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UPDATE: Vacula has resigned.
As most of you are no doubt aware, the atheist and skeptic movements have had just a teensy bit of a problem with misogyny in their ranks. You may recall the unholy shitstorm that erupted last year when Rebecca Watson of Skepchick casually mentioned in a YouTube video that it might not be such a good idea for dudes to try to hit on women in elevators at 4 AM. The assholes of the internet still haven’t forgiven Watson for her assault on the sacred right of creepy dudes to creep women out 24 hours a day, every day.
Watson is hardly the only skeptic to face vicious misogynist harassment for the crime of blogging while feminist. Last month, Jen McCreight of Blag Hag announced that near constant harassment from online bullies was wearing her down to such a degree that she felt it necessary to shut down her blog – hopefully only temporarily.
I can no longer write anything without my words getting twisted, misrepresented, and quotemined. I wake up every morning to abusive comments, tweets, and emails about how I’m a slut, prude, ugly, fat, feminazi, retard, bitch, and cunt (just to name a few). If I block people who are twisting my words or sending verbal abuse, I receive an even larger wave of nonsensical hate about how I’m a slut, prude, feminazi, retard, bitch, cunt who hates freedom of speech (because the Constitution forces me to listen to people on Twitter). This morning I had to delete dozens of comments of people imitating my identity making graphic, lewd, degrading sexual comments about my personal life. In the past, multiple people have threatened to contact my employer with “evidence” that I’m a bad scientist (because I’m a feminist) to try to destroy my job. I’m constantly worried that the abuse will soon spread to my loved ones.
I just can’t take it anymore.
McCreight’s harassers and their enablers were delighted in this “victory,” taking to Twitter to give McCreight some final kicks on the way out the door. “Good riddance, #jennifurret , you simple minded dolt,” wrote @skepticaljoe. “I couldn’t be happier,” added @SUICIDEBOMBS. “Eat shit you rape-faking scum.”
One of the celebrators that day was an atheist activist named Justin Vacula, who joked that “Jen’s allegedly finished blogging…and this time it’s not her boyfriend who kicked her off the internet.”
So here’s the latest twist:
Justin Vacula has just been given a leadership position in the Pennsylvania chapter of the Secular Coalition for America, a lobbying group for secular Americans whose advisory board includes such big names as Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins, Susan Jacoby, Wendy Kaminer, Steven Pinker, Salman Rushdie and Julia Sweeney.
It’s an astonishing choice. In addition to gloating that bullies had led McCreight to shut down her blog, Vacula has harassed atheist blogger and activist Surly Amy, including writing a post on A Voice for Men (yes, that A Voice for Men) cataloging all the sordid details of his supposed case against her. At one point he even posted her address, and a photo of her apartment building, on a site devoted to hating on feminist atheist bloggers.
Blogger Stephanie Zvan has set up a petition on Change.org urging the Secular Coalition of America to reconsider its choice. You can find further examples of Vacula’s questionable behavior there.
As Watson notes in a post on Skepchick, Vacula’s position with the SCA is likely to “drive progressive women away from the secular cause.” She adds,
I will never, ever get involved with SCA so long as someone like him holds a position of power anywhere, let alone in a state I live in. So Vacula is actively driving people away from SCA. …
It’s all a real shame, because SCA fills an important role in our movement and I’d like to give them my support. … I don’t believe secular organizations should reward bullies and bigots with high-level positions, even if those positions are volunteer-only.
I recommend that everyone here take a look at the petition.
If it makes you feel any better, thenatfantastic, many ducks probably have a perpetual stomachache/liverache because they’re absolutely full of parasitic worms.
No, that made me have a sad! I want to go rub all their little tummies now 🙁
If I know anything about wild ducks, it’s that rubbing their tummies leads not to happy duck tummies but to unhappy bruised human fingers. But the anatids that really scare the crap out of me are swans. Those are some mean mofos.
