A Note To Our Atheist Friends about "Atheist Watch"

I have started a new blog called Atheist Watch. Its general concern is keeping up with the developments in the atheist movement in general, and refuting their ideas. Part of that mission is to keep tabs on a segment of atheism that I think is rapidly developing into a hate group. This is the fringe, probably no more than about 10% at most. I don't say they are a hate group, but that they are becoming one. I think the atheist community has a duty to use peer pressure to keep them in line. But the atheists are incensed about it. They are angry about the site. Atheists have always been hyper-sensitive to any sort of criticism. That is my experince on message boards anyway.

The site is totally my own and has nothing to do with the views of the CADRE.

As atheist named "Peter," on the comment section of this blog, the post on atheist hymn said:

This blog is used to drive traffic and attention to "The Atheist Watch". I would like to know what the other members of the Christian CADRE think about "the Atheist Watch" blog. Is it a hate site? Do you (silently?) approve it, condemn it or don't care about it?

The atheists seem very upset by the site, yet I was very careful to say I am not claiming that all of atheism is a hate group. I think there are fringe elements in the atheist movement and it behooves the mainstream rational atheists to keep them in check. It's their social duty to use whatever peer pressure they can, because I think they helped create the situation which allows them to flourish.

Now how that can make me a hate monger is beyond me.

Do I hate atheists? I am very angry at them. So angry I can almost forget some are dear friends. I find most atheists to be very irrational and uninformed, not very analytical, sometimes totally dishonest and self-deceived. Does that mean that I hate them? I think the same thing about my sister, who is a Christian, I don't hate her. And man is she going to kill me when she reads this!

Atheist Watch Is a new site it's still in formation. I will take all the comments into consideration and use them to shape the boundaries of discussion on the site. I will put some of the comments that I feel are most through and thought provoking, those by atheists friends such as Peter, and answer them, on Atheist Watch itself.

I hope you will all take a gander and let me know what you think.

Comments

BK said…
I'll answer here, if you don't mind. You wrote:

I find most atheists to be very irrational and uninformed, not very analytical, sometimes totally dishonest and self-deceived.

I think that there is a small but vocal part of the atheist community to be very irrational and uninformed, but not "most" by any stretch of the imagination. They are the atheist zealots whom I have been speaking about in prior blogs. And as with any group, there are some in the community who are dishonest.

As far as atheist watch goes, I have mixed feelings about it. I agree that there is a fringe group in atheism which is a hate group. They are the "new atheists" who want to say that everything that religion has done or will do is poisonous to the community and therefore ought to be eliminated. They are nor clear on how it should be eliminated, and this fuels the crazies in their midst to consider anything said or done in furtherance of this religious purging to be acceptable. This is very dangerous thinking.

The problem with starting a blog that focuses on that group is that it paints the rest of the atheist community as part of the crazies. I don't think most atheists are crazy -- just wrong. If you are going to run a blog about the crazies, you have to state time and again (maybe in every blog entry) that you are talking only about a loud, boisterous, curt, angry, hateful group within the broader culture of atheism. Otherwise, you will run into misunderstandings of both the scope of the comments and the nature of the blog.
Unknown said…
If you are going to run a blog about the crazies, you have to state time and again (maybe in every blog entry) that you are talking only about a loud, boisterous, curt, angry, hateful group within the broader culture of atheism

In that case, maybe it would be simpler to change the name of the blog to make it clear there. Something like "Fundy atheist watch"?
Anonymous said…
"I was very careful to say I am not claiming that all of atheism is a hate group."

Yeah, and every anti-semite and racist I've ever met has been careful to point out that "some of my best friends are" Jewish/Black/Indian etc

All I see you doing over there is collecting random examples of isolated incidents, blowing them out proportion, mixing in a little psychological projection from your own days as an angry, alienated atheist (as opposed to the angry alienated believer you seem to be today) and using this all as a club with which to bash any atheist who has the gall to disagree with you.

And you call us dishonest!
You have a point that I"m collecting random examples of incidendents. That's because there is no systematic collection or offical index for rudeness on message boards.

