But was the intention to try to change people's minds? Seems to me that it was more about making herself and her group feel smug. Kind of like when people do a post about the correct use of grammar. Feeling smug is nice I suppose, but "Want to feel smug? Join the Humanists" probably won't get too many people joining.El Pollo Diablo wrote: ↑Tue Apr 06, 2021 9:58 amAlice Roberts' tweet won't really affect anyone who believes in this stuff, because they disagree with her. Christians can, in general, take a joke, and even mild criticism or pushback (which is where I'd place her tweet). I made a gently teasing post on Easter Sunday about my Christian friends' propensity to write "He has risen! Alleluia!" on facebook by posting a photo of the two loaves (no fishes) that I'd just baked, captioned with "They have risen! Alleluia!". I received no blowback, and a few laughing emoji responses. Most of the Christians that are my friends can take a joke. If someone starts being a c.nt to them, they'll probably either walk away, cut that person out of their lives or argue back and then start being even more annoying to that person.
Roberts' tweet won't make the blindest bit of difference to anyone's faith. It won't have any positive (from her humanist perspective) impact on shifting any Christian's point of view. All it'll do is make people see her as someone who isn't worth listening to on the matter, and weakening the position of humanism as the sort of field that c.nts like Dawkins live in, and very few people want to be like that. My identity is in a strange place, and it's important to me - sort of post-Christian, but I'll be f.cked if I ever identify as a humanist with shite like that going on.
Don't forget that Ayn Rand was and is influential in the US. She was all about being her version of rational and loved by a certain type of right winger.jimbob wrote: ↑Tue Apr 06, 2021 12:11 pmBut yes, especially as there is a distinct undercurrent in the US of a weird reflection of Marxist Leninist substitution of (pseudo)reason for theology. There is a distinct right-wing Skeptic movement who combine a love for Darwinism with a greater (and I use the word after thought) "worship" of Social Darwinism and a dismissal of any science that they dislike (global warming springs to mind). I first noticed this in one of the worst Science Fiction books I've read "Fall of Angels" by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle - a combination which was obviously inspired by Heinlein but seems to think he was too nuanced and not right-wing enough. There is also a moderate number of such people on what was the James Randi forums now internationalskeptics.ocm - probably not that many, but quite prolific.
(As for my own views on faith, 'cos we all seem to be sharing, I was raised Catholic, but it didn't catch. I used to be an Atheist, but now I don't particularly care because it just doesn't seem important. Most of the time it doesn't seem to matter if someone believes in the virgin birth or whatever, as most people seem to be able to keep their religion to themselves, and they get something positive about it. I don't feel I need anything like that in my own life. I only have a problem when people impose their religion on others, or it blinds them to reality to a harmful extent. I recognise there is a certain amount of privilege in being able to have this position.)