h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Ed, I thought you would be a good person to speak to. I have been quite upset by everything on the Dawkins thread. I feel that what has been a precious and interesting opportunity to discuss fascinating topics has been consistently derailed by someone with an incredibly unpleasant and calculating and destructive mentality.

And what has really upset me tonight is that disgusting homophobic message that Vicky left for me that I posted on your 'Egbert' thread has suddenly disappeared with no explanation. I'm more upset about that almost than the original message, coming as it does from someone with her vitriolic anti gay attitudes. I feel it should stay there for people to see what she's really like. I feel treated like a child by it just disappearing with no explanation. It has really upset me. That woman really is something, and she does pull the wool over some peoples' eyes, even myself to a degree when I told you I sometimes felt fond of her.

But no longer. I'm going to do my very best to ignore her from now on.

But who should I contact at h2g2 about the disappearance of the message with no explanation to me? I tell you it makes me feel so angry. I'm going to keep a copy of it and maybe post it in a journal, I feel so angry.

Please could you advise.

I maybe should add that underneath it all, her and to a degree other theists attitudes have hurt me more than I let on. I try to laugh things off to a degree as is my style. I honestly compare that behaviour to racism. And do feel angry that mods just stepped in because of my losing patience and yet it is perfectly acceptable for her to post that stuff. I really don't know what to do for the best. I know you may just tell me to forget it and move on. But its really hard to swallow and accept that this site's authorities care more about silly playground insults than homophobia which attacks someone at the heart of their identity. I tell you I really am just so hurt and upset.

Sorry to bother you with this, but I just HAD to speak to someone here about it, Please try to understand.

"this site's authorities care more about silly playground insults than homophobia which attacks someone at the heart of their identity. "

In the first instance, I can only say don't be too hung up by moderation decisions. Many years ago this site was something of a community sort of place, and those in charge dealt with problems like this personally, as in, under their own names and on an individual basis.

And it doesn't work.

They just get drawn into the unpleasantness, and it perpetuates. Hence the withdrawal behind faceless accounts and the silence about why things are done. Don't worry about it, but don't think of moderation as being done by people - it's being done by poorly paid bureaucrats, not humans like you and me.

Secondly, Vicky's attitudes don't attack your identity. Her attitudes, like her personal idea of a god, are something going on entirely in her own head, affecting and affected by nothing outside that particular bone box.

Your very existence, and happiness with it, despite your "perversion", do, however, strike at *her* sense of identity. Think about it - her world view *requires* that you are "disordered", and therefore deeply unhappy (whether you realise it or not - however that's supposed to work...).

To be presented, over and over again, with evidence of all types, scientific as well as anecdotal, that human sexuality is not as she would wish it to be, is clearly upsetting for her, as it is for many superstitious people.

She does not deserve your fondness, your indulgence, or even your attention unless you choose to use her for entertainment. On some level, though, she deserves your pity. She certainly has mine - although not as much as her children have...

SoRB

H2g2 is a very good location for learning how to deal with certain types of people and also extend and deepen ones ability to think logically about problems and how to define and explain your beliefs about various things.

Use Della/Vicky/Whatever as something that will allow you to stop feeling angry when confronted by such people: anger leads to pain and pain leads to stress and only YOU will be affected. Della thrives on the negativity that she creates she does not get stress from it but some sort of buzz. You need to a) be able to deal with her without getting angry and b) attempt not to give her the victim fixes she so craves.

The only person who can dispel the anger is yourself. Of course, there will be some good books etc on coping with these sorts of things and are worth reading. She isn't worth you getting stressed out but is worth using it as an attempt to deal with situations in a less personally destructive manner.

Basically, she isn't going to go away, no-one is going to do anything to stop her (especially now that Ed has unfortunetly turned any attempt into a 'vendetta' by mentioned the word and connecting it to a suggestion of how we can solve the trolling problem.

Thanks for both of your replies. They make a lot of sense and I shall think about the whole thing in a slightly different context now.

And it helps to feel supported psychologically by people you respect.

I think that should have been.

And it helps me in psychological way to feel supported by people you respect. Anyway I'm sure you get my drift...I'm feeling a lot more cheerful today than last night, visiting hootoo.

