…and this is a 
Sometimes, reading the shrill words of theists trying to interpret atheists is a real trip to Bizarro World. What you see, generally, is freakishly far off the mark and often more a case of projection than understanding. It would be hard to get more overt than this: someone named Kathryn Lofton has written an essay titled "So you want to be a new atheist", which, presumably, is about describing some common set of properties, a dogma and doctrine, that anyone can follow to be one of the New Atheists.
Unfortunately, she falls off the rails from the very beginning, since we're all a diverse bunch with different backgrounds and different politics and different nationalities…and worse, she imposes some strange beliefs on us. We're apparently totalitarian capitalists, for instance, and mostly libertarians (she does graciously admit that not every New Atheist is one, at least). It's a very right-wing American picture she paints of us, which as you might guess, I find discombobulating.
However, here's the most glaring part, the clearest example of projection I've seen yet:
The New Atheists reply, with clarion diagnostic consistency: Religion is something that sells you something invisible so you may feel that which you cannot find elsewhere. It is something for which there is insufficient evidence. It is something people do because they have always done it, not because they know how to think about it. Religion is irrational, it is emotional, and it is instinctual. Religion enslaves you with its wiles, then forgets to remove the handcuffs. It is the fortune teller reading entrails, not the captain consulting his compass. It massages and preys and toys and plays and screws you over, time and again, with a promise it won't keep because of its irrationality and its whimsy. Religion is a know-at-all with no knowledge. It makes "a virtue out of not thinking." Religion is cutting the hedge repeatedly around an erection. Religion is, it turns out, a lot like a girl. (My highlighting)
I daresay you won't find any New Atheist declaring that religion is "like a girl". You especially won't see it framed in derogatory terms like that: so girls are irrational, emotional, instinctual, whimsical, having no knowledge, and into bondage? She seems to be projecting her own prejudices about women on atheists, which is a bit odd.
The Accidental Blogger has an excellent demolition of Lofton's puffery.
Unless the New Atheists have categorically called religion a girlish pursuit or religious males girly men, (Lofton does not say that they have) it is plausible that it is Lofton herself who conflates irrationality and emotionalism with feminine traits and critical thinking and reason with manly characteristics. She may have again confused style with substance. After all, the majority of the high profile and vocal atheists in the public square are all males. Most of them also assume a combative stance while arguing their points of view. Even if Lofton considers the New Atheists arrogant, self absorbed and boorish, based on her opinion of their discursive temperaments, where did she get misogyny? Perhaps in her eagerness to condemn, Lofton uses the red herring of misogyny without any supporting evidence because it fits the rest of her perception of the atheists. Are some atheists women haters? Of course. Could there be a few among the ones she names? Possible. But it has nothing to do with critical thinking which does not bar women from becoming practitioners. And what is the score in the department of misogyny on the religious side? Start your count with the priestly class and the orthodox.
Whom does Lofton think she is kidding with her innuendo about misogyny and atheism? It is particularly galling coming from someone who is presumably a spokesperson for religion. The sacred bastion of virility, organized religion, is thickly populated by misogynistic power hungry males and at least in the Abrahamic tradition, god too is a masculine deity whose behavior is akin to that of an old fashioned patriarch - one who protects, smites and slays at whim. Whereas misogyny can often be a product of politics, commerce and other secular cultural traditions, I doubt that women have been more systematically and ritually degraded within the realm of any other human enterprise than that of organized religion. Only religion explicitly sanctions misogyny. Think Adam's Rib, eater of the forbidden fruit, the temptress, the virgin who is to be alternately worshiped and sacrificed, the ideal of the Sati, stoning to death of an adulteress, the unclean half of the population which menstruates and undergoes messy child birth... on and on ad nauseum. Now Lofton tells us that the source of misogyny actually lies in empiricism and scientific enquiry. Well, you could have knocked me down with a feather!
Comments
Posted by: The Science Pundit
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December 9, 2009 11:24 PM
Well of course us New Atheist® types will say that religion is "like a girl"! However, Atheism 3.0 types who are more polite due to our female voices, would never say anything like that.
Posted by: thegeochick
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December 9, 2009 11:30 PM
I'm more curious about the previous sentence!
"Religion is cutting the hedge repeatedly around an erection."
So... religion likes to keep it neat and make itself look bigger than it really is? Hmmmmm... I hate to say it, but because she's a woman and made such a ridiculous and sexist remark, some people are going to take that as a 'free pass' to do the same. What a stupid broad.
Posted by: Bruce Godfrey
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December 9, 2009 11:33 PM
I would submit that her piece's worst failure is not its failure to substantiate its misogyny thesis about "New Atheists" but its breathtaking failure to quote a single "New Atheist" however defined.
Look carefully at the article. She quotes secondary and tertiary sources discussing "New Atheists" but neither defines the term nor quotes anyone whom she identifies as such other than, arguably, Bill Maher. She does nothing to substantiate that Maher is representative of any genus of "New Atheists" nor does she do even a passable job of connecting Maher's comments to her actual criticisms.
Prof. Myers, you would flunk a paper substantiated this poorly.
Posted by: MadScientist
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December 9, 2009 11:34 PM
Many religions teach that a woman's place is in the house, making babies and keeping her man happy. If a woman fails in her duties or displeases her husband, the husband has every right to physically abuse her to bring her back in line - and if he should kill her while trying to bring her in to line, well that's all fine and get's god's seal of approval. Why would anyone ever think religion was mysogynistic? How dare anyone make such a claim! Oh no, religion is GOOD!
Moving on to related Religious Goodness, let's talk about those fags. God hates fags! (But Jesus loves them.) Evil hellbound faggots - no communion for you, no heaven for you! But if you stop being fags, you might be saved. And how dare anyone tell religions they're ass-backwards? Religion is good! If those stupid fags would simply shut the hell up rather than whine about being humans too, religions would instantly welcome them to the fold - then again maybe not.
Oh, no no no no no, religion is not mysogynist nor otherwise bigoted - religion is GOOD, it's done a lot of good over the ages - like rampant murder - god loves that stuff you know.
Posted by: llewelly
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December 9, 2009 11:41 PM
Shouldn't your note about the highlighting being yours be either outside the quote block, or in square brackets, rather than round parentheses?Posted by: truthspeaker
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December 9, 2009 11:43 PM
If religion was like a girl, I would be afraid to talk to it. Wait, what?
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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December 9, 2009 11:53 PM
Uh...say what? There's a whole lot of projecting going on there. So, on the one hand, atheist females need to be the soft, sweet storytellers of atheism while suppressing the irrational, emotional instinct we apparently use instead of brains?
She seems to have her head jammed as firmly up her ass as Prothero does. What a load of fucked up garbage.
Posted by: PZ Myers
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December 9, 2009 11:57 PM
The hedge remark totally lost me. I have no idea what she was talking about there — is it a dogwhistle reference to something a Christian would recognize?
Posted by: llewelly
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December 9, 2009 11:58 PM
As Amanda Marcotte has pointed out, it is not too hard to find a bit of misogyny in the behavior of Maher, or of some other atheists. But she also points out that atheism and misogyny do not readily go together; the more natural match would be between feminism and atheism.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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December 10, 2009 12:05 AM
Yeah, I'm lost on the hedge remark. I certainly got a weird image in my mind, (the erection belongs to god?) but it's not helping me on the understanding front.
