PZ Myers Supports Ableism?

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Permalink Reply by Monica S. on October 28, 2011 at 6:44pm

Heh. Omg that bingo makes me itch.

I just read it and it made me cry. I was raised baptist, went to catholic school, and choice charismatic christianity when I hit about age 12. I was taught the same thing, but it went a bit further: even thinking about not doing good=hell.But it brings up a good point: doing good because it is the right thing to do. That mentally disabled man needs someone to take care of him. Someone loved him, but died. And well, some people don't want to be "bothered" unless some invisible person in a robe bothers them.

 

And apparently I'm an a-hole because I think calling a mentally retarded(can I say that?) person simple minded is perfectly fine.

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Permalink Reply by The Nerd on October 28, 2011 at 6:47pm

You seriously didn't even blink at the whole "man-boy" thing?  This is the rare case where I encourage you to read through the comments on the original post.  Plenty of people (beginning in comment #9) have explained where the post went wrong.

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Permalink Reply by Joel Klinepeter on February 27, 2012 at 2:09pm

I cringed hard at "man-boy"...

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Permalink Reply by Pirate Bard on February 27, 2012 at 2:39pm

Not defending the post, but you do realize that PZ has stated before how he picks those "Why I am an Atheist" posts, and it's rather arbitrary.  He opens the folder, randomly scrolls, randomly picks, and posts.  He may read them first (I don't know), but I'm pretty sure the only criteria for getting posted is random chance and not being an obvious theist troll.

I think it's a little unfair to say PZ supports Ableism due to a random person's story being posted under the "Why I'm an Atheist" tag.  It doesn't strike me as a closely vetted publication for the blog, nor did I ever expect that the views and opinions expressed therein were necessarily those of PZ himself.

Like I said, not defending the post, just pointing out that I don't think it's fair to point to that post and claim it shows PZ is the one who is Ableist, or even supports Ableism.  

If anything it just shows the diversity there can be among atheists, which, I believe, is the entire point behind the posts under the "Why I'm an Atheist" tag.

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Permalink Reply by Steph S. on February 27, 2012 at 6:01pm

Enjoyed reading that -- thanks for posting.

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