So a horse-loving, feminist-hating Roosh V fan popped into my Twitter mentions today, defending Roosh against accusations of rape by noting that he’s never actually been charged or convicted of rape. Which is true, though not actually proof of his innocence any more than OJ’s acquittal in criminal court is proof that he didn’t murder his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend.
When Phil pointed out that his belief that Roosh is a rapist seems to be supported by Roosh’s own words, Ms. Smith declared that Roosh’s own words didn’t count, because they appeared in a post of mine. And that’s when, for better or worse, I entered into the discussion myself.
And then I asked the questions I ask everyone who accuses me of taking quotes out of context: Have you read the original quotes in context, and if so, could you tell me how I misrepresented them?
I don’t think anyone I have ever asked these questions to has given me a satisfactory answer. Most slink off at this point, their bluff called.
But others continue to bluff and bluster onward, doing their best to avoid answering the questions — either because they have read the quotes in their original context, and know full well that I didn’t misrepresent them, or because they haven’t read the quotes in the original and don’t want to admit it.
Still, I don’t think I’ve ever run across a bluffer quite as brazen or as persistent as Ms. Smith, who somehow managed, over the course of several hours of on-and-off “debate,” to avoid saying whether or not she actually read any of the books she claimed I was misrepresenting. Or even the post of mine she was ostensibly critiquing.
As the hours went by, her attempts to wriggle out of answering these rather basic yes or no questions took on a kind of Dadaesque grandeur. Read on, if you have the patience for it.
Seeing the name “Mina” so often in my mentions made me think of the Bollywood classic “Eena Meena Deeka,” which is certainly more entertaining than Mina Smith’s “arguments” above.
@Broken Butterfly:
Unfortunately, it doesn’t. Evolution acts on populations, not individuals; a “common ancestor” doesn’t literally mean there was a single person (or pair of people) that is the ancestor to all modern humans, it’s about a common species of some potentially unknown population size and distribution.
I think the evidence points more towards a small-ish population spread out over a relatively wide area, and even then that population intermingled with other species (neanderthals, I think) as it spread out, so the population wasn’t a complete genetic bottleneck. Instead of the top side of an hourglass emerging from a small point, think of it as a column where the composition of each layer shifts around, shrinking and growing and merging as you move upwards.
@kirbywarp
Oh, really? Huh… I didn’t know that! That’s actually pretty cool sounding. I’ll have to think about that for a while, then…
I think you’ve put your finger on why I’m rubbed the wrong way at this trend I’ve seen lately in progressive spaces towards contempt for atheism and liberal Christians complaining about atheists being mean. I, like you am from that second group. I was raised in a liberal church that my mom stopped attending once I got through confirmation classes and stopped attending myself. My dad doesn’t like organized religion but he believes in some sort of supernatural presence. My mom is agnostic I think. I grew up in a liberal city and the bulk of the people I’ve socialized with have been atheist, agnostic or moderately religious. As such, I’ve never personally experienced much trouble because of my atheism. Only online where like I said, contempt for atheists has become cool. But for people in some communities, coming out as an atheist is hard and can cause a lot of ostracization. Many atheists are constantly pestered to convert, find Jesus, whatever. The anger is understandable. When liberal Christians get a persecution complex about internet asshole atheists it feels a little bit too much like those male feminist allies we were discussing in the other thread who are cool with feminism as long as pretty girls are sufficiently nice to them. Otherwise, it’s time to whine about how mean feminists are. Or white progressives who are cool with anti-racism as long as we’re discussing the confederate flag and racist Republicans. But when a protest occurs at a Bernie Sanders rally, suddenly they’re defensive.
Sure, some atheists are assholes about it and say rude things to religious people. Here’s the thing? So what? Nobody should be an asshole to other people for any reason. It’s wrong to be prejudiced. But if an atheist is mean to a religious person, it doesn’t negate their religious privilege. Society is still structured to benefit the religious. At the end of the day, religious people aren’t any more harmed by a “lol sky wizards” comment than men are by male tears mugs and misandry gifs.
