Instead of the usual A+ bashing, I want to talk about a story which has exploded in the last few days - a story which perfectly illustrates how toxic, cruel and heartless religion can be, and why it is so important to oppose it and fight for church-state separation.
By now you've probably heard of the death of Dr. Savita Halappanavar, a dentist who died in agony in an Irish hospital after being denied a life-saving abortion following a miscarriage. And if you've missed this story because you've been living on the far side of the moon, read Michael Nugent's article which fills you in on the context and the legal vacuum and political cowardice which allowed this tragedy to happen.
The tl;dr version is that this is a complicated story, decades in the making, which reflects badly on Ireland but is not simply a case of a backward, barbaric country practicing racism against a brown-skinned woman, as some uninformed armchair analysts in other countries are superficially describing it. And if you still think it's all about racism, check out these photos from the massive protests in Dublin and other cities across Ireland in response to this needless death.
The fact is that religion is dying in Ireland faster than just about anywhere else, but for historical reasons the Vatican still has a stranglehold on politics and successive Irish governments have been scared shitless of pissing it off, even after the endless priest child-rape scandals of recent decades. Now the Irish people are erupting in anger, and hopefully the government will finally listen to them.
Some commentators have focused on the phrase "this is a Catholic country" which was apparently said to Dr. Halappanavar's husband as an excuse for not terminating the pregnancy. I don't know the context in which this was said, but I used to have a friend who was a pain nurse in a Catholic hospital in the US. Sometimes she had to deal with terminal patients who were in excruciating pain, but she couldn't treat the pain as aggressively as it needed to be treated, because that would shorten the life of the patient. She was a Catholic herself, but didn't agree with the church's rigid stance on euthanasia. She had to explain to the family why their loved one was in so much pain, and all she could do was tell them: "This is a Catholic hospital." So the remark made to Mr. Halappanavar may have been callous, or it may have been an admission of helplessness.
On the other hand, it may be that the hospital was overly cautious and they could in fact have acted to end the pregnancy without running afoul of the law. Hopefully the investigations which will take place will bring some closure to the case, though that does not relieve the Irish government of its duty to clarify the legal situation. There's an interesting variety of opinions on this Irish Times Letters to the Editor page - from theological sophistry about "ensoulment" and "desoulment" (AKA death) to informed discussions of medical ethics.
This kind of tragedy reminds us that Atheism-plus and its opponents are equally irrelevant - we're all just a bunch of people who spend too much time on the internet, yelling at each other. Meanwhile, thousands of people are taking to the streets of Irish cities on cold winter nights to demand change. Atheists and believers are working together, building coalitions, making their voices heard. People aren't demanding ideological purity and lockstep conformity from each other - they are focusing on the common goal of working for women's rights and health. (Okay, so I had to get a dig against A+ in there. Sue me.)
If the dead, withered claw of Vatican control can finally be pulled from the throat of what was formerly one of the most religious countries in Europe, and a more humane and enlightened law can be put in place, some good will come of this senseless death.
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Monday, November 19, 2012
Would you like some microcheese with that microwhine?
Spotted in the comments section at Al Stefanelli's blog: (don't forget to read Al's article too, it rocks)
I also had a WTF moment, so I made the mistake of googling "microaggression". According to Wikipedia, it's "the idea that specific interactions between those of different races, cultures, or genders can be interpreted as mostly non-physical aggression." There's also microassault, microinsult, microinvalidation and - get ready for this - microrape. (I guess victim-politics scholars haven't yet gotten around to investigating micro-inviting-someone-for-coffee-in-the-elevator.)
I swear, you can't make this shit up...
I don’t know a whole lot about al’s problems with FTB, but I have noticed that some of the folks there go a little far with the nuttery. One commenter on a thread went so far as to suggest that by referring to Savita Halappanavar by her first name was an example of 'microaggression'.
Seriously?
wtf?
(If you're not familiar with the Savita case, here's a link)
I swear, you can't make this shit up...
