Clean up your mess
Drat. I thought I was going to be able to drop the subject now, but Aratina Cage pointed out another item. There was another dust-up at the Intersection last March, that I didn’t follow closely at the time. This one was by Kirshenbaum, and it involved taking some unattractive bluster in a few comments at Pharyngula as literal threats of violence against women. You know: as in taking “fuck you” as a threat of rape. I didn’t follow it closely because I didn’t feel like defending unattractive bluster, but I never thought it equated to literal threats.
In any case, as Aratina points out, the thread is full of comments by TJ under his many many fake names. The thread is still there. The whole thing is an attempt to make Pharyngula, and by extension gnu atheists, look bad. It’s full of fraud, and it hasn’t been corrected or even updated.
TJ got in there in a hurry. Milton C did the second comment. Philip Jr did 3, Seminatrix did 4, bilbo did 6, Vyspyr did 8, Petra did 9 and 14, bilbo did 15 and 17 and 20, Milton C did 21. Then TJ dropped out for awhile, then Petra returned at 93, Seminatrix 107, 109, 110, Milton 112, Polly-O 115, Seminatrix 118, 120 (saying “I think it paints PZ in a bad light”), 123, Philip Jr 128, 131, Seminatrix 138, 141, 142…and so on. That’s all of Kirshenbaum’s homework I’m going to do. I think Philip Jr and Vyspyr are suspected socks rather than confirmed socks; the others are solid.
So there it is. A large number of comments by a known fraud, sitting there saying variations on “I think it paints PZ in a bad light” over and over and over and over again. Not updated, not disavowed, not stamped with a warning.
That’s “journalism”; that’s “civility”; that’s “I don’t like labels”; that’s “commitment to the truth”; that’s dealing with “sore and unjustified abuse.”
So: Sheril Kirshenbaum: you need to fix that.
Philip Jr. is an admitted sock.
There isn’t any doubt that Vyspyr is a sock. Here is a sample Vyspyr comment, typical of the congratulatory high-fives to the other socks:
Here Vyspyr appears at YNH sandwiched between two socks within a short interval of time.
An honest handling of the situation would be to add notices to all affected posts at the Intersection informing readers of the socks. Or to simply mark all of them, forfeiting the checks for practical purposes. However M&K have mentioned that they won’t revisit any threads, though the problem was and is entirely their responsibility, especially as so-called communicators. For months they failed to make the requisite three mouse clicks which would have revealed the socks.
Thanks for the confirmations, Oed. I thought so but wasn’t sure.
I knew that Mooney had said that…but taking a look at a particular example underlines what a wretched, integrity-free, bad decision that is. It’s just wrong – blatantly wrong. They’re leaving in place, with no disclaimer, masses of vituperative comments by known frauds. Those threads are full of fraudulent mutual support and backing up – much of it of the form “I like PZ and I don’t like M and K but this has turned me around” – that make their case seem to have a level and kind of justification that does not exist.
How can they just shrug and not do anything about that? It’s outrageous.
I’m getting very tempted to write to Discover.
First time I’ve agreed wholeheartedly with this crowd, with the proviso that all the background is provided.
I thought I’d look to see if Mooney gave any reason for not checking other threads, apart from “we can’t be bothered.” The answer is no.
There’s the explanation – we will not. Ah.
And then of course comes the usual bit of slime, which is entirely free of evidence or examples – it’s just thrown out there to poison the well some more, because it’s not toxic enough yet. He’s caught unwittingly using frauds to smear people he doesn’t like, so he says “they’re probably maybe doing the same thing.”
Yet there are people who insist that he is criticized unfairly. Are they paying any attention at all?!
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Irene Delse, Ophelia Benson. Ophelia Benson said: Clean up your mess http://dlvr.it/3GhZ5 […]
Hey, that thread is only 10.12% sock-puppets. Some other long threads are even more highly-concentrated sock. Almost a quarter of the 417 comments on ‘Attacks on Climate Science Now “Completely Out of Hand”’ (for example) belonged to “TJ.”
I feel soooo un satisfied. I really want to know if this is the fruit of accommodation or if this is the work of a religious person.
