Richard Carrier, other Jesus denialists, meet the Obama #birthers

Richard Carrier is one of the chief water-bearers among Jesus denialists, whose general lack of credibility, and general lack of academics for most of them, I have critiqued here, easily enough on my own, without needing any "help" from the likes of Bart Ehrman (although his own critiques, in even more depth, are spot on).

Massimo Pigliucci, at Scientia Salon, has a new post, referencing an essay from a few years ago about the use of Bayesian probabilities in establishing the soundness of informal logical arguments.

Early in comments, a British Gnu Atheist nutter (nice British term) trotted out the greatness of Carrier's work. I responded with my link about him and other Jesus denialists. To which, I have responded back, with editing and expansion, per the below.

Coel, it matters not whether the 0.0008 is a low end, or a precise number in general. Per Aravis, that’s not how you do history — or any other of the humanities. Bayesian probabilities or anything else, you simply cannot be that precise with history. And, you know that.

Let’s put it this way. Carrier has a Ph.D. in ancient history. Whether I phrased as just 0.008 or per you:

“The probability that Jesus existed is somewhere between 1 in 12,500 [the 0.008%] and 1 in 3. In other words, less than 33% and most likely nearer to zero. We should conclude that Jesus probably did not exist”

But, instead, said that about, Anaximander, Pythagoras, or another of the pre-Socratics, or about Homer, he would laugh in my face, and so would you. I know Aravis or Massimo would.

But, because it’s about Jesus, Jesus denialism, and Gnu Atheism, such utter rot, to use a good old British term, is acceptable, eh?

Well, no, it’s not.

The rest of your opinion is just that — an opinion. And, it may become more “mainstream” among Gnu Atheists. That doesn’t make Carrier any more accurate than Dr. Andrew Wakefield.

The “argument from silence” is not done sensibly by Jesus deniers. Again, if I used the argument from silence on classical history the way Carrier does on Jesus, again, you and he would laugh at me. But, because it’s about Jesus, Jesus denialism, and Gnu Atheism, such utter rot, to use a good old British term, is acceptable, eh?

Well, no, it’s not.

As for the rest of your comments, again, you’re not a Biblical scholar, and neither is Carrier, and you continue to prove that with vague comments about “Paul’s letters” that I know are wrong just as easily as an Ehrman knows are wrong.

And, also per Aravis, my undergrad degree was in classical languages and history, so, yes, I know you don’t do history that way. (As I told Massimo in an email, the first writing I ever read on free will was in an independent study on Augustine, which included his tractate on free will.)

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To complete the snark, I await Ted Cruz or somebody even worse among US “birthers” using Bayesian probabilities the way Carrier does to “prove”:

 The probability that Barack Obama was born in the United States is somewhere between 1 in 12,500 [the 0.008%] and 1 in 3. In other words, less than 33% and most likely nearer to zero. We should conclude that Obama probably was not born in the United States, but was born in Kenya.

Yep, lies, damned lies and misuse of Bayesian probabilities.

To be honest, beyond him being an easy name of a nutbar to hang the birther label on, the Havana Ham is only a birther fellow traveler, on the Obama birth BS, and, his own birth in Canada has spawned its own birther industry.

But, yes, in my mind, it's a fair analogy to compare the likes of Richard Carrier to the likes of Ted Cruz. And, people like Carrier, and their loyal touters like the commenter Coel, are yet more proof that Gnu Atheism is a variety of fundamentalism. And, in both cases, it's like shooting fish in a barrel that refuse to admit they've been shot.

Or, per the one tag on this blog post, a good example of village idiot atheism.

Or, per another commenter at Massimo's site, perhaps we should invoke Hillary Clinton instead of Ted Cruz.

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Alex says:

Also, in what sense is Carrier not a Biblical scholar? He is said to have got a PhD in ancient history and writes about little else but Biblical scholarship and possible misinterpretations of old Aramaic words. Does it only count as Biblical scholarship if one is a believer?

First, while he may comment on misunderstanding of old Aramaic words, I see no information that he has any knowledge of Aramaic or Hebrew on his quite extensive CV, which speaks only about the Greco-Roman world in general. I would think that, if he actually knew Aramaic, as long as his CV is, he’d explicitly mention it.

Beyond that, I even did a Google search: “Does Richard Carrier know Aramaic?” And I can’t get any hits that will confirm that he does.

Assuming he does not, the fact that he would still think to comment on misunderstandings of old Aramaic words “goes to character,” your honor. And, that’s putting it politely.

But, places where he calls a Targum an “Aramaic translation of the Old Testament” show he’s no biblical scholar. 

