Via Reddit:

Around and around:

Via Twitter:

Now that the kinks are straightened out, here are some of my thoughts about the 120th anniversary of the Pledge of Allegiance and the United States as a Christian nation:

Now if only I could clean up the rambling. I think I botched “recite” and invented a word called “roboticism.” Ahh, the price of a writer by trade going unscripted on camera …

Referenced links:

• “I Pledge Allegiance“
• “Who Wrote the Pledge of Allegiance?“

This post is in response to a comment I received from Giovanni Rilasciato regarding a previous article of mine titled, “On Atheism+ and humanism: part 2.”

Rilasciato writes:

FYI, there are 36 bloggers at FtB, and most of them haven’t even commented on A+. There’ve been a few who have even written about why they do not support it, such as Al Stefanelli. It seems that there are about half a dozen there behind this.

I presume that Rilasciato was referring to two parts of that previous post. This passage:

It seems to suggest that this very small group of people (Free Thought Blogs and their supporters) are preparing to carry the banner of social justice for the rest of us, and for a group of people that inherently eschew cliques and in-groups and chafe at being told how they should think or act, this is contemptible.

and

On a final note, I think it’s telling that nearly all of the Free Thought Bloggers, from Miller, Christina, McCreight to P.Z. Myers and others are all supporting each other, which to the rest of us, smacks of provincialism if nothing else and speaks to me personally that not one of them are capable of independent thought.

I have waded through all 36 35 Free Thought Blogs and have attempted, as best as I can, to surmise which bloggers support Atheism+ and which have either made no public statement about it or have voiced their opposition. I will admit here that saying that “nearly all of the Free Thought Bloggers” may have been an exaggeration, but I think what I’m about to show indicates that a significant number of FtB’s (more than a dozen) have publicly hopped on the bandwagon. The number could very well be more if they had written anything about it. Two have spoken against it and a couple more were either vague or seemed to be on the fence.

For brevity’s sake, I did not attempt to sift through any comments that may have been left by the bloggers in response to readers that may assert support or opposition. I just stuck with their posts. For each individual page, I went back through the archives from Aug. 18, the date of McCreight’s original post (“How I Unwittingly Infiltrated the Boy’s Club & Why It’s Time for a New Wave of Atheism“) to today.

Someone may ask: isn’t this a waste of time? Why bother? Sure, but so is playing video games or watching movies. I put some effort into this because:

• I did make a serious claim that Free Thought Blogs was filled with people who hopped on the bandwagon, and I actually found that the figure appears to be more than one-third of the all bloggers at FtB. Again, the figure could be greater, but some either have remained mum or post so infrequently that it’s hard to gauge where they stand.
• Rather than speculate, I thought it would be instructive to throw out a more concrete figure.
• Since Atheism+ has become such a divisive issue the last few weeks, I thought readers would be interested to see a rundown on where the bloggers stand. Personally, I would like to see where all the Free Thought Bloggers stand on the issue because hell if the blowback from this thing can compel McCreight to quit blogging altogether, the public obviously has some strong feelings about it, even if some idiots who can’t tell the difference between blasting a person’s arguments versus demeaning the person.

That said, here is the format that I used. Again, this is a best effort on my part. Any corrections or additional information is welcome.

Name — Stance on Atheism+ with link showing support or dissent

Ed Brayton — Has made no statement that I am aware.

P.Z. Myers — a supporter but says he’s not an official “member.”

Chris Rodda — No comment that I am aware.

Stephen Andrew — No comment that I am aware.

Cuttlefish — Seems generally supportive even if not willing to adopt the label.

Reasonable Doubts — An infrequent podcast show; has made no comment.

Comradde PhysioProffe — Seems to be a supporter since he reposted part of McCreight’s original post from Aug. 18 with the title of his own post, “Skeptical D00ds Are Not Skeptical About Their Own Gross Misogyny,” included in the title is an apparent reference to Thunderf00t.

Assassin Actual — Hasn’t posted since Aug. 2.

Daniel Fincke — Supporter.

