask for, nor need, an apology from the actual guy in the elevator; it was the example of the behavior that was what she wanted to discuss, and she did, and made a good point about inappropriate behavior, and space issues, and even male privilege, in the process.
it doesn’t matter who the guy was, it doesn’t matter what he did afterwards, it doesn’t matter if he apologized.
it was an example of a specific behavior that was worth discussion, and exploring the roots in male privilege of why this person thought it appropriate to proposition someone in an enclosed space like an elevator to begin with.
but, Boy Howdy, did it trigger some inanely defensive reactions out there, endlessly.
just like here though, Watson had nothing personal against this guy, did not need an apology, nor should she have accepted one.
But Watson HERSELF sure needs an apology from the community that accused her of crucifying a MAN, that, frankly, she could give two shits about.
it was completely, utterly, inane.
and, while I doubt any of the MRA clones will learn from it and actually figure out why she deserves an apology, I can only hope that all this verbiage of mine will at least ring a few bells, and show what PZ is on about when he replied in this thread with:
because it’s exactly the same, fucking, thing that was done to Watson.
Ichthyic:
While I can appreciate using Egate as an example, I don’t think that it’s going to be the least bit helpful to this thread, I think it will be detrimental.
Given how many idiots are still hanging on to it in order to vent their spleens against women, feminism, etc., it will simply act as an invite to rehash all of it again.
PZ, does icthyic seem fucking insane to you?
BWE, do I seem fucking insane to you?
Sure seems like some folks seem personally insulted by a refusal of a third party to forgive a fourth party. Oh, pretty please PZ, with sugar on top, forgive the dumbass hater already! They might have to start reminding you that that poor shopkeeper doesn’t deserve such abuse as unrequited forgiveness, because he hasn’t done anything nearly so nasty (like child abuse, for example) as not to be entitled to your unmitigated forgiveness! If you do not acquiesce, they are liable to start calling you terrible names, because you asked for it! It could get pretty ugly! So give the poor jerk the reassuring little pat on the tush he and his supporters crave, or else they will be forced to even the score by retaliating against your HEINOUS ASSAULT on him! How DARE you deprive that pathetic little man of his right to your consideration! Of all the nerve!
tchomp tchomp tchomp wrote:
Who’s most likely to be the victim of discrimination?
While it’s true that other minorities are more likely to be the victims of random discrimination, by rogue police, for instance, simply because they are easily recognized, it is undeniable that the group who is most discriminated against in America are nonbelievers. The full weight of the US legal code discrimates against nonbelievers. The only comparable legal bigotry is in marriage laws, specifically DOMA. But the bigotry against nonbelievers infects every facet of the legal code.
Start with taxes – the billions and billions of uncollected taxes owed by churchs, and that consequently must be paid by the rest of us, yet churches use roads, defense, and everything else that taxes pay for. In the last twenty years churches have expanded into all sorts of businesses – from day care centers to funeral homes, ice cream parlors to fitness clubs, bookstores to broadcasters – these businesses not only don’t pay taxes, they are exempt from all sorts of health and safety laws, reporting regulations, civil rights laws, and much more, all of which gives them huge advantages over similar secular businesses. And religious organizations have been exempted from federal laws meant to protect pensions and to provide unemployment benefits.
Federal laws give religions unique tools to overcome land use laws, and protections for open space or historic preservation are easily trumped by church construction plans. Nonbelievers need not apply.
There is no area of law that doesn’t favor religion over nonbelievers. Lobbying disclosure laws, copyright laws, child abuse laws, mandatory immunization laws, just to name a few, all provide privileges for religions that aren’t available to nonbelievers. Yet every minority on that list can be eligible for privileges if they just show that they are believers. This hardly scratches the surface – and all these privileges are codified into US law. No other minority can show such discrimination.
Given how many idiots are still hanging on to it in order to vent their spleens against women, feminism, etc., it will simply act as an invite to rehash all of it again.
*shrug*
they have no new arguments, let them.
You can yell at me if it does end up becoming even more of a shitfest.
I can take it.
Ichthyic:
I know that. I wouldn’t have said anything in the first place if I thought you were going to whine about it.
…and I won’t even hate you for it.
;)
RE: tomh:
The sad thing is that you really truly believe this.
Your victim complex is almost as bad as the one Christians have.
Thanks for the summary, Tomh, there are things in there I hadn’t even considered. Always good to see just how extensive religious privilege has become, and it is often hard to get a concise list like that that is already posted online.
The sad thing is that you really truly believe this.
name ONE thing in his list that isn’t demonstrably accurate.
Your victim complex is almost as bad as the one…
you’re trying to project for yourself?
BWE, I was ignoring because, frankly, your comments show that you are just a very low grade troll. And my contention that you are not at all intelligent stands. But this; PZ, does icthyic seem fucking insane to you?; cannot go uncommitted on.
Ichthyic was a person who already was well established and well regarded when I first got the nerve to start commenting here. In fact, if you goes up to the top of the page and click the tab that says Mollies, you will see that he was awarded one for June 2007. That means that the readers of this blog finds that his comments have worth.
You, BWE, in the short time you have been leaving your droppings here, whines that PZ should be embarrassed by us and showing that you have no fucking idea what we are talking about. And despite that, we must be wrong.
You are on the losing end of a debate with Ichthyic and in desperation, you call upon a person who does not have any sympathy for what you have been mewing. Yet an other indication that you are not very intelligent.
Your ass calls for a dead porcupine.
This is the best you have to give? I expect so little from you.
lol. you showed me.
BWE:
lulz. you showed me just how pathetic and boring a troll can be.
No, but you do. You’re on my short list of likely banhammer candidates.
I see. May I ask why?
