Picking Cherries For God

He's at it again.  Over at Shadow To Light, Mikey has smeared Jerry Coyne with an accusation that has absolutely no basis whatsoever.  He says that Coyne is offended by PZ Myers' use of cherry-picking to distort the message of a "New Atheist" (Steve Pinker), by making the liberal Pinker seem to be part of the alt-right, but would happily agree with same tactics being used against a theist.  Of course, Mikey offers not a single shred of evidence to support this claim.  Because for people like Mikey, the truth has nothing to do with the anti-atheist narrative he is trying to purvey - that is, unless he can find an isolated fact that is useful to him.

Secular Privilege - Say What?

Shadow To Light is at it again - bending reality to conform with his distorted views.  So obsessed is he with his hatred of atheists, that he sees God-haters and Gnus lurking in every dark corner, creating all the world's problems, and persecuting the poor, innocent children of God like himself, who are pure as the driven snow, and who would never do anything to deserve even the mildest of criticism.  I have already noted that Mikey has a tendency to associate everything he doesn't like with atheism, regardless of whether actual atheists are involved.  And that includes Social Justice Warriors (SJWs), most of whom are not atheists.  But it doesn't matter.  To Mikey, it's all the same.  If he doesn't like something he'll blame it on atheists.

Now, Mikey was recently incensed by an article by Suzannah Weiss about "white privilege", giving nine examples of how white people enjoy advantages in current American society.  As you may know, I am generally in favor of social justice, but I don't feel any great affinity for the SJWs, who often go overboard in their defense of the oppressed, to the point of being oppressive toward the rest of us.  Nevertheless, this article is basically factual and level-headed   So naturally, Mikey had to respond with a diatribe on "secular privilege".  Actually, I think he is quite confused about the difference between 'secular' and 'atheist', but as I noted, it's all the same to him.  See my note about his conflating 'secular' and 'atheist' *.

Phil Torres - Voice of the Regressive Left

Phil Torres has expressed his displeasure with the "new atheist" movement, and announced that "today I want nothing whatsoever to do with it."  Sorry to see him go, but what exactly is he departing from?  What is this thing he calls a movement?  Is it the broad community of atheists?  That doesn't make much sense, because he's still part of that.  Is it the community of scientific-minded atheist skeptics?  My guess is that he still identifies as being aligned with them.  No, it seems to be a particular (but large) subset of atheists having political views that he takes issue with.  If you want to take a simplistic approach, and divide atheists into two camps on political grounds, you might draw a line between those who hold more traditional liberal views (which Torres calls "new atheists"), and those in the SJW camp (who are often called the "regressive left").  And my reaction to his announcement is: if you so vehemently disagree with their politics, what took you so long?

Shadow To Light Doesn't See the Light

For some time now, I have noticed that Mikey at Shadow To Light makes the mistake of identifying social justice warriors (SJW) with atheism (as well as other demographic groups, such as transhumanists).  See here, for example.  This is rather remarkable, because the majority of SJWs are not atheists.  This is what Mikey said recently:

It’s good to see that New Atheists have begun to figure out how reality works.  For a long time now, I have criticized one of the central claims of the New Atheist movement, the notion that if we could only get rid of religion, the world would be a much better place.  Not only was there no evidence to support this belief (which, ironically, was little more than faith), but the evidence we did have pointed in the other direction.  And what was that evidence?  The atheist community itself.  A crystal clear example of what I was talking about was Elevatorgate and the rage-filled rhetorical wars between the New Atheists and Social Justice atheists.  The existence of the Social Justice atheists, along with their power and influence, clearly showed there is no reason to believe that a world without religion would be any better than the one we have. - Shadow To Light

So Boghossian finally sees the light because he has criticized SJWs?  OK, the Elevatorgate debacle was an example of ridiculous behavior among SJWs who happen to be atheists.  But that whole episode just goes to show the absurd behavior of SJWs in general.  It says nothing at all about the broader atheist community, nor does it prove or disprove any claims about whether the world would be better off without religion.  Not surprisingly, Mikey fails to explain how he makes the logical link between atheist SJWs and the question of whether the world would be better off without religion.  (And incidentally, the idea that this is a "central claim" of New Atheism is just another of Mikey's lies.  There is no identifiable group called "New Atheists", much less a doctrine common to that group.)

