A+ (atheism plus), For A Third Glorious Age of Total Agreement

“New Atheism” was built on the backs of heavyweights who had all written hard hitting best sellers. The social fabric was shaken by the approach of Harris, Hitchens, Dawkins and Dennet, appropriately dubbed no less than ‘the four horsemen’.

Now a series of bloggers, with conspicuously few achievements between all of them have decided that the community needs to be cleansed of subversive thought by expelling everyone who disagrees with them, and they are the ones to do it with a new movement called ‘Atheism Plus‘. The properties they most associate with folk like the horsemen are ‘old’ ‘white’ ‘male’ and ‘privileged’ (see below). Indeed a New Statesman article frequently quoted by the Freethoughtbloggers who started this, states quite clearly that:

“Atheism+ is a reaction against the “New Atheism” of Richard Dawkins”.

However they somehow manage to completely overlook the fact that the horsemen achieved their level of notoriety and recognition through ability and hard work, culminating in a series of best selling, ground shifting books: The God Delusion, God is NOT Great, Letter to a Christian Nation and Darwins Dangerous Idea to name but a FEW. The results of this can be seen when looking through the adword statistics where it actually turns out that Richard Dawkins alone is bigger than Atheism!

The Beatles may have been more popular than Jesus, but looks like Dawkins is now more popular than Atheism!

Dawkins, just so we are clear, has the prestigious academic title of Fellow of the Royal Society. That might not mean much to many, but it’s one of the higher awards given out by the Royal Society to people who made ‘ a substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathematics, engineering science and medical science”.
Seriously is there anything in the entirety of the ‘Atheism Plus’ movement that can even approach this level of accomplishment?

So the founders of ‘Atheism plus’ have decided that, despite their lack of any real achievement, that the real thing atheism needs right now is to throw the likes of the horsemen under the bus and to form a splinter movement (click, its sooo appropriate).  That’s right the ‘Atheism plus’ will be gloriously free of older white men, irrespective of their actual contributions or achievements.

Jennifer McCreight, the founder of ‘Atheism Plus’ says what she thinks about old white men. Oddly enough ability and achievement don’t seem to factor into this equation at all!

So what are the founding principals of ‘Atheism plus’?

We are…
Atheists plus we care about social justice,
Atheists plus we support women’s rights,
Atheists plus we protest racism,
Atheists plus we fight homophobia and transphobia,
Atheists plus we use critical thinking and skepticism.

So ‘Atheism Plus’ gets off to this incredibly bad start where of their guiding principals, 2-4 are subsets of 1. Why that is becomes obvious when you see what’s bottom of the list of the ‘Atheism Plus’ manifesto. Bottom of the heap, no. 5 of 5 is ‘the use of critical thinking’. Yup critical thinking is bottom of the pile for ‘Atheism Plus’. I find it even more amusing as I am an atheist because of critical thinking (1. methodology, then 2. conclusion, y’know the logical way of doing it), whereas they start with the assertion that they are ‘Atheists Plus’, then later decide that critical thinking is a good thing. Conclusion before the methodology? very ass backwards!

Now enter the fray another Freethoughtblogger, held to be one of the more sane and rational FTBers (apparently), one ‘Richard Carrier’. Richard sets the standards high by asserting:

” And Greta Christina and others have taken up the banner: Atheism Plus: The New Wave of Atheism. I am fully on board. I will provide any intellectual artillery they need to expand this cause and make it successful.”

..and that would be all very fine and well if the rest of Carriers blog wasn’t so ridden with wildly over the top polarizing rhetoric of eradicating and purging dark evil impurities that threaten our purity of essence (as someone has noted, it sounds more like Mccarthyism and Ayn Rands hate child). Indeed, I can say without a hint of hyperbole or exaggeration that is more Third Reich like than ‘Third Wave of atheism’ like. Whats that? Godwins law I hear you say? Well judge for yourself! You really have see it to believe it…..here’s some highlights!

“Don’t assume that because someone else did that, that it’s covered and you can give it a miss. No, we need to show numbers. So speak out wherever you see these two sides at loggerheads, and voice your affiliation, so it’s clear how many of us there are, against them. And this very much is an us vs. them situation. The compassionate vs. the vile. You can’t sit on the fence on this one. In a free society, apathy is an endorsement of villainy.”

and

“Those who don’t, those who aren’t shamed by being exposed as liars or hypocrits, those who persist in being dishonest or inconsistent even when their dishonesty or inconsistency has been soundly proven, is not one of us, and is to be marginalized and kicked out, as not part of our movement, and not anyone we any longer wish to deal with.”

