I read an article on Salon, about a woman who gave birth to a premature baby that didn’t survive. The point of her article was tell everyone how much she hates when people tell her her baby is in Heaven.
But actually her point is more than that. Her point really is to make sure you know that she is atheist. And to tell you, that you are dumb for not being one. Because this is what good atheists do. They talk about how the “great thinkers” like DeGrasse Tyson and Sagan give her comfort, when they reassure her that you are just a tiny speck in a much bigger universe (that has no purpose).
So her belief is that we are just specks of dust. So I wonder if she would get more comfort, if her friends reminded her, when she talked about the grief of losing a baby she never even knew, that it doesn’t matter, she was only a speck of random DNA dust anyway, so any incidental feeling of connection or purpose to that speck, is just a sorry illusion. nevermind it.”
Because, afterall, isn’t this what the Dawkins and the Penn Jillettes, and the Steve Novellas are hear to constantly remind everyone else? Is that how her friends should respond in the future, so she then doesn’t have to write any more blogs talking about how sad she is losing her speck of dna?
The atheists say we are nothing. They say life is meaningless, and you are just an accidental robot. Heck, they even don’t think we should grieve over abortions, so why does this woman want to remind us that she is grieving over a baby that lived eight hours?
Basically, atheists are hypocrites really. But as Penn Jillettte likes to says, he doesn’t think there is anything the slightest bit wrong with hypocrisy.
I think the article should be, please stop telling me your are sad about a speck of meaningless DNA. Its an illusion.
OR, perhaps atheists should stop trying to tell others that their beliefs are wrong. That would be novel.
This reminds me–can you send me another one? Mine is all crapped up. Probably from me rolling around in the dirt so much.
Do they (Dawkins, Tyson, Sagan) say this individually and personally to a grieving person? Or do they say it in public speeches?
There a huge difference between the two.
I think I need to start a thread entitled, “Why Is Edward Feser An Asshole?”
Fesser makes little children cry.
Neil Rickert,
There is a huge difference to you, or to the person grieving? What if its not a huge difference to a religious person? Should they not do it then?
If the religious person is so godddamn immature that they can’t even handle the existence of a public atheist who is NOT talking to them close-up and personally , then the religious wanker needs to leave society for a monastery somewhere that they can be protected from all contact with reality.
No matter how much you, phoodoo, wish to make this all the “mean” atheist’s fault, there really is a difference between what a sane person feels when they’re being talked to directly and personally, versus what that same sane person feels when some “spokesman” is speechifying in public or writing books or whatever, impersonally.
Your entire dialog is a internet example of how religion poisons everything.
I find it almost impossible to imagine someone can be this dense by accident! 😉 You must have heard of the concept of empathy. If you were in the company of a recently bereaved person that you [knew] well enough to be aware they were a non-believer, would you be surprised to learn that they would find a Christian homily from you intrusive and insensitive? In the reverse situation, were I in the company of a recently bereaved person I knew to have some kind of religious belief, I wouldn’t be talking about my lack of belief.
In any public arena or medium, discussion of controversial topics cannot be curtailed just because of the inadvertent offence it might give to one person. Off the top of my head. We can’t censor a public discussion on car safety and traffic management because someone just lost a loved one in a RTA. Apples and oranges.
ETA missing word and superfluous “not”
Yep. Feser is in the top-ten list of assholes alive in the 21st century — so far, that is. We’ve got politicians and archbishops and sport stars and actors and professors all trying to earn their way into the top ten, but they’re going to have to work very hard to unseat Feser.
petrushka,
His blog – his OPs and comments from the coterie of regulars he draws around him – is a rich vein of reactionary misogyny to mine. I look forward to it.
petrushka,
Keira Knightly looks a lot like many coders I’ve worked with. If I drink. A lot.
Is Edward Fesser an asshole because he has just told thousands of grieving children that their dead pets were just molecules, and their deaths were not important?
Hotshoe – Serial Ninja!!! 🙂
I have to ask Mung and Phoodoo and Gregory and Fifth and Erik, et al:
Which is more assholish, telling an adult that you don’t believe in god, or telling a child that fido was just a meat robot.
Assuming they didn’t actually ask for your opinion.
I know Feser is one of the least charming characters I’ve come across in the blogosphere but we should distinguish his right to express his public opinion that pets have no souls (I happen to agree) from a personal situation. Perhaps we should give him the benefit of the doubt as to whether he makes a habit of disillusioning his kids (I believe he has six, is it?) at the moment when they are burying a deceased pet rabbit or hamster.
petrushka,
I know you’re making a serious point, but as an aside I must say that my boys would have been thrilled to have a meat robot in the house when they were younger. Heck, maybe even now.
Never too old for a meat robot.
newton:
So once someone apologizes for something, it can never be mentioned again, even if it is relevant to the ongoing conversation?
Your rule makes no sense, newton.
I have already made clear my opinion of how people should behave when consoling a friend or relative who is grieving. If one follows well established guidelines, none of this will come up. You listen, not talk. Most especially, you do not volunteer advice or philosophy.
Dawkins and Fesser both write their opinions and publish them to no one in particular. I have no problem with anyone publishing opinions, even if I think it’s drivel.
