Well, I’m going to have to write off Richard Dawkins now. He’s been eaten by the brain parasites.
As Ophelia notes, he rushed to the aid of poor beleaguered Sam Harris in a flurry of poorly thought out, defensive tweets. I thought they were bad yesterday, but then overnight he topped them all. First, I think he was possessed by the bitter spirit of DJ Grothe.
Can it be true, some bloggers are paid by the click, and consequently fake outrage, or play the bully, in order to attract clicks? Hope not.
— Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) September 16, 2014
Can it be true, some bloggers are paid by the click, and consequently fake outrage, or play the bully, in order to attract clicks? Hope not.
Oh, please. Because criticizing some of the most influential Big Name atheists in the world is the path to fame and riches? This is perhaps the dumbest and most common of the accusations made against bloggers — and it’s simply not true. You get traffic by representing a popular point of view, and by acquiring a reputation as an authority on that perspective; controversies and arguments are side effects. When Richard Dawkins criticizes creationists, is he just doing it to draw the attention of the millions of American creationists? Or is it because he is honestly representing the position of an informed scientist? Imagine the laughter if Ken Ham announced that Neil deGrasse Tyson and Bill Nye were just poking at creationists to improve their Nielsen ratings.
Or how would an extremely popular author react to this claim?
Can it be true, some authors are paid by the book, and consequently fake outrage, or play the bully, in order to attract sales? Hope not.
You know, it’s true — authors are paid by the book. Therefore, everything they do must be simply advertising, ploys to drum up sales. Let’s just pretend that none of them have any honesty or integrity, or write to express what they actually think.
It’s also appalling that some people think that it’s a smart tactic to dismiss criticism by calling it “fake outrage”. Expressing honest disagreement is not “fake outrage”. That’s a cheap out; not only that, it’s a lie. No one has said that they are outraged or offended. Several of us have substantive disagreements with what Sam Harris has said, and explained why — rationally and calmly. Making a case for our position is not “fake outrage”.
As for bullying — since when is standing up to the two biggest names in the atheist movement a case of bullying? That’s simply delusional.
But wait! There’s more madness!
I had previously written an open letter to Richard Dawkins explaining that he’d made some serious mistakes about feminism — in particular, that it was an error to treat Christina Hoff Sommers as an authority.
Just for your information, Christina Hoff Sommers is an anti-feminist. She’s spent her entire career inventing false distinctions and spinning fairy tales about feminism. That whole “gender feminist” vs. “equity feminist” thing? It’s like microevolution vs. macroevolution. It’s an allusion to a real distinction, mangled into an unrecognizable mess, and presented as a rhetorical tool to permit attacks on the whole idea: “Oh, I believe in X, but not Y”. Doesn’t this sound at all familiar to you? It’s the whole standard creationist set of tropes, repackaged to support a dogmatic status quo!
Either he didn’t read it, or he did and he’s openly rejecting it, because here’s the most awful tweet of the evening:
Follow @CHSommers. You may not agree with her but she's brave, & the Feedingfrenzy Thoughtpolice Bullies have got away with it for too long.
— Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) September 16, 2014
Follow @CHSommers. You may not agree with her but she’s brave, & the Feedingfrenzy Thoughtpolice Bullies have got away with it for too long.
Hah, notice the brilliantly clever acronym: Feedingfrenzy Thoughtpolice Bullies, or FTB. I guess we’re officially on his enemy list now!
As you might guess, the MRAs are jubilant about this. Richard Dawkins is “one of us!”, they say. Atheism is officially and asymmetrically split, with the authoritarians of the Dawkins/Harris alliance happily embracing MRAs, and the mob of the Skepchick/FtB axis standing apart, looking appalled. OK, bring it on. Apparently, disagreeing with Dawkins/Harris will also make us filthy rich, according to their logic.
I couldn’t be more shocked if Dawkins had endorsed a creationist. Sommers is not credible. She is a contrarian beloved by anti-feminists (just look at the people thrilled by Dawkins’ statement) with a reputation for dishonesty and twisting the facts.
Christina Hoff Sommers is employed by the American Enterprise Institute, “a think tank for conservatives, neoconservatives, and conservative libertarians,” where her colleagues include Newt Gingrich and Charles Murray. Her habit is to promote lies about feminism, claim them as inalienable truths, and by presenting a simplistic straw-feminism, to let the reader wallow in their existing prejudices and regard her as a hero for justifying them. Here’s what Sommers claims about feminism (pdf):
In my view, the noble cause of women’s emancipation is being damaged in at least three ways by the contemporary women’s movement. First, today’s movement takes a very dim view of men; second, it wildly overstates the victim status of American women; and third, it is dogmatically attached to the view that men and women are essentially the same.
What a heaping pile of steaming ordure.
-
They’re man-haters! You should just stop right there and realize that that is total, patent nonsense: everyone from Gloria Steinem to Amanda Marcotte dislikes men? Can you find any serious contributors to modern feminism who “takes a very dim view of men”? (I expect people to trot out marginal figures like Solanas, but mainstream modern feminists? What bullshit.
-
You must understand that Sommers regards any data that shows any discrimination against women is a case of ‘wildly overstating’ the case, and she loves to accuse women who stand up and speak out against discrimination of embracing “victim status”. There’s a curious theme here: you’ll also see people like this simultaneously accusing their opponents of playing the victim and being a bully. It’s very weird.
But the fact is, as I pointed out in my open letter, that there are a lot of general patterns of oppression against women in our society. This problem exists. It’s the denialists who protest most loudly about anyone who dares to criticize the status quo.
-
No, this is obviously false, too. We can celebrate the differences between men and women — feminism is not full of androgynes. But what we can protest is the insistence that culturally determined patterns of behavior are intrinsic to a sex. Women are able to be scientists just as well as men; women can be good leaders; women aren’t necessarily nurturing maternal types who just want to have babies. What Sommers wants to do is reinforce traditional social norms of the role of women (while defying them herself, obviously), and condemn anyone who suggests that stereotypes are harmful and not necessarily so.
Sommers entire schtick as a card-carrying member of a conservative think tank is to protest loudly at any deviation from conservative gender norms, and to do that she’ll lie about anyone who tries to buck the status quo: they’re man-haters, they’re professional victims, they want to obliterate femininity! Apparently, feminists despise all the sexes and aspire to the status of shapeless potatoes. But look at what she actually says: Sommers is a master at claiming victim status for herself.
The gender feminists have proved very adroit in getting financial support from governmental and private sources. They hold the keys to many bureaucratic fiefdoms,Sommers reports, without citing statistics.It is now virtually impossible to be appointed to high administrative office in any university system without having passed muster with the gender feminists,she asserts.
You should be aware of the irony of a person who has found a home in the sinecure of a far right wing think tank claiming that feminists are “very adroit in getting financial support from governmental and private sources”. But I think Richard Dawkins should also be aware of another irony: that claiming that a particular intellectual position has acquired a monopoly in academe is something we hear a lot from another source, the creationists. Is evolution the product of a conspiracy that has taken over the universities? Or is it possible that it is simply the only rational interpretation of an idea that is well-supported by the evidence?
One of the ways I can recognize dilettantes and anti-feminists is simply this: they cite Christina Hoff Sommers as a feminist authority. She’s not. As with any case where destructive but widespread social norms are challenged, she’s part of the reactionary anti-feminist response, and she’s simply not a trustworthy source, any more than Kent Hovind is a good source of information about evolution. A good summary of a number of anti-feminists who are frequently dragged on stage as feminist representatives is by Julie Craig, “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Feminism! On the Feminists Who Aren’t (pdf), which, like all good scholarship, points out the flaws in some women’s studies programs that opportunists like Sommers exploit to raise false accusations about the whole of the discipline. Sommers has this tiny germ of correctness in her arguments that she likes to inflate beyond all reason.
Sommer’s shortsighted analysis ignores the diversity of women’s studies faculties and the existence of other critics of classroom radicalism, and her generalizations do not paint an accurate picture of feminist education any more than they adhere honestly to the realities of feminist philosophy.
That’s the politest way to put it. Sommers is a professional selective quote-miner and anecdote-citer who is on a mission from AEI to discredit all of feminism. She’s effective, too: when she’s bamboozled Richard Dawkins into proclaiming her the authority on feminism, she’s won a major neo-conservative victory.
Unfortunately, their faux-feminist rhetoric makes it easy for readers to encounter “feminism” without ever encountering actual feminist views and activism. As such, their presence will serve only to take attention away from women whose goals transcend the endless disparagement of feminism itself and create a distraction from the real questions of equality.
Thanks, Richard Dawkins! You’re now officially an anti-feminist!
For future tweets, I recommend this statement by Sommers as a useful guideline: just accuse anyone who disagrees with you of being ugly and hating sex.
There are a lot of homely women in women’s studies. Preaching these anti-male, anti-sex sermons is a way for them to compensate for various heartaches–they’re just mad at the beautiful girls.
Oh my friggin’ dog — what passive-aggressive, disingenuous chickenshit…it’s the latest response from Dawkins.
I didn't name any clickbaiting blogs. Is it interesting that at least 1 prominent blogger (whom I won't name) seems very sensitive?
— Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) September 16, 2014
I didn’t name any clickbaiting blogs. Is it interesting that at least 1 prominent blogger (whom I won’t name) seems very sensitive?
I call that intellectual cowardice, and grossly dishonest. He invented a clumsy phrase — “Feedingfrenzy Thoughtpolice Bullies” — with an obvious acronym, with the clear intent of hinting at who he’s outraged (dare I call it fake outrage?) at. I couldn’t imagine that he’d go so far as to so transparently pretend innocence.
And then he follows up with this:
.@Ben_Paul I don't understand you. In the context of clickbait, isn't it OBVIOUS why I don't name him? Don't want to send clicks his way!
— Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) September 16, 2014
I don’t understand you. In the context of clickbait, isn’t it OBVIOUS why I don’t name him? Don’t want to send clicks his way!
