Summations Only

These people who seem to be trying to get together some kind of organized atheism are just learning what I could have told them at the start. You can have skeptics organizations, and humanist organisations, and religious organizations, and all kinds of organizations based around peoples beliefs, but you can't organize a bunch of people who don't necessarily have any beliefs in common.As for the atheist+ "movement", it may as well open up to theists who share the same politics.

Yeah, I remember that. Someone with a sense of humour gave me the book as a Christmas present a few years ago.And you can't herd cats. The overwhelming majority of atheists will not be interested in joining organised groups. If we were the type of people who have an emotional need for a religion, we'd probably already be in one.Maybe I should start a completely disorganised movement called IA. Irreligious Atheists. The only thing you have to do to join is fit the description. The rules are that you never go to IA meetings (easy to obey), never wear IA T-shirts, never attempt to contact and meet other IAs, and never attempt to herd cats.

Futile, as we have no network to infiltrate, and we're all anonymous. The movement's doing well, which is why you've never heard of it, apart from my indiscreet post above. It couldn't be better disorganized.If anyone is interested in the subthread topic, I've just been looking at the Atheism+Forum. I read one thread which had about 12 participants and 100 posts. 3 of the 12 got banned for not towing the party line, which took much of the interest out of the discussion.The forum rules are interesting. Learn how to recognise your Privileges, O White Man, and never, never, never call a female of our species a female (feminist, apparently, is fine).

Link to discussion on Rebecca Watson article.It's actually very relevant to the history that triggered this little war.They already have a banned list of 64 people from their first two months of operation. But to say fair, there's a reason for this. Their enemies are turning up and many are being deliberately provocative (one of the bannings on the thread I read was for posting a tasteless sexist "joke" about violence to women, for example - although prior to that, the poster had been reasonable, and had received repeated warnings which did fit my "not towing the party line" description), so a siege mentality has developed. Unfortunately, that could lead to stifling any more reasonable criticism.All in all, a lot of the behaviour on both sides doesn't look good for "organized atheism" and the type of atheists who get involved in it.None of which has much to do with the overwhelming majority of the world's atheists, nor will it affect the inevitable growth of atheism, which is a phenomenon beyond our control.

I've just checked that out. The glossary is fascinating. Sheesh indeed!From Atheism+ Glossary. First item (there are lots!).

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-isms - refers to many, often all systemic and institutionalized powers that enable the oppression of marginalized people. (racism, sexism, ableism, etc.) The purpose of these forums being the discussion of social justice issues within the context of atheism, we use the social justice definitions of words like "racism", "sexism", and other -isms. You may have seen the terms "Institutional Racism", Systemic Racism, Institutional/Systemic Sexism, etc. The short version is -isms = prejudice + power. In social justice terms, marginalized groups cannot be guilty of -isms in regards to the axes of privilege that they fall low on, because they don't have the power to institutionalize their prejudices. We make this distinction for the sake of clarity and so that otherwise productive discussions do not degenerate into quibbling over definitions. (The A+ Primer)

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Plenty to debate on that one alone. Unfortunately, the glossary does not give us the "social justice definition" of "institutionalize".

Here's the Richard Dawkins post.

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Dear Muslima

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Stop whining, will you. Yes, yes, I know you had your genitals mutilated with a razor blade, and . . . yawn . . . don’t tell me yet again, I know you aren’t allowed to drive a car, and you can’t leave the house without a male relative, and your husband is allowed to beat you, and you’ll be stoned to death if you commit adultery. But stop whining, will you. Think of the suffering your poor American sisters have to put up with.

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Only this week I heard of one, she calls herself Skepchick, and do you know what happened to her? A man in a hotel elevator invited her back to his room for coffee. I am not exaggerating. He really did. He invited her back to his room for coffee. Of course she said no, and of course he didn’t lay a finger on her, but even so . . .

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And you, Muslima, think you have misogyny to complain about! For goodness sake grow up, or at least grow a thicker skin.

