Will Misogyny Bring Down the Atheist Movement?

http://www.buzzfeed.com/markoppenheimer/will-misogyny-bring-down-the-atheist-movement

by herbig • 12 years ago

10 11 12 years ago

api3• 12 years ago

"Movement" ... ugggghhh...

The instant something becomes a "movement" it loses 50 IQ points at least, and this one is no exception. They start by having something to say, but they quickly turn into ends-in-themselves circle jerks.

gulfie• 12 years ago

luckily that didn't happen with the hacker movement... oh wait.

api3• 12 years ago

... or the "new economy" Silicon Valley movement... oh wait.

One word: "disrupt."

Sigh.

MisterBastahrd2• 12 years ago

Did it bring down Christianity, Islam, and Judaism? Also, buzzfeed link, really?

herbig• 12 years ago

It's a very well written article by a reputable author about a serious issue that you haven't read.

MisterBastahrd2• 12 years ago

No, I did read the article, and the premise is amusingly stupid. The message is not the messenger.

deeviant• 12 years ago

There is no "atheist" movement. At least not one that encapsulates anything but minute fraction of atheist/agnostics.

There is no common value core shared atheists, there are no shared beliefs between atheists, there is no code of conduct. There is not right or wrong way to do atheism.

There is nothing stopping a group of atheists from creating a shared belief system with a concrete value system, but that association and those common values would have nothing to do with atheism.

Misogyny is not a atheist problem, it's a human problem, and they have nothing to do with each other.

api3• 12 years ago

Exactly.

Atheism does not describe a belief, but a lack thereof. I don't think there is a pink elephant in the room with me right now, so I'm going to start a movement!

crpatino2• 12 years ago

Atheism describes the belief that [1] all human beings before the Enlightenment were drooling idiots (never mind the many cultural achievement that among other things made possible the Enlightenment itself), [2] many continue to be drooling idiots to this date, and [3] the best way to disabuse people of their own idiocy is to stomp on all their more cherished beliefs and traditions until they accept that the all-so-smart Atheists-with-Capital-A were always right, and more handsome too.

atheists, on the other hand, try to find meaning in a world where there is no Daddy in the sky that will reward your achievements or punish your mischief, and live accordingly in a dignified, sane way.

crpatino2• 12 years ago

There is no "atheist" movement. At least not one that encapsulates anything but minute fraction of atheist/agnostics.

I think you are in the wrong here. Only a small fraction of people self identified as "christian" (to speak of an example I actually know about) forms part of the clergy, and thus mediate the experience of God to the unwashed masses. The same way, there is a small fraction of high status individuals who act as spoke persons for the whole community of atheist/agnostics.

From the people I know directly, both the "christians" and the "atheists" are unconcerned with the big picture of things. They just want to go on with their lives and perhaps go through them in a sane, ethic way. You know, normal, law-abiding people.

The Capital-A-Atheists on the other hand, have an agenda beyond the needs and wants of their flock. Like the Clergy of old, they are very concerning with identifying people that dare to think differently (a.k.a. WRONG) and stomp on them, hard. These debunkers and skeptics, provide little value to society, if you take into account the way their predjuces and biases set back scientific discoveries decades or more.

This group see themselves as upholders of The-Truth-with-Capital-T, but rarely bother to rise the philosophical question of what can or cannot be known to the human intellect. They see themselves as saviors of humanity and defenders against Superstition-with-Capital-S, regardless that your average individual superstition starts its life as a piece of practical knowledge for which the context and rationale have been lost in time.

Back to the point, what this article talks about is what typically happens when small cliques of men get unquestioning power from a mass of followers. An atheist that this has "nothing to do with each other", but so could say a catholic about child molestation from priests and further cover up from the part of higher raking officials. The failure (or unwillingness) the recognize unckecked power structures in both cases only help to obscure the truth and perpetuate the abuses.

jo_• 12 years ago

The title is terrible, but the article is wonderfully well written. It highlights with even handedness a very sensitive and central issue facing not just the skeptical community but the internet as a whole today. I'm impressed with the BuzzFeed authors on this one and would like to see them producing more content of this quality.

Will Misogyny Bring Down the Atheist Movement?

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