What’s widening the rifts? The fact that growing diversity within movement atheism is tearing away from a bitterly misogynistic core. A core that is becoming the fringe.
Harassment and excluding people from your movement will be your downfall, atheism. Please take this as a warning, and an attempt to right the wrongs within your movement before it collapses. From now on, I’m a secular humanist, feminist, mangina-loving, vegetarian socialist, and nothing else, until you clean up your act.
Jenny McDermott
Yeah, these days I identify as secular humanist/feminist/liberal, with atheist dead last. If I admit to it at all. The rifts are not nearly wide or deep enough yet.
Yeah, Atheism is one ASPECT of my personality. Do I have to list all of them?
It’s sad. It wasn’t too long ago that I was pushing people to identify with atheism as a label. I knew how much stigma was associated with the term, but felt it was unwarranted. I saw non-religious people who would say they don’t believe in God, but try to slap any desperate label on themselves to avoid calling themselves “atheist”, which I saw as the proper label. “Non-religious” was a cop out. “Agnostic” was based on the axis of knowledge and not belief, and I would grit my teeth whenever someone say that they were agnostic rather than atheist, because of uncertainty. “Humanism” was just an attempt to have religion without being religious. Then there would be the strained to latch themselves onto spirituality, or New Age belief systems, or watered down philosophical pinings regarding deism, and so forth. If you don’t believe in gods, you were an atheist, and failing to label yourself as such was hurting other atheists.
But now I just look back and find it all so petty. There are some people legitimately horrible people, in high places, dirtying up the “atheist” brand. There are some harmful, toxic people who make up a good chunk of atheism. Before I wished people would come out and identify as atheist as solidarity, to give protection to other atheists. Now I see that getting people to associate with atheism gets them within reach of some awful little people who are pretending to be gentle and enlightened, and associating with such people will either ruin your reputation or put you at risk of abuse by their hands. Or both.
It is amazing how new information and a slight shift in priorities can change your perspective on things. I regret trying to get people to identify as atheist. Atheism didn’t deserve them and they didn’t deserve to be put in place where they have to deal with the impact of these douchebags.
The concept of people sometimes not being capable of giving consent or forming intent, whether because of disease, defect, age, or drugs, is well established in law. If, for example, you are so blind intoxicated that you are truly incapable of forming the intent to murder, you can’t be charged with that if you kill someone. It will be a lesser charge.
I suppose Thunderf00t thinks that sex with children isn’t rape, because he doesn’t recognize their incapability of giving consent? Or that it’s not rape to have sex with someone who’s under general anesthesia, who is equally incapable. The law recognizes these people’s incapability, and also that of women who are too incapacitated to consent. It long has.
Some people just don’t make sense.
It’s really annoying that a pack of misogynists realized they could cash in on anger and pretend it’s “reason”.
For years, I’ve been suspicious of anyone who treats atheism as though it were an end in itself. I’ve seen this kind of interaction again and again…
Other person: “I AM JOHN DOE THE ATHEIST!”
Me: “That’s nice; I am too. How has atheism influenced your worldview? Do you oppose authoritarianism and hero worship? What are you doing to subvert the influence of the Religious Right?”
Other person: “I AM AN ATHEIST! I AM AN ATHEIST!”
Me: “Yes, you are. But what else describes you? What do you do in reflection of this?”
Other person: [says some reactionary statement dehumanizing half the population]
after reading hear for a while I have come to be less defensive about not believing in any gods. The deep rifts has exposed the main reason for not identifying with an Atheist Movement. It is all to easy to be seen by many as a predatory, opinionated, would be authoritarian ass hole., who only thinks about himself.
uncle frogy
I think there might be a distinction here between atheist and “movement atheist”. A billion Russian and Chinese and Eastern European and Cuban and Venezuelan and Bolivian and Vietnamese atheists have never heard of Thunderfoot or Hitchens, nor consider themselves part of a movement. And I suspect very strongly that the VAST majority of American atheists (30-40 million at last count?) have never heard of Sam Harris or Vox Day or consider themselves part of a movement. They just don’t buy into supernatural explanations of existence, and don’t believe in God in any routine way, other than to say Goddamit when they stub their toe or burn the roast, or an occasional “Please God I Hope I Get That Job Offer!!” Which is not to excuse the execrable behavior of the SlymePitters and sub-Reddits, nor that awful harassment of SJWs (self-identified as such or not), nor particularly to cast anything but a very cold eye on the elitist and sexist and classist tone-deafness of Dawkins and Harris and their ilk.
