lvl99 Pixel
Member
what is the atheist community comprised of? these people seem to be part of their own special collective
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New Atheisms Idiot Heirs
- Thread starter NoName999
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what is the atheist community comprised of? these people seem to be part of their own special collective
Fwiw I'm a vegan atheist who hates PETA lol
Again, New Atheism is a specific term, and there's obvious patterns to both the people hailed as the public face of the movement and the loud, obnoxious, painfully sure of themselves, often misogynistic, often Islamaphobic, often racist group that follow them.
Sam Harris had Charles Murray on his podcast recently and it wasn't to spend an hour tearing apart Murray's heavily discredited bullshit. Instead it was to tell his fans that Murray only catches shit because people are too PC. Sorry, no.
That Harris and Dawkins want to position themselves as coolly rational and in touch with the truth when their ability to parse truth is as clouded by emotion as the rest of us is completely exhausting.
Snowman Prophet of Doom
Member
A guy asking a woman politely if she wants to hook up - in euphemistic language, even! - is not remotely related to harassment or abuse, especially not of a systemic variety. That was an utterly normal, even banal moment that Watson used to preen a bit, nothing more.
ChimpBottle
Member
Oh, dude. Did you just make that up? "Theist" being part of the word "Atheist" does not lend to the idea that atheists aren't necessarily against the idea of a God, lol. Just like "Asexual" means someone who isn't sexual, "atheist" means someone who is decidedly not a theist.
Watson's entire point is whooshing right over your head if you think following a woman into an elevator to awkwardly hit on her out of the blue at 4 in the morning is ever welcome.
"preen a bit" ?!?!! Sheesh.
kitsunelaine
Banned
If you want a place to listen to decent atheists be decent people, there's The Atheist Experience on youtube and the related ACA stuff like The Non Prophets. They're like a beacon in the light of shittiness that is internet atheism.
I used to watch atheism videos all the time about Christopher Hitchens (RIP), Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Penn Jillette. I also used to watch thunderf00t, NonStampCollector, and Amazing Atheist waaaay back before they both became utterly, maniacally obsessed with feminists. I don't know what happened but all of a sudden every single atheist YouTuber started losing their mind over feminists around the same time.
I grew out of it real quick after that.
I grew out of it real quick after that.
Snowman Prophet of Doom
Member
If you believe there is no plausible scenario in which such a strategy might lead to coupling, well, you have a pretty limited conception of human sexuality.
The person in the elevator got the message though? He didn't keep insisting and pressuring? He missed the point of the talk that is clear, but he didn't seem to be some kind of predator.
lvl99 Pixel
Member
I think those guys are great and all but why does it even need to be suggested that finding decent people who dont believe in god is difficult? Is this a USA thing?
I noticed a stark difference between the "new atheists" that cropped up after 9/11 and the atheists that go back several generations on one side of my family. There is much more evangelism, and the male-dominated nature of the movement was obvious right away. Hardly surprising to me that they would harbor Nazis and other sorts, I've had conversations with some of them previously when they said things like "I'm a rationalist, but I think there should be some restrictions on abortion". Stopped interacting with them entirely years ago.
"Wooooooooooosh"
Right, which is why she didn't make a huge deal about it.
Other people got super defensive tho!
Ftfy
mario_O
Member
Again, it's bullshit to call that atheism when it has nothing to do with atheism. ¿Can you be a racist and believe in god? Plenty of those. ¿Can you be a male chovinist and believe in god? Many of those. A lot. ¿Can you hate islam and believe in god? Again, many people. So please, stop with this cheap falacy. The label New Atheists doesnt even exist outside some religious groups who want attack atheism as a whole.
I feel like the issue is what the article is talking about: Atheism as a rallying point only happens when religion encroaches freedoms. After the Bush years, creationist politics have quieted down on the public stage in the US. Those were what sparked the last atheist movement.
There are clear hot topics where religiously motivated polices are encroaching on freedoms in the United States right now: Reproductive rights and LGBT rights. But the voices for those things are generally not associating themselves with atheism. Possibly because atheism is still a poisonous word in US politics, or possibly because of the current image of the atheist community.
Like is any reproductive rights activist gonna want to rub shoulders with the guys who call feminism cancer?
kitsunelaine
Banned
No it's because it got inbred with MRA/redpillers/edgelords on sites like 4chan and reddit and they're just the loudest voices.
This is a problem with internet culture as a whole and not necessarily atheism, but atheism is more impacted because it, by and large, is an internet subculture.
Of course, that being said: Atheism isn't a belief system. It's just an answer to one question: "Do you have sufficient evidence to believe that a god exists?". That's why you have atheists that exist across the whole political system. The shittier atheists tend to have incubated themselves heavily on Internet Culture during puberty. In many ways, I think atheism tends to be a by-product instead of the leading "belief factor" in these idiot's viewpoints.
