Actually, I wasn't being lumped in with atheists; I variably self-describe as an atheist or non-atheist or gnostic or agnostic on a day to day basis. It's a fundamental failing or not failing of mine that I cannot solve the problem of "God" or "gods" and unfortunately the system tends to reset. I describe this new philosophy as "Geoffism".
No, actually, that's the entire point. Tiassa engaged in a nasty broadside against atheists in general, unless by some miraculous stretch of statistics all the atheists on the forum are militants. I don't do that. I never have. I've described 'swathes of support', or 'demographic pluralities', but I don't engage in such stereotyping. What I'm trying to enlighten you to is this basic contradiction in behaviour, coupled with the disparity in accusation and resolution. Tiassa does do this kind of thing - evidently - and is not punished; I could add that you seem to agree with him. I don't do this kind of thing, but have often been reviled for the opinions I don't have. That's the teaching moment of this thread.
Mmmm, nooo, that's not so. I agree that the centralists or moderates of most philosophies have an obligation to reign in the extremists - at least where such extremism is dangerous or immoral in some way - but that wasn't Tiassa's point. Tiassa, an undefined theist, was blasting SF atheists in general. Now, I cannot believe that all the SF atheists are militants. It's unrealistic. As such, a group characterisation of them is unethical.
Tiassa is a theist, and therefore not among those who should make such generalisations in the usual parlance.
Oh. I didn't know that you spoke for all atheists on the forum. In any event, personalising this issue is a bit of a herring; generalisation of such groups is not permitted.
I don't think so: my comments are in the same vein as Yazata's. None of that discussion was really predicated on anything different; we're both discussing the unfair scale of poster control and behaviour. My post underscores this fundamentally unfair duality. They're not in context of anything, unless you wanted to say they were in context of the central issue, or this most recent example of that central issue: inconsistency. I think you're more objecting to my commenting on your response to Yazata. I agree, it could be considered rude, but it's an important issue for SF and I don't think you can claim my comments were out of context in any sense.
Mmm, that's questionable and actually not relevant to the discussion. I have at least partial 'membership' in that group, day to day; you'll note that the pronouns are all in quotations (""). But the point is that you, as a completely defined atheist, do not speak for all atheists.
If you read that post, you'll note that it goes thusly:
GeoffP said:
He speaks for me to the extent that our opinion agrees. When not, not. 'Many of' indicates a proportion thereof. It's a qualifying statement; it carries the stated meaning that there is incomplete uniformity of position. Why do you regard this as a controversial statement?
