Atheism Plus (abbreviated Atheism+ or A+) from RationalWiki:
Atheism Plus ... is a movement proposed in 2012 by blogger Jen McCreight. Its original definition was rather nebulous, but in general it is intended to be a subset of the atheism movement that attempts to unite atheists who wish to use their shared atheist identity as a basis for addressing political and social issues and engaging in related activism...
...The idea originated as a reaction to the nastiness flung about during a controversy over (sexual) harassment policies at atheist/skeptical conferences, which in turn was a re-ignition of the controversy over sexism in those two movements that had been smoldering since Elevatorgate.
Look at the FAQ page for some basic concepts.
I am not an Atheism + member nor do I currently intend to become one. Here is a quick summary of my thoughts surrounding the group. Some people are bound to think I'm being too soft on them, but I've deliberately tried to be reasonable and fair.
When it started up A+ had a lot of fans, as evidenced by the comments on Jen's Blog. The following link is fairly infamous (it's a really good post actually, pretty awesome, I agree with a lot of it)
Now, Below is what I'd consider a normal tweet from one of the main A+ advocates:
Again: social justice or GTFO. Mere secularism is not impressive or special. We all agree on the god thing- what else ya got? C'mon. Try.
I find it difficult to reconcile "empathy and consideration for minorities" with the "you're with us or against us" mentality (which apparently was rejected by consensus in the group, however, clearly some members still subscribe to this view.)
Looking at their twitter feed, there seems to be quite a bit of stress and discomfort going around. To find aggressive, sweary tweets littering a so-called "safe space" seems strange. It is not uncommon to see a "FU** you then bitch" followed by a comment about triggering, or ableism, much softer notions. I have seen some infighting and name-calling, presumably in the process of reaching a consensus. There does seem to be some cognitive dissonance going on.
Let me be clear: I have nothing against A+ members and do not doubt their sincerity in trying to go one step further for social justice, as it were. I admire Jen McCreight for her steel and feel sorry for the shit she puts up with - I sure couldn't cope with that. I share many (not all) of her opinions and views, and understand why many people felt that A+ was required. It is an interesting concept.
Atheism+ is symptomatic of the need that an increasing number of atheists feel to unite in their pursuit of a shared sense of social justice. It is not really a "bad idea", more just a "flawed" one. Its formation is not really surprising, nor inherently undesirable. However, as a concept for a movement, I consider it somewhat problematic. A main issue for me surrounds the conflation of atheism (lack of belief in gods) which tells us nothing of a person's other beliefs; and the social justice tag and how this is interpreted into a particular brand of feminism, humanism (wait what, I thought we'd rejected that?), skepticism, anti-racism etc. Sometimes there does not seem to be much internal skepticism going on surrounding the scope of the movement and possibly overreaching. But as it's an idea in its infancy, this is not entirely unexpected.
The forum boards at A+ are interesting, and one of its main features. The forum rules and clunky, labyrinthine moderation policy are something to see - multiple levels of suspensions, block and bans for different types of infringement on the forum threads. While part of me can sympathise with this, it does seem like a bit of an affront to Freedom of Speech. As I've previously made clear, I'm not actually that big a fan of FoS in that it is too often used to justify abuse. But even I can see issues with the apparently Draconian levels of moderation on the A+ forums. Then there is the BlockBot, an algorithm tool adopted by A+ which used to keep tabs on users and block comments containing certain offensive or triggering words (this integrates with Twitter). However, its effectiveness does appear to be in question, as you can be blocked from A+ or its members very easily for not really saying anything rude or abusive. I'd imagine that polite constructive criticism would be encouraged, however, looking at some of the reactions of A+ members to people being blocked, they're not too concerned about this problem.
Also, the distinction from Humanism, an already well established association mainly populated by atheists, seems to me to be rather dubious, as claimed on a "belief" basis, i.e. A+ is specifically only for atheists. The amount of "ritual" in Humanism is pretty minimal. This approach seems to be rather exclusionary of the more "belief-sympathetic" or "still a bit religious" humanists . These are sometimes vulnerable people in the midst of de-conversion. This is almost saying that the social justice of non-atheistic humanists is not important, which I don't think was intended. It's rather contradictory, as A+ was supposed to be all about inclusion.
A+ currently seems to be dogged by several possibly insurmountable problems. I cannot see that it will succeed to a significant degree, but it will probably be replaced by something similar. Most atheists take an apathetic attitude to A+, others are more directly negative about it. Then of course there are the idiotic trolls who have made it their mission to harass and disparage the group. I utterly condemn their sick behaviour.
Generally, Atheism Plus's reputation is not good in the community. This is a bit of a shame, as I would have liked to see it achieve at least some of its aims. I would be interested to see the level of take-up of A+ registered user accounts - how many atheists are talking on the forums on a daily basis? I would also like to know the number or percentage of users who have been banned or suspended. Regardless, in the future, we may be able to look back and see that A+ was a necessary step, a first iteration, on the path to a more inclusive group for those godless people who want to see secularism and social justice promoted. Maybe it will encourage Humanism to evolve (not that I think it particularly needs to at the moment). The least I can say about it is that it's an interesting social experiment!
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