Do you know who else refuses to name me or link to me, for fear of sending ‘clicks’ my way? Ken Ham.
Zing.
PZ sez:
Dawkins may think that there are some topics that shouldn’t be analyzed and criticized. Oh, wait. Didn’t he accuse us of thinking that wrt rape?
Where do I sign up?
Dawkins surely thinks he’s smarter than fundies, yet here he is, reacting to criticism with cries of persecution. What a joke is this “atheist movement”, just the same old poverty of mind in a smarmier package.
It’s almost painful to watch as Dawkins descends into MRA fuckwittery (hey Dawkins fans, look! I used a coarse word!)
Dawkins has the petulant rage of a toddler told he can’t have his binkie anymore. “The UK’s greatest public intellectual,” my goddamned ass.
Dear Dick,
I’m laughing richly.
Love, an OWG feminist.
Doesn’t he have more important stuff to worry about anyway? “Dear Muslima…”
Ugh.
I read Dawkins’ tweet earlier.
I tasted a little bile in the back of my throat.
Just…. ugh.
I hope everyone has their bingo cards handy…
That’s not true! My aspirational potatoes have a shape. A sexy potato shape.
This is nauseating. There really isn’t anything that Dawkins could do to shock me at this point, but he continuously disappoints me. That silly bit of optimism in me keeps thinking that, surely, he could apply critical thinking to his own views? Surely he could discover the power of self-criticism for identifying the cognitive biases he–and everyone else–is prone to?
But no. So there’s no shock, because it’s not shocking or unusual. It’s just damn disappointing.
Shark: jumped.
Actually, I think he did that some time ago, and is steadily working his way through the Chondrichthyes.
The more Dawkins opens his mouth or pushes keys on his keyboard, the more convinced I am that religion is not the problem. Sure, religion has been associated with oppression, especially sexism, for centuries, but Dawkins seems bent on proving that atheists would be just as bad if they’re put in charge. I’m almost certainly never not going to be an atheist (barring brain damage), but I have no interest at this point in any atheism movement or supporting anyone (i.e. a candidate for public office) because they’re an atheist.
I just replied on twitter “@RichardDawkins oh is *that* what you’re doing?”
Fake outrage, false rape accusations, faking harassment campaigns, lying about threats…
Gosh, we women just lie about everything! We clearly mustn’t be trusted ever. Men will tell us what we are like and how hard we need to work not to be raped. They’ll let us know when we’re experiencing sexism or harassment. They’ll tell us when to abort. They’ll tell us how to feel about being raped and if it really counts as rape. They’ll even allow us to be lesser atheists so long as we don’t expect to be heard or treated with respect and we are pretty and agreeable. After all, who else are they going to grope at their conventions, like men do when they drink?
But there’s no misogyny in this movement. Nope. None.
The next possible shark jump in Dawkins’ sad decline into irrelevance would seem to be either endorsing 4chan or guest posting on A Voice for Men. Seems totally plausible after this week’s abysmal tweeting on rape apologetics and praise for a horror like Hoff Sommers.
It’s absolutely breathtaking how fucking stupid Dawkins gets when it comes to feminism.
It’s like he took those letters and comments he got from theists and creationists, changed ‘atheism’ to ‘feminism’, and quoted them wholesale as if they were all of a sudden stunningly well-reasoned takedowns.
And, anyway, what’s exactly wrong with “taking a very dim view” of people who have an unfair advantage over you? And, if we’re playing this game, there’s quite a few men with a “very dim view” of women.
I’m with you, PZed. Let the Deep Rifts be embiggened. I am content with this. Any movement where Simmers is a hero is a movement without this lifelong atheist.
You thrilled to Deep Rifts: The 4000.
You survived Deep Rifts II: The Grenade.
Welcome to… Deep Rifts III: The Enworsening. Just when you thought it was safe to go back to Twitter…it got worser.
Fucking autocorrect. Sommers.
What a nosedive. But at least he’s made himself clear.
Thank you, PZ, for writing this.
Funny thing, though, I keep checking my bank account, and those numbers? They’re not increasing. What’s up with that, fellow Professional Victims?
I was unfamiliar with Sommers when i heard about her in the other thread and was curious about who she was and what her views were. It’s quite a lot worse than i antipicated…
At this point i’m simply embarrashed by Dawkins… like so many, when i first arrived at the atheism scene, i admired him, i devoured his lectures and thought the sun shined out of his arse. I look back now and fully recognize how juvenile that was of me. I was taken in by the flash and my own enthusiasm. The movement that Dawkins and others are selling is a substandard product, it looks very fancy when you first encounter it, but then you take a close look and start to notice all the flaws. I want a lot more and i won’t settle for what these public figures of atheism are offering.
According to her wikipedia page, she denies having made that statement:
“In a 1994 interview with Esquire magazine, Sommers was quoted as saying, “There are a lot of homely women in women’s studies. Preaching these anti-male, anti-sex sermons is a way for them to compensate for various heartaches– they’re just mad at the beautiful girls.”[22] Many times since 1994, Sommers has denied making such a statement: “I never said any such thing. Fifteen years ago, an Esquire magazine writer misquoted me, made it up or confused me with someone else. When Washington Post writer Meg Rosenfeld did a profile of me in 1994, she asked the writer about the quote. He said his notes had gone missing (Washington Post, 7/7/1994.) The fact is: they never existed. No matter how many letters I write correcting the fabrication, it seems never to go away.”[33]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christina_Hoff_Sommers#1994_Esquire_interview_quote_controversy
And to think when he wrote ‘Dear Muslima…’ many commenters couldn’t believe he’d say such a thing, and then ignore all the reasoned responses he got. Now he’s just the textbook example of the power of self-reinforcing cognitive bias.
My sympathies to y’all who are hurting from seeing someone you admired sink to this.
CaitieCat @18:
Ha ha.
I’d have thought it would be Deep Rifts III: The end of New Atheism.
@7, Dunc:
Thread over, you win.
Because women are only worth how fuckable men find them. So women who claim otherwise are just angry that, being unfuckable to men, they are worthless. They are so jealous of ladies who have value through men wanting to fuck them. Remember, ladies, be pretty and deferential or you’ll be worthless too!
That’s what Dawkins thinks of as feminism?
The man is an ass of Hovindesque proportions.
Also, I thought feminist women were all sluts who should know when we go out in a short skirt, we’re teasing men as if we were waving meat in front of a slavering dog and feminist men were just pretending to care about gender equality for all that slutty, uninhibited, feminist sex?
It’s so confusing. Are we sluts or prudes? Are we derisive or too gentle spirited for confrontation? Do we need to show more charity or toughen up and learn to logic? Do we need to be less emotional or should we weep at the plight of the poor put upon men who are being criticized for the things they have done and said, which we all know is worse than the Inquisition?
Twitter? Honestly? He’s trying to communicate in blips?
Where is the substantive thought, the evidence, the coherence? He’s just posting short straws and calling names. When you sum up your opponents as single-issue idiots, there really isn’t any hope of communication, resolution or truth.
I have never looked up to Dawkins as any kind of leader or hero (back when I was reading his books, I liked Gould better). I have been saying we could cut Shermer loose with no loss, and thinking it about Dawkins. But now, he has jumped all on his own. “Fly! Be free.”
It’s the anti-feminists who end up having the worse view of men in the long run. Look at their rhetoric and it’s clear they think very little of men. Unfortunately they think much less of women.
Hold up, peeps. See kesara’s comment @22.
If Sommers denies making that comment, unless you have better information showing she did say it, you should stop repeating it.
Tony, my dear Shoop, I admire your optimism. I truly do. You really think this series is only going to have three installments? This is going to be the Fast & Furious of the atheist world. As long as there are pompous jackasses perceived as important parts of our movement, There Will Be Rifts, My Friend (also the name of my upcoming behind-the-scenes look at The Making of Deep Rifts, featuring interviews with Thoughtpolice Chief of Detectives Rebecca Watson and many other shrieking aggressive bullying professional victms, and their Zeta Omega Mangina Girlyboy* allies).
* Best. Frat. Ever.
If was as dishonest s Hoff Sommers and I saw my own horrible words in print, I’d deny it too.
Anthony K,
Cross posted. Point taken. Thank you for pointing that out. Ceasing and desisting now.
@31:
Nonetheless, it’s not like there’s a shortage of reprehensible stuff she can be demonstrated to have said.
Kesara, considering that the denial comes from someone with a history of making dishonest arguments, how much credibility do you assign to Sommer’s claim? I haven’t read a lot of Sommers’ writing, (couldn’t stomach it) but the quote in question certainly sounds like many other things she’s said.
Not much, but I still completely agree with Anthony K in comments #29+33 – unless we had evidence that trumps her denial of that statement, we shouldn´t repeat the accusation that she said it + there is plenty of other terrible stuff she did say and doesn´t deny having said.
Artor @ 34
In which case there should be no difficulty limiting ourselves to criticizing things which can accurately be attributed to her.
The “fake outrage” bit really is offensive in the extreme. No, it’s not fake, it is entirely genuine, thank you very fucking much. It also happens to be fully justified because what Harris said actually was ridiculous and most certainly sexist, but also because the way he “explained himself” was not only a complete and utter FAIL but also just fucking embarrashing, particularly for someone in his possition and with his supossed principles. Dawkins’s blindness to this does not make the outrage fake, it just showcases how flawed he is.
@32:
Don’t thank me; thank
the moon’s gravitational pullkesara for keeping us on the straight and narrow.I’d actually like to take a second to extend some sympathy to PZ here. Seeing someone you once considered a friend throw you under the bus like this must stink.
Moggie @11:
The landing will be rough, what with the feet of clay.
No, no. You see, Dawkins et al are clearly against sexism. As long as sexism is defined as “horrible things Muslims do.” Anything short of stoning an adulteress to death is most definitely not sexism, you know.[/snark]
Not just Hoff Sommers, not just Hoff Sommers
I was still thinking about reading me some Dawkins one of these days. I guess I won’t bother; he doesn’t respect me and mine, so why should I waste my time and energy trying to understand him?