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Richard

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Are you suggesting that there is only one school of feminism, and that your first sentence sums it up? What you say in that sentence would be included in all schools. I think Rox was referring to people from a specific school of feminism calling others, who would be feminists by your description above, names like misogynist. As you know well, often more than one. Misogynist has become very interesting. Traditionally, it was applied to a small minority of men who seem to have an almost pathological dislike or hatred of women. It isn't cultural in this sense, so in a culture like Saudi Arabia, there will be individual misogynists in the context.Some schools of feminism have given "misogynist" another sense, which is cultural, and makes misogyny in a way both the driving force and product of patriarchy. In this sense, the whole Saudi culture would be very misogynous, and almost everyone in it could be given the label "misogynist", both men and women.An interesting thing is that some radical feminists are close to fitting the traditional sense of being misogynists. That's because they can see the majority of women as being duped by the patriarchy, and their social and political views as being essentially invalid and mindless. They are behaving as if all other women, the great majority, are too silly to know what's good for them, although they rarely actually say this. And the classic misogynist is a great believer in the silly mindlessness of the sex.So, yes, words usually have meanings, but the end result of all this seems to be that pretty much everyone is a misogynist of one sort or another.Maybe I can start a meme that will stop people using misogynist in their name calling, and use something like "sexist" instead. Of course, the case could be made that we're all sexist. Sometimes, throwing words around too thoughtlessly does actually leave them without meaning, in answer to your question.BTW, I thought that your summary of what Dawkins said had a bit of spin on it. At the time of his comment, I thought some things were getting blown out of all proportion (although not by any side in particular), and that's all that he said. Someone could read into it that he's implying that there are no problems of sexual behaviour that need to be dealt with at the atheist conferences, but so far as I know he hasn't said that, and as problems exist at all other conferences, and he's been around, it would be odd if he thought so.Like me, he's likely to remember some of the more ridiculous forms of seventies feminism, and he may well know what he's doing. I remember announcements from feminist leaders like "all penetrative sex is rape", from a well known New Yorker.Do words just not have meaning?

It was Andrea Dworkin that I was thinking of, so perhaps I got the decade wrong. And:

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"Intercourse is the pure, sterile, formal expression of men's contempt for women,"

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That would have made the point just as well as the phrase I used. But I wouldn't be surprised at all if something very close to my actual phrase was used by some "slogan and jargon" type feminists, because it was getting a bit like Poe's law. If you made up something satirical to put in the mouths of feminists, people wouldn't know the difference. At the same time, as now, there were much more scientific feminists, who made a lot of sense about a lot of things.For a "Poe" slogan, try: "Non-white people can't be rascist", for the atheist+ people.They don't actually say that, but they want "racist" used in this way on their site. That's because in "social justice" terminology, people cannot be guilty of an "ism" like racism if they are victims of it, because they are (apparently) unable to "institutionalize" their "ism". So woman can't be sexist in this terminology, also.They have "PoCs", people of colour, as a description. (Anyone who isn't white, including people who often are pretty white, like some Hispanics). PoCs, apparently, shouldn't be called racist, because they cannot institutionalize their racism.Where? China? As most of the world's population are PoCs, and most countries have clear majorities of PoCs, this seems odd. So, atheism+, at present, is clearly parochial, and seems concerned with majority white societies, and mostly, the USA.PoCs are not privileged, in A+ speak, and white people are. So, we know that an unemployed working class white male who has recently been diagnosed with a serious illness and cannot afford the health-care can comfort himself with the thought that he has two important privileges which he must learn to recognize. Being white and being male. Whereas Michelle Obama and her daughters need our sympathy and understanding for their lack of privilege on those two counts, poor souls.IOW, we're not really looking at who really are the haves and havenots as individuals, but taking groups by gender or ethnicity and basing privilege around the average status of the group for them all. And even that doesn't work with groups of PoCs, because Asian Americans have the highest incomes of all major broad ethnic groupings, followed I think by white, black and Hispanic in that order, which looks to me more like a zebra crossing than a light to dark caste system.Anyway, it's all very interesting, and I predict dissent from the real left, who can point out that privilege is inevitable under capitalism, and if you really wanted to get rid of it, capitalism would have to go too.PoCs! Edited by bluegenes, : spilling

"Intercourse is the pure, sterile, formal expression of men's contempt for women,"

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"violation is a synonym for intercourse."Dworkin.I don't think my original phrase was a wild misrepresentation, and I do think those two claims are ridiculous. But you're in a better position than she was to support the view expressed in the first quote from personal experience. Is intercourse the way in which you express your contempt for women? Or is she wrong and ridiculous?

