I’m finally going to weigh in on Atheism+ after a week of silence on the topic. To put it simply I’m torn.

On the one hand, I am an atheist, a humanist, and a skeptic. I stand for LGBTQ rights, the rights of the disabled, equal rights for all genders, changing laws to not legislate morality, etc. I also stand for making the community more welcoming and accepting, for example I led in the push to change one of my group’s meeting places to a wheel chair accessible location. So I support their stated objectives.

On the other hand, the leading proponents of the new group/movement/label are people who I find increasingly alienating. I unsubscribed from Greta Christina’s RSS feed after a post where she modified her comment policy for the post with essentially an agree or get deleted/banned addendum. I agreed with the message of the post, but not the tone and certainly not the “agree or shut up” stance. If you don’t like the comments you know you’ll get, then disable comments on that post. Don’t squelch discussion from people who might honestly not get it but who want to understand or those who might be able to point out a flaw in your logic. I’ve seen similar vibes from other’s and it seems to be the whole point of Atheism+.

There are only two places I’ve ever felt guilt for being a decent, normal, healthy human male. The first was in church growing up, but for the last year it’s been in the blog posts of the athefeminists like Jen McCreight, Rebecca Watson, and Greta Christina. I have tried to keep listening (or more accurately, reading), but sometimes it’s hard for me to get the message through the tone of the rhetoric.

So, again, I’m torn on Atheism+. I like the concept, although I’m not convinced it’s necessary, but I’m worried about the tone of the rhetoric we’ll see from it.  It’ll be interesting to see.