A tiny group of gallant men (and “their women”) go underground to fight the evil gynocratic overlords. Is this the plot of a terrible dystopian potboiler from 1971, or a description of how most MRAs see themselves, and the world, today?
Turns out it’s both. I found this pic in the Blue Pill subreddit, and now I really, really want to read this book.
Here’s a book review from someone who did.
I posted a link up above of one time we talked about religion and stuff and I felt super-comfortable.
There was this other time… But, it’s more because there was a dustup and I felt the need to make a long splainy kind of rambling post that’s sort of apologetic and stuff. Which I want to relink because I think it might be relevant-ish.
https://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/2013/10/23/vox-day-the-talibans-attempt-to-silence-malala-yousafzai-was-perfectly-rational-and-scientifically-justifiable/comment-page-5/#comment-368361
Or not, I dunno. That may be completely tangential.
Term suggestion — Assholery Among Atheists, short hands to AAA (and, my mother working their, they joke that that stands for Another Aggravated Asshole, so it works nicely I think)
As for religion being inherently irrational, so what? Maybe it is, but if it makes people happier and they aren’t being assholes about it, why should I care? And, all other points aside, it can prove people with a sense of agency, and you know, if praying makes people feel better, I’m not gonna take them from them whether I think it works or not.
Which brings us to my problem with GrumpyOldMan’s comment — ok, so theodicy is a problem, one that people have been struggling to sort out for AGES, but if it doesn’t bother someone, they aren’t being an asshole, and they don’t what to discuss it, why bother? (AWW CATFISH IS CATFISHING!!…back to what I was saying…) I don’t see a problem with not pondering something when that thing isn’t hurting anyone — and theodicy in general may well be, but that people don’t see it as an inherent collapse of Christian belief (or whatever)? Who cares?
And idk if we’re particular hostile to atheists, I know there’s a lingering “you do not go off on religious people” among some of us after the mass exodus, and I could easily see that spilling over into attacking atheists instead of defending religious people. (Stats whiz or not, I am NOT going through hundreds of thousands of comments to find ones about religion, and then dealing with the subjective nature of whether something is offensive!)
Falconer — “Is it feminism’s responsibility to deal with men’s issues?”
Problem with that is that men are the dominate group, and, in the US at least, so are theists (well, Christians really, but point still applies).
Sally,
Nah. That part was just chiming into the Brights topic already in progress. It wasn’t directed at just you. I was just generally fessing up to my initial support of what turned out to be a bad idea.
Katz,
You don’t sound sorry. You sound incredulous at someone’s experience of this space and condescending toward her too. Could you maybe, not? Sally said you’d have to take her word that she felt uncomfortable. Don’t keep insisting on examples. It’s not very respectful of her boundaries.
I can’t remember a conversation here that made me uncomfortable as an atheist, at least not where the source of my discomfort was my treatment by non-atheists.
Or to be more accurate, the times when I’ve been uncomfortable here as an atheist were all caused by other atheists treating other commenters in ways that struck me as a kind of asshattery I’d rather not be associated with.
Not trying to deny anyone else’s experience of discomfort, just sharing my personal experience in this here comments section.
Ditto to all of this. I completely understand the frustration atheists feel. I have, IDK, something like passing privilege in that I attend a church, plus I live in a very religiously diverse area, and I recognize that many atheists live in places where their atheism makes them targets for all kinds of bullshit. I don’t blame them one bit for being angry. And as someone who’s used the term “woo” herself, I don’t feel I can cast stones on that point. BUT when you’re talking to individual people, there’s no excuse for something as offensive and mean-spirited as calling them delusional and telling them they’re doing their own religion wrong (the latter wasn’t in this thread, but has happened here). Believing that you’re right and they’re wrong doesn’t give you the right to talk to people that way when they’ve done nothing to you. And yes, I’m aware of where I am and how we talk to and about MRAs, but those dudes are aggressively, actively seeking to hurt people, whereas I’m pretty sure the religious members of this community are ON OUR GODDAMN SIDE.
