I know he self banned himself, for a while at least. Not sure if that became permanent.

If I had to hazard a guess it would be "being belligerent towards politics moderators".

I think it was something like this, but I'm not really sure. It wasn't us.

Ahhh, right. I was wondering. He wasn't the worst.

Slow pony but I want to add my signature. Lemonz has set an excellent standard for theists and atheists alike. And he posted a link to classic DC Talk, which basically makes us instant best friends or something.

aww schucks

much love RGT !!!

I wasn't sure if it would be kosher to make this its own thread so will post this here. I know we have avatars and all, but here are some pictures of how I envision some RGT posters IRL. I'm sure I have forgotten a reg or two but I am relatively new here myself. All in good fun. Feel free to post something ridiculous about me.

Original Position:


Augie:


Zumby:


LemonZest:


bunny:


gangstaman:


Splendour:

Lulz!

RLK:


Lemonzest:



Doggg:


Splendour:

What are the odds? That is actually me.

The man or the rabbit?

I'm as stunningly attractive as the man and as intellectually brilliant as the rabbit.

Lol...the rabbit is brilliant actually...He's got the man carrying him.

Did you know bunnies aren't true ruminants?

Someone told me that once, but I havent yet fully digested it.

Bah dum bum.

lolz at the pics so good.

I'm here all week.

New Series starting on E4 in the UK on Monday. Sex, Death and the Meaning of Life - Richard Dawkins

Looking at the subject matter it should be pretty interesting and relevant to RGT given some of the discussions recently about morality.

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/s...es-1/episode-2

How could I forget asdf? This may be my most accurate representation yet.

asdfasdf32:

Not even close.

Have any of the atheists here looked closely at Atheism Plus (A+)? I'm not sure it warrants a thread, it's a new movement and there is some controversy surrounding it (it started as the idea to progress forward from New Atheism, perhaps as an Atheism 3.0, but can you really force a movement*?), but if there are any advocates then a thread might be interesting.

Despite being supportive of the underlying theme (Atheism plus social justice), I am having difficulty aligning myself with the individual members themselves. On the atheismplus forums there is an overwhelming victim theme, in fact I would be heavily chastised for using the word victim, rather than something like marginalised).

Atheism Plus is:

1) Atheists plus we care about social justice
2) 
Atheists plus we support women’s rights
3) 
Atheists plus we protest racism,
4) Atheists plus we fight homophobia and transphobia
5) 
Atheists plus we use critical thinking and skepticism.


* Perhaps "Atheism Plus, forcing movements" ?! :O

"Atheism plus a bunch of additional pigeonholing to guarantee minimising our footprint."

Double failure from a practical point of view. Marginalise yourself among atheists with your political baggage and guarantee lower quality thinkers on your political themes by filtering for people who think being an atheist is some kind of big deal.

It's like 'brights' all over again. I despair.

This is incredibly overly simplified and dismissive!

From what I have looked at, atheism plays a minimal part to the movement (I can't think of a better descriptor for now). This concerned me, since Atheism Plus appears to have nothing to do with atheism! But...there is simply no discussion or inclusion whatsoever of religion when the other issues are being talked about, and that might be all that is important for the "Atheism" part, discussion is never cluttered up with irrelevant and off topic derails. You have to ask though, how is this different to Secular Humanism?
(there is one difference: the Secular Humanist has no requirement to be skeptical)

So I'm not sure what you mean by "being an atheist is some kind of big deal" in the negative, since for many, being an atheist is an important part of how they go about their lives, and as mentioned, being able to discuss topics that are important to you without having to filter out religious themed views can be a greatly preferred environment.

What about the "Plus" part? Are you interested in the "social justice" aspect? If yes, are there specific topics that you are not interested in (you don't have to specify which)? And/or, are there additional topics that you are interested in? Arguably, listing specific topics rather than simply leaving it as being supportive of ALL social justice issues might be problematic. I think that's more of a perceived problem than a practical one though. Less of a problem would be if someone cares about most but not all of the listed topics.

I think an Atheism Plus advocate would say that if you are disinterested in the themes that it supports, then you and they have nothing in common besides your theistic views. So it seems that the pigeon-holing comment minimising footprint has little relevance, if there is essentially no shared footprint to begin with.


Where I think the problem begins is in the implementation, not the idea. Those involved in the forums, at least, see the forums as a "safe space" for anyone that has been victimised / marginalised by the social injustices listed. iow, it is not an area for those interested and supportive of the ideals, but for those that have been hurt. There is an overwhelming Us vs Them mentality that has already developed. Not to mention that there is a disproportionate focus right now (the forums could currently be called Atheism Plus Feminism). On top of that, the environment is one where "troll" is used to describe anyone that disagrees, or even only appears to disagree. Some users get banned for asking what appear to me to be obvious (and skeptical) questions. Arguably, the atmosphere is very difficult to get balanced correctly on a forum where some posters say that they live their lives in everyday fear of being raped, or will today be the day I meet my rapist, and other users get banned for asking whether that is a real problem, or if there might be some exaggeration going on.

But perhaps the forums currently are not that representative of what Atheism Plus could be about, if it survives.

I think the "we're better than the rest of you" element of organised religion is one of the things that really turns me off churches. An atheist group copying that viewpoint is equally repulsive.

It may be simplified. Its being dismissive is not necessarily a bad point.

SH reeks less of smugness.

I'm sure there are many people for whom being an atheist is indeed some kind of big deal. And I'd bet that on average, they're significantly less capable thinkers than those for whom it isn't. Call it a hunch or a prejudice or whatever you like, it's my honest opinion.

I'm mildly interested in social justice. I'm just not interested in the "We're atheists, don't you know" flavour. The regular flavour's fine with me and I bet you it'll be around long after AP is forgotten.

'Footprint' = 'impact'. I am saying they are limiting their potential impact among atheists by carrying along their political baggage, which inevitably will alienate some measure of atheists. And I am saying that by carrying along their atheist baggage, they are limiting their potential impact in political spheres.

See above re: "low-quality thinkers".

I mean, best of luck to them, but I'm not impressed and I'm not optimistic, either.

The idea of this doesn't appeal to me at all.

If you ignore my characterisation of some of the forum members (and let me make the obvious comment that a few bad apples might not be representative of the movement in the long run), is there something about the concept of "Being an atheist and caring about social issues" that you conclude a "holier than thou" attitude is inherent, or is it something else?


Again, would you mind saying whether it is the ideology that doesn't appeal, or the way the membership comes across?




Thx for the responses, btw. I've only recently been looking into Atheism Plus, and I am experiencing a lot of dissonance, in that the ideas driving it are ones that I can support and I think are important, but there is something going terribly wrong with how it is developing, and how there is a rift developing. Not to mention that it feels incredibly forced rather than being a natural progression of atheism.