Paul Elam has apparently become something of a comedian – though not on purpose. In his latest post on A Voice for Men, he takes on the atheist community for being too in thrall to (wait for it) feminism.
I’ll let him explain:
[T]hey are too religious. Yes, I mean that literally. For when you wipe away all the bombastic bellowing about empiricism and the strident mocking of those who choose a life of faith, what you are left with is a population of people that surrender their reason and cognition as though they were at gunpoint; that hit their knees as fast as any Catholic…to worship at the altar of feminism.
His proof? Several years ago someone at Atheist Nexus posted a link to a Men’s News Daily column of his, and – get this! – some feminists responded!
You can go here to see all the horrible things these evil cultish feminist atheists said. Like, for example:
I guess I’m a feminist, but I really like men and these are some of the things I love about them:
Protectiveness is a positive trait in men that women who want to have babies look for. We also like passion and some recklessness, but you won’t get me to admit that to my daredevil husband…..
Confidence; men usually have more of it and it is mostly a postive trait.
The ability to make decisions quickly.
Physical strength and endurance are helpful in many family situations. Ahem.
Penises. You have them, lots of us like them. I know it’s not technically a “trait”, but I had to put that in.
You can practically taste the man-hate there!
Elam, I should note, ignores that comment. No, what’s got his underpants in a wad is this comment:
The whole web site mensnewsdaily.com is a sad overreaction to the growing equality of women in society.
Evidently he’s been stewing about this remark for more than two years.
In fact, if you go and take a look at it, the discussion on Atheist Nexus wasn’t … really … all that feminist. Yes, several people criticized Elam and mensnewsdaily as “extreme,” but one of those people also criticized radical feminists as similarly “extreme.” Some of the commenters explicitly identified themselves as feminist; others explicitly criticized feminism. Nonetheless, the discussion somehow managed to be the politest conversation about gender I’ve run across online in a long, long time.
Seriously. Go take a look at it. Then consider how Elam sums it all up:
Apparently they can’t even handle 50 years of loud mouthed arts majors without drinking the Kool-aide and going brain dead. There was scarcely a voice among them that did not wallow in the ersatz enlightenment so common to feminist ideologues.
And then he moves on to whatever this is:
Feminism, as far as ideology goes, has been very effective at using human reproductive realities to co-opt other movements. In fact, from the American Civil Rights Movement to Occupy Wall Street, feminism has progressed without paying its own way, but rather by sending women in to other social arenas and wheedling men into supporting them. The Borg would be proud if they had emotions. Resistance is Futrelle.
Ho ho! Futrelle rhymes with futile! Sort of! Lest Elam and co. become too overwhelmed with pride for this clever wordplay, I should note that some junior high schoolers beat him to the punch back in the late 70s. Or maybe it was grade schoolers. I really don’t remember.
I’m less clear about the rest of his argument about “human reproductive realities.” Apparently it’s a fancy way of saying that dudes only support feminism so they can get laid. Another highly original notion.
Elam’s other piece of evidence that feminism has taken over the atheist community? PZ Myers.
He quotes this evil athio-feminazi ideologue arguing that if male atheists want to get more women involved in the atheist community, they should:
Learn to shut up and listen. Seriously. You want women to find your organization pleasant and interesting and worth contributing to? Then don’t form panels full of men trying to figure out what women want, talking over women who try to get a word in edgewise, belittling women’s suggestions with jokes, and trying to determine how We Well-Meaning Men can give Those Women what we think they want. You are assuming an authority and presuming that it is in your power to give it to the minority, when what you should be doing is deferring to that minority and giving them your attention, letting them speak and shape your organization.
God – or, if you prefer, Imaginary Entity – forbid that male atheists actually listen to women explain why they might feel unwelcome in the mostly male (and not particularly feminist friendly) atheist community.
You really think feminism has taken over the atheist community? Take a look at Reddit’s Atheism subreddit, where, recently, a woman who recently described how she had been raped was attacked as a liar and a slut in a thread filled with rape jokes. Or go back a little further to the Elevatorgate brouhaha, where an atheist blogger who politely mentioned in a podcast that she doesn’t really like being hit on by strange men in elevators at 4 AM drew the ire of countless angry atheist dudes, including Richard Fucking Dawkins himself? (In case you want to revisit that bit of nastiness, I wrote about “Elevatorgate” in several blog posts; here are some reactions from decidedly non-feminist atheists.)
This is a movement that “worship[s] at the altar of feminism[?]” Not really seeing it, dude.
But again, congrats on the whole Futrelle/futile thing. Genius!
I don’t think I should be on moderation. I hardly even post anymore, except like once a week.
Aww, it’s so cute when MRAL trolls.
Me, I’m amused at a social misfit living in his mother’s basement where he whines endlessly over how he has no friends and can’t get laid, but who thinks he is in a position to sneer at the accomplishments of a tenured biology professor living a fulfilling professional and personal life. But yah, those stinky old grapes were probably sour anyway.
I’m smarter than PZ Myers, jp, and I’m damn certain of that. So yeah, I have no problem sneering at a fat old loser who teaches a bunch of uninterested college students about basic cellular structure.
Resistance is Futrelle! The feminist movement’s armies of nubrelle young infiltrators stretch for mrelle after mrelle, and will not rest whrelle any man, be he Jew or gentrelle, teetotaler or oenophrelle, alligator or crocodrelle, is free — we must render them all servrelle and force them to make pretty pink dresses for us in our textrelle mills. Once again, resistance is Futrelle! We will slay you with our deadly feminine whrelles and add your stinking corpse to the prelle. And we’ll do it with a smrelle.