I think that the evolutionary perspective is very useful in explaining things like parent-child attachment (human children are unable to fend for themselves for quite a long time, so it makes sense that parents would protect, love, and cherish them, and that kids would not want to be separated from their parents). It seems that the area of gender relationships is where the evopsych perspective goes right off the rails. I don’t know enough to say whether this is because the field itself is corrupt or whether it’s more due to ideologues exploiting these ideas to promote a sexist social agenda. It’s a shame, because evolution is a powerful theory, which could be very useful in explaining human behavior, but it also seems vulnerable to distortion by those with an agenda (c.f. Social Darwinism, which Darwin himself apparently loathed).
Geese scare me. My uncle kept a gaggle of them on his farm, and always said they were better than the snarliest watchdogs.
First of all, I am not going to get tangled up in any of this drama involving Justin Vacula or any person associated with the atheist/skeptic community but as Depeche Mode pointed out: People are People and they do the same damn things they’ve always done; like jockey for social status and power over others. God forbid atheists are really not fundamentally different than religious freaks when it comes to their behavior towards others(no pun intended LOL)! People use their religious beliefs as a social tool to feel superior to others and bolster their egos. And it really doesn’t actually matter what their beliefs happen to be, God or No-God.
@wordsp1nner: You can bet your bottom dollar there is discrimination against atheists! Especially here in the USofAholes. Organized religion is much more than just faith/belief in a higher power, it is a social institution that is comprised of a community of believers. Moreover, because of its social component, religion is viewed as part of national identity. That’s why redneck jesusfreaks try to claim “amurca is a christian nashun!”, they see jesusism as part of american identity.
And yet, those Randian libertarian pro-biz atheists really crack me up. Do they not realize that protestant christianity is the religion of business? Do they not understand that people who rely primarily on intuition to understand the world around them and have irrational, sentimental belief are easy to manipulate and make money off of? People may be inherently selfish, but they are not inherently rational. A lot of religious fanatics espouse high moral ideas so they don’t have to actually live up to them.
Finally, why is there a gender imbalance in the atheist/skeptic community in the first place? It’s not there aren’t girls who get teased and picked on in in grade school. And surely there are plenty of women who seek to cultivate a sense of intellectual superiority out there. What gives? I’ve heard that women are more religious than men which is even funnier since jesusism is quite sexist and insists that God made women to be subordinate to men.
My mother is one of those numerous people with a “that one time I was attacked by a goose” story. They are meanypantses.
When I was little I went to a lake which is famous for its geese. About 50 swarmed me as I tried to eat my ice cream. I tried to hold the ice cream behind me and above my head to save it, but they snuck up behind me and were as big as I was 🙁
My parents still laugh about this.
Or we could let people believe what they want and not ridicule them for it or think they’re flawed and need to change unless they’re forcing their beliefs onto others or using those beliefs to justify oppression or hatred.
@inurashii
>If posting the address and photo was not meant to be a threat, why did he do it?
Apparently, during some argument the two of them had, she claimed that he had called the feds to find out her private details or something. To which he retorted by pointing out that he would not even need to, seeing that her address is easily available via a google-search. Like a good google-user he went even further and also pointed out that images of her house were also saved online. Seems like he did it to prove a point.
At some point, other people got involved, declared themselves his army and started harassing her, using that piece of information. He apparently did not care too much or at least mildly approved of it and had the whole shebang reposted on that MRA-page.
But…but…then how would they know how much better we are than them? What’s next – not telling gay people we think their sex lives are icky? Not informing fat people that they are insufficiently attractive to us? How are we supposed to get that nice rush of superiority if we can’t go around making sure everyone knows our terribly important opinions on things about them that don’t actually affect us in any way?!
What lauralot said.
We are all in this together. That’s why I want everyone driving their own car, rather than having Jesus as their co-pilot.
Everyone driving their own car? Doesn’t happen. None of us is free of outisde influence. I’m in that, “weak theist, secular sceptical” camp. But one can be “one’s own driver” and adhere to lots of things which aren’t conducive to social order, without being a theist.