Ichthyic:
Just the sort of remark I’d expect from someone so sane. ;)
BWE:
I see. May I ask why you’re a fuckwit?
OK, Icthyic, here goes again.
If you called me a cunt, what would I do? Well, if you then publicly apologised to me and all the women of pharyngula with a minimally believable level of sincerity – perhaps with some weak excuse like you were drunk and somebody else had made you really angry goshdarnit – then I would probably accept your apology.
But I would NOT forgive you, and I would certainly keep an eye on your future behaviour. And I would see nothing at all contradictory in going on to use your outburst as a teachable example to others. If you supported that and went on to campaign against sexist insults and sexism in general, then I might eventually forgive you, but it would take a lot to re-establish your good faith.
If you then went on to demand that I never speak of it again, that would be excessive and highly presumptuous of you. I would have no reason to accede to your request. In fact, making such a request would highlight the probable insincerity of your apology, and make me much less likely to ever forgive you.
No, I am not being a hypocrite. I can perfectly well accept his apology AND explore this specific example of bad behaviour. In fact, since he has explicitly acknowledged that it WAS bad behaviour (ie, apologised), it seems to me that I have implicit license to do so. He himself has said that he was in the wrong; what ground can he possibly have to complain?
And Ichthyic, how can you see this as hypocritical, if you are (as you claim) not conflating the acceptance of an apology with forgiveness? And will you apologise for calling me a hypocrite?
BWE, when you are gone, you will not be missed.
Ichthyic was a person who already was well established and well regarded when I first got the nerve to start commenting here. In fact, if you goes up to the top of the page and click the tab that says Mollies, you will see that he was awarded one for June 2007. That means that the readers of this blog finds that his comments have worth.
I’d note that none of that precludes my having mental health issues, or being totally mad as a sackfull of spiders.
just like having one arm would not preclude someone from playing professional baseball.
However, other than going a bit stir crazy waiting for immigration to get its fucking act together here in NZ and give me residency, I would indeed have to rely on someone else to alert me to any issues.
strangely, though, I rather think I wouldn’t be relying on BWE for a diagnosis, and I do have a GP here, thanks.
Oooops, WishfulThinkingRulesAll chimed in at 392. I have to take back what I said inpart at 372. :(
No, I am not being a hypocrite.
sorry, I guess I wasn’t being clear enough, what I was talking about was people accusing those of us who choose to use Andy as an example as hypocrites, not you. so I apologize for not being clear enough to you, but not for calling you a hypocrite, because I didn’t. That’s a constructed conclusion on your part.
but…
In fact, since he has explicitly acknowledged that it WAS bad behaviour (ie, apologised)
I disagree, but again, this is not relevant IMO.
I can perfectly well accept his apology AND explore this specific example of bad behaviour.
and nobody is stopping you from doing so, but apparently you still fail to see why there is value in NOT accepting his apology, and frankly, I have to hand off the torch at this point.
maybe somebody else will pick it up and explain it more clearly for you.
I see. May I ask why?
no, because that would be entirely disingenuous of you to do, after so carefully trolling the thread with your inanity.
I’d add:
If you then went on to demand that I never speak of it again, that would be excessive and highly presumptuous of you. I would have no reason to accede to your request. In fact, making such a request would highlight the probable insincerity of your apology, and make me much less likely to ever forgive you.
and yet, that’s what all those asking us to drop this because Andy apologized are asking us to do.
so, at least on this point, we seem in agreement.
mriana:
Well, fuck you too! First you make wild insinuations about how ANGRY PZ is, and how much he (and we) want revenge, want to punish this poor lad, then you follow with even MORE stupidity in the form of homophobic snark. (Go ahead and deny it, but it looks like it to me, too. Notice anyone agreeing with you yet, as opposed to the opposite?) Just maybe, if previously-uninvolved observers all agree that your actions look like homophobia, maybe you should think about what they’re telling you rather than getting defensive about it.
After that you try to bring up ‘I got molested, and that’s SO much worse than this!’, and actually had the gall to attack someone else when they took issue with it – and now you’re going to end it with a claim like THIS?
Go away, mriana.
I don’t need accomodationists speaking for me.
Do you remember the comment that directed you to The Intersection? The reason for that is that we’ve been dealing for years with other accomodationists just like you, telling us how mockery, ridicule, and uncompromising atheism in the face of religious onslaught was ‘hurting the movement’ and ‘not helping’. We asked them to show us some evidence of that, and what we got was a tide of lies and sockpuppeting with a side of hypocrisy. Really, we’ve already seen it, just look up the “You’re not helping” fiasco to follow the story for yourself. There’s even another “nice guy” who sincerely apologizes when he’s caught doing something stupid! You’ll love it!
You’ll find plenty of like minds over at the Intersection, if you want to argue your point over there. We don’t pay much credence to any of their claims ever since they were all either debunked or shown to have been made up from whole cloth in the first place.
Really, take the porcupine and be glad you’ve got it. You’re in way over your head in this conversation! No one has done anything untoward towards Mr. Drennan. PZ hasn’t made any suggestions to his readers that they take any action against him, nor does he actually exercise any control over us whatsoever. We simply agree with him – or not, as we’ve seen more than usual over this past week. He’s simply explained the very valid reasons why he doesn’t automatically accept GelatoGuy’s increasingly self-serving apolog(y|ies). YOU then used that to accuse PZ of being ‘angry’ enough that he ‘might have fun hanging the man’. Shame on you!
Judging by what I see here, I still agree with PZ. Have an extra porcupine, this one’s on me!
As an aside to everyone else at large, I really can’t believe how many people – some of them even otherwise-rational atheists! – have said things like “He must be sorry, he offered 10% off to everybody, look at what a hit he’s taking to his bottom line!” Excuse me? 10% off is about the smallest discount he could possibly give and not be laughed at! Does anyone really think that he expects that discount to lose money?