Fuller quote, from his original blog site: “A Targum is an Aramaic translation (or paraphrase or interpretation) of the OT. So really, this is akin to a textual variant for this passage.” 

Targums, as actual scholars know, were far more than that. They were commentaries, exegesises and more.

And, click that first link. It’s clear that not only does he not know Aramaic, but that he just doesn’t know the bible that well, especially the Tanakh or Christian Old Testament, especially when he’s engaged in quote-mining and gets caught.

Carrier, as far as I can tell, also does not know Hebrew. He claims to know five languages — as best as I can tell, these are English, French, German, Latin and classical Greek. Because he doesn't know Hebrew, and probably doesn't know details of the biblical koine Greek translations of the various books of the Tanakh, this leaves him unable to comment on text-critical issues of quotes of or references to, the Tanakh or Old Testament in the New Testament.

Beyond that, Alex, this?

He … writes about little else but Biblical scholarship and possible misinterpretations of old Aramaic words.

I’m not even sure what logical fallacy that should be named, but it’s definitely a fallacy.

There are people who write about nothing other than how the Earl of Oxford wrote Shakespeare. Do you call these people “Shakespearean scholars”?

And, no, I never said one had to be a believer to be a Bible scholar. One of the best today, Bart Ehrman, is an agnostic.

To extend another analogy to US politics, Gnu Atheists defending the scholarship of Richard Carrier is like Democratic muckety-mucks defending the transparency of Hillary Clinton.

The Golden Rule vs. the Silver Rule and the War on Christmas

1. The small-town America background

I currently live in a small town in a small county in Central Texas. Indians run three of the motels here. I know at least one of them is not Christian, because the man has said so. I'll assume he's Hindu.

There's a Vietnamese family here. They could be Catholic, given that, especially in the earlier post-French governments of South Vietnam, Catholics predominated. There's still good odds they're Buddhist.

In the county, of 18,000, there's at least one Pakistani business owner. Presumably Muslim. And, even with a rural Texas discount from the national average, to just 0.1 percent, that would put 18 Jews in the count.

Hence, even in a smaller town in modern America, not everybody is a Christian. Per the Indians, Pakistanis and Vietnamese, and contra the likes of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, not everybody is a "cultural Christian," either.

And so, we should, at this time of year, think about the Golden Rule vs. the Silver Rule.

And, with that, the following several paragraphs are adapted from my most recent newspaper column.

2. How the Silver Rule shows itself to be better, often

One of the axiomatic moral guides of Christianity is, by many people, found in the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” It’s not just Christian, as Jesus cites it as a summary of the Old Testament Law, or Torah.

That said, in Judaism and elsewhere, there’s also the flip side, often called the Silver Rule. This maxim, to be found in other religion and philosophy as well, says, “Do not do unto others what you don’t want them doing to you.” It too is ancient. For example, in the Judeo-Christian tradition, the book of Tobit, part of the Catholic and Orthodox Bibles, and the Protestant Apocrypha, says, “Do to no one what you yourself dislike.”

It’s arguably a little bit more live and let live, a bit more libertarian if you will, than the Golden Rule version.

Let me give you an example. I might love chocolate cream pie. So, if I follow the Golden Rule, I might think, I’ll bring you my neighbor a chocolate cream pie. How loving, right?

But, if you’re diabetic, that’s about the worst thing I could do for you. Instead, I should be thinking, what can I do to be nice to someone else that he or she likes, not what I like and think he or she should like.

In other words, it’s an invitation to step into another person’s shoes, or moccasins, or slippers, and walk a few yards, if not a full mile.

I think of it in light of alleged “War on Christmas” talk that ratchets up this time of year.
From where I stand, many people say “Happy holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” for one, or more, of several reasons that have no spiritual warfare involved.

Speaking of Judaism, maybe they’re Jewish. Or Muslim. Or non-religious. Or, they don’t know what your beliefs are. Or, if it’s in the business world, they certainly don’t know the religious beliefs of John or Jane Customer. Or maybe it’s Christians who believe Christmas has become so commercialized they don’t want to utter the “Merry Christmas” phrase any more.

And, having given you a prologue to that column, which was small-town focused, I move beyond it to the big picture again.

4. How this should play out today, the Christian side

Besides Faux News and Rush Limbaugh throwing red meat to fundamentalist Christians, there's really no need for fundamentalists, or conservative evangelical types, to buy into this.

If anybody's conducting a War on Christmas, it's the likes of Walmart, with ever-increasing commercialization, including Christian Christmas items made in China, to boot.

