tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19053670.post6543113015614677439..comments2023-10-31T05:03:38.910-07:00Comments on Letters from a broad...: Stuff the atheists can learn from the feminists!C. L. Hansonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12698855413639518095noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19053670.post-67218176015192999352014-09-21T17:22:21.751-07:002014-09-21T17:22:21.751-07:00I completely agree with you, chanson! I continue t...I completely agree with you, chanson! I continue to self-identify as an atheist, and am still proud to be a part of this movement despite the notoriety of a few of its leaders. You are right -- the movement is very important and we need to band together, not run away each time somebody says something stupid! Although organizing atheists is more or less like herding cats, I think over time we should come to agree on a set of more or less universal ethics. Although at that point, we are already describing secular humanism...<br /><br />As much as I would love to discuss atheism with everyone, my current circumstances require me to be more pragmatic. As I still attend church with my family and am currently "called" as Webelos den leader in our ward, describing myself as an atheist to my 10-year-old Cub Scouts or their parents probably wouldn't win me any favors. :-) I had no problem telling the current bishop and ward mission leader, however!<br /><br />I still have some respect for Sam Harris, although I disagree with his views on guns, Israel, and don't share his sexism or contempt for religious believers (who are generally much more wonderful, intelligent people than he makes them out to be). I have read the first chapter of his new book, <i>Waking Up</i>, and look forward to finishing it this winter.<br /><br />Given Harris' experience with neuroscience, meditation, Eastern spirituality and psychedelic drugs, I see him more or less as an expert in this field, just as Dawkins is in the field of evolutionary biology and Krauss is in the field of astrophysics. Outside these fields of expertise, their blind spots become painfully obvious, but I suppose that is true of all of us. At least some people are willing to admit it. :-)Erichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06167372868768877051noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19053670.post-33137552624103207632014-09-20T22:28:37.324-07:002014-09-20T22:28:37.324-07:00Hey Eric!!!
I agree with you on the differences a...Hey Eric!!!<br /><br />I agree with you on the differences among these various leaders, and that's cool if those are your preferred identities. But I don't think this scandal is a reason to stop identifying as atheist.<br /><br />The point to my story about the feminist movement is that -- even though there were currents I found objectionable -- the movement as a whole was important and valuable. For this reason, I refused to ever stop identifying as feminist. Instead, I objected to the problematic bits on feminist grounds, as a feminist.<br /><br />As I said in <a href="http://lfab-uvm.blogspot.com/2014/09/win-win-for-feminism.html" rel="nofollow">my third piece</a> in this series, the "Radical Feminists" brought us some very valuable ideas that are now central to feminist thought. But that movement within feminism was neither entirely homogeneous nor entirely praiseworthy. When you're saying things like <i>trans-women shouldn't be accepted among us because they're really men</i>, or <i>all heterosexual sex is rape</i>, or that <i>a man masturbating to explicit images in the privacy of his own room is doing terrible harm to women</i> -- it wouldn't be crazy for someone to react by saying, "Are you sure you don't just hate men?" But today you would have to be quite ignorant (probably willfully so) to argue that feminism is inspired by hating men. And part of the reason for the change is that we feminists demonstrated that we know how to take out our own trash.<br /><br />That's where the atheist movement is today. It wouldn't be crazy for someone to look at today's atheist movement and say atheists are a bunch of hypocrites who can apply criticial thinking to ideas we don't like (eg. other people's religion) but when it comes to our popular guys' own prejudices (eg. sexism), many start spouting the same logical fallacies we shread when they're trotted out in defence of religion.<br /><br />But, while atheism itself is as old as the hills, the current movement is new and growing fast. Some speed bumps and growing pains are par for the course. <i>(When I mix metaphors, I go all out! ;) )</i> I have no doubt that the atheist movement is up to the task of taking out its own trash -- and a new generation of atheist leaders will be getting a great learning experience in the process.C. L. Hansonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12698855413639518095noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19053670.post-38279984513459989642014-09-19T10:34:46.139-07:002014-09-19T10:34:46.139-07:00Thanks for sharing this! I read with great interes...Thanks for sharing this! I read with great interest and followed the links you shared. I read Dawkins' <i>The God Delusion</i> and Harris' <i>The End of Faith/Letter to a Christian Nation</i> prior to "coming out" as a nonbeliever, and they were all very therapeutic and confidence-building during that momentous period of my life. (Although in hindsight, I may have overreacted with <i>too much</i> anger at first...