Richard Carrier has just published some of the most vacuous and insulting of the recent smears against Atheist Ireland, Hemant Mehta and me. And so I have to again reschedule other activities, including finishing my response to the more considered posts by Ashley Miller, MA Melby and Secular Woman, in order to ensure that Richard’s false claims are corrected on the record before even more myths take hold.
Richard includes false claims about Atheist Ireland and its members, a hidden insult against women activists, false claims about Hemant Mehta, and of course the obligatory defamatory claims about me. Some of his claims seem based on prejudice plus zero research, and some on sources that represent mostly one set of perspectives, some of the content of which he misrepresents.
A word of warning for those who selectively dislike long posts. If you were full of praise when I was lengthily defending PZ Myers and his friends, but are not so happy with me lengthily defending other people against them, you might prefer to reminisce about those earlier days instead. Public service announcement: 2,996 words.
1. Introduction and basic principles
2. The enemies of truth and justice
3. Atheist Ireland (more like just Dublin)
4. A fiefdom wielded by Michael Nugent
5. The source of Atheist Ireland’s quotes
6. Richard’s insult to women activists
7. Nugent did this for only one actual reason
8. This is literally all this is about
9. Hemant Mehta and due diligence
10. Richard’s selective primary resources
11. Summary
1. Introduction and basic principles
This was Richard’s introduction:
“This is a quick source document for anyone who “hates drama” and doesn’t want to do much work to investigate what all the hubub is about. Why did Atheist Ireland write a dishonest disassociation letter against PZ Myers, and why did gullible nice guy Hemant Mehta fall for it? Details below.”
This is actually a good start. Richard is wise in aiming this post explicitly at people who don’t want to do much work to investigate the truth. Because, if he had aimed it instead at people who do want to investigate the truth, they would find that almost everything he says is wrong.
Richard then began, under the heading ‘Basic Principles: Drama vs. Truth':
“In the atheist movement over the past five years or so what people call “drama” the rest of us call fighting for respect for minorities and victims of harassment and sexual assault. The people who hate that we do that are the ones who have caused almost all the drama you have ever called drama. Pretty much entirely.
This is essentially Richard’s foundational claim. He divides the atheist movement into two groups: (a) people, including himself, who are “fighting for respect for minorities and victims of harassment and sexual assault,” and (b) other people, who hate that he and others fight for such respect, and call that drama, and have caused all of the drama.”
The implication of the rest of the post seems to be that I and Atheist Ireland fall into this latter group. However, to even examine that assertion, he would have to first prove that his “two groups” characterisation is accurate. He says that his primary resources support these claims, but actually they do not.
2. The enemies of truth and justice
Richard continued:
“The enemies of truth and justice do this by counting on people who don’t care enough about the truth to check and find out what’s really going on. Because out of an apathetic aversion to “drama,” such people will just believe whatever bullshit anyone says loudly enough or officially enough.
But remember, avoiding drama, more often than not means avoiding the truth. So you might not like the choices. But you have to pick one. You can’t just dismiss something as drama. In doing so, you are saying you are not interested in the truth. And if there is anything atheists should never stand for (much less defend), it’s a disinterest in the truth.”
I completely agree with these two paragraphs. Perhaps unintentionally, Richard actually gets to the core of why I am defending people against the the hurtful and dehumanising, hateful and violent, unjust and defamatory rhetoric of PZ Myers and the misrepresentations of others.
It is deeply unpleasant and emotionally draining for me to wake up each morning to read further outrageously untrue smears about me and my friends and colleagues. It would be the easiest thing in the world to walk away from it, and do something more enjoyable.
But it is precisely because I care about the truth, and care about the harm and hurt caused by the smears and misrepresentations of PZ Myers and others in recent years, that I will continue to counter every post full of falsehoods by putting the truth on record.
