Posts Tagged ‘
Be quieter ’
Apr 27th, 2011 5:18 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Why can’t they, asks “interfaith” atheist (don’t ask me, I don’t know how that works) Chris Stedman via a guest post on his blog by someone called Karla McLaren. He says “It’s a hugely informative and clear-eyed assessment of the state of the atheist movement.” I don’t agree. I think it’s just the 14 millionth installment of “new atheists are bad and mean ick.”
Atheism, McLaren informs us, is more visible thanks to those books by the four New Ones, or as she calls them, “the Fractious Four.” Yes really.
I call them the Fractious Four, which has a cool superhero ring to it (even though their superpower is to argue with everybody).
Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris have written polemics
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Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
207 comments
Tags: "New" atheism, Be quieter, The backlash
Apr 26th, 2011 12:52 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Stephanie Z has an excellent comment on Josh Rosenau’s post about how I’m totally wrong about what he means by “the New Atheism.”
It’s worth remembering where this debate came from. Atheists, only recently starting to stand up and be counted in any number, are seeing the people who have been saying the same things that atheists have been saying for centuries (as noted in comment 5, then largely ignored) being told to hush up because they’re being noticed for once and that’s making trouble. These are frequently also the people who gave your rank-and-file atheist the courage to come out and who provide sympathy when coming out results in the crap it always results in. But hush, because what
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Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
49 comments
Tags: "New" atheism, Be quieter, The backlash
Apr 18th, 2011 11:42 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Another thing about Ruse’s claim.
Most of all I detest the New Atheism because I think it is playing into the hands of the Religious Right.
But if you decide it’s Forbidden to say certain things lest you “play into the hands of the Religious Right” then you are already playing into the hands of the Religious Right. If you give up the right to free speech as a precaution against theocracy then you are already in a theocracy. It doesn’t make sense to give up secular rights in order to hang on to secular rights.
I don’t want the religious Right deciding what I can say. I don’t want to defer to their sensitivities or their unreasonable beliefs. … Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
84 comments
Tags: Be quieter, Freedom of speech, Michael Ruse
Mar 20th, 2011 12:01 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
What, again? Yes, again. Yes, for the 14 thousandth time, Michael Ruse is telling us how angry with him “the new atheists” are, how right he is in spite of their anger, how wrong and bad and dangerous and immoral they are, how brave he is, and how right and brave and amusing and important he Michael Ruse is.
Oh dear, I am in trouble again with the New Atheists… I am being called all sorts of nasty things…Even I sometimes wonder why I am in such bad odor, apart from the fact that whenever I am confronted with people for whom disagreement is considered not just wrong but morally offensive my first tendency is to laugh and tease.
No … Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
40 comments
Tags: Be quieter, Michael Ruse, The backlash
Jul 10th, 2010 12:50 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Are the few people who commented on JK’s post on the Toxic Sock affair really (though metaphorically) “participants in [a] witch-hunt” and “the 21st century, virtual-world, equivalent of a medieval mob baying for the blood their latest victim”?
No.
I can see why they (we – I was one) look like a crowd, because there are quite a few comments and they are critical and sometimes hostile. On the other hand, there are only (if I counted correctly) 23 people total, not counting Jean, and a few of them are friendly; there’s a total of 63 comments. So a rush of mostly-critical comments, yes; a mob baying for blood, no.
But more to the point: are we the Bad People? … Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
184 comments
Tags: "New" atheism, Be quieter, Chris Mooney, The backlash
Jun 21st, 2010 12:30 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Chris Mooney is in praise of dialogue again.
The fact is, journalism (and dialogue) about science and religion are pretty difficult to oppose.
Case in point: Last week, here in D.C. (my old, new home), I attended an event at the American Association for the Advancement of Science to reintroduce its Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion…At the close of the session, I rose and posed a question. One can never remember exact words, but in essence, it was this: “I’m glad you’re trying to foster dialogue between scientists and the religious community, and I’m sure you’ll succeed. But here is a harder question–how will you foster dialogue with the New Atheists?”
Oh that dialogue about science and religion – … Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
83 comments
Tags: Be quieter, Chris Mooney, The backlash
Jun 17th, 2010 11:21 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Backlash against “new” atheists, chapter 479,811.
We were initially surprised that our co-authored book, Unscientific America, was so strongly attacked for observing that scientists should strive to improve their skills at public communication–and that this probably includes not alienating potential religious allies or mainstream America. But in a sense, the attacks made a kind of sense. Mostly, they came from those for whom this advice ran contrary to their particular project of denouncing much of America and the world for alleged ignorance and superstition–the New Atheists.
That’s “backlash” because it’s untrue, and distorted, and misleading. It’s dishonest and unreasonable, and those qualities make it backlash as opposed to disagreement or criticism. It is of course entirely possible to … Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
64 comments
Tags: "New" atheism, Accommodationism, Be quieter, Chris Mooney, The backlash
May 31st, 2010 11:02 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Andrew Brown spots another opportunity to piss on “the new atheism” and pounces on it with his usual cheerful malice.
…the new atheism, with its constant use of “religion” as a term which means something (nasty) is an attempt at social construction. In particular it’s an attempt to make fresh deep boundaries between ingroup and outgroup.
Yes, in some senses, and partly. But one could say the same thing about the civil rights movement; about science; about feminism; about scholarship; about liberalism; about conservatism; about any human endeavor with actual specific articulated ideas or truth-claims. And it might and should occur to Brown that religion too is very often an attempt to make fresh deep boundaries between ingroup and outgroup, … Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
7 comments
Tags: "New" atheism, Be quieter, The backlash
May 26th, 2010 11:55 am |
By Ophelia Benson
For the record – the (critical but reasonable) comment I tried to post on Chris Mooney’s post on science and communication yesterday has now been deleted. Yesterday it was showing up (for me only) as being held in moderation, and today it’s gone.
It is possible of course to think that no matter how reasonable one particular comment may be, the person behind it is not. Mooney doesn’t delete all dissent on his posts, so clearly he does think something along those lines – that I am myself inherently unreasonable and unallowable, even if I do manage to fake up a reasonably mild comment at some particular moment.
I think he’s wrong. I can easily see why he would resent … Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
28 comments
Tags: "framing", Be quieter, Chris Mooney
May 24th, 2010 12:32 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Karl Giberson explains about political science in the US and what it means for how we have to behave:
America has a complex and enduring commitment to pluralism. We want people to be free to act — and believe — as they please. But we must all play in the same sandbox, so we are attentive to the idiosyncrasies of our playmates, especially when they don’t make sense to us.
By “attentive” it turns out he means we don’t disagree with them, and by “idiosyncrasies” it turns out he means beliefs, no matter how unreasonable and arbitrary and evidence-free. So we must all play in the same sandbox, meaning, apparently, that we must all spend our lives three inches from … Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
38 comments
Tags: "New" atheism, Accommodationism, Be quieter, Karl Giberson, The backlash
Apr 25th, 2010 12:36 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
It reminds me of the old Bugs Bunny line – “Of course you know, this means war.”
This means war. The grotesque punishment meted out to Harry Taylor might as well be an official government announcement that atheists have no rights.
It is a common accusation that the “new” atheists are bullies who gang up on poor innocent bystanders like Mooney and De Dora and other Be Quieters.
Well – not so fast. Let’s pause and consider. Who exactly is bullying whom?
Which is the majoritarian view? Which is the conventional wisdom? Atheism? Hardly. No, the majoritarian conventional wisdom is, at the very least, that religion deserves an almost infinite amount of “respect” and that any atheist who falls short … Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
40 comments
Tags: "New" atheism, Be quieter, Freedom of speech, Secularism