You're right. It should be "women's bodies". Now do you agree with it? Yes or no?And you might or might not agree with all of these. You're a biologist, so you might wonder how she came up with her biological knowledge that men are "biologically inferior to women". As you know from experience with creationism, idealists always have the option of just making stuff up and stating their fantasies as fact.

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"One of the differences between marriage and prostitution is that in marriage you only have to make a deal with one man." (Letters From a War Zone)

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"Marriage . . . is a legal license to rape." (Letters From a War Zone)

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"The hurting of women is . . . basic to the sexual pleasure of men."

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"... [W]omen and men are distinct species or races ... men are biologically inferior to women; male violence is a biological inevitability; to eliminate it, one must eliminate the species/race itself ... in eliminating the biologically inferior species/race Man, the new Ubermensch Womon will have the earthly dominion that is her true biological destiny." (Letters From a War Zone)

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"Heterosexual intercourse is the pure, formalized expression of contempt for women's bodies." (Letters From a War Zone)

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"In everything men make, they hollow out a central place for death, let its rancid smell contaminate every dimension of whatever still survives. Men especially love murder. In art they celebrate it, and in life they commit it." (Letters From a War Zone)

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"Marriage as an institution developed from rape as a practice. Rape, originally defined as abduction, became marriage by capture. Marriage meant the taking was to extend in time, to be not only use of but possession of, or ownership." (Letters From a War Zone)

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"Rape, then, is the logical consequence of a system of definitions of what is normative. Rape is no excess, no aberration, no accident, no mistake -- it embodies sexuality as the culture defines it." (Our Blood: Prophecies and Discourses on Sexual Politics)

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"As I see it, our revolutionary task is to destroy phallic identity in men and masochistic nonidentity in women -- that is, to destroy the polar realities of men and women as we now know them so that this division of human flesh into two camps -- one an armed camp and the other a concentration camp -- is no longer possible. Phallic identity is real and it must be destroyed. Female masochism is real and it must be destroyed." (Our Blood: Prophecies And Discourses On Sexual Politics)

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"The cultural institutions which embody and enforce those interlocked aberrations -- for instance, law, art, religion, nation-states, the family, tribe, or commune based on father-right -- these institutions are real and they must be destroyed. If they are not, we will be consigned as women to perpetual inferiority and subjugation." (Our Blood: Prophecies And Discourses On Sexual Politics)

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"Only when manhood is dead -- and it will perish when ravaged femininity no longer sustains it -- only then will we know what it is to be free." (Our Blood: Prophecies And Discourses On Sexual Politics)

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"... [T]he prisons for women are our homes. We live under martial law. We live in places in which a rape culture exists.... Men have to be sent to prison, to live in a culture that is as rapist as the normal home in North America. We live under what amounts to a military curfew. Enforced by rapists. In the United States, violence against women is a major pastime. It is a sport. It is an amusement. It is a mainstream cultural entertainment. It saturates the society." (First published in Canadian Studies/Les Cahiers de la Femme, Vol. 12, No. 1, Fall 1991)

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"The annihilation of a woman's personality, individuality, will, character, is prerequisite to male sexuality." (Letters From a War Zone)

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"Rape is the primary heterosexual model for sexual relating. Rape is the primary emblem of romantic love. Rape is the means by which a woman is initiated into her womanhood as it is defined by men." (Letters From a War Zone)

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"I want to see a man beaten to a bloody pulp with a high-heel shoved in his mouth, like an apple in the mouth of a pig." (Ice and Fire)

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"Men are rapists, batterers, plunderers, killers." (Pornography: Men Possessing Women)

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"Like prostitution, marriage is an institution that is extremely oppressive and dangerous for women." (Letters From a War Zone)