I offer Ayn Rand. No deity involved. An adamant insistence that oneself is the only arbiter of the reasonable.
And completely wrong in effect.
The issue isn’t what one believes, per se, nor how one gets there; it’s how one treats ones fellows. Be one devoutly theist, or not. Ted Bundy wasn’t religious, Eric Rudolph was.
Neither of those aspects of their personalities is why I think both of them evil. It’s how they chose to act.
Saying people need to, “counteract their cognitive biases” is a bad argument, to me. It’s an argument toward conformity. Telling someone they need to “counteract” their faith, when that faith is almost certainly part of their sense of self is intrusive. It’s hitting them in the nose. It’s telling them they are defective.
And I think that’s wrong.
I love that one. Let’s leave aside the easily provable fact that religious people do indeed murder and steal. If the only thing keeping you from going on a murder spree is a fear of God, then you can go ahead and stand far, far away from me, because you have serious violent tendencies that are barely held in check.
The idea that human morality requires religion is ludicrous. Human morality exists because we are social creatures who need each other to survive, and those of us who run around committing random acts of violence, in general terms, do not receive the support and cooperation of other people that they do when they behave ethically. Small children who cannot even comprehend religion or God exhibit ethical behavior.
What the hell is so wrong with people having faith because it gives them “the warm fuzzies” anyway? My mother is religious; I’m not. She has never used her beliefs to justify treating anyone badly, she has never used her faith to try and limit the rights of others. She’s never tried to convert anyone. What is so flawed and wrong with her that she needs someone to come tell her how broken her way of thinking is and how wrong she was for teaching her beliefs to her children? Why is people having something that makes them feel good (and everyone, theist or atheist, has outside influences) such a bad thing?
Or is it in itself harmless, and just something used to justify feeling superior over those poor stupid theists?
Unfortunately, self-professed Christians in the United States are busy dismantling personal freedom and trying to force every citizen to follow their belief system right now. Thankfully, a judge has recently ruled against one employer who tried to claim that their religion affords them the right to dictate how their employees are allowed to use their wages, if that use offends their religious beliefs. To codify something like that into law would essentially say that employers OWN their workers. There have been over 100 bills introduced across the country restricting a woman’s right to choose in the past few years. Religious people are spending millions of dollars to fund anti-gay efforts in the United States and abroad — even attempts to make homosexuality a crime punishable by death in Uganda.
My mother is also religious, and she also leads an ethical life without forcing her beliefs on anyone. My mother is not someone I’m worried about as an atheist. Politicians like Todd Akin, groups like Focus on the Family, etc. are the ones I’m worried about as an atheist, because they are actively seeking to take my rights away from me, and they actively harm people in an immediate way.
I don’t usually tell people in RL I’m an atheist, but I also don’t lie about it if they ask me. I avoid discussions of religion because in my experience, I’m usually the one who gets put on the defensive right away, with questions like the ones above regarding my lack of morals, or my worship of the devil, etc. In my experience, there’s plenty of superiority to go around, on both the godless and the faithful side.
@pecunium: Oh, god, Ayn Rand.
Atheism doesn’t make people selfish polemicists who write 60+ page author filibusters and mash notes to killers; justify their affairs but excoriate their lovers for having sex with someone else; and generally act like a selfish child all their life.
I share about as much with Rand because we are both atheists as I do with Pat Buchanan because we are both white men (actually I probably share less with Rand because we’re not the same gender).
Oh, and saying that I’m a selfish man-child because Ayn Rand was a selfish child and we are both atheists is guilt by association and if I’m not mistaken probably also poisoning the well.
Just realized it seemed like I was saying someone was saying atheism made people into Ayn Rand.
Not a bit.
If that’s in reference to my posts, I didn’t say all atheists are selfish and superior. Given that I’m not religious, it would make no damn sense for me to say that.
I’m saying atheists who think they’re better because they’re lacking “cognitive flaws” and don’t have false beliefs just to “give themselves the warm fuzzies” are being smug, superior jerks.
I’m an atheist but I honestly have a huge amount of respect for people with genuine religious faith who do not force said faith on other people.