And I agree that there are people (I hesitate to call them “the enemies of truth and justice”) who benefit from people who don’t care enough about the truth to check and find out what’s really going on. Ironically, Richard’s post itself is a very good example of this behaviour. Let’s examine how.
3. Atheist Ireland (more like just Dublin)
After his intellectual throat-clearing, we come to the substance of Richard’s claims. Under the heading ‘Summary of the Present Issue’, he wrote:
“Atheist Ireland (more like just Dublin)…”
Six words in, and we reach the first false claim, which is based on prejudice plus zero research. Atheist Ireland is very conscious of the need to be both national and regional. We have members, activities, political lobbying, media activity, debates, Secular Sunday brunches and information tables every month around Ireland. We host every alternate AGM outside Dublin. Establishing local atheist groups is not an easy task in many parts of rural Ireland, and we are still learning as we go, but it is high on our priorities.
Richard’s false claim is disrespectful to our Regional Officer Kevin Sheehan, who has clocked up thousands of miles at his own expense traveling around the country helping local members to get organised. It is disrespectful to the many members who have organised Atheist Ireland brunches and/or information tables in Dublin, Newbridge, Cavan, Meath, Dundalk, Letterkenny, Sligo, Roscommon, Athlone, Galway, Tralee, Cork, Waterford and Kilkenny. It is disrespectful to the many Atheist Ireland members who took part in Constitutional Convention meetings in Dublin, Galway, Sligo, Cavan, Athlone, Cork, Waterford and Limerick.
It is disrespectful to Peter Hinchliffe, who has been campaigning against the imposition of a crucifix in Kerry County Council. It is disrespectful to Corey Whyte, who is hosting a marriage equality debate on 6 May in Sligo with the Catholic Bishop of Elphin. It is disrespectful to Grace and Emmet Vaughn, who combine our Meath brunches with challenging our jury exemption for clerics. It is disrespectful to Martijn and Mandy Duke Leenheer, who helped establish our Sligo branch after their child was marginalised in their previous town for standing up to the local Catholic School’s religious education policies.
It is disrespectful to Andrew Doyle, who was interviewed last week in Cork about proposed conscience clauses in equality laws, and to Grania Spingies, who used to coordinate activities in Cork as well as being our founding secretary. It is disrespectful to John Hamill, who is taking an equal status complaint against Monaghan County Market while also running our national campaign against the Irish blasphemy law. It is disrespectful to Kelvin O’Connor and Tom Whyte, who as I write this are getting ready for our Atheist Ireland information table in Galway this weekend.
4. A fiefdom wielded by Michael Nugent
Richard continued:
“… is essentially a fiefdom wielded by Michael Nugent.”
This is the second false claim in Richard’s summary. The idea that Atheist Ireland is a fiefdom wielded by me is simply nonsense. The Executive Committee includes people with decades of experience of campaigning on the ground for a more liberal and caring Ireland, as well as enthusiastic people who want to play their part in that ongoing challenge.
In particular, as well as the regional organisers that Richard disrespected in his first false claim, this false claim is also disrespectful to our secretary Helen O’Shea, our Finance Officer Sean O’Shea, our regional officer Kevin Sheehan, our Human Rights officer Jane Donnelly, our Dublin Chairperson Ashling O’Brien, our Newsletter Editor Derek Walsh, our Online Manager Andrew Doyle, and our Blasphemy Campaign Coordinator John Hamill.
The members and supporters of Atheist Ireland include people who were politically active before Richard Carrier was born, from hardened peace and secular and social justice activists to elected politicians at local and national level. The idea that these courageous and inspirational people are some type of malleable sycophants, who would dedicate their time to advancing my personal fiefdom, is as disrespectful to them as it is bizarre to anybody who knows them personally.
Richard continued:
“He (or possibly they, if really anyone else at AI had their hand in this)…”
Atheist Ireland regularly makes substantial statements on issues that are significant to our work. That includes this dissociation statement, and also briefing documents and submissions to Government Ministers, members of parliament, political parties, and human rights regulatory bodies including the United Nations, Council of Europe and OSCE.