WWTH,
I think a lot of this has to do with who the most prominent atheists are (or have been until recently): cis-hetero white men with higher educations and some class privilege.
I also think (although this is just my experience and could be totally wrong) that atheists are over-represented on the internet, or at least more vocal, so to those of us who are immersed in internet culture atheism may seem more common than it is.
Okay, so I’m extremely late to answer this (my bad for being away from a computer outside of work), but I immediately thought of at least 2 novels that mention either collective or creche childrearing (Others are sort of tingling in my brain, but I can’t remember them). I’m still catching up on the comments, so if these have already been mentioned, sorry for repeating the info.
First is the Gate of Ivory by Doris Egan (MC comes from a planet where everyone is creche raised) and the second is The Iron Duke by Meljean Brook, which is a sort of post-dystopian steampunk/romance/adventure novel (so not exactly sci-fi, though it is absolutely full of nanotech & cyborgs, so ymmv).
I was going to say something about atheism, but I am irritable as hell today and decided to delete it.
RE: cloudiah
Or to be more accurate, the times when I’ve been uncomfortable here as an atheist were all caused by other atheists treating other commenters in ways that struck me as a kind of asshattery I’d rather not be associated with.
Ditto. No theist here has ever made me uncomfortable. It has ALL been other atheists. Which is hilarious, since I’m probably the most hostile person to gods I know! You’d think I’d LOVE hanging out with other atheists! And I’ve been around obnoxious fundies, so I know just how reprehensible they can be. (Ask me about the pro-life billboards here! The people who say they’ll pray for me when they see me on crutches! The assholes hubby had to march behind at the Pride Parade, who SHOULD have just been protesters but got allowed to march.)
The thing is, atheists should be a hugely diverse group, seeing as their only unifying characteristic is the LACK of belief in something… but I mostly hear from a very narrow TYPE of atheist. I’m EXTREMELY uncomfortable in an atheist setting, because honestly, I feel they’re hostile as hell to me for not expressing their KIND of atheism. Us and one of our friends (an atheist who goes to church) commiserated about it once.
The thing about atheism that doesn’t make sense to me is the evangelism of it. During my atheist phase, I didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about god/s, church, or anything. It just wasn’t a thing. Like, I’m a non-smoker, and the only time I’m conscious of cigarettes or cigars or smoking is when somebody is smoking where I have to smell it. It’s not a factor in my life.
I just have never understood why anyone feels the need to convince other people to adopt their non-belief. Granted, my pre-atheism religious background was very low-key, so I didn’t really have to push the pendulum too hard, if that makes sense.
So, regarding evidence. I think that tangible, reproducible evidence is great for most practical purposes, but that is not the only kind of data that exists. I had an experience that, based on what I saw, heard, and felt, made me believe that some form of divine energy/entity exists, and that it is fully aware of me. Was it a real event that left no tangible trace (non-physical evidence), or did I have some kind of psychotic break? And, in the end, what does it matter to anyone except me?
This is part of my issue with the “but I need to point out that your beliefs are irrational” comments. People believe all kinds of irrational things, so why is this one special? If your point is “belief in this irrational thing is being used to justify persecuting X group of people” then OK, let’s talk about that, but the thing is, the problem there isn’t so much the fact that the belief is irrational as the persecuting people part and the fact that the people with the beliefs that you/I don’t think are rational are overreaching their authority by attempting to impose their beliefs on people who don’t share them. So I feel like people are missing the point and we just end up in an endless loop of “your irrational beliefs are causing this bad thing”, “wait, did you just call me irrational? that was rude”, “but don’t you acknowledge that irrational beliefs like yours are causing this bad thing” when in fact the beliefs aren’t the problem, it’s the refusal of some of the people with the beliefs to accept other people’s boundaries that’s the actual problem. So everyone gets pissed off at everyone else and nothing actually gets done about the bad thing that we all agree is a bad thing. Why do we need to keep repeating this cycle? What’s the point?