I’m just not convinced that your everyday ordinary American/Canadian/Western European atheist — of the sort who doesn’t actively read these sort of blogs — has ever heard of the various internecine squabbles, or Atheism-Plus, or Dear Muslima, etc. Their everyday ordinary lack of belief in a Canaanite Sky God goes on unbothered by the territorial pissing of Thunderfoot and his fanboys. I agree with everything Ms. McDermott says, but I bet my bottom dollar among non-movement-atheists, the misbehavior and racism and sexism of insider assholes has nearly zero bearing on whether they are embarrassed about being an atheist. They just don’t believe. If other non-believers with an Internet following are dicks, one’s life as an everyday atheist is largely unaffected.
It’s when Christian politicians impose their will on you that everyday ordinary atheists start paying attention.
I must admit that I largely agree with Jenny McDermott on this – there was a time when I was too retiring and shy to say I was an atheist in public, and used other terms to avoid having ‘that conversation’ with the kinds of people who think atheists are ‘lost souls’ in need of ‘salvation’, or who simply view anyone who doesn’t believe in their god as evil incarnate. As I grew and matured, I became less concerned about what others would think and more concerend about living my life according to my values and principles. And yet now I am going full circle again in trying to avoid the term atheist, not out of shyness or a desire to avoid giving offence, but out of shame for what the movement has become, and out of a desire not to be associated with the toxic arsehats who have managed to maneuver themselves into the position of Atheist Thinky Leaders whose edicts, according to their legions of followers, must be obeyed no mater what utter bigoted crap they may be, in defiance of the whole notion of free thought.
Atheism + has beemn suggested as a way of slavaging the atheist label, and while I greatly admire the concepts and values behind atheism +, what worries me is that all too many people will see the atheism part, associate it with people like Dawkins and other prominent atheist jerks, and never even get so far as considering what the mathematical symbol might stand for, leaving us still tainted by association with the bigoted boys club that high profile atheism has already largely become. Unless that changes, non-believers of conscience may have to jettison the atheist label entirely lest we be seen as lending support to misogynists and other stripes of bigot by our silence and ongoing association with them.
As for Thunderf00t and his heionous rape apologia, that disgusting misogynistic arsehole is everything that is wrong with contemporary movement atheism. It is more than unfortunate he ever had a blog here as a platform for his bile.
anbheal
Vox Day is not one of ours. He even wrote a book about it (titled The Irrational Atheist). The Christians can keep that one.
jodyp @ #5,
Excellent quote. Thank you.
Nice to see all the comments here comport with my take too. ‘atheist’ just doesn’t do any real descriptive work for who I am and what I stand for…A real non starter…
Hrm, I’m not willing to let “atheist” be defined by its worst actors any more than I’m willing to let “feminist” be defined by the few people who do in fact play into the popular negative stereotypes. I don’t see the need for a new label to widen the rift, but then I’m also not going to try to insist that any of y’all (continue to) identify with the label “atheist” either.
Frankly, “skeptic” seems to have become much more toxic than “atheist”.
I think “atheism” is largely unaffected by “movement atheism,” and “movement atheism” is on the whole positively influenced by the growing diversity. Many atheists insist they don’t want to join into some group where everybody marches in lockstep. So McDermott’s hypothetical atheist new to atheism may very well see controversies as a plus: problem and antidote. Which side they see as which may also change through growing diversity.
As long as we keep arguing with each other, there’s hope. And I’m pretty sanguine about an ongoing lack of harmony far into the future.
It’s really sad how Thunderf00t has fallen. He had it made with his “why we laugh at creationists” series. Then he had to go and shoot himself in both feet. And keep on doing it. You’re up to your thighs now, TF…
I used to be worried about being falsely accused of rape by angry feminists or so, then I realized that I just didn’t understand the problem.
This consent stuff is easy.
I still don’t get the fedora thing though.
And why does De Grasse Tyson have one? I understand Ayaan Hirsi Ali, but did Tyson say/do something stupid that I missed?
Re “atheism”…
Good riddance.
It’s a negative term that doesn’t say much about a person, it is not understood as saying much about a person and it encompasses, besides libertarians and MRAs plenty of other people I don’t want to be associated with, conspirationists of all flavors come to mind.
