Serial trolling from 2014

Heh this one is funny to me if no one else.

I had to look up the dates to make sure: that July 28 1914 2014 pair is the one he perpetrated two days after he co-signed with me that truce-thing saying let’s agree to disagree without abusing each other. He co-signed it with me and posted it on his blog. I wrote it and asked him to co-sign it with me because a hell of a lot of aggressively misogynist men had been exercising their aggression on women and a lot of those men were big fans of his. I had to laugh when he tweeted “go away and learn how to think” just two days later. Not exactly in the spirit of let’s decide to disagree without being abusive.

Here it is:

It’s not news that allies can’t always agree on everything. People who rely on reason rather than dogma to think about the world are bound to disagree about some things.

Disagreement is inevitable, but bullying and harassment are not. If we want secularism and atheism to gain respect, we have to be able to disagree with each other without trying to destroy each other.

In other words we have to be able to manage disagreement ethically, like reasonable adults, as opposed to brawling like enraged children who need a nap. It should go without saying, but this means no death threats, rape threats, attacks on people’s appearance, age, race, sex, size, haircut; no photoshopping people into demeaning images, no vulgar epithets.

Richard adds: I’m told that some people think I tacitly endorse such things even if I don’t indulge in them. Needless to say, I’m horrified by that suggestion. Any person who tries to intimidate members of our community with threats or harassment is in no way my ally and is only weakening the atheist movement by silencing its voices and driving away support. 

I had to laugh, but it was frustrating, too.

But the American Humanist Association is dead wrong. I’m not going to send them rape threats or photoshop them into demeaning images, but I am going to say they’re wrong.

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