It’s a mistake to engage with these morons
Just a few points about “Brave Rieux tells it like it is…“
I don’t have time for the new atheist idiots right now. But I wanted to flag up this remark by some bloke on the internet called Rieux.
There’s something a little skeevy about saying “on the internet” when the link goes here. Jeremy could have said “some bloke at Butterflies and Wheels.” It seems evasive to pretend this is all just random.
The context is the usual thing: some person writes something critical about the new atheists; new atheists go berserk; the mob arrives; insults are flung around;
“New atheists go berserk” is an exaggeration. One, the people who commented here and on McLaren’s post are only a small fraction of new atheists, not new atheists as such. Two, we didn’t really go berserk, we disputed various claims, and became more irritable when they were ignored or brushed off as beneath the notice of someone so important or treated as literally violent – or rather all those, in succession. Ok maybe getting more irritable is close enough to going berserk, but then why isn’t calling irritability “going berserk” itself “going berserk”? In other words the issue is heat and intensity of language (because that’s all there is here), so why are ours berserker while McLaren’s and Jeremy’s are entirely reasonable? Either both are berserker or both are reasonable.
“The mob arrives” is another exaggeration. We’re talking about a few people here. Fewer people than it would take to fill a bus or a Starbucks. Now, a lot of comments in succession that all agree in disagreeing with Person X can feel like a mob; I realize that; but that doesn’t mean they are a mob.
the character flaws, motivations, psychological makeup, etc., of the original poster are dissected at length; original poster cannot possibly respond to all the criticism (and knows perfectly well it would be futile anyway); new atheists jump up and down with self-righteous glee, and tell themselves they are the protectors of truth, rationality and honour (yeah right).
Original poster could respond to some of the criticism though, and doing so in a reasonable way might result in less criticism later. (In a reasonable way according to whom? Eye of the beholder. Yes but – some ways are clearly not reasonable.) More to the point, OP does not know it would be futile anyway. Neither does Jeremy. “The new atheist idiots” notwithstanding, it’s not the case that everyone who commented here and/or there is incapable of reasonable discussion.
The last clause: see above. Even if we are as described, are we really more so than McLaren in those two posts? Not that I can see.
Yes, we can mobilise large numbers of people and use scorn in order to communicate our “community’s” disapproval of a particular kind of “harmful” behaviour. Hurrah! Yes, scorn delivered by a mob has value when it’s directed at behaviour that really does cross “legitimate ethical lines” (those damned women wanting to drive their cars – pah!)!
No kidding – but that applies to so many things. It’s only as good as it is. Community disapproval of women’s rights or gay rights is a bad thing; community disapproval of racism or sexism is a good thing. We know. But in the wider world, atheists are the ones subject to community disapproval, and that is exactly what McLaren was playing into, and that was exactly what exasperated us about her posts. For some reason the faith-hugging community didn’t show up in force to defend McLaren, but that’s not because there is no such community.
Anyway, if mobs commenting on blogs are so reprehensible, consider Tom Johnson/YNH/Hammill/Wally. He created mobs all by himself as TJ/YNH, and used them for all he was worth. He used them to accuse people of lying – for instance Rieux, and me. It’s odd that all the venom is reserved for us.
…it’s a mistake to engage with these morons. Write your criticisms, but don’t give them a platform to respond. They’re not interested in a rational exchange of views, and you can’t come out on top against a mob…
Therefore the thing to do is post a string of insults and then close comments so that no one can respond. That’s being interested in a rational exchange of views. Hmm.
Intellectual dishonesty at its finest.
I’m beginning to realise that we are the nice ones. The less unpleasant version, at any rate.
We are the ones who “engage”, as they put it, with opponents. The ones who are more open to arguments and changes. The ones who spread less false rumours.
The ones more likely to treat people with whatever respect they deserve.
I still don’t think these are necessarily the most important things. My point is that they have nothing to offer but blue vapours and lukewarm air.
Yes, that way he can claim not to be “engaging” :-p
What a maroon…
Mob? Mob?
Then Jesus asked him, “What is your name?”…
The constant outrage of the nice atheists is starting to become boring. I think it’s well past time to stop attempting to engage them and just make fun of them.
I see. So that’s what you’re doing wrong.
Wow.
Insults, OK, what about “yah boo sucks”? Any good? Well, never mind. It’s the same old ploy: tell enough people that the opposition is barbaric and enough people will agree with you. And then you’ll be right. But what the hell for? Why are they doing this? Anybody know?
I wonder if this has anything to do with PZ mentioning Rieux in his post on the subject.
Spite? Maybe, but what I think that they will freely admit is that they do think that religious faith has a good impact on the world. That it’s a thing they are somewhat fond of, even if they don’t personally share it.
With that in mind, it’s to be expected that they will side with irrationalists against potential threats to faith.
Well, at least that it’s interesting enough to be preserved, if not beneficial.
Steve – far more likely to be because Rieux said it here. The point is to have a dig at B&W and thus me. It was all indirect before (quoting me, but without attribution, so only I would make the connection); linking to here is a new thing. This was actually most of what I was thinking of in the stalkers post a couple of weeks ago.
http://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2011/invisible-companions/
There’s a weird level of obsessive hatred here that’s creepy.
I can’t believe how completely Stangroom has missed the point of what Rieux is saying. I used to admire the man. What on earth has gone wrong with him? This is so depressing.
I don’t know how he can infer that Karla couldn’t be expected to find time to respond to criticism. The problem was that she WAS responding to the criticism in a terrible, terrible way, by ignoring what was said, out-right refusing to address specific points and generally acting like a holier than thou 10 year old who has found her first thesaurus.
The sheer time and effort that she put into not answering questions was staggering.
I don’t see the accommodationist crowd as the nice guys. Their main tactic seems to smear outspoken critics of faith so that the accommodationsist looks like “nice guys” to religionists whose faith ensures that they will see critics of faith as “bad guys”. They make it so religious people can say to themselves, “thanks, you gave me a good reason for the hatred I feel towards Dawkins, etc.” and they use this gratitude to further their illusions that the accommodationists are nice and Dawkins et. al. really are uncivil and harming some cause.