The problem is not ditching religion, the problem is learning solid, compassionate thinking.
At a university near me (Cornell), a student sent her professor an e-mail informing him that she’d be taking the day off from class for Yom Kippur; she accidentally sent it to the whole class. One of the students spoofed the professor’s address and sent back an anti-semitic screed containing phrases like “go back to Israel” — making it seem like the professor sent this, you note. When he was caught, he justified himself by saying that he was just criticizing religion in general and saying that it wasn’t a good reason for missing class. And a lot of other students jumped in to defend him saying that relgion in general deserved to be criticized and that’s all that this was about. Well, no– apart from the letter containing elements of personal hostility, you could match up its rhetoric with well-known antisemitic rhetoric quite nicely. I wished I was a student myself so I could join the conversation and say “I’m an atheist too, and I recognize that this guy is being a dick and was 100% out of line from the start;” because I sadly didn’t see anyone saying that.
Is it any wonder, then, that I make some people uncomfortable saying I’m an atheist, when yahoos like these dominate conversations about religion? I couldn’t really blame them for assuming I must have been among those defending the email-forger if they didn’t hear any other atheist voices.
When becoming more of a movement instead of a dictionary atheist, and by espousing ideologies like feminism or social justice, your movement experiences schisms. That is only a natural consequence it seems of becoming ideological.
The sad thing is, I followed Thunderf00t, Dawkins and PZ Meyers, and I don’t really think your views on women, social justice and other important issues does not really differ as much as you seem to think.
But each difference is magnified a thousand fold and sol both sides slander each other with poisonous words like “bigot”, “misogyny”, “racist”, “rape apology”, “mangina”, “feminazi” and whatever other childish niceties. A nice bit of ammo you give your non-atheist opponents there.
I actually and truly sympathize with both sides, although I also respectfully disagree with some of the things these sides state (yes, also with PZ). But I would not dare to differ on ideological basis lest I become a part of the shitstorm myself, oh no, I’m a coward in that respect, especially when some good old mob mentality is at work.
I do think though, there is a way out. BOTH sides shouild try to hear what they really say, not what you think they say. And maybe tolerate some diversity of opinions, even on more sensitive matters. You know, people can be WRONG and still not be monsters.
Maybe let any discussion be moderated by people like Cristina Rad, Ana Kasparian or The Peach.
I used to sympathize with men who expressed a fear of being falsely accused of rape or other abuses, because I was in the process of getting divorced (long belated, in large part due to having it beaten into my skull that CUSTODY ALWAYS GOES TO THE MOTHER IN A DIVORCE by society in general and her in particular) from an abusive alcoholic with a staggering sense of entitlement, a very poor concept of boundaries, and a severe impulse-control problem. Malicious false accusations seemed like a very real possibility at that point.
Then I realized how perfectly rape culture mirrored the extreme and pervasive bullying I experienced as a child and the constant, lazy, equivocating, Stepford-smiling betrayal by every authority figure or should-be protector that followed it.
@19, Garys
Too late. you just accused PZ and others here of slander. And you made your ideological position clear, that you think people are seeing bigotry where you personally claim there isn’t any.
Seriously, think things through better before you blurt out self contradictory nonsense like that. k?
Garys, #19
That’s some marvelous bit of vacuous both sideism.
It seems like you’re the one who hasn’t been listening to what BOTH sides have been really saying. I have no interest in hearing why some pompous atheist thinks it’s okay to make women feel unwelcome among fellow atheists.
And you make it seem like we’d like to make amends and close the gap between atheists who care about social justice and those that make it a point to not only not care but actively do and say things that further marginalize and alienate the non white-male people who are also atheists. I for one have no qualms about keeping myself as distanced from those thinky people as possible.
With that fuckwitted and idiotic statement, no further reading. Drivel on drivel.
Bullshit. There’s deep rifts all right, and I know on which side I stand; I can stand nowhere else and there’s naught but a yawning void where you pretend there’s a happy middle. It’s gone, and as Dana said the other day, I wish the rift was wider, because I can still hear them whining.
Since some folks, like PZ and the horde, think women are our equals, and should be treated as such, and TF thinks women are nothing but sex toys for epsilon males like himself, there are deep rifts in how human beings are perceived and treated. To claim otherwise is bullshit, making everything you say questionable.
F.O. @17:
If you missed this, yes.
