Whenever I see Joe Hoffmann’s latest burst of hatred at Da Noo Atheists, I decide to ignore it because he obviously loves the attention. (He’s like Michael Ruse that way. Exactly like Michael Ruse. Ruse writes a stupid generalized sneer about noo atheism, gets flack for the stupidity and generality, writes an aggrieved response to the flack. Repeat. Repeat repeat repeat. This is what Hoffmann has taken to doing.) Then other people don’t ignore it, so once the pleasure of seeing the post ignored is no longer available, I shrug and don’t ignore it too.
So the latest one, the New Year edition, is pathetically titled “Re-Made in America: Remembering the New Atheism (2006-2011).” As if he could make it be dead just by entering a terminal date. Nice try, Joe, but it’s not dead yet.
And then – it’s the usual kind of thing. Elegantly written and witty in its way, but vitiated by spite and generality. Lots of magisterial summing up with no actual examples of the badness he so freely attributes to people he dislikes. There’s not really much more to say about it. It’s so arbitrary that it undermines itself; it’s embarrassingly obvious that attention is the only purpose.
The funny (as opposed to witty) part is the predictable rambling self-referential slush of his acolyte “steph.”
You’re so funny Veronica. Yay, congratulations you beat me! Isn’t it ‘wonderful’… I know how that makes you screech and run and tell every other ant all about it. “Everybody knows”: it’s a song. Do you know it?
Mr MacDonald grants Dawkins favours freely too? More fool old Mack, eh?
I wonder what your definition of angry is. This post is witty, yes, and incisive. Accurate as always. The style is no different from previous essays on other websites. Erudite and eternally critical, which is the nature of good academic scholarship. He’s always consistently interesting don’t you think? No? It’s fascinating that when the subjects of a critique are atheists, the subjects angrily growl that it’s ‘angry’ critique. Generally critiques of atheism are described by atheists as either ‘angry’, written by a ‘faitheist’ or even as ‘passively aggressive’ or ‘accommodationist’. How can anyone be ‘angry’ with something that’s destroying itself Veronica? How can anyone be angry with something so small? It’s blindingly obvious the ‘atheism’ in this essay is on the road to oblivion and I can’t imagine how your imagination stretches to Joe being angry unless it’s evidence of your own psychological projection. If only David and Goliath were true … but atheists just ain’t go the right pebbles.
Do admit. Notice especially the vulgar ”old Mack” – from someone who sets herself up as a critic of gnu rudeness.
Sad. Hoffmann really isn’t vulgar in that way. It’s sad that he’s reduced to friends like that.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)