Atheists and White Supremacists

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

For example; some basement-dweller on another continent threatens to come to my house and beat me up. Me: HAW HAW HAW HAW! I know I am completely safe. That is one form of security.

Some basement-dweller in Portland threatens to come to my house and beat me up. Me: SCARED AND FURIOUS, MAKE ARRANGEMENTS FOR BACKUP. I would have an immediate fear and anger response because I would know that his threat was plausible; I would not feel secure.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

For me I would say my rabid atheism stemmed from fear and anger. But, perhaps insecurity is related to those feelings? I'm not sure.

Fear and anger are both direct results of insecurity. They're threat responses.

But would we say that a homosexual who feels fear and anger is stemmed from insecurity?  Not arguing, Just asking.

That might be answered by my last post, let me know if not.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

For what it's worth I still don't think "insecure" is accurate, nor appropriate, but in mind I am willing to entertain the idea that Nigel used that term specifically to get a reaction, and didn't really mean it. Which doesn't bother me, because that method is the heart of The Sacred Bull.

If she DID mean it that way, well I suppose we disagree on that point. No big whoop. I disagree with lost people.

Those lost fuckers. Fuck them!

In all seriousness, though, I wonder whether part of the disconnect might be in the definition of "insecurity"? When we are socially secure, we don't feel the urge to increase our relative social standing by comparing ourselves favorably to others we cast in an unfavorable light. A socially secure person doesn't need to belittle another broad group as part of their self-recognition, nor are they typically OK aligning themselves with that kind of bigotry.

IMO it is not OK to accept bigotry against the majority. Accepting bigotry from your in-group directed against an out-group just because that out-group is more powerful is not OK.

So insecurity as a deficiency of social capital is what was intended. I guessed at it but only because I was trying to understand how that could possibly be. Even still, I don't think that applies to Coyote. While he's an atheist it's not really part of his identity as it is with a lot of the really obnoxious atheists.

I'm not gonna try to speak for him or try to speculate about why it affected him so deeply. I will say that it's pretty hard to be shaken over criticism of something you feel secure about so something clearly got to him, whatever it might be.

Yeah but I talked to him about it outside of PD and he's not pissed because he's an atheist or has feelings about atheism. I wouldn't feel really comfortable about going further into it without him actually speaking for himself since texts are pretty much the same as PMs. I *think* he'll be back. I used phrasing along the lines of taking a break with him and he didn't correct me and I saw no evidence in what he said here as indicative of a fuck you forever sort of sentiment, so if and hopefully when he comes back he can go more into it himself, if he chooses to. But seriously, has nothing to do with atheism.

Well that's good. As far as I can tell he thinks I should go fuck myself, but I can't do much about that.

[hooplala]

For me I would say my rabid atheism stemmed from fear and anger. But, perhaps insecurity is related to those feelings? I'm not sure.

Fear and anger are both direct results of insecurity. They're threat responses.

But would we say that a homosexual who feels fear and anger is stemmed from insecurity?  Not arguing, Just asking.

That might be answered by my last post, let me know if not.

Direct danger, I see. That might be.  I'm gonna think about it some and come back.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

For me I would say my rabid atheism stemmed from fear and anger. But, perhaps insecurity is related to those feelings? I'm not sure.

Fear and anger are both direct results of insecurity. They're threat responses.

But would we say that a homosexual who feels fear and anger is stemmed from insecurity?  Not arguing, Just asking.

I think that's a YMMV.

I usually don't discuss my non-heterosexuality with people I'm not comfortable enough discussing it with because I still like the poon and have a girlfriend, so it's really not something that's worth mentioning unless someone directly offends me or if hypothetically I was with a man long enough to bring him to Thanksgiving dinner. This is also compared with support, whether perceived or known, and cultural climate.

If I were completely gay and living in a religious, socially conservative part of the world, yeah, I could see myself harboring a lot of fear and anger, both of which are derived from insecurity as defined by reduced or non-existent, or even anti- social capital. If it's a stigma, it might weigh on you. If it's a serious stigma, it definitely will. There's a reason suicide is higher in non-hetero populations.

[LMNO]

This might be incoherent.


Could it bet that Coyote may have been insecure IN GENERAL, and felt a sense of comfort and belonging when he was here? A place where IRL stress and conflict and general bullshit that makes him feel bad about himself are put aside, and he can act more naturally and comfortably; and he felt he could speak his mind without fear of reprisal or acrimony?

And then he felt that all the shit he was pushing away, and all the trust and, yes, love, he had shored up with the relationships and social structures he had spent so long building here, were suddenly ripped away, and his friends turned on him, and his structures broke, and the shit he deals with every day poured in to what he considered a clean space, and he simply broke. Because he felt lost. And abandoned.