The accommodationists want the freedom to be as bigoted towards gnu atheists as “Tom Johnson” without providing the evidence that would distinguish their stories from “Tom Johnson” stories. When we react as any intelligent person would react to “Tom Johnson” stories, they use this as evidence that we are not “civil” and that this lack of civility hurts (insert cause). How can one address “Tom Johnson” stories except to expose them for the bigoted lies they are and disassociate from such ugliness? Isn’t that far more civil than being the person telling the “Tom Johnson” stories under the guise of trying to raise the level of discourse or whatever? How do “Tom Johnson” stories raise the level of discourse?
Accommodationists don’t think we should be treating religious “woo” like other “woo”– but they can’t say why… so instead they are just going to spread hatred against those who do. And they are going to pretend to themselves that they are doing this to raise the level of discourse or make people more scientific or build a more inclusive community or whatever. How “tea party” like. I’m interested to see if their methods accomplish their goals.
What do they tell THEMSELVES their goals are? What was “Tom Johnson”‘s goal? How do Stangroom and Mclaren see their allegations about unnamed gnu atheists as different? What did Karla really think she’s accomplishing with that piece? What message does Stangroom imagine he’s sending? Are they convincing anyone, but themselves that this is “civil” or furthers some cause? Why would any non-believer want to be part of any cause that involves such bigotry against non-believers (unless maybe they were looking for Templeton money, of course.) Is there a way to convince them that we gnu atheists can’t fix the problem they have with us because the problem is more in their head then in anything anyone has actually said or done? Have we convinced “Tom Johnson”?
One wonders if it’s possible to do one’s accommodating without making critics of faith into bad guys? Or would no one pay attention to them if they didn’t foment anti-atheist bigotry? From my perspective, some of these accommodationists are doing their best to silence/vilify those who don’t defer to faith, and then crying “unfair” when atheists want nothing to do with them and their anti-atheist bigotry. If you act like “Tom Johnson”, why shouldn’t you expect to be treated like “Tom Johnson”?
My guess is that the real motivator is jealousy. But I’m not sure the accommodationists are aware of their real motives. Or maybe it’s just knee-jerk “belief in belief” as Dennett terms it.
Svlad, Egbert raised a related point on Ophelia’s “Apologies” thread. But I don’t know. With people like Hoffman and Stangroom weighing in I have a feeling that there is something else going on. I have mentioned my sense of maliciousness before, but it is not easy to make sense of it. I could understand a sincere belief that we’re wrong, but this is well over the top.
Okay, back from Brief-Writing Land.
Well, there’s something frankly thrilling about winning an award whose only prior laureates have been Richard Dawkins, P.Z. Myers, and Russell Blackford: the
Montgomery BurnsJeremy Stangroom Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Gnu Atheist Incivility.What heady company—I can only be deeply honored, though I confess that I don’t think I’m in Dawkins’, Myers’, or Blackford’s league.
Adam “Ebonmuse” Lee, whose Gnu credentials are an order of magnitude better than mine, so coveted the JS-OAFGAI (hmmm…) Award that, three months ago, he resorted to openly groveling for it on Daylight Atheism—whereupon the selection committee turned him down with a bang. But not me! In your face, Adam!
Back in the previous thread, Salty Current quoted Ophelia:
Yeah—that’s what really mystifies me about Stangroom’s reaction. I positively loaded that comment with caveats, with overt recognition of the risk that social scorn poses when it’s used for illegitimate ends. It’s not as if my comment was just “All right, great, we sure shut her up; no way that tactic could ever present a problem”; quite the opposite, I pointed out the problems social scorn presents when it’s in the wrong hands and used to the wrong ends. (Gee, I wonder why atheists, of all people, might recognize that?)
Scorn’s a tool—it can be put to valuable use, and it can be abused. Communicating to a Karla McLaren that her dishonest attacks are Not Cool is a worthwhile endeavor. Dehumanizing and threatening a member of a despised minority—such as, say, Damon Fowler—for violating majority privilege is a severe wrong. How in the world could my comment be construed to say anything different?
Some commenters called Stangroom’s treatment of my comment “quote mining,” and I suppose it does ignore all of the substantive explanation that several of us provided to McLaren about what she had done to earn Gnus’ ire. (There were a bunch other Gnus doing that besides me!) But, as SC noted, Stangroom did quote all my caveats about the tactic in question. The obvious answer to Stangroom’s hair-on-fire hypotheticals about “Islamists and scientologists and climate change deniers and holocaust deniers” is right there in the middle of what I wrote. How can something so caveat-laden possibly constitute prize-winning Gnu incivility?
But, hell, that’s looking a gift horse in the mouth. I’d like to thank the Stangroom Academy! When do I get the statuette? Does it look like Stangroom?
There’s something seriously f*cked up in the world when I wind up on the nice side of a dispute…
Isn’t Stangroom the lying idiot from “You’re Not Helping?”
Stangroom is the person who coauthored the book “Why Truth Matters” with Ophelia. And it was a book which transformed my understanding of a lot of things. And Ophelia has remained true to all that the book stands for. So I don’t understand Stangroom at all.
I was going to ask if Ophelia and Stangroom have totally severed their professional relationship now. It makes no sense that he has gone so far off track.
Oh yes. Stangroom abruptly severed all relationship nearly two years ago, shortly after Mooney & Kirshenbaum banned me from the Intersection.
And no, he’s nothing to do with “You’re Not Helping”. That’s Wally Smith.
You’re Not Helping was “Tom Johnson” (Wally Smith), but I can see how a person might get them confused.
Jerry Coyne gives a good recap of “Tom Johnson” here: On the incivility of atheists: “Tom Johnson” and Exhibit A « Why Evolution Is True
I considered Jeremy Stangroom a member of the skeptical community until he started smearing new atheists without providing evidence for his aspersions ala “Tom Johnson”. Trying to reason with Stangroom at this point would seem to be on par with trying to reason with Wally Smith. He’s very invested in his belief that uncivil new atheists are harming some cause.
Boy, them Vikings musta been really irritable!
Oh and Rieux, congratulations on your award! I’m slightly chuffed to have been indirectly involved.
OK, I just clicked on the link to Rieux’s comment. That’s what he calls “berserk”?!? I hope he’s never too far away from a fainting couch, poor dear.
#24 – ha!
