I was last on the Feminist Coffee Hour podcast* in 2016 to talk about Ayn Rand and gender roles in Objectivism. Well, I’m back!
This month, our conversation is about Shitty Atheist Men. And boy oh boy, is there a lot to cover. We discuss Richard Dawkins, Lawrence Krauss, David Silverman, Michael Shermer, Richard Carrier… the list goes on. It includes clueless stuck-in-the-past white guys, misogynist snarlers, accused sexual predators, lawsuit-happy hypocrites, and all the other species in the anti-feminist menagerie.
It’s a sad but necessary conversation to have. The atheist community is bloated with regressive elements that are dividing and harming our cause and holding us back from making genuine progress. We need to clear them out if we’re going to have a secular movement we can truly be proud of, and identifying the problem is the first step.
To people who’ve been following the Great Rifts within the secular community over the last few years, some of this is all too familiar, but there’s new stuff as well. You’ll have to download the podcast to hear about the time Michael Shermer sent me a personal e-mail (no kidding).
Lastly: Although there’s a lot to be discouraged about, just being male, or white, or older is no guarantee that a person will be unenlightened. My guest contributor James Haught, at the age of 86, is proof of that. If you haven’t seen it, I strongly recommend his excellent post from last week on how secular humanist values don’t accommodate predatory sex. (Not to be a tease, but one of the men mentioned in that post sent Jim an anguished e-mail begging him to stop writing about this stuff because it was hurting his reputation… so clearly, it touched some of the right nerves.)
Here’s the podcast link again. Check it out!
* Full disclosure: one of the show’s co-hosts is the person I’m married to.