Interview with the Plusser
[EDIT: Rats! I didn't think of the right title for this post until now: "Interview with the Fempire"]
Recently I attempted to debate a point about male/female privilege with an atheism-plusser on r/DebateAtheismPlus. You can view the thread here, but to summarize, it was a gigantic exercise in frustration for me.
The points I was trying to make were:
Unfortunately, no matter how clearly I tried to express myself, I might as well have been banging my head against a wall. Pwrong, my antagonist, has cocooned himself in fem-plus dogma and simply will not entertain any thought that contradicts that dogma. Nor can he recognize how internally inconsistent this dogma is, or how it is ultimately insulting and infantilizing for women.
A perfect example was when I challenged the implicit assumption that there is some vast male conspiracy by employers to steal 23% of every woman's paycheck. If it is so easy for employers to pay men more than women for the same quality work, I asked, why would anyone ever hire men? His response: because they assume that men will do better quality work. Even when I pointed out the blatant contradiction in assuming "the same quality" and "better quality" at the same time, he just couldn't - or wouldn't - see it.
Another point of frustration for me was his refusal to understand the well documented fact that women, in aggregate, make less money than men in large part because they freely make different choices and trade-offs between career and family - and very often have more flexibility than men, and more freedom to make such choices. Doesn't sound like sexism to me, unless it's a case of anti-male sexism - but I very much doubt that Pwrong would ever concede that there is such a thing! For him, "sexism" is the knee-jerk answer to every question, just like "goddidit" is for religionists. When confronted with a counterexample, just label it "benevolent sexism", include it under the all-encompassing rubric of "sexism by men against women", and carry on regardless!
When I pointed out that women often have more freedom than men to tip the work-life balance in the direction of family rather than career, his reply was essentially: "Why does society force women to choose this way?" Obviously the answer he was fishing for was that women are pathetic, helpless, agency-less victims who are brainwashed by Teh Patriarchy, and forced out of the workplace so that employers can continue throwing money away by paying men more for the same work. He can't seem to imagine that women can freely make their own choices based on their own values, nor can he see how insulting and patronizing to women his blinkered assumption is. (And his willful ignorance of Economics 101 reminds me of a point made by Thomas Frank in What's the Matter with Kansas - the right-wing defenders of capitalism, ironically, try to take economic realities out of the equation and recast the conflict between the 1% and the 99% as a "culture war" and a "war on religion".)
Perhaps most frustrating of all was his tactic of dishonestly misrepresenting my position. "I'm saying that the wage gap is due to sexism by society and sexism by employers. Schrödinger's Therapist is claiming it's 100% due to sexism by society." God damn it! I've been saying all along, very clearly, that it's NOT SEXISM!!!
This whole exchange strengthened my suspicion that Atheism♀ is basically another religion, with Rebecca Watson as its Jesus Christ figure, PZ Myers as its pope, and radfem as its gospel. Skepticism, rationalism and critical thinking fly out the window, and "misogyny" is the battle cry for every situation.
As an atheist, I've often noticed that religionists believe in their religion for emotional rather than logical reasons, and are heavily emotionally invested in their beliefs. It's not necessarily that they're stupid, but people have an amazing ability to compartmentalize their brains. They can be paragons of rationality in general, but as soon as you touch on the area they are emotionally invested in, they respond viscerally as if their identity, even their very existence is threatened. The syndrome is as evident in fem-plus as in any fundamentalist cult. For whatever reason, they have a deep emotional need to play the victim card - a need that trumps reason and evidence at every turn.
One interesting thing I learned is that at least some plussers dislike the radical feminist label, even though it seems to me that the definition of this movement - the ideology that male oppression of women is a "transhistorical phenomenon prior to or deeper than other sources of oppression, not only the oldest and most universal form of domination but the primary form and the model for all others" - is perfectly aligned with the constant complaints of misogyny, oppression and victimhood emanating from the fem-plus forums.