It’s just no good to hear “he’ll never do it again. I want to know why he did it. I don’t want him gone. I want to hear why and have him explain
Harrumph. Sunshine people
Are there technical problems involved? When editing blogs, isn’t there a possibility for “replace all”? Like f. ex. replacing “bilbo” with “bilbo(= sockpuppet of Tom Johnson)”?
I’ve been saying all along that this was perhaps the clearest, most damning example of Mooney and Kirshenbaum’s biased “moderation” and their utter hypocrisy about “civility” on blogs.
They call PZ out for letting the occasional commenter use a four-letter word to express a feeling, but they’re perfectly fine with their supporters actually committing libel, over and over and over again.
Accusing somebody of issuing death threats is accusing them of a serious crime; if M&K or any of their supporters actually believed death threats were being issued, they should have simply notified the police.
They didn’t, because they knew it wasn’t true. They were knowingly making false and derogatory statements, and that itself is not just uncivil but rightly illegal. (I know it might be hard to actually bring and win a suit due to issues about proving intent and quantifying damages, but the law being unenforceable doesn’t mean that the libel wasn’t illegal.)
Mooney recently banned John Kwok, at long last, but not for continuing to repeat the libel that Stu and others at Pharyngula issued threats of sexual violence and murder against Sheril Kirshenbaum. Apparently, he only got around to banning Kwok, finally, because Kwok was critical of Mooney’s journalistic standards. It was fine for him to be a serial libeler, but just he wasn’t enough of a toady.
That’s exactly how it goes at The Intersection. They go into a tizzy about the occasional four-letter word (e.g., a well-deserved “fuck off” to someone, when it’s been quite clearly and thoroughly explained why they should indeed fuck off). But when their supporters falsely accuse their detractors of actual crimes, over and over again and despite repeated denials and refutations, that’s just dandy.
(BTW, as I’ve said before, I think that Kwok repeating the libels may not in fact actually be libel—he is crazy enough that it’s unclear when and whether he’s dishonest. For Mooney to let it stand is another thing; Mooney is neither stupid nor crazy, and he is responsible.)
Quite, Paul.
I said on that thread last July that TB’s repeatedly calling me a liar was libelous, and it was, yet Mooney left it in place and banned me from commenting further.
That thread was sickening. Here’s the thread at Pharyngula where people were responding to those accusations:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/03/stop_using_the_lens_of_your_pr.php
(note StuV @ #439, who was being attacked and for whom I felt very sorry:
There are two other elements that make it even worse. Not that K knew about this (doesn’t actually deign to read Pharyngula comment threads, evidently – she’s just a miner for a quote of gold), but there had been incidents in the preceding weeks in which someone (one a ridiculous bigot who was eventually banned) had tried to minimize rape. They were slammed for it by a huge number of people, but the experience was traumatic for those who had been assaulted. Real people who have been raped and who are regular commenters there, where it’s relatively a safe environment because the other commenters won’t stand for misogyny or apologists for sexual violence. This and the other thread presented an image of Pharyngula commenters and comment threads that was completely wrong.
Second, on the other related thread (“The Value of Science Blogs?” – on which I suspect there were several more socks than those that have already been confirmed), “Petra” made accusations and claims that were contradicted right in those threads and that “she” never substantiated despite being asked to several times but which Kirshenbaum let stand. It’s disgusting that these female identities were used to express outrage at their alleged treatment and that Kirshenbaum did nothing but wallow in it.
I get furious just thinking about it. I may contact Discover, too. If anyone still doesn’t understand why people are angry, read “The Value of Science Blogs?” thread.
I found a video of a group who I know is absolutely the most militant in our state:
http://www.youtube.com/user/marquezcomelab#p/u/0/WcHaYJPgw8s
it is shocking. brutal. The violence and stridency, their insulting demeanor, and the horrible effect they have on good people, who hear this stridency and just sulk off into a corner and cling tighter to their faith.
It is terrible the damage done by gnus … see for yourself. The horror.
how can I get angry about #439. Seriously? In the bowels of pharingula? No one goes there, it is too crowded.
raped? Did you say “real people have been raped”?
um … shark, jump.
but in the above vid, you can see the effect of Dawkins, symbolically held up by raging Gnus.
I had to turn away.
