Innnnnnnnternational humanist
PZ is in Oslo for a Humanist thingy. (Do you know, the Norwegian Humanists get state money. For reals. The churches get it and so they get it too. The Swedish humanists told me this when I was in Stockholm a year ago. The Swedish Humanists do not get state money. They are envious of their Norwegian colleagues.) He has won an international humanist award.
Ya! You go PZ.
PZ is one of the non-sexist male atheists. Such people are not the overwhelming majority I had thought.
Hot damn and well done to PZ. Much deserved! I noticed he described the award as “sniny” on his blog, so here’s hoping that was a paean to Tpyos and not a sign of incipient hangover!
‘sniny’ started as a typo, a couple of years ago, referring to another award he received. Now it’s a meme.
So which group will be the most pissed off by this, I wonder. The True Believers (TM) who hate him, or the accommodationists who hate him or the MRAs who hate him?
Jen, I woulda voted for the accommos being the most pissed off, but the misogynists are going to go nuclear apeshit.
I’d vote accommodationists for no other reason than this being a humanist award but I can almost hear the ‘what about xyz who does such great work? when was the last time he published a paper?!?!’
Norwegian Humanists not only receive state money, but, I think they are the largest single denomination after the state church, about 80,000 official members out of a total population of about 5 million (there are more Muslims, just, but I think they are split among several denominations). Also about 16% (some 10,000) of 15 year olds choose a humanist confirmation program and ceremony. People attending the Humanist Congress in Norway have an opportunity to attend a humanist confirmation ceremony. http://www.modernrationalist.com/2011/August/page04.html I wonder if PZ will go.
Damn mountain apes.
(Well, at least they aren’t danes.)
@Jen-
If they hate PZ, it’s because they haven’t met him. There are few nicer guys around. He’s just not into BS. Which they may take personally. Oh, wait…
AHA!! So you admit atheism is just like any other religion!
“PZ is one of the non-sexist male atheists. Such people are not the overwhelming majority I had thought.”
Sexist, much?
No.
Oh, but yes. Pointing out sexism is the real sexism, after all.
Seriously? It’s sexist just to say that non-sexist males are not the overwhelming majority? It’s sexist to say there is at least a non-trivial minority of male atheists who are sexist? Seriously?
No.
Who is this PZ guy you speak of ? And what’s an international humanist ? Also, what’s an Oslo ?
“Oh, but yes. Pointing out sexism is the real sexism, after all.”
Well, Ophelia didn’t actually point out any sexism, did she? She just made an assertion about about the percentages of males atheists she considers to be sexist, based not on any formal research which involves, you know numbers or statistics, but upon her own limited experience, and then applied it to the entire population.
Which seems to me to close to the very definition of sexism, or bigotry or something. Not that I’m not guilty of doing the same thing myself!
The percentages? Oh yes? Where did I do that? Exactly what percentage is “overwhelming majority”? Exactly what percentage is “not the overwhelming majority”?
Are the Norwegian Humanists classified as a religion? For example, the American Humanist Association’s The Humanist Society has a religious exemption. That’s why the can legally officiate weddings. A lot of people don’t know that.
I’m not so big on Norway anymore. And what’s the value of a humanist prize handed out by a country that has been a virtual one-party state since the end of WWII?
Also, Norway’s ruling labour party is chock full of people whom I’d consider anti-semitic. Their sympathies for the PLO and Hamas really aren’t very becoming.
Ah, is it true that skippers can also do that? Could it be exemptions for Poseidon or FSM?
For heavens, sake, Ophelia, you are asserting that a substantial proportion of male atheists are sexist. Based exactly on what? Your impressions of a few clowns on Elevatorgate threads?
You are using a tiny sample to inductively smear a much larger population based solely on their gender. That is the very definition of sexism, isn’t it?
If I said that the number of angry over-reactive female atheists who are demanding the end of Richard Dawkins’ career represents a substantial minority of all female atheists, would you not challenge that assertion?
Gingerbaker, no I’m not. If you subtract “less than overwhelming majority” from the total, what you’re left with is not necessarily a substantial minority. “Overwhelming” does not yield a precise number, or even proportion.
My claim was vague. Very vague. You keep trying to pretend it was exact. It wasn’t exact. I did that on purpose. It’s a small claim. Translate “overwhelming majority” to “almost everyone” if you prefer. “Not almost everyone” does not equal “a substantial minority.” It could perfectly well mean a small minority.