Religion is very important to a lot of people and is a cornerstone of their lives and I’ve seen it help people through really tough times.
Religion encourages many people to do good for others, to give to charity and to volunteer.
Organised religion can provide a life line for often very lonely and marginalized people. At the church my family went to when I was a child there were lots of very elderly and frail people and people with mental illnesses and disabilities who would have very seldom left their homes or had meaningful contact with other people without church every week.
The church made a particular effort to include these people, they would have special coffee mornings, people would go and visit them and they had a rota of people with cars who could go and pick up the people who had restricted mobility.
If faith is important to someone, if it helps to give their life meaning and helps them be involved in a community why the hell should I, or anyone else who does not have a faith tell them that are wrong, or stupid, or ignorant for believing?
To do so is rude, disrespectful and utterly alien to what our values as a society should be.
The world would not suddenly be a better place of religion disappeared tomorrow, but it would be a better place if everyone practiced a little live and let live and if we respected the harmless values and beliefs of others.
Rant over.
I would say plenty of theists have worry with those clowns since they may not “conform” with the proper beliefs of people like Todd Akin.
God, yes. All the religious women I know are absolutely terrified of all the nonsense going on about reproductive rights at the moment.
I think most people who have accepted that non wealthy, male or white are people are afraid of Todd Akin and his ilk. The Fundamentalist Right is really freaking scary.
Oh, most definitely. I’m not an atheist, and I find Todd Akin freaking terrifying.
Really, the crux of this whole issue is that it’s incorrect to equate “theist” and “bigot who wants to enforce tenets of their belief system on everyone else,” just as it’s incorrect to equate “atheist” and “self-absorbed, amoral jerk.” There are asshole theists and asshole atheists, and pretending that the problem that should be addressed is “people shouldn’t be theists/atheists” instead of “people shouldn’t be assholes” is a waste of everyone’s time. I don’t care what anyone does or doesn’t believe. I care how they act.
Everyone has beliefs that can’t be scientifically proven, because science doesn’t cover everything. Science’s domain is causal explanation of events and empirical phenomena, and predicting events and empirical phenomena. That’s a HUGE field, admittedly. Sometimes religious people will point to some particular phenomena or event and go “science can’t explain that, so GOD”, but that’s a bad kind of argument. What science can’t explain today, it might very well explain in a hundred or thousand years.
Still. Some stuff fall outside the realm of empirical science. Logic, basic epistemological questions, or moral questions – since you can always meaningfully ask “what ought I to do GIVEN all these empirical facts”, even after all empirical facts have been settled. Some atheists (note, some, not all: most of my colleagues are atheists for instance, and they’re smart people) just can’t see this, and keep repeating that science can solve ALL problems with the same insistence as some Christians will repeat that you find answers to all questions in the Bible. And that just goes to prove that atheism doesn’t automatically provide you with critical thinking skills.
Neither atheism nor theism automatically makes you moral, intelligent or critical.
I’m a theist. The reason is that although I experience reality as pretty flimsy when I’m not on Haldol, I have always experienced the presence of God as rock firm. Sure, you could say I should put complete trust in my experiences when I’m ON Haldol, since science has proven that Haldol is an anti-psychotic drug. The problem is that I would have to completely trust my Haldol-drugged experiences FIRST in order to believe in scientific proof, since world-without-Haldol doesn’t follow scientific patterns. Problem of circularity. However, I do believe in God based on pure experience, and derivatively, I also believe in science and the world as it looks on Haldol, because I once had a religious epiphany to the effect that this is the version of reality I ought to trust.
Now, given that I have thus decided to trust this version of reality, which follows scientific patterns, I have the same standards for scientific proof as any sceptic.
I’m completely aware that this recounting of my experiences doesn’t provide anyone else with a reason to believe in God. However, most of you, atheists and theists alike, probably believe without questioning it that the external world is real and that your senses are generally (not in every instance of course, but generally) reliable. And that can’t be scientifically proven.