I have no idea why Larry (whom I know personally) cast this as Accommodationism vs. Confrontationism, since neither he nor the articles he links to actually discuss that polarity, and it's the first time I have heard that connection suggested. Ian Blackfield's post summarizes the concerns as I have heard them expressed: management issues at the Toronto office and Justin's involvement in Men's Rights Activism. (Full disclosure: as my "Homepage" indicates, I am a member of CFI Ottawa).

To quote a song that  pre dates me "I've looked at clouds from both sides now"

If we are to be consent with science, then it can never be either/or. Even entropy will never create a perpetual motion machine.

The truth is that humans, despite their differences are really more alike than they want to admit. We all want the basics. We all want food, shelter and a means of survival and the company of loved ones. Where we fuck each other over time after time is the dispute of HOW to do that, and confuse labels as being the important issue.

For me, it's empirically correct vs non-empirically correct regardless of whether they're confrontational or accomidist.

Personally, I think we should work more on the message, then worry about the delivery.

It's also hypocritical to be confrontationalist and demand accomodationalists accomodate you.

 No it isn't and saying that makes you sound much less intelligent than you really are. Your game is getting annoying, especially now that I know you're a liar.  I don't respect anything you say anymore.  It's through some crazy stroke of luck you're still posting here.  I promised to ban you if I found out you were lying in your drunk threads.  Stop tempting me.

Start thinking before you post your knee jerk negative reactions to everything I say.  I'm putting you on 3 day timeout because you wasted our time with a dishonest game on many a Friday nights with your fake drunk charades.  You can post again on Wednesday.

Here's the other post explaining the Pineapple timeout.

Reasonable Faith did a piece a last year commenting on atheists who dont...        "play nice" noting that they dont actually need to play nice and that this is irrelevant to questions of logic and reason.

But I think there actually is an inference one can draw from the hypocrisy of people who feign shock and horror about child abuse by people hiding in the clergy and who then make comments about anally raping Justin Bieber with razor wire. I think that goes beyond "confrontation" and not... "playing nice".

I think there is a clear connection between meanness of some atheists and the paucity of reason in their so-called arguments.

Intimidating your ideological opponent is NOT disconnected from purely rhetorical argument between different sides of the AvT debate.

When atheists dont "play nice" they are, more often than not, partaking in a brute logical fallacy...argumentum ad baculum. 

Agree with me or I will intimidate and abuse you.

Speaking of the ad baculum / confrontationalism problem...

• To avoid getting banned again, I now have to think more carefully about what I say,  (actually it’s more a question of how I say it,) when my ban gets lifted at rationalskepticism.org.  (Am I being inflammatory? Have I included the entire quote along with the small part of it to which I am responding? Is someone going to think I am deliberately misrepresenting them just because I misunderstood the meaning of what they said? Is it inflammatory because Lion IRC said it or would it be inflammatory no matter who said it? Are theists inherently more rude and inflammatory than atheists on the same forum? 
•  
• And that is a direct result of the fact that the ban/moderation in question has the potential ability to intimidate and project power
•  
• Whether or not they -  the moderations - were a function of some clearly defined, consistently applied, agreed set of posting rules is beside the point. I don’t think they were.  Most forums (fora) have some type of…we reserve/enjoy the right to “ban because we can” clause that is able to be used to camouflage unbridled emotion and anger.  
•  
• The fact remains, every future post I make over there is expected to be just that little bit more “gun shy”.
•  
• If you don’t want to get banned again you’ll need to be a little bit more “accomodationalist”.
•  
• And the net result would be yet another, ever-so-slight, tipping of the scales in favour of the wholly irrational echo chamber syndrome.
•  
• Look, Lion IRC agrees with me. He didn’t dispute what I said. He obviously knows I’m right. Look everyone. See how timid Lion IRC is. He must be starting to have doubts. Whatever happened to that Lion IRC dude who stopped coming here? Oh…I finally got the best of him and he gave up.  Probably ashamed to admit he’s slowly becoming an atheist.
•  
• But I will say what I want or I wont say anything at all. Because yielding to argumentum ad baculum is gutless.
•  
• And I’m not THAT type of Lion.

