We need an appropriate noun in there…I just wish “atheist” wasn’t one of them. After his awful run-in with Martin Hughes in which TJ Kirk, the “amazing” atheist, revealed just how mind-bogglingly and obliviously racist he is, you can guess what happened next.
A. He had an epiphany and realized that lecturing a black man on the nature of racism was absurd?
B. He took the rebuke seriously and is in the process of rethinking his errors?
C. He doubled down and declared that black people in America are all professional victims?
What’s your guess?
The correct answer is C, D, E, F, G, H, etc., in increasing order of patent nastiness. Kirk had a long heartfelt discussion with Hughes, and it just got worse and worse and worse.
This is exactly why we have to dig a deep chasm in the heart of atheism, detonate a few nukes inside it to widen it, and fill it with molten lava to keep those shitbags on their side.
I saw he’s gone on to make a similar “answering questions” video for Asian people. I suppose that’s somewhere in the F+ range…
(There’s also an older one about “answering dumb women’s questions”. So…)
I wonder how The Amazing Asshole and his legion of white supporters became so qualified to speak on what is or is not racist.
@Tony #2:
Personal belief in their own infallible rationality and an incredulity that other people might reach a different conclusion, perhaps?
Or possibly some other shit indistinguishable from magic.
@Tony #2:
Because they’re super-logical atheists and racism is obviously something only religious people have.
Martin Hughes has been almost superhumanly patient throughout this online dialogue.
In return, it’s been alleged that he’s “riding TAA’s coattails.” (Blech.)
And now The Amazing Ass is claiming Hughes has a “handler.” (Steve Shives, of the Drunken Peasants podcast.)
Shives is white. Natch. Way to convince the world you’re no racist, TJ–announce that there must be a white man behind the black man arguing with you!
Meanwhile, has Kirk addressed any of the reams of evidence Hughes gave him? I don’t think so. He’s just waving his hands and shouting “Look over there!”
You now what I like about this guy?
Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Oh gods, the comments in that link…
The Amazing what, you ask? The Amazingly Stupid Atheist, I say.
So, he chose options F, A, I, and L, in that order, then?
So I’m reading the comments in the linked post and… is Edward Gemmer making sense? Am I actually liking his posts?
What is happening?
As for TJ… he’s amazing, all right… an amazing bigot. Fuck everything about him.
Funny how every Youtube atheist I hear about is a total douchebag. It must be something about the medium.
I feel compelled to point out that I’ve never heard any douchebaggy things about AronRa or the folks from The Atheist Experience.
Other non-asshole youtube atheists:
Non-Stamp Collector (barely posting these days):
https://www.youtube.com/user/NonStampCollector/videos
Potholer54 (atheism and climate change denial refutation):
https://www.youtube.com/user/potholer54/videos
There seems to be a particular strand of bigotry, prevalent in many places, that objects vehemently to the notion that there actually are victims of anything but blind chance.
I think it has something to do with the Just World fallacy. Or at least with these people’s innate discomfort at the idea that they are the beneficiaries of an unfair system. Perhaps with a dislike of being affected by outside factors in general. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find that it stems ultimately from some fragile notion that they are responsible for all that they are, and a refusal to believe that their current pleasant circumstances are not a hard-won prize for being excellent people and doing life right. The corollary is, of course, that everyone else is also responsible for their situation in life and they are not doing well because they choose to do life wrong. Historical systemic factors get in the way of painting the world as a place where you get out exactly what you put in.
assuming you mean the link to the youtube vid, but it could just as easily be the link to martin’s last article in response on Patheos…
and now you know why I so rarely visit the blogs on Patheos.
the comments sections are FILLED with racists and MRAs
Brayton was a fool to go there; lost what little respect I had left for him.
because Aaron rarely doubles down when he makes mistakes. he admits them and moves on.
I generally don’t like the whole “most punchable face” thing that gets thrown around about Pharmabro and Trump, but god damn is it tempting with this racist, misogynist fuckstain.
cartomancer, #14
The only legitimate victimhood is that of the fragile egoed cis-hetero-white men who get witch hunted and assaulted with critical words when they exercise their freedom of speech.
Ichthyic: I avoid Patheos too, for much the same reason. But in Ed’s defense, I’ll point out that:
1. Patheos pays a heck of a lot more than we do. I wish I knew how. I’d love to see an analysis of their finances.
2. The fact that we ban assholes means that said assholes direct a lot of their hatred right at us in other public venues. That Patheos does not, and let’s them rage and rant freely against us, and against black people, means they do not get the same level of antipathy.
It’s also the case that the-orbit is hated even more, and is drawing away some of the poison right now.
It’s a rather weak defense in my book. Not going to change my mind on that one. But I will say it was a small straw in a growing stack of things that was driving me away from Ed, and leave it at that.
Ichthyic,
The comments section at Patheos are a bit of a mixed bag. Each blog has their own commenting policy, and not every blog attracts the same ‘crowd’. A bit like here on FTB.
– Ed runs a very loose ship, just like he did here. In general the comments sections are fine, except when some outside bat-signal brings in a drove of bigots.
– Blogs like Godless in Dixie and Love Joy Feminism run a much tighter ship, the comments sections there are invariably great.
– The ‘Friendly’ atheist is mostly hit-and-miss. No moderation, lots of useless comments. Sometimes ok, sometimes downright toxic.