Yeah, Unimaginative, while I became an atheist not because of evidence-based logic, but because of emotion. I would be FURIOUS if I had any reason to believe that a god was responsible for the horror circus in my family. Since I’d rather live in a state that ISN’T constant incendiary rage, being an atheist is the safest, healthiest thing for me to be. (That or I suppose I could believe in tiny podunk gods who’re mostly ineffective, or a totally distant god that has nothing to do with anything, but what’s the point in that?)
But I’m not going to pretend it was some rational process.
I’m usually pretty sure there’s no god, but the “there’s no proof” argument, by itself, doesn’t resonate with me. I mean, I can’t objectively prove that my partner loves me, but I have a wealth of personal experience suggesting that he does, and believing that he does makes me happy, so I go with it (of course, if I started trying to make public policies intended to enforce my experience of love on others, that would be another issue entirely…).
I’m also reminded of this conversation from the end of Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather (the CAPS are Death, and the regular type is his granddaughter Susan. Long story):
Lots of things can’t objectively be proven to be real, but we treat them as real nevertheless. I know God isn’t the same as Justice, but going purely from the “lack of evidence” argument, what’s the difference?
(Challenges to this line of reasoning are welcome. I like knowing when there are holes in my arguments so I can close them)
@LBT, “tiny podunk gods” are the only ones I can believe in, either. Polytheistic theologies are much less likely to have to wrestle with the problem of why bad things happen, because the gods either don’t know anything’s wrong, they don’t care, or they can’t help (depending on the religion and the god). They may be more powerful than humans, but they’re usually not all-powerful.
Also, just FYI, I didn’t appreciate the comment from WWTH suggesting that some atheists just aren’t aware of their own oppression because they’re suffering from a sort of false consciousness. Some of us really, genuinely are not suffering any oppression at all as a result of our lack of belief. Where you live is probably the biggest factor here, and your family of origin would be another one, as would the industry you work in. But for some of us, we’ve gone through our entire lives without the slightest trace of oppression for our non-belief, which is why we don’t feel like we’re being oppressed, and why the idea of atheists as a marginalized group doesn’t have the emotional resonance that it would for someone who’s genuinely had to struggle with the people around them over their lack of belief.
For those of us within that group who think of ourselves as privileged, it’s not because of the atheism, it’s because we actually are privileged in terms of race, class, or whatever (possibly multiple) other axes, and in our cases our atheism isn’t really undercutting that privilege at all because we happen to live/work/have grown up in places where nobody really cares.
THIS. The only places or groups where I’m excluded due to my beliefs or lack thereof are places I’m not interested in being. Yes, it’s privilege. I know that there are people who are excluded, harassed, and discriminated against because they don’t belong to the dominant religious group, but I’ve never come across anyone like that in real life (that I’m aware of). It’s more of an abstract concept for me, which makes it very challenging to get my head around.
Which I guess comes back to the whole thing about objecting to people’s behaviour and actual words, and not their intentions.
RE: emilygoddess
@LBT, “tiny podunk gods” are the only ones I can believe in, either.
Yeah, I can handle that. But at that point, again, I make an emotional decision and decide I like atheism better. I don’t like the idea of being indebted to anyone, especially a supernatural being. *snrk*
RE: cassandrakitty
Some of us really, genuinely are not suffering any oppression at all as a result of our lack of belief.
I’m not. I’m so busy dealing with disability stuff, mental illness stuff, trans stuff, queer stuff… nobody who’s going to give me shit over being an atheist is going to make it through all the rest of that stuff! Atheism doesn’t even appear on my radar, despite being from Texas. Sometimes I wonder if I missed something.
I didn’t really feel like I was being given a hard time about it while my family was in Texas either, though I was a teenager so that might make a difference. I did get the occasional person trying to get me to go to their church with them, but they did that to other religious people from different denominations too, so that’s not an atheist-specific thing (nor is it oppression either).
No one’s coming by and checking to see if I’m dressed for Sunday meeting, and no one has for a long time … but at least two classmates have given me Bibles in my lifetime and my closest friends occasionally go all Evolution LOL random mutations and pit fights amirite? and I would be okay ignoring that except I can see the gates around their minds.
These folks went to college and they are proud of their ignorance.