The "God Dellusion" meme goes way beyond simply belief in a creator though as it is a validation for every erronious though you can squeeze into those roomy religious gowns.

It instills and allows for a reactionary mindset in many of those afflicted by it. Hopefully one day saying you believe in the bigG will be categorized as a mental illness so that at least those people can be offered *some* help (NHS funding permitting).

Im serious here. Ive seen the knots it ties people up in regarding their lives. People who have become suicidal because their natural instincts went against what their religion had to say. Not just that there is the bitterness as evidenced by she of a thousand names. Then there's the wrong headed religion guided miscalculations about the effectiveness of prayer and the power of faith. Worst of all the bile driven multifarious and nefarious interpretations of what God wants people to do for Him in His name all without ever having to consider their actions because it is "God's will".

She cant bare the thought that her ideology is flawed.

Imagine how that must feel; you thought you were building your life on a rock but it turns out to be sand. Worse still in her mind is the realisation that others do not have to emotionally punish themselves as she has felt compelled to for her own actions. For all the things I could have a dig at Fergie and Diana for I respect them for walking away from bad relationships despite the fact that most other people thought they were out of their heads. They stand up pretty well next to the simpering wife "standing by" their dsigraced politician husbands.

She cant bare the knowledge that her ideology is flawed musch less the prospect of admitting it to us or herself.

She's "flirted" with lesbian-ism (is that the word?), got pregnant outside marriage, time and again chuntered on about slapping this or that type of person (not to mention the death threats) oops just did!

There is one reseacher here who clearly doesnt love her neighbours, who bares false witness and generally is a pretty poor example of what she espouses are her own values. Where does she point the frustration and anger at her own failings? At the usual targets of people like her; other generations, other social classes, people who dont look like them in a certan persons case fat people. You have seen her go off at all her favourite whipping boys time and time again. She goes after you because she senses someone who she can make for a short time atleast feel worse than she does and in the way of the typical bully tries to make herself feel better by belittleing anyone she can.

We are the normal ones. Religion was a mental disorder or more accurately a useful ordering of the mind that served a purpose, that purpose largely having been served is it is now about as useful as the appendix and a whole lot more dangerous. Dangerous, like I said, not only for those who suffer directly from it but more often than not by those who become targets for the hate and violent rage it causes in people.

So in short *never* let the bastards grind you down, because they're just bastards, especially the "holier than thou" variety.

Well...I've been away for a day, doing good work on behalf of 'society'. (No, honest. I'm proud of today.) I return to 100 posts on TGD. None of them have advanced the argument. None have channged any minds.

I suggest that we all (self included) have a good, long think. Are we arguing
a) for a point of view?
b) against a person?

If we want, we can try and trash a person. IMHO, that's a hiding to nothing. I understand the frustrations, but a carefully crafted rebuttal on a website simply does not have the same impact as a punch in the face.

Alternately we can avoid the temptation of following others' agendas. We don't have to win every single skirmish. Let's just make our own points. Even better - let's say something *interesting*.

I realise that all this is easy for me to say. Nobody is attacking any of my innate characteristics (well, OK - the fat-ist comments touch a nerve ) - but let's keep the moral high ground, eh?

One last thing - I hear from back channels that Atheists are not giving a good impresiion on TGD. Some good, intelligent people see us as bullying. Right or wrong - we should bear this in mind.



Blicky. Pal. As a recovering mad person, I resent the equation of mental illness and religion. During my time in psychiatric hospitals, I have found that the distribution of Atheists and god-botherers is roughly the same as on the outside. Mental illness can be hard to define - but you know it when you see it. I've met many religious people, few of them ill. Wrong - but not ill.

Please - don't.

As ever Ed you give me food for thought. Good to have you back. I was feeling low and desperate last night when I first posted. And it has helped to have some rational input from intelligent people so I've been able to think better about how I was feeling and why. It has also helped to feel, less alone with my unhappiness about things that have been said.

In some ways this has clarified for me just how despicable homophobia is, inspired by faith or politics, and is as threatening to one's identity as racism.




Whatever it was on behalf of society, pat on back!

Can't tell you much - but it involved helping a wonderful, articulate, confident and very, very gay young man in a battle against budget-driven bureaucracy. Occasionally one meets someone who one feels privileged to have met. Today was my day.

