Today’s contribution comes from fellow FTBorg PZ Myers, who blogs at Pharyngula. By order of the blood-signed contract wherein I pledged my unwavering fealty to a biology professor from Minnesota (I am not a clever man), I am obligated to not only post this, but to tell you it’s the greatest thing ever and also the iron-clad proscriptive truth that must be followed without question.
Identifying the consequences of my atheism is a difficult thing for me, because I’ve really been an atheist all my life. Yes, there was a period in my childhood when I went to church every week, but I can’t say that I ever really believed, and my slow awakening as I grew up involved an increasing awareness that because my mind worked in a particular way, I was therefore an atheist. Because I liked science, I was led to material explanations of the world; because religious explanations were so shallow and useless, I turned away from them. I was an atheist long before I realized it, so the arrow of causality always pointed to and not from atheism. Atheism is a consequence not a cause for me.
And also, I have to be honest about this: many of my principles are not at all incompatible with theism. I am politically liberal and progressive, I support labor unions and the peace movement, I oppose inequity of all forms, I value education highly and want everyone to benefit from it, I feel my greatest accomplishment in life is to have built a strong family of good people I can love and trust without question. There is nothing in that that I can say is a necessary consequence of a disbelief in gods, since those values are shared with many Christians and Muslims and Buddhists and Hindus, and also I know far too many atheists who do not share them. There are deep, strong motivations driving my positions on these kinds of issues, and I simply can’t say that my intellectual stance on the existence of a deity is the wellspring. There isn’t much where I think, “Well, I’m an atheist, so I should adopt position X.”
Some day soon I will detail some information about the kind of mansplaining douchebro I used to bein the not-too-distant past. It will have to suffice for now when I tell you that I have said just about everything that those who use the term “feminazi” feel comfortable saying (with the exception of rape threats and the use of the suffix ‘Nazi’, because I was an asshole, not a goddamn moron). As a result, I understand where they’re coming from, and because I managed to claw my way out (thanks to a lot of help from some of my fellow FTBorg), I know where the handholds are.
That being said, it’s also a constant source of shame to recognize my old self in asshattery like this:
Yes, someone has become so infuriated by his repeated rejection on a dating site (I am told it is OKCupid) that he has placed an MRA manifesto in place of a self-description:
Hello ladies(1).
I am no longer looking for any female companionship. Infact, I have abandoned the idea of women all together(2). Instead, I have decided to go my own way(3).
I am now officially a M.G.H.O.W(4) and a political activist for the Mens Rights Movement, known as a MRM.
I am actively standing to go on a marriage strike(5) and to fight the evil hate cult known as feminism(6), condeming all males for being.. male(7).
I know writing this won’t ever convince you to care(8) and you can simpley pass me off as “gay”(9) since I won’t bow down to your vagina(10), but I am informing you of this for one simple reason(11).
This is reality. Men are standing up(12). And a wave of indignation for the damage of the female species(13) has finally hit the tipping point. Men are bailing out of the system, and when we leave, the entire thing will collapse(14), and your world of shoes and purses will follow with it(15).
That’s right, you caused it “ladies”(16). I have had enough.
No more entitlements, no more free presents, no more chivalry(17).
Our fathers, brothers, and sons are tired of dieing for you while you cower in your house all day(18) demanding us men go and die for your freedoms(19).
1. Look at your monitor. Now look at me. Now back at your monitor. Now back at me. I’m on a rant!
2. The idea of women! Not just removing himself from the dating pool, but the very idea that women exist! Something tells me the reason he’s having a tough time is because he’s been trying to stick his dick in his ‘idea of women’ rather than, y’know, dealing with a real person.
3. Make sure you use lube and clear your browser history afterward.
4. Man Going His Own Way. I Google these things so you don’t have to.
5. “You hear me? All these wedding rings you’ve been offering me? I will now begin to REFUSE them! See how you like THEM apples, women who won’t sleep with me!”
7. Being a man isn’t the same as being a misogynist. Feminism is anti-misogyny, and if you think that makes it anti-male, then you hate men more than any feminist does.
9. Surprisingly, men who don’t sleep with women are not de facto gay. That’s not how that works.
10. Which is how all the feminist cult meeting start. The high priestess puts a camera on the end of a speculum, inserts it into her vulva, and the rest of us bow down and worship her vaginal canal. True story.
11. I have zero difficulty believing that any of the reasons this guy does anything are the definition of ‘simple’
12. “and we’re not putting down the seat afterwards! So DEAL with it!”
13. Saaaaaame species. Men and women are not different species. Between this and the “bow down to your vagina” comment, I think this guy might never have even met a woman before.