Just a thought. Perhaps a hypothetical.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

For me I would say my rabid atheism stemmed from fear and anger. But, perhaps insecurity is related to those feelings? I'm not sure.

Fear and anger are both direct results of insecurity. They're threat responses.

But would we say that a homosexual who feels fear and anger is stemmed from insecurity?  Not arguing, Just asking.

That might be answered by my last post, let me know if not.

Direct danger, I see. That might be.  I'm gonna think about it some and come back.

Direct danger or indirect danger can create insecurity. That's why racism tends to be more rampant among the poor.

Here's where it gets really messy; in a lot of parts of the world, including the US, there is a lot of pressure to conform to norms that are set by a religious majority. That's a real pressure that creates a real insecurity.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Another example is living as a woman in the US. There is real insecurity involved with being female. Some women respond to that insecurity by embracing a form of feminism that is misandrist. As a feminist, many of us find it very important to vocally reject that misandry, or else feminism stops being about promoting equality and becomes the she-woman man-haters club.

[Lord Cataplanga]

Earlier LMNO asked me why I chose the comparison with White Supremacists rather than some other group. I thought about it as I walked to school, and honestly although the choice was pretty spur of the moment, I could not think of a better example. I've known quite a few White Supremacists. Most of them are perfectly decent human beings who just happen to think less of people who aren't like them.

They just think that brown people are stupid and their ways are wrong and backward, and they don't see why they should be expected to respect them when they're so clearly inferior.

Is all.

I had a little trouble understanding that at first. I thought you must not have a lot of experience with actual atheists, as opposed to their stereotype.
Then you explained and I realized that it was I that had no experience with white supremacists, as opposed to the stereotype. I think most of the indignation in this thread was because, like me, many people thought that white supremacists were terrible people, and that they couldn't possibly be like that.

Also, if you are still curious about those "funny" pictures atheists share with each other, it's helpful to compare it to those apologetics books written by Christians. They like to pretend that those books are made to convince unbelievers, but those books are mostly bought, read and talked about by christians, who are the actual target audience.

Some christians like to discuss those books among themselves because it reinforces intra-group bondings. Roger is understandably horrified by this, because pretending to use reason to justify faith is like blasphemy in his belief system, but when you consider it not as an attempt at justification or proselitization, but simply as a bonding ritual, it doesn't seem so crazy.

My favorite theory that explains the important social function that both Christian apologetics and Atheist "jokes" serve is this one. I like it because it's very neatly explains the very different attitudes taken by different kind of atheists, as well as the very different attitudes taken by different discordians (think Really Real Discordians vs pinealists vs PD).

The most relevant quote in that article is this one, but you should read the whole thing if you have the time:

It's much easier to be charitable in political debates when you view the two participants as coming from two different cultures that err on opposite sides, each trying to propose advice that would help their own culture, each being tragically unaware that the other culture exists.

A lot of the time this happens when one person is from a dysfunctional community and suggesting very strong measures against some problem the community faces, and the other person is from a functional community and thinks the first person is being extreme, fanatical or persecutory.

This happens a lot among, once again, atheists. One guy is like "WE NEED TO DESTROY RELIGION IT CORRUPTS EVERYTHING IT TOUCHES ANYONE WHO MAKES ANY COMPROMISES WITH IT IS A TRAITOR KILL KILL KILL." And the other guy is like "Hello? Religion may not be literally true, but it usually just makes people feel more comfortable and inspires them to do nice things and we don't want to look like huge jerks here." Usually the first guy was raised Jehovah's Witness and the second guy was raised Moralistic Therapeutic Deist.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

For what it's worth I still don't think "insecure" is accurate, nor appropriate, but in mind I am willing to entertain the idea that Nigel used that term specifically to get a reaction, and didn't really mean it. Which doesn't bother me, because that method is the heart of The Sacred Bull.

If she DID mean it that way, well I suppose we disagree on that point. No big whoop. I disagree with lost people.

Those lost fuckers. Fuck them!

In all seriousness, though, I wonder whether part of the disconnect might be in the definition of "insecurity"? When we are socially secure, we don't feel the urge to increase our relative social standing by comparing ourselves favorably to others we cast in an unfavorable light. A socially secure person doesn't need to belittle another broad group as part of their self-recognition, nor are they typically OK aligning themselves with that kind of bigotry.

IMO it is not OK to accept bigotry against the majority. Accepting bigotry from your in-group directed against an out-group just because that out-group is more powerful is not OK.