Giving a tiny discount is what stores do to try and bring in more people. Anyone who asks for the discount is someone who heard the story and still wants to give him their business, so it’s a real steal for him, not a terrible sacrifice as some comments have implied. It’s an AD CAMPAIGN, not an apology.
Starstuff–excellent anti-trolling throughout the thread. You’re comments had me loling.
mrianabrinson–Your inability to follow a simple conversation or understand subtext is only dwarfed by the shittiness of your writing. Don’t think I didn’t notice that you came into your original blog post with a bias:
(emphasis added)
You’d basically already decided how to write up the interview before you actually conducted the interview. You also linked Jen’s blog, claiming she “tore GG apart” when she did nothing of the kind in the post you linked to, but I digress…
You have acquitted yourself poorly here and your nonpology is one in a long line of dick moves you’ve pulled. As many people have pointed out, your original post in this thread depended on a straw man. No one is saying that pedophilia is in the same class as GG’s discriminatory behaviour. But we are capable of recognizing bad behaviour of all kinds. Your twaddle reminds me of the same shit I hear lobbed at feminists: “How dare you care about X. Don’t you know female genital mutilation happens!!!1!!”
Newsflash: I’m capable of both recognizing degrees of wrongness and of caring about different things AT THE SAME TIME. I can care deeply about Catholic sexual abuse while simultaneously caring about GG’s discriminatory behaviour because I am capable of holding more than one thought in my head at the same time. (I realize this may be shocking to those who don’t have the same ability.)
It’s not simply a matter of “Well, I guess you guys care about different things than I do” as you seemed to think in your nonpology. I don’t think anyone here would argue that child sex abuse is a thing we shouldn’t care about. But that doesn’t mean we should be silent about other issues and it doesn’t give you the right to silence us because *handwave* there are bigger fish to fry (and who the fuck gets to decide what those fish are, anyway?). Furthermore–I would venture to say that all those fish come from the same lake. They are all to do with religious privilege; with the unexamined benefits that religious ppl and organizations are given. ANY chipping away at the edifice is a good thing, imo.
Finally, your comments WERE homophobic, cupcake. All the stupid insistence of you being straight and the deliberate misunderstanding of ‘fuck you’ was not funny. It was bigoted. You might want to check your privilege there.
I have to admit, I have only skimmed everything after the suggestion that not accepting GelatoGuy’s apology is tantamount to leading a violent attack against him. I mean, really? You plan something like that and no one tells those of us who need a bit more time to get plane tickets and take a couple of days off? Er, although, I don’t suppose I’ll be allowed to take my pitchfork on the plane.
Just FYI, Mriana’s a long-standing idiot who used to post on FA too – a normal string of comments would include most of the shit here; an aggressive mischaracterization of the situation, simpering backpeddling when faced with disagreement, claims of sarcasm and/or misreading when caught out in something particularly wrong/offensive, the belief that having 2 mixed race sons insulated her from any prejudice, the cry for tolerance unless she was the one doing the name-calling (coz she had a much worse childhood than anyone else, dontcha know), the appeals to authority, the desperate agreement with even the most obnoxious poster who appeared to show any support to her, the idea that claiming the label of freethinker meant that she was just more right than anyone else, the escalating patronization when confronted…
…heard it all before, was boring even then. Easiest bingo ever. I’m not surprised she’s cheering for anyone who makes a knee-jerk apology, it’s generally further than she’s willing to go.
I would be fascinated to know though…Mriana, are you still claiming that you mystically ‘knew’ evolution was true, whilst still refusing to educate yourself on the basics, on the basis that you once saw a chimp in the zoo and it kinda looked like you?
Yes folks, this is the highbrow level of debate Mriana was once capable of. After all this time, I’d’ve hoped for better now.
…and on the offchance you’re not the same Mriana…holy shit, there’s 2 of you?
You know, recognising that chimps are like us and that this supports evolution doesn’t sound so bad. Just to be fair.
sigh
RE: spyro:
Holy shit, you people think there’s a “correct” path to accepting
jesusevolution?Are you kidding me?
From the “athiests forgive” article
Again? But I get vertigo about 20,000 feet!!!
Oh looky, idjit liar and bullshitter thinks we care what liars and bullshitters have to say or think.
RE: Nerd of Redhead:
Spoken like a true religious fanatic.
@ Spyro
Yeah, because it does not take a genius to see that other apes look like us. There isn’t anything “mystical” to know about it. You have a problem with people seeing other apes as looking like us? To bad, because you are an ape. I find it funny that you could not see the resemblance of other apes as a child and you’re calling me the idiot?
However, your comments just derails the thread, so who are you calling names? Your whole spiel has nothing to do with the thread and you’re acting like you’re so smart. I know I said this before, but you know, it seems to me there are humans that act like chimps and others who act like Bonobos. I much prefer the Bonobos over the war mongrel chimps. Obviously you haven’t learned much about Evolution.
Just seems to me you just want to continue to stir up an argument and you are choosing how I learned and accepted Evolution? Jeeze! Sometimes I think some atheists are no better than Fundamngelicals, desiring a specific way to learn and accept science. According you, it would seem a hands on approach through the real world is not as superior as total and complete book learning without any hands on experience. Humm… Doesn’t seem as good as having both hands on and book learning. I taught my sons in this method, learning before they even knew how to read, but getting them out into nature so they had the visual and when possible tactile means of learning. My older son, who is 22 now, was reading when he was three y.o. and now he can explain quantum physics to people. Again, I ask, who’s the idiot? At least I was intelligent enough to start educating my sons before they started school and they learned Evolution the easier way, hands on/visual, without a Fundamngelical mother to force stupid Creationism on them. Not much for an Evolutionary teacher or professor to correct through that method. How much did your babies know about Evolution before they started Kindergarten?