But my opinion of Fesser as a human being could not be lower. It seems to me that if you are lying to people about heaven, it compounds the assholery to tell them — especially children — that their grief is meaningless.
I think opening old wounds is mandatory on threads like this.
Sure. I just wanted to pre-empt any response from phoodoo on the lines of “what’s sauce for the goose…”.
What rule are you referring to, Keith?
There’s a huge difference. Period.
The Salon page that you cited was about personally talking to a grieving person. It was not saying that Christians should be silent about heaven in their public speeches.
That is because it is not a rule, it just seems logical for me. Something about beating a dead horse. Of course ,chacun à son goût.
Newton’s third non rule: Don’t be a Phodoo
Good rule for everyone.
Even for phoodoo.
More like a guideline then. 🙂
BTW I’m bursting to be an asshole pedant myself. Chacun a son goût ou à chacun, son goût. Better now, sorry. 😉
Just rereading the first few comments in the thread and just noticed this I comment to me that I missed. Apologies, Keith. I left out an “I” as I often do. I wasn’t addressing you and urging you to read the linked article or implying that you hadn’t. I was saying “[I] read the article…” (past tense).
Alan:
newton:
:
No, it was this one:
newton:
That’s not very logical. If a fact is relevant to a discussion, why declare it off limits?
The topic was KN’s continued anger toward vocal atheists, particularly of the New variety, and the irrational behavior it evokes in him. Calling someone an “atheist asshole” despite not having read a word of her article is a prime example of that. That he eventually apologized doesn’t negate the irrationality of that sort of behavior.
petrushka,
An “old wound” from two days ago?
A whole book predicated on depicting one particular atheist as an asshole. namely a fictionalized (?) Richard Dawkins.
From the Guardian review:
The Dawkins character is a hoot: foul-mouthed, pompous, so certain of his beliefs that he will dissect a puppy in front of primary schoolchildren if it will disabuse them of the creation “myth” invented by the “dark forces of religion”.
ETA Bonus : review from 3 AM
I haven’t seen anyone answer if the boyfriend of a girl who has an abortion deserves the same right to expect people to help him grieve exactly as he wants them to.
I am sure you all would be very supportive if I were to write a blog which emphasized the need for atheists to talk about the afterlife to me, because this would make me feel better when I lost a loved one.
The oh so consistent atheists would be right there, singing their praises I am sure.
And to Lizzie who says you can’t identify atheists as a special group of like minded thinkers, the refutation to that is is simply this thread, this blog.
You are a religion. I can know so many things about you, simply by your identification as an atheist. There may be slightly different sects of that religion, but clearly a religion nonetheless. The fact that you have put a name to what you “are” is all the evidence one really needs. Believers in the same church.
Wow Phoodoo, you sure are one angry fucked-up Fundy.
Because we all get along and agree all the time….
You’re not very good at this, are you?
phoodoo:
phoodoo,
That might be what you would do if you were an atheist, but keep in mind that you’d probably be as bad at atheism as you are at theism.
The atheist regulars here are better thinkers than you and would almost certainly avoid the pitfalls and inconsistencies that you regularly stumble into. For example, you failed to draw some obvious distinctions in your comment:
1) everyday life vs. a period of grieving, and
2) lying to make someone feel better vs. choosing one’s true statements with discretion and compassion.
Do you understand why those distinctions are relevant, or is this going straight over your head?
“I can drink you pretty!”
He only read the abstract…
phoodoo, it’s not clear to me that you have read any of the responses to you in this thread. I suggest you do.
phoodoo,
No one, including the writer of the article you reference, is asking for people to agree 100% with them in order to console them. The issue is that the person offering the comfort shouldn’t use the opportunity to proselytize. The best one can do is just shut up and listen.
phoodoo,
You clearly need to look up the definition of “religion”.
Go for it. Tell me something about myself that is true of all atheists other than the fact that I lack belief in a god or gods.
I’ll answer your question, phoodoo:
Yes, I did grieve for my aborted fetus.
I do have a couple of problems with your hypothetical father: forcing his girlfriend to hand over the remains, and putting her name on the memorial are both infringements on her rights. No doxxing either. Having a memorial (without her name) and having a prayer service are just fine.
Sounds like she made a smart choice in declining to breed with the dipshit, though.
You don’t have kids, you say?
Richardthughes,
Who, Keith?
I’d like to hear phoodoo’s response too.
DNA_Jock,
What about the rights of the father and the baby dipshit?
Rumraket,
Tell me something that is true of all other Christians, other than they are Christian?
I think calling a baby dipshit is rather rude.
petrushka,
Some would say calling it a fetus with no rights is also rude. You say potato…
Baby dipshits are the ones who grow up to be angry proselytizing Christians.
Even the Bible dismisses fetus rights. As in the two men fighting.
There is no equivalency to the death of a person.
Oh, yes must be one those angry fucked up fundies, baby!
phoodoo,
There is a fundamental asymmetry between the rights of the prospective mother and the prospective father. The pregnant woman can decide to terminate the pregnancy against his wishes, or carry the pregnancy to term and collect child support against his wishes. It’s her body.
The take-home here, phoodoo, is that you should really get to know a gal before schtupping her.
Is that too much to ask?