Oh yeah, well it's also hypocritical to be accomodationalist and confront confrontationalists that demand accomodationalists to accommodate to them........lol

There are many labels used to describe atheists. They range from the awkward, to the juvenile, the enlightening, the insulting, and the minimally  profound. Nevertheless, they are at least out there. Regardless of the axioms you use to define yourself with, you will eventually be 'labelled'. How someone reacts to this is entirely up to them.

I react by self-labelling and self-stereotyping. I also label others if not stereotype them outright. It's "a time saver!", and it happens.

As it happens, the primary label/moniker I use to indentify myself presently is Kapkao. I am an ostentacious defender and hardliner regarding Kapkaoism. (notice the developing irony)

Some subsets of schools of thought that I have could be described as: atheist, freethinker, secularist, misanthorpe, friendly guy, royal asshole, illuminati human sacrificer, Head of CIA(!), shape-shifting reptilian(!!), involved in mind control projects ("oh hell no"!!!), Works with Aquino (...the FUCK????), takes generic-brand welbutrin, has frequent dry mouth, chews gum to reduce bad breath and to focus.

Runs out of gum sometimes. Kicks ass only occassionally.

I'm mostly full of shit, (vaguely) stupid, and nucking futs. More to the point; familiarity with certain people will make them seem to function in predictable, seemingly mechanical ways at times. If you find someone to be beneath you, you will at least want to degrade them as well. What better way than to stereotype? If there were a suggestion I would give to atheists the world over to ponder, it would be "What is the most popular stereotype of atheism you consider there to be? How do you contribute to or take away from that stereotype? (and) What are you willing to do to break that cycle?" NO, not "what I think others should do to break it". That almost never works without a basic sort of organizational ability.

Thinking outside the box, however, works great in 1st person. The funny thing is that I'm no more dehumanized now than I would have been a few minutes before posting this. Probably wouldn't be dehumanized if someone else besides me decides to 'stereotype' my post content, either.

Food for thought.

Not even this kind of lion?

That's a crying shame, because... they make travel times easier. The fact that it's a troll means that it represents one of my toons, and having a troll on your account gives you a very tangible reason to roleplay an Online Troll, if you get my meaning.

I kinda rock at roleplaying at times, but suck at convincing people it's an act afterwards.

dp.

Unless the force is on your side?

I`m not accomodationalist

That much is clear.

Yup.

You're even weaker then accomodationists.

Just because I also confront atheists doesn't make me weak.

Oh thanks strawman for the response.

You confront atheists, you argue that we shouldn't confront theists.  You are an accomodationist.  A weak one.

 You are part of the problem.  You hinder productivity.  

That's a strawman of me. I never said don't confront theists. I said that we shouldn't use irrational claims when we confront theists. I've said this several times.

I critisize religion and you know it. The only difference is that I don't use irrational bandwagon claims. Want examples?

http://cptpineapple.wordpress.com/2010/09/20/protest-the-pope/

http://cptpineapple.wordpress.com/2011/08/05/creation-science-techniques-prove-evolution/

http://cptpineapple.wordpress.com/2011/01/19/does-religion-make-you-good/

http://cptpineapple.wordpress.com/2011/02/10/religious-terrorism/

http://cptpineapple.wordpress.com/2011/07/04/the-mind-of-god/

 Wow, how confrontational of you.  You wrote this about protesting the pope?

That's it?  Weak.

You are a horrible judge of rationality.

There is a veiled heir of disparagement towards atheist activism with much of what you type.  You hinder progress.

So it isn't rational to call the pope a jackass? What' irrational about it? I dealt with the pope's claims of whether religion makes you good in a different entry.

http://cptpineapple.wordpress.com/2011/01/19/does-religion-make-you-good/

Can you at least stop calling me an accomondationalist? Can you at least stop saying that I argue that we shouldn't critisize religion?

1. If I call the Pope a jackass, you will speak up that it's irrational.

2. When I said you were a bad judge of rationality it had nothing to do with you calling the Pope a jackass and everything to do with 5 years of experience with you.  I used to let you slide on your weak pathetic hindering bullshit.  

That's not confrontationalism.

If you're not an accomodationist, you're weaker than one.

I don't recall saying that.  But it sounds like you.  