Posted by: destlund
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December 10, 2009 12:05 AM
Sounds about right to me. It's a wonder she understands this much without veering off into cognitive dissonance-induced madness. Spoke too soon. I'm speechless. I know girls, Kathryn Lofton, and your lead-up to that statement, madame, describes no girl.Posted by: Janine, She Wolf Of Pharyngula, OM
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December 10, 2009 12:12 AM
Religion is a cock tease? Well, I have heard some gay men refer to other men as cock teases. So can religion also be like a gay man?
And can we kill these bad analogies?
Posted by: bad Jim
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December 10, 2009 12:13 AM
Yeah, the hedge-cutting comment flummoxed me, too, like the rest of the "atheism is just like a girl" rant. It doesn't sound like anyone I've sat at a table with, much less shared a bed.
The one time I combed my pubic beard (some of us had lice) it curled up rather attractively, I thought. Not for the first time I thought that I'd be better off if the rest of my hair wasn't so damned lank.
Nevertheless, "atheism is just like a girl" sounds rather appealing.
Posted by: destlund
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December 10, 2009 12:18 AM
As regards the "trimming the hedge" bit, I think she just wanted to paint us all as perverts to Christians while making them feel savvy with their knowledge of body-grooming lingo. She's just apparently not all that savvy. I'd like to teach her the meaning of saddlebacking, if you know what I mean (and by that I mean I would like to explain it to her in detail to see the look on her face).
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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December 10, 2009 12:27 AM
Destlund @ 14:
So...it's only religion that's reigning in the raging erection of atheistic hedonism? By trimming the "hedges"? Yeah, right.
Posted by: Kristine
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December 10, 2009 12:29 AM
"Let" the women speak! "Let" the women speak! What a great idea! How about letting atheists speak in the public arena for a change? Thank you. A woman without a god is like a fish without a bicycle. Get it yet? ;-)
Posted by: SC OM
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December 10, 2009 12:29 AM
I...
I don't know what to say.
Mary in a spraycan pancake, what the hell is going on this week?
Most of that is pure blather, and the rest is Loew's quality. And what's with the strange bondage obsession? And the hedge-trimming bit? Does she not notice she said that out loud?
"clarion diagnostic consistency"? "cynical swaddle"? Aaaaagggggh!
And what is the point of the exercise? If atheists are assholes, religious beliefs are true? Listen, professional apologists: This desperate flailing is increasingly painful to watch. Most of you are too smart for this. Seriously. Step back and look critically at how obscenely pathetic, confused, and absurd your arguments are. Have some intellectual decency, will you?
Posted by: Janine, She Wolf Of Pharyngula, OM
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December 10, 2009 12:29 AM
Could she be talking about trimming Chris Hedges?
Posted by: Aratina Cage
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December 10, 2009 12:36 AM
Why won't they stop stereotyping us? Lofton again:
Good grief, such prejudice! I happen to have thoroughly enjoyed my wayward days, I have met some great people who happened to be hookers, and I guess you could call liberalism a populist revolution considering the way things are today in the US but I won't support a movement going outside the bounds of democracy.
We don't question the location of gods (they are in books and people's imaginations) or have a doubting relationship with gods (just as Lofton doesn't doubt that E.T. exists — and devoting oneself to E.T. makes as much sense to us as devoting oneself to a god in our eyes).Lofton also really misunderstands atheism to its core:
Actually, I celebrated when Falwell kicked the bucket to a rendition of "Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead", and I was a weak non-Catholic theist when Mother Teresa died so I cared not other than that it polluted the news. As for the rest, Lofton must know that theists worry about the Bible, the Koran, the Taliban, and neo-Inquisitions such as the one going on in Uganda.And again with the stereotyping, Lofton writes:
First, atheism has nothing to do with restraint or material good; I don't know how Lofton came up with that other than the old "immoral atheists" jab which has been soundly refuted in hundreds of places on the Internet if Lofton would dare to research it. But the comparisons are really disgusting. Homophobes use children in their propaganda campaigns against gays (like in Uganda where a prime motivation to hunt down gays is the equation of homosexuality with child rape). Anti-immigration, tea-partying, AK-47 slugging dittoheads inculcate their children with the most racist stereotypes imaginable and use their children's educations as ploys to maintain their White supremacy. Atheists are not using their children, they are caring for their children's minds.What's worse is that Lofton equates atheism (excuse me, New Atheism) with homophobia. Yes, that's right, Lofton thinks atheists are H8ers:
And so it goes on and on. I don't know what else to say except that Kathryn Lofton really knows how to shovel manure.
Posted by: destlund
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December 10, 2009 12:38 AM
Chris Hedges doesn't need a lot of trimming, because he's BALDING! Ha ha hahaha!
Oops. I think that should have gone in another thread. ;)
Posted by: Rorschach
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December 10, 2009 12:47 AM
What is this, female stereotyping week ??
We already learned that we need more female new atheists because they would be so much more polite and considerate and less foul-mouthed and grumpy then us sexually frustrated single white male atheists.
And now being emotional and instinctual is girly too, and even "like religion" ?
I see the words, but they dont seem to make sense together.
Posted by: destlund
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December 10, 2009 12:49 AM
I wish people wouldn't kick Mother Teresa around so much. I don't recall her eating babies (Christian or otherwise) when she was alive, and when she died she left us a record of her deeply conflicted faith. From my perspective she was a deeply moral agnostic who made use of the biggest institution she could to do the work she rightly felt must be done. Catholicism in her case, in my opinion, is a red herring. Sorry aratina if it sounds like I'm coming down on you, but it's as least as much on Lofton for bringing it up in the first place.
Posted by: Aratina Cage
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December 10, 2009 12:53 AM
Whatever that means, this post on Pharyngula is now the top hit for "cutting the hedge erection" on Google. Perhaps "erection" means "erected fence" rather than "erect penis"? I dunno... Lofton might mean that we think religion is a habitual practice (tradition) done only for looks but really senseless otherwise.Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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December 10, 2009 12:59 AM
Destlund @ 22:
Mother Teresa was a hypocritical, nasty piece of goods. She not only made sure people suffered horribly, she told them their suffering and agony was a good thing. When she required medical care, she was flown to a topflight hospital, had a private room, the best doctors and every possible bit of modern medicine to help her. That happened more than once, and she died in comfort, and had the little things, like painkillers, which she denied to those she "took care of" in their last stages of life.
Posted by: Pareidolius
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December 10, 2009 12:59 AM
Dr. Stabby, Boy Psychiatrist has a theory.
I think that maybe her writing process revolves around a sad, solo drinking game. It goes like this: every time she write the word "it" she takes a shot of Frangelico, so by the time she gets to the end of her missives you end up with bizarre snippets of her sublimated erotic urges like . . .
And really, religion is like a girl? Really? A girl? How do you even get there from the torrid manscaping allusion? I somehow picture a terrible scene from this inebriate's past. A hapless traveling salesman tired down on a bed in a cheap motel, still wearing his black dress socks with the hole in the right toe. And there in her Frangelico haze, is Miss Lofton gamely chewing his "hedge" down like some liquer-sodden goat.Uh oh, my mom's home.
