This is embarrassing. The Atheist Law Center, which I had never heard of before but from its website looks like it is mostly supporting the right stuff (OK, except for the weird calendar reform business), was founded by a guy named Larry Darby, who has since resigned. He is now running for attorney general of the state of Alabama, as a Democrat…with some very strange views.
Tyson said aside from his views on race [he wants to "reawaken white racial awareness"] and the Holocaust [he's a denier], Darby also has publicly advocated legalizing drugs and shooting all illegal immigrants.
I repudiate this guy's views. While atheism is not incompatible with kooks like Darby, his positions definitely contradict the principles of the Democratic Party, I can at least say that he's no Democrat, and I should think the Alabama Democratic Party should refuse to endorse him, even if by some fluke he should win the primary election.
(via Atheist Revolution)
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Voters can forgive someone for being a racist and holocaust denier, but they'll never forgive him for being an atheist. He hasn't a chance.
Yeah - I lived in Alabama for a year... it wouldn't be a "fluke".
Sorry, PZ - too late for that now. I'm gonna drum up maybe a half-dozen more atheists with similarly retrograde views on race, immigration, the Holocaust, and so forth. Then I'll tar whole great swaths of the population with the kook brush, associating him with anyone who's even remotely similar to him - perhaps those who share his beliefs on atheism, for example. I'll write about "stupid evil atheists" and how horrible it is that kooks like this guy want to take over the nation - starting with the Alabama AG's office, obviously - and impose their bizarre beliefs on the rest of us.
Hey, it's perfectly acceptable when we're taking a half-dozen Christian Reconstructionists as representative of all conservatives and all Christians everywhere - hell, it's straight out of the Pharyngula Playbook. Thanks for showing me how this all works, prof!
*Scary* evil atheists, sorry. Oooooooooo, look out everyone, here come the scary evil atheists.
That's what happens when someone is motivated by emotions rather than reason.
You can't if there aren't "great swaths of the population" who are atheists! Perhaps a few small strimmings of sanity instead. :-D
Besides which, if it wasn't obvious anyway(!), there isn't any connection between atheism and holocaust denial etc. They are independent positions - only the former of which is a rational one. Whereas, there's often a fairly direct connection between various people's religion and their reprehensible views and actions - ie they believe their preferred sky-fairy told them to think/say/do it.
No worries - Democrats are next. I'm sure - I *know*, in fact - I can find some embarrassing quotes from Robert Byrd on the subject of race, for example. I put their mugs side by side, et voila - here come the scary evil Democrats, folks! You don't want to vote for scary evil Democrats, do you? The fact that such things are hardly representative views won't even slow me down, any more than the fact that the Dominionists are a tiny fringe minority, even among evangelicals(!), slowed the prof when he was banging out his silly piece this morning.
Sorry, Black Ops, your comparison doesn't work.
For it to be valid, all Dems would need to be holocaust deniers, but simply not want to force others to accept that view, whereas the one exception you cite would have to want to force it. You would then tar all Dems by asserting they all wanted to force holocaust denial, like the example you give, instead of simply personally believing it.
That's not the case. Dems almost universally don't deny the holocaust, even quietly.
Whereas the difference between the dominionists and other christians is that the dominionists possess a stupefyingly idiotic set of beliefs and want to force them on others, but the vast majority of christians just possess those stupefyingly idiotic set of beliefs but just aren't quite so pushy about it.
Hey, it's perfectly acceptable when we're taking a half-dozen Christian Reconstructionists as representative of all conservatives and all Christians everywhere - hell, it's straight out of the Pharyngula Playbook. Thanks for showing me how this all works, prof!
Hey, is that you, Jason?
You really ought to hang on a little longer, Black Ops. When all the Democrats and atheists sit silently, saying nothing against him and his kind, when they quietly go into the voting booths and elect racists, then you get to gloat.
I'm afraid, though, that if you check the godless blogs, you won't find many that have any kind words for Darby -- most are going to be rather appalled at that kook.