Wow, that’s a smarmy and nasty post, even by Jeremy standards. Reading his blog makes me feel like I’m being shouted at, if that makes any sense. His (completely unjustified and scary) hostility is palpable.
The problem is, when you say “that’s a smarmy and nasty post, even by Jeremy standards” the antignus will start complaining about how rude and uncivil you are. They will ignore “Reading his blog makes me feel like I’m being shouted at ” and they will only laugh at “completely unjustified and scary“.
Yeah jeez Miranda, quit going berserk, willya?
Ok, I never comment on the Gnu Atheist- Accomodationist bashups but I read pretty much all of the arguments, including the comments at the accomodationist sites. One thing that is clear is that the gnus are indisputably winning the arguments and hurray to that!
I bet that sticks in the craw of the stangrooms of this world. Stangroom has something of the bully about him. Deeply unpleasant and overly comfortable with censorship and banning. He was strangely quiet after PZ delivered his smackdown but appears to think that Ophelia/BW is an easier target.
You are well rid of him as a collaborator, Ophelia. He was never much of a friend was he? What kind of a person would cut off all contact over an internet argument with a third party? Really??
Jeremy Stangroom is a great example of why the word ‘pissant’ exists in English; there should be a picture of him next to its entry in the dictionary. What an intellectually dishonest, hypocritical and thoroughly vile bunch of creeps the accomodationists are.
Stangroom truly hates the fact that you have far more people in your corner- he discounts the reasons why that might be so and certainly is happy to dehumanise us as a mindless ‘mob’ without any mercy or morals of our own. I wonder how he relates to people IRL, especially those that dont agree with him.
I am very sorry about Stangroom. He is partly responsible for two excellent books which have made a great impression on me: “Why Truth Matters” and “Does God Hate Women?”. I would like to think that the quarrel or whatever it is could be ended. He has an excellent mind, and — at least at one time — he showed some qualities that I took to be penetration and integrity. I would like to be able to respect him once again.
Pfah, If that was Miranda going berserk then she went absolutely out to lunch on that drivel the RCC put out. I hope Rieux’s acceptance speech comes out on youtube soon. I’m sure it was a doozy.
Well, if one looks at the number of comments Stedman’s blog recently generated… one could get the impression that only gnu bashing gets a significant amount of responses.
One of the battles the gnubashers may have won is that they’ve made a few people on the sidelines (who aren’t necessarily paying super-close attention to these spats) think that gnus are not only losing the argument, but that we have no arguments. We’re just nasty namecallers, nothing more. Every other post from a gnubasher asserts something to that effect. They characterize our P.O.V. as though it were merely insults and illiberal vituperations. We’re not people interested in debating—rationally—our case, rather, we’re “invective-based life forms.” Gnubashers really need people to have the impression that gnus are all bluster and meanness, no substance—and they work hard at it. I feel like this has something to do with why the best gnubashers—the ones who are total black-belts at it—often altogether ignore our substantive points. It’s because they don’t wish to debate anything; they’re primarily just interested in telling everyone what we are—jerks.
Back up a minute, folks. “articulett” asked a very interesting and pertinent question (up at comment #14):
I sure as Hell wonder! Thinking about it, I cannot come up with a single example of anyone who takes the “science and religion are compatible” line who has not radically misrepresented or outright smeared atheists critical of that position. Even an otherwise thoughtful guy like Phil Plait — who I think of as an ally in most respects, and who has never (as far as I know) argued that science and religion are compatible — couldn’t manage to formulate an argument for atheists adopting a more diplomatic approach to believers in his infamous “Don’t be a Dick” speech without citing outrageous, made-up behavior that I’ve never seen (except perhaps in comments sections, which hardly counts).
Can anyone here come up with a single example of anyone arguing for accommodationism (in the formal sense of insisting on the non-trivial compatibility of science and religion) or even making a more informal “let’s be more polite and less forthright in our criticisms of the religious” argument without explicitly portraying atheists who choose to be more forthright as bad guys? More specifically, has anyone on that general “side” of the arguments ever made their case without [1] offering deliberately slanted examples (Mooney bringing up PZ Myers’ cracker blasphemy without providing the context of the ridiculous abuse and death threats suffered by a non-believing college student whose horrible crime was making off with a fucking cracker for fuck’s sake!), [2] offering example-free, citation-free criticism about postulated-but-never-demonstrated execrable behavior from outspoken atheists (which Phil Plait is as guilty of as Tom Johnson, really), or [3] simply spouting schoolyard insults and presuming both bad behavior and bad will on the part of gnu atheists (as Stangroom does in the post under immediate discussion)? For the life of me, I cannot come up with a single, solitary example.
This is too consistent to be coincidence. It’s not simply that such arguments by happenstance are never, ever be made without including such distortions and unsupported smears and outright abuse, but rather there is no argument to be made: The “argument” just IS the distortions and smears and abuse. There’s nothing else there, so there’s no point in looking. It’s all sound and fury, signifying nothing — much like the apologetic gymnastics of those oh-so-important theologians that we are supposed to take more seriously for reasons that cannot be specified. The conviction that we atheists who are publicly and forthrightly critical of faith are rude, horrible, awful, very bad people seems to be as much an article of faith as any of the specifically religious faith convictions we criticize. And, like all faith beliefs, it makes no sense to try to understand the “reasons” why someone adopts such a position as if those “reasons” had anything to do with actual reasoning and evidence: Anti-atheist bigotry is just as much a matter of emotions and social conditioning and politics (not reason and evidence) as any other faith belief, and that’s just as true when the people who believe it are are themselves atheists and agnostics as it is when the faithful believe it.
looks like he doesn’t know much about the internet.
From the previous thread on this:
What the hell do you think I am, some kind of social scienti
Oh. Right.
I have a number of thoughts on the matter that I’ve mentioned here or there, though at some level, in many cases, it’s still quite baffling. I don’t like to toss out half-baked arguments, but I’ll try to organize my thoughts and post something at some point. I’m trying to understand it more as a sociological phenomenon than in terms of individual psychology….