I was going to borrow the books from my daughter anyway, so I could still change my mind. But right now it doesn’t seem worth the aggravation. On the other hand, she also has PZ’s book. Now there a happier thought.
Daughter’s the one I feel sorry for. She came to atheism through Dawkins, and Skeptic magazine, and of course, PZ, and some of her inspirations are turning out not so inspirational. One out of three isn’t too bad, I guess.
It really is amazing to me how many of Dawkins comments basically look like a Find/Replace of Atheism with Feminism on Creationist screeds.
I am finding it hard to fathom that Dawkins cannot see that. He isn’t stupid.
He may still completely disagree with modern feminism, but he must be smart enough to find arguments which aren’t EXACTLY The same as what Creationists use against him?
Maybe it’s him who is trying to gin up controversy to expand book sales (by courting the MRA market) and his accusations against bloggers is yet another case of “Projection, it’s always Projection”?
Yep, just like anything short of running around with white sheets and burning crosses isn’t racism…
Not to derail this thread (get the outrage out) but a thought for later: Dianne @12 has a point worth examining and considering. I’d perhaps put it this way: Is it an attitude of self-identified leadership that is the root problem?
Dawkins digs deep and discovers not a dram of decency.
What a sad little man.
I don’t know, maybe this will help bring about a generational change in movement atheism by getting all the odious MRA hypersceptics to go play with their MRA friends and leave atheism alone. One can hope.
addicted44 @ 44 (teehee)
I’m of the opinion that he doesn’t actually understand the arguments he’s been using against creationists all these years. He’s just parroting arguments that have already been refined because they sounded impressive to him and confirmed what he already thought. Exactly like theists do. Now he’s branching out into other topics and finding his reception less uniformly positive. And instead of considering that he might be wrong. he’s throwing a tantrum of Piers Morgan proportions.
At least we can do away with the “Dawkins is just a bumbling naive/sheltered/senile fool/product-of-his-time who doesn’t have a clue what he’s really saying/defending” apologetic. Folks: Dawkins really is a sexist asshat and fully aware anti-feminist. Truly.
@46
Thanks for highlighting dianne’s comment #12. For what it’s worth, I agree with every word of this:
Pete Shanks @ 46
I think the root of the problem is:
A. I am rational.
B. I think XYZ.
C1. Therefor it is rational to think XYZ.
C2. Therefor it is irrational to think not-XYZ.
I think the worst part of this is now we have to waste our time digging through Christina Sommers’ work and explain in great detail why she’s wrong. Thanks for bringing down the level of discourse, Dawkins. I wanted to talk about intersectionality but I guess we still have to talk about basic things like “equity feminism”. Ugh.
Dawkins is a bright shining asshole.
Ffffff. Well, damn, it’s too bad because I really did like a lot of his older writing and it had a big influence on me as a child. I wonder, now, reading his tweets, whether I should have given more of the credit to his editor.
Bah. I always did like Gould better anyways. #sourgrapes
We were naive. A decade ago, we had a fledgling political atheist movement with public figures (‘thought leaders’, whatever) who were focusing mostly on institutional religion and doing a pretty good job of criticizing the institutional sexism common to most of them. Foolishly, we thought that was an indication of a general baseline acceptance of liberal feminism, such that doing things like passing harassment policies (already common to all workplaces, and thus presumed to be uncontroversial) for conventions and trying to get ethnic/racial and gender diversity at speaking events (as is common in many large corporations these days) would be entirely uncontroversial. We naively thought that the criticism of sexism in religion represented a broad acceptance of basic feminist principles. Instead, it’s turning out that Dawkins et al. were simply using feminist language as an easy way to level one more criticism of religion. They were driven not by concern for women but by antitheism. We naively thought that their criticism of sexism in religion meant they would be open to feminist critiques of their own behavior or that of their institutions. Instead, as soon as the critical lens started pointing in their general direction, they decided to double-down on all their internalized sexism instead of recognizing it and trying to do better.
It’s not exactly a happy place to be, but at least now we know where our vaunted Thought Leaders stand.
Christina Sommers? Wow. I think I’m starting to understand how Dawkins views feminists now. What a dick.
The recent rape comments were bad enough. Now, I learn that, apparently, Dawkins tried to suppress the allegations against Michael Shermer by exerting his influence behind the scenes.
http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2014/09/annals-of-dismissive-contempt/comment-page-1/#comment-2850393
Seven of Mine:
I think you’ve got his thought process down to a tee. The only thing I would add is:
D. Legions of adoring fanboys are supporting everything I say. Therefore, I must be right.
In the longer twitter conversation, Dawkins explicitly uses the “clickbait” claim as an excuse to not respond to PZ’s criticisms:
It’s funny how “outrage blogging” consists of actually responding to opponents, while countering “outrage blogging” consists of… not doing that.
FFS. Hoff-Sommers caters to the status quo. NO BRAVERY REQUIRED, prof. And I’m supposed to see this man as “really quite intelligent”? (I amended “brilliant” years ago.)
You know, Dawkins has been sarcastically handwaving uppity women away for years now. He’s also gone out of his way to trivialize sexual assault. I do believe the so called Atheist Movement has officially gone and got itself a pope.
One day we’ll find out that all of this is because ‘brights’ never happened and Dawkins has been vexed ever since.
Oh, how we’ll laugh then! How we will laugh …
Re: UnknownEric the Apostate #39: Good point. PZ, I’m sorry you have to deal with such a thing. For what it’s worth, there are likely a whole lot of atheists who were encouraged to come out, join the activist movement, etc. by Dawkins who now consider you their favorite old White guy public atheist figure. But I know it still hurts to lose people in this fashion.
addicted44@44, I agree. Dawkins is an excellent reasoner, and I think he’s not using reasoning to address this topic.
When topics aren’t addressed with reason (and so vehemently), it’s usually because there’s some emotional reason not to abandon one’s views. Creationists have their religious beliefs, seems like MRAs and Dawkins have some need to be superior/not lose make privilege.
And azhael@21, look at how you’re able to change your views when new evidence comes to light. That’s better than Dawkins does! We are all led by emotions to take up some of our attitudes, but a reasoning person knows this and changes those views in accordance with new evidence. You are a truly reasoning person!
Dawkins has descended, and will continue descending, into just another ranter, an old guy angrily shouting ever-more irrelevant and crazy things, until no one cares. He’ll be just another person to laugh at, like Ray Comfort.
A lurker here. I’ve got nothing constructive to say, just that when I was 10 years old I watched Richard Dawkins on the RI Christmas Lectures during the holidays. It totally blew my mind and set me on the path to atheism. I watched a bit of it recently on youtube. Yep, absolutely mind blowing. The audience is full of kids but he doesn’t talk down to them (ok, some of the audience participation is a bit pointless) or go over their heads. He just lays the facts on large.
Anyway, that was then. Now watching him dig and dig and dig furiously into the ground like this, pausing only to flick his floppy hair away from his eyes, is really sad. The books are great, the lectures fine, but the man himself – meh… No heroes.
On a somewhat tangential note, Cracked have put the whole gamergate thing into the back of the net. http://www.cracked.com/quick-fixes/a-90-second-guide-to-determine-if-your-internet-cause-bs/
/Hope I’m not derailing the comments.
I’ve frankly been surprised by the low quality of Dawkins’s thinking and communicating of late. You know what folks? He’s 73 years old. Most people who are otherwise healthy are still intellectually vigorous at that age, but not all. He could just be losing it. Doesn’t mean he gets a pass on what he writes because he’s still a prominent person and people notice, but maybe it’s time for him to pull back from public life.
@ #66?
For the love of fuck, really?
Is there a “senility” bingo square?
cervantes @ 66
Oh for fuck’s sake. Just don’t fucking even…
Daz, there is now.
I didn’t claim he’s senile — who knows? But he’s lost something, he’s become self-involved and doesn’t seem to be informing himself or working as hard at thinking. He’s just not the same person. It happens.
Just stop.
Those who think Dawkins has changed—-please seriously consider the possibility that it is not that he’s changed, but that it’s only now that this aspect of him has come to your personal attention for the first time recently. Those who have worked with and around him for years have known much of this for a long time. They’ve been afraid to say anything, and we can see that they were justified.
This MATTERS. Really do ponder this. Please.
I doubt that Dawkins ideas have changed much.
He’s just saying it out loud now.
I can’t see that he’s changed. His “teaching about hell = child abuse” and “mild paedophilia” are hardly hot off the presses. Why should his opinions on other social justice topics have been any more enlightened?
@73
This. If you look back at (or were paying attention at the time to), say, discussions surrounding racist abuses of biology back in the 70s-90s, he was just as disingenuous and assholish towards anti-racists then as he is towards feminists now. He even pulled the “legitimate” versus “radical” shtick back then. It’s nothing new.
Dawkins really has been an ass for years now. If anything, PZ’s is the one who’s changed.
Yeah, that’s right. “PZ’s is.” You heard me, fingers. That’s what I wanted to type.
Chigau #74
I think this is pretty much the case.
Agreed. It may be a function of the fact that I was an atheist who didn’t believe in bigfoot before I’d ever heard of Randi, or Shermer, or any of these ‘luminaries’, but don’t have the et tu? reaction to any of them.
I’d heard of Dawkins of course because of “The Selfish Gene”, but he’d never influenced me positively. In fact, my only real interaction with his writing previous to my learning about the atheist/skeptic/brights movements was to read a blurb by him in a biology textbook explaining how all of his critics had gotten him wrong, and something something rise above our natures. I thought his reasoning was weak even then, though he was certainly correct that many had misunderstood TSG.
I’m sorry for those who are hurt and disappointed by him, but I don’t see any evidence for the claim that he’s somehow changed, or had his brain parasitized over the last decade or so.
I really hope those like Dawkins who have helped us open our minds to the often invisible oppression of religion will soon realize the equal oppression of sexism.