We do this by agreeing on a general position at an Executive Committee meeting, then finalising the document via online revisions to a circulated draft. We try to make sure that we can stand over whatever statements we issue, because unlike Richard Carrier we don’t have the luxury of being able to publish unsupported allegations without apparent concern about the impact on his professional reputation.
5. The source of Atheist Ireland’s quotes
Richard continued:
“… received or collected propaganda from an anti-feminist hate-site (literally called the Slymepit) and used it to attack PZ Myers.”
This is Richard’s fourth false claim or insinuation, and we are only two sentences into his summary. That’s not a good start. Atheist Ireland did not receive or collect propaganda from the Slymepit. As an aside, if Richard believes that the material came from the Slymepit, it must mean that either (a) he has visited the Slymepit himself, which he disapproves of others doing, or (b) he hasn’t researched his claim.
Actually, the direct source of most of the material about PZ was PZ’s blog itself, plus the fact that we know PZ personally. We had discussed our concerns with PZ about his harmful rhetoric since before the Slymepit was even founded, before Aratina Cage had described Abby Smith’s blog as a monumental pit of slime, and before anybody had even heard of the concept of Elevatorgate. Like some others, Richard seems to see a Slymepit under every bed.
6. Richard’s insult to women activists
But let us look again at the first half of that smear:
“… received or collected propaganda from an anti-feminist hate-site…”
There is a significant insult to women activists hidden in that particular smear. Remember that Richard is claiming that Atheist Ireland is my personal fiefdom, and if anybody else from Atheist Ireland was involved in this statement, they were involved in receiving or collecting propaganda from an anti-feminist hate site.
Atheist Ireland has many women activists, who do more work on the ground for women’s rights than Richard Carrier could even imagine, and continue to do so very day in a country where church and state have conspired for decades to deny women the most basic of human rights, where until recently pregnant women in hospitals had their pelvises broken without their consent in order to facilitate Catholic theology, and where you still cannot get an abortion unless there is a threat to your life.
Richard is making one of two outrageous claims about these women. Either these women have knowingly received and collected propaganda from an anti-feminist hate site, or else these women are naive and malleable enough to unknowingly endorse the collection of propaganda from an anti-feminist hate site, because they are simply supporting a man’s personal fiefdom, without any capability of doing due diligence in their officership of a national advocacy group.
Even more insultingly, Richard is basing these smears on his imagined division of the atheist movement into (a) him on the feminist side, casually insulting these women on his blog, and (b) these women, who are actually working hard on the ground to defend and promote women’s rights and social justice, and who he positions on the anti-feminist side of his imagined divide.
In particular, Richard owes an apology here to our secretary Helen O’Shea, our Human Rights Officer Jane Donnelly, and our Dublin Chairperson Ashling O’Brien.
Independently of the recent Atheist Ireland statement, Richard’s claim is also disrespectful to the many women who were on the organising committee of Atheist Ireland’s international conference on Empowering Women Through Secularism in Dublin in 2013, none of whom are gullible enough to organise an international women’s conference to benefit a man’s personal fiefdom.
7. Nugent did this for only one actual reason
Richard continued:
“It seems that Nugent did this for really only one actual reason: Nugent defends [a named person] instead of [another named person], the woman who has a credible claim of rape or at least extreme sexual misconduct against [the first named person] (one better evidenced than many such claims against Catholic priests), and people who see things the other way around have said Nugent is defending a rapist, at which he took such offense as to spiral out into the most extraordinary example of high dudgeon.”
This is both inaccurate and defamatory. I will address it in my later response to to the more considered posts by Ashley Miller, MA Melby and Secular Woman.
8. This is literally all this is about
Richard continued:
“That is literally all this is about. Because Nugent has no problems with appalling rhetoric when it appears from supporters in his own blog comments; or with controversy when it is raised by people he likes. So he is being disingenuous when he quote mines PZ to grossly misrepresent reality.”