I do quote FBI stats on hate crimes. The very fist post, which I am sure you have not read, is about how the general atheist community on boards stacks up to the FBI model for hate group development.

As for the bit about bigots always say some of my best friends, well that's also what people unfairly accused of being racist by stupid PC people say.

I was an atheist. my claims about them cannot mply any sort of endemic lack in intelligence or moral character because that would also go against me.

btw check out the new post on atheist watch. I think you will find it more moderate.

http://atheistwatch.blogspot.com/
The problem with starting a blog that focuses on that group is that it paints the rest of the atheist community as part of the crazies. I don't think most atheists are crazy -- just wrong. If you are going to run a blog about the crazies, you have to state time and again (maybe in every blog entry) that you are talking only about a loud, boisterous, curt, angry, hateful group within the broader culture of atheism. Otherwise, you will run into misunderstandings of both the scope of the comments and the nature of the blog.


something has to be done about the atheist message board community. They have totally shut down debate. Its' almost most impossible to have any sort of intelligent discussion with themon any board.

The last straw that made me decide to qutie quite boards and so this was when two atehstis on CARM were casually swaping stories about grad school and I chimed in and said "I find that to be true my grad school experince, and I told an amuzing anecdote. They did not even comment on that, they just immediately said "You never went to graduates school you can't spell, how could anyone who spells like you got to graduate school," or something like that.

at the back of those statments which they had said before, was the implication that had come out tie and time again, Christians are stupid and uneducated and don't know anything so how could I have any sort of education? this made me angry because I wasn't even trying t brag about my education I was just trying to share an anecdote. So I can't even join in innocent good times and have fun unless I crawl on belly and deny my personal experince and say "O yes O atheist masters you so much smarter than Christians I so sorry I'm religious."

it's so obvious they are just briming over with hate. how could anyone fail to see how they have shut down discussion?
take the metacrock challenge if you don't believe me. go to Infidel guy and pretend to be Christian and argue politely but firmly deafening some Christian position and see how they treat you!

repeat process on CARM, Atheist Net, Sec web. you will see they have shut down rational discussion.
Anonymous said…
"I do quote FBI stats on hate crimes. The very fist post, which I am sure you have not read, is about how the general atheist community on boards stacks up to the FBI model for hate group development."

Yes, I did read that post, and it doesn't show anything like what you think it does.

In one of my comments I collected a bunch of anecdotes about Christians behaving violently toward atheists (and not just trash talking on the internet, I found examples of actual violence. Took me about ten minutes.) If we apply your standards those anecdotes amount to evidence that Christianity is becoming a "hate group".

This of course would be nonsense, but you want us to take it seriously when you do it.
Anonymous said…
By the way, what happened to the other comment I left here earlier?
Hermit I think I have made a lot more attempts to offer a balanced view than you are willing to admit or even see with your eyes.

I don't know what happened to your post but I have no power to take things off of here except my own. BK wouldn't do that unless he thought it was obscene or very inappropriate, but I doubt that it was. Other than that I really have no idea.
have you looked at the current post on atheist watch?


http://atheistwatch.blogspot.com/
Anonymous said…
"one time you helped about twelve other people belittle me and I got angry and insulted you..."

I did nothing of the kind; I answered your e-mail inviting me to participate in your ezboard forum and walked into a collection of posts by you with titles like "stupid atheists" and "atheists are scum". When I objected to your characterization of atheists as Nazis and asked you to back up your accusations against the atheists at CARM (you still haven't shown me a single example of them saying the things you were accusing them of saying, by the way) you responded by calling me "buttf***ing scum" and a "lying piece of sh*t." I was abused by other members of your forum as a "fool" and a "Bolshevik" and told that calling people "Nazis" and accusing them of wanting to kill people was just a "figure of speech."

The truth is, I've never encountered as much filth and abuse from anyone on the internet as I have encountered in your various forums, yet you expect us to believe that all of your conflicts with atheists are their fault?

You need to step back and rethink this one...
Anonymous said…
"have you looked at the current post on atheist watch?"

