A while back I began a blog called Not All Atheists Are Assholes (But This Blog Is About The Ones Who Are). Someone who happened to come across it during a google search told me about a post from last fall from Hemant, the owner of The Friendly Atheist blog*. The theme of it was
A Great Response to the Question ‘Why Do Atheists Seem Like Assholes?’
For anyone who frequents leftish blogs, who isn't an atheist the obvious answer is that so many atheists who one encounters while participating in liberal discussion ARE ASSHOLES. Though that's not the self-serving answer Hemant and Julia Sweeney give. I'll let you read that at the link above.
I've been spending a lot of time on Alternet this past month to see what's there to be seen, it's a mix of original content and an accumulator of other online stuff originating on other websites. One thing that's there to be seen and can't be missed is that it relies on the asshole atheist community to run up its hit count by providing them with atheist ditto-head fodder. Some of it checks out on fact checking, though a lot of it is ideologically slanted. Some of it is entirely false.
A lie told by atheists on an allegedly liberal website is as much a lie as one told by Rush 0r Glenn or Daddy Phelps. It is as much a lie as one told by Dick Cheney or Sarah Palin
Pointing out the inaccuracy of this food for hate is not welcome among these self-congratulating members of the "reality community". And, clearly, the people who run Alternet aren't much on fact checking when it's an opportunity to keep the athehaters on their site.
This has been my experience at Eschaton, Democratic Underground, Alternet, the Scienceblogs, a number of the Discover blogs, ... after a while you start to suspect there's a pattern there. If atheists want to have hate groups as their public face that's their decision. It will rub off on them. Those of us on the left who are not atheists have no reason, at all, to let a hate group to become associated with the left.
The New Atheists Are The Phelps Cult Inverted
* If you could sue someone for false labeling Hemant would be in hot water because his friendly blog is just another of the cooky cutter atheist hate talk blogs.
So you make a claim, and then fail to back it up.
ReplyDeletePlease, I implore you, cite examples of this so called hate group.
Being an asshole does not equal a hate group.
Oh, for crying out loud, atheists are the premier hate group of the pseudo-left online, change a few words and their comments could come out of antisemites, racists, misogynists, gay bashers, or any other obvious hate groups.
DeleteWhat I've observed from trying to discuss religion online with people from a wide variety of religious affiliations:
ReplyDeleteYou can meet some lovely people that way, but there are typically enough hostile people around to hijack any subject from any direction and turn it into an Isaid/yousaid brawl. The best counterstrategy I found was to respond to only one paragraph from only the last shitload, trying my best to avoid using 'because you're an asshole' as an argument. Usually they'd call me something, and sometimes many things, but if I kept to one thing at a time I could avoid any incoherent rage of my own.
I remember at Pendle Hill finding a transcript of a colonial era public debate between Roger Williams and a Quaker preacher. These people did not believe in honest religious disagreement; "liar" was their word for anyone contradicting their position. One was of the Elect -- like them -- or a dangerous deceiver. We've gotten less zealous and more polite, in general, but internet forums seem to embody that good old-fashioned spirit.