Saturday, April 17, 2010

Quote of the Day

There's a cliche that I hear all the time, and that I despise because it is so trite — organizing atheists is like herding cats. I die a little inside every time I hear it because it is so old, but also because it is inaccurate. Everyone seems to picture masses of willful domestic cats wanting to scurry off to play with yarn or chase down mice; it's just not right. Organizing atheists is like herding lions, or at least ideally it should be. What we want is a community of fiercely independent, roaring, wrestling, arguing, fighting freethinkers; cross them, and you will get rhetorically mauled, and our battles are not about polite batting about with little kitty paws at issues, but should involve claws and fangs and uncompromising forcefulness. Everyone who is complaining that the harshness of the debate degrades the discourse, get stuffed; I think the call to weaken the vigor of the disagreement is the real degradation here. - PZ Myers

It reminds me of the Liberals who give Obama a free pass on heinous policy because he is supposedly "one of us". That's stupid. There is no "one of us".

Myers is annoyed that people who consider themselves "free thinkers" are essentially making the same argument. It's stupid. Nobody gets a pass from criticism for any reason. The highly annoying thing is that "free thinkers" should know that. It's, you know, one of the hallmarks of the philosophy.

But then.. most people can't reason their way out of a wet paper bag... no matter their ideological persuasion.

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