Yes I have. Have you looked at any of the comments I've left there?
exapologist said…
I'm sorry you were attacked, Hinman. I wouldn't do that. I wish you all the best.
BK said…
By the way, what happened to the other comment I left here earlier?

If it had been deleted, it would show as deleted by moderator. I expect you simply didn't post it correctly or its floating somewhere in the ethernet.
Anonymous said…
It was here after I posted it, now it's gone. Do you have a profanity filter? I did quote Hinman directly in it, after all...>;-}

Or maybe I screwed up, no matter...
Anonymous said…
Metacrock's posts and Atheist Watch are very much the sort of thing that has made the Christian Cadre what they are today.
BK said…
. . . and that would be, Mr./Ms. Anonymous?
BK said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
Thanks Ex!

Hermit BK would not play stupid games. If he says he didn't zap it he didn't. Bill is not a game player.
Peter said…
Friend J.L. Hinman,

Thanks for clearing up your and thanks for calling me a friend.
Thanks for bk and Jason Pratt for giving their opinion.

You said that you had a [Christian?] "fundie watch" blog before. Like mattghg suggested, why don't you rename your blog to "Fundy atheist watch", if you don't mean all atheist?

Now how that can make me a hate monger is beyond me.
Your headlines read:
"Atheists are totally self decieved"
"The way Atheists deal with evidence"
"Bogus Atheist Social Sciences:"
"Are Atheists Burning Chruches?"
Replace "Atheist" with "Christian" and you can maybe re-evaluate if it comes out as friendly or not.

Atheist bullied you at CARM?? CARM is a Christian Apologist forum and you are saying atheist are bullying you there?

You did not address my previous question. Would you have time to comment those?

because you are on the defensive. you know your social group is about hate.
That is logical fallacy, it does not follow. You are falsely accusing things. No, atheism is not about hate and I would not be a member of a hate group.

there are Christian influenced hate groups to. I had a blog tracing those, but no one looked at it.
Well then, if you can not clean up your own house, don't complain about others'

A large portion of Church energy is about policing the ranks.
So why is the child molesting, attacks on abortion clinic, bigotry against gays, Westboro Baptists, hate sites like "The Atheist Watch" going on? You seem to implying that "ostracizing" and "kicking out of mainstream churches" is enough "policing", but it appears to me that child molesting (and secrecy about it) is still going on in the main stream churches. Are other CADRE members policing your hatred and your hate site?

-Peter
your comment is if the Chruch polices their own ranks why do they still have problem? So your conception is that either Christians are totally perfect with no problems or its' not true?

typical
Peter said…
J.L. Hinman,

your comment is if the Chruch polices their own ranks why do they still have problem? So your conception is that either Christians are totally perfect with no problems or its' not true?
Absolutely not. I stated that nobody is policing the Church leaders. Whenever a child molestation case pops up, it is because someone outside the clergy brought it to day light.

Why don't you address my questions above? You said that atheists are killing the discussion in the web, but you seem to be running away from any discussion...
Anonymous said…
What is Peter on about?

Here is what Hinman writes on his blog - 'NO unfortunately for Cline the truth of it is, I never see anyone talk about atheists. I think that's what he's really upset about. They don't even rate on the radar enough to ridicule.'

How can Peter accuse Hinman of hate, when Hinman doesn't even talk about atheists. They don't even rate enough to ridicule.

And Peter says that there is hate against atheists.

Paranoia!

Nobody even TALKS about atheists!
Peter said…
Anon,

I think you are referring to the article:
"Two Groups of Paranoids Scaring Each Other Todeath"
from "the atheist watch"
I never commented or referred to that article.

go to
"An atheist hymn" article on Christian cadre
scroll down to J.L. Hinman comment on 12/13/2007 09:16:00 AM

J.L. Hinman openly agrees that his "The Atheist Watch" blog contains hate towards atheists.

In that thread J.L. Hinman introduced his new blog, but did not want to address my comment.

After you read it do you now think that "the atheist watch" is a hate site?

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