Reddit MRAs, heeding the call to service, once again prove what dedicated activists they are. Check out the upvotes on this baby!
Today Urban Dictionary, tomorrow the world! (Also, check out those tags!)
Oh, and in case you were wondering, Reddit MRAs also wield a mean downvote; see definition numero dos.
Of course, Man Boobzers reign supreme where it really counts: the Rationalization Hamster meme!
So the only brain bleach I have to offer today is that a couple of my friends got a kitten and named him Spindle. Spindle is adorable.
Skyborn:
I’ll believe it when I see the fuckers start to shut up. Like I said, though, these people need to be railroaded somewhere, but that will only make them angrier and won’t do much in the the long term as a result.
Sweet, my hamster made it onto a post. *High-fives self.*
Hey Incontinent Truthyisms, thanks for posting that article and confirming your own sexism. I don’t know how we would have figured it out otherwise.
Teiresias:
Well, we’ll see I suppose. I could easily be misinformed on this one.
So…they think that feminism is “co-opting” the atheism movement by being concerned with both women’s rights and secularism…yet MRA atheists also believe that they can and should be able to freely take atheism and combine it with their movement? The smart thing for them to do would be to accept the fact that, despite sharing some common ground as atheists, not everyone will agree with their MRA viewpoint. That would be asking too much, though, I guess.
Speaking of co-opting, I’ve been getting quite pissed off with secularist groups using what’s happened to Malala Yousufzai to rail against Islam. I mean, last time I checked she was a Muslim and the organised atheist movement had a serious misogyny problem.
Although it is very much a horrible feature of the left to assume that once they’ve solved that group’s particular issue (secularism, anti-capitalism &c.) that all the other oppressions will just magically disappear.
(I say this as an atheist and an anarchist by the way)
Arielle: Well, obviously it’s because the MRA belief system is self-evidently true; people only reject it out of self-interest.
(SARCASM)
Yeah, saying the Taliban = all Muslims is like saying Westboro Baptists = all Christians (I know they’re not equivalent as far as violence goes, but Westboro were the ones that came to mind immediately as hateful extremists who know jack shit about their own religion).
I’ve been wondering whether this whole skeevy sexism in the atheist groups (like the disgusting way Rebecca Watson and Jen McCreight have been treated) is a case of MRAs infiltrating or just a case of the atheist groups including one hell of a lot of arrogant, whiny, privileged white guys who would never DREAM of examining their own privilege while they could focus on that lovely big “I’m an atheist and everyone is cruel to me!” chip on their shoulders. Not MRAs as such, just misogynist douchebags.
BTW I realise that things are different in the US, where the culture seems to be much more heavily Christianity-permeated than here in Oz, and there are serious issues of separation of state and church.
@Kittehs
I think this has been discussed before, but people who only identify as atheists tend to be privileged in every other way. Like, I’m an atheist because I don’t believe in god, but I don’t really campaign about it or have it as a big part of my identity. I’m an anarcha-feminist and campaign about stuff relating to that because as a working class woman, I feel those oppressions more. Someone putting up a prayer in a school bugs me, but I’m not going to expend all my efforts on stopping that when there is, to put it one way, bigger fish to fry.
*”I’m an” should say “I primarily identify as an”
Ta for the note, thenatfantastic.
Say – are those fish fried in FISH BARS? 😉
thenatfantastic: Well the problem (I think) with those people who identify only as atheists and nothing else (or as MRAs and such) isn’t really that they focus on and expend all their efforts on government-sponsored religion related things to the exclusion of everything else, it’s often that they don’t even believe that other issues (like institutionalised/cultural misogyny/racism etc) even exist.
Not sure if that’s really that much of an important distinction though, since the result is the same either way: douchebaggery.
This is my theory as well.
I am suuuuuuper suspicious of the fact that An Inconvenient Truth keeps posting links with no introduction and no explanation and hides them behind tinyurls so no one can see where they go.
