I’m not sure why Greta Christina seems to have taken the brunt of this particular tirade, but apparently affirmative atheism is “evil in one of its purest forms“.
Because we happen to think we’re right where other people are mistaken, and we’re trying to win people around to our way of thinking.
Holy shit. I wonder what this guy’ll think when he sees a political campaign for the first time.
The Slacktiverse, the blog on which the bizarre rant against proselytisation was posted, has since responded to some of the criticism it received. It’s not very interesting. It uses the word “trolls” more than I suspect is justified in characterising people who responded negatively, and defends the post by pointing out that it wasn’t technically “hate speech”, or trying to restrict anyone else’s free expression, and so they didn’t want to censor it when it was submitted.
Which would be fine, if it actually addressed the bulk of the complaints about it, which as far as I can tell are mostly about how the premise it’s based on is moronic.
What Greta Christina advocates–what any atheist advocates when they suggest “increasing the numbers of atheists” as a laudable goal, what any adherent of any religion advocates when they suggest “increasing the number of members of my religion”–is evil in one of its purest forms.
What Greta Christina has made very clear that she’s advocating – in the very article he quotes to try and make his point – is for atheists to publicly discuss the reasons for their nonbelief, and to criticise fallacious and irrational arguments for the existence of God when they are encountered, with the proposed goal of decreasing the world’s total religiosity.
If you want to argue that that’s evil, we’re not saying you shouldn’t be allowed to do so. But we still get to call you an idiot. We don’t get to forcibly shut you up and repress your expression of opinions just because we find it offensive. But we can point out that it is offensive.
So, yeah. Some guy I’ve never heard of is an ass. Big news.
I fully agree. The article was idiotic, but if you have the stomach to wade through the comments thread, you’ll see it was par for the course, I’ve seen lots of idiotic comments in my life, but this thread takes the biscuit.
There’s a lot of stuff about the post going viral and many many bloggers talking about it…but as far as I know it’s two or three or maybe four. That’s not “viral.”
Funny place. It’s like being locked in a 12-Step meeting, forever…
Thing is, some people have disagreed, and disagreed strongly, without being trolls. And they’ve been engaged as such*. Others have most definitely been trolls, including our friend Piero above, who deliberately made fun of PTSD-triggers and openly admitted that he was being an arsehole for the lulz. There can be, and often is, vigorous disagreement at The Slacktiverse. And there’s a strong difference between that and trolling, and we can tell that difference. So no, accusations of trolling behaviour are not thrown around lightly. When they said that the thread had attracted a “record amount of trolling” they meant vile jerkwads who wouldn’t be welcome on FTB or here either. They did not mean merely disagreement.
Anyway, we’ve now largely digressed (in discussion with a newcomer who strongly disagreed with Froborr but was able to say so without throwing bucketloads of privilege all over the thread) into a discussion of medical ethics and the social model of disability. Yay progress! The trolls have largely abandoned us, thank fuck.
TRiG.
* I disagreed too, but I was busy and by the time I got around to it anything I wanted to say had already been said. Five or six times. So I left it be.
Thing is, some people have disagreed, and disagreed strongly, without being trolls. And they’ve been engaged as such.
As one of the (two) initial commentators (and “community members”) to disagree strongly with Frobarr’s piece, I don’t think the reaction was at all one that invited “vigorous disagreement”: it was clear early on that the moderators picked a side and aggressively attacked anyone who disagreed with them. Given the fact that moderators occupy a privileged position within a group (they can — and did — ban people or delete their comments at will), it was a serious abuse of authority.
And the fact that *both* of us backed out of the thread after a few hours indicates, to me at least, that, no, the group didn’t invite discussion. It invited consensus. Those who disagreed might have been permitted to post but were by no means tolerated.
Honestly, if that’s the world you want, you’re welcome to it. I don’t want to be a part of it, but that doesn’t really matter. What *does* matter to me is that the blog doesn’t present the discussion as something it wasn’t: it was neither open nor fair. mmy in particular has been busy defending the disaster by saying that the criticism on the first page shows that Slacktiverse permits criticism. What she failed to mention was her silencing behavior which led those of us who criticized it to leave the discussion.
TriG:
The Slacktiverse allows vigorous debate in the same way a Dr. Who fan site does: you can debate which one is your favorite Doctor all you want, but debating whether or not the show itself is good will get you banned.
Keep to your little bubble if you want, but don’t pretend it’s the big, wide world.