Also too there was public prayer before every ball game at my grade school, my band teacher made us all pray before we competed or performed and before dinner at band camp, and one of my teachers gave me and my brother copies of God’s Little Instruction Book for Men as graduation gifts. All told, I was glad to shake the dust of high school off my shoes.
Thought, based in part on having spent the last 24 hours almost solely trying to make the Borg silly/serious split less ineffective in regards to function queries and load time, and in part based on what LBT and Falconer said — if I had to pick between coming out to my family in terms of opting out of gender, or opting out of religion…I don’t have to think about it, the former would get me less shit. Granted, I’ve got a bunch of asshole relatives who’re all holier than thou, and ones who gave up on enforcing gender roles somewhere around “fine, run around naked, at least you’re potty trained now”.
Idk if that’s some non-binary cis privilege weirdness, or a case of “gah, you people and your religion”, but it seems weird.
Falconer — yeah, it can be headache inducing, my mother was on The Pill for years, but I cannot convince her that Plan B isn’t abortion — THEY DO THE SAME DAMNED THING!! It’s literally the same drug! *throws hands in air, goes back to screaming at PHP*
Footnote — if the Borg is broken, I’m working on fixing it. I do all my “might break everything” coding in the wee hours EST though. (Which works, I code better in the middle of the night anyways)
I like it.
THIS, so much. The “it’s irrational” statement pisses me off when it’s used as the be-all and end-all of judging. Is it hurting anyone? If the answer’s no, then it’s nobody else’s fucking business.
I’ve had this “you’re delusional” BS thrown at me – not often, but occasionally – for beliefs based on my own experiences, that harm nobody else and bring me a great deal of happiness. That’s the sort of AAA I side-eye. Blogs that tolerate that sort of casual dismissal of other people’s lives are no place for me, because they would mean I can’t even mention my loved ones in passing.
Seconding all that, emilygoddess!
Also, yay for Pratchett quote. Of course we know Death is really an agent of the Furrinati, from the time someone was on a “what’s the point of it all?” rant and Death said, “Cats. Cats are nice.” 🙂
I’m not polytheist (I tend to think of a non-personal creator) but that always made sense to me. The gods are too busy squabbling among themselves to be much help to anyone.
Well, apart from Anoia, of course.
@cassandra: yes to all the above. For all the society I live in knows, I could be atheist or polytheist or anything at all, because nobody asks. Hell, I worked for years with a trio of Assembly of God members and while we talked on occasion about religion, they never put any pressure on me or made any attempt whatsoever to change my views. Yeah, they probably thought I was going to Hell: big deal. One of them was my boss, but he was boss of a whole office full of people who were atheist or so close as to make no difference. That was Australia in the 80s and for all the infiltration of more US-style fundamentalist churches here, it’s still the case today. Not every atheist in the world lives under oppression for being atheist.
Also, Argenti, do I get a prize for being the first to use AAA in a sentence? ::makes big puppy-dog eyes::
RE: Falconer
All told, I was glad to shake the dust of high school off my shoes.
Truer words were never spoken.
RE: Argenti
if I had to pick between coming out to my family in terms of opting out of gender, or opting out of religion…I don’t have to think about it, the former would get me less shit.
Wow, really? Our parents basically gave up on indocrination early on (our father was a Jeffersonian deist and couldn’t care less) but STILL flipped their shit over gender and other things. I would rather be openly atheist a million times than deal with one more fucking Trans 101 about what am I, and do I have a penis, and why on earth would I have gone on hormones, don’t I know that shit can fuck up my body…
Also, basically all the stuff I hear about atheists being shat on for, sounds like exactly the stuff that people in the wrong religion gets shat on for. Being Muslim or Sikh, for instance. Or Jewish, man, people are ASSHOLES to Jews…
Thirded. Not that religon ever entered the picture. High school didn’t need that to make it suck.
I have never understood the nostalgia for high school. Why on earth would I WANT to go back to being a child? Being a kid SUCKED! Your life is entirely controlled by overworked and underpaid adults and trivial things get you shoved into lockers. I would NEVER want to return to childhood!