***
The targeting of comment(er)s to try to paint us collectively as gnous enragés reminds me of of school cliques that decide they’re going to pick on someone and then closely watch them and even try to provoke, waiting for some perceived misstep (or something sympathetic listeners will see, if it’s dishonestly framed in the right way, as a misstep), when they pounce.* Most people can handle it (and Rieux’s response and link to Lee are hilarious), but it’s bullying, and the fact that they seem to take such pleasure in it is gross.
*Of course, they’re often willing to latch onto accounts of “misdeeds” without any evidence at all. See: Exhibit A.
I second GordonWillis in feeling sorry about Stangroom, but I must say it would be hard for me to regain respect for him, because I find it extremely difficult to imagine what he perceives you to have done so wrong that justifies his current behaviour. This topic seems to have the ability to bring out the worst reponses in people, even when they are friends. Jerry Coyne’s story about nearly coming to blows (over the phone) with his former student and co-author H. Allen Orr also serves to illustrate this.
This topic seems to have the ability to bring out the worst reponses in people, even when they are friends. Jerry Coyne’s story about nearly coming to blows (over the phone) with his former student and co-author H. Allen Orr also serves to illustrate this.
The closest parallel I can think of is the religious one. You know, where you are asked to hold allah, christ, saibaba etc closer to you than your nearest and dearest relatives and are thereby set up to be able to ex-communicate anyone in your circle who questions the orthodoxy. I can understand the ruthless need for social control in a religion but for atheist friends to fall out over something so trivial as an argument over approach is rather mindboggling.
“We are…The ones more likely to treat people with whatever respect they deserve”
Perhaps they- religion-sympathising atheists- aren’t happy to be treated with whatever respect they deserve.
There are people who recognise the ridiculousness of religious beliefs and even the wickedness of those beliefs but who want to retain the comforts they offer and feel nostalgic for them as a result. You can often tell them because they talk about “spirituality” without saying just what they mean by it. This also means that they aren’t very interested in matters such as the actual truth of religious beliefs and regard attempts to raise them as irrelevant and discourteous.
G Felis, it depends on how you define accommodation. Dale McGowan is the best example I can think of (see especially his series Can You Hear Me Now?, which is worth reading from the beginning). He is certainly not an accommodationist in the sense of advocating the compatibility of science and religion. Rather, I would say he is a gnu who advocates taking a careful and measured approach when discussing religion-related topics with theists. He does this not by bashing outspoken atheists, but by providing explicit (and very helpful) examples of how he has used this approach in his own life.
The one topic where I think Dale dropped the ball was in his support of Phil Plait’s “Don’t Be a Dick” speech (although he only mentioned this once). There I think he was simply being generous to Phil and overlooked the fact that Phil’s failure to be specific is dickish in itself. I think Dale does a much better job in this regard because he never says “don’t be a dick” — he just shows you how it can be done.
Also, it appears that what happened at the Mooney/Intersection site was a turning point. Kazez, Rosenau, Plait, Stangroom identified with Mooney, went tribal and took sides from that point on and Hoffman, Stedman, McClaren and others have piled in since.
G Felis,
I think of Eugenie Scott as someone who takes the position that “science and religion are compatible” who hasn’t denigrated gnu atheists. I don’t like the fact that the NSCE seems to endorse some brands of “woo” or gives the impression that liberal Christian woo is more compatible with science/skepticism than other “woo”, but I’ve never heard Eugenie badmouth critics of faith. I knew of Karla, but didn’t know she was an accommodationists until these recent posts. I’m sure there are accommodationists who don’t bad mouth gnu atheists, but I tend not to know about peoples’ accommodationist positions until one of their bigoted screeds is brought to my attention– so it might be too easy for me to assume that all acccommodationists are gnu bashers. But I hope that most are not. It was weird, because Karla claimed that elders and authority figures” in the atheist community were were attacking her approach and trying to silence her, but I haven’t been able find any gnu atheist criticism of Karla, Stedman, or any of their ilk prior to their smear campaign against critics of faith.
“Tom Johnsons” are the name I’ll use to refer to those who spread this meme that there are these strident shrill militant uncivil atheists out there (and that we all know who they are) that are “being dicks” and causing harm to skepticism, science, community building, atheism, or whatever. I’ll be glad to change my term when they back up their assertions with specific examples, specific harms, and specific suggestions for how to do it better. What is it that they want from gnus? Do they really think we should just sit back and let them tell their “Tom Johnson stories” without comment? Can they really imagine such “dialectic” furthers some goal? They are like people bent on showing that there is a gay agenda and that the gays are out to recruit youth. I don’t doubt that people can find “evidence” to shore up such beliefs– but how is a person concerned about stopping homosexual bigotry to address such claims other than to expose them for what they are.
G Felis,I think of Eugenie Scott as someone who takes the position that “science and religion are compatible” who hasn’t denigrated gnu atheists. I don’t like the fact that the NSCE seems to endorse some brands of “woo” or gives the impression that liberal Christian woo is more compatible with science/skepticism than other “woo”, but I’ve never heard Eugenie badmouth critics of faith. I knew of Karla, but didn’t know she was an accommodationists until these recent posts. I’m sure there are accommodationists who don’t bad mouth gnu atheists, but I tend not to know about peoples’ accommodationist positions until one of their bigoted screeds is brought to my attention– so it might be too easy for me to assume that all acccommodationists are gnu bashers. But I hope that most are not. It was weird, because Karla claimed that elders and authority figures” in the atheist community were were attacking her approach and trying to silence her, but I haven’t been able find any gnu atheist criticism of Karla, Stedman, or any of their ilk prior to their smear campaign against critics of faith. “Tom Johnsons” are the name I’ll use to refer to those who spread this meme that there are these strident shrill militant uncivil atheists out there (and that we all know who they are) that are “being dicks” and causing harm to skepticism, science, community building, atheism, or whatever. I’ll be glad to change my term when they back up their assertions with specific examples, specific harms, and specific suggestions for how to do it better. What is it that they want from gnus? Do they really think we should just sit back and let them tell their “Tom Johnson stories” without comment? Can they really imagine such “dialectic” furthers some goal? They are like people bent on showing that there is a gay agenda and that the gays are out to recruit youth. I don’t doubt that people can find “evidence” to shore up such beliefs– but how is a person concerned about stopping homosexual bigotry to address such claims other than to expose them for what they are.
JS: “Write your criticisms, but don’t give them a platform to respond.”