The first part of this is simply nonsense. Of course this is not ‘literally all this is about.’ This is an all-encompassing claim, made with no sense of proportion, and supported by two further false claims.
Here’s an oversimplified version of my comments policy. Please robustly criticise ideas and behaviour, by applying reason to the best available evidence. Please do not insult people as people, or express hatred towards them, or dehumanise them, or threaten them, or attribute malign motivations to them.
And I have repeatedly said that all members of our movement should be open to robust criticism. Personally, I try to do so proportionately and charitably, combining praise and criticism as appropriate. That is the same charitable approach that I took in my initial criticism of PZ. It was only after his repeated refusals to withdraw his smear about me defending rapists that I became more direct in my criticisms of him.
9. Hemant Mehta and due diligence
Richard continued:
“Hemant Mehta did not do his due diligence to check Nugent’s claims, he just believed everything his statement said, because Hemant is overly trusting I guess, or else he is one of those folks who cares more about avoiding drama than learning the truth, in which case his values are exactly ass backwards.”
Putting aside the irony of Richard claiming that somebody else did not do due diligence, Hemant contacted me by email with several questions that he wanted clarified before he wrote his post. Also, it is strange to suggest that Hemant was unfamiliar with the harmful rhetoric of PZ until he read the statement by Atheist Ireland. And it is strange to posit just two possibilities for Hemant’s post – that he was overly trusting or that his values are ass backwards. So, another person for Richard to consider apologising to, if he has any integrity.
10. Richard’s selective primary resources
Richard concluded, under the heading ‘Primary Sources’:
“Want to vet the claims I just made but can’t find the time? You’re in luck. Because all the groundwork demonstrating everything I just said has already been done for you.”
He then included five paragraphs of what he calls primary resources. This lends an air of impartiality and objectivity to his post, creating the impression that the sources are what led him reasonably to the conclusions that he has just described.
However, if that was the case, you would expect to see a more balanced series of sources. For example, PZ and his colleagues frequently refer to the number of posts I have written on this topic. Surely Richard could have found even one of my posts as a primary resource for people interested in interpreting what I have actually said?
Richard’s descriptions misrepresent some of the content of some of the sources, which you can verify by following the links yourself and comparing them to what he says they say. This is of course not critical to his approach, as he himself started out by saying that his post is aimed explicitly at people who don’t want to do much work to investigate the truth.
Also in this section, Richard says that one link illustrates what he describes as “the breakdown of Nugent’s attempt to subvert Myers because of Nugent’s own desire to defend an accused rapist.” This is the second defamatory claim that Richard makes about me in this post.
11. Summary
There is a lot of nuanced dialogue happening in some of the posts that Richard linked to, and in some of the comments on some of those posts, and in some of the comments on some of the posts on my own blog about this issue.
None of that nuance is reflected in Richard Carrier’s post, which makes false claims about Atheist Ireland and its members, a hidden insult against women activists, false claims about Hemant Mehta, and of course the obligatory defamatory claims about me.
{ 32 comments… read them below or add one }
Nugent:
Public service announcement: 2,996 words.
Was that… a humorous jab?
I applaud this new direction
Richard Carrier’s part disappoints me most here. His “show neither humour nor mercy to weakness” style of writing is not something I’m a great fan of – but if you can tolerate it, his writings on Jesus and Ancient World history are well worth reading, and I still check out his blog regularly – his, alone of all the FTB crowd – because of them.
So when he falls into lockstep with his comrades in his attacks on designated villains, it disappointed me the most. I couldn’t help thinking, “He’s better than that.” I still can’t.