Deacon Duncan — Supporter.

Greta Christina — Supporter.

Hank Fox — Possibly a passive supporter. He speaks on the perceived motivations behind the ”movement” and about a “Beta Culture,” which seems to be a similar alternative.

Stephanie Zvan — Supporter.

Ophelia Benson — Supporter.

Jason Thibeault — Supporter.

Jen McCreight — Inventor in chief.

Dana Hunter — Supporter.

Al Stefanelli — Not a supporter.

Martin Wagner — Supporter.

Brian Lynchehaun — Supporter.

Justin Griffith — No statement.

Kylie Sturgess — Not a supporter.

Maryam Namazie — No statement.

Blackskeptics — No statement.

Richard Carrier — Alientating, overly enthusiastic supporter.

Edwin Kagin — Seems skeptical about Atheism+.

Mano Singham — No statement.

Natalie Reed — Not a supporter.

Chris Hallquist —No statement, moved to Patheos.

Brianne Bilyeu — No statement.

Taslima Nasreen — No statement.

Zinnia Jones — No statement.

Ashley F. Miller — Supporter.

Cristina Rad — No statement. Only two posts since McCreight’s Aug. 18 introduction to Atheism+.

AronRa — No statement. Only three posts since Aug 18.

Still trying to improve the introduction and production. Feel free to leave your comments here or on YouTube:

I never really thought this would be the case in the first place, but as it turns out, not all females are buying into this whole Atheism+, hyper-sensitive, reactionary brand of "social justice" that folks like Jen McCreight, Rebecca Watson, P.Z. Myers and others are peddling over at Free Thought Blogs.

This is refreshing for many reasons, not the least of which is because it shows that quite a few members of the atheist community do indeed think for themselves and don’t just dive in head over feet into a “movement” because some influential atheists, and females at that, say they should. Further, this speaks to the fact that McCreight, Watson and Co., don’t speak for all women in the community nor should they. I’m sure there are many others, but I’ll quickly highlight three women who have provided a intelligent arguments against this “movement” for social justice, which is really just a repackaged version of humanism (See: On Atheism+ and humanism: part 2).

Here is Renee from over at Belief Blower, who seems to have a particularly sharp grasp of reality that seems to be woefully lacking in Atheism+ circles:

… What is more distressing and pertininent (sic) to women is that there are 3 women beind (sic) the "movement": Jen McCreight, Ophelia Benson, and Rebecca Watson.

Normally, I wouldn’t give 2 shits about these women or the movement. But they are actively and divisively stripping apart atheism and attempting to bring together a happy little club of women and sycophantic men under the guise of being more socially responsible. Nothing could be further from the truth. These women are simply angry that they’ve been slighted/harassed/sexed in some way, shape, or form and feel their best course of action is to create a "special snowflake" clique.

Ladies, I’m here to tell you that your tiny fucking "slights" or sexist remarks are part of the real world. Each and every one of you spend an astronomical amount of time on the Internet and when you aren’t chatting it up on your computer, you’re off talking to groups that have organizations *begging* you to be there and willing to pay for your constant mini-vacations. I would be happy to swap my childhood and early adulthood with *any* of you. I know what real sexism and misogyny is. All three of you are so quick to throw around the word "misogyny" and yet not one single one of you can correctly identify the true meaning of the word.

Let me clue you in – it means "hatred of women". Do you understand this phrase? HATRED of women. Not bullying, not chiding, not sexist and/or inappropriate remarks. It is the hatred of women.

Here are two YouTubers, BionicDance:

And jpkeitt:

At the expense of repeating myself, I’ll take some time here to explore some of the other components, criticisms and responses to Atheism+ that were not covered in this post. I have wanted to write a follow up post on this for quite a few days, but it has taken awhile to gather my thoughts.

Here I will show in fuller detail why Atheism+ is not only redundant but why it’s actually corrosive to the legacies of atheists and freethinkers who have done important social work under the old banners and who did so bravely and under conditions that were far from friendly or accepting.

