Friday, August 27, 2010

Why Atheist Fundamentalist is a Nonsense Term

A lot of critics of the more vocal "New Atheists" try to in cheap debating points by poisoning the well with the label "atheist fundamentalists". The strategy here isn't too sophisticated: imply that these atheists are just as closed-minded as their opponents. The problem is the two aren't remotely similar. Oh sure, there are stupid atheists, ignorant atheists, loud atheists, arrogant strident atheists and even atheists that are wrong about the big questions. But none of this supplies coherence to the term "fundamentalist atheists". It's an oxymoron. We aren't much fond of authoritarianism, tradition, dogma, or of course faith. That's a big part of what makes us atheists in the first place. We don't herd well. We don't pledge our devotion to any particular beliefs, or hold much of anything in stone. Ask three atheists for their opinions on gods and religion and you'll get four opinions. Ask them again in six months and you'll four slightly different opinions from what you got before. There's no fundamentalism in there.

So you critics of the New Atheists, dispense with the intellectual dishonesty and these erroneous terms like "fundamentalist atheist". It only reveals your gross ignorance of how atheists think, or your dishonesty in dealing with it.

Friday, August 6, 2010

Teabaggers and Czars

Here's Ted Nugent tossing an impressively stupid word salad of Teabagger talking points:

"This president's overtly destructive, clear-and-present-danger agenda is surpassed in transparency only by his ultra-leftist public voting record and overall lifetime conduct of consorting with the enemy as a child and student of Marxism, socialist and racist community organizer, congregant of the blatant America-hating black-theology- and social-justice-spewing Rev. Jeremiah Wright and close personal friend of convicted communist terrorists like Bill Ayers, and by his unflinching appointment of an array of communist czars, including Van Jones, Cass Sunstein, Anita Dunne, et al."

OK, first of all Ted, and any Teabaggers that might be reading, the moment you say "Bill Ayers", "Saul Alinsky", or "ACORN", thinking people stop listening. It was irrelevant bullshit in 2008, and it's still irrelevant bullshit now. Secondly, all you igtards yammering about communist czars, please go take a history lesson. The Czars were absolute rulers, the Caesers of Russia. The notion of multiple Czars being appointed is, well, like having multiple all powerful gods being chosen by mere mortals. "Czar" in the US is a hokey term for certain appointed positions, has been going on since Reagan and his idiot Drug Czar William Bennett, and is another phantom issue like the three A's above. Furthermore, the communists were the friggin people that overthrew the damned line of Czars, murdered the last one and his children in cold blood. So talking about communist Czars is like talking about Nazi Jews.

And you wonder why the stereotype of the Teabaggers is an ignorant blowhard...