Sounds very much like preaching. Is that the new MO of accommodationists? Is coddling the faithful so contagious?
Points for Mr. Roseanau for not following the trend of the big boys.
Joe:
No, no, in the (unlikely) event of a closed comment thread, Stangroom OAFGAI acceptances are traditionally submitted via the form on http://www.jeremystangroom.com/contact_page/ . Here’s what I put together and just submitted to the prize administrators at that URL:
I note that the Committee got back to Ebonmuse “almost immediately,” so I’m confident that I’ll be finding a place of honor for that statuette tout suite.
Articulett: “I think of Eugenie Scott as someone who takes the position that “science and religion are compatible” who hasn’t denigrated gnu atheists.”
I think Ms. Scott is very professional. She may or may not have personal views differing from her employer, but she keeps them to herself.
She is therefore not comparable to those actively participating in the debate about accommodationism and/or Gnuism.
Apologies for the double post (the 2nd without formatting?). I don’t know what happened. I’m blaming cyber demons.
I can only conclude that the accommodationists have to get rid of anyone who disagrees with their approach (we’re not helping), whether by fair means or foul: and they have decided that foul is what works. They are conservatives, we are not, so it’s just politics. Same old business of lying for the Truth, the ends justify the means. I cannot think of a single instance in which a campaign of slander and lies resulted in anything more than oppression, but they obviously don’t care about that. Their campaign will get worse, then, and there is little point in complaining about it. We most certainly have to stick to our guns.
GordonWillis, your last post sounds disturbingly similar to Karla McLaren’s talk of “orchestrated group-led attacks”. There’s no conspiracy here; it’s just a bunch of people who are having difficulty applying their critical-thinking skills in the real world. They haven’t taken Richard Feynman’s advice to heart:
Well, JS’s posts and behavior continue to really disappoint. And I second GordonWillis’s two posts about WTM and Does God Hate Women.
Absolutely fantastic books and it’s with sadness that I read Jeremy’s blog.
Isn’t “Does God Hate Women?” a clear example of Gnu Atheism in all its strident shrill polemical glory? It’s probably harsher about religion that “The God Delusion”, and certainly harsher than “Breaking The Spell”.
Surely now that Stangroom has become so nice and sweet and innocent, he should renounce the book forthwith. (I’m sure that the Templeton Foundation would be happy to fill the loss in revenue.)
Hamilton
Jeremy Stangroom? Well, you’re obviously right in the absolutely literal sense. And I don’t suppose they got together and planned anything. But they are certainly trying their best to discredit us and they obviously don’t care how they do it, even if it makes them look bad. Personally, I think it’s a kick in the face for women, the chief victims of religion, as well as honest science.
Thanks for that.
I have nothing to contribute to this thread except to note the “berserk” means “wearing a bearskin” (ber-serk is lit. bear-shirt) and therefore nobody who isn’t currently attired in ursine pelts can be accused of frothing berserker savagery.
Froth froth. Grrr.
Man, this thing is itchy.
Ah, I get confused. They’re all a bunch of pearl-clutching, cookie-cutter weenies in their passive-aggressive jerkdom and, as such, tend to run together.
No acceptance speech on YouTube? Rieux, I don’t think you understand!
You just hit the big leagues. This is it! The brass ring! Grab that puppy!
You’ve joined the foremost ranks of the Gnus, and you know how powerful and scary they are; you can tell from the stark terror rising from the ranks of the poor, terrified, suffering blighters like McLaren ‘n Stangroom, who now must, as the only hope of their poor, pitiful, desperate rebellion against our terrifying hegemony, practice guerrilla smear ‘n run tactics…
It’s like being made in the mob, dig? With emphasis, of course, on ‘mob’, as Jeremy would insist, all the better to stay on message and to keep those smears properly in line…
Anyway, my point is: it’s all champagne and limos from here. You’re gonna have to do a speaking tour, sign body parts, the whole deal, y’know?
Here… use this pen… the ink is red ‘cos we swarmed and bludgeoned some poor suffering accomodationist to death in mortal rhetorical combat on a blog to make it… ‘Cos, y’know… Mob.
(/Also, of course, hereby adding my congratulations.)
I think Stangroom is just mad because no one reads his blog. He should seriously invest in some kittens and a camcorder, then everyone will like his blog and he can be happy again.
Does anyone else find it weird that the accommodationists keep producing this violent rhetoric? The gnus keep writing books and blog posts and comments trying to discuss ideas, but according to the other side, it’s all rage and fists and berserking… doesn’t it trivialise real violence?
Does one have to contribute to the debate to be a Gnu? I am a 69-year-old high-school dropout, and have little to contribute that others don’t say much better than I ever could. But I want to pitch my tent in your camp and join the cheerleading squad. I want to be a Gnu!
S’all good. My understanding is all you really need is a good pair of curbstomping boots.
… and sorta more seriously: you don’t really need to apply to join. And as to how, regrettably, a minor ‘contribution to debate’ of some form does seem to be necessary, but no fear, it’s hardly demanding…
Indeed, it turns out all you have to do is say anything halfway directly critical about a dominant religion, and you are one. You get a certificate and everything.
Allow me to clarify: pointing out astrology is bogus probably isn’t going to get you on the list. Most places, $cientology, likewise, all good, pointing out these people are pretty much entirely nuts just makes you a ‘skeptic’, far as those who make up these lists are concerned…
But point out that, say, mainstream Christianity has essentially the same epistemological problems as those previous two categories of woo, even without wearing or using your curb stompers, and congratulations, you’re in! There are any number of whinging whindbags* who will see to it you are so identified, no fear.
Oh, and as to:
Weird, yes, a little…
My working wild conjecture has long been this is a sort of reflex religion has taught. Criticism of his priests is an assault upon the god. It was a necessary meme to protect the religion in a reality in which, honestly, criticism would always have been sneaking in, otherwise. You just can’t quite fool all the people all the time, so the next best thing is: convince those who aren’t quite fooled it’s still somehow incredibly dangerous and destructive actually to point out the BS in polite company… Violent, see? It will tear socierty asunder. You might as well be burning stuff down.
But, like I said: wild conjecture. It is striking, tho’, yes.
(*/Well, it should be a word.