For someone with a degree in physics, that’s really stupid. Too stupid to justify the mediocre joke, certainly.
Garys: do you need to borrow a gratuitously snide & nasty detector? Or did you leave yours in the No gurlz allowed clubhouse?
when I adopted the label “atheist”, it was associated with Nietzsche and Stalin. There’s no way I’m dropping it over Dawkins or tf00t. If the rest of you want to drop the label – well, maybe that will help, and maybe it won’t. I don’t know.
llewelly, #28
Who’s saying anything about dropping it?
Besides, I can’t drop it. I’m an atheist.
Yeah, I’m not going to stop calling myself an atheist just because of idiots like Harris or Tfool are around. I’m just not going to let them speak for me.
@Garys #19
What a load of bs. Perhaps your “misunderstanding” stems from the following premise:
You see Pure Atheism being infiltrated or contaminated by ideological impurities of feminism and other social justice causes. Wrong. Movement atheism was ideological from the start. It was ideological with male supremacy, libertarianism, racism, and other forms of bigotry. What happened was that women and other minorities started to complain about that ideology which had led directly to a hostile environment for women at conferences and speaker slates full of white men, excluding people of colour and women.
Saad:
how did you misunderstand this?
or how about this:
anteprepro:
Rob Grigjanis:
NDT does a lot of astronomy. Has for many years. Astronomers get that wrong all the time – I suspect because they are used to using red filter flashlights.
Here is another (corrected) example, and you can find lots of others from many other astronomers. You should email NDT and see if he will admit he was wrong too.
http://www.badastronomy.com/mad/1996/traffic.html
I dunno, it seems like identifying as an atheist is still an important thing to do. People have tried to come up with obfuscating euphamisms to say they don’t believe in dieties for a long time, but the term “atheist” is probably going to remain the most precise and understandable term for what we are. That means that if those of us who care about social justice issues in an atheistic context shy away from using the label and stop encouraging like-minded atheists to identify as such, we effectively abandon the term to the conservative atheists to define, and we’ll still be identified as such the moment someone figures out or we reveal that we don’t believe in any gods, regardless of the label we use. In that case, we would be unable to even admit to our lack of belief in gods without being embarrassed and misperceived, so it’s back into the closet we go. There will be terrible people who identify as atheists just as there are terrible Christians, Buddhists, feminists, mathematicians, and human beings in general. The trick, as I see it, is to become more relevant to the label than them.
#19: I don’t think you follow me at all carefully. And who is this guy “PZ Meyers”?
@21 brianpansky
Yes, you may be right. It seems I fall into the pit of harsh (and thus unjust) language myself. Please keep in mind I was referring only to the general tone of conversation (and I’m frustrated with that). Alas, I do not think ‘there is no bigotry’, as I come to this site and others to purge some of my own bigotry.
@22, @23, @24, @25 Saad, CJO, Nerd
Thank you for clarifying what you think is the rift. I’m certainly not asking you to vacate what you stand for just to make one happy community, that would be … wrong!! Nor stop criticizing, please.
However, a claim such as “TF thinks women are nothing but sex toys for epsilon males like himself”, well…. I trust we agree that’s a serious accusation?
@27 naturalcynic
Maybe I suffer from both false negatives and false positives on that detector, fine tuning is always necessary (but not at a whim).
@31 Ibis3
“You see Pure Atheism being infiltrated or contaminated by ideological impurities of feminism and other social justice causes.”
No, I don’t. I simply don’t believe in “pure atheism” as a possible mindset (other than being dead). Yes, one needs to take a stance on important issues to build a community, and you did. Is that stance that different from the other atheists? You clearly seem to think so.
Thank you all for the answers. Food for thought.
llewelly, #32
Oh, sorry. I thought by dropping the label you meant saying you’re no longer an atheist. I understand Jenny and anteprepro as saying they just won’t come out and proudly say they’re atheist because the impression atheist gives is that of the Thought Leader types that get all the attention.
Prove otherwise with third party evidence, or shut the fuck up.
The fact that you don’t is prima facie evidence of your fuckwittery. The “golden mean” is not a argument, but a fallacy.
It’s sad. The stigma around being an atheist used to be imposed from outside by people who didn’t understand what atheism was.
Now the stigma around being an atheist is emanating from within, from people whose proud rationality doesn’t extend beyond their privilege.
Hopefully the influx of other-than-straight-white-guys will sort that out. Might take a while though.