Find something better than that to complain about and please, do us a favour and don’t become an educator ever, because DAMN! I don’t want to fight you and the Creationists too in public schools.
Yeah, I didn’t know there was a “correct” way, esp when one is growing up in a Fundamngelical family. Seems to me I was a freethinker long before I left the cult and became a humanist.
Well, I mean, that just underscores the absurdity of the whole thing. Belief in god is actually a really minor thing, despite the fact that fundamentalists of many stripes want you to believe it’s one of the most important things in the world. I mean, in terms of importance, it’s on the same level as “are mushrooms and mozzarella good filling for a four egg omelette?”
Although that’s a total lie. Answering the omelette question is more likely to have a serious (and awesome) effect on your day.
And now someone’s going to accuse me of ableism because some people have egg allergies.
Touched a nerve, did I Mriana? I already pointed out the escalating condescension, you really didn’t need to confirm it.
I know you have severe reading comprehension issues, but can you still really not see the similarities between non-religious guesswork and religious guesswork? Here’s a clue; they’re both guesses. It’s lovely that you guessed right in the case of evolution, but it was a guess nonetheless – that you were willing to hold up as an example of what a deep thinker you are; and without bothering to find out why it was true. The second bit’s kind of important to most people, ‘specially round here.
P.s. “…and you’re calling me the idiot?” No, no I didn’t. There’s that pesky reading
comprehensionthing again. As you’re determined to prove yourself one though, I will happily call you a fucktard.*SNORFLE* Filing that away in the “Retorts for taking the high road” folder.
Sigh. It’s highly disappointing how much the “There are more important things to worry about!” derail move has been pulled in practically every post I’ve read concerning Drennen’s sign and subsequent “apologies.”
http://derailingfordummies.com/#moreimportantly
Damn. Comment was so long I forgot I actually did call Mriana an idiot. Oh well.
Oh shut up, you irritant.
If your reason for accepting evolution is your understanding of it validates eugenics you are wrong. The path you’ve taken is likely a path that has also led you to accept some truly despicable things as ethical, just and necessary.
I am not accusing anyone of that. Just trying to point out there may not be a single ‘right’ way to accept evolution but there are plenty of wrong ones.
Seeing a chimp at the zoo and noticing similarities between it and us is may be a perfectly harmless way to start thinking about evolution, but the superficial similarities between the triceratops and an iguana is also what led to Kent Hovind to argue his descent with modification bit.
(That and he’s a total fuckwit.)
Spyro, can you really not see how similar Fundamngelical atheists are to Fundamngelical Xians? This very behaviour displayed here on PZ blog is why I call myself a humanist and avoid the word atheist. I’m tired of the BS toted and slung by others who think they are so brilliant and have an IQ of 150. You don’t. So Spyro, please do everyone a favour and don’t get a Ph.D. (AKA Piled high and Deep). You wouldn’t be doing anyone a favour, because you don’t have any talent for educating others. All you have is BS, which you don’t need anymore of, and I don’t mean a Bachelor of Science, either.
RE: Julian:
Oh jeez, I got called names. Better cry about it.
Has anyone here mentioned eugenics? I certainly haven’t. Anyways, a belief in eugenics is more of an ethical flaw, especially with respect to the rights and humanity of other human beings, than it has anything to do with evolution. Eugenics has been practiced by quite a few people who don’t really care either way about evolution and just want to stop tarnishing their pure race with their offspring. Eugenics has nothing to do with evolution and everything to do with racism and state violence against minorities.
So I guess the path people take to accepting Special Relativity can be “right” or “wrong” depending on whether it leads to them nuking Japanese civilian centers?
Are you this ridiculous all the time, or just when posting on atheist blogs?
There’s a vast difference between recounting a story about the time you started to understand how evolution worked, and saying “MAKE MY OBSERVATIONS THE BASIS OF ALL EVOLUTIONARY DISCOURSE AND THEORY FROM NOW ON”
Not convinced of that. I’m pretty sure that most celebrity creationists know how tenuous their arguments actually are and probably accept that evolution really is the only reasonable explanation of the observable facts, but push forward anyway because there’s good money in writing creationist popular books and giving creationist lectures, and because the general message forwards their social agendas, which boil down to state-subsidized religious education and dissolution of church-state separation, which would permit fundamentalist churches a greater say in policy-making and greater access to federal and state monies. Your average joe creationist may not really be invested in this, but the higher-ups absolutely do see this as a means of turning this country into a theocracy. If you fight the creationist movement as if it is made up of ignorant sods who just don’t know better and challenge them to scientific debate as if they actually want to weigh merits of ideas, you’re going to lose, because that’s not what they want.
Translation: “I’m better than you, nyah nyah.”
Please do provide an adequate citation as to what a “Fundamngelical atheist” actually is. Seeing as how atheism is nothing more than a “lack of belief in god/gods” without any codified doctrine, every atheist is at base, a “fundamentalist” because none of us believes in a deity. That’s it. We can disagree with each other until we’re blue in the face about aspects of the atheist movement like accommodationism, but regardless of what side one is one, neither is “fundamental” to atheism itself, so you’ve set up a neat little unequivocal comparison between atheism and Christianity, which, unlike atheism, has a very distinct set of doctrine and rules, about which a Christian can actually be “fundamentalist.”
