I came across this post on vulturism that I just had to comment:
One particular example of exactly how not to be a good skeptic was published by self described “Skepchic” Rebbecca Kay Watson yesterday. In it Ms Watson was quick to assign blame for this murder to “dehumanization” of Muslims by the much more famous atheist activists Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Lawrence Krauss. Surprisingly, in a post with several links embedded, not a single one was demonstrative of this “dehumanization” of Muslims. It’s true that Dr. Dawkins and Dr. Harris routinely criticize Islam, but criticism of an idea or ideology is not inherently dehumanizing.
Well, Rebecca Watson is the walking example of a pseudoskeptic so I wasn’t surprised any bit by this. I think a further point can and should be made: if you’re against something, don’t do it. I like to call it having principles.
But if you don’t have principles, you can criticize any (actual or not) wrongdoing and then go ahead and do it yourself. And if you have taken the art of having double standards to a whole new level, you can criticize something and do that exact same thing in the process, which is what happened here.
The aforementioned Watson’s post is the most recent example of the ongoing smear campaign that seeks to dehumanize the best characters the Atheist/Skeptic movement has got to offer. That’s what unprincipled people do. And it turns out, Watson doubled down: using the tragedy of three people to advance your agenda is pretty dehumanizing to the memory of the people those corpses once were and their grieving relatives.
I guess I just find it quite ironic that a supposedly post against “dehumanizing” is actually the most recent part of a concentrated efforts series to dehumanize decent people out of envy.
Do you think Elevator Guy —if he actually exists— is aware of the bullet he dodged?
(Image: 20110409-560-NECSS2011 via photopin (license))
