Anyone ever been to this site?

[vixengrl]

http://yourenothelping.wordpress.com/category/things-that-arent-helping/

I just followed a link from Rational Thoughts there today, but I hadn't seen it before. The site seems to address the issue of tone and whether our methods are positive or whatever. It concerns me, because I know my knee-jerk response to debate is probably "not always helping". I snark. As a mirror to the question in r/t about whether we might be irreconcilable "camps", my heart tells me it's irreconcilable because our approach to the question is, and if that's the case, my "tone" isn't necessarily the biggest problem to surmount anyway. My basic position itself is inherently an offense to theirs. Sure, I can be a total ass and make it worse. But I don't easily grasp what the limits of improving the dialog would be. It seems like each path comes back to: don't start with them, it's their personal belief and attacking it is akin to the ad hom.

Atheism is my personal position and it seems to me a little like saying "watch how you say what you believe" tends towards eliminating my actual thought--I believe supernaturalist faith-based systems are, while possibly emotionally satisfying, intellectually dishonest and that they can create an effect of illogic in other areas. I don't claim atheism is a cure for illogic--or Maher would understand science and Penn Jillette wouldn't have his politics. But what I do hold is that intellectual honesty has to mean "No sacred cows."

To use the example of one of our more cranky New Atheists, it's no use saying "Mother Teresa is a douchebag" just for the sensationalism in the words, unless one already can demonstrate she's done a lot of things that conform to our notions of douchebaggery. Now, you could say someone who says that is a rotten shit who made the calculated decision to transgress social norms to draw eyeballs at some lurid dark place and sell books--

Which would be about the factual reasons why a publically revered figure could be a technical douchebag, and then some people walk away a little sadder but wiser. All ad homs of Hitchens aside (I think he got blinded by Villager nonsense into the stupid half-fascist pro-Iraq War bullshit he still hasn't dropped to this day), doesn't work like God is not Great kind of show that there is a place in this occasionally-reviled little corner of the thinking world for, well, rotten shits? (Our major detractors have a stick too far up to even call a rotten shit a "rotten shit". They would probably say it in a less-vulgar fashion, but I can't translate into Pecksniffian at the moment.)

At the posted link, they don't seem to like PZ Myers awfully, which is funny because again--I think when he provokes, he does it to prove a point besides provocation for the sake of provocation. I dunno. Is it incumbent for bloggers to play the "both side represented" game that the media does? Also--if he's turning off a lot of people, why's his site got the traffic it does? (Argh--no, I've just pulled out the "appeal to numbers" or somesuch thing--except numbers isn't a bad indicator of whether someone is frightening folks off with their tone--isn't it?.) Hm. I'm thinking I'll visit for that good old "agenbite of inwit" my lack of religion left me with, but I still think it's almost impossible to not be "in the wrong" by the standards they've set.

[laconicsax]

1. Faithiest drivel, with a touch of accomodationism.

Let's all be the happy house atheist because people need their delusions. It's bad form to tell someone that Adam and Eve didn't really exist.

[realisticphish]

3. Now, now

it just wouldn't do to tell them that the Bible isn't literally true.

I agree with the idea that we shouldn't pull blatant ad hominems. But if someone says "Jesus is the son of God, and he performed miracles on Earth," I feel entirely justified in saying that that is nonsense. I can say it's nonsense POLITELY, but I'm still going to call it like I see it (situation permitting)

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. I think I'd seen it mentioned somewhere once before; I don't know if you wrote this before or after

it, as PZ Myers says, "flamed out" last night:

How Not To Run A Blog

A strange little blog has been carping at various atheists blogs for a while now. Called "You're Not Helping", it pretended to have the goal of keeping internet atheists honest and holding them to a higher standard. It wasn't very interesting — it's main claim to fame was a tone that combined self-righteousness with whining — but it has just flamed out spectacularly. The author has admitted to committing flagrant sockpuppetry, with four identities ("yourenothelping", "Polly-O", "Brandon", and "Patricia") who were active commenters there, all reinforcing the same views and sometimes congratulating each other on their cleverness.
...
I came to this story very late, after the final shameful confession. Much of the legwork that exposed the lies was done by The Buddha Is Not Serious.


http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/06/how_not_to_run_a_blog.php

Now, any attempt to access it (even just to read it) gets a 'Protected Blog - login' screen.

[vixengrl]

4. Wow--beforehand, or the link would be useless.

This explains some of those threads there pretty spectacularly, though.


grrr....timing.