As a long time expat I get to meet a lot of people with strong belief in religion (Pious when asked. Hedonist in practice.) who’s entire knowledge of atheism consists of “Richard Dawkins wrote a bunch of rude things in a book once”
And I’m quite happy with this because this means that they know nothing of Phil Mason and his ilk and have less ammunition to use in an argument. They could easily be like, “Yeah, but you guys got MRAs” and all I would be able to do is go, “Yeah, but, um… shit…”
@19, Garys
Except that in the specific case of Tfoot and PZ Myers, they do. Greatly. Which is what led Tfoot to flame out and be asked to leave two posts after joining this very blog network. It wasn’t because he “dared to disagree with PZ and was callously blackballed”, it was because he labelled the (new, at the time) idea of harassment policies at atheist/skeptic conventions (similar policies as those at many other kinds of convention) as some kind of overbearing fascist anti-flirtation jackbooted thuggery, absolutely refused to take correction on the matter and with every subsequent utterance and exclamation not only proved himself to be completely incapable of understanding where he’d been mistaken, but also justified every criticism made of him. Since then he’s revealed himself to be an unapologetic anti-feminist and has apparently switched the focus of his YT channel from science and creationism to moaning about Anita Sarkeesian and any other feminist of any gender who dares to point out instances of the male-heavy status quo. If he wasn’t such a shitty writer, raging narcissist and sneering bully, I’d mourn the loss of an asset to atheism.
TL;DR: In terms of social justice, especially feminism, Tfoot is as diametrically opposed to PZ Myers it’s possible to be. Which I think you’d know if you’d paid as much attention as you imply.
I’m not ashamed of atheism. I’m embarrassed for Dawkins, dismissive of Harris, digusted by Thunderf00t, and disappointed by Hitchens.
No leaders. No movement. individuals, and social justice.
Why is Tyson in the Athearsehole group shot? He’s hardly a member of that club.
Garys, Thunderf00t thinks that he should not be required to ask permission before biting a woman on the leg.
I shit you not.
Rob Grigjanis @ #26:
Granted, but is that really enough to lump Neil deGrasse Tyson in with Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens, Douchef00t, et al? I’m sitting here wondering if Tyson said something incredibly bigoted, or played into respectability politics, or something.
For the record, I agree with Jenny on basically everything else, with the only other exception being the “faith” thing (we didn’t “come from” the Big Bang… it ain’t that simple; and I don’t need faith to know that evolution is an evidenced fact… because… you know… evidence). It’s a really good video.
I’m just wondering why Tyson was lumped in with the misogynistic, racist, xenophobic asshats when I don’t think he deserves to be.
Also… if someone comes along wondering why Krauss is there… among other things, he’s defended a child rapist.
And did I see Jerry Coyne? He’d fit in perfectly.
Not to beat a dying horse, but Tyson is the only one I’d argue doesn’t belong, unless I’ve missed something.
In terms of atheism… I’m afraid my anti-theism won’t let me give up the title of “atheist”, but it now comes qualified: Agnostic Social Justice Atheist works nicely for me, frankly. Hell… even just “Agnostic Atheist” helps me along to a better conversation than plain old “atheist” does these day.
And unfortunately, williamgeorge, I’ve already faced the “but y’all have the [MRAs/Randians/Libertarians/bigots]” multiple times recently, and I’m subscribed to various different alerts for atheism in the news, and these rifts make up a good 1/4 of all that since the Oppenheimer piece. After the Oppenheimer piece, the ugly side of atheism that we were dealing with before that (and that we’re still dealing with now) is slowly starting to become public knowledge. It won’t be long before religious thinkers start writing think pieces on it, sadly…
The religious believe they shouldn’t have to apologize for the words and actions of their most vocal and high profile members. Even the ones who defend them don’t apologize for it. I don’t see why we should, but we definitely should take the higher ground – be vocal in our atheism, criticize and distance ourselves from those who are repugnant. And just as the average christian, muslim, jew, hindu or buddhist isn’t responsible for the actions of their most extreme members, neither are we. We’re only responsible for our individual actions.
Garys —
Your post (#19) reminds me when an American, remarking to an Irishman about the Union/Loyalist divide in Northern Ireland, who says something like, “Y’all are both Christian and both Irish, so I don’t really think your views about the important issues really differ as much as you seem to think.”