Atheism and skepticism have grown up. We have realized that sexism is a holdover of religion; the very thing we are trying to rid ourselves of.
I hope Dawkins realizes this soon. I really don’t want to black list him.
I don’t think PZ’s is changed either.
It’s that this issue has come to the forefront, and revealed the rot in the movement that’s always been there.
… criticizing some of the most influential Big Name atheists in the world is the path to fame and riches…
Damn straight – and those of us who have for years dubbed our esteemed host “Poopyhead” are still waiting for our Lexuses and Leica rangefinders!
It’s curious to me how anti-feminists are co-opting the term “feminist”—sometimes with qualifiers (like “equity”) but often just in the form of “I’m a feminist, but…”. At higher levels of the “movement”, I don’t think this is based on a misunderstanding or disagreement over what modern feminism is. It’s an intentional strategy to blur the meaning of the term. It’s also convenient for providing them with ample opportunities to exploit the No True Feminist fallacy to discredit their opponents. (e.g., “Hoff Summers says X.” “Yeah, but she’s not a feminist.” “Well, she says she is, so you’re making a No True Scotsman fallacy.”)
@50 Ibis3, Let’s burn some bridges.
I officially apologize for promoting a version of this excuse a few days ago.
I was 100% wrong.
Dawkins is a fully aware sexist.
I’m more angry about the fact that he tried to get Ophelia Benson to not talk about Shermer’s attempted groping than I am surprised that he’s a fanboy of Christina Hoff Sommers. Dawkins is nothing if not conservative in behavior and privilege once you strip away his atheism, and Sommers and her libertarian counterpart have made a career out of soothing the egos and thin skins of defensive conservative men called out for misogyny.
@nontrad
He seems like the guy who would act like he’s some Big Truthteller for attacking a strawman of antiracist arguments.
Most of you peeps say you’re not shocked or surprised, but I gotta say, I am. I’m astonished. It’s all so childish, so petty, so vindictive, so snide, so speculative, so slime-pitesque.
I replied to that tweet of his the same way PZ did in the post – asking if he’d written TGD as clickbait, then saying no, he didn’t, he wrote it to say what he wanted to say – and guess what, so do we.
brett @ 86 – correction – he didn’t try to get me not to talk about it, he tried to get me to get other people not to talk about it.
Ophelia Benson #87
I’d say that I’m not surprised at the content, but am rather surprised at the tone, if that makes sense.
Seconded (sixthed?) on Dawkins having always been this way. Is it more likely that he was progressive about women’s rights 20, 30 years ago and has recently changed? Or that he’s become more confident about expressing such opinions now? A lot of older folks get to a point where they feel less inhibited in voicing controversial opinions, related (IMO) to the increasing invisibility of older persons—either to take advantage of such invisibility or to combat it by drawing attention to themselves. My grandma has been very open recently about the joys of being able to say and do whatever the fuck she wants.
@84 LicoriceAllsort
No. It’s what right-wingers do. They co-opt the language of the opponents in such a way as to poison the well. Sometimes quite literally.
Remember the Bush Administration proposal that would have allowed a bazillion times more arsenic into the drinking water — so that gold miners could pollute the western watershed? They called it something like the “Fresh Water Initiative”.
Or the “Clear Skies” plan, that would have dramatically increased the amount of mercury in the air.
It’s a Rovian strategy. Name your group the opposite of its real mission. Same here. Hoff Sommers is a right wing hack. She’s merely following the playbook.
Ugh. Dawkins really is one of those guys who’s all “Of course I believe in equality!”, but the moment he actually has to do any hard thinking or examination of his own attitudes, he throws a tantrum.
Completely pathetic.
FTBullies now.
Is RIchard Dawkins just a real-life sockpuppet of Richard Sanderson?
(no, that’s not an actual allegation, dear Richardses…)
@Ophelia, 87:
Most? It’s probably cognitive bias on my part, but my feeling about most threads like this over the last few years is that they’re saturated with “Dawkins say something dumb? Unpossible! He must be senile/having a bad day/didn’t read clearly/talking about something else.”
Again, I’ve never encountered the lucid, clear-thinking Dawkins, and that makes me a bit of an outlier, and I’m admittedly biased against him, but that’s my impression. Grain of salt and all that.
I’m confused, Ophelia. Was the part I bolded his response to you?
There’s an addition to the OP. To say I’m disgusted is to minimize my feelings right now.
Kevin Kehres @ 91:
Yes, I agree. I guess my surprise is less about the strategy in general more that this seems to be gaining them traction in the fight against feminism. Racism, too. It takes the fight underground, where it is harder to see what is what. That is the aim, I know, but look at what it’s done for racism—prolonged actual progress indefinitely, because we’re no longer discussing how to fight certain injustices but back to whether such injustices exist at all. Unfortunately, I think this strategy has been particularly successful with younger people. Again, part of the strategy but I’m noting the level of success amongst a demographic that the right wing is otherwise losing ground with. It’s very discouraging.
Atheism, too, is seeing a large influx of newbs, but for whatever reason, this particular strategy of co-opting the label “atheist” doesn’t seem to be as successful. Or that schtick has run its course and people now recognize that atheists aren’t all devil-worshippers.
Thanks for the correction on that, Ophelia. Still seems pretty appalling on his part.
@PZ Myers
What a contemptible coward he is right now. Go the fuck away, Dawkins.
Wow, that latest tweet is astonishing.
This is the much vaunted champion of reason and logic, and his response to PZ’s article is not the unemotional, careful, analytical response he claims to advocate for but…a childish, pathetic sneer?
I’m getting the feeling he either didn’t read what PZ wrote or didn’t understand a word of it.
Josh… @ # 73: Those who have worked with and around him for years have known much of this for a long time. They’ve been afraid to say anything…
Got any links to support any of that?
Oh my. So Dawkins has gone full court Brave Hero. That’s a hell of a thing.
I automatically despise people who use the “clickbait” “to make money” argument. And here is why: it never seems to come from someone who is enduring economic hardship, and it implies that the person supposedly doing it is so desperate that they need the extra fractions of a cent they might get. If you’re a bestselling author and lecturer with an international stature with an estimated net worth of over $100 million, claiming that your detractors are pushing click bait amounts to asking “why don’t they eat cake?” (“Qu’ils mangent de la brioche”) yes in the internet era there is money to be made with click bait, but it requires huge volumes such as that driven by celebrity selfie leaks and sex tapes. From the sound of it, bloggers such as those on FTb and Patheos make vastly less blogging than someone of Dawkins’ stature commands from a single speaking engagement. It’s like a professional football player responding to someone who criticizes their stratospheric salary: “well why don’t you become a professional football player, too?” Ultimately, to me, it reveals one as suffering from a uniquely modern disease: the affluenza of the nouveau riche – I’ve got mine, so you’re contemptible.
The click bait argument is also hypocritical at its core. It amounts to someone blogging or tweeting for attention in order to accuse someone else of blogging or tweeting for attention.
The only possible situational difference is the size of the channel – it would be extra distasteful if someone used their regular column in Vanity Fair to complain that a small-time blogger was click baiting their fan-base of 12,000 followers. In that sense accusing someone of click baiting amounts to yelling “DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?!?!” Which always says more about the insecurity and venality of the accuser.
Richard Dawkins, in other words, is attempting to dismiss arguments against him by saying that they were financially motivated — when the amount in question would be a rounding error on one of his investment portfolios. That is distasteful.
So, to freely rephrase: “Oh, my delusional god! Someone says I’m WRONG? Why, they must be trolling for clicks! It’s the only explanation why anyone would make such a ludicrous statement!”
Seven of Mine @49:
Exactly this. Richard Dawkins has shown very convincingly that he most likely does not understand his own arguments against theism, that all he’s intellectually capable of is parroting what he’s been told. He may be a fine lab technician who speaks and writes in a way that is attractive to some people, but he does not have a scientist’s mind. And you know what: theists can see right through him. People are unfortunately likely to project their own flaws onto others when those flaws aren’t there; when those flaws actually are there they’re clear as daylight and will be spotlighted with a vengeance.
I wrote my preceeding comment before PZ updated the OP with Dawkins’ latest dropping, or I’d have been harsher. Instead i’m going to drop a couple hundred bucks in the FTb donations jar. Fuck you, Richard Dawkins, if you want to make it about money : if you happen to write another book worth reading, I’ll get it at the library.
thetalkingstove,
Remember this interview with Wendy Right, where Dawkins kept listing evidence to her, and she kept doing the „fingers, ears, lalala, there’s no evidence“ routine? He got so frustrated that he cried, „The problem with you creationists is you only listen to each other!“ Well, that’s been me ever since PZ started trying to reason with him.
There’s a word for claiming people have behaved a certain way and not providing evidence (ie a link to the behaviour). It’s “Gossip.”
Dianne @ 12:
I’m with you. Rather than do even a little thinking, it seems Dawkins has tossed all reason overboard in lieu of being one of the popular guys with one faction. It’s disturbing, to say the least.
Wow, that’s just…playground-level sad, Dawkins old boy. It’s “I’m not touching you!” on Twitter.
Wa tanar syuaah, sah.
I always got angry at people who said that New Atheists were just inverted religious fundamentalists. An obviously stupid jibe, I would say. Thanks so much, Richard (and Sam), for making me feel like a fool for having defended you. Assholes.
I’m tempted to conclude that Richard Dawkins came down with a bad case of schizophrenia when he typed the above. Or at least whatever mental disorder it is that makes you talk to yourself or project your own issues onto others.
I mean, even if he really did harbor views tainted by his privileged white male perspective (and I don’t doubt one bit that he does), he would spare himself so much agony and loss of credibility if he simply withdrew from commenting on issues he knew jack shit about and didn’t care to research in depth. He should stick to biology or evolutionary theory as that’s clearly where his true expertise lies.
Can we not do this please? People can have bad ideas and be assholes without having a mental illness.
Daz @ 75:
Yes, this. I was honestly surprised that more people weren’t angry about that bullshit. I don’t think Dawkins has changed, he’s simply discovered that there are people who will crown him king for publicizing his irrational biases.
