Log In

Home
    - Create Journal
    - Update
    - Download

LiveJournal
    - News
    - Paid Accounts
    - Contributors

Customize
    - Customize Journal
    - Create Style
    - Edit Style

Find Users
    - Random!
    - By Region
    - By Interest
    - Search

Edit ...
    - Personal Info &
      Settings
    - Your Friends
    - Old Entries
    - Your Pictures
    - Your Password

Developer Area

Need Help?
    - Lost Password?
    - Freq. Asked
      Questions
    - Support Area



dreamer_marie ([info]dreamer_marie) wrote in [info]otf_wank,
@ 2007-06-24 00:10:00


Previous Entry  Add to memories!  Tell a Friend!  Next Entry
Atheists: Like Those Mean Girls in High School, in a Way
Over at the LJ community [info]dark_christian, [info]nebris reposts an article called  An increasingly outspoken community of atheists and agnostics is getting fed up with being marginalized, ignored and insulted. It's mainly about Dawkins's and Hitchens's success with their books about atheism and how it gave a lot of Americans the guts to own up to the fact that they're atheists (apparently atheism is next to communism in the good ol' USA).

It's a direct success when [info]roseross replies, in the first comment:
Militant atheists are the only group other than the Dominionists who scare me because they are so intolerant of others' spiritual beliefs. They insult people who believe differently than they do. They insist that ALL will some day believe as they do, because they're the only people who have it right. They often feel using the government to enforce their worldview is a good idea. In short, the only way to tell the difference between a militant atheist and a Dominionist is which creed they intend all of us to adhere to. For our own good, of course.
People call her on her bovine excrement, but she insists:
Can't count the number of times I've heard militant atheists long for religion to be made illegal. After all, from their point of view, spiritual beliefs are all childish delusions and it would be doing a favor to take the purple unicorns away from the silly people who have not reached the lofty state of atheism on their own. They seem to have no idea why any of that would be insulting to others, or perhaps they just don't care since the insulted folks are just braindead religious folks in the first place.
But why wank when you can have an orgy?
 [info]bobdole asks:
The only other group? So militant atheists scare you in this regard but militant Muslims, for example, do not?
The definitions of the words creed and faith need clarification. Religious scientists get their feelings hurt. People get flashbacks of being outraged. The Constitution is invoked. And much, much more for who is willing to rake through the tl;dr and the "quote-marks."
And will somebody think of the non-Abrahamicists?


(Read comments) - (Post a new comment)


[info]wrongly_amused
2007-06-24 05:57 am UTC (link)
It hurts my soul that Hitchens and Dawkins are turning into the poster boys for progressive atheism. Seriously. I could not think of two more ill-fitting, narcissistic, melodramatic douchebags to lead that movement.

(Reply to this)(Thread)


[info]dreamer_marie
2007-06-24 05:59 am UTC (link)
Aren't ill-fittint, narcissistic, melodramatic douchbags at the head of every movement?

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]joye
2007-06-24 06:41 am UTC (link)
Bingo!

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]queencallipygos
2007-06-25 06:40 pm UTC (link)
Wait. Brainstorm.

Maybe what we need to do is round up all the ill-fitting, narcissistic, melodramatic douchebags at the head of every movement and exile them all to a South Pacific Island, tell them all that they all have to fight it out -- and "fight" can be interpreted however they choose -- and the rest of the world will fall in with how the results shake down.

Except in reality, we'll isolate the island except through a closed-circuit television station, leave them there in perpetuity, and turn the whole thing into a reality show.

Or even better! Round all of them up and make them do an "American Idol" type of thing! Get everyone in the world to call in and vote on their favorite religious or philosophical affiliation. Sanjaya could even come back and represent the pop culture fanset!

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]sionja
2007-06-25 11:22 pm UTC (link)
Is there an island large enough?

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]aristaea
2007-06-26 12:20 am UTC (link)
Antarctica?

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]sionja
2007-06-26 12:21 am UTC (link)
But there are penguins there - cute, adorable penguins. D :

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]aristaea
2007-06-26 12:47 am UTC (link)
Probably the penguins have a highly developed philosophy, being stuck in the freezing desert. They would also be the only ones naturally able to catch food on the island. I'd watch that.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]mmanurere
2007-06-24 06:01 am UTC (link)
Maybe with Hitchens it's that once the Left kicked his douchebaggy ass off our side, he needed to find some other group to piss off for making them look bad.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]vigilanterodent
2007-06-24 06:15 am UTC (link)
I think Dawkins' appeal is that, well, he's one of the mean girls. The fact that any theist worth his/her/its salt can poke holes in many of his arguments is irrelevant; the appeal lies in the cattiness.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]soupspooks
2007-06-24 04:14 pm UTC (link)
Icon cousins.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


capybara
2007-06-24 07:15 am UTC (link)
It's the British accents.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]chikane
2007-06-24 07:16 am UTC (link)
They obviously get that role - they are easy to point at. "Look, these atheists are as bad as us, so it's fine to squash em!"