Not to mention, it’s entirely possible for one to be both atheist and humanist – one is not exclusionary to the other, nor are they interchangeable. “Humanist” refers to a set of philosophical values affirming some notion of human nature and addressing human concerns – one can be a secular humanist or a religious humanist. Humanism is not interchangeable with atheism. Feel free to call yourself a humanist, if that is more important to you in your identity. It’s your call. Just don’t think that by calling yourself “humanist” it’s indicating the same direction of identity and belief values as “atheist.” Also, it doesn’t make you “better” than PZ or the atheists here that you seem to be so eager to distance yourself from by using a different, non-equivalent label. If anything, your desire to use the label “humanist” rather than “atheist” based on the reasons you’ve given here, reflects an eyerolling need show that you’re “better than” and “not like those mean, nasty atheists” despite the fact that you ARE an atheist, given that you lack a belief in a deity.
Yeah sure, it’s all that bombing, flying planes into buildings, physical attacks, hating people on the basis of gender, race, sexuality because of dogma that makes those darn fundie atheists so objectionable…er…
What’s with the loathing you’re displaying towards intelligence and education BTW?
It’ also something many supremacists I’ve had the misfortune of arguing feel is validated by evolution (or at least they’re very skewed, very poor understanding of it.)
FTFY
But where is the difference between Kent Hovind’s iguana-triceratops and the zoo story?
No, that is you describing yourself troll. You are trying to impose your will on this blog. You lie and bullshit to try to do so. Empirical observations from reading your tripe.
This from an accommodationalist liar and bullshitter? Pot, kettle, black. Who the fuck are you to impose your will on this blog?
RE: Nerd:
Trying to figure out when I last saw such a poorly-executed “I know you are but what am I.”
The last time you opened your mouth?
RE: Julian:
Supremacists also tend to think their views and behavior are justified by selective reading of the Bible, selective reading of history, selective reading of social statistics (e.g. crime stats) and references to hate tracts like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The lesson to take away from this is not that “oh no we need to police ‘right thinking'” but rather that racial supremacists will desperately try to justify their hatred using whatever resources they have at hand.
The lesson to take away from this is that we should not trust our initial conclusions when they are based on little evidence and are likely being influenced by our personal biases.
Also, they weren’t all of the racist variety. Several were of the sexist (women evolved to stay at home and care for the kids) kind.
Also also, the sloppy thinking and semi plausible nature of the argument make it easy to imprint it on the young, the impressionable and the uninformed. Not everyone who adopts such bigoted attitudes is doing it out of malice or whatever the fuck. Several have been fooled and let themselves be fooled.
You need to ‘police your thinking’ to prevent yourself from falling into similar pitfalls and to help others avoid the same.
Ermine @431:
Yeah. This has been bothering me too. The guy’s markup is presumably huge—it has to be in a business like that—and what he’s offering is a standard means of increasing his own total profit.
I get bigger discount offers in junk mail all the time, for no reason except people trying to get money from me that they otherwise wouldn’t get. And I generally throw them away.
Giving us a small promotional discount isn’t an atonement or a favor of any sort.
It’s an insult. (To our intelligence at least.)
Let’s not be stupid and fall for the idea that a gelato vendor giving a ten percent discount is doing us a favor.
It’d be different if he was offering gelato for free, or even at his cost. He’s not anywhere close to that.
So please, folks, just stop citing the ten percent discount as evidence of the guy’s sincerity. The fact that it’s only ten percent makes it evidence of the opposite—this guy isn’t even serious about projecting an image of good will. Anybody with a clue about retail marketing should see that.
It’s an offer to profit handsomely off the people he’s offended.
Gee, thanks.
That alone is sufficient reason not to accept his notpology.
Especially since he was talking about his “Christian business.”
Many businesses label themselves as “Christian businesses”—in words or with the fish sign in their promotional materials, or by advertising in “Christian” business directories—to get business from people who discriminate against non-Christians, or non-“Christians.” (“Christian” so used is often code for evangelical/fundamentalist conservative Christians.)
Don’t patronize self-styled “Christian businesses” if you don’t have to.
I’m emphatically not saying not to patronize businesses that happen to be owned or run by Christians. I’m only talking about the publicly and proudly “Christian” businesses who try to suck up “Christian” money that way. They get dumbass discriminatory “Christian” money—at the expense of non-Christians or non-“Christians”—and they shouldn’t get ours too.
@ The Pint
You do not have to be religious to hold views similar to religious Fundamngelicals. All you have to do is demand that others think as you do (which is not freethought) or they are terrible bad people who need to be set straight (with a few choice words in many cases) and demand that people denounce their views that do not agree with yours. Otherwise, you are no more than scum (which is what Fundamngelical Xians believe, if you do not adhere to what they believe). I see this attitude here. Not only that, shaming a person into rethinking their beliefs, as Janine stated many posts back, is not much different either. That is what Fundamngelicals do. The behaviours are exactly the same, except one has a belief in the supernatural and the other does not.
As for humanists… I grew up in the Church of God, Anderson Indiana. People often said, “Not that one, but the other one.” Well, the majority of humanists are atheists, but they are not that one. Humanism states what I do believe, which is not what you believe, obviously. It does not focus on not believing in the supernatural, but that is part of it. It is a lifestance that believes in reason and compassion, to live a fulling life, without belief in the supernatural. This is one of many short definitions. You do not have to tell me what humanism is, because I have been studying it for the last 20 years. So you wasted your breath or rather, you wasted bandwidth space.
You can believe what you want, but I prefer the philosophy of humanism, rather than the attitudes around here. It is not very becoming and I do not see how it advances atheism. It would seem humanist, albeit atheists, can do better than atheists who do not espouse humanism. BTW, humanists are atheists, but not all atheists are humanists. So yes, there is a difference and I far prefer Hemant and Greg Epstein’s attitudes. If that makes use “fair weather atheists”, oh well. I really don’t care.