So insecurity as a deficiency of social capital is what was intended. I guessed at it but only because I was trying to understand how that could possibly be. Even still, I don't think that applies to Coyote. While he's an atheist it's not really part of his identity as it is with a lot of the really obnoxious atheists.

I'm not gonna try to speak for him or try to speculate about why it affected him so deeply. I will say that it's pretty hard to be shaken over criticism of something you feel secure about so something clearly got to him, whatever it might be.

Yeah but I talked to him about it outside of PD and he's not pissed because he's an atheist or has feelings about atheism. I wouldn't feel really comfortable about going further into it without him actually speaking for himself since texts are pretty much the same as PMs. I *think* he'll be back. I used phrasing along the lines of taking a break with him and he didn't correct me and I saw no evidence in what he said here as indicative of a fuck you forever sort of sentiment, so if and hopefully when he comes back he can go more into it himself, if he chooses to. But seriously, has nothing to do with atheism.

Well that's good. As far as I can tell he thinks I should go fuck myself, but I can't do much about that.

He's pretty pissed at you and Roger (and a good part of that is the otherwise high regard he holds both of you in, and that might take some time, and a little bit of dialog on yours and Roger's parts too. I dunno. Again, we'll have to see where he is if and when he comes back, and where the both of you are).

I'm not. All three of you are still my friends. Ya'll can resolve that on your own. I might have entirely different feelings towards this thread, but I understand where all three of you are coming from. That's kinda normal for me, whether the situation be I agree with all parties to a degree, one party specifically but see what the others are doing or disagree with every last one of you but see what you're doing and why.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

This might be incoherent.


Could it bet that Coyote may have been insecure IN GENERAL, and felt a sense of comfort and belonging when he was here? A place where IRL stress and conflict and general bullshit that makes him feel bad about himself are put aside, and he can act more naturally and comfortably; and he felt he could speak his mind without fear of reprisal or acrimony?

And then he felt that all the shit he was pushing away, and all the trust and, yes, love, he had shored up with the relationships and social structures he had spent so long building here, were suddenly ripped away, and his friends turned on him, and his structures broke, and the shit he deals with every day poured in to what he considered a clean space, and he simply broke. Because he felt lost. And abandoned.

Just a thought. Perhaps a hypothetical.

I didn't get a sense of that one way or the other from talking to him, but that could well be. We all know he's dealing with his own thing, and a pretty heavy thing at that.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Earlier LMNO asked me why I chose the comparison with White Supremacists rather than some other group. I thought about it as I walked to school, and honestly although the choice was pretty spur of the moment, I could not think of a better example. I've known quite a few White Supremacists. Most of them are perfectly decent human beings who just happen to think less of people who aren't like them.

They just think that brown people are stupid and their ways are wrong and backward, and they don't see why they should be expected to respect them when they're so clearly inferior.

Is all.

I had a little trouble understanding that at first. I thought you must not have a lot of experience with actual atheists, as opposed to their stereotype.
Then you explained and I realized that it was I that had no experience with white supremacists, as opposed to the stereotype. I think most of the indignation in this thread was because, like me, many people thought that white supremacists were terrible people, and that they couldn't possibly be like that.

Also, if you are still curious about those "funny" pictures atheists share with each other, it's helpful to compare it to those apologetics books written by Christians. They like to pretend that those books are made to convince unbelievers, but those books are mostly bought, read and talked about by christians, who are the actual target audience.

Some christians like to discuss those books among themselves because it reinforces intra-group bondings. Roger is understandably horrified by this, because pretending to use reason to justify faith is like blasphemy in his belief system, but when you consider it not as an attempt at justification or proselitization, but simply as a bonding ritual, it doesn't seem so crazy.

My favorite theory that explains the important social function that both Christian apologetics and Atheist "jokes" serve is this one. I like it because it's very neatly explains the very different attitudes taken by different kind of atheists, as well as the very different attitudes taken by different discordians (think Really Real Discordians vs pinealists vs PD).

The most relevant quote in that article is this one, but you should read the whole thing if you have the time:

It's much easier to be charitable in political debates when you view the two participants as coming from two different cultures that err on opposite sides, each trying to propose advice that would help their own culture, each being tragically unaware that the other culture exists.

A lot of the time this happens when one person is from a dysfunctional community and suggesting very strong measures against some problem the community faces, and the other person is from a functional community and thinks the first person is being extreme, fanatical or persecutory.

