Difference between revisions of "Atheism and leadership"

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(Cultish characteristics of the New Atheism movement)
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== Prominent atheists admitting that fellow prominent atheists are arrogant ==
 
== Prominent atheists admitting that fellow prominent atheists are arrogant ==
 
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[[File:PzMyers2.jpg|thumbnail|175px|right|[[PZ Myers]] declared, "...I don’t object to [[bestiality]] in a very limited set of specific conditions..."<ref name="achilles">[http://templestream.blogspot.com/2012/08/atheist-achilles-heels-objective.html Atheist Achilles Heels: Objective Morality and Sacred Life]</ref><ref>[http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/05/22/the-objective-morality-gotcha/ The “objective morality” gotcha]</ref> See: [[Atheism and bestiality]]
''See also:'' [[Atheism and arrogance]]
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<small>(photo obtained from [http://www.flickr.com/photos/reuvenim/4426093513/ Flickr], see [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/deed.en  license agreement])</small>  ]]
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''See also:'' [[Atheism and arrogance]] and [[Atheist movement]]
  
 
John W. Loftus, one of the more prominent atheists in the atheist community, cites John Draper (a Canadian atheist blogger), saying about prominent atheist [[PZ Myers]]: "According to PZ you either agree with him or you are the scum of the earth. If anyone is giving atheists a bad reputation it's PZ - he shows no tolerance or respect for anyone other than himself."<ref>[http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2012/07/can-pz-myers-change-his-ways-should-he.html Can PZ Myers Change His Ways? Should He?] By John W. Loftus at 7/30/2012</ref>  
 
John W. Loftus, one of the more prominent atheists in the atheist community, cites John Draper (a Canadian atheist blogger), saying about prominent atheist [[PZ Myers]]: "According to PZ you either agree with him or you are the scum of the earth. If anyone is giving atheists a bad reputation it's PZ - he shows no tolerance or respect for anyone other than himself."<ref>[http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2012/07/can-pz-myers-change-his-ways-should-he.html Can PZ Myers Change His Ways? Should He?] By John W. Loftus at 7/30/2012</ref>  
  
 
PZ Myers wrote: "But see, this is why the atheist movement can’t have leaders. The ones we’ve got, informally, all seem to think they’re like gods and popes, infallible and unquestionable, and that normal, healthy, productive criticism within the movement is all a conspiracy to dethrone them."<ref>[http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/01/16/the-delicate-ego-of-mr-michael-shermer/ The delicate ego of Mr Michael Shermer] by [[PZ Myers]], 16 January 2013</ref>
 
PZ Myers wrote: "But see, this is why the atheist movement can’t have leaders. The ones we’ve got, informally, all seem to think they’re like gods and popes, infallible and unquestionable, and that normal, healthy, productive criticism within the movement is all a conspiracy to dethrone them."<ref>[http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/01/16/the-delicate-ego-of-mr-michael-shermer/ The delicate ego of Mr Michael Shermer] by [[PZ Myers]], 16 January 2013</ref>
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== Atheist leaders and misogyny ==
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''See also:'' [[Atheism and sexism]] and [[Atheism and love]] and [[Atheism and rape]]
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[[James Randi]] is a leader within the atheist community. Brian Thompson, former James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) Outreach Coordinator, wrote:
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{{cquote|But I no longer identify with this community of benevolent know-it-alls, because not all of them are the best folks in the world. In fact, a good percentage of the top ten worst humans I’ve ever met are prominent members of the skeptics’ club. They’re dishonest, mean-spirited, narcissistic, [[misogyny|misogynistic]]. Pick a personality flaw, and I can probably point you to someone who epitomizes it. And that person has probably had a speaking slot at a major skeptical conference.
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I grew particularly disgusted with the boys’ club attitude I saw among skeptical leaders and luminaries. The kind of attitude that’s dismissive of women, sexually predatory, and downright gross. When I first started going to skeptical conferences as a fresh-faced know-it-all, I started hearing things about people I once admired. Then I started seeing things myself. Then I got a job with the JREF, and the pattern continued.<ref>Myers, P. Z. (March 31, 2014).  [http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2014/03/31/when-will-this-situation-improve/ "When will this situation improve?"].  Freethoughtblogs.com/Pharyngula.</ref>}}
  