*sighs*
Once again, I ask, what area of this issue was not explored the last time there was a huge thread about this? Remembering of course, that the last huge thread was an extremely short time ago, so no refresher is needed. I mean really people, what the fuck? It is all the same players saying the same stuff. How long do you plan on saying the same things to the same obvious trolls? How long do you plan on saying the same things to the same wimpy accomodationists?
Totally ridiculous. People yammer on and on and on about this, while other threads by PZ get relatively little attention. Clinic pretty much defrauds desperate families with dying children of 1000s of dollars… meh. GelatoGuy is a Christian ass, who gave a lame “apology”! ATTACK! You all fail in life.
Hey, didn’t Prof Myers get some dang fangled kinda Humanist award a few months back?
Yeah I really like how Hemant Mehta jumps to aid of every homophobe in the country, too.
Seriously, though, you’ve gone from being dismissive and insulting to presuming to know what the posters here believe to dictating what our philosophical framework is.
Do you not see why that might rub some people the wrong way?
RE: Julian:
I’m pretty sure that’s not the conclusion to take here.
To-may-to, to-mah-to.
Racism is not caused by sloppy thinking. Racism is caused by racism.
lookit dis scrubbb
Funny that, seeing as how you’re the one I’ve been seeing here trying to tell people how they ought to react to Drennen’s apology by accepting it and letting it go because “we making atheists look bad!” and all PZ and others have done is explain why *they* find the apology unacceptable. I don’t know how many more times it has to be repeated, but no one is obligated to accept Drennen’s apology, regardless of its sincerity. Many people have outlined why they aren’t compelled to accept Drennen’s apology, which is not the same as saying no one else should, only to result in whining that by not accepting the apology, they’re being “mean” and “making atheists look bad” at best and “attacking Drennen” at worst. Refusing to accept Drennen’s apology =/= “being mean.” And for the record, by that same token, accepting the apology does not necessarily equal being an accomodationist – it’s when you start making excuses for why it was ok/understandable for him to put up that sign because he was offended, mockery is bad and wrong when it hurts his feelings (regardless of the point said mockery is trying to make) that it becomes accommodationist claptrap.
So “shaming someone into rethinking their beliefs” isn’t ok when you’re trying to argue against racism or sexism or ableism? Making someone feel awful for discriminating against others because they come from a different country or speak with an accent isn’t acceptable? Oh, wait – that’s ok in those cases? So why do practices we find abhorrent get a pass when they’re based on religion?
Wrong again. “Atheist” is the label I take describing my stance on whether or not there are deities. “Secular humanist” is what describes my philosophy on human concerns and societal structure, being I attribute my morals, ethics and sense of justice based on non-religious reasoning and rationale. I believe that compassion and regard for my fellow human beings need not be based on superstitious edicts and that my morals need not be derived from a “divine” source to be good and right. So yes, I am a humanist.
Again, who’s being the “fundamentalist” here? You’re assuming that those you’re disagreeing with here are not humanists purely because they’re disagreeing with you. There are plenty of commenters here who very much subscribe to a humanist world view – just because it doesn’t fit YOUR particular view of humanism, doesn’t mean that we aren’t humanists. If you’ve ever bothered to pay attention here, social justice is extremely important to many of us, including PZ, thus our advocating the dismantling of enshrined religious privilege such as that displayed by Drennen, given the ample evidence that religious privilege leads to the codifying of social behaviors and strictures discriminating against those not in the religious majority. This is not the same as advocating for the banning of religious belief or discrimination against those who hold religious beliefs.
I never said they were. Also, not all humanists are atheists either – it is entirely possible to be a religious humanist, so it would behoove you not to make the assumption that just because someone subscribes to the humanist philosophy, it doesn’t automatically hold that xe will also be an atheist. The likelihood of an identified humanist being atheist is higher, but it isn’t by any means a given.
Then why the fucking hell are you here, other than to demonstrate your superiority over the rest of us for “being humanist and not atheists like [us]?”
ttt@219
Liar. Andy actively sought out the Skepticon conference, thinking he would get some good chuckles at people who believe silly things like UFOs. Instead, he found a bunch of people getting some good chuckles at people who believe silly things like religion. Those were (paraphrased) his own fucking words from the first interview.
I’m surprised no one else has called you on this lie, but there’s so much shit in your posts, it’s hard to catch all of the crap….
Also:
First of all: ten minutes? We only have GG’s word on that, yet many people from Skepticon have said they saw the sign. I suspect it was quite a bit longer, but the actual time is pretty irrelevant, as has been pointed out to you multiple times. Once again, for the slow of thinking, the important aspects of this are: 1) that he thought that was an ok reaction to put up the sign; 2) Even if we grant his probably false assertion that the sign was up for ten minutes, no one in the store called him on it, as far as we know. (Again, only basing this on Andy’s own words, so if you have a problem with it, take it up with him.)
In addition, claiming that he only discriminated against a convention is another red herring. The fact that he added ‘christian business’ to the sign (all caps and double underlined, IIRC) indicates to a reasonable observer (the standard used by the courts in the US) that it was, indeed, religious discrimination. Now, I’m sure Scalia could find some mental gymnastics to say that it wasn’t, but the intent is fairly obvious, so I think you should stop using this clearly disingenious dodge.
Ichthyic@248:
Just because it needs to be repeated, loudly and often, for the slow of thinking (BWE, are you paying attention?)
mriam@249>
I dunno, I’m getting pretty much the same passive aggressive vibe from your posts here as a lot of the others. Maybe you should consider that when it comes to communicating, if a lot of people are misunderstanding, maybe it’s not the readers’.
ttt again:
Fuck you sideways with a rusty porcupine. You are dense, dishonest, or a lot of both. Gelatoguy is no more particularly important than the bus driver that Rosa Parks defied. There’s a much larger issue here, as has been pointed out to you multiple times.