And that, at a much lower level of significance, is exactly what TJ did to me – used his pretend female socks to pour scorn and loathing on my funny distaste for sexism.
Unrelated, but I’m sad that Oedipus doesn’t ban J. J. Ramsey on his blog. Buddha is basically a platform right now for him to keep adding insult to injury. It’s sickening. Ramsey is basically doing YNH’s smears using his blog and we have to flail against his tactics. What is up with that?
Remember that the topic that Ramsey contends is not only the one where YNH did arguably some of his worst comment bullying but also that Ramsey has kept the “tw*t” comment alive by keeping to talk about it ever since. After all it was only said “once” (and then ironically many more times to remind everybody that it was only once).
Oedipus can I seriously twist your arm to do something. We need Buddha not to be a megaphone for cyberbullies who attack the victims.
I repeat the twat comment a lot – but I don’t think JJ Ramsey should be doing so. His motives are different from mine.
That’s my point. Basically he tries to blame you for not having accurately described that thread in it’s “mildness” and hence make you the bad one, which is an obscene reversal of course.
And it’s typical; absolutely typical. He invented “strain at a gnat and swallow a camel.” He taught Matthew that.
Hitch & OB, I haven’t been following the comments at Not Serious. When I read JJ’s comments, my first thought was that he has no soul, though of course I’m not religious.
Should I delete that whole conversation or just his comments? Or disemvowel? I’m new to blog host etiquette. I may also revisit the other time he ridiculously started up right when everyone was coo-day-la (Curb reference).
I think Ophelia’s opinion matters more than mine. I don’t need anything deleted in particular.
It’s your blog. If you think he’s fine to post then that’s fine. If you think that he’s promoting stuff that you don’t want promoted you can block him. Those things are tricky. So I don’t really want to tell tell you what the right thing is. I’ll just say this. If it was my blog he would have his IP handed to him quite a while back.
TJ really was brilliant, such energy such drive. Was he really an Atheist? He seems too committed and devious to be an Atheist. Should we put letters of character in for his tenure committee?
I don’t even understand JJ’s comments now. Suppose I create an animation of a crowd cheering. I play the animation. Is JJ saying that, since there’s just one person behind the animation, then the animation cannot appropriately be said to depict cheering? There’s really only one person–me–and so by definition it cannot be cheering, which requires more than one person. Is this the logic?
Sincere question: Does anyone know if JJ Ramsey is autistic?
Scott asked:
“TJ really was brilliant, such energy such drive. Was he really an Atheist?”
At the time many of us wondered if Mooney had been Sokal-ed by someone on our side of the debate who posted something that Mooney wouldn’t be able to resist trumpeting and who would later expose the trick. I changed my mind fairly quickly on this point since TJ’s story changed so much within his comments in the two main posts and he exposed himself as a malicious liar a few days later in a comment on another post.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2009/10/28/what-would-bridge-the-nasty-new-atheistaccommodationist-divide/#comment-34548
It’s clear that a number of commenters on Discover/Intersections are believers. There is indeed a kind of alignment happening and it’s really hard to know in discussion if you are debating a believer and an atheist.
It is not that surprising, because after all the only good atheist is the invisible one. That one ought to not really be distinguishable from a believer for the most part.
That is also what irks me. Not that people align but that basically atheism has such a hard time already, and now there is this help to brand it negatively it from real or supposed insiders. It does have an audience, and it’s offended and adversarial believers.
That is an interesting TJ sequence that you found. He does backpaddle but as we know things escalated in exactly that way later on YNH. Lots of out of context stuff that mischaracterized people. So he basically gave the impression of wanting to present people fairly when he was caught.
Sadly, that is more broadly the mode of operation. Smearing, twisting words, mischaracterization and all that is OK as long as one can get away with it, not whether or not it is fair or sensibly accurate.
On JJ, I think very obsessive, coupled with a rigid and single-minded world view, and an very strong impulse to be right, may be sufficient to describe JJ’s psychology. I’m kind of trying to get away from the whole JJ topic, so let me leave it there.
Man, I referred to this post several times Ophelia! It’s like nobody follows my links or checks out threads I refer to by name :-).
That was a really disgusting business.