(yeah thats the way to win hearts and minds with your intellectual artillery!)

and

“I call everyone now to pick sides (not in comments here, but publicly, via Facebook or other social media): are you with us, or with them; are you now a part of the Atheism+ movement, or are you going to stick with Atheism Less? Then at least we’ll know who to work with. And who to avoid.”

and

Yes, it does. Atheism+ is our movement. We will not consider you a part of it, we will not work with you, we will not befriend you. We will heretofore denounce you as the irrational or immoral scum you are (if such you are). If you reject these values, then you are no longer one of us. And we will now say so, publicly and repeatedly. You are hereby disowned.

Yup, it’s real unashamedly divisive, brazenly polarizing totalitarian ‘you’re either with us or against us’ type stuff. But the really disturbing thing here is that if you do not entirely back ‘Atheism Plus’s dogmatically stated priorities, you are to be marginalized, excluded and attacked. To many of those who have escaped cults such as Scientology, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormonism this is the sort of viciously vindictive talk of retributional tactics that would likely give you flashbacks! It is this stated desire that people rather than ideas should be targeted that I find most disconcerting. OBEY OUR DOGMA OR BE DECRLARED A SUPRESSIVE PERSON! (you really should read this article, it is frighteningly similar to Carrier vision for ‘Atheism plus’).

But Carrier with his ‘intellectual artillery’ really doesn’t seemed to have thought this one through. So lets see, if American Atheists do not rename themselves ‘American Atheists Plus’, and identify themselves as ‘Atheists Plus’, Carrier will ‘know who to avoid’?
Well that’s an interesting proposition because it turns out that Richard Carrier and Greta Cristina are both scheduled to speak at the 2013 American Atheist convention in Houston.

Oh yes, it’s time for very red faces to take their list of world class achievements (/sarcasm) and ‘intellectual artillery’ and eat a very very VERY juicy slice of humble pie.

Given that American Atheists are NOT going to rename themselves as ‘American Atheist Plus’, or identify with this splinter group, this puts Richard Carrier and Greta Christian in a very difficult situation. Personally I think Carrier should write to David Silverman (a good guy!), the head of American Atheists in exactly the same terms he wrote to someone on his blog who said that they would remain, ‘just an atheist’

‘Atheism Plus’  should really stick with his guns here and tell these inferior ‘American Atheists’ what they think about them.

If they had any dignity or commitment to their ‘third glorious age’ of ‘Atheism Plus’, they would lead by example and write to David Silverman telling him that he, and his organization, is to be marginalized and excluded as there is no room for fence sitter in their new empire of pure ‘Atheism Plus’ and they will no longer be attending any conferences run by these mere inferior ‘atheists’. Indeed, personally I would encourage them to hold with their beliefs and splinter off with their pious, self-righteous, holier-than-thou ‘witch hunting’ sect.

But I’ll wager their commitment to ‘Atheism plus’, despite all their pompous rhetoric, is paper thin, and that we will not rid ourselves of these Mccarthyism type atheists so easily. I’ll wager the parasites will realize that without ‘New Atheism’, which let us not forget was born from the achievements of people with actual ability, y’know hard hitting heavyweights types, they cannot survive.  I expect that they will now start trying to weasel their way out of this by any and all means necessary as long as the conclusion is ‘no, it’s okay for ME to attend mere atheist conferences, its just everyone else who should shun and marginalize these mere inferior atheists’

I guess we will have our answer soon enough about Richard Carrier and Greta Christinas commitment to ‘Atheism Plus’ by whether they pull out of the American Atheist convention or not.

It’s NOT The-End-Of-The-World as we know it!

    So 6 months ago, on May 21st 2011 a guy called Harold Camping kindly predicted the end of the world, universe and Draw Mohammad Day based on his decades of scholarly studying of the Bible. Oddly enough the world did not appear to end as Camping had predicted, and so he was forced to conclude that the world had ‘sort of ended’ and ‘God’, being a sporting fellow had elected to end the world in a way that no-one would notice for 6 months, then it would REALLY end on 21st Oct 2011. Now the great thing is, Camping engaged in some massive billboard campaign about the end of the world, and while touring the US in the summer of 2011 I actually came across one of his billboards boldly proclaiming that the Judgement day actually happened MONTHS ago!  Guaranteed by the Bible no less!