<br /><br />I guess it is human nature to idolize people we want to emulate. So it is very disappointing to see these two bastions of reason taking such unreasonable and intolerant views. At this rate, there soon won't be any "Horsemen" left!<br /><br />I watched the documentary film "The Unbelievers" about Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss recently (which also includes brief appearances from other leading atheists), and was disappointed. Not only did the film take more of a "rock star" approach, effectively worshipping both scientists and shielding them from criticism, with very little substantive science, I was actually shocked to hear Dawkins publicly argue that we should hold believers' ideas in contempt! <br /><br />That, I realized, is the (main) difference between people like Dawkins and Harris and people like Carl Sagan and Neil deGrasse Tyson: It is possible to respect religious believers and understand the source of their beliefs, without sharing those beliefs. But when you hold others in contempt, as they obviously do, it is easy to stop thinking critically about your own beliefs.<br /><br />I am, quite frankly, embarrassed to call myself an atheist given the public notoriety of a few atheists. It is also not a label that requires effort to attain (at least being a "good" Mormon meant continuous self-improvement!). Hence my preference for secular humanist and even secular Buddhist (we'll see how the latter experiment turns out...). :-)Erichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06167372868768877051noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19053670.post-92118996559146078562014-09-18T22:22:12.637-07:002014-09-18T22:22:12.637-07:00p.s. We atheists know that the response to bad ide...p.s. We atheists know that the response to bad ideas is reasoned criticism and evidence. Yet, sometimes people are so blatantly, painfully wrong that the appropriate response becomes hilarious mockery. And the community didn't disappoint!<br /><br />Here's Amanda Marcotte on <a href="http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/09/another-week-another-atheist-demands-we-call-his-sexism-not-sexism-this-time-sam-harris/" rel="nofollow">Sam Harris</a> and <a href="http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/09/penn-jillette-argues-in-bad-faith-to-support-his-own-sexism/" rel="nofollow">Penn Jilette</a> and Rebecca Watson on <a href="http://skepchick.org/2014/09/dear-innocent-people-murdered-in-witch-hunts/" rel="nofollow">Dawkins</a>.<br /><br />Also, less funny, but Adam Lee wrote a <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/18/richard-dawkins-sexist-atheists-bad-name" rel="nofollow">good summary of the situation</a> (and made some of the same points I did).C. L. Hansonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12698855413639518095noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19053670.post-33269493145665379122014-09-18T22:17:09.248-07:002014-09-18T22:17:09.248-07:00Hey Daniel!!!
So true!
Repeating here what I sai...Hey Daniel!!!<br /><br />So true!<br /><br />Repeating here what I said on Facebook, the point I've been making in my parallels with the feminist has been about helping improve a movement by being willing to criticize one's own leaders. My formative experiences in feminism were largely colored by a conflict that doesn't exist anymore. I think this current conflict is going to be a very interesting and fruitful one for today's batch of teenage atheists to be cutting their atheist teeth on. It's a lot easier to shine the light of critical thinking on other people than on oneself, and this is a fantastic object lesson to illustrate that just because you have critical thinking skills doesn't mean you're automatically applying them to your own ideas all the time. It will be an incredibly positive learning experience for our new generation.<br /><br />C. L. Hansonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12698855413639518095noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19053670.post-50994975314442645562014-09-18T17:08:46.018-07:002014-09-18T17:08:46.018-07:00Atheism is bigger than Dawkins, and it's alway...Atheism is bigger than Dawkins, and it's always been anarchic. Just as the LDS Church can no longer get away with its sexism, atheism's heroes won't be able to either. I think (or hope) that the anti-feminist Dawkbros are seeing the end of their time.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05877346950463934048noreply@blogger.com