A genuinely awful opinion from a genuinely awful person. He repeatedly harasses people with the same bullshit over and over and over when theyâve made it clear that they donât want to talk to him. Heâs even registered a new Twitter account to get around a block so he can fling personal abuse (Boghossian adopted a child from China, which Torres was definitely aware of).
None of this would matter if Phil was just some guy with Aspergerâs Syndrome shouting at a wall. Unfortunately for their readers, Phil is a writer for Salon, who appears to have special responsibility in areas about which he has so little competence that he must surely qualify as an example of the Dunning-Kruger Effect.Â
The reason heâs targeting these people is unconnected with any of the reasons heâs given. It involves his unintentionally hilarious âreviewâ of The Conceptual Penis, but Iâm not getting into it here because itâs not relevant to anything Iâm saying.
1. There is nothing whatsoever in atheism that âenablesâ people to sexually assault women. There is certainly nothing right-wing or anti-feminist about it. Iâm sure there are right-wing, anti-feminist people who are atheists, but as there is no organised movement, and atheists tend to disagree about pretty much everything apart from whether or not a god exists, the claim that itâs a problem âwith atheismâ is incoherent.Â
This fundamental misunderstanding of atheism is unforgivable coming from someone who gets paid to write about it. Â
If Lawrence Krauss or Michael Shermer are guilty of sexual assault, then they should face consequences for those crimes. I donât care that theyâre atheist, because âatheismâ is not an organisation of any kind which could be used to justify, defend or cover up these crimes. Itâs like saying that theyâre both not fans of the Green Bay Packers. It might be true, but itâs irrelevant information.
2. Free speech does not mean forcing someone to listen to you. Free speech means that no one can stop you expressing your opinions, at least not legally. If someone blocks you on Twitter, that is not a violation of your freedom of speech. It just means that person does not want to hear anything from you. I am very close to a free speech absolutist, and Iâve blocked literally hundreds of people on Twitter, Facebook and tumblr.Â
To believe that you have a right to someone elseâs audience is such an entitled position that I have no problem in characterising it as sinister and creepy.
This fundamental misunderstanding of freedom of speech is unforgivable coming from someone who gets paid to write about it.
