http://i.imgur.com/FPtXkAv.jpg
February 2011:
Dictionary Atheists. Boy, I really do hate these guys. You’ve got a discussion going, talking about why you’re an atheist, or what atheism should mean to the community, or some such topic that is dealing with our ideas and society, and some smug wanker comes along and announces that “Atheism means you lack a belief in gods. Nothing more. Quit trying to add meaning to the term.†As if atheism can only be some platonic ideal floating in virtual space with no connections to anything else; as if atheists are people who have attained a zen-like ideal, their minds a void, containing nothing but atheism, which itself is nothing. Dumbasses.
If I ask you to explain to me why you are an atheist, reciting the dictionary at me, you are saying nothing: asking why you are a person who does not believe in god is not answered when you reply, “Because I am a person who does not believe in god.†And if you protest when I say that there is more to the practice of atheism than that, insisting that there isn’t just makes you dogmatic and blind.
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011 ... n-atheist/
dogmatic: characterized by or given to the expression of opinions very strongly or positively as if they were facts
He was an intellectual train-wreck then. He's an intellectual train-wreck now.
Such as his attempts at redefining atheism (a well defined word) to include his particular views on what we 'should' or 'ought' to do if we self-identify as atheists. At best he's made a confused line of reasoning where he fails to see that it is an argument of personal preferences (fallacy of argumentum ad personam) cut of the same cloth as those he dismisses.
But, even that is too charitable because his argument is also one of an attempted fallacy of argumentum ad baculum (force; the bully pulpit he uses) and really shows him to be nothing more than a fat bag of hubris.
What he ignores, conveniently of course, is that we have 'definitions' of words for a reason -- effective communication through the shared signification (meanings) of the words that comprise our common language. Something that's been well understood for centuries and without which, as Locke pointed out all those centuries ago, the achievement of human knowledge is often hampered by the use of words without proper 'signification' (exact meaning).
This is why, for example, STEM fields use exact words with proper and precise definitions. To do otherwise would make it virtually impossible to train or communicate with others.
Dick Feynman talked about something similar in
'Surely You're Joking..." He didn't like some of the symbols of calculus (dx/dy for example), so he invented his own. Then when he was working with someone they were like "what the hell is that?" I'm sure Feynman's symbols were well constructed and an improvement over tradition. BUT, nobody else knew them and he could not show his work as it were, so he went back -- lesson learned.
So he learned an important lesson -- definitions, words and symbols mean something and to change them or reinvent them has its peril, one of which is the inability to communicate with others. Another, of course, is to blindly go down the rabbit hole of Post Modernism where everything is fluid and stands for nothing so you can redefine reality, no matter how stupid about it you are, as you see fit.
And a lesson Paul continues to fail to learn, letting us know that Paul is certainly no Dick Feynman...
Anyway, smarmy digs at Paul aside, as we can see he's not quite the clever thinker he thinks he is as he indicts himself by charging others with dogmatism as he engages in his mirror-imaged dogmatic (and unsupported) belief that atheism requires certain positive beliefs, behaviors and attributes. All of which that just so happen to coincide perfectly with his SJW ways...