Actually, it is. The actual SCOTUS precedent has been posted for you to read. It would be mooted in a court of law (most likely), because the situation has already been remedied from a legal point of view. So you’re mostly wrong even on this simple point.
I’m going to have to read the rest of thread later, but are some of these andy supporters sockpuppets? They certainly have that special ring about them….
Gee, you even lie and bullshit about that. You and the truth are utter strangers. Otherwise, you stop trying to intimadate us with your presence, and fade back into the bandwidth. But then, that requires intelligence and self-reflection on why you are here. I see nothing of the kind from you. Just presupposition and idiocy.
Who the fuck cares what you think idjit troll??? You add nothing but whining to every thread. Your banhammer awaits your insipidity and losership. Both of which you excel at. Try listening instead of preaching.
The Pint
Always a pleasure, however you may want to change “about” to above. I wish I had done before posting.
So – if I understand your point correctly – your beef isn’t about someone being right or wrong, it’s about trying to alter someone else’s thinking?
Well, I’ll tell you what – I’ll make certain that every doctor I visit has been shamed into thinking that the germ theory of disease is true. Every doctor you visit will have avoided this henious fate.
I’ll be certain that every architect consulting on a building I live or work in has been cruelly programmed by his peers into accepting the ‘groupthink’ value for the force of gravity. We’ll try to ensure that your building are designed by people free of such strictures.
The history books I use will be written by researchers who know they will be mocked if they posit an extra-terrestrial origin for the Great Pyramid or Notre Dame Cathedral. Feel free to use the other kind of research, if you care to.
In the ongoing battle between reality and bullshit, the simple fact is that one side is right, and the other side is wrong. Failing to support the correct side often has consequenses far beyond mere rudeness.
No amount of kind talk can turn bullshit into truth. And no amount of rudeness can turn truth into bullshit.
You are so full of shit. Also, unlike you, I will not make a stupid joke about how you might have fun hanging me. (Sorry, you will own this even though you try to weasel out of it.)
I am like a fundamentalist because I want a person to feel shame and rethink their believes?
First off, a fundamentalist is one who believes that a holy book is the literal truth. Or at least how that sect interprets the book. I lack a book of truths.
Second, their use of shame is to keep a person in in line with theocratic ideology. In other words, curtail their thought. I want that person to realize that they are treating a person as someone less than human. I wanted that person to feel shame because they treated a person as if that person lacked dignity.
That fact that you think that I am just like a fundamentalist shows that you have not thought about your upbringing in a fundamentalist church. And you better fucking learn.
Yes, I want to shame you into becoming a freer thinker and a better person. Because the person I see here is a pathetic whiner.
RE: Fastlane:
So if a black guy put up a sign saying “KKK convention attendees not welcome at my African-American business” that would be a civil rights violation, too?
Atheism is not a movement and it is not a convention. It is simply acceptance of the idea that there is no god. That’s it. Pretty banal. You’ve got to be pretty daft to assume that a guy’s response to a convention is equivalent to discrimination against all atheists everywhere.
Rosa Parks did not defy a bus driver. She defied a series of unjust and repressive laws. Other freedom riders were severely beaten for defying those laws. So tell me, what anti-atheist laws are you people defying by getting all huffing mad at gelato guy. How are you taking personal risks with life and limb to fight those anti-atheist laws?
I mean, come on. You guys are so certain you’re the next Freedom Riders, so put up or shut up.
All I saw was Ichthyic fundamentally misunderstanding what the Establishment Clause says and what it has ben interpreted to mean by the Federal Government.
You know, it’s possible for people to do shitty things but not break the law. It’s perfectly possible to point out that putting up the sign was sort of a perineum move on Gelato Dude’s part without having a hysterical fit and claiming that he was violating civil and human rights and that this is like people getting beaten nearly to death by white mobs for sitting in the wrong seats on buses.
Just for clarification, are you referring to Icthyic’s post #59
link:
http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F3/419/678/617423/
affirming that atheists are a protected religious class? If so, are you asserting that the sign violated the protected rights of that class?
If not, which SCOTUS decision were you referring to?
RE: Janine:
‘Round home where I’m from on the intertubes, we’d post a little emoticon called “ironicat” in response to that little post of yours.
You know. Because it’s ironic.
There is a very simple reason why threads like this blows up while the thread you whined in, Burzynski Clinic: the domain of scoundrels and quacks, does not; people keep showing up to defend Andy. If people did not come in to defend Andy and go on the say that he is actually an ally and atheists are mean and so on, the issue would have died down in under one hundred comments in the first thread.
If people came in defending homeopathy and other medical quackery, that thread would blow up. It has happened before and when persistent quack trolls show up, it will happen again.
Also, assclam, your pointless whining helps to inflate the number of posts in these threads because a number of people keeps trying to point out why you are wrong.
Just fuck off.
Look at the liar and bullshitter still lying and bullshitting. The facts can be found here if you can stand learning the truth. So, when are you going to admit you are wrong and shut the fuck up?
BWE, check my last post too. You lose…Atheism is considered as a religion for protection of civil rights.
You are a fool without a coherent point. This will be the last time I comment on anything you say. If I give a fuck about any thing you say, I will respond.
Please, try to find anyone here who cares about what you say. The people who do are just playing with you.
Is this a spectacular failure of an analogy or are you seriously accusing atheists of being violent, homocidal bigots like the KKK?
Do you honestly not see the fatal flaw in this? Did you actually think about this and write it out thinking it was going to help your argument?