Most people who say "Happy Holidays" aren't trying to overthrow your celebration of your holiday. But, because Christmas has become secularized, far more than Easter (setting aside the pagan origins of most ways in which Christmas is actually celebrated), those people are just trying to carve out a bit of space to observe Christmas their way.

In any case, the idea of pastoral tranquility, the end of shortening days, the sharing of joyousness with family, even "spirituality," if you will, is a message not just limited to Christians at this time of year.

So, per the Silver Rule, honor the intent. Even Joel Osteen says the "War on Christmas" claims are overblown.

4. How this plays out today, the secularist side, part 1

As for displays on public property?

Certain Gnu Atheists who want to fight fire with fire there, if a Christmas seen is too religious and hasn't been denatured into Supreme Court type civic religion enough with the addition of something from Hanukkah, could and should "fire away." And, in Oklahoma City, they're being joined by Satanists and Hindus. That's why I don't always offer up blanket condemnation of Gnus. Sometimes they are, to riff on a phrase, doing the secularists work in the secular vineyards.

And, Nino Scalia aside, "civic religion" still has the word "religion" in it, and in the 21st-century United States, government at any level ought not to be promoting it.

So, here, I split with some secular humanists who always want to condemn Gnu Atheists. Tis always the season for insisting that the state not foster religion by overtly religious displays.

And, to be honest, not everybody involved with this might, technically, even be called a Gnu Atheist. Some might be more activist than I am, but yet not be deliberately courting antagonism.

And, until Christians, municipal governments, and even some secular humanists separate out issues of Christmas on public (government) property vs. private property, no, this one isn't going to go away. And, it's not the secularists' fault. I now deliberately switch from "Gnu Atheist" to "secularist," per the section subheader, to stress that.

And thus, I can't agree with those who want to condemn secularists who insist on proper interpretation of the First Amendment in the public square. That includes standing up to some Christians who want to fight back.

As I posted on Facebook, look at Oklahoma City. There, it's not just secularists, but Satanists and Hindus who are also insisting on proper interpretation of the First Amendment in the public square.

For Christians who insists this is part of a War on Christmas, St. Augustine, already, distinguished between two cities. For secularists of a stripe who say the same, no, it's a defense of civil liberties.

3. How this plays out today, the secularist side, part 2

That said, there are some so-called Gnu Atheists, about whom I've blogged before, who do engage in a war on Christmas.

Tom Flynn of the Center for Inquiry, as I said in my blog post from a year ago about French astronomer Pierre Laplace being "the reason for the season," thinks Christmas should not even be a secular holiday. And, in shades of the French Revolution's Reign of Terror, and more than just shades of outright cluelessness, he wants to rename the days of the week now named after pagan gods.

Other Gnu Atheists have put up deliberately in-your-face billboards, as much to put up in-your-face billboards, if anything else.

They seem to reflect and exemplify Albert Camus' idea in "The Rebel" that many an actual, or alleged, atheist, needs at least the idea of god to rebel against. On psychology of religion and philosophy of language grounds, one wonders whether this tar baby could not itself be called the god of such Gnu Atheists, and even more the ones who put signs on Christmas celebrators' lawns telling them to stop it.

They also seem to be clueless about Principle No. 1 of Marketing 101: You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. (Actually, per what I just said, Gnus' claims aside, I suspect that the billboards actually have about zero to do with atheist evangelism.)

So, when it comes to public displays on public property, with First Amendment issues involved, I'm all for Gnus pushing the envelope a bit on civil liberties.

Even there, though, and certainly in all other cases, it's the season to ... don't be a dick.

Or, if you "have to" be a dick, find a more trivial cause for your dickery, at least.

Note: This is not a claim to be perfect at this myself.

Note 2: I'm not Chris Stedman, and don't have a massive "brand" to promulgate this, but you heard it from me first.

#GnuAtheism + #BlockBot = gnu levels of censorship from #FTB & #FTBullies

Now, as a good journalist, I'm using the word "censorship" in its nontechnical level. Gnu Atheists aren't governments, and can block online whomever they want. That's their right.

That said, when they spread the idea to widely used social media, and try to get them to follow their lead, as does the Block Bot app for Twitter, then we have a problem. And, it's even more of a problem if Twitter doesn't investigate how legitimate these blocks are, because the app also, as I understand it, reports the blocked person to Twitter, with possible warnings, or even Twitter account deletion.