“Does one have to contribute to the debate to be a Gnu?”
The point of the debate that separates the gnus from the gnices is whether it is acceptable to publicly question whether religious assertions are backed by evidence.
Do this in any public venue, such as the comments section in a newspaper website, and you are contributing to the debate.
Stangroom’s blog piece is basically:
‘These new atheists are so stupid it’s just not worth the time it takes to respond…
Response Response Response Response Response Response Response Response Response Response Response Response Response Response Response Response Response Response Response Response Response Response Response Response Response Response Response’
In order to gain their favor, assure to the nutty fundamentalists who think doctors are mass murderers and Jesus will come back during their lifetime that science and their crazyness are totally compatible in a nice, friendly way; but don’t apply that supposedly successful and effective technique to the new atheists. No, all you can do with those is to call them idiots and morons and close the comments section.
@Grumpy:
Does one have to contribute to the debate to be a Gnu Atheist? Well, to ask the anti-Gnus (the G-nos?) it seems that we don’t have anything to contribute at all anyways, so you fit right in. Plus, being a high school drop-out and claiming atheism makes you an automatic Gnu since one of the pillars of anti-Gnubianistic thought is that you aren’t really allowed to be taken seriously unless you have degrees in theology, philosophy, and history… and at one point you needed to be willing to be a martyr. I’m still not sure I understand that one.
Pitch your tent, pull up a chair and a beer, and feel free to contribute as much or as little as you’re comfortable with. We’re the good guys. :)
“New atheists go berserk” is an exaggeration.
Not in my case, it isn’t. I was so riled up that I actually donned a bearskin, shouldered a battle axe, got in my longboat, sailed across the North Sea and laid waste to several English villages.
That explains this report in my copy of the Daily Twaddle:
I wasn’t trying to destroy the pub, only to get at that warm, warm English ale. I did burn a few churches, but that’s just part of my culture — and culture is all relative, innit?
(Stands on soapbox…)
Shocked, Shocked I am even to imagine anyone criticizing openly this perfectly legitimate and long-honoured, intrinsic-to-someone’s-way-of-life and widely-respected custom! Cultural imperialism! Bad manners! Hooliganism! Halp! Halp! I’m being bigoted!
(/’Sides, it’s hopeless anyway. You can’t talk Vikings out of burning churches even if it were acceptable even to suggest such a thing to them. You must be incredibly naive of basic psychology even to imagine attempting somethin’ so incredibly pointless and arrogant. It’s too fundamental to what they are.)
Oh, right. There is something about a Reverend Mr Cardew Snodgrass reporting a mysterious smell of flint and tinder in his chancel, and another report about a stolen consignment of Samuel Smith’s, but nobody seems to think they are related.
Another accommodationist-as-compatibilist who doesn’t bash gnus (as far as I know) is Thomas Dixon.
Thanks, Ophelia. And thanks to Hamilton I have now discovered Dale McGowan. He’s an excellent writer, isn’t he.
#55
Yes, pretty much. That was an issue at the time – Jeremy said that the one area in which he doesn’t dislike anti-theism is that of religion v. women. So it was an issue but it wasn’t an issue. And to be fair, the idea of doing a book on religion v women was his.
But I never really got how much he dislikes anti-theism, in fact for a long time I thought he was anti-theism. At some point he clued me in that he wasn’t, but I’ve never really understood his reasons. Anyway, even if I had, I wouldn’t have expected him to end up with a post like this one.
Gordon – yes, he is. I don’t remember to read him regularly but I should – he’s an excellent writer and he’s fair. Man that’s a welcome quality in all this.
Thanks for the welcome. I am now officially a Gnu Atheist.
I believe, like Hitch, that religion poisons everything, and even the beautiful music it has inspired, from Bach to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, would have been made anyway without religion.
Old enough to make the comparison, I am aware of how far atheism has come and how far religion has fallen since the late 1950s when I became an atheist. Accommodationists get in the way, but we have them on the run. The Gnus must not slack off.
I wrote a bit about McGowan on B&W last fall. (That was even my first brush with the B&W spam filter.) Check it out for an exciting (well, sorta) story of one of McGowan’s more public run-ins with the order of Catholic nuns who run a small women’s college near where I live and who, as such, were then-Professor McGowan’s employers. He didn’t become a full-time professional Humanist until a few years ago.
I’ve never seen McGowan take a position on religion/science compatibility. Has anyone? He’s definitely not a fire-breathing Gnu, though I agree that he’s fair.
Hey, Grumpy, of course you’re welcome – you made a contribution in the very act of asking if a contribution was necessary. Wanting to be a gnu is enough to make you a gnu. (It’s much like “faith” in that way. Cue the chorus of “atheism is just another religion.”)
Atheism is just another religion! I’m claiming tax-free status for my office and related computer equipment… and my lightsaber, katana, and guitars, because they are part of my worship. *shrugs* Why the hell not?
Hee hee. Check out amos’s* lone comment at Kazez’s – yet another iteration of his obsessive song, typically self-obsessed and self-pitying and self-admiring all at once.
http://kazez.blogspot.com/2011/06/scorning-into-silence.html?showComment=1307105555668#c9203558576858219890
To the extent that he was “scorned into silence” it was because he can’t type a word without making it all about himself. It had nothing to do with theism or atheism; it had everything to do with endless oblivious I I I I I I I me me me me me me. Since I never wrote posts about amos, his comments were always Off Topic. I pointed that out at times. Thus he was “scorned into silence”…and thus he now spends a surprising amount of time Seeking Revenge. It’s hilarious.
*now for some reason signing himself s wallerstein
Michael Dowd is another who is not anti-gnu – although strictly speaking he is more religious than accomodationist.
Michael Dowd…refresh my memory…
To the list of accommodationists that don’t bash gnus, I would add Michael Dowd. I’ve even seen him in the comment section at Pharyngula cheering on PZ.
Oops. I should have refreshed before submitting. This Michael Dowd, author of “Thank God For Evolution”, proponent of “Evolutionary Christianity”.
Re: Cheering on PZ. Richard Dawkins was on Irish radio this morning singing the praises of the latter, as well as those of Maryam Namazie. Nice compliments indeed. By their fruits they shall be known.
