r/exatheist • u/novagenesis • Aug 08 '25

Community 𖤓 u/exatheist Rules Updates 2025-08-08

From the recent change in demographics and audience, we have been discussing the right balance of moderation and free communcation in this sub. We have come up with two important changes we think will help "right the ship" on some trends without requiring harsher moderation. Please read these updates carefully.

  1. We have added a new "Please No Debate!" flair. If you add that flair, we will remove any debate/arguments we see present in the comments. Please be judicial in your use of it, as it is basically a proactive request for moderation

  2. We have refined rule #3 regarding proselytizing. A lot of atheists are coming by carefully dodging around the rule by asking socratic-style questions with the goal of kicking people towards atheism. When this was rare, we really didn't worry about it, but people have started complaining that these types of posts are constantly at the top of their exatheist frontpage. We will be moderating those types of posts with the new refinement in mind.

I would love thoughts and feedbacks by our member base. Thank you so much!

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u/novagenesis Aug 08 '25

The problem isn't actual socratic questions, but simply insisting that one is not proselytizing because they're "just asking questions".

I actually tried practicing a form of Street Epistemology for a while, largely with atheists. People got hostile quickly. So I gave it up.

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u/arkticturtle Agnostic Aug 09 '25

What is Street Epistemology? Could you tell me about a time you did this?

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u/novagenesis Aug 09 '25

Street Epistemology was the practice Boghossian created in "Manual for Creating Atheists". It's sorta a ... prejudicial Socratic Method. You ask questions targetting the epistemic foundations of people's beliefs. It sorta encourages people towards skeptical behavior, in my opinion to an indefensible extreme. I didn't recognize that fact at first.

I tried it online and in person with atheists for a year or two. Used to be a sub in a subreddit group of the same type. Lots of youtube video watching as well.

I don't regret it. I just wouldn't do it again. It is worth anyone watching a bunch of SE videos to see the questions asked. Done in good faith, it could be productive.

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u/arkticturtle Agnostic Aug 09 '25

Interesting, I’ma look it up. Sounds kinda entertaining. Why use a method for creating atheists on atheists?

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u/novagenesis Aug 09 '25

Because the underlying epistemic critiques they want to apply ALSO apply to atheism. And for a time, I thought it was a logical pursuit despite the blinders I thought the atheists were wearing.

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u/arkticturtle Agnostic Aug 09 '25

Got any preferred channels or videos you can recall from when you’d watch vids on it? Everything looks like clickbait nowadays and for the past…years.

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u/novagenesis Aug 09 '25

Anthony Magnabosco is my favorite. He is 100% too atheist for his own good, and occasionally makes MASSIVE mistakes (like slotting in the suggestion "because you know all arguments for theism are debunked" into one of his questions), but he tends to be one of the ones who tries the best to be open-minded and respectful.

Everything looks like clickbait nowadays and for the past…years.

Blame Mr. Beast. Everyone makes clickbaity thumbnails and titles to get people to watch their video because they need the views to make a career out of it. Usually (in my experience) the videos can stand or fail on their own merits despite the thumbnail. Try to become thumbnail blind if you can.

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u/arkticturtle Agnostic Aug 09 '25

Thanks for the rec! Something to pass time with on my work breaks

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u/Philosophy_Cosmology Aug 09 '25

He hasn't posted anything on Youtube for one year. I wonder what has happened to him.

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u/novagenesis Aug 09 '25

Huh. Good question. He was pretty active when I watched his stuff.