Harold Campings 'End of the World MAY 21st 2011' photographed outside Rock Springs WY on Sept 26th 2011.

   Sadly when I went through California, ‘Family Radio’ was still going strong, seemly un-phased and un-bothered by the world hadn’t ended their ministry had claimed ‘the Bible ‘Guaranteed’.

July 8th (Westboro Baptist Church)

Friday 8^th July, the Phelp interview.  The main reason I thought the Phelps would be fun would be a passage in Luke (also in another gospel I think), where Jesus is describing the end times.  Two men in a bed!  Jesus says you can get raptured if you are two men in one bed!  I also listen to a load of xian radio going across country, and I could make such a great gay sermon from this.

‘Remember Lotts Wife!  This is clearly a reference to not looking back, and the very next line is about two men in a bed.  Jesus is quite clear about his choice of sexes here, he could have said a man and his wife, he could have said a mother and her child, but no, its two men in ONE bed, ONE bed, signifying the one-ness of the two men… etc etc’.  This is always what bugs me when people start blathering about being ‘scholarly’ in Christianity.  I’ve listened to the scholars, and yes of the stupidity they issue forth, this (two men in ONE bed) comment wouldn’t even register above the noise!

Anyway bear in mind it was just an idea, and that I had driven from Columbus to Kansas city the previous day, and had no time to prepare at all.

They were very courteous when they greeted me, Megan and Megan, one young and pretty, the other as ugly as her opinions.

I had hoped to try and keep it all on a civilized, clear and logical level, but it became almost instantly obvious that this was a lost cause.  The hostility of ‘Meg the Eldar’ was really something I was unprepared for.  The volume, the amount, and the hostility in the pitch of her voice was that of a bitter, bitter woman.  Like a dog that’s been tormented daily till all it knows how to do is attack anything that comes within biting distance.  The daughter, I had the feeling was only there for eye-candy, or was just there as a spectator so Meg the Eldar could show her how to properly hate something not of the cult.  The daughter spoke softly and had it just been me and her we might have made some progress.  She had a venomfangx look to her.  Every argument had a ‘memorized by rote’ unthought through answer, but given time it might have been possible to untangle some of the mess.  But alas, Meg the Eldar, from the very start was throwing in pointless insults at every opportunity, ‘your nothing special’ ‘your country is worthless’ ‘your mother…’ etc etc.  Water off a ducks back for me of course, I’ve had more shit thrown at me than that before. Battle-hardened to the childish feces flinging .  Eventually, I decided that Meg the Eldar could not be allowed to streamroller the events by doing 90 % of the talking, only 5% of which was relevant, but when I accosted her about it she threatened repeatedly to leave.

Realizing that she essentially had the trump card of just walking out, I  went for the ‘Jesus endorses homosexuality’ gambit.

It hit the spot, and they ‘RAGE-QUIT’.  The great thing was though that Meg the Eldar acknowledged that women should be grinding mill with rocks when the rapture happens.

PWNED BITCH.

After that back on the road, and drove for a LONG time.  Made it to Colorado Springs by dusk, and stopped off at a coffee shop to upload some stuff, catch up with email etc.  But by this time I was a spent wraith.  My plan had been to head up to the mountains and find some quiet forest road to park on.  Eyeballing the map ‘Cripples Creek’ looked fun.  Boy did I get it wrong.  I was expecting things to get quiet and empty very quickly.  Not a bit of it, turns out its all ski resorts etc up there.  Nothing worse that having to drive on and on and on in the dark when you are exhausted.  But alas no alternatives.  Eventually gave up and found a larger siding and just crashed out.  I had figured the traffic would die off quickly after midnight, but not a bit of it.  There was a steady stream of cars, every minute or so throughout the night.  I just couldn’t figure it out.  Where were they coming from and going too? To me this looked like a road to nowhere.  At any rate I woke up in the night to see Jupiter rising over the mountains.  First time I’ve seen him this year!  Hopefully nearer opposition I will get a team together to do a global planetary timelapse!