Paul, I know! I mean not specifically, but I know the post was much-cited. But as I said…I didn’t pay close attention, for the reasons stated, and others.
I mean…..it’s all the same thing, in the end. I disliked The Intersection, because of all the horrible people commenting there. Now I know that most of them were just one person. That makes sense. There’s a peculiar atmosphere the Intersectionists create – TB, Kwok, McCarthy, Jon, and all the many seedlings of TJ. TJ went on the create a new instantiation of that atmosphere at his nasty filthy blog. It’s not an atmosphere I enjoy spending time in, so I don’t, except when there’s some specific claim I want to dispute.
I notice you’ve twigged to Gurdur, too. He’s not a nice fellow; he’s got a reputation as the Typhoid Mary of online communication, the guy who will show up at your forum or blog and make all kinds of serious suggestions about how to “improve” matters, which eventually ends up fomenting meta-arguments all over the place and leads to the implosion of the site. A very pretentious asshat; he really fits in well at the Intersocktion, and I can imagine him homing in on all the whining about how other blogs should comport themselves, like a fly sniffing a very ripe turd-pile.
I know. I spotted that at some point when he glommed onto me at Comment is Free – and then he did some long self-important pedantic posts about me at his unvisited blog, then he found YNH and did more posts about me, this time calling me a liar, on account of how the glowingly honest YNH had said so. What a peach.
Re: Gurdur
Yes, I noticed him when my attention was first directed to YNH (by Ophelia). At first sight, it was nothing but socks and then I checked and saw there were a few real people, too. Reading him makes me wonder whether he has a really unpleasant agenda or simply lives in an alternate universe. He claims to be a vocal atheist and yet the nastiness of vocal atheists seems to be an absolute article of faith – I’ve yet to see him bring an example of it that wasn’t brutally ripped out of context and I find it very hard to believe he keeps on doing this unknowingly. Both PZ and Ophelia are pet hates; here are -unlinked – recent examples of each.
Reminds me of Jean defending Mooney because she has evidence she can’t show anyone.
Well, that certainly proves his point, doesn’t it? And, true to PZ’s description, he tries to drag as many people as possible into his swamp:
One ought to be aware of him and his methods, in order to avoid wasting time, should he be encountered.
As the one who complained about that on your other thread, I can’t help but agree completely. Many people had hopes that Kirshenbaum would realize the hyperbole inherent in the dig by a Pharyngula commenter at The Intersection commentariat and make a correction even before the sockpuppets’ true identity was known. It makes the whole “Value of Science Blogs” (as mentioned by SC in #11)/”Strengthening Public Interest in Science” debacle that much worse now that we know a full 30% and 10% respectively were sockpuppets (from Dave W.’s stats in #6). Thanks for posting on it (you didn’t have to link my pseudonym to my seldom updated blog *blush* but thanks anyway).
I thought it was invented by Hamilton Jacobi as a bit of a joke here on Butterflies and Wheels because he couldn’t trust that his larger comment would post at the Intersection. I had no idea that “New” was meant to signify “abusive” as Gurdur wrote.
Wow, I’m an extremist! I’d agree it’s pretty extreme these days trying to have a civilized discussion while not giving up ones identity.
Basically if you dare to express your disagreement , you are an extremist. It really is that simple.
And I am not surprised that Gurdur or J. J. Ramsey would think that either. After all I have told both that they have unhealthy obsessions. It’d take a greater person than either of them to take that as the helpful input that it actually was. They rather add some more list to the obsession and branding list!
As for Gnu atheism, it’s brilliant. It will be that much harder to brand negatively, though Gurdur is already trying.
Grrr. Mooney’s latest on this debacle was infuriating enough for me to comment in that cesspit.
<blockquote>If there is any silver lining at all here, perhaps after working to find out the truth together about “Tom Johnson,” so-called “New Atheists” and “accommodationists” might feel the inclination to be just a little bit more civil and trusting towards one another.</blockquote>
Quite wrong. There is nothing in this prolonged episode of unjustifiable distortions and gullibility by accommodationists to incline me to be more trusting towards them. Entirely the opposite, actually.
Aratina,
yeah, I was in on the Pharyngula thread responding to the abject insanity of what Sheril wrought with that post. It still makes me seethe.