Perhaps my analogy paints you as a tiny bit more callous than truth be told, but only because no one, as of yet, has actually been killed over the divisive issues that exist among atheists. We are far beyond merely “espousing ideologies.” I am happy for you that you have not been, nor seem to know personally someone who is, a casualty of this division. But you have to know that blood has been spilled, so to speak, and people have been harmed, in rare instances devastatingly so, due to what you want to callously brush aside as a mere ideological difference. No, our dispute isn’t in the same ballpark with Northern Ireland, but its way past the point where you can simply sit on the fence and pass commentary without appearing like a spectator being mildly entertained by watching a blood-sport at the Roman Colosseum. Pick a side already — or learn to enjoy being called an amoral arse.
BTW, I don’t think the rift is storming only the Atheosphere.
It seems like vegan circles are experiencing exactly the same: unwillingness to make meetings safe for everyone, complaints that veganism should only be about some things and not others, anti-feminism.
I wonder if this is just a general trend among liberal circles.
@Rob Grigjanis #26
Well, not acknowledging petty mistakes would make Tyson full of himself at worst, AFAIK he never rallied against SJWs or the like.
Although, I now realize I fucked up pretty badly, by neglecting to submit these reactions to Giliel in triplicate to await her approval so as to make sure I was allowed to have them.
*flips ALL THE TABLES*
garys @ here and there,
There’s a book called Pythagoras’ Trousers by Margaret Wertheim. It’s a history of physics. You should read it sometime.
It illustrates how an elite group can easily carry over – without malice aforethought – the presumptions and preconditions of an earlier thought pattern into something new and supposedly rational, to its long-term detriment. That’s where the rift is. It has nothing to do with either personal clashes or a failure to “all get along nicely” – an instruction which should be left behind at the kindergarten stage, so that we can all grow up.
Youtube keeps suggesting Thunderfoot videos every now an then and everytime, just by looking at the title, i feel like breaking something. What a complete and utter piece of shit that man is…I want the rifts to be so vast i loose awareness that there is a land mass on the other side…
@25 Nerd: TF really blew it, then. In his earlier incarnation, because of his brains, excellent voice and videography skills– not to mention the way he so commandingly knew what he was talking about in the “creationist” videos– I actually found him attractive.
Then he had to support rapists and gender essentialists; thus removing all semblance of sex appeal.
Purportedly, atheist anarchists in Czarist Russia used the (Russian version of the) Biblical name “Nebuchadnezzar” as a password, because of its similarity (as pronounced) to the Russian for “No God, no Czar” (something like “ne Bog, ne Tsar”). Works for me.
NateHevens @45:
No. I should have made that clear.
Can someone please remind me how Dennet ‘earned’ the fedora? I was hoping there was at least one decent horseman.
To me, he earned it when he jumped to Dawkins’ defense following his ill-considered rape comments and the backlash they rightfully earned.
# 19.
Golden mean fallacy horseshit. No, “both sides” aren’t bad. One “side” has merrily trotted down the road with the worst people in the world because they don’t want to share equal billing with women.
If you happily hang out with racists, sexists and homophobes you may be an atheist but you’ve lost all claim to rationality and skepticism-and most of your humanity to boot.
Yes, bigots on one side and everyone else on the other. Schisms are good when they divide innocent people from the assholes who actively terrorize them.
No shit. Thanks for clearing that up. We needed that spelled out for us because we’re all brand new. Seriously. I fell off a turnip truck last night. I need you to explain the world to me.
Fuck you, you smarmy fuck. That’s a lie. If you honestly cannot see the difference between people who think I’m a full human and those very vocal people who do not, shut the fuck up until you can tell the difference. You’re the one who needs some lessons in dealing with reality.
Garys @19 (emphasis mine):
Evidently those differences are very small to you; why, they just don’t really matter to you! So why put all that energy into that topic if nothing bad is happening to you , amirite?
If those *opinions* don’t influence your life in any significant way, then why should anyone be upset, amIrite??
I identify as “Secular Humanist” and “Atheist” (and also “Feminist”, “Software Engineer”, “Geek”, “Photographer”, and “Middle Eastern Musician”). I do not believe we should follow those Muslims who say, “that’s not who we are”, and yet do nothing to stop others from abusing their title. I think we should work hard against non-Humanist Atheists to take the title “Atheist” back from them and clarify that MOST Atheists are not like that.