That's why, although Twitter harassment of outspoken women is simply not acceptable, the idea of a Block Bot isn't, either. Now, to riff on Georg Cantor and levels of infinity, sexual harassment is Aleph One, while the Block Bot is only Aleph Null. But, it's still bad enough. Certainly not what we now have. I've seen other people intolerant of free speech and the exchange of ideas get one email account of mine shit-canned, and another threatened. More specific to this, Gnu Atheist Greg Laden, a male peon of Stephanie Zvan, the nth-wave feminist who has falsely claimed I'm stalking her online, threatened to "ban me from the Internet."

To fight intolerance with intolerance doesn't work. And, given the history of the people mentioned above, P.Z. Myers and others, I wouldn't trust Gnu Atheists anywhere near the tolerance meter.

And, speaking of P.Z. and Stephanie, with BlockBot, yeah, that worries me, per this blog post of hers. Can you picture people like that trying to get Twitter accounts deleted?

Or, Greta Christina, with her penchant for seeing every issue as a hammer on which to wield her particular variety of Atheism Plus "everything is sexism" vitriol, does a head fake (shock me) of pretending to answer Engelhart's Salon piece linked at top, then engaging in a massive fail.

And, I now find out — as a result of pointing out things like this — that I'm a bigger, and more popular/unpopular burr to Gnu Atheists than I knew. My Twitter account is on Level 3 block from James Billingham (Twitter handle ool0n), the British Gnu who helped invent the app.

How did I, and others, like Barbara Drescher and Jeremy Stangroom, who I know, respectively, a fair bit and a little bit, online, get there? Here's how:

 The short answer is anyone that a blocker defines as block list worthy. The general rule is if you are the type that would find yourself banned on a blog on Freethoughtblogs.com, Skepchick.org or from the A+ forum then you will likely end up in the list…

There you go.

As for me specifically? Disagreeing with Zvan over Julian Assange's rape case in Sweden, namely the reopening of a closed case and whether Sweden had international geopolitical reasons to do so, started it all. (And Sweden did have such reasons, as I detail in this blog post.. It "cooperated" with the CIA on several "renditions" of alleged Mooslim terrorists.) The disagreement led eventually to comments like the following, documented on this blog post of mine about nth-wave feminists and Freethought Blogs denizens attacking the Center for Inquiry's Ron Lindsay:

Well, Steve Snyder/SocraticGadfly, since no one else can be assed to step up and say this, no matter how much me being harassed "pisses them off", no matter how much they'll stand up for JT, fuck off, you putrid, obsessive, pointless, sexist smear of slime. It is not anything but vilely anti-social to spend two and half years after a woman tells you that rape allegations need to be taken seriously popping up any time she and the man on whose blog you were schooled are mentioned together to say that this woman is controlling this man's behavior by having sex with him.

There's even worse on her own blog, like this.

Add in that I've been accused of cyberstalking her and other things, and you get the gist of what the "game" is. For the record, I'd be scared of actually cyberstalking her, and doubly scared of stalking her in real life. I'm afraid she'd attack me.

And, the "banned from blog"? That goes to further show that most Gnus aren't interested in actual dialogue, or, in even respectful terms, having their positions challenged.

Meanwhile, Tim Farley tells us more about just what's wrong with it. I've got some selected quotes, to which I will add my own analysis.

Problem 1:

The first sentence (of the above quote from Block Bot's website) is circular and the rest of it defers to guidelines which it does not link. It’s not clear there’s any enforceable standard here at all.  It’s clear as mud.

The core problem here is this tool was developed for specific needs of a very specific community (namely, those who identify with “Atheism+”). Therefore the operators of the bot assume knowledge or attitudes on behalf of the user base that may not be held by the average Twitter user.

Bingo.

So, what if fundamentalist Christians re-engineer Block Bot for their purposes? Will Billingham, Myers, Zvan, Greta Christina, Rebecca Watson and others suddenly cry wolf? Or, a more accurate metaphor, cry wolf while crying crocodile tears?

Obviously, they wouldn't have a leg to stand on, but they would bitch and moan, to be sure.

Problem 2, Farley says, is lack of transparency as to who's authorized to create/add to block lists, at what level, etc.

Not that anybody who's involved with creating the lists is likely to listen to me, Travis Roy, Drescher, Stangroom or others who are on Level 3 blocking. In fact, our queries, let alone complaints would probably be taken as signs of troublemaking and justification to boot us up to Level 2.

But, per Farley, we wouldn't even know to whom to complain or whom to query in the first place. And, there might eventually be a scrum between one person wanting to unblock us, another who wanted to keep us at Level 3, a third who wanted to move us up a level, etc.