First, Greta Christina (“Humanism Is Great — But It’s Not Atheism Plus“) and Ashley F. Miller (“The difference between “atheism+” and humanism“) have suggested with all the fervor they could muster that Atheism+ is not secular humanism. In Miller’s case, she appears to be on board with Atheism+ because she feels the old label, atheism, suffers from an irreparable stigma. As she describes it:

There is a difference between a self-defined humanist doing something good for mankind and a self-defined atheist doing it, simply because of the massive amount of stigma associated with atheism. Proving that atheists care about other people and making the world a better place is important.  I think that “atheism+” is a way to bring the philosophy of humanism more strongly to the fight for atheist equality, and vice versa.

Calling myself part of the atheist — +, humanist, or otherwise — movement is a meaningful political act, and one not worth dropping to join something incredibly similar, but different.

To make one point abundantly clear: atheism is not a movement, and it is emphatically not political. In the wake of Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens, Harris and the like, one may easily come to think of atheism as a movement, and at one point, Hitchens even said he wrote his book as part of a “pushback” against religion, but it’s not as if the so-called new atheists met prior to writing their books and made some collaborative effort to produce a string of publications on the perils of a religion as a deliberate exercise. After Sam Harris published “The End of Faith” in 2004, these books and the subject matter just caught fire and the works began flying off the shelves. While the new atheism label may have been an unfortunate consequence of the new attention paid to atheism and freethought, “there is nothing new under the sun,” to borrow a line from Ecclesiastes.

Indeed, Tom Flynn traces the genesis of the “movement” that was never really a movement to begin with because, as I previously noted, atheism has hundreds of years, if not millennia, of thought and free inquiry behind it. Susan Jacoby’s excellent work, “Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism,” explores some of the heroes of American freethought, including Thomas Jefferson, Tom Paine, Robert Ingersoll, Elizabeth Stanton and many others.

Flynn said that after the release of Harris’ book, “something new was afoot:”

… but it was only this: for the first time, uncompromising atheist writing was coming from big-name publishers and hitting best-seller lists. You could buy it at the airport. In consequence, people who had never before experienced atheist rhetoric got their first exposure to arguments that had formerly been published only by movement presses. One of these newcomers was Wired’s Gary Wolf. Encountering sledgehammer assaults upon religion that he had never seen before, knowing nothing of freethought’s rich, enclaved history, he thought he was seeing something genuinely new. And the New Atheism was born—out of ignorance, ironically enough.

But it was nothing new.

Flynn’s conclusion is so important to my point that it deserves a full mention:

The triumph of Harris, Dennett, Dawkins, and Hitchens was to take arguments against religion that were long familiar to insiders, brilliantly repackage them, and expose them to millions who would never otherwise pick up an atheist book. That’s no small achievement. But too many commentators lacking the requisite historical background have treated them as though the horsemen invented atheism. Not so!

That’s why I think it is important to recognize that there is no New Atheism. There are no New Atheists. There is atheism, and there are atheists. A spectrum of national atheist, freethought, secular humanist, and religious humanist organizaztions already stands prepared to serve unbelievers of many inclinations, without the need for any New Atheist group to hang out its shingle. Atheism and its companion life stances can be proud of roots that extend far, far deeper than (snicker) 2004.

The so-called Four Horsemen deserve admiration for exposing millions of contemporary readers to refutations of traditional religion that our movement has been burnishing for decades, sometimes centuries. We need to do a better job of sharing the rich literary and organizational history out of which these ideas sprang. At the same time, secular humanists need to do all they can to encourage people newly drawn to atheism to make the added journey to the fully rounded, exuberant lifestance we call secular humanism. (italics mine)

So, while the new atheist label was bestowed on Dawkins and Co., unwittingly, and while they, perhaps, adopted it to some degree, nothing new has actually occurred between 2004 and now. Atheism is just atheism, a disbelief in the existence of a god. It has no new definition and entails no new set of morals or principles, and indeed, no set of principles at all. For that, we need humanism, but more on that later.