However, plussers apparently redefine radical feminism so that transphobia is its core, defining characteristic. This strikes me as a little disingenuous, but whatever. I have to wonder if transphobia would be an issue at all, if Natalie Reed and Zinnia Jones weren't top-tier "Freethought" Bloggers. Clearly, this whole never-ending shitstorm is much more about tribalism and "us versus them" than about any principled or even coherent position. In any case, I will try to avoid equating Atheism♀ with radical feminism in cases where it could cause confusion - my preferred term, anyway, is victim feminism.
Another thing I learned is that there is apparently some huge, earth-shattering difference between "having privilege" and "being privileged". Good luck figuring that one out!
Maybe I'm a glutton for punishment, but I've just kicked off another debate in r/DebateAtheismPlus - Has the Schrödinger's Rapist meme backfired? We'll see how it goes!
Recently I attempted to debate a point about male/female privilege with an atheism-plusser on r/DebateAtheismPlus. You can view the thread here, but to summarize, it was a gigantic exercise in frustration for me.
The points I was trying to make were:
- There is no such thing as blanket "male privilege" that all men have, and no women have.
- Most alleged examples of male privilege are really just wealth privilege. If Richard Branson is a billionaire, and he has a penis, and I have a penis, does that make me a billionaire? Of course not!
- The much-ballyhooed gender wage gap is based on faulty and simplistic interpretation of the statistics. When you compare apples with apples, instead of e.g. comparing the salary of a part-time community college teacher with an Ivy League tenured professor, the loudly-trumpted N-cent gap (where N increases with every telling of the story) actually shrinks to within the margin of error.
- While sexism undeniably exists, to scream "the whole of society is sexist" and make knee-jerk assumptions of all-pervasive sexism as both the description and explanation of everything that happens in both the workplace and the broader society, is mindless and unhelpful.
Unfortunately, no matter how clearly I tried to express myself, I might as well have been banging my head against a wall. Pwrong, my antagonist, has cocooned himself in fem-plus dogma and simply will not entertain any thought that contradicts that dogma. Nor can he recognize how internally inconsistent this dogma is, or how it is ultimately insulting and infantilizing for women.
A perfect example was when I challenged the implicit assumption that there is some vast male conspiracy by employers to steal 23% of every woman's paycheck. If it is so easy for employers to pay men more than women for the same quality work, I asked, why would anyone ever hire men? His response: because they assume that men will do better quality work. Even when I pointed out the blatant contradiction in assuming "the same quality" and "better quality" at the same time, he just couldn't - or wouldn't - see it.
Another point of frustration for me was his refusal to understand the well documented fact that women, in aggregate, make less money than men in large part because they freely make different choices and trade-offs between career and family - and very often have more flexibility than men, and more freedom to make such choices. Doesn't sound like sexism to me, unless it's a case of anti-male sexism - but I very much doubt that Pwrong would ever concede that there is such a thing! For him, "sexism" is the knee-jerk answer to every question, just like "goddidit" is for religionists. When confronted with a counterexample, just label it "benevolent sexism", include it under the all-encompassing rubric of "sexism by men against women", and carry on regardless!
When I pointed out that women often have more freedom than men to tip the work-life balance in the direction of family rather than career, his reply was essentially: "Why does society force women to choose this way?" Obviously the answer he was fishing for was that women are pathetic, helpless, agency-less victims who are brainwashed by Teh Patriarchy, and forced out of the workplace so that employers can continue throwing money away by paying men more for the same work. He can't seem to imagine that women can freely make their own choices based on their own values, nor can he see how insulting and patronizing to women his blinkered assumption is. (And his willful ignorance of Economics 101 reminds me of a point made by Thomas Frank in What's the Matter with Kansas - the right-wing defenders of capitalism, ironically, try to take economic realities out of the equation and recast the conflict between the 1% and the 99% as a "culture war" and a "war on religion".)