Problem 3, he says, is that there's no audit of actions to block, paper trails, etc. This follows on problem 2. If somebody promises to unblock someone, how does the person asking for relief know that they actually were unblocked? Or, when someone is blocked, how much documentation is saved for what led to that decision.

Problem 4 is what the levels are about. Farley again quotes from the website:

Level 1 is sparsely populated with “worst of the worst” trolls, plus impersonators and stalkers. Level 2 (which we recommend for general use) includes those in Level 1, plus a wider selection of deeply unpleasant people. Level 3 goes beyond The Block Bot’s main purpose, and expands the list to include those who aren’t straight out haters, but can be tedious and obnoxious.

Fortunately, I'm just Level 3, but from the user's guide, it's made clear that people can be bumped up. In other words, it's kind of like me, playing fantasy baseball, and flagging a fantasy free agent for possible future pick-up, even if I don't want to immediately pull the trigger. However, in this case, I have no control over the trigger-pulling. A better analogy might be a person being put on the most basic level of a National Security Agency or Transportation Security Administration watch list. The idea there is: "We're watching you, and we're waiting to see if you screw up.

Farley has the details of the lists, from the website:

→ Level 1 blocking: this blocks only the worst of the worst. These are the really nasty ones.

Both “sides” across the Deep Rifts™ will hopefully agree these need to be blocked.
Accounts that spam extremely abusive messages to people with the intent only of hurting them with not a hint of “disagreement”.

D0x’ers who want to drop information on fellow atheists in order to scare them off the internet or have real life effects on their well-being.

Stalkers that create sock-accounts to inject themselves into your time line to get a response from you or imposters pretending to be you.

→ Level 2 blocking: these are the abusive subset of anti-feminists, MRAs, or all-round assholes who think nothing of tweeting their much loved photoshopped pictures, memes and other wonderful media directly into your timeline to get attention (Listen to Meee!!1!).

This level also includes the “parody” accounts, if you have better things to do with your life than “disagree” on Twitter with a parody of yourself that seems to have suffered a frontal lobotomy.

Level 2 blocking includes all members of level 1.

→ Level 3 blocking: these are the merely annoying and irritating Twitterers who trot out the A+ arguments to avoid at a moment’s notice, and show no signs of giving them up until you pry them from their cold, dead hands.

Given that is not a practical option, how about blocking them and avoiding tedious exchanges?

This is the 100% frozen peach option… These from time to time leap to level 1/2 so why take the risk?

Level 3 blocking includes all members of levels 1 and 2.

Again, you see how Level 3 is explained.

First, under Level 1, about what the "Deep Rifts" are. That's Gnus, Atheist Plusers and other fundamentalist atheists vs. people like me, who prefer the phrase "secular humanist" because of people like them.

That said, I agree that truly abusive people, the stalkers, publishers of personal information, etc., should not only be blocked but reported to Twitter. But, you don't need a bot for that, and you don't need to create levels 2 and 3.

As for Level 2? Wanting to block parody Twitter accounts reinforces what I've said about Gnu Atheists: They have no sense of humor.

As for Level 3? Wanting to block Twitter accounts that point out where your thinking is wrong shows that you truly don't appreciate or support free thought, and the free exchange of ideas, even if you blog at a place called Freethought Blogs.

Anyway, the "frozen peach" will actually mean, "dueling blocking." Or now, in the case of PZ's latest possible nuttery, dueling reporting of blogs to their ISPs for alleged terms of service violations.

Then, there's the related Problem 6, where Farley notes that the definition of troll, semi-troll, troublesome, etc., is ginned up by Gnu Atheists, specifically the subset known as Atheism Plusers.

Folks, for people who aren't actually abusive, if you want to be closed-minded, there's a simple option: Don't read. Don't click the link for the URL. Don't "follow" the Twitter account.

And, for other people who, like me, are on the more reasonable, and lower-key, side of  Deep Rifts™? Don't stoop to their level. Don't be like a Paula Kirby. There's no need to engage in name-calling.

And, as they come into my mind, I'll have additional thoughts below the fold.

And, I wound up grouping some of those thoughts into a new blog post, as new allegations of sexual harassment or abuse crossed the transom.

And, what if more atheists are men?

Salon recently wondered why there aren't more women atheists. To which Gnu Atheist (but not a full-blown nth-wave feminist) Ophelia Benson said: Not true, at least not in terms of atheist "names" and leaders.