@Kirbywarp:
Last year I went to a museum exhibition about very early hominids, in which it was suggested that the evidence points to not one but several depopulation events occurring over a very long period; with humans surviving as small isolated populations in caves or islands here and there, before once more spreading out across the land. In most of these events we’re talking about the total human population being reduced to a few tens of thousands worldwide. Naturally we have no idea what caused it, although anyone who’s played Earthdawn probably has some theories.
If this is the case, then the shape of the population is more like a string of sausages: there are vertical columns with mixing, like you said; and then sudden pinch points where almost everyone dies off.
I have absolutely no idea how I came into my weird sort of religion-friendly non-religion. On the one hand, my parents raised us nominally Catholic but very much of the essentially-secular “Sleep in on Sundays” type (I’ve talked about how conservative they are before, but they’re Randian, not religious); on the other hand, my schools all ranged from everythingphobic fire-and-brimstone Catholicism to even-more-everythingphobic Young Earth Creationist Lutheran*. How that balanced out to an atheist who tries to loosely follow Jesus’ lessons taken as a group of parables and hates it when either side harasses the other, feel free to figure out. =P
*I’ve heard that American Lutherans are pretty chill, but Australian Lutherans are fundamentalist Baptists in all but name.
I do have to take exception to this. I don’t believe it helps me to be prayed for and if somebody knows I’m an atheist and says that to me, especially if it’s in response to something bad like a death in the family, it feels to me at best like a meaningless platitude and at worst like an imposition. If you tell me “I’m praying for you” knowing I don’t believe if that stuff, it just seems like you’re saying what makes you feel better. Not what makes me feel better.
If you don’t know what someone’s religious views are or know they are non-theist, it’s best to say “I wish you the best” or “I’m thinking of you.” Something like that. If you want to pray for them, do so. It harms no one. But it’s best not to tell them about unless you know they’d appreciate it.
Also, “I’ll pray for you” is often deployed as a passive aggressive insult. Like the time I was at a war protest (back when the popular opinion was still that the war in Iraq was a good idea and Dubya was a good president) and a couple walked past and shook their heads at a group of us and told us they’d pray for us.
@EJ (The Other One):
That makes sense. There’s a related thing in general Evolution where the picture is much less about slow, continuous changes and much more about sudden population shifts followed by periods of stability. I guess the column metaphor wasn’t great…
I’ve played around a lot with evolutionary algorithms on a computer, and you see that exact same sort of pattern. The system will look random at first, until a particular solution takes hold and grows to dominate everything. That’ll stay consistent for a while, with a few other things blooming and fading until suddenly another solution expands and takes over. And so on. They really give you a feel for how everything works at the broad population level.
@EJ
Maybe it’s a good thing I, my friends, and the people I interact with on atheist fora have nothing to do with “movement atheism”. This thing you’re calling “dictionary atheism” is simply what we believe and has been the crux of discussions with believers in our interactions. So, while “movement atheists” may despise this, it is a thing and a lot of us are happy with it.
If I were to put a label to myself I would say secular humanist. Of course, there are lots of threads to that an not one hardline system.
@WWTH
I agree with you about the phrase “I’ll pray for you”. I used to spend a lot of time on an atheist forum and pretty much every week you could count on some seagull zooming in with an “Oh noes! Atheists! I’m praying for yooooouuuu!”
Context is meaningful. If someone I don’t know well, who doesn’t know my beliefs, says they’re praying for me, I just thank them. My good friends who know my beliefs don’t say this. They send good thoughts and energy and say they’ll be thinking of me, offer help, etc.
What’s the point though of some believer zipping in announcing prayers and zipping out?
@ Kirby
You seen this?
Great use of algorithms to demonstrate evolution.
This reminds me of that huge graphic, you know, the one that’s a giant circle that has all the names of species and it gets less and less branches as it gets to the middle? Or at least represents all the branches of species and the evolutionary path.
@WWTH
Err… Was any of that directed at me (since I was the first one to bring up how much “Sky wizard” annoys me, although it’s more about the spitting hatred that almost always follows it than about the phrase itself)? If so, I sure as hell don’t hold any contempt for atheists. That’d be silly, being an atheist myself and all. =P I just hold a lot of contempt for assholes acting like assholes (and I don’t mean that in a douchey tone-policing way, I’m talking about death threats and stuff), whether they’re under the atheist banner or the Christian banner or the artillery turtle banner. ^^;
… Artillery Turtle would be a good band name.
