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| Lookin' good Bill. |
I first noticed this phenomena during the great chalk controversy of '10, primarily on Reddit. The first group I saw answering the links said, in a nutshell, Why bother? No one cares. Waste of time! At first I suspected that group might be right- but we know how wrong that turned out to be. The second group showed up in no time. This literacy-compromised Michael Habnab featured in the video linked above, should be pleased with the CBS-given title "Bus Rider" as that might be the greatest title he can aspire to in life. In the video he says ""I don't think it should be publicly advertised bashing other peoples beliefs." Asserting that one can be moral without religion is an intolerable insult, due to the unspoken but implicit premise that the immorality of atheism is sacred dogma not to challenged.
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| WCIA also pointed out MTD has our back |
Cognitively challenged people like Michael Habknob silence the former group as well as prove beyond any shadow of a doubt that what we do here desperately needs to be done. Thank you, Micheal Jibjab.
And thank you Sophia Beausoleil. Read WCIA's write-up of the story here.
8 comments:
While Mr. Habhab is clearly mistaken in his opinions, perhaps we should try to reach out to people like him. I'm curious if he would be willing to defend such statements if pressed.
Interestingly enough, I know Mike and he is actually non-religious. I have no idea how he ended up coming off as a religious die hard, but that could not be farther from the truth. While I am non-religious myself and support the bus ads, I think this post was written with ill taste. Mocking Mike's name, which is foreign, is rude and contributes nothing as a counter-argument. Likewise, saying he will never amount to much in life is baseless. I will agree that Mike did not say much worth discussing, but taking his statement and making fun of his grammar and his name only belittles your own purpose. I understand the point the author was trying to make, but his insulting jabs at Mike were completely unnecessary and make him come across as petty. I find it very ironic that all of these things were written in a post tagged "tolerance."
Kristen-
I see where you're coming from. Referring to Mike as "cognitively challenged" may have been a bit much... Certainly, having an opposing viewpoint does not mean he suffers from some sort of mental disability. That being said, I don't think there's any reason to pretend that we find his viewpoint to be equally valid -- we don't. As for the jabs at his name, they're all in good fun. No offense was intended, and I'm sure Mike is not personally affronted that his name vaguely resembles the word "Jibjab". I think we can all agree that that would be unreasonable.
I didn't write this post, but I'll stand by the statements made. You're right, though. There is not counter-argument in this particular entry. See this one instead: http://uiucatheists.blogspot.com/p/secular-samaritan.html
Thanks for the link, Rebecca. Like I said, I support you guys and do think it is important to try to quell incorrect stereotypes about non-religious people. I think maybe Mike was thinking that the bus ads were a smear campaign against religious people, as if they were saying that religious people cannot be good--perhaps he saw the one with Pat Robertson? I'm not sure if that one actually ran on a bus or not. No matter what his intentions, I agree Mike's comments were off base and I'm not supporting what he said. I just think that if we want to continue the debate that morality without religion is indeed possible and very present in the world, then we should take care not to stoop to the level that the other side has been known to do. Anyway, I enjoy reading the blog, and have been thinking of coming to a meeting one of these weeks.
I wrote it, Kristen. Let's clear some things up.
1. I never called Michael religious nor a "religious die-hard" as you put it.
2. This wasn't a rebuttle or attempt at argument.
3. "tolerance" is something that needs to exist between groups, not between individuals. It does not preclude you or anyone from disliking or disagreeing with anyone else.
4. pokes at his name and the foolishness of his remarks are meant to be mocking & humorous.
This is a stylistic choice, but also any time you go on TV and proclaim that saying "xyz is a good person and irreligious" is identical to "bashing religion" then you deserve to take a few lumps. Maybe he was having an off day, but social karma doesn't care, and neither do I.
Edward--
I understand your attempt to make the article humorous. I just think you had plenty of material from Mike's comments alone to work with and didn't need to resort to his name. Stylistic choice or not, in my opinion I think mocking his comments would have contributed more to your post. But that's just my personal opinion; you are certainly entitled to your own.
Also I did not accuse you of saying Mike was religious. From personal experience, the beliefs he expressed are typically ones I have heard before from friends who classify themselves as very religious people. To me, Mike came across as a religious person, and my pointing that out in my comment was simply from my own confusion about why Mike said the things he did in that interview since I know they contradict his personal beliefs about religion.
As far as tolerance goes, I would say that since this was not a personal issue against Mike, simply the group (of people who believe atheists are immoral) he represents in this particular article, that it should apply here. Irregardless, I'm not sure I agree with you that tolerance does not apply between individuals. Tolerance is not the same thing as agreeing with another person's opinion or liking that person.
But you are right, by saying those things on air (and they really did make no sense at all--I wonder if the reporter cut the footage strangely or something), Mike certainly deserved to take some heat. That's not what I criticized the article about.
Ah okay I just watched the video in addition to reading the article and that Michael is a different one from the one I know. Makes more sense now.
I'm gonna jump in one more time and point out that the Pat Robertson panel was something someone on Reddit threw together to briefly make our ads a meme, and it was only ever meant to be darkly humorous (in a this-would-be-funny-if-it-weren't-so-true sort of way).
This was never at any point a smear campaign, nor will it become one.
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