Atheists are people, too

[james_davis_nicoll]

Unfortunately that means some of them are terrible people.

I’ve been writing about atheism for about 10 years now. What has driven me is a combination of awe at the amazing insights produced by science, so much deeper and more substantial than any collection of myths, and a furious rage at the lies and injustice and corruption of humanity by religion. For a while there, in the middle, there was also an ebullience at the growing success of atheism, and hope that someday we would be able to cast aside the follies of faith. The awe is still here, the rage is still burning, but the optimism is fading and is being consumed by a new anger at the incompetence and betrayal of the self-appointed atheist leadership.

Comments

[mme-hardy.livejournal.com]

But Skepchick is both one of the loud feminist voices within the movement *and* the person Dawkins directly attacked over complaining about harassment. The whole thing occurred within PZ Myers's blog, which again has been decrying women's sidelining within the movement for years. Saying "Skepchick and Myers are good on feminism and dislikes Dawkins" is very very much beside the point.

There are voices within atheism saying "Stop. This isn't cool. Back off." There are equally (at least) powerful voices within atheism saying "These women and their allies are being ridiculous." It isn't a settled issue. It is an ongoing issues, with ongoing flareups. The most recent I could find was August 2013, where atheist leading lights James Randi and D.J. Grothe, of JREF, bungle a sexual-harassment case badly.

This is a big problem; it can't be isolated to a few bad apples.

I apologize again for getting sidetracked into Guardian comments. That wasn't what James was posting about, and it wasn't what I should have talked about.

[dionysus1999.livejournal.com]

D.J Grothe is a sexist douche bag, it wasn't bungled, it was monkey-wrenched.

[lostwanderfound.livejournal.com]

Yup. There's been a campaign (finally successful!) to oust DJ for a few years now.

I'm one of the people contributing to pay for the lawyers on the plaintiff side of the harassment case.

[lostwanderfound.livejournal.com]

It is a big problem, and no, it isn't settled. It's not just a few bad apples; it's a steaming cesspit of scrumpy.

But it's a minority cesspit, and it's on the way down (IMO). The MRA crowd are self limiting; they repel everyone except themselves.