found online by Raymond
From PZ Myers:
I don’t want to be part of a movement that includes racists, sexists, and shitlords, which makes being part of atheism problematic right now. Philip Rose feels likewise, and has a proposal: Atheism Minus.
He’s introducing the idea on YouTube, which might be a mistake — already, the shitlords are flocking to attack it, and the comments are a horror show of the usual dorks with their revisionist history and dogmatic denial of the importance of social justice causes to a social movement. They just want their privileges extended. I’m not in total agreement with everything Philip says, but goddamn, his shallow, stupid, asshole critics are repellent.
PZ Myers is generally a voice I value, but he tends to go off the rails when he starts talking about atheism as a “movement” and what goals and values it should have. Atheism refers to lack of belief in the existence of any deity. Period. People can deride that as “dictionary atheism” until they’re blue in the face, but that’s what the word means. Atheism isn’t a “movement” or “community” any more than the sum total of all people who don’t believe in unicorns constitute a movement or a community.
We can’t drum people out of atheism for being bad, any more than unicorn-disbelieving people can “reclaim” a unicorn-disbelieving “community” from the presence of people who reject unicorns but don’t meet their moral standards. Bertrand Russell was an atheist. So was Stalin. I assume they both disbelieved in unicorns, too.
Agreed. Why do people like Myers get to decide what the proper doctrine for atheists is anyway? Do I get a say too or is all disagreement immediately and uncritically branded bigoted or privileged just as it is in liberal identity politics? (Even asking that question could get me blacklisted!) I’d hate to see doctrinal purism so reminiscent of religion applied to what is and should continue to be a very simple state of belief.
If there is to be an atheist movement, I would prefer that it concern itself with spreading atheism or at least with opposing religion rather than with ideals that already have many champions in the political arena. And such a goal isn’t served by splintering into Atheism+ and Atheism++ and Atheism- and whatever other seemingly Newspeak-inspired label they might come up with next.