Another point is that the Evangelical community as a whole has largely failed to repudiate the Dominionist kooks who want to force their beliefs on others. Individual Evangelicals may have spoken out, and the community at large may disagree with and detest them, but if they've made the tiniest effort to publicly stand up to them, it's the first I've heard of it. Whereas even here we have secular humanists and other atheists openly rejecting Darby's views, and I'd be amazed if a few press releases from organizations like the Council for Secular Humanism declaring their rejection of Darby's views and emphasizing that he does NOT speak for the majority of atheists weren't forthcoming...
Sorry, CCC - that's not how the Pharyngula Phunhouse works. They don't all have to share the *kooky* beliefs in common - they just have to have *some* shared quality or belief, whether that's theism, atheism, vegetarianism, Yankees-fan-ism, or whatever. Then you start talking about the kooky beliefs of the one weirdo in that group, except - and here's the clever bit - you put the kooky beliefs of the one weirdo under the heading of "scary evil (theists/atheists/vegetarians/Yankees fans)", without bothering to mention that those kooky beliefs are really only held by a tiny fringe minority of theists/atheists/vegetarians/Yankees fans - instead, you let it hang out there as though those kooky beliefs are somehow representative of the *entire* class of folks with that common quality or belief.
Brilliant, isn't it? I mean, sure, folks seem to object when it's applied to some group *they* belong to, but whatever - hardly seems to stop them from from taking the exact same argument, substituting in their own personal boogeyman, and running with it like they're headed for the end zone in the Superbowl.
There is something perversely amusing about watching folks go from A to not-A - this argument is great!; this argument sucks! - in the span of about eight hours. Or, even more perversely, believing both A and not-A simultaneously, depending on how warm and fuzzy they feel about the target thereof. But that's neither here nor there. The real worth of these two posts, side by side, is that there may still be some folks out there laboring under the misapprehension that scientific competence somehow lends one special insight into rational argumentation in other spheres. Kudos to the prof for so brilliantly disabusing those people of that notion ;)
So, is that you, Jason? Sure has the same whiny, bitchy, sarcastic tone, plus, the same unhinged obsession with PZ and Pharyngula.
C'mon, tell me whether it's you. What, did the other threads get too embarrassing? If it is you, there's lots of questions you never answered!
Sorry, man - "Jason" is some other cat ;)
What's wrong with calendar reform? Isn't 24 Floréal an 214 de la Révolution better than May 12, 2006? At least it's in French, and don't the wingnuts hate the French?
Don't know Jason, and wouldn't know you from a hole in the ground, sorry.
Half a dozen posts on my part seems a bit quick on the trigger to judge whether I have an "obsession", either hinged or unhinged :)
You promise? Swear to God?
Have you posted here before? Lots of people sounding exactly like you come around here, plus it sounds like you have some kind of grudge. Are you compass or Jinx?
As an semi-agnostic halfhearted-deist - depends on how my week is going :) - I'm not sure what the value of me swearing to God is for you, but if it makes it more believable, sure. I'm not Jason. Or whoever those other folks are. Never posted here in me life until today. Swear to God. :)
No grudge. PZ is great when he talks science, not so great in other areas, and just because I like his views in one thing, that doesn't mean I give him a pass on everything. And you haven't seen anyone like me here before - I guarantee it :)
Sorry, CCC - that's not how the Pharyngula Phunhouse works. They don't all have to share the *kooky* beliefs in common
Really? Where are the non-religious creationists PZ has tarred with the same brush as he has the creationists? Nope, BO, you're wrong. They all share the same stupid beliefs, it's just that some are more stridently obnoxious about it than others. A few don't care what others think or if the country goes 99% atheist, but most either think the country should be christian but simply don't want to force the issue or perhaps even don't think they have the right to (these are a minority) and a few WANT to force the issue.
All the same stupid beliefs, the only difference being in the degree of stridency.