However, I'll not only take Salon's plaint at face value for the sake of discussion, I'll actually somewhat support it, at least in terms of rank-and-file atheists in the US and stipulate male-heavy atheism. That said, so does ARIS, which is the gold standard of religious-rated research. It finds a 60-40 split toward males. Some other polling and research puts the split higher, as high as 70-30.

This actually should NOT be surprising, nor should it be surprising that the gap is likely not closing, especially given the modern Amercan Gnu Atheist.

It seems clear to me that this person is, to generalize a bit, exhibiting in many cases a typical Type A male behavior, perhaps even such behavior on steroids.

Look at the late Christopher Hitchens, who explicitly adopted the label anti-theist, indicating not just that he disbelieved in god, but wanted to oppose god should a fundamentalist version of the stereotypical Western type of deity exist.

Albert Camus nailed this type of atheist more than 60 years ago in The Rebel. Camus, reflecting in part on his own initial move to atheism, called the rebel not an atheist but a blasphemer.

And, from silly Internet cartoons on up, or on down, isn't that what we see?

The younger Gnu Atheist as James Dean, Blasphemer without a Cause, just past the cusp of juvenility but with mental veins still coursing with adolescence and testosterone?

No, it's not because women have traditionally needed the structure of religious charity when abandoned by husbands, I don't think. Besides, that doesn't explain why atheists, at least in the US, still skew male today.

No, it's the ultimate rebellion against the ultimate father figure. And, the old, old village idiot atheism was simply a more louche version of Camus' Promethean would-be absurdist rebel.

True, nth-wave feminists in the Atheism Plus kiddie pool seem to be growing, but, that's in part a slice of larger sociological trends, IMO, of more American younger women wanting to be like men.

Why?

Beyond, or setting aside, the sexually joking "Vive la difference," and also setting aside the just-so stories of much of evolutionary psychology, at times, it's right to say, there are some differences, and in some cases, women shouldn't want to be like men.

That higher rebelliousness leads to higher suicide rates, higher death from accidents, and other problems.

Beyond that, the male of H. sapiens, without me setting women on a pedestal, can be a boor at times.

There are times I don't want to be a man.

So, without saying that greater numbers of women could "domesticate" modern American atheism, I am saying they could ameliorate it by not trying to be like stereotypical male Gnu Atheists.

To the degree Sam Harris is right in rejecting the word "atheist" as an other-definition rather than a self-definition, there's no need to rebel in general.

So, as long as American atheism, especially Gnu Atheism, defines itself in a Hitchensesque antitheist way (and remember what a bad boy poseur he liked to be in general), it's going to be more male, nth-wave feminists aside.

Many non-Atheism Plus women may also decry patriarchy in society, but you don't see them fleeing to atheism. Maybe women are more collectivist and less individualist, on average, than men. So, if they're not ready to leave a religious-like structure, they become Unitarians. Or they find something New Agey. Or, not wanting to be rebels, or deliberate individualists, at least, they don't become open atheists.

To the degree there are, on average, legitimate psychological differences between the sexes, things like this may drive the split.

Meanwhile, Greta Christina, with her penchant for seeing every issue as a hammer on which to wield her particular variety of Atheism Plus vitriol, does a head fake (shock me) of pretending to answer Engelhart's Salon piece linked at top, then engaging in a massive fail.

And, for the likes of her or Stephanie Zvan, I'm not even going to plead any equality bona fides. Because, of course, they're unacceptable.

That's why, although Twitter harassment of outspoken women is simply not acceptable, the idea of a Block Bot isn't, either. I've seen other people intolerant of free speech and the exchange of ideas get one email account of mine shit-canned, another threatened, and Zvan's peon, Greg Laden, threaten to "ban me from the Internet."

To fight intolerance with intolerance doesn't work. And, given the history of the people mentioned above, P.Z. Myers and others, I wouldn't trust Gnu Atheists anywhere near the tolerance meter.

And, speaking of P.Z. and Stephanie, with BlockBot, yeah, that worries me, per this blog post of hers. Can you picture people like that trying to get Twitter accounts deleted?

And, I now find out that I'm a bigger, and more popular/unpopular burr to Gnu Atheists than I knew. My Twitter account is on Level 3 block from Twitterer ool0n, the British Gnu who helped invent the app.

How did I, and others, like Barbara Drescher and Jeremy Stangroon, who I know, respectively, a fair bit and a little bit, online, get there? Here's how:

 The short answer is anyone that a blocker defines as block list worthy. The general rule is if you are the type that would find yourself banned on a blog on Freethoughtblogs.com, Skepchick.org or from the A+ forum then you will likely end up in the list…

There you go.