Re: Gnu Atheism
Indeed, and Jerry Coyne actually linked to to it at the bottom of his post (“h/t to Hamilton Jacobi”) But screw proper attribution, anyway. The Gnu message is what’s important. The nice Gnu was simply stating its intent to go to church (perchance to attend a conservation event?), and the nasty one just raved and went berserk and flung insults all over the place. What a fucking narcissist. And it happens ALL THE TIME!
I proffer the following definition. Gnu Atheism means exactly the same thing as New Atheism. The former is used to remind people that Gnu’s Not Uncivil.
(h/t Hamilton Jacobi)
PZ, the whole trust thing was basically a slap in the face given that the very moment he talks about more trust and more civility TB trolls people and critics get moderated into silence, rather than get more trust.
In fact he has abnegated any trust but tries to shame his critics with it. And he allows lack of civility yet brands people he disagrees with that way.
“Trust and civility” new-speak.
Do as you say. It really is that simple. He doesn’t actually invite trust and civility so that’s the problem really.
And lo and behold, that lack of trust seems to have been warranted.
Apart from Gurdur, most people seem to have recognized correctly that Gnu Atheism highlights the absurdity of using “New Atheist” as a term of disparagement in a world containing H. L. Mencken (among others).
Nice to see that the Matthew effect is alive and well!
I too once hoped (against all odds) that Sheril was brighter and had a better moral compass than Chris and was only holding back out of reticence (perhaps trying to straighten Chris out behind the scenes). Sadly, though, they seem to be more or less on a level.
Oh, the Matthew effect – that’s a good one, and I wasn’t aware of it. I cited the fella just yesterday for “strain at a gnat and swallow a camel.”
Yes, well – if you’ve read those two threads you’ll have seen a lot of comments by me; yet still not as many as the ‘Tom Johnson’ sock-drawer army managed.
By showing such overt bias toward flat-out lying wooists like McCarthy and flaky Armstrongesque woo-defenders like Jon (‘but religion makes people feel special – leave it alone you big meanies; here, read this barely-comprehensible philosophical tract that makes Deepak Chopra seem on-topic, focused and reasonable’) and the supporting chorus of self-loathing atheists, the Mooneybaum collective religious appreciation and apologetic society bleating circle is just going to fade into obscurity because hardly anyone’s going to bother to go to the effort of writing well-thought-out repsonses to the pet trolls only to have them either ignored or edited to virtual toothlessness to meet whatever vague, shifting and never-defined standards they’re applying.
But what does Chris care anymore anyway? He’s got Templeton now; all he need do now is bash gnu atheists and climate skeptics and cash the cheques when they show up.
Hmph! Really!
You piqued my curiosity, Stewart, so I’m reading that ridiculous post on gnu atheists by that pompous git.
Wrong! It was invented right smack here by Hamilton Jacobi (as we I mean you [I was away] have already pointed out) so I get to use it. I saw it here, this is my house, I get to use it. Jerry gets to use it too, anybody gets to use it (except “Gurdur”), but nobody gets to say I found it somewhere else.
So there!
BTW, when I used the phrase “against all odds”, I was referring to the long string of mean-spirited and unperceptive (perhaps intentionally) diatribes by Chris without a word of reaction from Sheril, not to her bein wimminfolk an all. (Not that this will stop quote-miners, but at least it gets something on the record to point to afterwards.)
Stewart: Yes, that’s Gurdur all over. “that is my own opinion, based on evidence not available to the general public” — accommodationists all seem to have a peculiar notion of what constitutes “evidence”.
No I knew that, Hamilton – I just assumed “all odds” referred to her surroundings, that’s all.
I wish Gurdur were all over!
Hahahahaha
Wow. “Pompous git” indeed.
Pompous and also stalkerish. Like TJ/YNH, he pays (hostile) attention to me way out of proportion to my significance, fame, hits, influence, etc. I have several guys like that following me around. I really really really piss them off. Given my standing and name recognition compared to PZ or Jerry, I can’t help thinking that [whispers] they just don’t like uppity women. Funny little “amos” is another one of those.