Now, I realize that as one of the tiny 98% of americans that are religious, you may be feeling oppressed by hearing others say they think your beliefs are silly.
So go ahead. Say I'm going to endure the worst torture imaginable for all eternity. Say it for the hundred millionth time in just the last 50 or so years. That'll teach me to be so rude.
Let's stick to the case at hand, wherein PZ most definitely did not refer to "scary evil creationists", he set off about scary evil Christians. Theonomy is not a necessary component of Christianity - the mere fact that Dominionism is a kooky fringe movement testifies to that - any more than creationism is. Although if he *had* gone off about scary evil creationists, I'd probably object on the same grounds - theonomy is not a necessary component of creationism, and I'm sure we can find plenty of people who both believe in special creation, and yet are not Dominionists.
The name of the game is to walk you through A implying B - all Reconstructionists are Christians, all Reconstructionists are conservatives, of a sort - and then leading you into B implying A - that all conservatives are (closeted, I guess) Reconstructionists, all Christians are Reconstructionists. The title wasn't "scary evil kooky fringe minority Christians", just "scary evil Christians", after all. Unfortunately, the second implication does not logically follow from the first, and indeed it is empirically false in the instant case. Stripped bare like that, it is immediately evident that such an argument amounts to not much more than simple sophistry.
Only religious people come here and point out bad logic and/or hypocrisy in action? LOL. I certainly hope not - it wouldn't say much for the non-religious when, as in this case, poor argumentation is practically sitting on their faces and wiggling, and yet they don't manage to notice and/or mention it.
It's a quintessentially human failing, lowering the bar for our friends, and raising it for our opponents. As I alluded to in another post, some of the things PZ says are thoughtful and worthwhile, and some of the things he says aren't really any more spectacular than anyone else would come up with, and some of the things he has to say are positively underwhelming - this Reconstructionism thing was just a stinky pile, soup to nuts. But it was awfully thoughtful of him to give me a hook with the above post about some awful atheist that he really, really doesn't want to be associated with. If people would only take on that whole Golden Rule thing in such cases - "do not strawman unto others as you would have them not strawman unto you" - think how much calmer and more rational political disagreements might be :)
Would it make you more comfortable if I did? Would it help you to find the right box to put me in? How about if I say it, but warn you that it's not really sincere because I don't myself believe it? Which box do I go in then?
You need to work on your English a little more. "Scary evil Christians" refers to a subset: or do you think the Dominionists described there are not scary or evil? Go ahead, try to make that argument -- at least it isn't based on twisting my words.
It's very simple: saying "Scary evil Christians" is not the same as saying "Christians are scary and evil." My sisters are Christian, for instance, and I don't think they are either scary or evil.
Next step for you: after you've figured out English, think about criticizing the wretched representatives of Christianity, like the Dominionists, instead of whining that the people who do criticize them are picking on Christians. You've made exactly the response the whackjobs most desire: that they will be insulated from criticism because they've cloaked themselves in religion.
Funny how this guy doesn't rate a "scary evil atheist" tag then, isn't it?
I think you're perfectly happy to have your readers associate kooky fringe beliefs with some larger set of people with whom you disagree politically. And you coming in here and disavowing such an association is somewhat akin to the politician who promises not to mention that his opponent is a thief and a pederast, and by gum he's going to stick to that promise in this press conference, so if your question is about his opponent's thievery or pederasty, just hit the road, pal, because today he's only going to answer questions that aren't about thieves or pederasts who happen to be running against him. Thank goodness you're taking the high road, Congressman. And then, in the afternoon, we get to watch you trip over yourself in your haste to disavow some other whackjob, lest someone play the same game with you and lump you in with him.
Criticize the Dominionists to your heart's content. Be my guest. Heck, I'll even join you - I don't much care for them either. But I think I'll also toss something into the ring that you chose to omit - the fact that they're a tiny, tiny minority, even within the Religious Right. In fact, I think you assign them far greater importance and influence than they merit - whether you actually believe that they're some sort of secret steering committee for conservatives and/or religious folk is neither here nor there, because the idea is ridiculous on its face.
