I think Jen and by extension A+ is attempting to re-brand the movement and somehow that will solve our problems. What I fear is happening is a schism; that instead of dealing with issues, we excommunicate those who are not pure enough…creating an orthodox and reconstructionist wings of atheism.

Why can’t we continue to advocate for these actions without the re-branding? Our community will continue to evolve but without more confusing and divisive labels.

I have on the show and in person advocated for equality of all. That it is a pre-condition for the movement to evolve.

PRE-CONDITION!

How are we, as a movement, to advocate for health care or environmental action when internally we cannot even accept that our members have equality of voice? I disagree with how Jen has portrayed the internal dissention of the skeptical community but acknowledge we have problems and the movement is now mature enough to deal with these issues.

It is not an all or nothing claim; but having just planted a strong foot on the public stage the skeptic community must now ‘get our ducks in a row’ before moving further or we may stumble and fall from grace. Imagine if a “Skeptics of the USA” candidate was asked if he agreed that women were at greater risk of violence at a skeptic conference than on the streets of LA?
I just see Jen and the A+ movement as marketing…oddly an exclusionary one in spite of the equalitarian rhetoric.

As alluded to in my earlier post I offer the following clarification.

I don’t like using the term atheist because, forgive the Scotsman in me a true atheist not only denies gods but does so because of the application of their skeptical tool kit. That, skepticism as a methodology for approaching ‘truth’ is one of the achievements of the 2nd wave of atheism.
I think it can sound confusing because first ‘waves’ are just arbitrary temporal labels and second (in my analysis) 2nd wave atheism is also 1st wave skepticism.

The original atheist rejected ‘gods’ not on reason but on faith. If you think of our understanding of how the world worked 2000 years ago; gods were not an irrational theory. It was the development of the logic AND the scientific method than provided the ‘proof’ that theism was wrong. This is also why I see atheism as a subset of skepticism…that once you are a skeptic, you ‘should be’ by definition a non-theist.

Sorry for the delay to reply and my planned series will also be delayed due to other writing projects; but it should be out later next week.

I don’t think anyone advocating A+ has stated that the previous incarnations of the atheist movement have fulfilled their goals. It’s not like calling for the next movie to be made because the story of this part is done but we want to see our favourite characters move on.

I think we can, and need to (as I argued on the show), expand skepticism/atheism to cover more than religious and traditional skeptical topics. What Jen called for was a movement that would take on social justice issues, fight discrimination, and work for a better world.

I think in the end that what is being called for is a new, younger humanism that is explicitly atheistic (something that gets befuddled in some groups, including by humanists such as myself) and active. A worthy goal, which will likely be facilitated by continued calls for a broader range of topics and potentially a new umbrella/support group (which is in the works).

I do look forward to the rest of this series though.