What’s more, we refuse to believe that skepticism and critical thinking can be usefully applied only to claims about the supernatural. We believe that it’s equally valuable to apply them to real-world power structures that perpetuate inequality and injustice. Thus, the goals of Atheism Plus: We are atheists and skeptics, plus we defend women’s rights and reproductive choice, plus we fight against sexism and racism, plus we oppose homophobia and transphobia, plus we call for equality of opportunity and economic fairness, and so on.
Honestly, maybe they’d have better luck with their rebranding if they stopped calling themselves atheists and instead started marketing themselves as a continuation of the Protestant Reformation. Like, “We share with Christianity the same extreme preoccupation with radical equality and caring for the downtrodden of society; we just consider supernatural belief in God to be akin to the sort of accumulated corruption Luther wanted to cleanse from the Church. We’re not destroying Christianity, we’re improving it!”
The other major complaint is that A+ is fostering a black-and-white, with-us-or-against-us attitude among its adherents. This, too, is easily disproved by perusing the A+ forums and discussion threads. There are many prominent atheists who choose not to identify with A+ for various reasons, and there’s no chorus of demands that they be blackballed. Nor do we expect that every existing atheist organization will take on the full range of social-justice issues. What we do expect is that all atheists will treat each other with basic respect and decency, and that we’ll do whatever’s reasonably in our power to make the movement as welcoming and diverse as possible, without giving up the vigorous, sprawling debate over ideas that defines us.
Ahahahaha. Oh, man, that’s rich, especially coming right on the heels of this recent shitstorm. Okay, I have to admit, I haven’t been back to the FTB cult compound that frequently in the last couple months, but unless some of you snuck up behind Richard Carrier with a net to tackle him and stab a syringe full of thorazine into his buttock, just to name one famous example, that is some brazen P.R. Poor Adam. He used to be an interesting writer. Now, I guess he’s just going to be the A+ equivalent of a White House press secretary.
I do fully concur, though, that you should spend some time perusing their forums and discussion threads. No, really, go see for yourself. Secondhand descriptions won’t do it justice. And those of you who have a strong tolerance for alcohol poisoning can make a drinking game based on the number of times someone mentions “privilege”.