So, Black Ops, if PZ had said "Scary Evil People" instead, and then pointed out these scary evil people, would you have started complaining that not all people are scary and evil, and that he was clearing trying to imply that ALL people are scary and evil?
No, of course you wouldn't have, because that wouldn't have made sense, and you would not have come to that conclusion.
As you haven't here. You don't think PZ was labelling all christians as scary and evil, you're just a person who enjoys pigfighting on the internet and you found a convenient hook with which to do so.
Lots of people do that. I fall into that trap myself sometimes, which of course is why I'm in this thread in the first place. Trolls and people responding to trolls - a symbiotic relationship.
I'm sorry - I'm just not sure why I should feel compelled to either oppose or support articles that are wholly imaginary. As to the case at hand, I think what's most interesting about that post is the conspiratorial tone, the hushed "we're through the looking glass, people" suggestions about how the kooks have money and power, and they're looking to STEAL YOUR CHILDREN! Or something.
You should spend more time on right-wing boards. They say exactly the same things, except it's about the stealthy creeping secular atheist agenda - now featuring Money and Power! - in their case. The only real difference is in who they choose to demonize, but the tactics are pretty much the same. Call that observation trolling if you like - find whatever box works for you.
"That post" meaning the Dominionist post - sorry if it's unclear.
Okay, I just need to say this. (Never commented here before, don't usually comment on blogs, but gah!)
I went to the comments hoping someone would have something to say about calendar reform (I haven't heard of this one), and I find some twit who can't comment on the post he's actually objecting to, starting a flame war.
BO, do you really think you can get away with "And you haven't seen anyone like me here before - I guarantee it :)"? Of course I've "seen [people] like you" before; I've been on the internet for more than 20 minutes. Don't think you're all clever and special because you can troll.
So... what the heck is calendar reform?
So... what the heck is calendar reform?
You have to dig around a bit for it, but it's here.
Basically, he wants to start a new calendar, commemorating the anniversary of Neil Armstrong's moon landing.
If you're going to screw with the calendar, though, Jonathan's reference to the French revolutionary calendar was a better idea, I think.
Whoops, that should be:
"You have to dig around a bit for it, but it's here."
Goddamn HTML.
Maybe you have, maybe you haven't - I don't know. I don't care, really. What I do know is that I said here, and judging by the way some kept waiting for me to say the magic words that would reveal me as some sort of fire-and-brimstone fundy, here to do my Jesus-with-the-moneychangers bit, I'll stick with that assessment. The idea that one can criticize rhetorical excess and poor logic on this blog without being a snake-handling, speaking-in-tongues Bible-thumper (or a troll, I suppose) is apparently quite a novel one around here.
Oh, please. Nobody called you a fire-and-brimstone fundy. Nobody was waiting for you to say some magic words (and if they were, how would you know?). You're just another contrarian, full of himself and thinking we'll be impressed because you don't mention Jesus.
Get another schtick. That one is old.
Because I can, you know, read? You are reading comments other than mine, right? Perhaps you have another spin on CCC's comment?
If it makes you happy to think I'm just here to be a pisser, to stir up trouble, to do nothing more than be a contrarian, so be it. It sure is easier to dismiss what I say that way than to consider that maybe, just maybe, your irrational fears of such folks have caused you to portray them as something they're not. Or maybe you don't believe the tales of Dominionist Power (what power? what are the instruments of that power, and how are they choosing to exercise it?) yourself, and this is cynical exploitation and fearmongering to keep the flock together. I don't know. I don't care. Either way, as I said, the idea is ridiculous on its face.
You don't get it. You sound exactly like half a dozen other whiners who trot through here now and then; protesting that you are special doesn't impress anyone. When regular readers and commenters here state that your stale old complaints are familiar, it's because they are.