Ophelia, no worries, I wasn’t concerned about you misreading that phrase. But, given the context of your original post, by the time they get done mangling this thread over at the Intersocktion, I would not be surprised to see my words cited as evidence that we are the misogynist ringleaders of GAFFTCOC (Gnu Atheists in Favor of Forcible Transverse Copulation with Oxidized Cutlery).
I was on that old thread.
I actually tried to teach them a lesson by deliberately quoting bilbo and Seminatrix (ha!) out of context (e.g, “These guys were right: sodoomy and rape are both appropriate and HILARIOUS!!!”). Sheril thought I was serious and wrote:
“I’m currently driving to TX and Chris is in the air. We will review comments here when possible.”
Needless to say, she never got to it. They seriously missed every possible opportunity to catch this sockpuppeting.
Oddly enough, Gurdur was the one who aplogized to me at YNH after he assumed a bias on my part because, he claimed, I was an active commenter here on B&W (see his 22 June 2010 at 3am comment at the linked thread).
Perhaps he confused me with Paul W., too.
Dave W.:
I wasn’t an active commenter here, either, until after that.
I suspect that Gurdur doesn’t really keep track of what fora who said what in, and misremembered.
Who he was thinking of, or where, I don’t know. Maybe me at the Intersection, maybe not. I gotta say, I can’t blame people for confusing Paul with Paul W. with Dave W. We do tend to show up in similar places and say similar things. (You know, the right things.)
I’m just really glad that when people think either of you guys are the same guy as me, I’m never embarrassed by what I/we supposedly said. Cool.
I think we ought to retain the appropriate humility in judging Gurdur; let us not forget that our low opinion of him is based on evidence that is available to the general public and we know that counts less than the other kind.
Couldn’t resist.
I took what is probably a farewell glance at Gurdur’s blog and was rather forcefully reminded of why it took a bit of research to convince myself he wasn’t a sock-puppet when I first encountered him. It really is simple with these types. You read what they write, you follow the links they provide, you pay attention to how they respond to questions or reasonable criticism and within a short time you realize they’re full of shit. I don’t usually write like that, but no one needs any more than the following exchange with Hitch in order to be fully justified in wasting no more time on this man, his opinions or the way he tries to put them across:
In answer to my own question a few comments ago, he definitely has an agenda.
Oh, alright, one more, but only because it is so utterly damning. This is him after the YNH sock-puppets confession, but before the Tom Johnson stuff came out.
Lots and lots of forgiveness and understanding for the confessed liar who impersonated women and invented rape and abuse victims in order to trample on the sensibilities of real women, none whatsoever for this guy’s targets. They don’t have a side to be understood. They’re evil. And if they defend themselves, they’re liars and goal-post-shifters.
The main thing is that content-wise, William the Sock-Puppet Master was right on the ball and never descended to any personal attacks.
It’s a shame Gurdur isn’t hooked up to the internet, otherwise he could have related to the Tom Johnson affair, too. I searched. Nary a mention. “Sorry – no matches. Please try some different terms.” Hmm, yes, I can think of some…
However, at least he’s promised a major post on Hitch, who dwarfs Tom Johnson (no “undocumented, mere assertions” there) in evil deeds.
Dave W.:
There’s a lot of that going around. Here’s a very fresh one:
http://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2010/how-to-do-things-with-words/#comment-56746
Ophelia
Oddly enough I think you have a much stronger impact than a lot of the “big name” guys when it comes to atheism – in part because you tackle it from a different angle.
Myers, Dawkins and Dennet tackle it from the POV of science, they go after other issues, but that is their specialization.
You go more on the basis of highlighting injustice, and occasionally touching on science. While the big names are very effective at highlighting the fact that the basic accomodationist argument is wrong – so far as I can see you are better at highlighting why it is expensive.
Gurdur is a serial libeler. He’s always calling people liars – and also steadily misrepresenting what they say. Very like YNH, in fact.
Bruce – well thanks. :- )
But in terms of anything actually quantifiable, I am comparatively small potatoes.
I did NOT invent “Gnu atheists,” though I wish I had! As my link in the LOLGnu post clearly shows, it was coined by Hamilton Jacobi.
http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2010/07/27/gnu-atheism/
Now see, there’s another perfect example of an Evil New Atheist stridently and militantly calling for murder! Are you sure you’re not a Phyrangulite? I hear they do it all the time — with rusty metal implements, no less. You might tag that comment of yours for the inevitable quote miners…
I meant all over as in busy with another hobby! Not as in pushing up daisies!