That will be one hundred dollars please,
Dr. Stabby, Boy Psychiatrist
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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December 10, 2009 1:06 AM
aratina cage @ 23:
I'm beginning to think the erection symbolizes god and if religions didn't constantly cut the hedges, god's poor cock would get overgrown and people would forget about the Almighty
cockerectionGod.Posted by: ckitching
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December 10, 2009 1:07 AM
I'm not sure it's like a girl, but it does seem a lot like a manipulator. And I'm pretty sure this role can be played by both sexes with relative ease.I don't know about anyone else, but I've never had much of a relationship, whether personal or professional, with manipulative people. Why would you sell religion like this?
Posted by: Aquaria
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December 10, 2009 1:09 AM
destlund, deluded freak:
Mother Teresa, the monster of Calcutta, intentionally and consistently withheld pain medication from terminally ill patients, so that they could suffer "like Christ".
Anyone who thinks that monster deserved any kind of praise or sympathy is a twisted fuck just like her.
I piss on the witch's grave, every chance I get.
She was a despicable waste of oxygen.
Posted by: Janine, She Wolf Of Pharyngula, OM
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December 10, 2009 1:13 AM
I wish people wouldn't kick Mother Teresa around so much. I don't recall her eating babies (Christian or otherwise) when she was alive, and when she died she left us a record of her deeply conflicted faith.
She she nothing to alleviate the suffering of the poor in Calcutta. That is because she thought that the suffering served a purpose for those afflicted. I am sorry but I can only see her as a sadist. Her religion has served to elevate her sadism to self sacrifice and sainthood. She deserves all of the kicking and more.
Posted by: Aratina Cage
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December 10, 2009 1:14 AM
destlund,
No need to be sorry. I think the media in the US made a spectacle of Mother Teresa whether she was a good person or not. Hitchens has documented how she milked her newfound fame (from characters such as Keating, McCain's friend) and used the proceeds to create new Catholic nunneries and how she really was something like a collector of the dead, carting the dying to her dark and dank sanctuary and letting them rot there on stone cots unaided. I'd say it's a good thing she questioned her faith because it was pretty fucked up if Hitchens is to be believed, and if that is the case then I don't see how you can say she was moral (but I will say that Hitchens is a ripe misogynist at times so I don't totally trust his point of view on any woman).Posted by: SC OM
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December 10, 2009 1:15 AM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WQ0i3nCx60
http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/hitchens_16_4.html
Posted by: NightGoblin
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December 10, 2009 1:21 AM
Pardon me if I'm stating something blatantly obvious, but I think the bit about erection (and the following bit about girls) may have been a poor attempt at word play. Erection as in a building (church?) and as in... well, you all know already.
Posted by: Euphoria5L
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December 10, 2009 1:23 AM
This is the sort of goofy thinking that has infected certain parts of the humanities. It's symptomatic of a certain style of sloppy thought that attempts to connect anything and everything with everything and anything else. I am all for finding out the largely hidden motives behind a view (I, for one, am interested in the sociological origin of my views, even if I'm confident in the truth of some of them; the etiology of belief is fascinating), but her arguments are entirely opaque and her evidence scarce. The prose isn't helping anyone understand her argument (such that it is).
Of course, it passes as rigorous and acceptable work in parts of the academy. This is not a defense of religion, as far as I can tell. I'm not even sure what it is.
Posted by: boygenius
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December 10, 2009 1:26 AM
Lofton:
If there were no religious beliefs, everyone would be an atheist, they just wouldn't know it.
Reading her essay brought this to mind:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKP1C-WqCf0&feature=channel
(All right, the verses don't apply but the hook line in the chorus is apropos.)
Posted by: destlund
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December 10, 2009 1:27 AM
*picks jaw up off the floor*
Whilst I don't appreciate being called a deluded freak, I... umm...
I retract my remarks. I think Christopher Hitchens is an asshole, but he's all too often right. Grudging respect for Hitchens, growing disrespect for Mother Teresa. Hospice without palliative care?! I just threw up in my mouth a little, and I'm not speaking in metaphor.
Posted by: Aratina Cage
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December 10, 2009 1:28 AM
Caine #26, I think you're on to something.
And it's easier to suck on the Almighty Needle if you don't have to find it in a haystack.Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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December 10, 2009 1:32 AM
Destlund, a lot of people are unaware of MT's hypocrisy and the terrible suffering she inflicted, while having the best of the best herself. All of life is a learning process, and you just learned something you hadn't known. No shame there.
Posted by: Kagato
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December 10, 2009 1:37 AM
It is easier for a rich man to pass through the eye of a needle, than it is for a camel to --
...
...than it is for a camel to.
Posted by: destlund
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December 10, 2009 1:42 AM
Bhopal? Forgive? SC, you have shaken my conceptions to the core, including my prejudices regarding Christopher Hitchens. And that's not easy. While this news is depressing, I thank you for shining the light of truth.
Posted by: Rorschach
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December 10, 2009 1:42 AM
Truly a Hell's Angel...:-)
Ty for the link, SC !
And destlund, welcome to Pharyngula...:-)
Posted by: redrabbitslife
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December 10, 2009 1:48 AM
Actually, if you can stomach the fawning, even Malcolm Muggeridge's Something Beautiful for God (which I read as a heading-for-atheism-but-hanging-onto-Catholicism teen) doesn't exactly paint a pretty picture of the Mother Teresa.
I read it because I believed the hype about her, but the stories of not giving medical care, only "love" to the poor and dying made me ill.
Also @Caine#26 and aratina#36- I think you're in the right direction, but not quite there. Which is the meaning- being in the right direction but not quite there. If you catch my meaning.
I think Loftin must be 16.
Posted by: Talen Lee
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December 10, 2009 1:56 AM
If religion is a girl, she seems to be the kind who's prissy and sincere with such promise on the outside and a ballraking scall underneath.
Damn me but I find it hot.
Is that okay, because it's blasphemous, or not okay, because it's okaying something about religion?
Posted by: Janine, She Wolf Of Pharyngula, OM
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December 10, 2009 2:01 AM
I did not know that Teresa urged the survivors of the Union Carbide disaster to forgive. That only gives those in charge permission to not make any improvements to their operation and to disregard the harm they do. Forgiveness, in this case is unethical.
Posted by: Noadi
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December 10, 2009 2:06 AM
Hmmm... no, yes but not excessively, no, no, no otherwise I wouldn't be reading this, hell yes. Not a great many hits there.I'm not even sure how to address this. It always amazes me how sexist some women can be, do they have that little self respect? Or do they really not get that they are insulting themselves as well as other womenzx?
Posted by: Andreas Johansson
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December 10, 2009 3:31 AM
You'd think one'd be used to it by now, but I still get surprised when women are casually misogynistic like this.
Posted by: murtagh
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December 10, 2009 3:44 AM
Funny, that... every single author I've ever heard referred to as a New Atheist has hated the term and pointed out that there was nothing new about it, and just about every one has specifically pointed out and extensively quoted from philosophers of ancient Greece and the Enlightenment.
Hell, PZ even did a really great piece pointing out the non-theistic finale of the Gilgamesh epic. You can't actually get much further back in the historic fray than that.
Posted by: murtagh
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December 10, 2009 3:49 AM
murtagh Author Profile Page? Really?
I must sit down this weekend and figure out a way to make the registration byline look a little less idiotic.
Posted by: Cyg
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December 10, 2009 4:15 AM
PZ's post skewers a straw man, but completely misrepresents Lofton's views and her article.