Brandon Pilcher #110
Please don’t.
Same old, same old…. No masters, no heroes.
But I do wish prominent characters in atheism would have the same attitude… towards themselves. Anyone and everyone can say profoundly ignorant things – and twitter is a great method to do so. It allows you to say enough to hang yourself, but not enough to make you think about what you are saying before you the press the ‘Tweet’ button. I’m not defending RD here, or SH. They are both profoundly wrong. But why do people bother to ‘discuss’ anything over twitter???
Having said that, SH did write a lengthy blog post rationalizing why he is not a sexist pig. I wish he spent more time thinking about the validity of his ‘estrogen comments’ than thinking about all the ways he isn’t the most sexist person on earth.
So when does Dawkins go on tour with Thunderf00t?
@ 111, 113
I meant it as a tongue-in-cheek joke mocking Dawkins for what have to be obvious stunts to draw attention to himself and put on a facade of continuing public relevance, but on second thought, comparing him to people with genuine mental disorders (which includes myself seeing as I have Asperger’s Syndrome) is insulting to the latter. My apologies.
Josh, Official SpokesGay @ 73;
Josh is right on the money here. I think a lot of us simply failed to see Dawkins and his toxic attiudes clearly because all we really knew of the man were his public utterances and writings and, for years, he mostly limited his public position to the topics of organised religion and the ways in which it conflicted with his field of evolutionary biology, and we agreed with most of what he said. Within that narrow sphere, he didn’t normally say all that much that would tip off people to how corrosive his mindset really was (things like comparing telling children about hell mythology to child abuse being excluded).
It is only more recently, now that he has started opining on social justice issues such as the role of feminism, that the blinders have come off and we can see that Dawkins is, at heart, a misogynist social reactionary who is wedded to his male privilege and invested in maintaining the oppressive status quo.
It might be easier to try to excuse Dawkins by one means or another, such as invoking his age (a problematic attitude in its own right that throws senility suffers under the bus – suffering from one form of dementia or another does not magically transform one into a bigot overnight), but in truth what we are doing when we put forward that kind of argument is not excusing Dawkins so much as excusing ourselves, because if Dawkins has radically changed then none of this is our fault – the Dawkins of the supposedly halcyon days of early movement atheism really was a swell guy and a razor sharp thinker with a handle on everything. We saw that, and that was why we elevated him to the rank of movement leader, and his subsequent descent into MRA talking points and rape apologia could not have been forseen, leaving us the blameless victims of another person’s intellectual entropy. It is alluring because it leaves our hands clean, but that doesn’t make it an accurate account of what has transpired.
If, however, this is not what happened. If Dawkins was always clueless about social justice, given to a misogynist and dismissive attitude toweard women, and only really qualified to speak with regard to the more obvious failings of religion and his own very specific academic field, then we got it wrong. We made a bad call. We backed the wrong horse. And we did it all while no small number of us were frankly being a little too inclined to clap ourselves on the back and congratulate ourselves for being oh so clever. We had afterall seen through all this religion business, hadn’t we? We saw it for the convenient fusion of easily exploitable mythology and socio-political power dynamics that it was. And we are still in a minority, hated by so many for puncturing their cherished delusions. Surely, the only way we could have seen through a lie that has so completely gulled billions for so many centuries is because we have clearer vision than other, dare we say ‘lesser’, mortals? Never mind that the lie was never all that convincing to begin with and took no special genius to reject, and what maintained its power wasn’t any supposed stupidity of believers but instead a complex set of self-reinforcing social and cultural factors, which we were able to overcome more often than not by good fortune or a specific set of personal experiences, not some laughable notion of nigh-superhuman intellect or insight – none of that gives the warm feeling of intellectual and moral superiority that seems so appealing to so many of us.
Being so proud of our supposedly superior rational faculties (just look at all the smug straw vulcans who keep popping up within the atheist community), it is difficult to admit that, not only were we wrong about Dawkins and Harris and so many others, but we were wrong about them in much the same way that so many moderate religious believers are so often wrong about the own community leaders – we saw who we wanted to see, what was comfortable and expedient to us in the role, rather than who was actually there. That shatters to a million pieces the notion that we are above the kind of cognitive misfires that inform so much religious belief and tradition.
Atheism is most certainly not just another religion, but events like this remind us that theists and atheists are all people, and we are just as vulnerable to deceiving ourselves as they are when applying, or rather failing to apply, critical thinking to topics a little too close to home for comfort.
And so marks the end of PZ Myers and Richard Dawkins as anything other than mortal enemies who just happen agree on 90+% of issues related to atheism and biology.
Cue Sarah Mclachlan – I Will Remember You
Slow motion montage:
– Going to the movies together…. only to be expelled from “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed”
– Reflecting upon the above experience with much laughter
– Speaking at numerous atheist events together
– Mutual endorsement of each other’s websites and causes
– Elevatorgate
– Dear Muslima
– Aborting foetuses who are writing poetry in the womb
– Robin Williams died, HOW CONVENIENT!
– Aborting DS diagnosed foetuses
– Numerous careless tweets
– Sam Harris says something sexist
– Dawkins to the rescue
– Thought Police, Witch Hunts, Clickbait
– Feedingfrenzy Thoughtpolice Bullies
– PZ writing off Dawkins
– Close up of Ken Ham’s face, a smile slowly growing (Herman Cain style)
– Fade to black
*Sigh*
Iyéska 112
I am. I always was. (Trigger warning for description of child-abuse.)
Brian Pilcher @ 110
Can we have one fucking thread without this shit?
@115
Dunno. Probably after he’s been to an EDL rally with Pat Condell.
Brandon Pilcher:
Do not do this. If you are unable to express yourself without smearing those with a mental illness, don’t post anything. By the way, my father had schizophrenia, and my best friend has schizophrenia, and neither one of them is a flaming asshole a la Dawkins, thank you very much. Christ.
Can it be true, some bloggers are paid by the click, and consequently fake outrage, or play the bully, in order to attract clicks? Hope not.
Uh huh. Where “hope not” really means, “I hope so, because the alternative is that they have made a substantial case that I am, in fact, a giant asshat.”
John A. Davidson’s is really not a career arc you should be emulating, Dawk.
(By which, I should add, I do not mean to imply that The Dawk is losing his mental faculties; only that he’s apparently descended into the role of fulminating crank, issuing delusional, vituperative screeds from his redoubt.)
Jeff S @ 118
If you would kindly join Dawkins in the fucking off, it would be much appreciated, please and thanks. We’ve already established that, all things considered, you’d prefer to uphold the status quo if changing it means you’d have to reconsider any of your own views.
Folks, Brian Pilcher has apologised. I know it’s easy to miss things like that in fast-moving threads.
Daz @ 119:
Aye, me too. I was genuinely outraged by that, and almost despondent over the amount of people who made excuses for Dawkins, or ‘explained’ what he really meant, and so on. Altogether, people have been giving Dawkins a big ol’ pass on all manner of despicable attitudes for too long.
It’s called projection and it’s not a mental disorder, but a normal mental defense mechanism (at least the “project your own issues onto others” bit). Normal, but not healthy.
@ 125
It’s Brandon Pilcher, but thanks for the acknowledgement.
Jeff S @ 118:
Oh fuck off with the simpering. If anything, you should have simply posted sympathies for PZ, who has long tried to reach out to Dawkins, and held out with optimism that he would come around.
Sorry, Brandon Pilcher. Your apology was posted while I was composing.
Maybe I’m just being incredibly naive, but I’m mildly heartened by all the criticism Dawkins is getting from outside the movement right now. Perhaps by maligning the name of atheism, all the movement Atheist leaders who excuse every terrible thing Dawkins says/does because of his fame will have no choice but to back away slowly and start supporting other voices.
One can hope.
Iyéska @126:
That’s me. I was one of the “explainers”, and I apologize for my obtuseness to all the people who got it right the first time.
I remember when I stopped following Dawkins because of some horribly
racist bullshit about a certain group of brown peoplexenophobic comic he retweeted. Glad to see I got to missed this.Brandon Pilcher #128
Oops. My apologies.
Steve LaBonne @ 132:
Thank you, Steve, that means a lot, and I truly appreciate it. I always look forward to your posts, and will continue to do so.
Ugh, oh man. :( It’s so weird, because Dawkins actually gave me the first several shoves (both directly, and then by making me an atheist, whereupon I was exposed to actual-feminism largely via FTB and changed my mind about a lot of things) towards being a feminist. So grossed out right now – I tried to extend the principle of charity to him probably a lot longer than I should have, thinking maybe some people should just stay off Twitter, but… ugh. :(
Seems like a clear admission that he was talking about PZ, at least in part (he likely had some others in mind, as well). Yet he writes like PZ figuring it out is indicative of something. I don’t know what it says about someone when they figure out what you’re talking about (I mean, that seems like a very common within, and in fact almost required for, discussion and discourse) but maybe Dawkins will enlighten us.
(The frequency at which this site get’s accused of “faking outrage for hits” is such that I’d be willing to place good odds on any discussion revolving around “fake outrage for hits” within the atheist sphere being done in reference to FTB.)
OK so what’s the neural blockage here with Dawkins, Harris, MRA’s etc.? I think it is a strong disinclination to put oneself in the other’s shoes. If you cannot do that you have a serious handicap in understanding others. Presumbly everyone is born with or soon learns the ability to empathize, but something happens to some of us to block that ability. That ‘something’ is primarily visited on boys. Considering the feelings of others is pretty girly, a boy doesn’t want to get caught doing that very much.
Fortunately for many men that empathy prohitibition to a large extend dissolves. How does that happen? I think most of us can recall an incident or incidents where we felt safe enough to stick a toe into a women’s or a black persons shoe just enough to get a climpse of how things look from the other side. That hasn’t happened for some men, some whites, some able bodied, etc.
Arguing with the likes of the males cited above is a dead end, they just dig in their heels and get even more scared. I cannot think with my heels dug in and I doubt others can either.