The second point inherent in Miller’s argument is that “atheism” has become such a stigmatic and disgraced word in modern society (Or, maybe just in America; it’s not quite clear) that its image needs to somehow be repaired. Again, I don’t sense much of a grasp of history here. Atheists and freethinkers have been marginalized, persecuted, and in some extreme cases, killed for hundreds of years, and so long as religion persists, they will continue to be treated with a certain level of contempt and as subhuman in some circles, when, in reality, unbelievers are more alive than the most pious among us. They and we see the world without blinders and without walls. They and we see the world as it is and as it should be: no heaven and certainly no hell at the end of the tunnel; we see a marvelously wide and interconnected universe. We have no lights to guide our path but our own mind, our own consciences, our own sense of empathy for others and our human solidarity. No light; just life.

If others can’t accept that for what it is, it’s their loss. But for nonbelievers to now suggest that we need to change, or perhaps, evolve atheism into a “third wave” called Atheism+ that will address such things like feminism, ableism, racism,  misogyny, etc., and “prove” that atheists “care about making the world a better place” not only does a disservice to the past freethinkers, like Ingersoll and Stanton, who did indeed prove it with the testimony of their lives that atheists can stand up for important causes and move society forward under the banner of humanism, it also kowtows to critics. Essentially, it is the pitiable admission that the very words “atheism” and “humanism” have become so defiled by dissent that there is no choice but to start again by making atheism seem more positive and socially acceptable to the layperson. This is an admission, in other worse, that we have lost.

This is also the part about Atheism+ that, I think, rubs many nonbelievers the wrong way. It seems to suggest that this very small group of people (Free Thought Blogs and their supporters) are preparing to carry the banner of social justice for the rest of us, and for a group of people that inherently eschew cliques and in-groups and chafe at being told how they should think or act, this is contemptible.

As for Christina, she attempts in her post to answer the question:

 Isn’t ‘Atheism plus social justice’ just another term for humanism?”

She then explains:

Humanism is also more engaged with creating secular replacements for the rituals and structures of religious communities… and while many atheists are cool with this idea and are even engaged with it themselves, there are many other atheists who are profoundly turned off by it. And many humanists are actively hostile to the word “atheist.” It’s not just that they don’t choose to use the word themselves. They don’t want anyone else to use it, either. So that puts another damper on the whole “Atheism Plus is just humanism re-branded” thing.

She goes on to say that, in effect, atheism is a more “in your face” brand of nonbelief, while humanism is more subtle and that many people don’t even know what the term means. Later in the post, she discusses the necessity of keeping the word “atheism” alongside the “plus:”

We see value in it (atheism), and we don’t want to abandon it. We want to form a subset of it that makes it better: a subset that is specifically devoted to making atheism more welcoming to women, people of color, poor people, working class people, trans people, and other marginalized groups, and that is specifically devoted to doing work in the places where atheism and other social justice issues intersect.

Again, atheism needs no improvements or additions to make it better, and attempts to do so actually blacken the legacy of atheists who did work and are working to make the world a better place because of their love of humanity. A disbelief in a god does not include a moral or social stance whatsoever. Atheists are free to be kind and loving toward their brothers or they are free to be assholes and suffer the legal and social disadvantages of ridicule, isolation and chastisement. They are free to be Democrats or Republicans, prolife or prochoice, misogynistic or not, as long as they are willing to live with the consequences of their choices.

In all this, Christina never quite gets around the explaining the clear difference between Atheism+ and humanism. The best she can apparently do is this conclusion:

… And I can’t tell you how many humanists I’ve talked with who have been total douchebags about feminism: insisting that humanism is superior to and more important than feminism, that feminism is exclusionary and anti-male, that they “don’t see gender” and anyone who does is the real sexist, and that the best way to make sexism disappear is to ignore it and pretend it doesn’t exist.

Humanism in theory is on board with social justice — but the practice can be very different indeed. If every atheist who’s sick of sexism and misogyny in the atheist movement picked up their stakes and moved to humanism, it wouldn’t make these problems magically disappear.