Well, M-T, I don’t know if this thought occurred to you, but you have something in common with all those people – you’ve all had articles published here at B&W.
Thanks N’s B.
The Dale McGowan link was great!
I have noticed that there seems to be a locus of accomodationism that spreads from Plait to Loxton to Swoopy and on. I swear Swoopy’s hand wringing on the Skepticality podcast is getting rather old. (Polishes helmet, battle axe and picks up the tattered bearskin rug off of the floor…from in front of the fireplace where a full litter of kittens are being spitroasted…or at least taking up all the couch) The bullshit whisper campaign against the Gnus, in all it’s duplicious glory, makes me scream in my car… ;p I fart in their general direction.
@ #82 – Kazezezezezes, you say?
I think there could be a problem somewhere down the road, if the accomodationistas keep pushing against the “gnus”. Push long enough, and this crowd could maybe develop a lot more group mentality. “Community building” aside, that seems iffy. :\
Kick it, DJ Social Scientist! (Edit: Do musicians still say “kick it”?)
Hmm. Eugenie Scott I should have thought of myself. Dale McGowan is an excellent writer, but I’ve only read a few things by him so I hadn’t really read anything by him advocating diplomatic tone with believers and such. Thomas Dixon doesn’t quite fit the paradigm, as a believer rather than an atheist tone troll, but that only makes it more startling that he’s managed to consistently avoid trashing gnus. (If indeed he has; I can’t think of a thing I’ve ever read by him, so I’ll have take y’all’s word for it.)
That makes a grand total of THREE people that the collective wisdom of the B&W commentariat can name who manage to talk about approaching religious belief more diplomatically and/or promote accommodationism (Dixon from the religious side) without unjustly slagging more forthrightly critical (and, yes, often acerbic) atheists. Three vs. more than I can count is not a good ratio, but it’s better than none I suppose.
I just want to tell JS and his ilk that it is indeed a mistake to “engage” with us “morons’ if by “engage” you mean “tell Tom Johnson stories” and by “morons” you mean those who criticize faith.
But it’s true: constant browbeating from without makes community building easier.
Our side frequently points out how much the Stedmans, Kazezes, and Mooneys of the world depend upon critical links from (far more) popular Gnu bloggers in order to get meaningful levels of traffic. But isn’t there some of that happening on this side of the divide as well? I get the sense that posts about accommodationism get more attention here, or on WEIT or Pharyngula or Evolutionblog or various other Gnu sites, than posts on other subjects do.
“The conflict model” is a term that’s generally used to describe one view (the correct one—ahem) on the relationship between religion and science; but it might be interesting to see how the Gnu/accommie conflict has changed the way people associate with one another (even with people on the same side of said conflict) in the atheist blogosphere. Or, for that matter, in the atheist community more broadly.
Should we thank accommies for making associating with Gnus more lively and interesting?
@OB:
Did you know that the articles in question were read by the taoiseach and all TD’s, bishops, archbishops and president of Ireland. The pope too will also be getting copies. I had lovely responses; one in particular was from Senator David Norris; who is now going to stand for the soon-to-be vacant presidency job. He’s getting a tough time, though, because of his sexual orientation. So typical of the begrudgers indeed. Laws in Ireland were changed on homosexuality because of the stance he took.
Those of us who were incarcerated in institutions would not have got anywhere if we had remained passive and sweet and gnice in our pursuit for justice. We had to fight tooth and nail. We were called all names under the sun by religious apologists, who infiltrated blog sites and bullied and made serious threats against us, but we were steadfast and finally won out.
it was heartening to see a post you did on the Magdalen Laundry penitents being placed quietly on their facebook account. As too with those of us who were institutionalsed in industrial ‘schools’, they ate, slept, thought, dreamt, lived, worked, walked washed, ironed, swept, scrubbed, cried and drank and sang to the tune of religion.
There are lots of people in Ireland who are now slowly wakening up to the harsh reality of what religion has/can done/do to their psyches. They are in absolute shock, because of having all their lives held on to the ‘comfort’ blanket and are having to rethink their lives minus the fluffy comforters. It is terribly painful and lonely. They had to be dragged away screaming from the false comforts. The devil you know is better than the devil you don’t. But the former is poisonous and keeps its flock drugged up to the nineties and under the devil’s wings, while it controls every aspect of their lives. Just like fascism. From cradle to grave it rules. It tries to even rule the afterlife, that doesn’t even exist. That’s how sickening it is and people feed into it because it’s the only world-view that exists, especially in Ireland, which is mostly Roman Catholic. There is nowhere to escape religion, unless one leaves the Island.
You do a wonderful job. That which cannot break you, will make you, is the motto of Bernadette Fahy, author of ‘Freedom of Angels’. There are survivors of institutions and their families who are also very grateful to you for the times in the past you gave to them on your site.
Really. They’re doing us a favor, in that sense. (And we’re doing them one. But I think there’s less irony there, because we’re not always pointing out the deep irony of how risibly groupthinky they are, whereas if they’ve made that point once they’ve made it 50 thousand times.) It’s true: there’s nothing like [pereceived-to-be-unreasonable] browbeating to create esprit de corps. If they really seriously do want us to shut up they’re doing the opposite of what would serve their purposes. (And the same applies to us. But most of them do such a laughably crappy job of making their case that in a way it doesn’t matter. They clump together to produce nonsensical rants with closed comments; we clump together to do a little better than that.)
The real irony, as I keep saying, is that they’re making our case for us. Our case is that religion has way too much discursive privilege; they keep demonstrating exactly that fact with every angry tirade they send our way. If religion were just another idea, with no more protection or privilege than any other, would we be getting all these angry tirades? Surely not – because what would they be about?
M-T – no, I didn’t know that! On the other hand I think you probably mean they all got copies – not that they all read them. I suspect you can’t be sure they all read them. :- )
I didn’t know about Facebook, either – I’ll have to find that group.
Too right about remaining passive. That’s what people did for generations and that’s why the fucking church got away with it for generations. Lucky lucky lucky us to live in a time when it is allowed to fight back against injustice.
The accommodationists aren’t “creating community” though, are they? Aren’t they really just attaching themselves like barnacles to existing religious communities?
Absolutely.
Especially given that they’re sacrificing their ethics and good deal of public respect to do it. They’re like gnu stealth martyrs.