Lofton nowhere describes herself as a "theist" or a believer. On the contrary, when accepting an LGBT Religious History Award for her book, Lofton said her interest in religion arose from fascination with religion's hold on the American psyche. She is a professor at Yale who sees her job as simply describing and commenting on American religious experience. Her studies, she says, have changed her life, but not (to the chagrin of the church-goers she studies) her soul. http://www.lgbtran.org/Papers/LoftonPresentation.pdf
The point of Lofton's article is NOT that religion possesses female characteristics. To cherry-pick this tiny snippet is as disingenuous as any scientific article summary by the Discovery Institute.
Rather, her remarks are analogous to Robert Wright's in the debate referenced at http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/11/dennett_harris_hitchens_vs_bot.php, which merely express reservations about the proselytizing aspect of the new atheists.
An intellectually honest post would justify and defend proselytizing in the name of scientific truth (there's plenty PZ could have copied and pasted from Dawkins' blog), not attack Lofton on false premises for a throw-away line that was almost certainly meant ironically. Assuming, that is, it's possible for the educated elite who read this blog to keep from snickering like Beavis and Butthead at the word "erection," which primarily means "anything erected or built."
Posted by: masksoferis
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December 10, 2009 4:19 AM
"Religion is cutting the hedge repeatedly around an erection."
Fine, here come all the nightmares with the Pope, hedge scissors, frolicking nudity, and lots and lots of blood. And the ice cream hamsters.
Again.
(Meanwhile, in the Christian Hideout: "Zounds, boy! The Hedge Erection signal has been given! Break out the Bibles and the gear --- it's time for Project Codename 'Rod of Aaron and Ass of Balaam'!")
Posted by: Rorschach
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December 10, 2009 4:34 AM
Cyg @ 48,
Lofton's post is full of misrepresentations of "New Atheists" and their positions :
The whole piece is full of that crap unfortunately.
Maybe when you have confirmed with Lofton that it was indeed meant ironically, which I find unlikely, you can get back to us. Until then, this remains your opinion.
Posted by: Richard Eis
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December 10, 2009 4:37 AM
If she is projecting, I feel sorry for her partner.
and his hedge...
Posted by: John Morales
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December 10, 2009 4:46 AM
Cyg:
What is a 'soul'? ;)
Posted by: tortorific
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December 10, 2009 4:54 AM
300 pounds... it makes ice...
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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December 10, 2009 5:04 AM
Cyg @ 48:
No, he didn't, and neither did anyone else. "Virility. Emasculation. Erection. Hedge trimming." and so on. She put shit in a blender and is trying to sell it as chocolate puree. If she's going to write utter tripe like an overly sexed 14 year old, she can expect to be called on it.
Posted by: Walton, Marquis of Carabas
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December 10, 2009 5:10 AM
What a bizarre article. Quite apart from her rambling and rather pretentious style, Miss Lofton seems to be writing almost exclusively about Bill Maher, and assuming (erroneously) that his views are representative of "New Atheists" (whatever that means) in general.
What she fails to understand is that atheism is not a movement, or a belief system. It's simply a state of not believing in god(s). It tells you nothing else about a person's character, beliefs or ideas. If she had titled this article "How to be like Bill Maher", then it would have been perfectly accurate, if rather pointless; Maher is, indeed, a intellectually-bankrupt populist moonbat and a massive misogynist (as well as an advocate of pseudo-medicine, a failing she doesn't mention). But there are plenty of atheists, including myself and many of the regulars here, who detest Maher and everything he stands for. There is no "New Atheist movement", and if there were, Bill Maher would not be one of its leading figures.
Atheists come in all shapes and sizes. Some are on the political right, others on the left. Some are feminists, others are not. The fact that someone doesn't believe in god(s) does not define their entire character or belief system.
Posted by: Jadehawk, OM
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December 10, 2009 5:27 AM
what the...?
cyg, even if she meant it as a joke, it was a sexist joke. That she projects this sexism wantonly on the "New Atheists" is irrelevant, since she's as wrong with that as she is with everything else she says about them.
and it really makes no difference whether she's a christian, a woo-ey deist, or a faitheist, she's still very evidently talking about shit she doesn't know; or maybe she's blatantly lying.
Posted by: Jadehawk, OM
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December 10, 2009 5:46 AM
Walton, that actually read more like a description of Hitchens than of Maher, though maybe her point is that all New Atheists are the love-children of Hitchens and Maher?
what a weird, condescending, and completely wrong article.
Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives
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December 10, 2009 6:01 AM
I have never, ever, ever heard religion described as "girly" or being "like a girl" by an atheist, ever. That association is all in her head.
Not as far as I know, but my Christian cultural references are specific to fundamentalists. I think she is trying to say that she thinks that atheists think that religion tries to make things look more impressive than they really are, with a reference to something like Gillette's weird "optical inch" internet campaign of a couple of years ago.
Posted by: windy
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December 10, 2009 6:16 AM
She does nothing to substantiate that Maher is representative of any genus of "New Atheists"
He's not even an atheist...
Posted by: Cyg
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December 10, 2009 6:18 AM
#50 Rorschach, Your quotes from Lofton's article offer a better sense of its problematic content than PZ's headline. PZ might have chosen to explain how statements like those misrepresent New Atheist views. Instead, he attacks "like a girl," as though that were the central point of Lofton's article.
Last I checked, New Atheists DO consider religion irrational, emotional, instinctual, whimsical, etc. Maybe Lofton should have used the term "child-like" instead of "girl." But apparently in PZ's world, girls and women are indistinguishable, hence this adult-woman Yale professor a self-hating, neuroses-projecting misogynist.
Posted by: Jadehawk, OM
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December 10, 2009 6:27 AM
it does no such thing. it is however one of the weirdest and dumbest parts, and thus rightly deserves highlighting. your attempt at weaseling is not working. not only does the article state that all New Atheists are supposedly male, it goes on to use the quoted paragraph to accuse the New Atheists of sexism. So yeah, she meant "like a girl" PRECISELY in the misogynist, belittling way which you're trying to deny. You can stop handwaving now, it's not working.Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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December 10, 2009 6:57 AM
Cyg @ 60:
I'm not sure why you're so invested in Lofton, but your defense isn't working. She swallowed a thesaurus in an attempt to make her screed sound intellectual. That's unnecessary to make a valid point, and that tactic is generally used to fudge the central message so no one will notice how weak it is.
You, like Lofton, are putting all atheists under one umbrella, stating "this is what all atheists think of religions!" Personally, I think they misdirect and take specific advantage, and do it in a shameless manner. That's not all I think, but it's enough for now. I'm an atheist and a woman.
You describe Lofton as a woman, yet this woman was unable to use that word and resorted to "girl". It seems to me that girls and women are indistinguishable in Lofton's world. It's apparent she dislikes atheists, particularly those who happen to be the most convenient 'faces' of atheism these days. There's a great deal of her screed which is erroneous. Rather than attempt a clear statement, she chose to write in the terms of a teenager on overload. I expect more of an educated person who thinks they have a point of view worth considering.
Posted by: Slugsie
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December 10, 2009 7:10 AM
*Snigger!*
Posted by: kalibhakta
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December 10, 2009 7:36 AM
as a generally curious person and a theist, I almost always follow your links, especially to the high-toned theist material, to see if there might be something you're missing or something I can learn. and there are the gems of idiocy like Hovind's diss....
however, on arriving at Lofton's blog, I saw the names "Judith Butler" and "Cornel West" and reflexively hurled my laptop through the kitchen window.
now it's really cold in here.