14. I smell Ayn Rand.
15. This is my favourite line. SHOES AND PURSES!
16. “By failing to adhere to my expectation of what it is that women are like (mostly an amalgamation of shoes, purses, and vaginas), I hereby ROB YOU of the title of ladies, and insert sarcastic scare quotes! Kneel before the awesome might of my sophistry!”
17. Chivalry, interestingly, is a fundamentally sexist concept that relies on an image of women as weak and requiring the aid of men.
18. “Sitting on the couch (that a MAN bought for you! Or better yet fashioned with his OWN BARE HANDS out of the carcass of a FREAKIN’ MOUNTAIN LION) and eating bon-bons!
19. Because women in the army (I assume that’s what he’s talking about) don’t exist. And also he serves in the army, fighting bravely for the freedom of women who won’t fuck him no matter HOW many pushups he did at basic.
So yeah… this is particularly painful for me to read not only because of the stupidity and various language errors, but because I can see myself bitterly ranting along much the same lines. It took a long time for me to stop “outsmarting” myself and realize that the problem wasn’t everyone else – the problem was my own fucked up expectations of what the world (and specifically women) owed me.
Also, letters like this are the reason I don’t take MRAs seriously, and while they will never elicit much more from me than mocking dismissal – y’all are silly! If a guy like this feels more welcome in your “movement” than he does among feminists, then y’all are fucking welcome to him. As far as the whole “marriage strike” goes, I hope that it is not too presumptuous to answer on behalf of straight women:
I run a blog that is for the most part dedicated to skeptical matters. I write about the problems with ‘ancient aliens’ hypotheses, or why chiropractic is a poor use of one’s money, and every now and again I write about skepticism with regards to social movements, philosophies, or belief systems. It’s fun, it gives me a chance to exercise my critical thinking skills, and it allows me to interact with people I might never otherwise deal with.
Running a blog also opens me up to criticism from people who think that I’m wrong, in the pocket of “Big Insert_whatever_I_hate_here”, or that I’m an evil, hell-bound sinner. I’ve been called everything from an egomaniacal fascist, to a ‘boy-raper’, to a dead man. Yep, actual, honest to Vecna death threats. Apparently some people think that I deserve to die in horrible ways for daring to question the efficacy of homeopathy. Moving on…
One of the things I don’t often write about is atheism – specifically my atheism. It’s not that I am ashamed or embarrassed to talk about it; it’s just that I don’t find it to be a particularly important part of my life. Yes, I understand that it can be very important to other people, but it’s just not something that’s very central to my self-concept. I was a skeptic long before I acknowledged my atheism, and it was through skepticism that I lost my faith. … Continue Reading
My life has become a complete fucking mess this month. Since publishing the two-month summary of Action Against Misogyny (here), one of my former friends has come under the media spotlight and multiple simultaneous ongoing investigations for a) misconduct as an officer of the law, b) suspected involvement (the degree to which, if any, has yet to be determined) in the Robert Pickton serial murder spree of 49 women (most of whom were aboriginal) he abducted from Vancouver’s Downtown East side, and c) being as icky a complete creep as an unapologetically sexist pig could possibly be found to be by a psychologist who has worked with law enforcement for over 30 years. Read about my personal (sometimes intimate) relationship with him here, about the beginning of a localized red herring panic wave about privacy within the pervert community here, and about where I finally lose my patience and ask the same community to stop and think instead of resorting to tearing my own hair out by the fist-full here. I’m also losing my housing and will have to resort to indefinite couch-surfing for the second time in my life, in order to avoid becoming homeless for the third time. Read about how that news made me feel here.
So after Week 7, we decided as a group to try and occupy the intersection on Fridays and Saturdays. I wound up standing there alone (but still down to my skivvies), picketing a huge posse of these misogynist assholes, on the Friday. That was all sorts of wacky and powerful. The cops made it plainly apparent right away that they are there to protect me, I was truly moved that two men who had just been released from prison took the opportunity to stand up for women’s rights when they saw me, and a woman (a fucking WARRIOR) told me her rape survival story. On the Saturday, I was joined by more people, and it rapidly became apparent to us that we are making a difference and they are getting desperate. Read about Week 8 here.
During Week 9, as I limped around on second-degree burns on the bottom of both my feet, utterly desperate pro-lifers resorted to punching and grabbing pro-choice women. My friends. I was fury, bro. It wasn’t enough that a bus driver actually refused me service because my exposed arms and cleavage were offensive to him (I was wearing a bra). But on a scale of 1 to 10, I was only at 10 until the cops showed up and pretended no crime had been committed because the offenders in this case are elderly. Now I was mad out of 10. I took it out on sexist assholes by yelling at them — while wearing a loincloth. Read all about it here.