Take his casual claim that Atheist Ireland is “essentially a fiefdom wielded by Michael Nugent.” Now to tell the truth, as an Australian I have no personal knowledge that would either support or contradict this claim – and I don’t think Carrier does, either. If he did have evidence, he would have provided it – judging from his other writings, he wouldn’t be able to resist it. If Atheist Ireland were an organisation that existed in the first century AD, and someone made this claim, Carrier would demand evidence, and examine every nook and cranny of it to make sure it held water. Then he’d tell you at length what the evidence was and what he thought of it.
So sorry for my terrible proofreading skills, evident in the above post.
[No problem, I've corrected it - MN]
Michael –
Please take at least one day off from this soon, if not this weekend. You don’t usually make formatting errors or include many typos.
Sounds like we’re of similar minds regarding Carrier, Henry. I’m also a long time fan of his scholarship and shocked by how quickly he slips into the sort of sloppy, emotionally-driven reasoning you see from Christian apologists when he starts writing about those he disapproves of in the atheist community. I think he’s the poster boy for applied rationality of the lesswrong variety being a failed endeavor.
All you need to know about Dr. Carrier PhD’s integrity is that he calls the ultra right wing racist site Chimpout an atheist site, in order to support his claim that racism is still common in the atheist community.
http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/7079
Here are two choice quotes that the Google cache dredged up from Chimpout:
This sounds exactly like something you would find on an atheist site, right? (I have redacted one particular word.)
Carrier is just a cheap propagandist. His hatchet job as discussed in the OP is entirely in character. It always amazes me how people like that can live with themselves. Or how people can believe that in his “scholarly” work he would suddenly adhere to higher ethical standards. Ideologues be ideologues.
They’re the atheist version of conspiracy theorists, with Carrier’s latest being a prime example of this fact.
It doesn’t matter what facts are presented, nor the dearth of facts behind their smears, the standard answer is that a conspiracy against the righteous and just ones–usually centered on the ‘Pit–exists merely to extinguish justice and truth.
Why and how are always questions left hanging.
Mr. Nugent, do you believe that the Slymepit is a “anti-feminist hate site”, as Carrier claims? Because out of all your corrections, I can’t help but notice that’s one item you did not address.
Carrier has been down in the FtB gutter ever since his disgusting “kick the CHUDS into the gutter” post about Atheism plus. No surprise at all that he’s taking part in the shameless smear-strewing and near-libellous wickedness that has become characteristic of this group.
Shivar #8: possibly because Nugent’s opinion of the Slymepit has not the slightest relevance to his numbering of Carrier’s vicious lies and smears? Stop trying to smokescreen the inexcusable and persistent vileness of the FtB crowd. You will not succeed.
Hi Shivar.
I’m arguing over your question on the pit and would like clarification from you on your thoughts, if possible. Like you I also noted on reading that Nugent did not address the “anti-feminist hate site” comment. I don’t feel it’s particularly pertinent to the discussion itself, but… it interests me, as a first-wave pitter.
Was your intent as Rawlinson above posits (motive!) or were you simply curious about the omission?
Sorry if that comes across as… demanding. This is the first time in a long time I’ve dared step outside the pit to comment or discuss.
Henry F. @2:
No, he isn’t “better than that”. He is in fact, that. He’s demonstrated that on multiple occasions. This is the same kind of thinking that covered PZ’s assholery for *years*. “Oh, it’s okay as long as I approve of the target.” Well, no, it isn’t. If it’s wrong when directed at people you approve of, it’s wrong when directed at people you do not.
The FTB/Skepchicks lot built an audience thanks to that deliberate blind spot, and if folks don’t free themselves from that blindness and soon, this kind of thing will just keep happening. Only the names will change.
Shivar @8:
That’s very close to a “you said you liked vanilla but not chocolate, therefore you must hate chocolate” kind of logic. Michael not addressing the slymepit positively does not mean he holds a negative opinion of it, nor does him not addressing it negatively mean he holds a positive opinion of it.
Jack Rawlinson:
I am very much against the vicious SJW foolishness of FreethoughtBlogs and their cohorts, and am solidly on the side of the Slymepit in this “schism”. Apologies if I hadn’t made that clear before.