Posted by: Aratina Cage
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December 10, 2009 7:44 AM
Cyg #48,
I don't think comparing us to Beavis and Butthead will be taken as much of an insult around here.But anyway, so you think that Lofton is provoking the New Atheists, of whom all five (according to Lofton: the Four Horsemen + Maher) are male, by painting them as referring to religion as "a lot like a girl" (girls being looked down upon by these New Atheists) which exposes them as misogynists? That's a fairly twisted ironical statement. Hitchens might be offended by it, and Maher would almost certainly make a joke of it at religion's expense. Dennett, Dawkins, and Harris, though, I don't know how they would take it but I'd doubt they would agree with it in any way other than acknowledge how religion is a childish thing, which takes the bite out of the irony.
If Lofton was trying to flail atheists for "proselytizing in the name of scientific truth", then she is just plain wrong. The theists force themselves into our sights by doing and saying astoundingly irrational and abusive things under the guise of their religiosity, and we gladly and loudly defend ourselves, science, education, the arts, and rational humanism (or whatever the theist is attacking) against the religiously inspired attacks. Atheism is a response, to put it more softly, a response to greedy, overbearing, ignorant, unreasoned theism and its faitheist allies. Theists and the like come to us; we open the door, step outside, and refute them forthwith. We are not the proselytizers.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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December 10, 2009 7:53 AM
aratina cage @ 65:
Outstanding. Why aren't you an OM?
Posted by: Sastra
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December 10, 2009 8:27 AM
Euphoria5L #33 wrote:
I think Cyg at #48 is right: Lofton's intent is to "express reservations about the proselytizing aspect of the new atheists." The tone of the essay is sneering. She's not only sneering at atheists, she's apparently sneering at the whole idea of passionate intensity, or activism, or trying to change the world for the better, or -- "God" forbid -- telling people they're wrong, and you're right. How gauche, how bigoted, how naive, how shallow. And, again and again, she makes constant analogies and comparisons to religious extremism.
Oh, look -- outspoken atheists are just like the fundamentalists they criticize! Lofton is also sneering at the idea of saying something new.
Once again, the elephant in the room is ignored. Does God exist? Shouldn't that be a rather important question? Is "faith" a virtue which should be encouraged? She doesn't really answer either question. No, in the end, it all comes down to tone.
We'd all be so much more winning, if only we wouldn't sneer at religion the way we do. That's just so annoying.
Posted by: Anri
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December 10, 2009 8:31 AM
Ok, my attempt at analysis:
Religion is being compared to a tease - I wonder if this isn't supposed to mean-
Religion is (like a woman) cutting the hedge (out in the yard) repeatedly around (her man, who'd rather have sex, because he clearly has) an erection.
In other words, the 50's housewife, in her frilly dress and yellow plastic gloves, slyly glancing over her chartruse sunglasses at her poor, suffering husband, while she teasingly bends down yet again to pick up a tiny hedge clipping...
Ok, maybe I'm reading way too much into this.
Posted by: lordshipmayhem
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December 10, 2009 8:37 AM
I'm glad that I had finished my coffee before I read this, and I'm betting if Ms. Lofton would be too if she knew how close she came to owing me a new keyboard.
Religion is like a girl? How so? It has a uterus? It gets PMS? It plays with Barbie dolls? It goes "Squee!" at all the boy bands? It wears makeup and perfume and short-shorts? It buys its underwear at Victoria's Secret?
Posted by: IanKoro
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December 10, 2009 8:50 AM
I had to write my own response in the comments for the article. It was so incredibly, jaw droppingly stupid. Here's my response:
Really? This smarmy, "I understand what you think better than you do" piece is clearly an attempt to throw the "new atheist" writing style back in their faces, but it fails miserably. She seems more like an insulted child, trying to choke back tears, while rolling her eyes and pretending to laugh at her attacker.
You start out by sneeringly (and completely out of context) quoting Baggini, pointing out that atheism is"by it's very very nature negative". It is a lack of belief, just like your lack of belief in Martian unicorns is "by its very nature negative". If someone asks you if you'd like some coffee when you don't, your response will be "by its very nature negative". Trying to make this sound as though this means atheism is nasty or depressing is ridiculous and dishonest.
I get the impression of someone who really doesn't know much about the people she's talking about. Claiming that "new atheists" are politically libertarian seems pretty odd, sure there are a few that fit that category, but in my experience, atheists are probably more likely to be left leaning.
Trying to recast the atheist's views of religion as misogynist, and claiming, erroneously, that all atheists (or at least "new atheists", which apparently means you're an atheist who has published a recent book on the topic) are men is not only silly, it's a cheap shot, and an ad hominem attack. If you actually believe that being a girl is to "make a virtue out of not thinking", or that they're immoral and whimsical, then you're clearly projecting your own sexist, self-hating biases on us. Unless you think these are desirable traits, things that women, and religion should aspire to, in which case, I'm not sure what to think.
We atheists count among our ranks many intelligent, rational women. Many of them enthusiastically agree with the writings of the men you call the "new atheists", AND they don't hate themselves.
You also claim that "new atheists" aren't interested in the history of atheism, based on... I have no idea what. Is it because several books, which aren't really about atheism, but about religion, don't discuss the topic? They also don't discuss the history of cinema, so clearly to be a "new atheist" you must have no interest in that.
You go on making nonsensical claims like that we've "given up on the development of a social movement", based, apparently on the fact that your long list of atheist and humanist groups never had large memberships (I'm not even sure if that's true... did you check the numbers on this one, or just assume.... and large compared to what?)
Then, you go back to your previous tactic of trying to make someone look bad by claiming they're bigoted. Because he joked that Puerto Rico seemed like an unlikely place for the second coming, he's CLEARLY a juvenile bigot.
Then calling us "sexist, simple, and light on the science". Your claims of sexism are based on a ridiculous straw man, calling us simple is nothing more than an insult, and you don't seem to have ANY basis for saying we're light on the science. This statement REEKS of projection. Religions everywhere are filled with sexism, Ruchira Paul already gave a good list of examples, and to say that religion is "light on the science" would be an understatement for the annals of history.
Give me a break.
Posted by: mikecbraun
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December 10, 2009 9:02 AM
Actually, I would say it is religion that is more "like a girl," whatever that means. Like my two-year-old girl: always amusing, sometimes coherent, and frequently changing the rules! I'm sure in that respect, it would be "like a boy" as well. :)
Posted by: mikecbraun
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December 10, 2009 9:04 AM
Oops, duh, that's what it says. Morning comprehension fail on my part.
Posted by: Cuttlefish, OM, CR
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December 10, 2009 9:17 AM
Her first paragraph is enough to disqualify her from commenting. She clearly shows she does not understand the concept of a privative, a negatively defined category. Quoting, but not understanding, the description of atheism as "by its very nature negative... dependent for its existence on the the religious beliefs it rejects", she chooses the wrong definition of "negative", a poor choice of "dependent". As the privative category, atheism would not exist without religion. There were no atheists before there were believers; there were, simply, people. The term "atheism" would be undefined in such a context. The term is, as she writes but does not understand, dependent on religion. It is negatively defined in that it is defined as "not a member of any of these thousands of positively-defined religious categories". Just to be thorough, on the infinitesimal chance she'll read this, "positively defined" simply means that there is a list of characteristics or beliefs that are meant to define a particular category; catholics and baptists have different, but overlapping, sets of beliefs that define them.
