I guess this should have been obvious. To be on the Atheist Blogroll, one must be an Atheist or an Agnostic. A loophole in the rules allowed freethinking deist Agradevaduta to join. The loophole is closed. The Atheist blogroll represents Atheist and Agnostic bloggers. Agradevaduta has been removed from the blogroll.
A few bloggers think I'm silencing a voice in some weird 1st Amendment killing, authoritative power play. I want to make it clear to everyone, I really don't give a fuck. I provide this service for the Atheist community because I believe in building our voice on the web. We face a 200 to 1 (at least)Christian to Atheist blog disadvantage. Building a community gives a voice to our issues. Having a deist in the mix dilutes the message. Please keep in mind that I am not shutting Archangel's blog down. He can write all he wants, only now he gets to generate traffic the old fashion way.
I'm all broken up. I'm going to spend the rest of the night crying. ;)
ReplyDeleteI shed a tear myself. I'm over it now.
ReplyDeleteThat first-amendment angle was pretty loopy.
ReplyDeleteLet's say I'm a fan of Barry Bonds. I wear a Barry Bonds jersey. Then I decide I'm not into Barry Bonds anymore.
Apparently some think I have to keep wearing his jersey, or I've violated his first-amendment rights. I don't get it.
You're well within your rights to moderate and rule your little private kingdom anyway you want. The rule change is perfect example of how a)atheists are not tolerant of views that challenge their own assumptions and b)that freethinkers, whether leaning towards atheism, skepticism, deism or theism are excluded from the private "let's collectively pat us God bashers on the back" party. Have fun, exclude all dissent and disagreement, who knows?, one day we might you might be able to burn those buggers who dare ask a question?
ReplyDeleteP.S- for me, ADD's post may have been taken to mean that absolute morality doesn't exist if God does not exist- a position most consistent with the kind of atheism that posits a relativist take on morality.
I get the feeling that this kind of intolerance and paranoia towards dissent is seen on this scale in the Islamic world. Hmmm, interesting comparison.
I think you've made the right decision because like I said before, having deist Agradevaduta listed under the heading of "Atheist" is like misfiling a book in the library. As for the claim of violating the first amendment, when a book is returned to its proper shelf, it's still available for public to check it out and read it. It is just returned to where one would expect to find it.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Agradevaduta is free to have his own blogroll, free to comment at most atheist blogs and free to voice his opinions and ideas and enter into discussions with others all over the web. He can invite people to come to his site via a link in a comment.
niran, how many Christian blogrolls would allow an atheist on it? And even if they did, that atheist would be misfiled and would also be misleading the reader who would assume the blog is a Christian blog like the others.
ReplyDeleteTo click on a blog listed in ATHEIST BLOGROLL and find a deist, even one who claims to be freethinking, is kind of confusing for a second. I had to read and see if it was a satire of some kind.
niran, why don't you start your own blogroll that allows Xians, non-xians, scientologists, muslims and all the others under the title of Freethinkers, Superstitious and Not?
niran,
ReplyDelete"I get the feeling that this kind of intolerance and paranoia towards dissent is seen on this scale in the Islamic world."
I knew about the terrorism and the honor-killings, but I never knew the Islamic world reached the level of deleting a non-atheist from an atheist blogroll. Those sick bastards!
"Hmmm, interesting comparison," indeed!
Yes, it should have been obvious. How many Christian blogrolls have we atheists tried to join?
ReplyDeleteIf anyone seriously thinks you are "silencing a voice in some weird 1st Amendment killing, authoritative power play," they might as well embrace some ancient religion! Then you could remove them too. This is your blogroll, and you can do whatever you want with it. If folks don't like it, they can choose not to be a part of it.
I have nothing but appreciation for what you are doing here. This blogroll has done more to help me discover new, worthwhile atheist blogs than anything else.
add, why don't you start a blogroll for freethinkers...not to give a voice to the disempowered freethinkers or to make the voice of freethinking heard on the blogosphere or any other petty agenda driven nonsense, but just in the pursuit of truth and knowledge through some good old fashioned debate. Let the dogmatic folk wallow in their own unquestioned loyalty to blind ideology, a space to debate, discuss, disagree and not be banned will be quite nice.
