OnlySky is getting shit wrong already

And, I'm here to gloat.

OnlySky Media was founded by the atheist contingent formerly at Patheos after Patheos essentially said, they say, that they had to be nice to theists.

So, they formed their own sandbox. And, to be honest, there's a fair amount not to like.

First, when I decided, hey, since I missed out on Patheos atheists' rise to fame, and a few bucks, and then got blocked from commenting by not-a-bible-scholar Gnu Atheist Neil Carter (one of the OnlySky gang), let's see if I can't hook up there, especially since they say they're open for contributors. (More on individual contributors getting shite wrong below.)

In their request for submissions, they say:

New columnists are added continually based not only on quality but on whether the proposed column fills an unmet need. We already have religious criticism pretty well covered.

Uhh, no, as I note below.

The individual wrongs already?

In excoriating Kyrsten Sinema, Marcus Johnson talks about "secular values." Really? Not all secularists identify as secular humanists, and thus, there IS NO SUCH thing as secular values.

The lie is put more bluntly by Adam Lee:

Wrong, again, wrong!

Robert M. Price is a secularist, unless he's actually founded a church of Cthulhu. He's also, from what I can tell, a racist.

In the opening paragraph, Lee lies about the so-called "Nones":

The most significant, most overlooked story of the 21st century is the meteoric growth of the nonreligious, also called the “nones” (as in “none of the above”). Our numbers are rising every year, to the point that for the first time ever, Americans without membership in any house of worship constitute a majority.

First, as documented by Pew and blogged here, the Nones have flatlined in the last couple of years. Second, Pew et al don't define "Nones" as people who don't have an official membership in a church denomination, so, lying by redefinition there. 

That then leads to the lies about secularist values ...

The “nones” don’t all share a philosophy or belief system. Some are atheist, some are agnostic, some simply don’t care for organized religion, and some find the whole question irrelevant to their lives. What we do have in common—more so than you might expect—is a value system: a morality that puts human needs and human happiness first.

Wrong, wrong, wrong! (See "Robert M. Price" above.)

But, either Adam Lee really likes conflating ideas to expand envelopes, or he really likes slippery slope type thinking, or something. In another piece touting the glorious wonders of OnlySky, he conflates Nones and unbelievers, which is flat wrong.

In another piece, a "Captain Cassidy" makes this claim:

Officially, Calvinism is a sort of add-on software module or DLC for Protestantism. Any Christian Protestant church can adopt Calvinism and still consider itself Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Baptist, or whatever else. That characteristic makes Calvinism very versatile.

Erm, NO. Even within ELCA Lutheranism, even with it in fellowship with the Reformed Church of America, such an idea would be rejected. Conservative Lutherans would reject it while laughing at it. And, good conservative Calvinists would laugh at it, too.

As for contributors? I've already noted Neil Carter. James Croft? As noted at my main blog, a semi-Gnu. (OTOH, he has at times pushed back against the worst of Ev Psych.) Jennifer Hecht? Her books are error-ridden; go see my Goodreads reviews. "Doubt" was meh, and, with yet more insight, at least tinged with the BuJew virus (sue me if you don't like that mash-up). "Stay: A History of Suicide" is simply loaded with wrongness about its subject.

As for having other things covered? Phil Zuckerman supposedly writes the Secular Symphony, but his vertical has nothing about classical music. (Update, one year later: His 10 most recent posts have ONE about music and it's not about classical music.) Jonathan M.S. Pierce, as already documented here in giving a guest poster space trying to defend Bart Ehrman's most recent book, or directly here, as linked there, cutting blank checks to Jesus mythicists, has gotten issues of biblical criticism wrong. And, I mean, easily identifiable as wrong. I identify him as being a semi-Gnu, like Croft. (Update, one year later: In writing about things like "Putin's Russian sacrifice at the Chinese altar," too cute by half, he's himself decided to sacrifice at the US-NATO altar of abomination of desolation. And, within religion, his piece claiming circumcision is a mark of slavery is full of holes on issues such as his ignoring acts of religion as cost-paying signaling.)

And, I don't like needing to register to comment, rather than them using Disqus, or Wordpress commenting if they're on a Wordpress backbone, or whatever. Plus, unlike with Disqus, for example, I don't know if I have the ability to block commenters. Or to find out what stupidity they write elsewhere. Also, the sign-up page also has a "Support" link, which makes me wonder about being spammed with donation solicitations. (Unherd on politics cheesed me off when I found that registering via email still didn't let me comment; rather, it's like Slutstack that way.)

I'm feeling like once a month or so, for a while, I'll be kicking OnlySky in the nads, as I doubt they're going to approve my ideas pitches or anything related to them. I had talked about secular poetry, but if that's part of Hecht's gig, they're not going to likely ink me for that.

My impression is of politer, gentler turd-polishers of atheism than Gnu Atheist BSers like P.Z. Myers, yet with the same end goal in mind. Soon enough, the wrongful claim that atheists have either moral or skeptical superior standing will be more explicitly leveled, I'm sure.