It’s the fear, it’s always the fear, we need to know what that unique fear is in the individual in order to get behind it. And they cannot let us know what it is while they feel threatened.
vs.
Interesting. Over at Stephanie’s post about the same thing, I wondered whether RD has actually sunk to this level of childishly inventing new meanings for the FTB abbreviation, or whether he’s cluelessly and thoughtlessly parroting pitters again.
This denial of having named anyone would suggest the latter, but I suppose it’s also possible that when you’ve sunk to the level of mangling blog names, you’re probably also not beyond blatant lying and gaslighting.
I’d have to say no. I think the problem is deeper than that. Maybe no one can be trusted to be a “leader”. Maybe people are just really, really horrible at picking leaders. Maybe “leader” is simply an impossible and corrupting position to be in and not something we should subject anyone to. I don’t know. But the attitudes of the atheist horsemen do seem to make it clear that simply rejecting religion is not enough to bring about a better, fairer society. At the very least, atheism is not sufficient to bring about rationality and enlightenment. Is it, then, even necessary? It is, IMHO, most likely objectively true and therefore a better way to live your life than to waste time worshiping the non-existent, but is an atheist movement helpful socially?
(slightly OT)
If you guys want to support a broke blogger with either your eyeballs or your wallets, please clickover to Godlessness in Theory and consider supporting Alex Gabriel.
As scientists in similar fields, there agreement within said field is unsignificant: that’s expected. Atheistic issues, for the most part, are trivial: their only significance is the refusal of the populace at large to acknowledge the intellectual vacuity of religion (whatever good one feels religion causes or enables). Neither of these things would nor should indicate bedfellows.
Up until recently i was rather confused by his latest comments. I have heard him say things that were definitely pro-feminist and pro-women, i think there’s even a bit on The Selfish Gene were he essencially celebrates the changing attitudes towards women on academia…sorry i don’t remember exactly what it was but it was something of that general flavour. I had formed a mental image of him as a progressive, feminist man and by Cthulhu, i liked it. However, it is plain to see now (at least to anyone not wearing worshipping goggles) that he has internalized sexism. There’s no two ways about it, it’s right there in the things he has said and owned. I honestly think he comprehends and supports the feminist struggle of his time, but that he has also failed to get rid of the chivalrous, possitive sexism bug which A LOT of men have, which betrays an underlying, not at all positive sexist prejudice. He simultaneously supports some feminist ideals while at the same time having an irrational prejudice against women (something which is astonishingly common and which i see almost daily). I don’t think it’s the MRA kind of mysogyny, it’s a different beast, but it is sexism nonetheless and it should not be excused or ignored, it should be critisized very strongly.
Here is yet another twit from RD, filled with staggering cluelessness and dripping with entitlement.
Yes Richard, what decent person is not a feminist? What decent person would protect a know sexual predator and vocally support the fauxmenist Sommers, while throwing their supposed allies under the bus? The answer to both questions is sadly, Richard Dawkins, that’s who. But thanks for proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are just another old entitled white dude who hypocritically calls himself a freethinker but whose actions clearly state “Bros before ho’s”. I am so done with you and your ilk. /spits
Paraless @81
I don’t agree with this. I think sexism is always an inherent possibility when males feel insecure about our role or progeny (not being the one gestating the offspring) and see biological advantages to exploit (not being the one gestating the offspring) in order to make ourselves feel more powerful.*
Religion just provides a convenient justification for this attitude and a way to crush any criticism. Lacking superstitious dogma, sexist atheists must turn to ridicule and threats.
*Grain of salt here. I base this on my own innate insecurities and don’t want to sound as self-assured as the more fanatical EvoPsych folks.
At first I had the same reaction of feeling disappointed and disheartened, like somehow he had let me down. But now I have no trouble in acknowledging that he has done good and now he’s doing bad. I can enjoy Wagner’s music knowing he also held the idea that the mixing of races will destroy Europe. He still had great musical ideas. Dawkins was/is great at popular science writing and criticism of religion. He is also a stubborn sexist whose views on women are both incorrect and offensive.
I’m reading through a couple of his books again lately, and love them just as much now as I did back then.
That’s how I see it. Your favorite athlete could turn out to have shitty views on some topics. Doesn’t mean all those goals/points they scored are no longer magnificently skillful. I just try not to have idols. I know it’s naturally very tempting to admire all of someone, but that’s just setting yourself up for disappointment.
@ 138
I think it’s the concept of privilege that threatens these guys. When I first encountered the word “privilege” in any context (i.e. not only its current usage in the social justice movement), I understood it to mean something that could be taken away. Having privileges taken away is never a pleasant experience for anyone who enjoys them. The question is, exactly what it is that Dawkins fears he will lose if he embraces a feminist position?
paraless @ 81:
No, that’s not true. I’m also finding the use of ‘religion’ without specification to be on the annoying side here. When it comes to xianity, misogyny was firmly in place long before xianity was the gleam in anyone’s eye. I suggest reading Misogyny: The World’s Oldest Predjudice by Jack Holland to get a bit of background and history.
Dick to the Dawk: “I don’t want to mention certain Putrid Zoo Monsters at the Funky Town Borough, cuz I don’t want to send the clix his, errrrr, its way.”
Dick to the Dawk Cru: “Putrid Zoo…Funky Town? OMG! That’s totally code for PZ Myers at FTB! Let’s click over there and tell him what a poopy pants he is! To the Dawk-mobile!”
Dick to the Dawk: “I am an evil GENIUS!!!”
gmacs@145:
I have come around to this point of view also, after years of believing the contrary. It’s why I’m much readier now to make enthusiastic common cause with people who espouse what I now consider to be harmless forms of religion, those who reject the evils associated with traditional religions (such as misogyny and homophobia) just as energetically as atheists do.
He’ll have to interact with women who don’t revere him.
Per Tethys @ 144:
Erm…well, that would be you, Mr. Dawkins. This, from the person who wrote Dear Muslima. This is not a good day for irony meters.
Jeff S,
You’ve got yourself turned around.
We don’t need to coddle Dawkins to have a movement. We don’t need him to keep Creationism out of schools. Or haven’t you heard of Eugenie Scott?
He needs us to be Richard Fucking Dawkins, the Pope of all Atheism. We don’t need him to be atheists or activists.
oh teh noes. two people who agree on almost everything on two whole topics don’t wanna be friends anymore!
Nevermind that they don’t appear to agree on anything outside of those two subjects. Because fuck everything else, biology and atheism are the most important things ever. *rolleyes*
@153:
In fact, Aron Ra’s at a hearing for textbooks in Texas today, while Dawkins is tweeting about ¢lick$ like a dumbfuck. You’d think the writer of Dear Muslima would have a better sense of priorities.
All the +1’s for this, Jackie.
Yeah, that was a sharp turn on Dawkins’ part, there. He was acting like it was paranoia on PZ’s part, to be thinking the F T B stuff was about PZ. Then, when somebody says that it was obvious the F T B was meant for PZ, Dawkins retcons it to saying that he was not wanting to send clicks. That kind of twisting about meaning is very common among creationist trolls.
And what the hell is wrong with sending clicks? Is he afraid that anybody who reads PZ is immediately go all anti-truth?
http://skepchick.org/2014/09/dear-innocent-people-murdered-in-witch-hunts/ — not sure if someone already linked to this, but it’s Ms. Watson at her best!
Jackie @153
On that analogy, I don’t suppose anyone besides me is noticing the parallels between and Dawkins/Harris/Shermer/Grothe/Jillette/et al. and shenanigans of Holy Mother Chruch?
this is just another example of the phenomenon of making certain words have ethical value, but the not the ideas behind them. People will freak the fuck out when they’re e.g. called on racism, because “acism-the-word has strong negative connotations, but the ideas themselves aren’t; so BEING a racist is less horrible than being called one. the reverse holds true for feminism (in some social areas; not all), so that people value the word, but not the ideas. Dawkins calls himself a feminist because of the perceived positive value of the label, not because he views feminism-the-idea positively.
I looked up to Dawkins once.
Once.
EDIT: …the parallels between Dawkins….
Truth.
What? Did he really write “Feedingfrenzy Thoughtpolice Bullies”? I knew he was an asshole; he’s proven that over the years. But did someone replace him with an 8th grade schoolkid?
Had to make a move to a blog network that was right for me
(beep-beep-uh-beep-beep…. bee-bee-beep-beep-beep)
Where they talk about it, talk about it, talk about it, talk about it
Talk about, talk about, talk about feminism.
PZ: may I ask whether you got a chance to speak to him during the World Humanist Congress in Oxford? I was under the impression that you were on friendly personal terms until relatively recently. I admit I was hopeful beforehand that you’d be able to have a sensible conversation about this stuff.
Though Dawkins has been frustrating for over three years now, I still considered myself a fan, overall, on the basis of my fondness for his books. But there’s only so much you can forgive and there comes a time where you simply wash your hands of someone. I think I’m doing that today in his case, and I will no longer be buying his books. There are too many other excellent atheists about anyway, so that won’t be much of a sacrifice. Despite the other unpleasant and silly things he’s said on Twitter lately, I was still genuinely surprised and disappointed at those tweets you quote.
Jadehawk 159:
Yes, it’s the same as Lisak found in the Meet the Predators study, as long as you don’t use a certain ‘r’ word, they’d admit to forcible sex (which doesn’t read as all that bad in their heads.)
Shiny truth, that.
pretty standard development when you get to a point where a social (sub-)group institutionalizes; it will almost always be in the shape of your standard-issue white cis heteropatriarchy. The main difference is that the churches, and especially the RCC, has had centuries of practice and organization-time, and has its claws in many more aspects of society, much more thoroughly.
Which is to say, unlike in the thoroughly calcified churches, we CAN rid atheism of its patriarchs & patriarchy in general.
@158:
It would be difficult not to. So you’re not alone, at least.
163.
“But did someone replace him with an 8th grade schoolkid?”