Mooney used to be a respected writer and blogger (indeed, hearing about his work was how I first found Sb). Now he’s aligned himself – though since has had a falling out – with that twit Nisbet; written a truly weak book that could have been solid had he listened to and engaged with the commenters on his blog; squandered good will amongst people he said he admired, even angering Orac (who he had fawned over in UA) by arguing that people need to build bridges to the antivaccine movement; cast his lot with Smith, perpetuating falsehoods and showing himself to be an inept journalist in the process; and now sold out to a rightwing, antiscience organization that funds climate denial and is really everything his other book stood against.
Yeah, read should have read ‘sent’ indeed. Thanks!
Here is the link OB .http://tinyurl.com/5wvav7q
That’s funny!
Yikes, that FB Magdalene page is a good resource, and it has only 285 likes. Tell your friends.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Magdalene-Laundries-Awareness/204474269590268?sk=wall
FB-Liked the Magdalene page. Good stuff! Where by “good” I mean stuff that makes me want to cry, and then go berserk on those motherfuckers.
Grumpy – welcome aboard! I also don’t tend to argue the GNU position, I just approve and occasionally share articles on FB. I got dragged in by having one of my posts at PZ’s grossly misrepresented as advocating violence.
Cath, really. The Minister of Justice said most of the women went into the laundries voluntarily!! Oh right, and stayed voluntarily too, I suppose! For thirty years, working for zero pay.
Honest to god…it’s just staggering that this was going on in a European country barely more than a decade ago – kidnapping and slavery, with government tacit consent. It’s fucking unbelievable.
Listening to Felice Gaer grilling the Irish government on YouTube. Felice Gaer is my new hero.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=YsUMPiFjUuk
Cath: Actually, I do argue the Gnu positions. Just not far from home. (Home being the Heathen Hangout.) Otherwise, I read PZ and B&W religiously and comment there and at other sites with short comments of support or snark at the bad guys.
Oops. Support for the team or snark at the bad guys.
Maggies and industrial school inmates would have been seen as morons, imbeciles, amadans, crackawleys, stupid, thick, not the full-shilling, good-for-nothing, the products of fallen women etc, by the religious. It was so easy for the ‘educated’ religious to use these despicable denigratory words on defenceless children/women as the religious automatically saw themselves as superior, uber-powerful beings. Childen/women were the untermenchen. it was a form of mental torture and serious abuse. People who use language like this cannot hardly expect to be respected by others, as they do not earn it. it came back to haunt the religious, that’s for sure. There is an old saying, that goes: when you point the finger at a person there is always three more pointing back. There is nothing more cruel and wanting in people who psychologically beat up on women and children. it’s even worse when it comes from the opposite sex, as the propensity for projecting the aggression is mostly greater.
GordonWillis:
Just to be clear, I wasn’t trying to make excuses for Jeremy’s behavior. But as far as I can tell, he views himself as morally superior, and he doesn’t think his behavior makes him look bad at all — at least not in the eyes of the Righteous, who are the only people that count.
He’s got us all (to a certain extent us drones, but especially the Queen Bee) categorized as moral monsters, which means that it doesn’t matter how he treats us. In fact, he wins extra bonus points for treating us badly.
But I don’t think we’re doing ourselves any favors by putting him in the monster category either. He’s just a regular guy who thinks he’s doing the right thing, albeit from a grotesquely twisted moral perspective that views internet snark as much worse than real harm to real people in the real world.
Rieux:
I don’t know if McGowan has ever explicitly stated any position on the compatibility of science and religion, but I strongly suspect he thinks they’re incompatible. Occasionally he will reveal a few of his personal thoughts, such as here:
So at least we can say that McGowan is very very far away from the Mooney-Nisbet style of accommodationism.
Uh, speaking of…When did Kirshenbaum leave the blog? All trace of her has been erased. What did I miss?
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2011/06/02/new-directions-at-the-intersection/
That’s interesting SC! Maybe he’s blaming her for his failures instead of his whole involvement in the Tom Johnson Affair.
She’s moving on to Wired: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2011/04/28/parting-ways-at-the-intersection/
Morale is probably good for closet cases, but will it make people afraid to criticise eachother?
Kirshenbaum, Kirshenbaum. I have heard the name. I think I have commented on Kirshenbaum, but I don’t know why.
Thanks, articulett. I don’t usually read it unless someone draws my attention to something there, so I had missed that.
Magdalene FB page has 695 likes now. That’s better!
Rieux, that’s a good question. Years ago, I tried explaining my take on this subject to Jean, though she claims to not have understood.
Should activists thank the accommodationists for having a foil? It depends on what you think the overall costs and benefits of the conflict are.
The benefits are obvious. Like you suggested, conflict attracts attention from disinterested bystanders. It also preserves excitement for insiders. The costs, however, might be significant. Conflict can form the entire basis of the communal trust. At that point, it becomes prohibitively difficult for the community to draw in possible sympathizers. People who are pathologically dependent on conflict become alienated from themselves, making it harder to make choices like autonomous human beings.
So it really depends on whether or not the conflict with accommodationism has become obsessive. I don’t think it has. But I’m not objective on this matter, and obviously some people think differently.
Quite. It’s some of both (she said sagely).
I suppose I think there is a touch of obsessiveness at times, but also that that’s inevitable in this kind of concerted effort to shift public opinion.
So gotta make an effort to poke the Abyss’ eyes out?
De-lurking to say I added my “like” to the Magdalenes page.
I am a recovering Catholic myself, and am outraged by the RCC’s behavior.
Actually, I’m pretty disgusted by all religions and what passes for conservatism in the U.S.
It does seem Stangroom persists in mirroring the behavior he says he hates in others. “So-and-so is a jerk; he called me a jerk.” He’s done this to me personally. Well, that about says it all, don’t it?
Well, yes. It’s all very circular, and why anyone is supposed to accept that gnu rudeness is The Epitome of Evil while anti-gnu rudeness is mere irony, is beyond me. But then I’m an idiot and a moron, so of course it’s beyond me.
It all seems to come down to that in the end. He gets to call the shots. (Anyway, I think closing the comments to these incendiary posts – as he habitually does – pretty much disqualifies him as an interlocutor.)