 
== Cultish characteristics of the New Atheism movement ==
 
== Cultish characteristics of the New Atheism movement ==
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*[[Atheist cults]]
 
*[[Atheist cults]]
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== Quotes of the New Atheist Richard Dawkins ==
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Since his [[Elevatorgate]] scandal. various embarrassing posts to Twitter and other embarrassing public statements, atheists are divided on whether the [[New Atheism|new atheist]] [[Richard Dawkins]] is an asset or a liability to the [[atheist movement]].<ref>
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*[http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/religion/richard-dawkins-atheisms-asset-or-liability/2014/08/07/9f19a7a2-1e58-11e4-9b6c-12e30cbe86a3_story.html Richard Dawkins: Atheism’s asset or liability?] by Kimberly Winston, ''Washington Post'', source: ''Religion News Service'',  August 7, 2014
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*[http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119596/appetite-wonder-review-closed-mind-richard-dawkins ''The Closed Mind of Richard Dawkins''], New Republic by John Gray
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*[https://twitter.com/jennifurret/status/405391218273554433 Jennifer McCreight on the Twitter about the Elevatorgate scandal]
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*[http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/downs-syndrome-girl-passes-six-4095031 Down's Syndrome girl passes six GCSEs as dad calls Richard Dawkins 'an ignorant idiot'], Mirror by By Grace Macaskill, Aug 23, 2014 15:41
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*[http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/08/21/the-12-stages-of-a-richard-dawkins-twitter-scandal_n_5698443.html The 12-Stage 'Evolution' Of A Richard Dawkins Twitter Scandal] by Paul Vale, The Huffington Post UK, Posted: 22/08/2014 02:06 BST</ref> 
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Collection of Richard Dawkins quotes:
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*[[Richard Dawkins quotes]]
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=== Feminist quotes about Richard Dawkins ===
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* [[Feminist quotes about Richard Dawkins|Feminist quotes about new atheist Richard Dawkins]]
  
 
== Atheist leaders and immoral relationships ==
 
== Atheist leaders and immoral relationships ==
  
''See also:'' [[Atheist leaders and immoral relationships]] and [[Atheism and women]] and [[Atheism and rape]]
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''See also:'' [[Atheism, polyamory and other immoral relationships]] and [[Atheism and women]] and [[Atheism and rape]]
  
 
[[Image:998086u.jpg|right|thumbnail|200px|An essay by the [[Christian apologetics|Christian apologist]] Dr. James Spiegel describes [[Bertrand Russell]] as a "misogynistic and a serial adulterer; a chronic seducer of women, especially very young women, even in his old age."<ref>''The Making of an Atheist: How Immorality Leads to Unbelief'' By James Spiegel, page 72, Moody Publishers, 2010</ref>]]
 
[[Image:998086u.jpg|right|thumbnail|200px|An essay by the [[Christian apologetics|Christian apologist]] Dr. James Spiegel describes [[Bertrand Russell]] as a "misogynistic and a serial adulterer; a chronic seducer of women, especially very young women, even in his old age."<ref>''The Making of an Atheist: How Immorality Leads to Unbelief'' By James Spiegel, page 72, Moody Publishers, 2010</ref>]]

Revision as of 11:26, July 18, 2015

Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins lost a significant amount of influence after his Elevatorgate scandal. See: Richard Dawkins' loss of influence

The leadership status of prominent atheists/agnostics in the secular community at this present juncture is increasingly transient due to atheist infighting, the significant amount of unpleasant personalities within the atheist population, New Atheism failing, the decline of liberal media market share, a loss of confidence within the atheist community, the decline of global atheism and the secularization rate being zero in former areas of influence such as Protestant Europe and France. (see: Decline of atheism and Atheist factions).[1]

A recent example of the dissension within the atheist community is Richard Dawkins' loss of influence in the atheist community post subsequent to the Elevatorgate controversy (see: Richard Dawkins' loss of influence). Another example of this is Paul Kurtz, the father of secular humanism, who left no significant legacy. [2]

The British academic and agnostic Eric Kaufmann recently wrote, "Worldwide, the march of religion can probably only be reversed by a renewed, self-aware secularism. Today, it appears exhausted and lacking in confidence."[3]

A significant portion of atheists believe an atheist movement and atheist leadership is pointless. In short, they see no point to organized atheism or organized religion.