And, the "banned from blog"? That goes to further show that most Gnus aren't interested in actual dialogue, or, in even respectful terms, having their positions challenged.

Meanwhile, Tim Farley tells us more about just what's wrong with it.And, I'll have a post upcoming which focuses specifically on this.

And, that post is now done, right here.

#PZMyers channels his #GnuAtheist #FTB Watergate concern trolling

Ron Lindsay, CFI CEO

For those of you who don't keep up with the ins and outs of modern atheism, and its subgroup of Gnu Atheism, the flip side of at least conservative evangelical Christianity if not of hardcore fundamentalism, you can just skip this post.

That said, a recent brouhaha over a leading secular humanist organization, which has been slouching more toward Gnu Atheist Gomorrah, or Bethlehem, under its current executive director, Ron Lindsay, has now spilled out into the world of modern skepticism and leading light and fair-haired boy Chris Mooney. (Mooney's quite overrated in my book, including at least skirting the edges of scientism, but that's a matter for another blog post; in fact, it's the matter for more than one other blog post, and I've written them!)

Anyway, Mooney cohosts the popular Point of Inquiry skeptical podcast. Or, he did, until just a couple of days ago.

But, because of what Lindsay said at a recent Women in Skepticism conference, he and PoI cohost Indre Viskontas have resigned their positions with Center for Inquiry. Popular science and Gnu Atheist blogger P.Z. Myers channels his inner Woodstein, or Gerald Ford, by noting "CFI's Nightmare."

So, how did we get to this point?

First, here's a link to what Lindsay said. In summary, he criticized some nth-wave feminists, including Rebecca Watson by name, in part for abusing the word "privilege."

Shorter take by me? Nth-wave feminism exists. Watson, Stephanie Zvan ("wife" of Greg Laden) and others DO abuse the idea of "privilege." Maybe Lindsay could have put it more politely, and fired a gun smaller than a 12-gauge with both barrels. But he did what he did.

And, Watson (among others who are nth-wave feminists, and members of the Young Jacobins within Gnu Atheism, calling themselves Atheism+) responded. Largely wrongly.

Like this:

To summarize, Lindsay spends a good deal of time arguing against the idea that feminism as a movement has no significant internal disagreements, an absurd idea I have never actually heard expressed by any feminists, but I suppose Lindsay and I travel in different circles. Lindsay doesn’t mention who exactly has argued this point so I can’t check to see why on Earth they’d think something so obviously contradictory to reality. It seems impossible to me that a person could be involved in modern day feminism in any way without noticing the lively and occasionally contentious debates among feminists about topics like intersectionality, particularly with regards to the fringe radical feminists who hold openly transphobic beliefs.

Actually, from what I've read from various schools of feminism, and individuals within them, this actually is an issue. Unless one school things that by not discussing the differences, they can self-privilege? This ignores the convoluted writing, where RW does not make it clear at first whether she thinks Lindsay is denying significant internal disagreements in feminism, or denying the deniers of that. OK, she thinks he's denying that, she finally makes clear.

And, here's how she's wrong. Lindsay says:

But are there truly no significant divisions currently within the feminist movement? It would be surprising if that were the case b/c the feminist movement has had sharp divisions in the past. ...

Also if there were no divisions among feminists, that would arguably make feminism unique among social movements; the secularist movement has significant divisions.

Yeesh. Watson can't be much wronger than that.

I gave Watson a partial kudo, in another recent blog post, for pointing out some Pop Ev Psych errors by Ed Clint, though even there, her thinking was discombobulated.

Here?

She's a moron, and nothing more, on this part of Lindsay's talk.

As for him, the "White CEO," giving the introductory welcome/speech? What if he had sent CFI's top female employee instead? Would Watson have then accused him of tokenism?

That said, Lindsay then labeled her response to him thus:

“It may be the most intellectually dishonest piece of writing since the last communique issued by North Korea.”

Lindsay, who led a palace coup inside CFI against founder Paul Kurtz, still hasn't cracked the spine on "How to Win Friends and Influence People," should have kept his mouth, if not shut, at least more tightly monitored. And, per the Watergate part of the theme, apparently needs a lawyer's lawyer, or something.

Watson's piece had its degrees of dishonesty. I've just shown you one huge one. Was it 110 percent dishonest, though? No, probably not.

Did it deserve that much attention? No, certainly not.