Yup she didn't. Why are we making Dawkins to be misogynistic because of his misguided, let's even say defense to the situation. Nothing horrible happened, Dawkins didn't try to hand-wave something horrible away. His overreaction was embarrassing for him, but doesn't really speak volumes on how he sees women. It was a mistake he admitted to.
Yeah. There's a bit of that, and also there's the whole new-convert thing that happens to people anytime they make a huge life change. Like people new to veganism, crossfit, couch to 5k, any number of cults or religions, there's that noob period where everything is so exciting it overwhelms and people over commit. So not all of them are this intense for life, they mellow out and realize the limits of the new cool thing. And others have it become the center of their identity.
There's an extra layer where a lot of the newly atheist people grew up in fundamentalist parts of the USA so their vision of what being religious is like is filtered through that intensity as well.
You really seem to want this to will this into being true but New Atheism is a real movement. Would you prefer we called it Toxic Atheism or obnoxious Atheism or what? The connecting tissue is atheism as an axis around which a variety of shitty movements are finding common ground to at best be annoying and at worst organize.
Those other people also suck, but they don't claim to represent me. New Atheists have made it such that one feels obligated to say "I'm an atheist but I'm not like *those* atheists, sheesh."
Also try Thomas Smith's podcast Serious Inquiries Only. He faced a little heat the last few weeks after losing his cool at a debate with Sargon and basically calling people that cheered his "I wouldn't even rape you" tweet deplorable people. But he is a reasonable, very open minded and thoughtful leftist atheist that discusses a variety of topics and fights back against the "SJW" hate of the alt right and skeptic community. He did a great job taking down the gender studies hoax and holding the fire to one of the authors James Lindsay over it.
He also had a strong rebuttal to an article that complained the "regressive left" was killing the atheist movement.
Chmpocalypse
Blizzard
You clearly don't care enough to even know the issue. No one said he cornered a woman in an elevator; another creep did that at one of his conferences. Dawkins was just super shitty and dismissive of the harassment she suffered.
kitsunelaine
Banned
how is that a bug and not a feature
It did speak volumes. It said that unless you're getting your genitals cut, then you pesky women stop whining you little snowflake. And something horrible did happen. Rebecca was harassed and attacked relentlessly, and now Dawkins has said he refuses to be in the same building as her, which effectively blackballs her from prominent conferences that he attends.
I personally have no problem with it. But Sargon fans and some "rational skeptics" are claiming it was a victory for Sargon, and that he "owned" him because Thomas got so angry. Sort of like how Contrapoints made a video saying for leftist, getting angry and screaming isn't seen as cool or rational.
kitsunelaine
Banned
Who cares what Sargon fans think though
Am I missing something? NSC hasn't made a video in two years, where does he talk about feminism? Richard Coughlan is also one of the old guard of Youtube atheism who is still awesome, but a lot of them turned into shitbags when the whole stick of owning creationism/pseudoscience got boring.
That's actually a good question. Most Atheists are not these people. If we look at surveys, generally they have the opposite political beliefs of these people.
Is the Atheist community all the people who are Atheist or just the people who define themselves by their lack of belief?
mario_O
Member
Again, It's a label created by religious groups to attack atheism. Is Krauss also a racist, misogynistic, neoliberal? No, not him. But lets ignore him to continue with this farce. It's bullshit. Nobody calls themselves a New Atheists.
And you now what, here in europe the level of hate towards muslims is absolutely insane now, especially from the extreme right catholics. The only ones defending the muslims are the left wing -mostly atheists- parties. The only ones fighting this racism are the left wing parties. So shut the fuck up.
Yeah I know what he said. It wasn't exactly like you make it seem but along the lines, the message was the same. And he admitted to that wrong later on. Didn't know Dawkins has refused to be at same building with Watson, when did this happen? Couldn't find anything with a quick search, so can I have a source for this?
Edit: Nevermind! I found something.
Thanks. That's a real bullshit thing to do over a personal spat. I hope he also stopped doing this after he mustered up the courage to admitting he was wrong.
Again, "New Atheists" is a specific group of people. I am a leftist atheist. They have nothing to do with me. It's possibly that this is even mostly an American problem. So don't tell me to "shut the fuck up" when over here, the big public face of atheism is at best out of touch and at worst racist as hell.
The criticisms of this movement is not a case of religious people astroturfing. It's coming from other atheists.
mario_O
Member
Yeah, it's a especific group of people made of sam harris and Dawkins (we have to ignore Dennet and Krauss, because reasons...) Nobody is buying this organized racist mysoginistic bullshit movement. It's not real outside your head.