I, as an atheist, would be very happy if there could come a time when the word "atheist" would be again undefined. I am not holding my breath. But while I am in this culture, I am a member of a negatively defined group of (for the most part) incredibly positive people.
Ms. Lofton, if you'd be so kind,
Pull your head out from up your behind.
When you write about me,
Have a care that you see
That my views are correctly defined.
Posted by: IanKoro
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December 10, 2009 9:24 AM
Someone questioned why she was writing about Maher, at the end of the article, you'll see it was written as part of a discussion about Religulous, So that explains that.
Posted by: JackC
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December 10, 2009 9:44 AM
Back in the late '90s, I worked for a Cellular company who contracted with another company - I believe it was Allen Tower - to construct the actual support structures for the cellular antennas.
Many of the crew working for that company wore T-Shirts that contained their slogan:
"Our erections stay up longer"
I am NOT kidding - though I can't find a photo :-(
JC
Posted by: ice9
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December 10, 2009 10:08 AM
Aratina for OM.
All, but especially #36.
The person who wrote that piece is a sucky writer, though I could believe that she's just 1) bad at irony and/or 2) a university professor who thinks she can write.
Good clue: use of "clarion" as an adjective. True, the word is often listed as an adjective, but that's because it's conflated often with the word 'clear' though they have no etymological relationship. "Clarion"--bleh. Sounds pithy and intense and classical, but it's a histrionic (speaking of women!) senseless ornament, overused and drained of any punch. I think it's banned in the Yale faculty handbook.
ice9
Posted by: Katherine Lorraine, Chaton de la Mort
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December 10, 2009 10:25 AM
If religion was like a girl, it would become good friends with me, tell me it's not interested in dating, and then go out with my friend...
Posted by: nigelTheBold, Minister of Spankings
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December 10, 2009 10:27 AM
I could not read the entire essay. Not because of the content (though that too was terrible), but because of her terribly overwrought style. Her little rococo flourishes were painful. Her inability to follow the thread of a single thought in a single paragraph was tortuous. The mishmash of images was an analogy salad, and a not-very-appealing one at that.
Further, her central thesis (at least, as far as I could discern) was ridiculous: that New Atheists are strident, anti-social misogynists, and we should just leave poor innocent religion alone. How would that read if it were about proponents of same-sex marriage? After all, most of them are also defined by a negative belief: the lack of belief that homosexuals are bad or wrong or in any way abnormal. Oh! How about feminism? Some feminists are strident, too! Shouldn't they just shut up, as well?
In a country in which several states have laws banning atheists from serving elected positions, atheists should most definitely speak out. (It does not matter those laws are never enforced.)
Anyway, that's my response to an essay I had to skim, as the forced, stilted writing made my teeth itch at the roots.
Posted by: Alyson Miers
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December 10, 2009 10:27 AM
Professor Lofton: you are one of those irrational "girls" whom you use as a metaphor in misrepresenting the godless. You are an embarrassment to supposedly thinking women everywhere. Please do not presume to comment on gender issues ever again.
Posted by: Aratina Cage
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December 10, 2009 10:29 AM
Caine, ice9, thank you, but considering the eloquent, insightful, informative, and hilarious posts preceding and following mine (including both of yours), I would hardly deserve it. Speaking of that, I don't know how I'm going to whittle down my list of faves to an acceptable number for November Mollies without looking like I have tentacles myself.
Posted by: ChrisH
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December 10, 2009 10:40 AM
I always thought that religion was a bitch.
That's me told.
Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives
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December 10, 2009 10:54 AM
If religion were like a girl, it would have no influence in matters of public policy, it wouldn't be able to buy or sell property, people would tell it everything it can't do because good little religions don't do that, and nobody would pay much attention to it. Hm, maybe that wouldn't' be so bad after all.
Posted by: David Marjanović
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December 10, 2009 10:57 AM
TSIB.
<headshake>
Comment 68 makes sense…
:-D :-D :-D
WTF. Mother Teresa praised Enver Fucking Hoxha? The communist dictator of Albania, who went from Stalinism over Maoism to his own extreme sect? The one who made Albania an officially atheist country?
The doublethink. It, too, burns.
Posted by: MetaEd
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December 10, 2009 10:57 AM
@JackC Reminds me of Cowboy Coring Company, the Dallas area drilling business from the same time period. The motto which appeared on all their trucks was "Your hole is our goal."
Posted by: Bill Baconhill
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December 10, 2009 11:08 AM
"It is, by now, old hat to say that atheism is just another literalism, defined less by the content of its complaint than by the style of its conveyance."
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand that's where she lost me. Yup, one sentence in. Wow, that was quicker than usual.
Posted by: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawl2qTiTnACSo2J28faXiEQZA22htFvePg0
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December 10, 2009 11:35 AM
I actually agreed with her, up to the last two sentences. That hedge/erection metaphor has me stumped, too.
I have the honor (dishonor? curious situation?) of being the only female in a house full of men. I am also the only atheist (although I'm working on them).
I am not, however, the only feminist. So I must have done something right.
Posted by: Paul W., OM
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December 10, 2009 11:45 AM
Given the total off-baseness of Lofton's gibberish, I thought this might be a reasonable time to try out my own description of the "New Atheism" on you guys.
It's nowhere near my best prose---a bit turgid :-( ---because for now I'm trying to be careful before and get it right before I rewrite it to give it zing.
Feedback would be welcome... is this what you think the New Atheism is about?
---
What is the "New Atheism"?
I'm actually not terribly unhappy with the term "New Atheism." It's a fairly stupid term---there nothing new about that kind of atheism, except that lately it's getting a fair bit of press---but at least it isn't useless. It has a fairly clear referent.
The "New Atheism" is just a very few basic ideas and strategies that the bestselling Four Horsemen (Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, and Hitchens) and a few other prominent atheists (Myers, Stenger, etc.) agree on. (As well as many less prominent but vocal atheists.)
There are three basic ideas:
1. Science and orthodox religion conflict, both in many specific ways and at a fundamental level---science can explain religion naturalistically, and undermine its claims to be a valid alternative "way of knowing."
Scientific knowledge undermines not only fundamentalism, but essentially all forms of religious orthodoxy, by casting great doubt on central tenets of nearly all major religions---including the existence of the traditional (immaterial) soul, the objective significance of felt "spiritual" or "supernatural" experiences, and the nature of morality.
2. Silence about deep problems with religion is not good; we should come out of the closet and stop humoring the religious so much. This will inevitably generate some backlash, especially in the short run, but in the long run it is likely worth it. Especially in the U.S., it is past time to undermine people's "belief in belief," and promote the kind of skepticism of religious claims---both factual and moral claims---that is already fairly common in Western Europe.
The rise of the religious right and the recent successes of the gay rights movement demonstrate that coming out and speaking your mind can be surprisingly effective, shifting the "Overton Window" of acceptable public opinion so that previously invisible views become visible, then gain significant minority acceptance, and eventually become fairly popular if not majority views.
"Moderate" (accommodationist) strategies---watering down your position to make it more acceptable to the "center" in the short run---can often be effective in the short run but disastrous in the long run, because you let public opinion shift away from you.