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"Under patriarchy, every woman is a victim, past, present and future. Under patriarchy, every woman's daughter is a victim, past, present and future. Under patriarchy, every woman's son is her potential betrayer and also the inevitable rapist or exploiter of another woman." (Our Blood: Prophecies And Discourses On Sexual Politics)

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"[M]en are biologically aggressive; their fetal brains were awash in androgen; their DNA, in order to perpetuate itself, hurls them into murder and rape." (Letters From a War Zone)

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"Female masochism is real and it must be destroyed"

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"masochistic nonidentity in women"Women, not surprisingly, were not joining up to Dworkin's vision of feminism in their masses. And they kept on having sex with the likes us. Something must be wrong with the silly things. So, they have masochistic nonidentity. That's the kind of thing that I mean by some feminists seeing most women in a way that's similar to the classic misogynist's view. They are weak nothings. Non-persons.But Dworkin is just one feminist, and Rebecca Watson is no Dworkin. And just as she would disagree with Dworkin on some things, other feminists will disagree with her.

No-one needs to make up "radical feminism", and if you've never come across any form of it personally, then I can only comment that some people seem to lead sheltered lives.There are many schools of feminism, as I keep telling you. Even within the sub-group of Separatist Feminists, there are many differences. There are feminists who would deny that you, crashfrog, could ever be a feminist and help advance the cause of feminism, although most female feminists would disagree with them. And the view that individual men cannot help the cause of women's equality is an example of what I mean by "ridiculous", because there are many obvious ways in which men could conceivably do that, so they are wrong.Another example is the view that it is essential to end marriage in order to achieve equality. Obviously wrong, because marriages in which the partners are economically independent and equal under law and in practice can clearly exist. So, the concept of marriage in itself does not contradict equality.But that (no marriage) is a particular idea of some feminists. It is not essential feminism, but is a form feminism + something else. Feminism+, like atheism+.Which can lead us to the subject of the organized atheist movement, feminism, and the divided opinions.Two people agreeing to have casual sex, and to use each other's bodies as sex objects is not a problem for feminism, as it is not in contradiction with gender equality. In order for the above to happen, suggestions have to be communicated between individuals, and propositions have to be made.None of the above is a problem for feminism or, of course, atheism. Suggestions that people should not make propositions that could lead to casual sex would certainly go down well at meetings of Christian conservatives, but atheists have no such restrictions and no taboos on fornication with informed consent, so it's not really surprising that the attempt to herd cats failed, and a break off movement was established. I wonder how many sheep the shepherds will pull.But important to the discussion here, it is feminism + that's being proposed in atheism+, not just broad feminism.

There were many schools of feminism long before the internet existed. People don't have to agree with you or Rebecca Watson that people making propositions to other people is anti-feminist or misogynist or sexist. It is, as I've pointed out, perfectly compatible with gender equality. I posted a long list of Dworkin "statements" which I certainly didn't invent, and you avoided replying to that post. But I think you're still missing the point.I keep explaining that there are many different schools of feminism, and I've pointed out that Rebecca Watson and Andrea Dworkin are different feminists. However, I'm certainly claiming that there is some form of irrational feminism present in the atheist/skeptic conference disputes. Rebecca Watson is not "tainted by association" with the nutty forms of feminism which she does not subscribe to, but as with the other nutty forms, the unreasonable beliefs in her particular cult can be identified by the actions of the believers.As I think you agree now, people propositioning other people at atheist conferences is not, in itself, incompatible with gender equality, so those who are trying to stop such behaviour, and therefore, inevitably, to stop strangers meeting at these conferences and having sex, are adding personal ideological faith to their feminism. When others, like Dawkins, disagree with the cult additions, they are attacked as misogynist, sexist etc., completely without reason, because their views are actually compatible with gender equality. The argument was based on observation and experience of equal marriages, observations that most adults here should have made by now. As I said in the last post, some people seem to have led sheltered lives, and it's hardly my fault that you're choosing to argue with others about things of which you seem to have very limited experience. Of course she wasn't, and you've missed the point of my example, which was that approval of the situation I described does not constitute misogyny or sexism. Such behaviour is compatible with equality. And in order for that situation to arise between strangers, suggestions/propositions that relate to it must happen. Yes, and we've all been in that situation (except, perhaps, those who have led very sheltered lives). I'd give you a history of some of mine, but you seem very skeptical of anecdotes unless they are Rebecca's. Her aside about the "ironic" proposition was fine, and very relevant to her general point, which was that such propositions shouldn't be made. That's the restriction she was trying to impose on these atheist/skeptic conferences, and that was the political fight she lost. And she was perfectly prepared to attack those women who immediately disagreed with her, and to attack the likes of Dawkins who, quite reasonably, dismissed the example given in her aside as a non-incident. All you're showing here is some kind ideological commitment to Rebecca Watson's point of view, and that you can completely ignore the fact that the abuse has been flying both ways.As for handing out personal moral advice to me or roxrcool or anyone else here, I'm afraid you're far too obviously wet behind behind the ears for us to take you seriously. Edited by bluegenes, : No reason given.