You don't get to write 3 sentences on your blog a year ago that nobody reads and have that wipe the slate clean from all the activism you've attempted to stifle on this sites pages over hundreds of posts through many years.

Of all the people we helped leave theism behind you're the one I wish we wouldn't have.

What do you want me to do? What will prove that I'm not the person you think I am?

 Usually actions speak louder than words.  But in your case words speak louder than actions.  If you really feel you are not the person I think you are, then show me with your words over time.  In my estimation if you had let yourself use the full force of logic and rationality you should be much further along by now.  It took me a few days to abandon god after posting on an atheist forum, you held out for thousands of posts.  I no longer welcome your apathy.  

oh wait... just humor me... Do you think you are a confrontationalist?

Yes.

On a side note, I took physics and math at university. I know logic and reasoning thank you very much. I took an entire full year course in logic and writing proofs.

I held on to theism not because of lack of logic or rationality, but rather to rationalition.

Saddest, most baffling, and almost humorous thing I've heard in a while.

So.  You should know damn well that taking a course, maybe even getting 100% on it... does not mean you actually utilize logic and rationality... not well at least.  You don't.

Never heard that word, google and the dictionary don't seem to know it either.

If I recall correctly, your main complaint about is that I'm too confrontational of the atheist movement.

Find me a positive claim I've made that's irrational. You'll notice the majority of the time I am asking for evidence [and not getting it].

It's my misspelling of rationalization.

A VERY good book I suggest is Mistakes were made....but not by ME!

http://www.amazon.ca/Mistakes-Were-Made-But-Not/dp/0151010986/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1264206037&sr=1-2

It's on rationalization and how even smart and intelligent people can believe in silly things and stick to them.

We define confrontationalist as someone confronting religion/creationism.  Are you re-defining it?  You're claiming you are confrontationalist because you are confrontational of the atheist movement?  And you're doing so knowing well that everyone else is defining it differently?

You don't have to make a positive claim to be irrational.  You insinuating it is irrational.  So an example of irrational behavior?  The two sentences I just quoted.

My definition of confrontationalist is somebody who confronts irrational claims. The difference is that mine is regardless of whether it's from a christian, atheist, muslim, or hindu, regarding religion, politics, science or anything else. That's the one I use. Until now, I thought that was the one you used.

I think my definition is a good thing and better than your definition. Mine confronts all irrational claims, regardless of whether they're from christianity or the atheist movement or anywhere else. That's what skepticism and confrontation is all about. That's what you're suppose to do.

I'm using the dictionary definition of confrontation

con·fron·ta·tion  (knfrn-tshn)

(kn-frnt)

That is, I'm not re-defining confrontation or anything like that.

Oh BTW, by your definition, confronting me about my definition isn't confrontationalism because my claims are neither religious or creationist.

 Jesus Christ you're a troll.

Just reading / coffee.

But I cant resist making the observation that trolls are invariably only ever called that by people who disagree with the position taken by "the troll".  This seems true in all AvT forums (fora) no matter which side the "troll" is on.

Are we using the same definition or not?

The way you typed that implies that we should only confront religion to be a confrontationalist.  That's the way I read it.

Why are you drinking coffee in the middle of the night?

WTF do you think we are talking about here?  

An atheist group imploding because of the never ending debate between whether atheists should confront religion or if we should accomodate with religious people without confrontation.  

Forgive my lateness on this but is it the confronting itself that is at issue or is it a confrontational attitude?

I believe one can confront religion or anything else without being confrontational.

For me, it's the difference between an argument and a fight. I enjoy a good argument and can engage in one dispassionately. Fights can get personal and vicious quickly. 

This is what gets me. Noone on this planet can tell me with a straight face that there's no such thing as a confrontational theist. I find the suggestion that every time someone shoves a bible in my face or threatens my "soul", I should just bite my tongue and ignore them, insulting.

I NEVER start an argument on religion. I have never gone to a church or religious location/website and begun arguing that everyone there is a daydreamer. I don't introduce myself to people as an atheist. But the second someone starts talking to me about it I have carte blanche to say anything I want to. And NOONE can tell me otherwise without getting it ten times worse than the theist did, because they are at least ten times the stupid.