An Atheist Cult

[rug]

&feature=youtu.be

Al Stefanelli is an author, writer, journalist and civil rights activist.

He is the former Georgia State Director for American Atheists, Inc, and serves on the Board of Directors for The Clergy Project.

Al began his career in 1985, starting with the New York Times. In 1993 he joined a McClatchy newspaper,
writing a weekly column for ten years. His writing continues to be widely distributed on the Internet and in print.

Al also produced and hosted a weekly syndicated radio broadcast for three years and was the founder and
President of the former United Atheist Front, Inc., which functioned as a civil rights organization.
The United Atheist Front still maintains one of the largest private atheist pages on Facebook.

http://www.alstefanelli.com/booksandbio

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. Advice to everyone: don't waste your time watching this 10 minute whine

saying how oppressed men and whites are by everyone's overlords on FreeThought Blogs and other powerful controllers of the world. A reply to it:

http://freethoughtblogs.com/dispatches/2012/12/27/it-appears-ive-started-an-atheist-cult/

[rug]

2. I take it then you oppose any future posts by Pastor Al in here.

Like this one?

"Fundamentalist Christianity Degrades the Entire Human Race"

http://alstefanelli.wordpress.com/2012/12/28/fundamentalist-christianity-degrades-the-entire-human-race/#more-3544

[Warren Stupidity]

4. Thanks, exactly what I figured.

More "why can't we harass women at 4 am in an elevator" bullshit.

[cbayer]

9. Appreciate that muriel.

I could tell from what I read where this appeared to be going.

[xtraxritical]

3. Gee, another pseudo intellectual looking for an audience to assuage their ego.

[EvilAL]

5. I got to about 00:39

and realized I have no idea who those people are. Then I listened for another minute or so and stopped it.

[rug]

6. I don't blame you.

[EvilAL]

7. How far did you get?

[rug]

8. Sad to say, all of it.

This has been going on for some months now. I'd rather be informed on what it's about than not.

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. Why are you so obsessed with these bloggers?

You appear to have a masochistic desire to keep up with them. You claim that it was 'sad' to watch it all, but you thought it was important enough to start a DU thread about. You don't, I think, agree with much of what any of them says, yet you insist on talking about them, endlessly. Is there any other set of bloggers on which you waste so much of your own time, and inflict on others? And why would you "rather be informed" about them?

[rug]

11. When did you go to medical school? Obsessed? Masochistic?

For one thing, Pastor Al is frequently reposted in here.

For another thing, the nature of atheism and the nature of the atheist movement, as well as whether or not there is a movement, is frequently discussed in here.

What do you have against discussion?

I suppose I could speculate on your psychological traits in an effort to answer that, but that would be stupid.

[muriel_volestrangler]

12. Masochistic - you sit through an entire 10 minutes of video, which you seem to dislike

And then you want to relive it by posting about it here. Yes, masochistic.

Yes, obsessed: you have started dozens of threads about the bickering of a group of atheist bloggers. You say you'd 'rather be informed on what it's about than not', as if what each of them says about the others matters to the world.

At what point in that video is "the nature of atheism" discussed? Or "the nature of the atheist movement", rather than personal beefs?

Discussion? I've nothing against it. Were you thinking of starting one in this thread? Your OP told us nothing about the video you imbedded. You just pasted a bio of the guy in the video. Jesus, when someone said they had no idea who anyone he talked about was, you didn't even try to start a discussion on that. You replied with a one-liner that seems to acknowledge that the sane reaction to the video is 'who the fuck cares'? This looks like an admission that your OP was a complete waste of time.

By far the most interesting thing in this thread has been the link you gave in reply to me - in which Stefanelli does actually express an opinion about a religious attitude, which would actually fit the SoP "discuss religious and theological issues". Hell, you could even have tried to express an opinion about that - like "he's right about those guys" or "he's painting a false picture". But instead you just came up a with a bizarre assumption that me saying the video was a waste of everyone's time also meant that I didn't think anything from him should be posted again on DU, whether to be agreed with or criticised.

[rug]

13. Tell me, what do you call someone who dislikes religion who constantly posts in the Religion Group?

What do you call someone who constantly posts how wrong/deluded/dangerous religion is in the Religion Group?

To answer your question, when called on the nonsense posted by Stefanelli and others, the response is he doesn't speak for us (the singular is rarely used). When an atheist organization (yes they do exist) pulls a particularly stupid stunt the reaction is they don't speak for us. When a particularly bizarre corrollary to atheism is stated, when called on it, the reaction is "atheism is simply the absence of belief".

Face it muriel, it is a phenomenon like any other human activity. This "bickering" as you all it is as much a part of it as anything else.

And yes, this is not a discussion you want to have - as your first post in this thread amply demonstrates. I can understand why. It's embarassing. Oh wait, they have nothing to do with you or your position on religion.