And, trust me, as well as Ron, unless you toe the party line, nth-wave feminists have plenty of vitriol. From a vaguely related blog post at Patheos, a comment from Greg Laden's wife, Stephanie Zvan:

Well, Steve Snyder/SocraticGadfly, since no one else can be assed to step up and say this, no matter how much me being harassed "pisses them off", no matter how much they'll stand up for JT, fuck off, you putrid, obsessive, pointless, sexist smear of slime. It is not anything but vilely anti-social to spend two and half years after a woman tells you that rape allegations need to be taken seriously popping up any time she and the man on whose blog you were schooled are mentioned together to say that this woman is controlling this man's behavior by having sex with him.  

Bit of background on that.

We first really tangled over Julian Assange and the Swedish rape allegations. The take of not only me, but others, was ... nuanced. I can't remember exactly what I said, but I said the charges were a matter of serious concern. At the same time, I said it was legitimate to ask about Swedish political motivations for ... for reopening what had been a legally closed case, in essence. Given that we already knew then that Sweden had been a willing participant in more than one of the CIA's "renditions," and given the scenario of Edward Snowden now, I, and many others, said that Assange's request of the Swedish government that it offer an in-advance guarantee it wouldn't extradite him to the US was reasonable, at least.

Zvan's take on any "nuance" like that? It's siding with a rapist. Not even an alleged rapist, but a rapist. At least that's how I remember it at the time.

And, this is why, even for the "fun" of shooting fish in a barrel who refuse to admit they're dead, this is why I rarely do that in the Gnu Atheist drained pool, the Atheism Plusers' kiddie pool, or anything else.

I did respond to her once on thread there, and somebody, I assume her, has fired back. I didn't open the notification email.

And, if she wants to up the ante, as she now has, that's fine. (A friend sent me the link, and no, I haven't read the whole thing, and am not likely to.)

And, to fire back? Wikileaks had an FBI mole inside its ranks. Putting aside the issue of how Assange didn't suspect him, it underscores how right he has been to be suspicious in general. Thordarson  at one point, before the FBI got to him, contacted LulzSec, unaware that the FBI had already turned its head. But, that's NOT when the FBI turned him. Bottom line is, he appears as unstable as Assange himself.

Beyond all the other "issues" of Gnu Atheism, and even more of Atheism Plusers ....

As for Mooney, et al, leaving Point of Inquiry? Puhleeze, no hand-wringing. More on that below the fold.

Atheism no guarantee of rationality or critical thinking

At the often-lively blog of evolutionary biologist and atheist P.Z. Myers, aka Pharyngula, his thread on the murder earlier today of late-term abortion provider Dr. George Tiller offers yet more proof of that fact.

I’ve seen false dilemmas, unexcluded middles, ad hominem arguments, simply unsupported arguments, non sequiturs and more there in just an hour’s time.

I’ve blogged before about “village idiot atheism,” the type of atheism that lives only to poke a finger in the eye of theists whenever it can, and this is a prime example.

Strange Gods and Holbach are two of the most offending posters there

Strange Gods that any opposition to atheism must be supernatural is guaranteed not to win support. He then makes that as a specific allegation against Nat Hentoff, an openly proclaimed atheist.

Holbach (like his namesake French baron), has such a virulent, even vicious, anti-religion stance it hugely warps his thinking. (Holbach refused to accept religiously-themed classical music as worth listening to.)

In this thread, he claims that any opposition to abortion (no caveats) must either be emotion or religion. There’s both your unexcluded middle and your false dilemma. He then defines religion itself as ultimately being a form of religion, showing he’s never read Wittgenstein. (He, Strange Gods, and one or two others like to be Humpty-Dumpty with language.)

I’m surprised a few of the commenters there haven’t said it’s no surprise Tiller was shot, if he insisted on still being a Christian himself.

In short, as I’ve blogged before, there’s atheism, and there’s village idiot atheism. And, in a certain small subgroup of posters at Pharyngula, you have people approaching the definition of cultists.

Dr. George Tiller killed – Hate crime? Terrorism?

And, presumably by an anti-abortion fanatic. Tiller, the Wichita, Kan., doctor known for being the only one in the state to provide late-term abortions was killed at his church Sunday; a suspect has been arrested.

Especially if that suspect was a member of a group like Operation Rescue, or worse, but to some degree even if he is a lone operator, the two rhetorical question words in this post’s header do have at least some degree of truth.

If he IS affiliated with a group like Operation Rescue, the state of Kansas had BETTER use RICO powers in the trial.

Meanwhile, at the often-lively blog of evolutionary biologist and atheist P.Z. Myers, the thread on this subject offers yet more proof that atheism, sadly, is no guarantee of either logical or critical reasoning skills.

And, the nutbarrery of claiming that any opposition to atheism must be supernatural is guaranteed not to win support.