There is a great deal of overlap between humanism and Atheism Plus. They are very similar ideas, very similar visions. There is great value in both. I suspect that many people will call themselves both, and I look forward to the two movements working in alliance for many years to come. But I don’t think they’re the same. And I think it’s reasonable for some people to identify primarily as one, and some primarily as the other.

So here again, like Jen McCreight, we have a Free Thought Blogger relying on anecdotal evidence (“total douchebags about feminism”) to describe what is wrong with the humanists she has met and why Atheist+ is going to be so much different and better. She is, apparently, judge and jury.

If I have to point this out 10 more times for it to stick, I will happily do so. If a humanist is not concerned and committed to stamping out hate, racism, bigotry, misogyny, anti-gay sentiment and other social ills, he or she is not a humanist. Plain and simple. I consult the Encyclopaedia Britannica’s entry on humanism about active virtue:

The emphasis on virtuous action as the goal of learning was a founding principle of humanism and (though sometimes sharply challenged) continued to exert a strong influence throughout the course of the movement.

Here is Leon Battista Alberti from “Della famiglia:”

As I have said, happiness cannot be gained without good works and just and righteous deeds. . . . The best works are those that benefit many people. Those are most virtuous, perhaps, that cannot be pursued without strength and nobility. We must give ourselves to manly effort, then, and follow the noblest pursuits.

And Florentine humanist Matteo di Marco Palmieri:

… the true merit of virtue lies in effective action, and effective action is impossible without the faculties that are necessary for it. He who has nothing to give cannot be generous. And he who loves solitude can be neither just, nor strong, nor experienced in those things that are of importance in government and in the affairs of the majority.

And the last sentence from Britannica:

Endorsements of active virtue, as will be shown, would also characterize the work of English humanists from Sir Thomas Elyot to John Milton. They typify the sense of social responsibility—the instinctive association of learning with politics and morality—that stood at the heart of the movement. As Salutati put it, “One must stand in the line of battle, engage in close combat, struggle for justice, for truth, for honour.” (italics mine)

The idea of social justice, then, is built into the word humanism at the core. Regardless of who knows what humanism means or not is inconsequential. The word, the idea, the philosophy has existed for hundreds of years, and it contains within it everything, and in better and less provincial form, I might add, than what has been presented as Atheism+ thus far.

On a final note, I think it’s telling that nearly all of the Free Thought Bloggers, from Miller, Christina, McCreight to P.Z. Myers and others are all supporting each other, which to the rest of us, smacks of provincialism if nothing else and speaks to me personally that not one of them are capable of independent thought. McCreight, Watson and others have some bad experiences with some brutish individuals, so McCreight decides to invent a new “movement.” And no one had the balls to say, “You know what, guys? This sounds really similar, if not the same, as humanism. It seems too similar to justify any kind of  ’new wave’ of atheism. Maybe we can work within the framework of humanism to discuss our concerns.” But no. That’s not what happened is it? After McCreight’s original post, every single one of them cooed in agreement and passively followed like lemmings off a cliff. That’s not the moral courage, and that’s not intellectual courage.

Agree? Disagree? Feel free to leave a comment below.

Dwindling in Unbelief lists 196. Here are just a few with relevant verses:

2. Do the right things. (Be a do-gooder.)

For we must all appear before the jugment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad. — 2 Corinthians 5:10

6.Burn your work.

If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire. — 1 Corinthians 3:15

10. Do what is lawful and right.

When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness … and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul. — Ezekiel 18:27

17. Call upon God

As for me, I will call upon God; and the LORD shall save me. — Psalm 55:16

22. Wait for him

Wait on the LORD, and he shall save thee. — Proverbs 20:22

Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, and he will save us. — Isaiah 25:9

32. Don’t be so darned wicked

When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he hath committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul. — Ezekiel 18:27

40. Believe on Jesus (the established answer)

He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life. — John 3:36

Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life. — John 6:47

Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. — Acts 16:31

57. Just get baptized (you can keep the filth of the flesh)

Baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh). — 1 Peter 3:21

76. Be more righteous than the scribes and Pharisees

Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. — Matthew 5:20

And best of them all:

77.Hate your own life

The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. John 12:25

Read more from Dwinding in Unbelief.