ReplyDeleteWhy don't you all just get together and decide I don't exist. Simple.
ReplyDeleteThank you for reading.
All of us atheists owe you a big thank you for starting and maintaining the Atheist Blogroll. It ought to be obvious from its name exactly what kind of blogs are listed. Agra-whatever joined under false pretenses, proving once again that theists frequently lie.
ReplyDeleteAnd by the way, people have First Amendment rights only insofar as governmental intervention is concerned. Those rights don't necessarily extend to private property. You're free to throw somebody out of your house for saying "fuck you." And you're free to throw somebody off your blogroll for the same thing. Agra-whatever's presence was a big "fuck you" to the rest of us. He can continue to say it -- but not here.
Hey, let's all go try and get listed on a christian bloglist and if we get denied or accepted and then later expelled let's wrap ourselves in the first amendment and cry "censorship" and other stuff and make a stink and... oh yeah, right, we're not deceptive douches.
ReplyDeleteThank you for reading.
Good call Mojoey and consistent with most atheist's ultimate way of thinking.
ReplyDeleteMost of us became atheists by taking in new information all the time and changing our opinions to the point that we realized that there is no evidence for God. We are deductive thinkers willing to change our minds.
I'm glad you changed your rules here. This is the atheist blogroll.
I could have worded this better but my wife is giving me the bums rush for dinner.
Glad that little mess was sorted.
ReplyDeleteReminds me of when some salesguy called me, I told him to "fuck off", and he objected. I told he'd called me, I was in my house and would say whatever the fuck I liked.
Archangel hasn't been evicted and silenced: no one has removed him from Blogger, or wherever it is he blogs. Would Niran, et al, complain if Hillary Clinton was denied membership of the Birch Society? Or George W. Bush questioned about any application to ACLU? If Alberto Gonzales was a card carrying member of the Liberal Club, do you think he'd be invited to stay awhile?
Don't confuse "free speech" with the forum. We were invited to opine on the suitability of a member continuing membership. We decided he didn't qualify, and evicted him from the forum. Since when is that denying him free expression? (Or does our free expression not count, simply because you don't agree with it?)
"Freethinkers"? Pah! Wishy-washy crap. There's nothing free about thought: it all costs when it's sincere.
Carolyn Ann
Right call Joe.
ReplyDeleteThere are a lot of deist-friendly rolls out there - this one should be proudly atheistic/agnostic.
Good going.
This is what I posted on God for Suckers.
ReplyDeleteActually Niran has a valid point. Agnosticism has completely contrary views to that of an atheist since it rejects the conclusion that God does not exist. So it is directly at odds with Atheism. I think the Atheist Blogroll must surely consider this issue. Agnosticism and Atheism cannot be lumped under one category. The only commonality between the two schools of thought is that they are both opposed to theism. But non-theism is not the basis of categorization of the Atheist Blogroll, is it? So the policy should change once again to exclude agnostic writers. Since a true agnostic writer may write a Letter to an Atheist making an argument that God’s existence cannot be simply disproved. Oh, wait…didn’t someone already do that?
Thank you for reading.
And here was my response to Archangel at GOD IS FOR SUCKERS!
ReplyDeletearchangel say: But non-theism is not the basis of categorization of the Atheist Blogroll, is it?
Archangel…yes, it is. Atheists and agnostics who lean towards atheism.
This is getting to be redundant.
Quit your cryin’ and move on. We have other discussions on other threads that are open and you are welcome to comment on."
Get over yourself and move on! Geesh! What a whiner!
And at GIFS, Revenant also responded to archangeL
ReplyDelete“Since a true agnostic writer may write a Letter to an Atheist making an argument that God’s existence cannot be simply disproved.”
You can’t prove something that doesn’t exist. you need to prove it does before we have to worry about proving it doesn’t.
Darwin's Dagger: No Homers
ReplyDelete