{"id":3353,"date":"2015-05-06T18:13:33","date_gmt":"2015-05-06T23:13:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/?p=3353"},"modified":"2015-05-06T18:13:33","modified_gmt":"2015-05-06T23:13:33","slug":"truth-in-the-tequila","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/2015\/05\/06\/truth-in-the-tequila\/","title":{"rendered":"Truth in the tequila"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Over at <em>En Tequila Es Verdad<\/em> on Freethought Blogs, author Dana Hunter has recently published the <a href=\"http:\/\/freethoughtblogs.com\/entequilaesverdad\/2015\/05\/06\/on-rifts-and-the-deepening-thereof\/\" target=\"_blank\">most recent of many blogposts<\/a>\u00a0in celebration of splitting the atheist movement in twain. She is evidently not taking questions from those who remain skeptical of this divisive approach, but I felt the need to speak up <em>somewhere<\/em> . . .<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/files\/2015\/05\/Untitled.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-3354\" src=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/files\/2015\/05\/Untitled.png\" alt=\"Untitled\" width=\"844\" height=\"250\" srcset=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/files\/2015\/05\/Untitled.png 844w, https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/files\/2015\/05\/Untitled-300x89.png 300w, https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/files\/2015\/05\/Untitled-840x250.png 840w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 844px) 100vw, 844px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Dana puts up\u00a0two fingers to <a href=\"http:\/\/atheist.ie\/2015\/04\/atheist-ireland-dissociates-from-pz-myers\/\" target=\"_blank\">Atheist Ireland<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/news.atheists.org\/2015\/02\/26\/ban-lifted-american-atheists-to-speak-table-at-2015-cpac\/\" target=\"_blank\">American Atheists<\/a>, and the <a href=\"http:\/\/secularpolicyinstitute.net\/who-we-are\/\" target=\"_blank\">Secular Policy Institute<\/a> for failing to properly and thoroughly shun <a href=\"http:\/\/slymepit.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">SlymePitters<\/a> (&#8220;his mates attack me and mine&#8221;), pro-life conservatives (&#8220;cons who want to take my bodily autonomy away&#8221;) and Michael Shermer, respectively.<\/p>\n<p>Supposing for the sake of argument that all Pitters, conservatives, and founders of the Skeptics Society really ought to be shunned from polite society in general and no-platformed out of\u00a0movement atheism in particular,\u00a0the problem remains: Who curates\u00a0the <a href=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/2012\/11\/14\/list-of-known-sexists\/\" target=\"_blank\">shun list<\/a>\u00a0and how many names are on it? Can we trust Dana and her allies to be fair and impartial about this, given their long history of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.michaelnugent.com\/2014\/11\/04\/chronology-of-misrepresentations-and-smears-in-the-atheist-movement-by-pz-myers-and-others\/\" target=\"_blank\">smearing opponents<\/a>\u00a0and their vested interest in holding on to\u00a0the commanding heights of atheist\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/freethoughtblogs.com\/greta\/2013\/04\/08\/the-zen-of-beige-motels\/\" target=\"_blank\">beigeland<\/a>?<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m trying to keep an open mind here, but at the moment I&#8217;m leaning towards an unqualified &#8220;No.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>A far better policy might be to shun those whom you please in your own spaces (e.g. disallowing unsavory\u00a0people like me from commenting on your blog)\u00a0while refraining\u00a0from\u00a0judging\u00a0others to be guilty\u00a0on account of their\u00a0associations. Judge people on their own words and actions, rather than those with whom they associate (Pitters at Nugent&#8217;s blog)\u00a0or those to\u00a0whom they reach out (AA at CPAC). This will help ensure that you are directing your ire at something people meant to do rather than, say, unexamined friendship.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over at En Tequila Es Verdad on Freethought Blogs, author Dana Hunter has recently published the most recent of many&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":1255,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-atheism-plus","category-slymepit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3353\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}