De-Politicizing Science

Shadow To Light objects to the idea of Congress recognizing Darwin's contributions to humanity by designating his birthday as "Darwin Day".  He seems to think this is culture warfare, and undue politicization of science.

This is all yet another example of activists and politicians stinking up the place with their culture warring.  For this is nothing more than grandstanding that attempts to turn science itself into a political weapon and political debate. This is not “honoring science.”  It is politicizing science.  And the last thing Western civilization needs is the further politicization of science. -Mikey

Gosh, Mikey.  Why such a visceral reaction?  What in the world is political about this?  Oh, wait a minute.  I think I understand.  Mikey was reacting to a statement made by Hermant Mehta that says "it’s nice to see a member of Congress honoring science instead of denying it."  You see, what many politicians have done is to politicize science by de-funding or shutting down programs that don't advance their own political or religious agenda.  Mikey objects to politicians stepping away from those policies to simply celebrate science.

The Political Correctness of the Right

A favorite target of right-wing wrath is political correctness (PC), and and its supposed practitioners, who are referred to as social justice warriors (SJW).  Political correctness is a pejorative term that denotes the tendency to limit speech so as not to offend any particular group of people, such as minorities, nationalities, or disadvantaged people.  It is often embraced by young, liberal-minded people, especially college students.  In many cases, they have taken it to extremes by instituting overbearing campus speech codes and stifling free expression.  In the worst cases, people have lost their careers for saying things that fall afoul of the SJWs.  These extreme cases give conservatives some legitimate reason to heap scorn upon liberal PC and the SJWs, and I agree with them, up to a point.

However, many on the right tend to see things as black or white.  PC is viewed as a phenomenon of the strictly left-wing, atheist, anti-moral, low-intelligence freedom haters.  It stands in opposition to all that is good and moral.  It's us against conservative ideals.  I've always felt that one of the biggest reasons they have such scorn for PC is that their own (typically religiously motivated) hateful or bigoted sentiments are often held up by the SJWs as being politically incorrect.  In response, many right-wingers will take the very worst examples of PC, and claim that these views are representative of anyone who is liberal or irreligious.

A Safe Space for Hypocrisy

I was checking out crude's blog and saw this article: A Safe Space for Marriage:

A same-sex marriage doesn't harm you at all. In fact, being forced to provide a wedding cake custom-made for a same-sex wedding, or take photos of the same-sex couple, doesn't harm you at all.

And yet...

Having a speaker show up on your campus, if you find their views objectionable, is a horrific offense which requires 'trigger warnings', protests, and a safe space, because simply encountering their views is enough to Do Real Harm.

I thought to myself for once I agree with him.  But a closer look reveals that crude appears to agree with the notion that same-sex marriage is harmful, but he has problem with political correctness and those who are bothered by "microagressions".  The comments seem to indicate that the problem is with liberals who hold contradictory positions, according to crude, because SSM actually is hurtful, but speaking freely isn't.  So it looks like I am only half in agreement with him.

On Liberalism and the Fall of the Empire

As conservatives continue to lament the court decision on same-sex marriage, we hear ever more desperate cries of doom and gloom.  And none are crying louder than Catholic officials who are trying to paint the crumbling of their church as the destruction of America itself.  This article by Fr. Dwight Longnecker was cited by Catholic commenter planks length in my previous post on this topic.

Longnecker plaintively moans:

Hello  America! One of the most severe warnings that has come out to last week’s Supreme Court ruling was that from Justices Roberts and Scalia who observed that the will of the American people had been usurped by a handful of non elected lawyers.