Messofanego
Banned
Snowman Prophet of Doom, you're effectively saying elevatorgate wasn't harassment and defending a random guy who follows a girl from the hotel bar to an elevator at 4am and asks her to come to his hotel room "for coffee" because that was apparently a valid "utterly normal" strategy to lead to coupling and anyone else arguing otherwise has limited conceptions of human sexuality.
Even Richard Dawkins later described it as harassment, though.
"There should be no rivalry in victimhood, and Im sorry I once said something similar to American women complaining of harassment, inviting them to contemplate the suffering of Muslim women by comparison."
RustyNails
Member
Look, another internet person telling a woman that her experience was "total nothing".
I remember being appalled at the anger of r/atheism when I was introduced to them in 2008/2009ish. It went way beyond what I recognized as legitimate frustration at the state of secular society today and directed hate towards people of religious beliefs that appeared, at best, to be a highly ineffective way of making the social/political goals of an atheist attainable. It's not a surprise to see the movement, if it even deserves to be called such, as a trainwreck of hate coalesced around the idea of atheism and running counter to most of their stated beliefs. Garbage like this only makes it harder for the rest of us to live our lives and make progress toward a more just and secular country.
Dawkins is an ass regardless and his behavior only emboldens others. He's a prime example of the scientist superiority complex and even though he often has a valid point he still comes off poorly.
Dawkins is an ass regardless and his behavior only emboldens others. He's a prime example of the scientist superiority complex and even though he often has a valid point he still comes off poorly.
Correctomundo
Member
No. One is a knowledge claim and the other is a belief claim. Knowledge is a subset of belief, so belief informs that knowledge, but they can remain absolutely compatible.
I don't believe in a god. That's all there is to it. I'm an atheist. But I can't claim to know that no god exists because that isn't knowledge I possess. I have found no way to determine the difference between a god that works to keep itself hidden and one that does not exist. I have found no way to determine that the universe and our memories weren't created five minutes ago at age.
So if asked if I know that there is no god, I can't say yes. It would be intellectually dishonest. But I can also maintain the default position of disbelief.
Holy Order Sol
Member
Dawkins is "I'm old and don't give a fuck and I will start shit with anyone".
tonysidaway
Member
She never claimed he was. Without naming him, she said "guys, don't do that." Then a huge bucket of raw misogyny was dumped on her, for years on end, for daring to suggest that guys should be a bit more considerate.
umop_3pisdn
Member
I'm a nontheist but I think theology can be a really interesting object of thought. People like Kierkegaard and Bernard Lonergan present arguments for faith that actually seem highly intelligible even if I don't subscribe to them. Maybe you don't expect to find that among common people or folk religion or whatever, but reducing all religiosity to superstition is pretty insulting and displays bad faith imo.
Yeah and that misogyny, threats, insults and whatever filth she got over it is horrible. And people like that should be condemned and hopefully educated somehow if possible, so we could get rid of that kind if behaviour.
The thing is, I personally see a huge difference with Dawkins' "not as bad as" fallacy and messages like "you deserve to be raped" "if I see you in a elevator I'll cop a feel". (These are actual real things she got as you can believe) The first one being really dumb and even insulting argument and latter ones being examples of human trash. And while it's obvious that Dawkins' overreaction over the issue gave Watson and her very brief comments about it visibility, he isn't accountable for the reactions of others that go way over the line. Doesn't mean Dawkins is a misogynist himself just because misogynists found a target because of him. These assholes attack women over anything, as you also know.
What Dawkins is, is stubborn old man with a big ego who has difficulties admitting when he was wrong. But he doesn't seem to be wrong about religion.
tonysidaway
Member
I tend to agree. I've read and enjoyed so many of Dawkins' popular science books, and I even somewhat enjoyed his book about atheism, and later joined the RDF forum. He's still worth listening to, but I find myself shaking my head with consternation at the way he wastes his time on silly twitter fights and fecklessly enabling the extreme right.
jonnyp
Member
Why?
And Dawkins is alt right now? You people cant be serious. I swear, this off topic forum is starting to resemble evergreen state college... used to be a beacon of sanity on internet but now it is has regressed beyond recognition.
Neither the article nor the posters in this thread have called Dawkins alt-right. You are making a strawman argument.
Well, I think religion's aesthetic merits shouldn't be scoffed at. In an artistic, atmospheric or meditative sense, I'm sure it's quite soothing.
I should've been more clear, I was mostly talking about thunderf00t and AA.
So Sargon and all the other atheist youtubers who went full gamergate don't exist?
Thinking on this a bit more, the way you are in denial that atheism has at a minimum a serious PR problem of its own making is an example of why atheism has a PR problem; claim to be rational, clear headed, but flip out when challenged on anything. You cursed at me earlier in this thread just for trying to get you to acknowledge that this crew of obnoxious internet atheists even exist and you're still denying it... other than drivebys no one else in the thread seems to think these guys aren't a real thing.
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