A few days ago I wrote about a blog entry by PZ Myers in his blog in which he wrote:
Once again, I have proven my ability to drive people into a frothing rage against me. Only this time it isn’t a mob of religious fanatics and anti-choicers who have called me pond scum who will go to hell, an insect souled vile man, a black-souled amoral monster, pure evil, morally depraved, with a depraved mind, descend[ing] down the various stages into madness, and so forth…but I have this time managed to antagonize a bunch of atheists. Feel my pain.
I noted that it was a pretty interesting perspective on the factions in modern Atheism, as Myers saw it. Nonetheless, I thought, and still think, it’s all about Myers being the center of attention.
But I missed a key word that was detonator among his fellow Atheist bloggers: hate.
Vjack, over at Atheist Revolution, has named him Idiot of the Week. He writes:
Not satisfied with antagonizing religious believers, PZ has decided to go after those of us who understand the meaning of atheism. We are "superficial," and he hates us. Rather than say that he disagrees with us or that he thinks we are wrong, PZ decided to jump directly to hate.
He says he hates people who disagree with him. Does he? His linguistic venom, often directed towards Roman Catholics and Creationists, suggests that maybe he really does. I’m not sure. I’m thinking it is all about ego.
My name is Dan Porter. I have always believed in God. And I have always been a Christian, which means I have always believed, at some level of understanding, Christian assertions about Christ. But during all of my adult life—I am now 68—I have struggled with many seeds of doubt brought on by modern science, objective history, the question of why a loving God would allow so much suffering in the world and difficulties with seemingly conflicting moral precepts. 
I'ld say you guys (clergy and other believer bloggers) really have problems understanding what someone like PZ Myers is really like, or how he thinks, judging from many of the comments I've seen about PZ Myers recently. It seems an inability to understand where a general member of the public is coming from.
Various points:
- I wouldn't in your place over-estimate "factions" among atheists. There is only one split among atheists that really matters, and because by and largely atheists are not formally organized, and atheism is largely a very loose mass phenomenon and not an organization, that essential split is often concealed by all sorts of things. Nonetheless, the split does not affect much of the overall atheist critique of religion, though it does affect very much what one wants to do about religion.
- PZ Myers doesn't really "hate". He sneers, gets defensive, has a bit of an inferiority complex hidden away there, and in my very personal opinion after knowing him for over 10 years, he's more than a fair bit of a twit. Nonetheless, he doesn't (usually) "hate". He despises, grandstands, trivializes, postures, etc., and sometimes on rare occasions he actually shows some genuine feeling (and gets almost likeable on those occasions). But he by and large does not "hate", and the atheists making comments about him hating on atheists this time round are far more betraying their own agitprop angle and their own inferioity complexes than saying anything real about PZ.
- yes, a lot of it is ego. But it wouldn't be successful unless it was tapping into a general public mood. And dealing with that public mood genuinely is essential for clergy and believers such as yourself; but that precisely is what will not happen for the most part.
Posted by: Gurdur | February 08, 2011 at 05:02 AM