It put a lot in perspective.

"One last thing - I hear from back channels that Atheists are not giving a good impresiion on TGD. Some good, intelligent people see us as bullying. Right or wrong - we should bear this in mind."

I'd just like to chime in at this point because I am one of these people so feel free to question me. I'll explain my point of view.

From my observation of the thread, there is very little doubt that the current nastiness is a result of attacks on Vicky, and not the other way around. She is surely responding in kind now, but that's not where it started. Now I can understand why people do it. She has strong opinions, many of which I find offensive like the comments about gays, women who aren't prudish about sex, fat people, etc. I can also understand that if someone has had a bad experience in their life because of something to do with religion, then they're liable to get pretty angry when someone comes in and starts telling them that God says that gay people are sinners, etc. But really, what I observed on that thread was bullying, and it was made personal by the atheist side. I can also understand that it's easy to get caught up in it. SoRB's repeated "explain what you mean by..." question was delicious and I almost got on the bandwagon with it, but it was also one part of a whole that added up to bullying.

Given that one of the criticisms of religion is the groupthink involved, we atheists should be particularly sensitive to this sort of thing.

Ah well I knew it was a mistake to come back here, before startrek starts.

I don't think you or plenty of other people on h2g2 have the first clue about just how utterly objectionable, despicable and foul Vicky's and other theists' views are Dogster. No doubt you'll think I'm exagerating but I'm sure in Germany in the thirties, reasonable people like you would be excusing nasty people ganging up on jew haters. In the middle ages when some weird old woman living on her own making good rational herbal medicines for her neighbours was suddenly seen as a witch, you'd have said she was making a silly fuss.

This is what people are excusing. So I don't really give a dam if people view people that have been treated like shite for centuries are now fighting back *HARD* with reason. Yes people will squeal. It's not nice having your fantasies so comprehensively challenged. And that's what we are basically doing on TGD thread, challenging with hard reason the utter irrational nonsense theists keep coming out with. And as corporal Jones always says, "They don't like it up 'em!"

As anyone you are welcome to your opinions Dogster. But I won't apologise for challenging really hard, scum views, whether they be religiously motivated or politically motivated.

It's probably really easy for you to somehow abstract the whole situation and see someone like me as a bully of *poor me * Vicky, who does her absolute upmost to contrive this situation because as 3dots says she gets a buzz. No doubt she'll be reading all this and get even more of one.

See some of us don't want to go through our whole life being victims. We don't the buzz, the thrill from that. We don't spend all our time manipulating situations so that we end up as the poor poor victim, that everyone feels so so sorry for.

Some of us have a hell of a lot more self respect. Even that upsets some people. Tough!

I've just realised that this thread was one where you came to ask Ed for advice because you were feeling upset, and so I guess that makes the message I posted in rather bad taste, for which I apologise.

However, I can't let this go:

"... I'm sure in Germany in the thirties, reasonable people like you would be excusing nasty people ganging up on jew haters."

With respect Effers, can you see how this sort of thing might come across to someone else? It seems that to even suggest that it was the atheists and not Vicky that started the nastiness is enough to get one labelled as a potential Nazi collaborator.

Since you've accused me of something quite so horrible, I feel compelled to respond. You have completely misunderstood my character. That wouldn't be a problem - after all, you don't know me - except that you feel happy to make a statement like the one above. You might get a more accurate picture from this blog entry I wrote last year in which I speculate about what conditions would make me take up arms against my government:

http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/dangoodman/entry/first_they_came/

In fact, I recently bought three hefty tomes on the early years of Nazism because I want to understand how it is that a country can come to do something like that. Far from being someone who would be blasé and passive about issues like this, I am actively trying to understand them to help resist such a state of affairs in the future (which I think is a real danger at the moment).

There really are people out there seriously suggesting that we should single out a religious group, take away their civil liberties, etc. It's not me though, it's people like Sam Harris and (recently came to my attention) Martin Amis, who many see as some sort of heroes of a new atheist enlightenment.

Whereas in the UK there is next to no chance of the religious taking control of the country, there is a very real danger that we could end up with a country in which Muslims are treated as second class citizens, and the vehement anti-theists with their equation of religious belief and terrorism are helping to do that.