Hey picking on is picking on, whether people of color or women. 8th graders are human and don’t need any gratuitous disrespect. But it’s not about them, It’s the habit! the habit of using others for nefarious comparison that plagues us.
Hmm, given how:
immediately turns into:
Dawkins apparently went from “I wonder if?” to “it´s definitely true!” without bothering to justify this with any evidence – very scientific.
The strange thing is, that Dawkins wondered whether bloggers indeed do have an incentive to create faux controversies to get rich (lol) via the brief increase in blog traffic, and that Dawkins has been informed that this is not the case and he acknowledged it back then and tweeted:
“Greta Christina gave data suggesting controversy doesn’t drive blog traffic, in which case boycott pointless, intuition wrong – as often” (see http://freethoughtblogs.com/almostdiamonds/2012/08/23/oh-that-dawkins/ for a summary)
So its not just that Dawkins is claiming that FTBloggers deliberately lie in order to get “rich”, and claims so without any evidence to support it, no, he actually knows that his claims are false and he simply doesn´t care.
Jackie @153:
That formulation inspired some
nostalgianausea, remembering Judith Fucking “The Queen of All Iraq” Miller.The utter cowardice of it all is interesting given his reputation among the religious.
Appeals to another profiting off of what they are doing socially is extremely fallacious reasoning. So what if they are making money off of what they do? So what if the emotionally profit, or socially even? How does that change the substance of what a person is saying? This is like creationists appealing to “scientists with well funded labs vs. poor churches spreading the truth” bullshit.
“Fake outrage”? Hell I’ve at least got the honesty to admit that Dawkins actually feels the way that he feels. He should know that feelings for things don’t guarantee their reality. How many times has he challenges religion which is all about feelings for things not real? The excuses he is using to avoid being able to understand the outrage independent of agreement are pretty ironic, but convenient for people used to dealing with creationists.
“Play the bully”? “Feedingfrenzy Thoughtpolice Bullies”? Who are the ones actually being harassed for speaking out? How can anything Dawkins or Sam Harris have put up with compare to attempts to get people fired, or harass the relatives and friends of people speaking out, and worse?
In my view, the noble cause of women’s emancipation is being damaged in at least three ways by the contemporary women’s movement. First, today’s movement takes a very dim view of men; second, it wildly overstates the victim status of American women; and third, it is dogmatically attached to the view that men and women are essentially the same.
Confusing “dim view of men” with “people criticizing me” is a bad, bad sign. He sees the criticism against him as illegitimate despite the fact that he has yet to honestly engage with it, and now wants to attach that to all women. So now he wants to start going to unproven, irrelevant, biological factors that would be variable in individuals anyway. Dawkins and Harris might be a great study in the functional development of dehumanization. After all for dehumanization to work one needs to internalize a general rule that lets them dismiss all people of a “kind”.
I think that dissecting dehumanization as a lesson is the most optimistic result I can imagine so I’ll stop there.
oy.
nary a clue.
Wow. That reminds me of a Libertarian comedian friend of my sister’s, Tim Slagle, who’s a climate change denialist and has a bug up his butt about scientists. In his routine, he rants about climate scientists this way:
More detail on that here:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2007/07/14/the-comic-and-the-box-of-blinking-colore/
In any case, the argument is similar. Hoff says ugly girls become feminists to get revenge on men. Tim says climate scientists postulate anthropogenic global warming to get even with the “cool kids” and keep them from driving Hummers. The two are made for each other.
Did someone say fake outrage for page views!?
Maybe it doesn’t count as outrage if you have a British accent. Maybe that’s the trick.
Ah, but he’s the Ultimate Man – so intellectual and rational, you can cut your fingers on his razor wit and riposte! If we criticize him, the model of what every man should be, we are, by default, criticizing all men. He stands, proud and strong, brave like Christina Hoff Sommers, ready to take it all, on behalf of All Men Everywhere Ever. AMEE! Don’t you feel well-represented?
I’m surprised he didn’t call the place Fascist Totalitarian Borg.
Well I don’t really care if you don’t do feminism, if you don’t think that it’s your pigeon, if you’d rather bash religion, well buddy go ahead and bash.
But if you stick your bloody nose in with your bloody “just supposin'” then complain that we’re all posin’ just to earn some click-bait cash…
Then fuck you motherfucker, yeah I said fuck you, if you leverage your privilege to tell us what to do, and fuck you motherfucker, you ain’t the atheistic pope.
I’m on the side of thinking that Dawkins has always been this way. I remember “Neville Chamberlain atheists” (comparing religion to Nazism). I remember “brights”. I remember speculation about whether reading fantasy promotes religious belief. I still think “meme theory” is shallow. And more recently, there was the whole “mild pedophilia” episode. Dawkins has said many a stupid thing, and the only difference is that in recent years he’s been saying stupid things about feminism.
For me, it’s not hard to accept that Dawkins is an honest-to-goodness anti-feminist. The hard part for me is… when does my perpetual annoyance with Dawkins turn into outright antagonism? (And what would that even mean? It’s not like I was giving him any money to begin with.)
@kesara 170: (I’m going to stop commenting myself, and just highlight your comments from now on, ‘kay?)
Reread this, everyone, and follow kesara’s link:
Anyway, holy crap, is Richard Dawkins ever a lying piece of shit.
Oops, at #172 the third paragraph from the end should have been in block quotes.
Anteprepro:
Well, he probably will now.
miller @ 179:
Let’s not forget the one which did cause outrage in me, where he said that teaching children about hell was abuse, and it was worse than being molested. As someone who was taught relentlessly about old school hell and was raped for years as a child, I can say he was full of shit then, and he’s full of shit now. (Yes, the hell teaching was bad, it terrified me, for years on end. It wasn’t even close to being as bad as the rapes.)
@Anthony K
Fascinating. It’s a kind of “self-fulfilled prophecy” fallacious reasoning like when some Christians try to justify what they believe by pointing to the existence of the state of Israel as fulfilling prophecies, when there were lots of Christians that believed that such a thing had to happen and wanted it bad enough.
Since there were a lot of people criticizing Dawkins that felt rightly that he made no effort to actually engage with them, of course their attention would be triggered by non-specific dismissals of his critics as being in for the profit only. Once they reacted, which is reasonable and appropriate, Dawkins treats the obvious as his pattern. This stuff is insidious.
wow.
Dawkins wants to be rid of these troublesome bloggers
Iyéska & Anteprepro
Feminazi Tantrum Bunker
@Iyeska 182,
Yeah, I almost mentioned the whole “hell = child abuse” thing too. That was in The God Delusion. That’s from eight years ago!
@146 Saad
I mostly agree with you. I can enjoy his books on popular science and even some of his lectures, hell, i can even apreciate certain aspects of his personality. However, i cannot support him and i most definitely can not ignore these issues. I will acknowledge the good, it doesn’t magically go away, it’s still very much there and it IS good, but i will not ignore or excuse the bad and that means that i don’t want to be represented in any way by him when it comes to the public’s perception of atheism and i do not want to be part of any movement of which he is considered a leader. Furthermore i am now obligated to oppose his “movement” since the parts that are bad cannot be tolerated and must be strongly critisized every time they show their ugly head.
There are people who don’t see any of this as a problem and then there are people who recognize it as problematic but are willing to compromise and excuse it in favour of what they consider a greater cause….i think the later are making a big mistake, the former are just arseholes….
I cannot manage to read all comments, so I only want to share my huge, huge disappointment with Dawkins.
After paying so much lip service to “following the evidence” in his books, when confronted with unpleasant facts and challenged about an issue he has no clue about, he gets defensive like little child caught not doing their homework (my dog ate it!) and his best response is the fallacy of poisoning the well?!
Huge, huge disappointment. Another example of how even very intelligent people cannot cross their shadow. /shakes head
I’m not even in the second category. I use some of his lines of reasoning from TGD and refer them to specific videos of his when I’m talking to people who are sort of interested in the topic or are beginning to question their religious upbringing, but I’ve already started adding that his social views are very backwards and sexist. I’m not going to excuse any of it, so I make sure to bring it out in the open to help counter people considering him a hero of some sort.
miller @ 186:
He didn’t leave it there, though, he tweeted it all over not that long ago.
Daz @ 185:
Feminista Tyrant Browbeaters!
Alternately, Saad – and this is just a suggestion – perhaps you could look at reading books or other media by women and POC, to look for equally good arguments? This has the double good effect of not boosting Dawkins’ profile, and of boosting the profiles of the kind of people his oxygen-snatching presence tends to stifle.
Not saying you have to, or even ought to; seriously just a thought to consider.
Sorry about this, PZ. It sucks that someone you considered to be a friend turned on you in public like this.
Caitie #191,
No, you’re right. That would do more good. The only reason I do that is that his older stuff like God Delusion is so popular and its references just come right off the top of the head in casual conversations. I mean we’re at a point that we don’t *need* to cite other people’s ideas to talk to someone about what aspects of religion are harmful and why. It’s just that with someone unfamiliar with the topic, it helps to have book references and even better, debates and videos.
But to summarize my take on the issue, I did start with disappointment to let’s give him yet another chance to okay, I think this guy actually knows what he’s doing, to it’s better if I present this shitty side of him to people.
Dear Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris, Just because someone disagrees with your positions online does not mean that they are nothing but ‘click baiters’ or ‘outrage junkies’. Creationists could accuse you of being the same thing, and it would be just as foolish for them to do so. Please stop seeing yourselves as victims of some kind of a ‘witchhunt’. Your views are as open to criticism as those of anyone else.
@189 Saad
Ah, crap, i wasn’t trying to suggest you were in that category, but i can see why you would think that was the implication. That’s my fault, i apologize, i failed to delineate my thoughts xD. I think we are pretty much in the same page.
Also, what CaitieCat just said at @191. I must follow that advice myself, it’s good advice.
Both Dawkins and Harris need to listen more, and realize that people who disagree with them are not by definition irrational idiots. All that power and money has gotten to their heads.