This happens a lot among, once again, atheists. One guy is like "WE NEED TO DESTROY RELIGION IT CORRUPTS EVERYTHING IT TOUCHES ANYONE WHO MAKES ANY COMPROMISES WITH IT IS A TRAITOR KILL KILL KILL." And the other guy is like "Hello? Religion may not be literally true, but it usually just makes people feel more comfortable and inspires them to do nice things and we don't want to look like huge jerks here." Usually the first guy was raised Jehovah's Witness and the second guy was raised Moralistic Therapeutic Deist.

It kind of all boils down to the same reason some of the most heated and rage-filled arguments I've ever seen are those on mom forums about natural childbirth vs. epidurals. People tend to think that anyone who does not make the same choices they make are on some level invalidating their choices, and they feel threatened by that. Of course, background (and backlash) also have a lot to do with it.

I am familiar with those little apologia booklets. Jack Chick, classic, right? They're simultaneously awful and hilarious. And ridiculous. And there is no particular reason for them to exist other than to reassure the in-group that they're doin' it right and everyone else is doin' it wrong; they, too, are a reaction to insecurity.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I'm only at part five and I have to go, but that's a good blog entry so far.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Earlier LMNO asked me why I chose the comparison with White Supremacists rather than some other group. I thought about it as I walked to school, and honestly although the choice was pretty spur of the moment, I could not think of a better example. I've known quite a few White Supremacists. Most of them are perfectly decent human beings who just happen to think less of people who aren't like them.

They just think that brown people are stupid and their ways are wrong and backward, and they don't see why they should be expected to respect them when they're so clearly inferior.

Is all.

I had a little trouble understanding that at first. I thought you must not have a lot of experience with actual atheists, as opposed to their stereotype.
Then you explained and I realized that it was I that had no experience with white supremacists, as opposed to the stereotype. I think most of the indignation in this thread was because, like me, many people thought that white supremacists were terrible people, and that they couldn't possibly be like that.

Also, if you are still curious about those "funny" pictures atheists share with each other, it's helpful to compare it to those apologetics books written by Christians. They like to pretend that those books are made to convince unbelievers, but those books are mostly bought, read and talked about by christians, who are the actual target audience.

Some christians like to discuss those books among themselves because it reinforces intra-group bondings. Roger is understandably horrified by this, because pretending to use reason to justify faith is like blasphemy in his belief system, but when you consider it not as an attempt at justification or proselitization, but simply as a bonding ritual, it doesn't seem so crazy.

My favorite theory that explains the important social function that both Christian apologetics and Atheist "jokes" serve is this one. I like it because it's very neatly explains the very different attitudes taken by different kind of atheists, as well as the very different attitudes taken by different discordians (think Really Real Discordians vs pinealists vs PD).

The most relevant quote in that article is this one, but you should read the whole thing if you have the time:

It's much easier to be charitable in political debates when you view the two participants as coming from two different cultures that err on opposite sides, each trying to propose advice that would help their own culture, each being tragically unaware that the other culture exists.

A lot of the time this happens when one person is from a dysfunctional community and suggesting very strong measures against some problem the community faces, and the other person is from a functional community and thinks the first person is being extreme, fanatical or persecutory.

This happens a lot among, once again, atheists. One guy is like "WE NEED TO DESTROY RELIGION IT CORRUPTS EVERYTHING IT TOUCHES ANYONE WHO MAKES ANY COMPROMISES WITH IT IS A TRAITOR KILL KILL KILL." And the other guy is like "Hello? Religion may not be literally true, but it usually just makes people feel more comfortable and inspires them to do nice things and we don't want to look like huge jerks here." Usually the first guy was raised Jehovah's Witness and the second guy was raised Moralistic Therapeutic Deist.

It kind of all boils down to the same reason some of the most heated and rage-filled arguments I've ever seen are those on mom forums about natural childbirth vs. epidurals. People tend to think that anyone who does not make the same choices they make are on some level invalidating their choices, and they feel threatened by that. Of course, background (and backlash) also have a lot to do with it.

I am familiar with those little apologia booklets. Jack Chick, classic, right? They're simultaneously awful and hilarious. And ridiculous. And there is no particular reason for them to exist other than to reassure the in-group that they're doin' it right and everyone else is doin' it wrong; they, too, are a reaction to insecurity.

The one girlfriend I lived with was an atheist (and you know, was never an issue in our relationship, ever. She had no gods I had several, and whatever, lol) but her best friend was a Muslim, and Jack Chick used to fire her up because of the way that he portrayed non-Christians, and specifically Muslims. She'd be like, "What, like [name redacted] never thought to herself whether Islam was the religion she believed in in the face of everything else? So it's all 'I've never heard of this Jesus guy before and based on our very brief and one sided conversation, I see the error of my Islamic ways and am ready for barbaric Arabs to cut my head off, thus making me a martyr.'" I mean yeah it's stupid as shit. Jack Chick thinks that (Protestant specific, he has some funny notions about us statue worshiping Papists as well) Christian Fundamentalism is an entirely logically consistent system that any truly rational person (unlike those scientists of course) would subscribe to if only shown the error of their ways.