"And that's what we are basically doing on TGD thread, challenging with hard reason the utter irrational nonsense theists keep coming out with."

At it's best, this is what the TGD thread does. But there hasn't been so much of that recently. Perhaps you'll blame Vicky, but here's another view: she's provided plenty of irrational material that could have been responded to with rationality. Her joining the thread could have been a showcase for the strength of the rationalist, atheist viewpoint over the religious one. Her ignoring arguments and misunderstandings of evolution could have been an illustration of why religious belief is so misguided. Instead, the overwhelming impression that anyone could have from reading that thread is that both sides are as bad as each other.

"But I won't apologise for challenging really hard, scum views, whether they be religiously motivated or politically motivated."

Well then why don't you stick to challenging the views, and not the person?

"It's probably really easy for you to somehow abstract the whole situation and see someone like me as a bully of *poor me * Vicky, who does her absolute upmost to contrive this situation because as 3dots says she gets a buzz."

Surely a rational atheist takes responsibility for their own actions?

I don't dislike you Effers, and I don't hold you uniquely responsible for the bullying that went on in that thread, but you did participate in it and I think you should know that. If I was bullying someone, I would want to know about it.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the Star Trek. I'm just finishing working my way through the last season of DS9 at the moment. It's much the best season, although for me it's always TNG first.

Oh god I'm going to be up all night at this rate. I was just going to bed and the checked this thread. Anyway thank god it's saturday tomorrow.

Sorry I may have gone a little overboard, about the nazi thing. Apologies. I suppose I only used that example because I truly believe that is what any sort of irrationality in thinking, be it religious or politically based can ultimately lead to. it happened not more than 60 to 70 years ago in a western civilised European country. And of course huge numbers of women were burnt at the stake a few hundred years ago. And I've been watching the intelligent design film recently from roy's link and been totally shocked to just what a degree quite extreme christianity has taken a hold of large sectors of US society. For this to happen in a modern highly educated society is truly shocking. It shows just what can happen if irrationality is not challanged very strongly. I do believe it's almost a war situation because I live in an area in London where evangelical churches are sprnging up at an alarming rate. And have had personal experience of just how destructive these people can be. I've mentioned a few times how my friends 6 year old daughter was literally bullied from the school by the born again christians. YES a 6 year old child.

I am very feisty by nature, and cannot abide to think of myself as a victim. So maybe I get extra aggressive to sort of protect myself from feeling like that sometimes.

Anyway I'll chat more tomorrow with you. Sorry once again for getting a bit insulting. I'm not so bad really you know. I've even sometimes been called quite a loving person but shh don't tell anyone.

Yes I really need to go to bed too! Eek! And it's an hour later here in France than in the UK, so I have one hour's less excuse than you.

Dogster I'd prefer not to continue this conversation here. But I accept your apology for realising your post was a bit in bad taste given what I came to discuss with Ed.

>>I don't hold you uniquely responsible for the bullying that went on in that thread, but you did participate in it and I think you should know that. If I was bullying someone, I would want to know about it.<<

To start now calling me and unknown others a participator in bullying, seems highly ironic. Bullying a nasty manipulative homohobe, fat phobe, american phobe, to name just a few of her qualities, isn't something I'm that bothered about, even if I accept your accusation of bullying.

Anyway I'm already starting to say more than I intended.

**Why don't you start a special thread about it, Dogster, where we can maybe all discuss this issue? Either on your space or Ed's? I'd certainly participate. Another reason I actually don't really want to discuss much more of anything here, is because I'm embarrassed by the rather pathetic title I gave it. But then at the time I feeling pretty upset about her really poisonous attitudes and behaviour.

That thread sounds like a good idea.

OK we can move thread. Please feel free to start one on my PS. I'm going to be travelling from Sunday to Wednesday though, and I don't yet know if I'll have access to the internet, so if I don't reply immediately - that's why.

Well there's not much point me doing it Dogster, because I don't see it from your POV as bullying, in a way that is unacceptable given the complete context of what's gone on, on the thread, even though I fully respect that you have a different perspective on things to me. It would only make sense for someone who has a reason to think it, or can even understand why such a view is held, Ed? to start the thread and give reasons to everyone why such a view is held that unfair bullying is going on.

Then we'd have something to debate.

Will get to this some other time. Busy just now.