(Consider what happened to the word "liberal" in the U.S. in the last generation or two. There used to be many proud liberals; now there are few who want to be tarred with the label. The right did not make "liberal" a term of derision by toning down its message and playing nice. The left gave away the store by playing to the center, failing to defend its position, and letting the center creep rightward.)
3. It is important to reduce the prevalence of religion, especially the more orthodox and zealous forms, because religious ideas pervade our political discourse and undermine potential agreement on many subjects of great importance, from embryonic stem cell research to equal civil rights for gays to overpopulation to funding for condom distribution in HIV-ridden Africa that would save literally millions of lives.
Posted by: Lynna, OM
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December 10, 2009 11:46 AM
What a pleasant thread. We all get to talk about erections. Well, it is morning for me, so, "Up with the erections!" I have my hedge-trimming tools at the ready. But wait... if I take this literally, religion is supposedly trimming the hedges, and religion is like a girl (not even like a woman, but like a girl).
This means I can't trim hedges unless I'm religious, or am Religion Incarnate ... and female. This is not a problem for my religious female friends, but I am feeling left out. Hedge-trimming around erections is a religious duty that we atheists may not have previously recognized as dogma. It's the duty of sacred
womengirls to trim around the erections of their Penishood Holders.Now I'm getting the icky feeling that only young girls oozing emotion and flustered by any thought of actual thought, those are the only girls allowed/required to trim hedges. I think I'll stop here, while I still have a few functioning neurons left.
Posted by: The Pint
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December 10, 2009 11:48 AM
Wha-wha-WHAT???
What the hell is up this week with the atheism/women crap? First the Prothero ridiculousness and now this?
Posted by: MikeyM
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December 10, 2009 11:50 AM
We could use Mother Teresa out here in California, where we're trying to pass an initiative to outlaw divorce. The Albanian Troll was instrumental in helping to keep poor Irish in their unhappy marriages.
Although, as Hitchens pointed out, she was supportive of her rich pal Diana's divorce.
Posted by: Lynna, OM
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December 10, 2009 11:57 AM
Carlie @81
Ha! Good points, Carlie. If religion really were like a girl, it also wouldn't be forcing girls to trim hedges around erections ... and then the Priests, Preachers, Penishood Holders, Bishopricks, Pastors, and Popes wouldn't look like such big Pricks. That's right, isn't it? I am so fucking confused.
Being a proper "new atheist" is harder than I thought it was going to be. We need some trained clergy to start sorting this shit out. How many emotional girls does it take to manscape the Pope?
Posted by: Bill Baconhill
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December 10, 2009 11:59 AM
@#88:
Well, it is morning for me
So you would classify all of this erection talk as morning wood then?
Posted by: Lynna, OM
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December 10, 2009 12:06 PM
Theists interpreting atheists inevitably out themselves as SM specialists, with a side dish of misogyny thrown in for good measure ... oh, yeah, and don't forget the lack of irony. Irony supplements should be required for all theists.
Posted by: lordshipmayhem
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December 10, 2009 12:10 PM
"It is, by now, old hat to say that atheism is just another literalism, defined less by the content of its complaint than by the style of its conveyance."
Bollocks. Atheism is all about the content, not about the style. Religions split due to the style, as this version's followers prefer to decorate its structures simply and that version's followers prefer cherubs and statuary, this version prefers the sermon in the traditional language (Latin or Arabic) and that one prefers the sermon spoken in a language the followers can more readily comprehend.
That is the problem the True Believers have with atheism: they're trying to dazzle us with flash and verve, which works on the sheeple who make up their flocks. Meanwhile we're ignoring all the cute eye candy and instead are analyzing the content (or lack of same) of their message.
Posted by: Will Von Wizzlepig
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December 10, 2009 12:10 PM
Today's quote on iGoogle seems like it should be a motto for this website:
"Rational arguments don't usually work on religious people. Otherwise, there wouldn't be religious people." -Doris Egan
While I completely agree with the idea that religion is a hindrance to humanity's progress in the grand scheme of things, something about the idea of there someday not being religion just doesn't ring true.
If there were a way to prevent people from making up myths and then lying to each other about them, religion wouldn't be the only thing to go. Politics, car salesmen, the armed forces, marriage, and a lot of other institutions would have to fall by the wayside.
It seems that there will always be a portion of humanity that cannot go on living without the idea of an ethereal cookie waiting for them in the clouds- if this assumption is wrong- how do we know it is?
This all feels suspiciously too close to the Libertarian issue, as I'll call it, wherein we will all have a much better world, right after the lead Libertarian Fairy waves his wand and poofs us into an alternate reality where all of the overly-thought out and historically referenced truths can somehow be utilized by the now extraordinarily educated populace to forge a Utopian wonderland. I'd love it if it were true, but it seems not so.
Posted by: Lynna, OM
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December 10, 2009 12:12 PM
@92
I wood. Or rather, I would classify it as the Hope for Morning Wood (something which will be guaranteed in heaven). One thing you atheists always do is over simplify -- you need to start paying attention to what educated theologists have written about morning wood. And once you've explored that deep theological question, you can get into the nuances of hedge-trimming.
Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives
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December 10, 2009 12:12 PM
Maybe she's trying to be funny, so in addition to being a humorless feminist I'm also now a humorless atheist?
Posted by: Lynna, OM
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December 10, 2009 12:15 PM
I looked for Hezekiah on Craig's List, no luck.The "wayward days" bit sounds a lot more like Glenn Beck than any atheist I know.
Posted by: Lynna, OM
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December 10, 2009 12:43 PM
@78
Some attempts have been made to enforce the law, including a recent case in North Carolina:
Posted by: truthspeaker
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December 10, 2009 12:45 PM
I've never been with a hooker. I don't know what Hezekiah means in this context. I have used a hookah. Does that count?
Posted by: Paul W., OM
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December 10, 2009 12:48 PM
Do any of the prominent New Atheists actually expect to destroy religion any time in the foreseeable future?
I don't think so.
This is on of the canards that the accommodationists use to slag the New Atheists.
The NA's are supposedly hopeless idealists fighting a war they can never win, and can only lose. They're unreasonable assholes who are just rocking the boat without any reasonable expectation that it will do any good.
The accommodationists systematically ignore the fact that the NA's understand accommodationist reasoning, up to a point, but have a counterargument---Overton Window arguments---and a different strategy.
That's been pointed out many times over the last two or three years, and the accommodationists generally imply that the NA's are too dumb or ornery to understand a simple strategic issue.
The truth is that the NA's have always understood that issue, and it's the accommodationist who are grossly oversimplifying, and using a straw man to smear the NA's.
(Mooney and Kirshenbaum and their supporters at their blog have put on a truly stunning display of stonewalling about that issue for years, and especially the last few weeks---I keep raising the issue and they keep ignoring it or dodging it. Mooney and Kirshenbaum consistently ignore it---you will never hear them even mention Overton Windows, ever. Their supporters pooh-poohed Overton reasoning once or twice, but then backed off to stonewalling and a tremendous amoung of ad hominems and general abuse, rather than actually argue the point.)
Posted by: Lynna, OM
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December 10, 2009 1:05 PM
I realize that Ms. Lofton is attempting to sock-puppet New Atheists, and that she is not claiming to be a theist. However, she sounds like, writes like, a theist and a misogynist. From what weird landscape of the mind is she writing? Except that she doesn't like Bill Maher, it's hard to tell.