RE: Nerd:
Well good going that you had no idea what I was talking about I guess.
I am not disputing the fact that atheism is a protected class (just like any other religious group). I am objecting to the idea that Skepticon = Atheism.
If someone fired me for not believing in God, you can fucking bet I would be calling a lawyer. This guy didn’t do that. He put up a sign. A sign that mentioned that some people aren’t welcome based on their attendance at a convention, but that was not enforced and was quickly taken down.
RE: Janine:
“Ironicat.”
Any particular reason?
Racism is enabled, defended, supported and propagated by sloppy, unexamined, lazy and biased thinking. Lazy, sloppy, unexamined and biased thinking do the same for denialism, anti-vax fear mongering, Birthers, fuck just about every extremist group ever has capitalized on and exploited such thinking.
That’s why we need to police our thinking. I take it you’re the fluffy fuckwit type so try substituting examine in place of police. Maybe that will make it more palatable to you.
Do you have plans to actually make an argument somewhere on this thread or i trolling with meaningless platitudes and truisms all you’re here for?
And I have my answer.
TTT, you would not know irony even it were heated and slammed across your face.
But if they hung a sign on their business saying ‘No NonBelievers’ you’d be totally cool with that.
As long as it was up for only ten minutes.
Ah, a partial right, as Skepticon is not totally about atheism. But you lie when you imply atheism isn’t a part of Skepticon. And GG got hot over atheists mocking his religion. What a loser who can’t see the connection. Still lying and bullshitting to us.
Yes.
Just as soon as white people become a prosecuted and legistated-against minority, and the KKK stops being a domestic terrorist organization.
I estimate that the energy required to make those changes in the real world would be equivalent to burning 7.52 billion straw men.
Fortunately, with tchomp^3 posting, we’re well on our way.
RE: Illuminata:
Except that White, as a race, is a federally protected class. Which means that the KKK, which claims to speak for white people and white issues, is protected too…..right?
Or do you agree with me that advocacy organizations and protected classes are different things, and that they are granted non-equivalent legal and moral accomodations?
I had to bring in the Pharyngula Labs strawman fire suppression system, as they were/are piling up so much.
Wow Tchomp, could you be any more dishonest? Please do point out just who is “All huffing mad at GG”? Horrors! Some of us haven’t accepted his apology, and we’re still TALKING about our reasons for that decision! Ohh noooo! We must hate him with the heat of a thousand burning suns, right?
At least it’s easy to see who is actually attempting to communicate in good faith, and who has to resort to bluster, dishonest innuendo, and flat-out falsehoods in their attempt to skew or derail the conversation. Rosa Parks didn’t defy a bus driver? Says you! If he told her to sit down and she didn’t, laws or not, she defied the driver! And the rest of that paragraph from you is nothing but an attempt to derail the discussion. No one here has claimed even once to be Freedom Riders, you are making. that. up. just like Mriana made up PZ’s anger, as well as his desire to hang, jail, or in any other way punish GelatoGuy.
Why does your side try so hard to rewrite reality, when the truth of it is so obvious to everyone? You know that this strategy is failing steadily for religions all over the world, don’t you? People are leaving -every- religion in droves, and the ones who leave, most of ’em aren’t coming back. Ever!
Well, just because it’s an obvious tactic, don’t let that stop you! If nothing else, it makes it easy to separate the wheat from the chaff – and I get some entertainment watching you dance for the regulars, so it’s all good.
Ta-ta, Tchotchke. Why don’t you and Mriana follow the link to The Intersection, there’s a whole crowd there just waiting to welcome you in with open arms. You folks were made for each other!
I don’t know what you are referring too. Where did I say it isn’t? Race is also protected. Including being white. And sexuality, including being hetero. Did you mean someone else?
RE :Julian:
You know what happens when you successfully debunk a racist’s pseudoscientific justifications for their beliefs?
They still call you a spic, or a kike, or whatever. And sometimes they punch you in the face. Or worse.
Pseudointellectual justifications for racism are simply a thin veneer plastered on over a seething mess of hate. Strip away that veneer, and there’s still a seething mess of hate.
RE: Weasel:
Oh please oh please tell me what “side” I’m on here.
mriana@343:
Except of course, what you write here.
I’m sure some others have already called you on this bullshit, but wtf? Unless of course, you’re trying to be sarcastic or ironic again, in which case, I’d say… wtf??
You’ll now refrain from judging anyone for anything (including PZ and gelatoguy) because you’re not psychic, right?
And if your writing here is any indication, I hope you have a day job.
And yet the KKK does not have the same political clout they did a century ago and politicians are shamed when connections to the CCC are pointed out.
I don’t see you trolling anymore. Why did you stop? Probably because the threat of banning. And counter trolling, including mine. Is my work here done?
*throws more strawmen into the fire suppression system*
Speaking only for myself, I neither know nor care. But the simple fact that your are fast and loose with the facts of the case says all I need to know.
Still neglecting the fact that the organization in question is a terrorist organization, huh?
Let’s try a similar game: If a store-owner said “No al-Qaida members allowed in my Christian business”, this would be just as non-discriminatory against groups of people, and as (un)justified, as a sign that said “No members of the local mosque allowed in my Christian business”? Both organizations are Muslim in nature, but because it makes sense to forbid the terrorist organization, it must make sense to exclude any organizations on the basis of religion, because the terrorist organizations claim to speak for Muslims just like the plain ol’ harmless mosques do. Right? Or are you claiming that Skepticon is just as deserving of exclusion from business deals as terrorist organizations, and that anything else isn’t subject to same “right to discriminate against organizations” that you are outlining here?
“Why don’t you respect my beliefs?”
“Because you don’t respect mine! And mine are based on reality.”