As for the influence these guys have on our country: James Dobson. Pat Robertson. Gary Bauer. Jerry Falwell. Many others. These are people who are regularly consulted by our elected officials, who influence appointments and elections, who have made it a crusade to turn government into a religious affair. We rarely see Christians complain about them; in fact, even in the Democratic party, we have a lot of people who think Christianity is an important prerequisite for involvement in government.
On the other side, we have loons like this Darby nutcase, who are quickly repudiated by atheists (as I have done in this post), have no influence, and don't stand a chance of getting elected.
The real problem in this country is assholes like yourself, who downplay the power of the Christian Right even as they acquire the ear of the president, who himself identifies with them, and choose to criticize the critics only. You aren't special at all. You're just another enabler. And that's how they have acquired their power, on the stupidity of those who reflexively oppose any criticism of religion.
Oh, I see. I'm a whiner, an enabler, and an asshole to boot. Well, lucky for me I'm dealing with the rationalists, else this might descend into mindless namecalling.
That is hardly demonstrating the nature or extent of Dominionist power - that is simply tossing out a laundry list of names and inviting the reader to engage in a bit of guilt-by-association. Surely that's not the only arrow you have in your quiver, doc. Tell me this isn't it.
Your crystal ball needs polishing, I'm afraid. I do plenty of criticizing where the Dominionists are concerned. But they're not here today, so I think I'll stick to criticizing the folks engaging in wild fantasies about Dominionists under every bed and behind every hedge....
Dominionists were instrumental in getting Alito on the bench. After unsuccessfully bitching about Roberts' being too liberal, they mounted a successful campaign against Miers. I don't know that Dobson directly told Bush to nominate Alito, but it's certain that after the religious right's anti-Miers campaign, Bush had to nominate a real conservative.
Granted, this isn't much. During the Roberts and Miers nomination cycles, I noted on my blog that the religious right was far less powerful than a group of its size (70 million Americans, according to Falwell) should, simply because it allowed the Republican Party to take it for granted. But since Miers, Dominionists have shown to the GOP that it has to take them a tad more seriously, so it's likely that the Republicans will become more fundamentalist in the future, which means that you'll see more cases of pernicious Dominionist influence.
the mere fact that Dominionism is a kooky fringe movement testifies to that
35 million adherents is not a "fringe", however kooky. Now go play in traffic.
I'm merely signing in to point out that, although I am only an occasional commenter on the various science/evolution blogs, I'd like people to know when they see my name that I am not this Larry guy, who is definitely giving Darby's a bad name...
I disagree - you could have wiped the Dominionists from the map, and the Miers nomination would still have blown up in Bush's face, because her credentials were suspect to a wide range of conservative factions. Undoubtedly the Dominionists opposed her as well, but to go from that to them being "instrumental" in determining a replacement nominee is simply not supported by the record. Even mushy moderates like Specter and Chaffee complained about Miers and her qualifications, and when that starts happening, you're just DOA - no secret cabals of hidden theocrats necessary.
Not that you're going to provide any sort of citation or reference to support that number, obviously. Why not 700 million? How about 4.2 billion Howard Ahmanson wannabes running around? I mean, if you're going to invent numbers, at least think big.
If not the evil and the scary, and not the assholes and enablers, tell me, just who is voting for the puppets of the religious right? These people have been building their movement for 30 years, with an eye to building an American theocracy. If you haven't noticed that, you haven't been watching.
If you want to do a Jesus and the moneylenders act, go to a frickin' mega-church and overturn their concession stand. If you're a Christian, why are you getting mad at atheists? Why aren't you you going after the heretics, the people who are giving Christianity a bad name? Those who are perverting the teachings of Christ to further their worldly ends? If you can answer that question rationally, you'll probably find your audience much more receptive.
(By the way, if you're clearly spewing excrement, it isn't name-calling to call you an asshole, it's simply a basic understanding of physiology.)
Oh, by the way, thanks for the link to the calendar reform. Heh, that's kinda cool.