As for Martin’s blog: normally he gets only a handfull of comments on his posts. It is just that in this instance, the posts get a lot of attention, and brings in the howler monkeys/TAA fanboys.
As for the comments on Martin’s post, as I stated early on in the first one: there needs to be a Lewis’ law for racism.
I find it funny that in a defence of TAA against charges of racism, the white supremacists come out in droves to spout their racism. There are people there literally denying there is any discrimantion still existing in the US. There are arguments made that any discrepancy in for example employment must by 100% the fault of african-americans. The old IQ-discrepancy arguments are dusted off again and stated as scientific fact. And, of course, the only racism is the anti-whire racism of all blacks.
One of the most active ones is our old loony libertarian friend “Enopoletus Harding”. And you all will be terribly surprised to know he has gone full-on HBD/internet-nazi-wannabe.
Hating on Dispatches?!
But that’s where I get my daily dose of Modus.
@Rey Fox 11
I would agree there is a higher proportion. I think it has to do with how well one handles video versus text and related emotional impacts of the media. It’s easier pass off BS and gish gallop on a video and one is often forced to create a transcript to respond effectively which can be a barrier.
@zenlike 22
I’ve also noticed that there are correlates for Lewis’ law on other issues: anti-racism, anti-LGBTQphobia…
I guess when one challenges people who believe irrational and illogical things for reasons that boil down to in-group dominance one should expect them to wave around their conceptual weapons all the harder. Since the only thing making those weapons effective is other people and not an actual connection to reality a group response is what they must do.
Urgh, that was a hard read, especially thanks to the dessert of a comment section I subjected myself to. Still, I appreciate his constant sarcasm, that helped me through it somewhat.
Anyway: Fuck. Was this “community”, this “House of Atheism” always this rancid? I know I’ve developed great antipathy for a lot of content creators I used to enjoy, but was I that blind before or did they removev their masks to reveal the hideousness underneath in recent years?
Like I said in a different comment section, I never liked TAA’s style to begin with, but he’s just one example of many “prominent atheists” who turned out to be utter tosspots, including some I did indeed like in the past.
I suppose I could watch some of their old content to look for this shit back then or at least early warning signs of it, but I’m not at all inclined to do that.
He is vile scum. Unbelievably rascist. Just abhorrent.
@23,
INORITE? Modus makes it all worthwhile.
I tried to watch the video Martin Hughes linked from TAA but I just could not. It was bad enough that TAA was yammering about but he also had attached a thumbnail of half-naked women titled “The ass of the day”. Seriously, what kind of a moron would listen to that podcast and go, “yeah, that’s my intellectual atheist! And check out that ass!” *facepalm*
When I had side-effects from Prednisone withdrawal, not only was I tired and having trouble concentrating, but you wouldn’t believe how incredibly annoying my partner was, always saying really stupid shit that made no sense … until of course I realized that the problem was me. I just looked at some of the comments to Hughes’ response and I wonder how long it will take before these emotionally disturbed people realize that the problem is them. So far, they are just hurling abuse; do they ever read it?
I presume that most of TAA’s fans accept evolution and yet they seem unwilling to accept that current situations can trace back to historical ones unless each step can be definitely proven.
specialffrog@30
not even then. When presented with detailed, step by step, exhaustive examination that definately prove it, their reaction is to say “stop being part of a victim cult, besides have you seen how racist black people are against white dudes? They think only black lives matter the bigots”
I doubt it was here, and believe it was on an atheist YTer’s channel. My first foray on YT was to watch atheist vids in particular. As god willed it, I found TAA first. I watched three or four of them with increasing horror. Finally I thought perhaps he and his commenters just needed some facts to understand feminism, so I posted about the different schools and so on, and asked who were these “new feminists” they were going on about? Could they give me some links to blogs or other vids, because I hadn’t seen them.
I shudder to think what they’d have done to me in real life if what they did verbally to me was any indication of their reprehensible, vile, hate- and rage-filled brains. Of course they didn’t read what I wrote, or they willfully misread it; in any case, I quit watching TTA’s channel entirely. Next up? Thunderf00t. I’d start to consider karma here, but I really haven’t done anything bad enough to merit that shit. What is wrong with them? After about a month, I made one last foray. It was The Atheist Experience, and Matt was co-hosting with Jen, I believe. Success! I returned weekly after binge-watching the several million backlogged ones, eventually finding several atheists/skeptics I view regularly.
How many people – men and women – who were curious about atheism or questioning their faith have we lost because they didn’t keep butting their heads against the wall the way I did? Fortunately, atheism is generational in my family – but what if it wasn’t? How many black skeptics and those questioning their faith have we lost because they discovered these people from the outset?
Through TAA and thunder, I also discovered Roosh and other MRA’s, having thought them dead since the Iron-John-ForestManDrums era. Iron John was nothing, NOTHING, like these guys. Fuck!
Since the “amazing” atheist is calling himself that, I’ve decided to bill myself as “the strategic genius” over on my threads at stderr. It seems a bit self-aggrandizing but I guess that’s how new media compensates for lack of talent. I expect to do some writing using a writer-room at least as reputable a Milo Yiannopolous’ as soon as I can harden my heart enough to con a bunch of writing seminars majors to write for me.
I’ve been telling him for years he should have his own blog.