Perhaps most frustrating of all was his tactic of dishonestly misrepresenting my position. "I'm saying that the wage gap is due to sexism by society and sexism by employers. Schrödinger's Therapist is claiming it's 100% due to sexism by society." God damn it! I've been saying all along, very clearly, that it's NOT SEXISM!!!
This whole exchange strengthened my suspicion that Atheism♀ is basically another religion, with Rebecca Watson as its Jesus Christ figure, PZ Myers as its pope, and radfem as its gospel. Skepticism, rationalism and critical thinking fly out the window, and "misogyny" is the battle cry for every situation.
As an atheist, I've often noticed that religionists believe in their religion for emotional rather than logical reasons, and are heavily emotionally invested in their beliefs. It's not necessarily that they're stupid, but people have an amazing ability to compartmentalize their brains. They can be paragons of rationality in general, but as soon as you touch on the area they are emotionally invested in, they respond viscerally as if their identity, even their very existence is threatened. The syndrome is as evident in fem-plus as in any fundamentalist cult. For whatever reason, they have a deep emotional need to play the victim card - a need that trumps reason and evidence at every turn.
One interesting thing I learned is that at least some plussers dislike the radical feminist label, even though it seems to me that the definition of this movement - the ideology that male oppression of women is a "transhistorical phenomenon prior to or deeper than other sources of oppression, not only the oldest and most universal form of domination but the primary form and the model for all others" - is perfectly aligned with the constant complaints of misogyny, oppression and victimhood emanating from the fem-plus forums.
However, plussers apparently redefine radical feminism so that transphobia is its core, defining characteristic. This strikes me as a little disingenuous, but whatever. I have to wonder if transphobia would be an issue at all, if Natalie Reed and Zinnia Jones weren't top-tier "Freethought" Bloggers. Clearly, this whole never-ending shitstorm is much more about tribalism and "us versus them" than about any principled or even coherent position. In any case, I will try to avoid equating Atheism♀ with radical feminism in cases where it could cause confusion - my preferred term, anyway, is victim feminism.
Another thing I learned is that there is apparently some huge, earth-shattering difference between "having privilege" and "being privileged". Good luck figuring that one out!
Maybe I'm a glutton for punishment, but I've just kicked off another debate in r/DebateAtheismPlus - Has the Schrödinger's Rapist meme backfired? We'll see how it goes!
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Deconstructing the A+theism manifesto
It has come to my attention that there are actually other people who read this blog. In the light of this surprising revelation, I must apologize to you (all one or two of you) for being so inactive lately. Let me fob you off for now with a link to Politically Incorrect Skeptic:
They only want people who think like them to have a voice, but they want them in different colors. If their idea of diversity was applied to cars the world would all be driving different colored Priuses. If it were applied to music, we'd all be listening to a racially/(pan/tran)sexually/abley diverse singer song writers on acoustic guitars earnestly singing about how the corporations are evil, man,...I mean woman, er person of non-specific sex or sexuality.Here's the link. See you later!
Friday, October 5, 2012
Can the circle be unbroken...
AgentOfDoubt nails it - A+theism is the Tea Party of the freethought/skeptic movement.
Now, I'm pretty liberal in my social and political views, certainly by the standards of the part of the US where I live. But when you look at the manifesto of A+, and their jeremiads against misogyny, racism, ablism, speciesism, homophobia, heteronormativism, cis-gender-normativism, cis-vestite-normativism, neurotypicalism, etc, etc... it really looks like a self-parody of bleeding-heart political correctness gone berserk.
It really shows how immature the plussers are that they insist on mindless lockstep conformity with their rigid ideological agenda on an ever-growing laundry list of victimhood grievance issues. Out in the real world, people are building coalitions, learning to work with other people who aren't clones of them, and GSD (Getting Shit Done).
Hopefully A+ will self-destruct (as I predict it will) before it does permanent damage to the cause of secularism.
Expelled: No Freethought Allowed
The plussers have tasted blood - Justin Vacula was forced out of his position at the SCA, mere days after he was appointed. The slavethought bullies who forced his departure with their mouth-foaming witch hunt are crowing insufferably.