Ah, nuts, I misspelled ‘feminine wrelles’.
All of the ugliness of the Atheism community really gets to me. I mean, jesus.
Ah well, never really liked, TheAmazingAtheist anyway. There’s always QualiaSoup and TheraminTrees.
red_locker, it’s because a lot of self-professed atheists are just assholes in general. I try not to make blanket statements like that, but really, it’s true.
I actually FULLY agree with PZ about The Amazing Atheist. Talking about “drowning in rape semen” and “you should have been raped more” in that Reddit thread, is fucking disgusting. His videos are also just obnoxious rambling. Though of course, PZ himself is an arrogant jackass, and a feminist to boot. Dawkins is, well, a bit farther up on the totem pole than those other two nematodes, but he generally projects an air of self-righteous jackassery as well.
I consider myself agnostic, with atheism as just one possibility. The laws of physics cannot explain the first few microseconds of the Big Bang. Therefore, we don’t know. Therefore, agnosticism is logically the correct belief system, for people who aren’t pompous hot air balloons or religious drones.
I just let a bunch of MRAL comments through moderation.
The weird thing about the Penn Jillette thing is how completely innocuous the article he’s complaining about is. I didn’t find it especially funny (although I didn’t have the context of having seen the ads, so it’s hard to be a good judge) but what exactly is he getting mad about? He didn’t even see them either.
“SRS is TELLING ME it’s worse to be an “oppressed group”, basically. It’s not. I would trade place with a random member “oppressed group” (especially a woman, not even an oppressed group), because the odds are 10000/1 I’d be better off.”
Being a white man is so hard. I too share your pain. I mean, the world only caters to us 98% of the time. It should be 100% and that’s totally unfair.
I remember when I was studying sign language. I was the outsider. It was an eye-opener. It wasn’t that I wasn’t, one of the cool kids, it’s that I had a trait that was innate, which set me apart from the majority in the crowd I was hanging out with.
SRS? I had that in Thailand 15 months ago!
In other news, last time I tried to raise feminist issues in an atheist space (Atheistforums.com) I was tarred, feathered and ran out of town. ‘Worshipping at the altar of feminism’ my fat ass!
Now here’s Suzy with the weather.
Crumbelievable: I feel your pain, I mean there is fuck all for white men in music, or movies. So few of us get to manage corporations, and we are almost completely excluded from public offices, and none of are EVER referred to as hot.
It’s awful.
Sweet dancing zombies, MRAL, you really are a petulant child.
“I consider myself agnostic, with atheism as just one possibility. The laws of physics cannot explain the first few microseconds of the Big Bang. Therefore, we don’t know. Therefore, agnosticism is logically the correct belief system, for people who aren’t pompous hot air balloons or religious drones.”
Way to not only mischaracterize things, but also to miss the point entirely.
And this is just the last paragraph of your post.
David,
I don’t know why you did, it’s clear from MRAL’s backsliding that him posting here is doing absolutely nothing to help his problems. Time for him to go and seek professional help.
My life became 10,000 times easier when I transitioned from male to female – all I had to do was keep my yap shut and do what men told me to do. No more of that burdensome thinking or free will for me!
Who wants a sammich and their cock sucked? 😀
I just let a bunch of MRAL comments through moderation.
Really? I couldn’t tell. He posts so seldom!
“Way to not only mischaracterize things, but also to miss the point entirely.”
Wait, hold on, I was redundant there. Ugh, sorry about that, folks.
PZ Myers is awesome! A friend of mine’s “Why I’m An Atheist” testimonial was featured there recently. I didn’t even know she’d submitted one, so I got that weird small-world DAHH I KNOW THAT NAME feeling.
I think PZ’s pretty smart, but he’s never ended a post with “…and I have a high IQ”, so I guess we can’t tell for sure.
You may get your chance! Elderly people are an oppressed group and many of them are also disabled!
I bet you can’t wait! Won’t that be more fun that being young and able-bodied? 🙂 🙂 🙂
“Therefore, agnosticism is logically the correct belief system, for people who aren’t pompous hot air balloons or religious drones.”
http://xkcd.com/774/
Yes we are. And UR WRONG I HAZ THE TRUTH is not going to convince anybody.
MRAL is mad! In other news, grass is green and the sky often blue.
And what the fuck do you think happen to women with no social skill, women who are ugly? Women are constantly defined by their looks, so no I don’t don’t think you’d appreciate being one. What’s the worse thing that happened in your life, what’s your big oppression, your glass ceiling?
So are you.
According to all your whining: you don’t get laid. Bouhou. Let’s all cry for the poor white American college boy who can’t find a vagina to put his dick in.
Get the hell from here and get help, for your sake and the sake of every person you will interact with in your life. You’re pathetic.
One of my proudest moments as a cartoonist was when PZ Myers mentioned that he read my old strip, Narbonic. I did a lot of biology-related humor, and entertaining scientists always gave me a special warm feeling in my heart.
As an atheist who also happens to be a lady person, I have less than zero interest in going anywhere near the online atheist community. Unless you count Pharyngula, because biology is awesome.
Therefore, agnosticism is logically the correct belief system, for people who aren’t pompous hot air balloons or religious drones.
That’s funny, because I can think of one agnostic person who is being incredibly pompous right now. Care to guess who? (Spoiler alert: It’s you.)