Atheists turning to cult behaviour?

[Tonus]

I said that there are certain atheists, who unbound by any rules are taking to bullying and some cultish behavior.

Chad, we know it's you.

[robvalue]

Lol! Oh dear

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I have often been called a complete cult.

[Alex K]

Personally, I choose to put the word atheist forward specifically just to help the overall movement.

So you agree there is such a thing as an atheist movement after all, however fuzzily defined it is. This entity is what one should worry about.

[robvalue]

Well yes, there are a subset of atheists that are interested in making atheism more acceptable. But again, this is just a group with an additional agenda, that is not atheism.

It's just convenient to call it an atheist movement, because it is extremely unlikely to consist of anyone other than atheists by self-selection.

Sure, groups of atheists do things. But that is not atheism, even if the word atheism appears in the title of their group or their agenda.

It would be a sensible claim to say you have a problem with the atheists involved in the atheist movement of making atheism more acceptable. That would be a well defined issue. But to say the atheist movement necessarily involves all atheists is bogus. If that is what the OP was getting at, I'd have no problem discussing such a claim.

[Alex K]

Kinda of what I'm trying to get at. Should pure atheism be necessarily followed up by a few humanistic principles? Pure atheism itself doesn't actually ensure any less madness.

As has been said a million times. Atheism is nothing more than the disbelief in a higher being. It's not an organisation and it's certainly not a religion. People defining themselves as atheists have greatly differing opinions on most other aspects of life.

So in short, I don't know what you're getting at.

I'll give you an example: whatever brainfarts Richard Dawkins decides to put on twitter will be perceived by the public as something that comes from "the atheist movement", whether you like it or not. In particular in the anglophone world there are skeptical/atheist themed conferences and there's a range of speakers which are typically invited to these. There have been numerous examples of e.g. women advocating social justice issues and getting a huge backlash of rape and death threats from self-identified atheists. There are examples of influential people in this circle sexually harassing women and being covered by organizers in the best traditions of the catholic church. Of course you can then say - since atheism according to the dictionary is nothing, these are just random individuals who happen to pay attention to atheist themed activities and conferences, but really there's nothing there to identify them with, so there's nothing to talk about. You can wash your hands of all that and say that it has nothing whatsoever to do with you - identifying as an atheist does not force you to somehow claim allegiance with any of these people or any particular group of activists.

In that sense, the OPs claim is problematic, or, let's say, prone to misunderstandings. There's a huge difference between pointing out tribal behavior in, say, atheist themed facebook groups or conferences, and attributing such behaviors in any way to atheism as a philosophical point of view.

So I think after we clear up these things, there's still an important discussion to be had about what's up with the atheist movement(s).

[robvalue]

If you just say "atheism has a problem because this group of atheists did this..." you're making a meaningless claim.

[Alex K]

It would be a sensible claim to say you have a problem with the atheists involved in the atheist movement of making atheism more acceptable. That would be a well defined issue. But to say the atheist movement necessarily involves all atheists is bogus. If that is what the OP was getting at, I'd have no problem discussing such a claim.

I'm not sure what OP is getting at actually, because it is written to imprecise and with a bit too broad a brush. But I'd say, yes, we have a problem of nomenclature here.

However: it makes no sense to shout down discussions about problems within one of these movements with the argument "but atheism is only lack of belief, so shut up", as often is attempted by trolls who don't like these issues to be raised.

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If you just say "atheism has a problem because this group of atheists did this..." you're making a meaningless claim.

Yes, fine. "Certain parts of movements of atheist activism have a problem...." or something like that would be clearer. One really needs to be careful to separate the silly atheist=holocaust claims from problems pertaining to the atheist movements.

[robvalue]

Sure. I have no problem admitting there is an atheist movement. But that is not what was being put forward here.

I will wash my hands of any accusations levelled just at "atheists" because it's retarded. And if I'm not part of a particular atheist movement, then again it's nothing to do with me. I don't have a responsibility to police other atheists any more than I police the General public.

I would consider myself a small part of the atheist movement, but not in any official sense. I try to help. But I am not advocating nor facilitating any kind of negative action. I am simply voicing my opinion.

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You can think of me as a troll if you like. I made no attempt to shut down discussions, as you can see I nurtured the discussion along several pages. I was addressing what was said, which I think is perfectly reasonable. I can't put words in other peoples mouths. I tried very hard to understand his point of view.

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I could have been a bit more polite, sure. My tone wasn't great. But I stated facts, refutations and asked for evidence. And I was open to continued discussion, so I don't know what the objection is.

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What the general public perceive as "atheism" isn't my fault either. I do my best to correct misconceptions and to explain that there is no atheist leaders or dogma. I can't guess what people mean if they don't explain it.

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So... Does someone want to discuss the atheist movement? I don't think it's actually clear that anyone requested that. We can if you want.

[Alex K]

You can think of me as a troll if you like. I made no attempt to shut down discussions

No, no, not you! Sorry, that was not well phrased - what I meant is that I've often witnessed trolls try to shut up people on atheist websites or forums discussing these issues, or any general social issues, with that argument, and therefore I'm sensitive to it. In no way did I mean to imply that you are one of those.

[robvalue]

OK No problem, misunderstanding. Yes I too don't like trying to shut down a meaningful discussion by trying to dismiss the whole thing with a wave of a hand, that's just bullying and dishonest.

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I think the biggest thing to take away from this so far is to educate everyone on what atheism is. Barely any theists I've talked to seem to get it, and some people who are atheists say they are not because they don't understand it either.

Until everyone agrees what it is we're discussing, it kind of goes nowhere. If the public can't differentiate between atheism and the acts of specific atheists, we're banging our heads against a wall pretty hard.