Ethical Atheism

[Glob]

Originally Posted by DanDare

Being in a group called "Atheists against nuclear weapons" implies nothing about people who are not in the group.

Atheism+ implies something about Atheism to people who are not familiar with Atheism+. There is definitely potential for the two to be confused.

[wearestardust]

I'm watching Captain America (the recent one). The Bad Guys are Nazis, but Nazis who want to grow beyond Nazis. A sort of Nazi+, if you will.

[coffee]

The Atheism+ thingy reminds me of the 2007 Federal Election in Australia and a single-issue party -- the Climate Change Coalition.

The party's founders had a laudable idea. They wanted to get into Parliament to stimulate and accelerate action to combat climate change. The problem was that people like me who fully supported that idea couldn't find out from them what their voting position would be on all the other issues they'd need to deal with such as refugees, taxation, etc. etc.

Voters who, like me, were already aligned with a party whose platform included strong action on climate change and which also had policies on every other political issue saw no reason to vote for this one-issue group.

Predictably, the party provoked interest but failed to gain even one senate seat.

If Atheism+ is to be some kind of atheism-based political party, what else will they adopt as their 'platform'? So far it seems to be all about a rather brittle feminism and combating mysogyny. What else is to be part of their 'platform' and will they progressively alienate people as they add more 'belief' requirements for membership?

As a female attending GAC2012 on my own, was I unique in feeling safe and confident amongst all those overly-testosterone-filled blokes? Or was it just that I was too old and/or too unattractive to have drawn the attention of sexually rampant blokes? Did I miss seeing all the late-night propositioning? Was I blind to the furtive groping? Would I have had to ride the lifts in the early hours to observe the widespread and unwelcome sexual innuendo?

Or was it, perhaps, that you Aussie blokes are, unlike your American counterparts, unusually well-behaved?

You know I'd actually like to think that there were some women at that conference who flirted and made sexual advances to some of the available blokes. I bloody well would have done if I'd been single and forty years younger!

You know, from my 'old duck', safe vantage point there seem to be some militant feminists that I'd sooner not find myself seated next to at an atheist convention, or anywhere else for that matter. Putting limits on some behaviours is something I can understand. But there's such a thing as being naive and unrealistic in your expectations. Those who take this position need to clearly think through what the consequences might be. I feel confident that I'll be taken severely to task for saying so. If you're tempted, please note that I'm a mature, confident woman who won't give a toss.

I admire those who've advanced the rights of women and I thank them most sincerely. But I resent the militants whose caustic behaviour makes me - and all of my 'gender equality' women friends - squirm. So do the men who get dragged along in the militants' rather destructive wake. It's my perception that this is the road A+ is which turns me off.

There's something else, too. If a group is going to take unto itself a symbol that to others indicates a superiority of some kind, more measure and maturity in responses to its critics might have been better than ending up in the metaphorical gutter along with a few of its detractors.

I guess some of us occasionally expect too much of our fellow human beings and too little of ourselves.