It's hardly fair to ask me to sort out your confusion. Why don't you just lay out all the basic tenets of your cult in ten commandments style?1)Is it a sin for adult strangers to fornicate with consent?2)Is it a sin for strangers to make the necessary propositions to one other that could lead to fornication?If (2) is a sin, (1) is impossible. If (2) isn't a sin, then the cult would be in agreement with Richard Dawkins on the question. The problem is that you can't figure out that the makers of propositions to strangers cannot tell how their propositions will be received. A proposition to a stranger cannot be made with the consent of the stranger can it? "Consent" is about agreement to the proposition after it has been made. What the hell is a consensual proposition? Does this cult of yours believe in telepathy? Could it be because people aren't telepathic? While most people, if asked by strangers to their hotel rooms, will probably decline the offer in most cases, some offers will be accepted. The proposers cannot know the answers in advance, otherwise they wouldn't ask the bloody questions, would they? Campaign? There is Faith based cult trying to impose its rules on others. That's the campaign. And it's hardly surprising that it failed with a group of atheists. All my comments on the affair are on this thread over the last few days. I don't support the idea that people should be condemned for asking others to their hotel rooms. There is absolutely no reason why I should. I'm sane. Is it part of your cult's dogma that that would be necessary in order for cult members to be abusive to others?Speaking of rape, people have certainly reacted strongly to Watson's unsupported claims made early in the affair that those who disagree with her are causing psychological damage to rape victims. If you hadn't joined the cult, you might not find the reaction so surprising.She also describes criticism from other women with phrases like "a pretty standard parroting of misogynistic thought." If you imply that your opponents are mindless parrots, sparks will fly.

Are you really stupid enough to suggest that the guy knew for sure that his advances would be unwanted and that the answer would definitely be "no", so he then made the advance, in order to get the answer "no"? Really? Aren't you getting a clue that the reason you need to make such ridiculous arguments is that you haven't got a leg to stand on? What's that got to do with what I said and you quoted? What's that got to with what I said and you quoted? Of course they don't. They proposition people to whom they are physically attracted, which isn't random. That's what Rebecca Watson is talking about. She disapproves, and says it's degrading , demeaning etc., and that she was being "sexualized" by the guy. She and I seem to be talking about the same thing, but you seem to have floated off into another dimension. I'm pointing out that Rebecca's view that it is bad to see people as physical sex objects isn't objective, and seems to come from some form of ideological cult. There is nothing wrong with sexualizing people. If Rebecca sees a guy whom she fancies physically, there is nothing wrong with her making moves on him with the object of sex in mind. If she wants to make a fairly direct approach, like an invitation to her room, she's perfectly within her rights to do so. The guy might be pleased, or embarrassed, or "creeped out", or whatever. But that's O.K., she isn't to know in advance what the result could be, and the only important point is that if the answer is "no", she accepts it. She is not being sexist or misogynist if she agrees to this general system. If she sticks to the golden rule that "no means no" she can only be at worst a mild annoyance to the object of her interests, and he is certainly not a victim of sexual behaviour in any serious sense. Ah! Good. A mild comment about an incident of little importance which lasted for literally a matter of seconds, and caused her brief discomfort. We can agree with Dawkins. We often feel uncomfortable, some people every day, and someone feeling uncomfortable for a few seconds is a non-event.