And apologies if it has been coming across like I have a problem with atheists. Again, I sure as hell don’t. I just shouldn’t be discussing religion before coffee.
@ Panda
Does sort of put one in one’s place though.
http://www.texscience.org/reports/tree.jpg
@weirwoodtreehugger
I’m so sorry about all that, but even if we aren’t really “harmed” by it, it still hurts. Especially those of us who try to be respectful and get “LOLOLOL YOU BELIEVE IN A SKY WIZARD” back, which I definitely have. So on that note… no, you’re wrong. It’s different from the “male tears” thing because a lot of the people who laugh at “sky wizard” actually mock even respectful people with it, like I’ve gotten a lot, and it makes me not want to talk about anything with people like that.
It is harmful in the hands of the wrong people, and while technically anything is, seeing comments like that (“Oh, you’re not being hurt by it”) just kind of makes it even harder to be open about stuff. Like, for instance, right now, I feel awkward and don’t really want to talk to you because of that, since that’s the same pattern (or at least very similar) I’ve seen from a lot of people who mocked me (“Oh you shouldn’t be an asshole to anyone but COME ON you’re not being HURT by this GROW UP already”).
And as for the praying… did you miss where I said I ASK people not of my religion if I can pray for them? I don’t just say “I’m praying for you”, I’m asking if you’re okay with that, and it’s not like I go up to random strangers and ask about it; I only ask for people I know (everyone else gets the “I wish you well” line). And if you’re not, guess what? Then I won’t bother you about it again. And that’s exactly why I ASK — to try to be respectful and not be some passive-aggressive asshole. But this again comes back to what I said before: how is shaking your head at someone and going “I’ll pray for you” for an insult more of a problem then laughing at someone for believing in a “sky wizard”? Both are bad, but you seem to be excusing the latter.
@Alan:
That was cool! I wish the maker had been able to show you representative clocks from the population pool as the simulation went on, so you could see the changes occuring in real-time.
Hi Broken Butterfly
May I be permitted to say welcome. You raise some interesting points. People on this site (with the exception of some of our MRA visitors) are pretty nice so I’m sure it’s safe for you to stick your head above the parapet if you have any questions about religion/lack of religion.
I’m available if you want to the views of an ardent rationalist who’s also a bit of a pagan. “Cognitive dissonance” may be one area you’d want to explore. 🙂
As to praying for people, here’s the judgment from a legal case over here about that. To over simplify, in England, you get one go at offering to pray for someone, but if they ask you to desist and you ask again that’s harassment.
https://www.secularism.org.uk/uploads/wasteney-et-ruling.pdf
SFHC,
Nope. I wasn’t directing anything at you. Just repeating it because it’s a standard insult. However, I’ve got to say being saying you’re against someone being an asshole they’re a Christian or an atheist is a little bit like being equally against misogyny and misandry. Hate is more impactful when it’s a privileged group hating a marginalized group. It’s never good to hate, but hate is a lot worse when you’re doing it as an oppressor class. That’s why it bothers me when I see progressive Christians complaining about mean atheists and why it bothers me when progressive atheists stumble all over themselves to apologize for the rude atheists and make sure everyone knows they’re not one of them and won’t be mean to religious people. Since religiosity is protected and privileged, religious people don’t need to be coddled.
I really, really hate the “praying for you” thing. It is the only religious thing that gets me honestly mad when I see it every time, I swear, for so many reasons. So, so many…
@Alan Robertshaw
Hello! Thank you for the welcome. <3 Everyone here (and by everyone I mean "non-MRA-types") does seem to be pretty nice, which is why I decided to try to jump in here and try to get into the community; I'm just really used to abuse, which is why WWTH's comments kinda made me really uncomfortable, since I've heard them a lot from nasty people.
For the views, if you have anything you wanna tell me about, I'd love to hear it, though I don't have any specific questions right now (unless you were hinting at something and I missed it. XD).
And huh! That's actually an interesting judgement; I can see why they made it, and I can definitely agree with it, too. If you're persisting after someone who doesn't want it, that would definitely be harassment, same as anything else. 😮 I'll take a closer look over it later, but thanks for the link!