I don't know Justin personally, but from everything I've heard, he done a great job promoting freethought and rationalism in his neck of the woods (Pennsylvania), despite harassment and threats - while Weepy Amy was selling her stupid trinkets. Unfortunately the two of them got into a pissing match, both sides played hardball, and both did things that were not their finest moments.
The difference is that Justin was big enough to admit it and apologize, as he does in a very classy way at the above link. He was also mature enough to see that the whole shitstorm was hurting the SCA, and took a bullet instead of letting his ego get in the way - something I can't imagine the immature and narcissistic Amy ever doing.
It was probably the correct decision for Justin to step aside, but it sets a horrible precedent. Do you think the A+theism witch-hunters will stop there, satisfied with their work? Of course not! In their cult's short existence they have already notched up an impressive record of doc-dropping, IRL harassment, contacting people's employers and professors etc. to destroy anyone perceived as an enemy of their mindless extremist fanaticism. The loathsome slimeball Greg bin Laden has been trying to get DJ Groethe fired and replaced by Rebecca Watson,Watson herself has launched a boycott campaign against Richard Dawkins and attempted to smear Laurence Krauss as a child sex trafficker, the list goes on. [Clarification: I struck out the stuff about Watson only because she did it before A+theism was formed.]
From now on, every position of any visibility in any national or regional freethought/skeptic organization is subject to a veto by the professional screamers and bedwetters of the FtB/Skepchick Axis of Misandry. Anyone who departs from rigid ideological lockstep with their radfem agenda will be hounded out of office unless we nip this shit in the bud right now. We need to grow a backbone and stand up to these screeching harpies!
I don't know Justin personally, but from everything I've heard, he done a great job promoting freethought and rationalism in his neck of the woods (Pennsylvania), despite harassment and threats - while Weepy Amy was selling her stupid trinkets. Unfortunately the two of them got into a pissing match, both sides played hardball, and both did things that were not their finest moments.
The difference is that Justin was big enough to admit it and apologize, as he does in a very classy way at the above link. He was also mature enough to see that the whole shitstorm was hurting the SCA, and took a bullet instead of letting his ego get in the way - something I can't imagine the immature and narcissistic Amy ever doing.
It was probably the correct decision for Justin to step aside, but it sets a horrible precedent. Do you think the A+theism witch-hunters will stop there, satisfied with their work? Of course not! In their cult's short existence they have already notched up an impressive record of doc-dropping, IRL harassment, contacting people's employers and professors etc. to destroy anyone perceived as an enemy of their mindless extremist fanaticism. The loathsome slimeball Greg bin Laden has been trying to get DJ Groethe fired and replaced by Rebecca Watson,
From now on, every position of any visibility in any national or regional freethought/skeptic organization is subject to a veto by the professional screamers and bedwetters of the FtB/Skepchick Axis of Misandry. Anyone who departs from rigid ideological lockstep with their radfem agenda will be hounded out of office unless we nip this shit in the bud right now. We need to grow a backbone and stand up to these screeching harpies!
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
The hits just keep on coming!
What I predicted is coming to pass even sooner than I expected. A+theism is turning on itself and collapsing in a cloud of bile and butt-hurt.
Matt Dillahunty of the Atheist Experience, who was initially supportive of A+theism, found out what kind of people he was dealing with. He posted something on the official A+ forum, some tinpot dictator of a "moderator" arbitrarily deleted it, he posted again to ask why - and for this unpardonable crime, he got banned.
Perhaps Matt will rethink his support for a group that is so antithetical to free speech and free thought.
Matt Dillahunty of the Atheist Experience, who was initially supportive of A+theism, found out what kind of people he was dealing with. He posted something on the official A+ forum, some tinpot dictator of a "moderator" arbitrarily deleted it, he posted again to ask why - and for this unpardonable crime, he got banned.
Perhaps Matt will rethink his support for a group that is so antithetical to free speech and free thought.
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