The atheist François Tremblay pointed out that atheists: are not a coherent/concerted group, atheism has no proof and evidence for its claim that there is no God and that atheism is not an inspiring ideology. As a result of these attributes of atheism and the atheist population, Tremblay indicated that endeavoring to rally atheists is like trying to herd cats.[4]

Communist China has the world's largest atheist population and China's atheist leaders are panicking about the explosive growth of Christianity in their country.[5]

A number of articles have been written about the poor leadership skills within the atheist community and its contributory effect on the decline of atheism:

Currently, global atheism is in decline in terms of its adherents and global market share.

Prominent atheists admitting that fellow prominent atheists are arrogant

PZ Myers declared, "...I don’t object to bestiality in a very limited set of specific conditions..."[6][7] See: Atheism and bestiality

(photo obtained from Flickr, see license agreement)

See also: Atheism and arrogance and Atheist movement

John W. Loftus, one of the more prominent atheists in the atheist community, cites John Draper (a Canadian atheist blogger), saying about prominent atheist PZ Myers: "According to PZ you either agree with him or you are the scum of the earth. If anyone is giving atheists a bad reputation it's PZ - he shows no tolerance or respect for anyone other than himself."[8]

PZ Myers wrote: "But see, this is why the atheist movement can’t have leaders. The ones we’ve got, informally, all seem to think they’re like gods and popes, infallible and unquestionable, and that normal, healthy, productive criticism within the movement is all a conspiracy to dethrone them."[9]

Atheist leaders and misogyny

See also: Atheism and sexism and Atheism and love and Atheism and rape

James Randi is a leader within the atheist community. Brian Thompson, former James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) Outreach Coordinator, wrote:

But I no longer identify with this community of benevolent know-it-alls, because not all of them are the best folks in the world. In fact, a good percentage of the top ten worst humans I’ve ever met are prominent members of the skeptics’ club. They’re dishonest, mean-spirited, narcissistic, misogynistic. Pick a personality flaw, and I can probably point you to someone who epitomizes it. And that person has probably had a speaking slot at a major skeptical conference.

I grew particularly disgusted with the boys’ club attitude I saw among skeptical leaders and luminaries. The kind of attitude that’s dismissive of women, sexually predatory, and downright gross. When I first started going to skeptical conferences as a fresh-faced know-it-all, I started hearing things about people I once admired. Then I started seeing things myself. Then I got a job with the JREF, and the pattern continued.[10]

Cultish characteristics of the New Atheism movement

Please see:

Quotes of the New Atheist Richard Dawkins

Since his Elevatorgate scandal. various embarrassing posts to Twitter and other embarrassing public statements, atheists are divided on whether the new atheist Richard Dawkins is an asset or a liability to the atheist movement.[11]

Collection of Richard Dawkins quotes:

Feminist quotes about Richard Dawkins

Atheist leaders and immoral relationships

See also: Atheism, polyamory and other immoral relationships and Atheism and women and Atheism and rape

An essay by the Christian apologist Dr. James Spiegel describes Bertrand Russell as a "misogynistic and a serial adulterer; a chronic seducer of women, especially very young women, even in his old age."[12]

On June 14, 2012, an article entitled Atheist leaders and immoral relationships published by an advocate of the Question evolution! campaign declared:

The website Submitted to a Candid World is written by an agnostic and the website was praised by the prominent atheist PZ Myers in the past.

On April 20, 2012 an article appeared in Submitted to a Candid World which declared:

'Several of my close friends — coincidentally, all extremely intelligent, math/science oriented, and leaders in the freethought/rationality/atheist communities — find themselves practicing and promoting an arrangement they term “polyamory.” Essentially, this describes a post-jealousy, highly rationalized state where participants date each other, and several others simultaneously...