@weirwoodtreehugger
Mmm, that is very true. 🙁 It’s an unfortunate thing that so many religious — Christian mostly, I’ll be the first to admit — are like that. Me, I learned a while ago to just try to separate the mean [insert anything here] into a separate group, though while I won’t ever deny the religious are privileged…
I must be in some kind of bizarro world, because I usually have it backwards; that is, I have to be the one reassuring everyone I’m not one of the awful Christians, rather than the other way around (I don’t feel like I’m forced to apologize for them; I do that willingly because I am ashamed of them, but that might be another problem).
I’m sorry that you had to put up with that/saw that so much, though. That’s awful no matter what.
@Pandapool
I’m very sorry that someone gave you those reasons. 🙁 I wish I could say something more, but I don’t really have anything extra to add.
@Alan
I love that graphic! I just love graphics like this. Like the ones that show where we are in the galaxy and stuff?
I mean, a long time ago, it made me feel lonely, admittedly. Earth and humanity being such small specks on the planet and universe, but the more I learned about astronomy and evolution, the more I felt connected to everything.
I got more into astronomy and physics first (which is still over my head), and, it’s just everything on Earth, every rock, plant, animal, we’re made of the atoms of a billion different exploded stars, pretty much. And atoms don’t disappear or die, they’re forever. The atoms of a dead person don’t stop existing, they are just rearranged, they move around, they build something else. Nothing is ever gone, nobody’s ever gone, they just get rearranged and changed. And in a billion years your atoms, your grandma’s atoms, your great-great-great-great-great grandnieces’ atoms will be apart of a different structure altogether, different from anything on Earth now.
Like, that shit is weirdly spiritual to me.
I’m not saying it’s okay to be a jerk or try and hurt feelings. I’m saying that hurt feelings are not equal to the harm done by oppression. It hurts feelings for an atheist to make fun of religious people. But when religious people say that you can’t be moral without religion, it does more than hurt feelings, it contributes to a system in which in many communities atheists have to hide who they are because they risk discrimination. Even in my fairly liberal area, I don’t tell people at the jobs I’ve had that I’m an atheist until I know for sure it won’t harm me. Because you never know.
It’s not my intention to make you feel awkward and I’ve never told anyone not to believe in God, Gods, Goddesses etc. Nor have I made fun of anyone for such. I am simply saying that if you’re in a privileged you need to keep that in mind when making comments about the behavior of marginalized groups. Sometimes I get the knee jerk reaction to become defensive when POC talk about white people and how difficult it is to trust us because so many white people seem like they’re not racist and then will later on reveal that they in fact are racist. But you know what? They feel that because of their lived experiences. So rather than protesting about how I’m not racist and generalizations hurt my feelings, yeah, I grow up. Because it doesn’t cause any real, tangible harm to me.
When you ask an atheist if you can pray for them you’re putting them in a situation where they either have to yes even though it’s against their wishes. Or say no and look like a jerk for turning down what to religious people (the majority) see as a nice gesture. In other words, you’re making them uncomfortable and putting them in a no win situation. Your intentions may be good but intent isn’t everything and it’s a little hypocritical to complain about feeling awkward while defending your desire to put other people in an awkward position because it makes you feel good.
@ Pandapool
*Completely* see where you’re coming from. I’m exactly the same. I love pondering all that deep time stuff and the whole scale of the universe(s?), from the very large to the very small. I get that spiritual thing too. I think that’s where my pagan sentiments come from, even though I’m a complete rationalist too.
It’s amazing to think we were quite literally made in the heart of a supernova; and we’ll get plenty more goes as we’re recycled again and again before the big rip/crunch/bounce or whatever.
You ever get that thing where you just push and push contemplating it all and you almost understand it; like it’s just at your fingertips? So tantalising and wonderful; then it all becomes incomprehensible again 🙂
Fuck yes! It usually happens when I’m either out walking the dog and just letting my mind wander or I’m juuuust about to sleep.
I’m pretty sure if anyone ever figured it out there, the universe would implode.
(And there’s multiple universes. There’s a universe where dragons exists, and everyday I must cry because I wasn’t born in it.)