[Lord Cataplanga]

Earlier LMNO asked me why I chose the comparison with White Supremacists rather than some other group. I thought about it as I walked to school, and honestly although the choice was pretty spur of the moment, I could not think of a better example. I've known quite a few White Supremacists. Most of them are perfectly decent human beings who just happen to think less of people who aren't like them.

They just think that brown people are stupid and their ways are wrong and backward, and they don't see why they should be expected to respect them when they're so clearly inferior.

Is all.

I had a little trouble understanding that at first. I thought you must not have a lot of experience with actual atheists, as opposed to their stereotype.
Then you explained and I realized that it was I that had no experience with white supremacists, as opposed to the stereotype. I think most of the indignation in this thread was because, like me, many people thought that white supremacists were terrible people, and that they couldn't possibly be like that.

Also, if you are still curious about those "funny" pictures atheists share with each other, it's helpful to compare it to those apologetics books written by Christians. They like to pretend that those books are made to convince unbelievers, but those books are mostly bought, read and talked about by christians, who are the actual target audience.

Some christians like to discuss those books among themselves because it reinforces intra-group bondings. Roger is understandably horrified by this, because pretending to use reason to justify faith is like blasphemy in his belief system, but when you consider it not as an attempt at justification or proselitization, but simply as a bonding ritual, it doesn't seem so crazy.

My favorite theory that explains the important social function that both Christian apologetics and Atheist "jokes" serve is this one. I like it because it's very neatly explains the very different attitudes taken by different kind of atheists, as well as the very different attitudes taken by different discordians (think Really Real Discordians vs pinealists vs PD).

The most relevant quote in that article is this one, but you should read the whole thing if you have the time:

It's much easier to be charitable in political debates when you view the two participants as coming from two different cultures that err on opposite sides, each trying to propose advice that would help their own culture, each being tragically unaware that the other culture exists.

A lot of the time this happens when one person is from a dysfunctional community and suggesting very strong measures against some problem the community faces, and the other person is from a functional community and thinks the first person is being extreme, fanatical or persecutory.

This happens a lot among, once again, atheists. One guy is like "WE NEED TO DESTROY RELIGION IT CORRUPTS EVERYTHING IT TOUCHES ANYONE WHO MAKES ANY COMPROMISES WITH IT IS A TRAITOR KILL KILL KILL." And the other guy is like "Hello? Religion may not be literally true, but it usually just makes people feel more comfortable and inspires them to do nice things and we don't want to look like huge jerks here." Usually the first guy was raised Jehovah's Witness and the second guy was raised Moralistic Therapeutic Deist.

It kind of all boils down to the same reason some of the most heated and rage-filled arguments I've ever seen are those on mom forums about natural childbirth vs. epidurals. People tend to think that anyone who does not make the same choices they make are on some level invalidating their choices, and they feel threatened by that. Of course, background (and backlash) also have a lot to do with it.

I am familiar with those little apologia booklets. Jack Chick, classic, right? They're simultaneously awful and hilarious. And ridiculous. And there is no particular reason for them to exist other than to reassure the in-group that they're doin' it right and everyone else is doin' it wrong; they, too, are a reaction to insecurity.

The one girlfriend I lived with was an atheist (and you know, was never an issue in our relationship, ever. She had no gods I had several, and whatever, lol) but her best friend was a Muslim, and Jack Chick used to fire her up because of the way that he portrayed non-Christians, and specifically Muslims. She'd be like, "What, like [name redacted] never thought to herself whether Islam was the religion she believed in in the face of everything else? So it's all 'I've never heard of this Jesus guy before and based on our very brief and one sided conversation, I see the error of my Islamic ways and am ready for barbaric Arabs to cut my head off, thus making me a martyr.'" I mean yeah it's stupid as shit. Jack Chick thinks that (Protestant specific, he has some funny notions about us statue worshiping Papists as well) Christian Fundamentalism is an entirely logically consistent system that any truly rational person (unlike those scientists of course) would subscribe to if only shown the error of their ways.

Yeah, you can tell those pamphlets are made for "internal consumption only", because they are so completely clueless about how people outside their group actually think. What's interesting about apologetics is that it's not just those hillarious/offensive Chick tracts. There are whole books like Mere Christianity, The God Who Is There, and others that are supposedly very well written, and must have taken a lot of effort. Books like The God Delusion are also in that category.