In the ideal polyamorous relationship, one man is seriously “dating” several women, each of whom is in turn dating several men.'[13]

The article Atheist leaders and immoral relationships further declares:

Several leaders of the "freethought"/atheist community are practicing and promoting polyamory. This is not going to help the poor reputation that atheism already has among the public. The Mormons promoted bigamy for a while and later retracted their position due to the public outrage.

Of course, atheist leaders engaging in and promoting practices such as polyamory is one of the many reasons why atheism has such a bad reputation in the world.[14]

For more information please see: Atheist leaders and immoral relationships

Atheism websites and polyamory

See also: Atheism and the internet and Internet atheism and obesity and Internet atheism and polyamory

Polyskeptic.com and polyamory

On June 13, 2012, an advocate of the Question evolution! campaign wrote:

Polyskeptic.com is an atheist website devoted to the issue of polyamory in relation to atheism.

Blogspot.com, where this Question Evolution! Campaign blog is hosted, has a statistics feature which among other things gives the total views of a blog in a given day. For the day of 5/13/12 (which is the last full day that blogspot.com has statistics for) this blog received 1,202 total views according to blogspot.com.

This Question evolution! blog, which has not yet been heavily promoted, has an Alexa traffic rank of 2,178,256 as of June 14, 2012. The website Polyskeptic.com has an Alexa traffic rank of 2,276,133 as of June 14, 2012.[15]

Atheist Nexus and polyamory

The website Atheist Nexus bills itself as "The World’s Largest Coalition of Nontheists and Nontheist Communities."[16] As of June 14, 2012, the website Atheist Nexus had an entire group devoted to polyamory.[17]

Wikipedia on polyamory

The website Wikipedia was founded by the atheist Jimmy Wales and the agnostic Larry Sanger. Wikipedia has a pro-atheism/evolution slant.

For example, the current Wikipedia article on atheism is very flattering to atheism. As of June 14, 2012 the Wikipedia atheism article does not explicitly mention the tens of millions who died under atheist communist regimes although it does allude to it. Dr. R. J. Rummel, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Hawaii, is the scholar who first coined the term democide (death by government). Dr. R. J. Rummel's mid estimate regarding the loss of life due to communism is that communism caused the death of approximately 110,286,000 people between 1917 and 1987.[18] In addition, as of June 14, 2012, Wikipedia had no article on militant atheism and deleted its article written on militant atheism.[19]

As of June 14, 2012 Wikipedia had this flattering description of polyamory:

Polyamory, often abbreviated as poly, is often described as consensual, ethical, or responsible non-monogamy. The word is sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to sexual or romantic relationships that are not sexually exclusive, though there is disagreement on how broadly it applies; an emphasis on ethics, honesty, and transparency all around is widely regarded as the crucial defining characteristic.[20]

See also


Failure of role model leadership in terms of following recommendations of medical science:

External links

Notes

  1. Brendan O'Neill, The Telegraph, How atheists became the most colossally smug and annoying people on the planet, August 14th, 2013
  2. Paul Kurtz: Another atheist failure who left no legacy
  3. [http://www.sneps.net/RD/uploads/JQR%20Demography.pdf Shall the religious inherit the earth
  4. Herding Cats: Why Atheism Must Lose by François Tremblay
  5. China's atheist leaders and intellectuals are panicking about the rapid growth of Christianity in China
  6. Atheist Achilles Heels: Objective Morality and Sacred Life
  7. The “objective morality” gotcha
  8. Can PZ Myers Change His Ways? Should He? By John W. Loftus at 7/30/2012
  9. The delicate ego of Mr Michael Shermer by PZ Myers, 16 January 2013
  10. Myers, P. Z. (March 31, 2014). "When will this situation improve?". Freethoughtblogs.com/Pharyngula.
  11. The Making of an Atheist: How Immorality Leads to Unbelief By James Spiegel, page 72, Moody Publishers, 2010
  12. Atheist leaders and immoral relationships
  13. Atheist leaders and immoral relationships
  14. Atheist leaders and immoral relationships
  15. Atheist leaders and immoral relationships
  16. Atheist leaders and immoral relationships
  17. Atheist leaders and immoral relationships
  18. Atheist leaders and immoral relationships
  19. Atheist leaders and immoral relationships