I asked the question because Richard Carrier specifically called the Slymepit an “anti-feminist hate site” (and I see some at the Pit are putting that phrasing in my mouth, and not Carrier’s, which I find very odd.) I think it’s fair to know what Nugent’s opinion of the pit is, given that you all are just as much a part of the community as anyone else – like, say, Hemant Mehta, who Michael Nugent defended as soon as he was attacked.
The pit gets relentlessly attacked and unfairly smeared all the time, but I don’t see anyone notable outside the site defending it from the same type of lies that everyone else gets defended from. I notice people like Nugent and Mehta mentioning the Pit as carefully and as minimally as they can – taking care to use the site for whatever purpose they need to in their posts, but both studiously avoiding speaking up in defense of the pit when you all get unfairly smeared by PZ and his nasty minions.
I realize that the Pit can take care of itself. But it would be nice to know if there is actually support coming from the people who (directly or indirectly) are benefiting from the research and work done by the Pit, or if you’re all just to be regarded as disposable tools.
Shivar, Michael has, in no uncertain terms, addressed his grievances with the pit in the past (unlike some, he’s able to approach the matter with nuance). Your comment strikes me as an obvious attempt at a derail.
Which I’m happy to oblige actually. I do chat at the slymepit (Carrier’s willful ignorance of the *ironically* chosen name is hysterical, I must say) on occasion, and haven’t found anything approaching evidence that it should be described as “anti-feminist” or a “hate site”. Honestly, if one takes a day to engage with the members, the assertion becomes laughable.
And my apologies for coming across as bristly. Gaming and drinking while following the blog. Scotch makes me a bit more combative than usual.
Shivar April 18, 2015 at 1:02 am
Mr. Nugent, do you believe that the Slymepit is a “anti-feminist hate site”, as Carrier claims? Because out of all your corrections, I can’t help but notice that’s one item you did not address.
The bait-and-switch game was stupid when I was in High School back in the ’70s, it’s gotten no better in the decades since.
And, FWIW, the SlymePit came about, and is populated in great part, by a group of individuals who had been White Knighting a young feminist woman who was publicly rebuked in an asymmetrical fashion by Rebecca Watson because she dared to have a different opinion. That is, during the conference, Watson publicly humiliated her from the Speaker’s Platform.
McGraw, if you did not know, is a feminist and an atheist.
And while the White Knighting was probably a bit of an over-reaction to Watson’s public rebuke from a position of power. They did have a legitimate point to it being an asymmetrical abuse of power.
And whlie not all members of the SlymePit are saints, and some are downright jerks whom I’ve filtered out, years of false-propaganda by Myers and his sycophants has made the bulk of them into something they’re not. By-and-large, the bulk of the population is moderate-to-liberal with a few libertarians and just a small handful of fiscal conservatives, most of which are socially liberal (support abortion rights, equality for women, etc.).
Sort of the old Orwellian ‘Big ***.” Tell it long enough and people believe it’s the truth.
Here’s something I found on Bart Ehrman’s blog which I think is relevant to the way Dr. Richard Carrier, Ph.D. generally attacks people in a very mean-spirited way, often attributing bad intent to their words:
That is Ehrman quoting Carrierbag.
Oooh, I’m feeling so goshdarn right, right now! Tee hee. Thanks for the clarification, Shivar.
I’m quite fascinated by the pit-views of others. I can see it’s very difficult as a public person to support or condone the pit as a whole – but perhaps the point is that people shouldn’t. The pit has always claimed to be a group of individuals, not a monolithic group with a single ideology. I believe it was described, early on, as a kind of online pub for people to argue in. And, of course, the problem with being a group of individuals, rather than individuals in a group, is that it’s impossible to support the whole without being seen to support the ideological outliers.
With that context, I don’t believe it’s possible for someone to come out in support of the pit, except in theory. You can, for example, support the pit’s commitment to free speech and free expression, but not support all views expressed there (many of which are contradictory).
