Vox Day, the reactionary fantasy author and pickup guru who was recently expelled from the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America , has convinced himself that education for women leads to “demographic implosion” because uppity educated women don’t have enough babies.
Indeed, Vox — real name, Theodore Beale — is convinced that education for women is such a bad thing that he actually thinks that “the Taliban may not, in fact, be the stupid ones with regards to this particular matter.”
By this he means not only that they’re right to keep girls out of schools, but that they’re also probably justified in shooting teenage girls for the terrible crime of speaking up publicly in favor of education for girls like themselves.
No, really:
[I]n light of the strong correlation between female education and demographic decline, a purely empirical perspective on Malala Yousafzai, the poster girl for global female education, may indicate that the Taliban’s attempt to silence her was perfectly rational and scientifically justifiable.
It’s quite telling that it is the “shooting-girls-in-the-head” issue that turns Beale — a right-wing evangelical Christian — into something of a fan of the Taliban.
Howard: I think you may be oversimplifying; there’s a pretty complex interplay between self-defined group membership, group membership as defined by the group itself and its leaders, and group membership as defined by objective criteria.
ophelia, got any spare popcorn? You’re right, this is spectator sport at its finest.
Enkidum, I don’t think I’ve seen you post here before – hi, and have you had a Welcome Package yet?
So we’ve attracted some other site’s eldertroll? Let’s poke him some more, maybe he’ll say something funny.
@kittehserf Thanks for the lovely gift, I’ll look over it at my leisure. Never posted here, not a regular reader either but I’ve read a dozen posts or so. I’m a mostly-lurker-occasional-commenter at Pharyngula, and, y’know, this looked like a fun argument so why not? (Although the first thing that got me going was the incorrect description of Japanese abortion practices earlier in thread.)
I feed trolls, so if that bothers y’all sorry about that.
Our modus operandi is feeding trolls until they pop, so you should fit right in. (And Pharyngula commenters are our natural allies.)
Dear jinxy – which particular denomination do you belong to? Please explain why it is the One True Version of Christianity.
A little bit, yeah, but remember, we’re talking about ‘evangelical Christianity’ here–that’s like saying ‘mainstream Protestant’. We’re not talking about whether or not Vox is a Baptist in good standing, we’re talking about whether he falls into this broad group of denominations and Christians who by and large have huge disagreements with each other.
(I didn’t mean that to come off as ‘splainy or cross at you, Katz–I find the original ‘He’s not an evangelical, nor a racist’ comment really, really irritating)
@z, that RationalWiki, sooo much entertainment.
@Enkidum, Welcome. I’m not up to feeding today, so if you could do my share that would be great.
@kitteh, hey love, only toffee popcorn for me, none of that salted American crap. 🙂
Not at all! I just think that, while he is both Evangelical and racist, it’s not necessarily a simple thing to define.
is he gone? Seems like he’s gone.
I browsed wikipedia on the subject of evangelical Christianity. Fascinatingly enough, now I do kind of want to push Vox Day out… on the grounds that he’s too radicalized for it.
…really? I have never heard it used in this way.
Of course, I’m used to hearing it from the other side of that cultural divide, so YMMV.
Enkidum: I hope you saw my full-bore retraction/apology in the other thread re: abortion in Japan. I appreciate the correction.
***
BTW, it’s worth noting that Jinx claims to be an atheist. I’m not going to say he’s not an atheist, but I WILL point out that he’s very, very bad at atheism, in that he has opted to refer to some specific sects as ‘true Christians’ while others are merely ‘cults pretending to be Christian’. Anyone who believes in the divinity or Christ is a ‘Christian’–from the atheist viewpoint, distinctions among those groups is little more than an obscure trademark dispute.
…whaaaaa?
Oh, god, please don’t come back, Jinx, please… you’re making my brain hurt, and you’re not even here…
freemage: Yup, saw it. Nice to talk to people who are capable of quickly admitting they’re wrong when they are.
I kind of miss Jinx, but I don’t think he’s coming back. Or maybe he’s looking up bible quotes to try and find an explicit statement that all Christians need to follow the interpretations laid down by some bishops 300 years later?
Anyways, I have literally pissed away half my workday futzing around online so I probably won’t be around for a while. Thanks for keeping it scintillating, y’all.
Oh, wait–I think he was being sarcastic. I admit, my eyes were starting to blur after awhile of reading his drivel. His exact quote was, “I’m an atheist who believes in God.” while trying to make the argument that the term Christian has a specific meaning and can’t be applied to those outside that meaning, and (unstated) that his specific position defined that. So maybe he’s not an atheist after all.
Oh, good. The other way was just too infuriatingly for words.
I’m pretty sure he’s not an atheist and he just said that as an example to justify why he should be able to decide who’s an evangelical and who isn’t.
Well, he is too radicalized for it. Mainstream evangelicals don’t really do the hardcore racism, violent rhetoric, etc like fundamentalists do (think mainline Republicans vs Tea Party).
See, I have grown up thinking of ‘evangelical’ as a wider catch-all term that encompasses most fundamentalists as well as the more moderate strains of doctrine and even portions of mainline Protestantism, rather than just those between the two.
OK can we refer all future trolls demanding we prove the thing they claimed to jinxy in the future? Since he’s the ultimate authority on everything, instead of us linking to stuff like research and statistics that the trolls will ignore, we can just tell them to go find jinxy and have him arbitrate? Cause I’m tired of having trolls come in here and demand we prove the thing they’re arguing somehow. This would speed the process up measurably.
Did someone mention hedgehogs?
http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/23/81/98/2381984377672bb4b7694c15e305e021.jpg
http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/88/7d/ce/887dce74f6e3812631b30b980de1dc37.jpg
http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/aa/40/89/aa4089e09688a124bdd1b22054798a8a.jpg
http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/17/0e/5e/170e5e9acd0f65dc36787c1ca5f758af.jpg
drst — but I like drowning them in statistics!
Also, hedgehogs, SQUEE
I thought a Christian was anyone who believes that Jesus is divine? Nothing about the rest of any beliefs. It’s similar to how the one defining true feature of Atheism is that they don’t believe in a god, and yet they can have any number of various other beliefs that contradict each other’s beliefs…
Yeah, since that’s an actual definition that makes complete sense and is true, I’mma go with that…
And, you can’t be racist against white people – there’s no institutional power prejudice against them.
nom nom nom