The Baptist Press has posted a column by R. Albert Mohler Jr. about the Clergy Project, in which Mohler complains that former believers, Jerry DeWitt, a native of DeRidder, La., and former pastor Teresa MacBain of Tallahassee, Fla. (I wrote about her here), did not simply resign from their church’s after becoming unbelievers but remained on staff and continued to draw a salary based on hypocrisy. Referring to former believers who were part of a study conducted by Daniel C. Dennett and Linda LaScola, Mohler said:

 These pastors clearly are not believers, at least in any orthodox or recognizably Christian sense. They spoke openly and in considerable detail about their unbelief, with the ministers explaining how they had abandoned any confidence in biblical Christianity.

Why didn’t they just resign? Most shockingly, some openly spoke of losing their salaries as the main concern. So much for intellectual honesty.

Mohler also presented a dim view of this quote from Richard Dawkins:

It is hard to think of any other profession which it is so near to impossible to leave.

Of course, having presumably never been in the position of DeWitt and MacBain, Mohler is ill-equipped to say how they should or shouldn’t have acted, but as a former believer, I can say that it is sometimes less painful and less stressful to simply remain in the fold rather than to “come out,” which not only strains tensions with family members and fellow churchgoers, but in many cases, a person’s entire social structure can be ripped out from under them.

I experienced some of this, and I was just simply a churchgoer and not really in a position of leadership. From reading about the experiences of former pastors Dan Barker and John Loftus, I can only imagine the feelings of ostracization that come when you are the leader of a church and must proclaim that not only can you not lead the flock anymore, you can’t and you won’t. More so than myself, pastors in small churches, especially in the South, often have no friends and no social framework outside of the church.

So yes, in a very literal sense, the clergy is nearly an impossible profession to leave because if a person is doing it correctly and sincerely, the job comes to define you as a person, as does the religion. So, while Mohler may have a fair point about former believers continuing to draw a salary from the church a) most of them have to continue to support their families while they figure out how they are going to break the news, find a new career and move forward and b) in the midst of the other crushing implications of leaving the church, money is probably not high on the agenda. Having to face life without that a social, and in some cases, familial, framework is probably the highest priority.

Mohler goes on to say that the Clergy Project, an organization with the serious goal of helping former believers (I wish they wouldn’t continue to call themselves clergy) get support from people who are going through similar experiences, is a “magnate for charlatans and cowards.” Cowards? Really? I would be amused to find what would happen if Mohler woke up one day to the truth and then found himself surrounded by people with whom he had nothing in common. Coming out in to the open about who you really are — damn the consequences — is one of the most heroic things a person can do, but that change and that decision does not happen overnight.

He then sets up a bizarre comparison between what he calls “faithful doubt” and “pernicious doubt”:

Faithful doubt leads to a deeper embrace of the truth, with doubt serving to point us into a deeper knowledge, trust and understanding of the truth. Pernicious doubt leads to unfaithfulness, unbelief, skepticism, cynicism and despair. Christians — ministers or otherwise — who are struggling with doubt, need to seek help from the faithful, not the faithless.

Help is not what these pastors and churchgoers struggling with faith are seeking. It is the truth. Under the cloak of religion, the truth can seem like a moving target. Is God real or not? Is he speaking to me or not? What was that voice I just heard in my head? Was that me or someone outside of myself? Why don’t I “get it” like other believers seem to “get it?” What am I missing? Faithful doubt led me into more than one meetings with one of my former church leaders. It led me to my knees on more nights than I can count. It led me to my Bible. And ultimately, when the answers, the proof, the substantiation did not come, it led me right out of the church. There was never anything pernicious or despairing about it. I simply woke up one bright and sunny fall morning when freedom broke, and I was done.