IMO, the first bit is far too broad. What "traditional values" do we have in mind there? And are we going to define anyone who happens to agree with said values as a Dominionist/Reconstructionist? It's not necessarily an unworkable definition of Dominionism, but I'd want to parse out what specific "values" we're going to shove under that heading before adopting it.
The second is rather closer to what Reconstructionists themselves mean by Reconstructionism. I highly, highly doubt that the numbers are anything like what's cited, however. Yeah, there really are people who believe it's the state's job to insure that every knee is bended before Christ. 35 million of them? I don't think so, and I'll want a good look at the raw data that went into creating that conclusion before I come anywhere near accepting it as given - it's all too easy to define "Reconstructionist" to mean anyone who thinks Jesus was a swell guy.
Sorry, I'm not being as clear as I'd hoped - my point was not that the Myers post on not being nice was somehow irrational, but rather that his posts on the threads regarding Reconstructionism and the wackjob bigoted atheist were irrational, and silly to boot. Myers - apparently deliberately - chose to misunderstand my objection and portray it as me complaining about him not being "nice", or that he shouldn't have said Reconstructionists are evil, or some similar silliness. That was not the nature of my objection, however - I objected on the grounds that his posts on the topics of Dominionism and the wacky atheist amounted to a giant steaming pile of irrational crap.
HTH.
I'll be brief, since this damn thing ate a lengthy post that I had written: After reading all the posts, you're right, there are no absolute concrete data on the sheer numbers of Dominionists/Reconstructionists (D/R's). The available data is drawn from things like church membership/audiences and polls that indirectly attempt to elicit views on theonomy/theocracy. Things like the June 7, 2005 AP-Ipsos poll in which 40% of respondents called for greater religious influence in government policy, or the 28.7 million Neilsen-rated viewers that Pat Robertson claimed sway over during his 1985 campaign of taking "Christian" control of every elective office in America. But, as you said elsewhere, those kinds of numbers are not crystalline or absolute. I'm therefore not going to toss up a "laundry list " of such data that could be seen as flimsy, but I will say this: The lower limit of 20 million D/R's seems reasonable to me. But no such hard data exists except via the methods I described above.
My general sense is that Dominionism is like some forms of predjudice in regard to how difficult it is to get adherents to admit to their actual feelings/ideas, but that it is difficult to deny that large numbers exist based on social interactions. I won't offer any excuses for a lack of concrete data, but I will say that in questioning Christian Fundamentalists of many stripes (Southern Baptist, Latter-Day Saint sects, etc.), there's a shitload out there that would be very happy with a theonomic revolution. And there's a laundry list cited by others in this thread and elsewhere of people that have tacitly or expressly shown their allegiance to the ideal of a "Christian Nation and Government."
Like I said, I could have tossed a bunch of my data on this at you, but given what I've read, you'd easily be able to poke holes in it for the most part. I'll leave it at that since I have to get to work.
That's a pretty decent response, one I can respect. The facts are what they are, right?
Anyway, maybe the problem is that I'm perhaps a bit less rigid about what I will or won't tolerate. Not to disparage you all, but I suspect we'd draw the line on the behavior of officials and politicians in somewhat different places. That poll about people wanting more religious influence in government - I don't know what that means, given the vagueness of it. Maybe it means they want a cabinet of folks who pray before having their French toast in the morning and try to turn the other cheek with their political opponents. That doesn't especially bother me. Maybe it means they want to go back to the "good old days", and stone adulterers and homosexuals, and burn heretics at the stake. That would bother me, quite a bit, because I suspect I'd be a thoughtcriminal too under such a regime.
I don't begrudge them their right to believe as they choose, I don't begrudge them their right to worship as they choose, or their right to pursue a political agenda that reflects their beliefs, or to vote for candidates who pledge to follow those beliefs. You should always be free to follow the dictates of your own conscience. But your conscience does not extend so far as to dictate that others must also behave in accordance with it. Now, if they persuade enough people in this country otherwise, then...well, we're all fucked. But I really don't see that happening any time soon.