The New Atheists she sock-puppets do not exist. It's reasonable then to take her "girls" and her "hedge-trimming" and her metaphorical "handcuffs" as her own wishful view of religion with a bit of her own nightmares thrown in.
Better to just make fun of her as if she believes all the off-the-wall stuff she writes about religion, and not as if some New Atheist Strawman believes it. Where, after all, could she have come up with this strangeness, but from her own mind? As for the almost-but-not-quite-hidden desire to be subjugated and trimming hedges night and day, well that's her thing too. None of it makes sense because she can't resolve her love/hate relationship with patriarchal religion. And at the same time, she can't abide hearing someone else dissing Big Daddy.
(Note to Ms. Lofton: You can't effectively trim hedges while wearing handcuffs. Metaphor overload.)
In trying to make those dissing Big Daddy look bad, she only succeeds in reminding us that Big Daddy is bad, while also making herself look bad.
Posted by: Aratina Cage
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December 10, 2009 1:13 PM
The Chicago Theological Seminary award speech of Lofton's linked to by Cyg provides further insight into Lofton's erection to atheists:
And in her historical studies, she came across an early twentieth century Ted Haggard and outed him once again for the first time (sexual orientation did not exist as a concept in those days), for which she was receiving the Religious History Award.The point is, she views religion as a kind of healing experience that changes people's lives, and she sees us as out to destroy it. But the picture of Arnold developed in her speech is incomplete. I wonder if Arnold became a Ted Haggard or a Richard Cohen or a Rick Warren or a Fred Phelps or a Ken Ham, or did Arnold become a Gene Robinson? Maybe Arnold never went much further than attending church but cast a vote in a way that made a segment of the population second-class citizens based on his religious beliefs. It is all too easy to only look at the beneficial effects of belonging to a social organization and miss the manipulation and harm (if any), and I wonder if that is what Lofton has done which prompted her meandering denunciation of New Atheists.
Posted by: BoxNDox
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December 10, 2009 1:45 PM
Going out on a limb here ... I think this was meant to be a parody of how New Atheists write about religion. She's attempting to criticize New Atheism in the same way, but exaggerated, she believes that New Atheists attack religion. This explains both the overall tone and the lack of references at least.
The problem, however, is she's just not a good enough write to pull it off. She's not even close.
(It doesn't help that parody is quite difficult to write.)
The other problem is while she takes implicit swipes at Hitchens, Harris, and various others, her primary basis for this appears to be Maher's Religulous, which isn't really atheist writing at all.
And like so many mediocre writers, she ends up revealing more about her own thought processes than she does about her subject.
In summary, an embarrassing, epic, fail.
But is someone wants to explain she meant when she talked about Hezekiah, I'd be curious to know, because that part, like the hedge thing, sailed right by me.
Posted by: momkat
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December 10, 2009 2:30 PM
Overblown, theatrical constructions utilizing linguistic prowess and obscure elitist references do not a cogent argument make. There, I can write like a twit, too.
Posted by: octopod
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December 10, 2009 2:46 PM
I was wondering what on earth old Hezekiah had to do with it, too.
Not to mention the hedge-trimming. Just...what.
Posted by: destlund
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December 10, 2009 3:25 PM
I've already been set straight on Mother Teresa; is there something I need to know about Judith Butler and Cornel West? I don't know much about the former, but I thought I rather liked the latter. Also, kalibhakta, did you mean to put the space there between "a" and "theist?"
Posted by: Euphoria5L
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December 10, 2009 4:46 PM
@107: Here's an article (PDF) written by Martha Nussbaum attacking Judith Butler. Reading Lofton's article made me immediately think of Nussbaum's glorious attack on Butler.
It is worth reading, since it is one of the best attack pieces you'll ever read.
Posted by: destlund
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December 10, 2009 4:52 PM
Euphoria5L, your link didn't work, but I did a bit of digging and found it here: The Professor of Parody by Martha Nussbaum.
I'm guessing this is the right article; I can't imagine how many articles it would take to sufficiently diss someone.
Posted by: destlund
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December 10, 2009 5:04 PM
This is hilariously awesome, for far different reasons than a certain "dissertation." I love both elegance in language and snarky pooh-poohs. Hell, it's why I'm here!
Posted by: Euphoria5L
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December 10, 2009 5:04 PM
It is the right article. Thanks for getting the link to work. It is excellent.
Posted by: Anubis Bloodsin the third
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December 10, 2009 5:31 PM
#103
"It is all too easy to only look at the beneficial effects of belonging to a social organization and miss the manipulation and harm"
No it is not that hard...every theist does it!
Posted by: CJO
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December 10, 2009 5:39 PM
"Wayward days with Hezekiah" would appear to be a cryptic reference to the many former-fundies who are now outspoken atheists and the idea of deconversion as switching out one fundamentalism for another. Or something. The whole screed is too clever by half, you ask me.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM
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December 10, 2009 6:00 PM
CJO #113
It struck me as being overwrought, overwritten, and pretentious. Lofton erects* a strawman and then ineptly demolishes it.
*I didn't notice any hedges, cut or otherwise.
Posted by: destlund
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December 10, 2009 6:10 PM
Euphoria5L,
That was a great article! In addition to being outright awesomesauce, it reminded me of why I need to steer clear of someone who relies heavily on philosophy to make practical points. I don't know why, but what I learned about Judith Butler reminded me of this book which I actually rather enjoyed in college. Except Butler sounds much more vague, turgid, mind-numbing, and depressing. Oh and they write on totally different topics. I'm actually not sure at all why it came to mind...
All that said, who's going to shoot down Cornel West?
Posted by: CJO
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December 10, 2009 6:19 PM
Yes, extremely pretentious. And presumptuous, as well. The tone she's aiming at is extremely hard to pull off, and failure means you look like an ass and fail to communicate clearly to boot.
Posted by: Aratina Cage
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December 10, 2009 9:53 PM
CJO #113,
Or it could be an allusion to Hezekiah Walker, meaning wayward days with hookers and closeted preachers. That would parallel the fundie-to-atheist convert reference you saw in it with the larger point of dabbling in the extremes.Posted by: destlund
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December 11, 2009 12:36 AM
My curiosity is unsatisfied. I knew nothing of Judith Butler before that comment, and now I know precisely why she deserves little respect; however I knew a little of Cornel West from his commentary and speeches, and I thought I liked what I heard. If anyone is still around and would like me to know their perspective, email me at my moniker @gmail.com
Posted by: DLC
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December 11, 2009 11:30 AM
WTF is it with this "New Atheists" crap anyway ?
Can't I be a nice, old fashioned non-believer ?
Or would that make me some bizarre kind of Atheist Fundamentalist ? If it would, should I be out there planning an Atheist Jihad ? Building women's health clinics and Planned Parenthood centers ? Should I be buying and tearing down megachurches, temples and Cathedrals just as fast as my billions will let me ? Oh, wait. I haven't any billions, because I don't have a horde of
suckersfollowers donating 10% or more of their income to me. I don't spend my days spewing candy-coated hate to the gullible. Oh well.Posted by: Roameo
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December 20, 2009 7:48 AM
wow, im a bit slow on the uptake... finally figured out where the hedge trimming reference comes from. Its from Bill Maher's "religulous", where he points to a giant naked guy carved into a hillside in England, maintained every year because thats whats always been done.