OMG—Shelley was a Gnu Atheist…(born this day in 1792)
http://ffrf.org/day/view/08/04/#percy-bysshe-shelley
Diane reminded me that it always pays to see how long some “new” things have been around. Thanks to Google digitising old newspapers, it’s easy to get a sobering look at the way atheists have been perceived. But this one had to make me laugh: from the Southeast Missourian, 18 Nov., 1936. The headline reads: NON-VOCAL ATHEIST ATTENDS UNIVERSITY.
Stewart,
Link?
Sorry, link here: http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=N1cgAAAAIBAJ&sjid=09IEAAAAIBAJ&pg=5283,4739929&dq=vocal-atheist&hl=en
Outspoken atheism is as old as the idea to reject superstition. And the attempt to suppress those voices is as old.
Shelley was by no means the only one. The whole period was full of writers struggling with that.
Martin Priestman has a wonderful book on the period “Romantic Atheism” that describes how a range of artists dealt with it and more important with the politics of it. Lots of fear going on and attempts at branding. “Deist” was a kind of escape term, that finally got poisoned when the bigoted theists going after non-belief successfully branded Thomas Paine, though being a deist, an atheist.
That book is also worthwhile because of the old attack that atheisms don’t appreciate emotion and aesthetics. Victorian atheistic literary art clearly was much more emotionally relevant than the cultural backdrop suggested.
Or compare to German academia in the same time period. Fichte got accused of being an “atheist” which lead to his resignation at Jena University. Talking about interplay of science, philosophy and religion. He, of course was an important philosopher of science, but got accused of atheism for making a theistic argument that his detractors did not like.
Today replace deist with invisible non-belief and replace atheist with “New Atheist” and you can see why I don’t like all this branding.
Hee-hee! You have to be non-vocal because being vocal is the same as being abusive, truth be damned. /Gurdur (P.S., what is the sound a gnu makes?)
The husband of Mary Shelley? Wow. His works have such great titles. I also love Mary’s family birth-name: Godwin.
Indeed Shelley was a gnu atheist. At some point Byron went all prematurely Victorian and wrote in a letter that he wouldn’t let his daughter with Mary S’s step-sister Claire (deep breath) go back to the Shelley household because Shelley was an atheist and a libertine, or some such nonsense. So the daughter died of malaria in a convent, instead.
The other side always behaves as if it’s vulnerable, because, despite all the power it wields, it really is. An atheist can’t get worried if her/his offspring reads the bible or similar religious text, because the chances are the child will simply do a reality check and realise it can’t be true. A believer fears that a child could read a secular text debunking religion, think about it properly and dump the lot. That is why we are prepared to have discussions with them, but they have to try to stop our arguments being heard.
Stewart @ #71–Precisely. Very important to keep in mind.
And re the “non-vocal atheist”–lol!
Got me to thinking, though…As a rather non-vocal atheist myself (at least compared to the scandalous Gnus) it occurs to me that, along with the Gnus there must be a sizable contingent of us, uh, “Olds” (sigh). But I certainly do not identify with accomodationists. I’m actually very subversive in my silence…
And of course I vote, give money when possible, and raise my children all in relation to which candidate, cause, or life stance best reflects rationality & freethought. I wonder where those like me fit into today’s camps?
Well, one thing the opponents of vocal atheism would have us and everyone else believe is that anyone who is not actually engaged in raising their voice as an atheist is opposed to atheists raising their voices. Of course, when you are non-vocal it becomes a bit more difficult to prove them wrong.
I agree. But what would you have me do? (I do have a FSM & a Darwin fish on my car… :D )
This is what differentiates us from the other groups: we don’t tell each other what to do. And I don’t think we’re the problem; the problem is those who claim to be the majority (and therefore sensible, etc., as we know majorities always are…) because everyone not loudly opposed to them must be on their side.
Waaaah! I wants my GAFFTCOC credit! Nobody ever gives me my GAFFTCOC credit. I’m pouting here.