{"id":3558,"date":"2015-09-20T13:46:15","date_gmt":"2015-09-20T18:46:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/?p=3558"},"modified":"2015-09-20T13:46:15","modified_gmt":"2015-09-20T18:46:15","slug":"goals-of-atheismplus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/2015\/09\/20\/goals-of-atheismplus\/","title":{"rendered":"Goals of #AtheismPlus"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/files\/2015\/09\/aplusis.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-3559\" src=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/files\/2015\/09\/aplusis.png\" alt=\"aplusis\" width=\"809\" height=\"283\" srcset=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/files\/2015\/09\/aplusis.png 809w, https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/files\/2015\/09\/aplusis-300x105.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 809px) 100vw, 809px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve not given much\u00a0thought to Atheism Plus in quite awhile, except to <a href=\"https:\/\/blockcheck.leagueforgamers.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">check their block list<\/a>\u00a0every now and again to see\u00a0whether someone in particular is\u00a0on there. The movement seems fairly moribund (judging by the <a href=\"http:\/\/atheismplus.com\/forums\/search.php?st=1&amp;sk=t&amp;sd=d&amp;sr=topics&amp;search_id=active_topics\" target=\"_blank\">activity on the forums<\/a>) and I&#8217;ve hardly heard anyone promoting that\u00a0brand or\u00a0their specific goals lately.<\/p>\n<p>That is, until\u00a0earlier this week.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Vestra_Culpa?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@Vestra_Culpa<\/a> Still obsessed over having lost that battle. All Atheism+ goals are now the norm in movement atheism.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Dr. Richard Carrier (@RichardCCarrier) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RichardCCarrier\/status\/644867662602899460?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 18, 2015<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>I asked Dr. Carrier which goals he is talking about, and he referred me back to this talk:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">I favorited a <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/YouTube?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@YouTube<\/a> video <a href=\"http:\/\/t.co\/UMrqmQFJiA\">http:\/\/t.co\/UMrqmQFJiA<\/a> AACON 2013 Dr Richard Carrier speaks on Atheism&#8230; Plus What? &#8211; American Atheists<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; San Diego CoR (@SanDiegoCoR) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SanDiegoCoR\/status\/318812820491866114?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">April 1, 2013<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>When I dug up the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.richardcarrier.info\/AtheismPlus2013Transcript.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">transcript<\/a>, though, the goals mentioned therein\u00a0were usually not well-differentiated from the preexisting goals\u00a0of\u00a0mainstream atheist and humanist groups. For example:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Obviously one of those big goals, as has been talked about today already, is to increase the number of atheists. Hopefully, that means increasing the number of morally responsible atheists. I think that should be part of our goals as well. And also to protect the rights of atheists, the interests of atheists, the welfare of atheists.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>These are basically the goals of any given atheist group, except for the &#8220;morally responsible&#8221; part which is central to the mission of\u00a0any given secular\u00a0humanist group. This has been the case for decades, at least.<\/p>\n<p>In order to show that Atheism Plus has prevailed in shifting what is considered &#8220;the norm in movement atheism&#8221; we would need at least a few new goals which Atheism Plus brought to the table which were not already considered the norm in the movement. Goals such as public call-outs, for example:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>[W]e should all, all organizations, call for atheists to speak out against and socially punish\u2014meaning denounce, downvote, for example, things like that \u2014any harassment behavior, wherever and whenever you can find it, whenever you have an opportunity to say, state, publicly, and make the world aware that atheists, and you in particular, are opposed to this. I think we should all be doing that, more actively.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I have to doubt whether it is an emergent\u00a0&#8220;norm in movement atheism&#8221; to focus on socially punishing alleged &#8220;harassment behavior&#8221;\u00a0via public denunciation. Certainly I&#8217;ve seen a few strenuous\u00a0efforts in that direction, typically as part of a coordinated effort at calling out selected <a href=\"http:\/\/freethoughtblogs.com\/pharyngula\/2013\/08\/08\/what-do-you-do-when-someone-pulls-the-pin-and-hands-you-a-grenade\/comment-page-1\/#comment-662391\" target=\"_blank\">prominent skeptic men<\/a>\u00a0and occasionally <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/search?q=%22call+out+Ophelia+by+name%22\" target=\"_blank\">freethinking women<\/a>.\u00a0It would definitely be a stretch to say that publicly humiliating those people\u00a0has become one of the mainstream goals within\u00a0the\u00a0broader atheist movement, though each of them has\u00a0received something of a\u00a0flogging\u00a0over at FtB.<\/p>\n<p>It may well be that\u00a0Atheism Plus brought something new to the table\u2014other than singling people\u00a0out for public shaming\u2014which clearly differentiated it from old guard movement atheism and secular humanism. If\u00a0you know what this mysterious X-factor might be, please leave a comment.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; I&#8217;ve not given much\u00a0thought to Atheism Plus in quite awhile, except to check their block list\u00a0every now and again&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":168,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-atheism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3558","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=3558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}