Perhaps Nugent and Mehta have the right idea: they condone or at least accept the truth of some of the pit’s actions, have no comment on others, and wholeheartedly reject some.
Welch@12
No, he isn’t “better than that”. He is in fact, that.
I think what Henry is trying to say is that Carrier *should* be better than that. He’s written very well (in my opinion, and I think Henry’s as well) on epistemology as it relates to ethics, but then he falls flat on his face when it comes to practical applications. This is what I mean when I say the lesswrong approach to applied rationality is a failure. Someone intelligent (I’ll argue) and fully versed in the philosophy of science is apparently just as susceptible to religious thinking as anyone. It’s a bit humbling. Makes me reassess my own worldview.
Michael, it looks like the close-blockquote should be moved to follow Richard’s line “Pretty much entirely” so that the next paragraph, starting with your line “This is essentially Richard’s foundational claim”, isn’t in the blockquote.
That out of the way: Nice job, yet again, with this detailed and thoughtful rebuttal. It’s a shame the need for these keeps arising.
Shivar, thanks for clarifying. Good question for Michael.
To generalize a bit, Richard Carrier repeats a common error: depicting feminism as a dichotomous position, with any individual or group seen as either being on the correct side (the side of the person who’s writing or speaking, as Mr Carrier did) or, in the only offered alternative, being an “anti-feminist”.
So much depends on how one defines feminism. I think you (the generic “you”) would have a hard time finding anyone in A/S who disagrees with the equality-based dictionary definitions, for example (from Merriam-Webster) “the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities”.
rayshul @18 – thanks for the reasoned reply. You said “I don’t believe it’s possible for someone to come out in support of the pit, except in theory”. True enough, given that like you say there’s many different viewpoints on just about everything there. But despite that, it should be a no-brainer for someone to say a word in defense of the site when it is smeared as, say, a bunch of rape apologists or worse. Mr. Nugent rightly took umbrage when PZ accused him of haboring rapists on his blog (meaning Pit members, of course.) But as far as I can recall I never saw him say anything about Pitters actually being called rapists. I might be mistaken there, but I have not actually seen anything. That to me is troubling. I see the same pattern with Mehta, and also Ron Lindsay.
I’m really not trying to derail, as I am being accused of. It was just an honest question I had (in support of the Slymepit!), and I didn’t intend for it to become a separate subject of discussion. So I’ll just stop here.
I feel I must offer further apology to you, Shivar. The pit is a controversial subject, and the members there seem to have long ago given up on the idea, if they ever had the idea to begin with, of redeeming its image. Undoing that PR hatchet job seems like a waste of time, and attempts are met with suspicion, either of the individual being a pitter with poor sense of tactics, or a pit-smearer, with intentions to poison the well. We’re probably overly defensive, but I’ll still say the opposition forced us to that position.
I swatted a fly with a Richard Carrier book once but it was so lightweight the fly wasn’t even mad.
As a black woman I never felt anyone at Pharyngula or associated sites gave a rat’s ass about my rights or concerns. On the contrary I was called a chill girl (intended as an insult) and a rape apologist, and driven out with violent rhetoric and doxxing threats by the Horde.
As for Carrier, I once watched a lecture by him on earlt Christian history where he “accidentally” displayed the wrong image as a joke. “Here’s Genevieve… [bikini-clad woman appears on the screen] Oops! I mean Saint Genevieve.” Then there’s the hypocritical behavior he’s shown in his personal life… suffice it to say I don’t see him as being in any position to impugn the integrity of the members of Atheist Ireland.
Kudos to Michael and his colleagues for being so patient and thoroughly professional, and for accomplishing so much activism in Ireland despite the constant distractions and juvenile insults from the peanut gallery!