David, you won’t agree with the sentiments, but you have to love the musical background of this video re: the Urban Dictionary feud: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZR6dxr4YeQ&feature=g-all-f
hey david do you like my new clothes david i smeared them with poop just for you i know you don’t like poop but i made it just for you david
Schticky is starting to remind me of this.
The one good thing about Urban Dictionary is that it helps me understand whatever slang someone might be using every now and then.
Way too many definitions are pretty biased or pathetic one way or the other.
Heh, that made me imagine someone jumping and clapping up high.
Yeah, sadly, I think it’s a demographic problem. Atheism correlates with wealth and education, the kinds of privileges white dudes tend to have. The most prominent New Atheists are old white dudes too. But on the plus side (ha!) Atheists find a lot of community through the Internet – I have some interesting overseas groups on my reading list like “Syrian Atheists” – so I’m hopeful that the imbalance will correct itself, eventually. It’s going to be interesting when it does.
I really do wish that the misogynistic parts of the atheist community would STFU. I’m not an atheist myself, I’m a deist and as such very sympathetic, but a strong secular community and one concerned about separation of church and state is definitely something the US needs to balance the more… committed… of the religious communities.
For that to happen the community needs to not have other forms of bigotry in it. I’d welcome the community being ‘co-opted’ by feminism or some other form of egalitarianism. Hell, if I wanted to be trolltastic I’d suggest Syndicalism Socialism should co-opt them.
As for why there’s a misogynistic element in the first place… atheism is one of the few edgy things that a well educated and well off white person can engage in. As such, its going to attract douche bags on top of those who arrived there by introspection. And online its one of the easy ways to get attention with videos, rants, and blogs.
We were wondering on the Atheism Plus Forum where these votes were coming from. Now we know.
Is a secular state really just an atheist ideal? I don’t believe in God but if I did I don’t think I would be happy if the state told me I had to worship God in one way when I believed God should be worshipped in another. Similarly if I believed in a particular interpretation of God I wouldn’t be happy if the state told me that was wrong and I should believe in their interpretation. Secularism is important to religious people as well. In fact possibly more so, as someone with no belief I don’t mind having to sing songs to a being I don’t believe in because it doesn’t compromise my beliefs. I definitely don’t think atheists come off worst from the repression of religion. It surprises me though that a secular society is presented as an atheist issue, the importance of no state imposed religion is even greater for those who have a religion that isn’t the state imposed one. Or to put it more simply, I think I suffer less prejudice for not believing than I would if I was Muslim.
As for sexism in the atheist community, I think it comes down to the fact that to some degree some religious people in every community are trying to severely repress women’s rights. Atheists point out they allow women to exist, and don’t understand why we aren’t grateful for that. Similarly many atheists are happy to let religious people exist as long as they don’t mind being laughed at and ignored all the time.
That’s very true. The goal of a secular state is to make it where people are free to worship or not worship however they choose to without government coercion. So people of one religion wouldn’t want public places to force them to pray to deities of another religion, just like atheists wouldn’t want to be forced to pray at all.
In August, I didn’t understand Amendment 2 on the ballot so I voted yes. But since then, I’ve read that even though the ballot said it was for the 1st Amendment, Missouri’s Amendment 2 is against the 1st Amendment? It’s hard to protect the separation of church and state because of stuff like that. It’s just like how my mom accidentally voted against regulating puppy mills because the ballot was confusing.
Ugh, yes, the ballot summary for Amendment 2 was absolute garbage. I was one of the tiny percentage of people who voted no on it, but only because I looked it up on Ballotpedia in advance. I find it incredibly offensive and anti-democratic that people so frequently have to do homework beforehand simply in order to translate what’s on the ballot into something resembling “what this amendment actually DOES.”
That said, we do live in a system where that’s necessary, so I’d strongly advocate for everyone to make use of Ballotpedia and similar sites before any time they vote – otherwise, it’s far, far too easy to end up voting to support abusing puppies when you thought you were voting to support small business owners. 🙁