[cleanhippie]

14. I'd call them a Host.

[muriel_volestrangler]

15. Perhaps you need a sense of proportion

People who dislike religion post here because religion affects the lives of people all over the world. In the USA, religions try to get laws about contraception overturned, or to get abortion banned. They try to get ridiculous fairy tales about how the world was created in 6 days accepted as an 'alternative scientific viewpoint' in schools. In Britain, they try to block a new law to have gay marriages, using their automatic seats in Parliament. In Ireland, they kill women because hospitals are too chicken-shit to say that an abortion would save their lives. In the Middle East, they inspire people to murder. Billions of people over the world are persuaded to pay millions of priests to spend their lives telling them what supposedly all powerful gods want them to do, but which the gods are unaccountably able to tell them directly. The Pope gets brown-nosed so much by world leaders, they give him his own little statelet to play with. That's why atheists post about religion here. Religion has a huge effect on people who would rather have nothing to do with it, as well as those who were brainwashed into it as malleable children.

On the other hand, your endless threads like this one are about a group of a few dozen people on the internet, whose biggest influence on the world is PZ Myers' ability to swamp crappy internet polls with people to give an atheist answer. You can safely ignore them. They will never affect your life. They don't affect the life of the vast majority of atheists, agnostics or other non-believers. Their arguments over why there aren't as many female atheist bloggers and conference speakers as male, or whether one of them has been sexist, don't amount to a hill of beans. It may affect who turns up to what atheist or sceptic conference, which won't make a blind bit of difference to anyone who doesn't go to the conferences anyway.

No, this bickering is irrelevant to everyone. If we examined the infighting between Christian bloggers and writers in anything like this detail, the group would be 10 times the size it is. But no-one else thinks it's worth following some strangers' personal arguments as if they are newsworthy.

[rug]

16. Perhaps you do as well.

To go from religiously motivated laws restricting contraception and abortion to "ridiculous fairy tales" based on Genesis in two sentences suggests a flatness of thinking and political naivete that is stunning.

To then post day after day repetitve attacks on religion based on this unnuanced view is as tedious as it is weird.

Poltical beliefs are quite distinct from religious beliefs as political acts are quite distinct from religious acts. Notwithstanding how one impacts the other, they remain different things entirely. If you fail to grasp that, it is no wonder you see posts here routinely attacking rightwing politics in the same breath that they are attacking believers for believing and - gasp! - for belongng to a religion.

If you don't see that, it is not only your sense of proportion that is out of whack.

Strive away, muriel. Strive valiantly to convince "us" that Myers, Steffanelli and the rest and their bickering is irrelevant. They're not. They are as relevant as they are embarassing.

[muriel_volestrangler]

17. Your post appears to be saying it's OK to have RW views if they come from religion

Why else would you object to "posts here routinely attacking rightwing politics in the same breath that they are attacking believers for believing and - gasp! - for belongng to a religion."? Yes, that's my point, and the point of a lot of people here - your Catholic religion has a shed load of right wing policies that you are defending.

You claim there is a separation between religion and politics; there ought to be, but your sect and your hateful, bigoted 'holy father' are at the forefront of erasing any separation. He wants his own prejudices enacted in the world's laws, and the ignorant sheep of his 'flock' obediently let the bile-filled bastard speak for them.

[rug]

18. Rightwing views are in the eye of the beholder.

That is not what it says.

To repeat:

To elide from criticism of public policy into a broad brush smear of religion (which you have done once again in the second paragraph of your post) is unintelligent, stupid and bigoted. A bigotry to which you add the fallacy of argumentum ad populum: "Yes, that's my point, and the point of a lot of people here".

You appear incapable of discerning the line between belief and action. So, to steal a phrase, I'll leave you "and your hateful, bigoted " coterie, doubless avid readers of one side or the other that the OP references, to either search for - or ignore - that line.

In the meantime, when bullshit is posted it will be answered, whether it embarasses and offends you or not.

[muriel_volestrangler]

19. You say my post is bigoted?

I can't work out what's happened to you. You are defending right wing BS, on DU. And when I say that a religious origin for RW BS is not an excuse, you call that 'bigoted'?

I'm going to have to start examining all the OPs you make here. I think you're slipping too many conservative talking points in to DU. The Religion Group is not an excuse for that; the GC/RKBA is a bad enough problem for DU as it is.

[rug]

20. Textbook.

your sect and your hateful, bigoted 'holy father' are at the forefront of erasing any separation. He wants his own prejudices enacted in the world's laws, and the ignorant sheep of his 'flock' obediently let the bile-filled bastard speak for them.

Yes there re one billion Catholic sheep.



What rightwing BS do you say I am defendng? Link it.

You know, the solution to religious bigotry is not an imaginary witch hunt.

Go on. I welcome it.

[muriel_volestrangler]

21. Here's the link:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/121860779

That article belongs in National Review, not on DU.

[rug]

22. Circular.

That's not very impressive considering your accusation.