They’re still smarting from the Aviccena scandal. Avi had been getting away with plagiarism for years – when a simple Google search of sample sentences from his posts would have shown him up for what he was – as well as making outrageous claims such as being involved in the autopsy of Indian girls found hanged from a tree.
Hermant might have read the accusation on a site run by a Pitter but he did his full diligence and followed the evidence – something FTB had signally failed to do.
All the evidence of shitty behaviour on Myers part has been linked to on this site, whether by Michael, Pitters or the many independent posters who have been following the ‘drama’ over the years. Nobody has to trust second-hand accounts, they can follow the links to the original sources.
I am an ardent feminist, Shivar, but I also despise feminism. Lucky for me, there are so many definitions of “feminism” floating around that I’ve said nothing more than I do not suffer from flat affect.
I recently had some rather contentious interactions with Carrier after I made a blog post that was highly critical of him. His responses proved that he is completely lacking in integrity. He made multiple untrue claims about things I said, and when he posted hyperlinks in his responses to me, they never linked to the statements that he claimed. That seems to be a favorite technique of his-posting hyperlinks but relying on the fact that his readers won’t bother to click on them.
When his marriage ended, he did not give his wife the benefit of discretion. Instead, he decided to blog about it to the world. His blog post was not an apology to his wife; instead he celebrated “coming out” with his polyamorous “orientation”, and even bragged about his numerous lovers over the years. We are all human, and people mess up, sometimes pretty badly. I get that. It is the awful way that he handled it that is the issue.
In the comments of my blog, as well as his response (and the comments there), he expounds upon his totally friendly and ethical methods for picking up women art atheist events. If anyone doubts my description, I invite them to read the comments of my blog as well as his response. This man who constantly speaks of his own “feminism” says things indistinguishable from the “pickup artist” types that he criticizes.
Carrier has manged to completely discredit himself. His smears of Michael Nugent and Atheist Ireland shouldn’t come as a surprise to anybody.
At least Carrier is modest:
http://www.richardcarrier.info/contrawood.html#philosopher
h/t Really?
Oh come on, I have no problem believing that Carrier’s education and qualifications are comparable to Hume’s and Aristotle’s.
Rather pathetic, if you consider how much better a modern person’s education should be. Yes, Richard, there has been much learned since Aristotle and Hume.
Orwell was often accused of being ‘anti-socialist’ because he was vocally anti-Stalinist when the rest of the Left was afraid to speak out. He was, in fact, a libertarian socialist who had shown much sympathy towards the Spanish anarchists/anarcho-syndicalists in his writings and devoted his writings the cause of democratic socialism.
Feminism is like socialism in that it ranges from authoritarian to libertarian poles. It is possible to be anti-feminist entirely, just as it is possible to oppose both wings of socialism, but opposition to the authoritarian wing of feminism is no more ‘anti-feminist’ than Orwell’s anti-Stalinism was anti-socialist.
Just because anti-socialists interpreted Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four to suit their cause doesn’t mean they weren’t socialist critiques of totalitarianism.
And likewise, just because anti-feminists might appropriate anti-authoritarian critiques of feminism from within feminism doesn’t invalidate those critiques as feminist.
I’m quite impressed at how Hemant Mehta came out with his reputation relatively intact. Despite being instrumental in forcing FTB to acknowledge Avigate and having taken a critical stance towards Myers, he seems to have dodged the worst of the smears.
What is it that keeps other secular organizations from joining Atheist Ireland in this effort? It’s long been clear that few in the English-speaking secular community who have been paying attention care for Myers’ clique and their toxic antics. On some level, I understand major organizations may want to stay silent either to keep up the façade of unity in the secular community or because they don’t consider Myers worth their time. But by keeping quiet, they are allowing the division to fester and erode trust in the community.
While Myers and his clique may be little more than clickbait bloggers these days, they have more influential ideological allies outside the secular community. They are active in academia and journalism and are often happy to cooperate with the religious right for political expediency. The longer big secular organizations keep their heads in the sand, the more potential for damage in the long run.