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]kadath
2007-06-24 02:45 pm UTC (link)
Dawkins is a lot of things, but narcissistic, melodramatic, and douchebaggy aren't among them.

Hitchens, on the other hand...

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]waltraute
2007-06-24 04:33 pm UTC (link)
I still love Hitchens for going after Mother Teresa. ♥

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]kadath
2007-06-24 06:11 pm UTC (link)
Hitchens is basically a hand grenade, in that getting too close to him when his pin is pulled is dangerous, but since he's recently been throwing himself at stuff I don't like, meh.

He's still a giant douche, though.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]innsmouth_eyes
2007-06-24 09:54 pm UTC (link)
I don't know why people keep saying that. I never found Dawkins at least to be narcissistic or douchebaggy. Blunt, outspoken, yes, and pretty uncompromising, but as has been mentioned you kind of have to be like that to be the head of a movement, and I also think that the very nature of what they say is what gets people angry at him, not his attitude. I've never seen or read Dawkins insulting or being obnoxious to anybody in a debate or in his work. I always thought he was pretty considerate given the controversial stuff he supports. Maybe it's just me. I love the guy.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]wrongly_amused
2007-06-24 10:34 pm UTC (link)
Alright, fair enough, Dawkins and Hitchens are in different classe.

Stephen Dawkins makes fair points about the treatment of atheism in regards to the social perception of morality, and I fully back the push for increased secularism in federal process. However, at times, I really do get the feeling that he falls into this logical fallacy that humanity is somehow better off with religion. The problem isn't religion, it's people. Erase the history of Catholicism, Islam, etc. and humanity will still be its awful mishmash of cruelties and kindness.


I've never seen or read Dawkins insulting or being obnoxious to anybody in a debate or in his work.

The first time I ever saw Dawkins live, he went onto the Colbert Report and made a statement at one point that roughly went as, "...and there are still people out there stupid enough to believe in God/gods/whatev." That is not a statement that generally endears you to somebody.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]influencethis
2007-06-24 11:03 pm UTC (link)
And he did this talking to Colbert? Way to choose your audience wrong. Colbert still teaches CCD classes and does the dances he makes up for them on national television.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]wrongly_amused
2007-06-24 11:37 pm UTC (link)
Ah, no, see my post below. My error.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]seiberwing
2007-06-26 05:08 pm UTC (link)
The dance was awesome.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]innsmouth_eyes
2007-06-24 11:10 pm UTC (link)
Did he actually say "stupid" or did he just say that it was rediculous or something? Because I don't think I've ever heard him use that word ever.

Hitchens is a major asshole, though, and I love him too. He's totally obnoxious, I'll admit, and drunk most of the time, but I can't really argue with his points. I don't think he's actually trying to be endearing to anybody though.

>>The problem isn't religion, it's people.

The problem is people, but I think that religion is very special in that it gives otherwise good people the permission to do very very bad things, and is very very hard to argue against because it's handed down from divine authority. Any kind of dogma is bad for you, but there have been relatively few non-religious dogmas and so it's religion that's getting the flack right now.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]wrongly_amused
2007-06-24 11:37 pm UTC (link)
Did he actually say "stupid" or did he just say that it was rediculous or something? Because I don't think I've ever heard him use that word ever.

Y'know what? I finally unearthed the clip, and I retract my statement. He did use the word stupid, but he was using it in reference to misconceptions regarding Darwinism and Creationism. That was my mistake and poor recollection on my part. He handled that interview very gracefully. There are still parts of his theses I don't entirely agree with, but I think my position on the matter's been colored a bit by the juxtaposition with Hitchens. Perhaps this is a case for some reviewing on my part.


Hitchens is a major asshole, though, and I love him too. He's totally obnoxious, I'll admit, and drunk most of the time, but I can't really argue with his points. I don't think he's actually trying to be endearing to anybody though.

Now him I'm not budging on. Hitchens occasionally has a good point, but way too often I'm turned off by his increasingly vitriolic behavior. Outside of that, he's misogynist BS generally doesn't endear him to me.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]innsmouth_eyes
2007-06-24 11:46 pm UTC (link)
Misogynist? Really? I'd be interested to know more about that. In his recent book he says a lot about what he calls religious fear of femininity and how women have been oppressed by most religious traditions, so I thought of him as more progressive that way.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]wrongly_amused
2007-06-24 11:55 pm UTC (link)
There are little things here or there that annoy me about him, but it was more or less this article that more or less incurred my feminist wrath.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

(no subject) - [info]innsmouth_eyes, 2007-06-25 12:05 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]wrongly_amused, 2007-06-25 12:21 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]greenling, 2007-06-25 02:24 am UTC

(Read comments) -

 
   
Privacy Policy - COPPA
Legal Disclaimer - Site Map