Another one, this time from Dan Arel: one Patheos blogger disagreeing with another Patheos blogger (Adam Lee, who dared to criticize Dawkins (and got called a liar by him as a reward).
Arel doesn’t use punctuation much so what he writes can be hard to follow. With that warning –
Much like Lee, I came to atheism on my own and Dawkins played a major role in my activism, but unlike Lee, I am not ditching Dawkins for simple disagreements.
Lee would most likely argue that these are not simple disagreements however as he seems to have joined the ranks of Ophelia Benson and PZ Myers in doing everything they can to pin hateful labels to Dawkins, instead of dissecting what he has said or simply realize that I cannot agree with everyone on every issue and that sometimes I will disagree with some of my favorite people.
I’m getting tired of this. It’s bullshit. I’m not “doing everything [I] can to pin hateful labels to Dawkins”; I’m taking issue – strongly – with the role Dawkins is playing in making hostility to women, and especially to feminist women, even more entrenched and pervasive among atheists than it already is. We have a right to do that. I’m tired of people treating it as blasphemy against The Heroes. It’s not blasphemy.
…now Dawkins is being criticized for standing up for Sam Harris who found himself in a bit of controversy surrounding a remark he made about atheism and critical thinking being more of a guy thing.
Harris’ remark carried some strong sexist implications, but before he even took to his blog to explain the comment, he was quickly labeled sexist and declared an enemy of women everywhere.
After his full explanation of his remarks, the same who accused him of being sexist continued to do so. Harris explanation did not do a whole lot to change what he said, but they did show, in my opinion that even if those remarks were sexist, and that Harris still needed to be corrected that he was not being sexist, he was just mistaken.
He was just mistaken, in a sexist way. Sure, he was just mistaken, and nothing terrible happened to him for being mistaken. I have a decent readership, but it’s bound to be a fraction of his; why is it so terrible that a blogger disputed his fatuous explanations for the sparseness of women at his talks?
Simply, simply yelling at someone claiming they are sexist is not the best way to influence someone’s way of thinking. Does anyone expect that Harris would just immediately say that he is wrong and everyone else must be right? Of course not. Yet this hostile name calling and finger pointing seemingly upset Dawkins who came to his friends defense, after all Harris and Dawkins are good friends I would assume that Dawkins does not find Harris to be sexist, and Dawkins took to Twitter to ask if bloggers could be faking outrage for clicks in which they get paid…
Yes he did, and that was a cheap and unworthy thing to ask. Blogging is not a way to get rich. I could make more money working at a Burger King a few hours a week; nobody blogs for the money. I write about what interests me, period. I did it for nine years without making any money at all, because I wanted to do it.
Dawkins is right, some bloggers do, does that mean that those like Benson or Myers did? No, and I do think Dawkins was wrong to insinuate they did without proper evidence.
After all, I am a blogger who is paid per click as well, so of course we pick stories people want to read, but it doesn’t mean we are faking our outrage over the topics.
No, we don’t. We really don’t. I don’t pick stories people want to read; I pick what interests me. By this time I know from experience that it will interest other people too, but that doesn’t change the fact that I do not choose stories based on trying to suss what other people will want to read.
Yet this is not sexism, Dawkins may be wrong about clickbating, but is that enough to justify disowning him? I wouldn’t think Lee would either, except other than the Dear Muslima letter Lee spends all his time focused on clickbaiting, except for a one line mention of Dawkins comment about drinking and rape, but Lee never expands on this, he just tells the reader Dawkins is wrong for mentioning clickbating and oh he said this about rape, but by taking no time to explain the context of the tweet, Lee only paints Dawkins in the negative light he is going for and continues to ask his friends why Dawkins is wrong about clickbaiting.
Okay…
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Ophelia has a spot of bother after her latest copypasta displays a cartoon from an artist who is a transphobe. Some of her commentators are politely trying to minimise the splash damage. This is not the first time Ophelia has got into trouble in this area. Seems to be she has a bit of a problem with trans issues.