Jamie is a total BAMF, and you should definitely be reading the rest of this story. I’d particularly like to draw your attention to this post on the overlapping problems of relative privilege, in case you thought that this ‘social justice’ thing was a cut-and-dry issue with clear “right and wrong”.
For some reason I cannot fathom, there is an OLD story from the Telegraph with the most misleading headline of all time that is currently floating around the Facebook walls of my friends. No clue why it’s popping up, and why people who I generally know to be reliably skeptical didn’t bother to read the timestamp before hitting the ‘Share’ button.
The story is supposedly about a “dramatic shift” that the Pope made with regard to the Vatican’s stance on condoms. I covered this story when it was actually news:
Come the fuck on, Ratzinger! Condoms are only appropriate in exceptional situations? Apparently in the Pope’s world view, it is better for a woman to become pregnant with a child she does not want and cannot afford to raise than it is for her to protect herself during sex. It’s better for a man to become inextricably yoked to another person for the rest of his life than it is for him to use a piece of latex.
And why is it a male prostitute?
Not all sex results in pregnancy (and I thank my lucky stars for that fact), but there’s always a chance. Many people want to have a child, for whatever reason, and are in a position to provide for it. Using condoms, unlike implants or hormone therapies or other intrusive forms of birth control, do not prevent people who want to have children from doing so. It is a simple technology that harms nobody (unless you count sperm, which I don’t).
Whatever claim to some kind of moral insight or authority that the Catholic Church pretends to have is repeatedly undermined by the ethical stupidity that is repeatedly on display from the Vatican.
The Pope deserves no cookies for saying that an HIV-infected (male) prostitute MIGHT be okay to use a condom. That’s not a “shift” in anything. That’s just him continuing to be a gaping asshole.
So today’s video is in honour of Pope Benedict XVI (seriously… 16? Get some new names going on, guys!):
A bit of humorous absurdity to balance out the totally-not-funny absurdity that is the internet today.
I have no idea why, but my fears of getting hate mail or death threats simply have not (yet) materialized. Knowing what I know about what happens to those who poke their heads out of anonymity long enough to point out societal racism or the need for anti-racist and feminist dialogue in a community that may not be the most welcoming to that conversation (yet), I expected the worst. What I’ve gotten instead has been nothing short of amazing. The only unprompted blog-related e-mails I get are either a) people asking me for advice on some sticky piece of ambiguity or another; or b) telling me how amazing I am. I am always happy to do what I can for the ‘a)’ people, and the ‘b)’ people consistently knock me on my ass and leave me sputtering to convey adequate thanks.
That being said, I do get a fair amount of spam from people who advertise themselves as ‘publicists’, hawking this book or that one. A lot of them are pr0-religion or talking about some miracle cure for some disease; a very precious few are about interesting and useful scientific studies; most of them, however, are useless and deleted immediately. Despite my repeated attempts to unsubscribe from whatever mailing list I’m on, they flow in at the rate of one or two a day, which I am happy to chalk up as a minor annoyance.
Until today, when I received an e-mail entitled “Fake it Till You Make It” – 10 Fantasy Football Tips Every Girl Should Know ASAP: … Continue Reading
Many former theists (like myself) describe their deconversion as a process of ‘illumination’ – reality finally comes into stark focus and you begin to see things that your deity-soaked brain would simply delete from your awareness. Most of the former theists I’ve come across (a ridiculously biased sample, to be sure) describe this as a profoundly liberating experience. After all, the world is freakin’ BEAUTIFUL
This past Sunday, a man walked into a gurdwara (Sikh temple) in Oak Creek, Wisconsin and opened fire with a 9 mm pistol, killing six people and wounding four others. After a firefight with police, he turned his weapon on himself and committed suicide. I learned of this story days after it happened, as I was far away from any news sources. As a result, there is really very little for me to contribute that hasn’t already been highlighted by countless others. I will briefly summarize my thoughts as best I can.
So yesterday I had to heroically jump in to save Russell Glasser who was stranded without Non-Prophets Podcast co-hosts. For an hour, I chopped it up with him and a handful of others:
I am (at least physically) back from Tofino after an unbelievable weekend, only some of which I am comfortable describing on the internet 😛
It’s going to take me a couple of days to have new content up here, so unfortunately my hiatus continues for a while but (as always) I will get back to my routine as soon as I can locate my frontal lobe. Until then, you can check out my photo album from the trip. I haven’t yet had a chance to resize these pics for those of you without ludicrous-speed internet, so please stay tuned.
There is video, however:
What happens when you throw naphthene on a fire?
We bought fire colourant packages from a park administrative office. Very pretty result:
When our fire got shut down, we started a mobile beach dance party:
I’ve also freed some people from comment jail. Again, my apologies, but it was either that or get spammed to hell. New stuff up soon!
Crommunist 