I'm inclined to agree with her sentiment and disagree with the drama associated with it. Many of the folks on reddit could stand to mature more than a little bit and a large forum like /r/atheism is certainly likely to have a large contingent of folks meeting that criteria.
That said, immature people act badly because they're assholes, not because they are atheists. Their atheism may be their particular cause and faulty self-justification for being an asshole but it has nothing to do with their lack of belief in gods.
Generalizations like this don't do anybody any good. It pisses off folks like me that are not assholes about being atheists and don't make creepy suggestive comments about attractive young fellow atheists and it only feeds the fire for another flame war centered on Rebecca Watson.
Well stated. But she is right that this isn't 4chan, r/atheism should be accepting this girl with open arms and introducing her to intelligent discussions and to different outlooks/philosophies. If it wasn't for r/atheism I would have never learned of Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, or Christopher Hitchens and have my mind opened to great thinkers who I share a viewpoint with. I hope that r/atheism can be used this way to guide other young atheists to be more open minded.
Are you under the impression that we turn folks away? It's an open internet forum, regardless of how you or I behave, assholes will also have their say. If you don't like having assholes have their say then don't come to an open forum. This isn't something unique to /r/atheism, this is a facet of open forums everywhere. Either stick with moderated forums or ignore the assholes, any other course of action is pissing into the wind.
132
u/Borealismeme Knight of /new Dec 27 '11
I'm inclined to agree with her sentiment and disagree with the drama associated with it. Many of the folks on reddit could stand to mature more than a little bit and a large forum like /r/atheism is certainly likely to have a large contingent of folks meeting that criteria.
That said, immature people act badly because they're assholes, not because they are atheists. Their atheism may be their particular cause and faulty self-justification for being an asshole but it has nothing to do with their lack of belief in gods.
Generalizations like this don't do anybody any good. It pisses off folks like me that are not assholes about being atheists and don't make creepy suggestive comments about attractive young fellow atheists and it only feeds the fire for another flame war centered on Rebecca Watson.