Guy writes a book calling a popular belief “a delusion” and provokes controversy.
Guy continues to shit on feminists on twitter and provokes controversy.
Guy complains about people provoking controversy for profit.
I don’t know whether Teh Dawk just lacks this much self awareness, if he is being an utter hypocrite on purpose, if he thinks he is somehow exempt from his own criticisms because he is just that Awesome, or what.
Saad, read AronRa – his arguments are much better anyway. AronRa also has a ‘tube channel, if videos are more your thing.
Richard Dawkins is such a disappointment.
Thank you for standing up to him.
clevehicks #196,
I think that’s what it is too. There are two separate things at play here: their sexist views and their stubbornness. I’d respect Dawkins if he dropped the stubbornness and started thinking about what he said and what people are saying. the stubbornness has definitely come from their fame and money.
In their very early years of writing/speaking/becoming famous, I would feel confident saying that this wouldn’t have been how they’d have reacted to someone criticizing or questioning their views. You can be an authority on neuroscience or evolutionary biology, but you can’t be an authority in how to treat people.
azhael, don’t worry. I didn’t take your comment that way.
Iyéska, thanks. I’ll do that.
clevehicks @ 196:
Eh, I don’t think that’s the root cause of all this. People generally don’t change that radically in their viewpoints from one moment to the next. Have you read all the comments? I think there’s a very good case to be made that Dawkins has always held privileged and conservative views, he just doesn’t mind coming straight out with them now. I think if there had been nothing but backlash when he first started writing and tweeting absolute shit, he may have at least held his views back, but look what happened with Dear Muslima – the ‘we’re misogynist and proud’ contingent praised him up and down, and so he continues.
I don’t know, Iyeska. I have never cared for Harris, but the old Dawkins I used to love (I read every one of his books) was the master of thoughtful and well-reasoned arguments, even when writing controversial things. If he was a reactionary he kept it hidden well. But ever since around 9/11, he has been deteriorating, and each new tweet or ‘Dear Muslima’ bloviation somehow sinks him even lower.
I’m really sorry, PZ. It has got to hurt seeing him act this way toward you and this network, and that you feel that you have to respond so bluntly in public to it given how egregious his statements are. So thank you for making the statement, but I feel for you and the situation he put you in.
clevehicks @ 203:
Well, you’re free to think so, but I don’t agree with that at all. Dawkins made unclear arguments in a lot of his science books, and as for The God Delusion…oy. There was a considerable amount of wrong in there. I think some of the things Dawkins’ wrote were very good, but he was hardly the only man who ever wrote about science, evolution, or secularism. I’d take Sagan, Stenger, Tyson, Greene, Zimmer and Hawking over him any day, and those people all have places on my bookshelves (as does Dawkins, but to a lesser extent.)
Fatwah-following Tallywacker Busters.
I like those authors too, Ilyeska.
Will Richard Dawkins remove his recommendation of Pharyngula in future reprints of The God Delusion?
From Stephanie’s post:
This infuriates me. Enough to excerpt NICE GUY™ 101 again.
Ferocious taint breakers. Furious trash beaters. Fabulous toothed backlash!
OK, I apologize to those here who expected this kind of response from Richard Dawkins — I honestly did not. I’ll admit it, I really, really wanted to find some kind of doubt of which Dawkins might deserve some benefit. I wanted to see how he was going to answer PZ, and if not admitting that he was wrong, or successfully justifying what he was saying, he at least might give us some inkling of how he might try to reconcile to himself the contradictions to his own scientific values that PZ pointed out.
But is now clear that Dawkins has seen (if not read with any comprehension) PZ’s open letter, and does not plan to engage with anything in it, now or ever (for transparently self-serving and dishonest reasons). This is not only rude, but is sheer intellectual dishonesty that ill-becomes anyone who would claim to be a scientist.
Its all very sad, and it’s even more sad for PZ, who more than ever deserves our thanks. He did what needed to be done to give Dawkins a chance to explain himself.
It’s no wonder PZ likes cephalopods — at least they seem capable of recognizing when they have gotten themselves into a tight spot and intelligent enough to seek a workable way out. Richard Dawkins, not so much.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_nj0v_DJJaDA/Sdb0fQA3yXI/AAAAAAAAAAU/MNJxwig6e2o/s320/Cracked-Head–14843.jpg
I hate it when that happens.
@14 Jackie:
@37 Azhael:
…and @so many others with similar statements:
I find myself starting to believe whenever someone refers to “fake outrage” or “fake feminism” or any other so-called-“fake” argument, what they’re really admitting is their worldview regarding said topic is so narrow it does not allow for sincere opposition.
Don’t believe people can be upset (say) when the IRS fails to follow normal business practice for backing up critical data? Oh, Lois Lerner’s missing email is just a “fake scandal”. Don’t believe people people can be upset over the multinational banks ruining the economy? Just call Occupy a “fake movement”. Don’t believe women deserve equal reproductive rights? Just start calling it “fake rape”.
I would vastly prefer to believe that even the most objectionable comments are founded from ignorance or faulty logic rather than malice… but the “fake {X}” arguments, by denying the epistemological validity of opposing views, are pure evil.
I’m sorry for you, PZ.
Apparently you had a lot more scruples about severing ties with him than he had with you.
And I think you all have already said the important things
And fuck, I just remembered: Monty was right about this guy all along (and I was naïve and wrong). I remember arguing with him about it years ago. Damn, he totally called it.
I call. Name three.
since I just had this discussion with someone two days ago, I’ll add one:
The Selfish Gene
it’s where Dawkins tries to argue in the beginning that selection acts at the level of the gene, except he also talks about how the gene is just part of it (the meme), and the organism as a whole is the replicator, except that he provides a whole lot of real-world examples where it is actually very clear selection is indeed acting at the level of the individual (which, btw, is where the state of evolutionary biology was, and is still).
Later, he tried to explain this discrepancy between the reality of the science and what he said in the book as that gene selection was a better way to EXPLAIN evolution to someone who doesn’t really understand it than trying to explain it from the level of the individual. This was about where I came in to graduate school in the field, btw.
so, yeah, his explanations might have seemed clear, to someone who wasn’t actually aware of the real scientific literature at the time, but it wasn’t really clear at all.
I still think to this day that Selfish Gene was more of a detraction to teaching evolutionary biology than a boon.
I much preferred Ancestor’s Tale, frankly.
but, that’s only one.
on average, I’d agree with you that his explanations are usually clear and I’d also add, compelling (not surprising given how many copies have sold).
OTOH, I actually think Neil Shubin is closer to the mark at doing a good job of explaining the state and direction of evolutionary biology these days.
dianne @140:
I agree.
And thus, the need for Atheism+ shines even brighter.
****
azhael @143:
The thing is, it’s not all or nuthin’ when it comes to the biases and prejudices we hold. It’s entirely possible for someone to hold some pro-feminist views, while displaying sexist views. Even those who are feminists are stewing in sexism. It’s part of our culture, and it’s something you’re going to pick up. It’s unavoidable. But if and when you become aware of your sexism (or homophobia or racism or transphobia), it is then up to you where you go from there.
Do you accept that you’re wrong?
Do you confront your prejudices?
Do you work to overcome them?
Do you engage in self-reflection with an eye to eliminating those prejudices?
Or do you act like Dawkins (and Harris) has, and double down in your arrogance, continuing as you have all along, pretending as if the problem is with everyone else rather than with you?
Also, when confronted with your internalized sexism (for example), it’s not enough to vow to not act in a certain way or not say that sexist thing, one ought to be willing to open up their other beliefs…to confront them directly and honestly…and to recognize this is an ongoing process.
(The above is a general ‘you’)
****
gmacs @145:
I agree with you that sexism is not a holdover from religion, but sexism isn’t just an inherent possibility of males.
****
Jackie @153:
This↑
*We* don’t need Dawkins for a damn thing. To keep his lofty position, *he* needs us. His actions over the last few years-as more and more people have become aware of his sexism-have resulted in more and more people wanting nothing to do with him.
Hey guys, I just want to repeat something here I already posted at Ophelia’s:
I’m so glad FTB created a space where the Spockism and tribalism of the “Skeptic Movement” has no place, otherweise I couldn’t imagine my despair. These past few years have disillusioned me a great deal, but also educated me in many ways. and I think I’m a better guy for it. Just delurking to get that in, seems necessary somehow.
So thanks to PZ and all the other FTB bloggers for helping me to keep the little faith in humans I still have.
[all weird phrasing is down to me seldomly posting in english]
malefue, had you not said anything, I doubt anyone would have any idea that you’re not a native speaker. You communicated clearly and effectively. Rest easy on that one. :)
Also I like what you said, and I thank you for that bit of reinforcement. It helps.
Ysidro @163:
Sadly, yes. It’s apparent he’s using words he has no understanding of. The bloggers and commenters at FtB are bullies and thought police…how? “Feeding frenzy” is a vacuous phrase probably intended to dismiss and not address any criticism.
****
Iyéska @182:
That was shocking to read in the God Delusion. I remember getting to pages 354-357 (just checked) and being jarred at how dismissive he was of the harm of child abuse (as well as talking about how “unfairly” the Catholic Church is treated).
****
PZ:
I’m sorry to see Dawkins treating you so shitty. I can’t imagine how you feel right now.
****
clevehicks @203:
I think Dawkins is still capable of thoughtful, well reasoned arguments-but only on certain subjects. On others, such as social justice issues and especially feminism, his stubbornness, privilege, and unwillingness to confront his own sexism override his ability to compose thoughtful, well reasoned arguments.
As for him being a ‘master’, well I haven’t read enough to compare him to, so I personally wouldn’t choose that lablel. YMMV (obviously).
****
Alexander @213:
I think you have a point.
It’s really ironic, given what he said here:
Or this:
(both available here)
So Dawkins, clearly you think some topics are off-limits AND you refuse to sit down and discuss the proposition, preferring instead to wander into a land where emotion rules?
Interesting.
What malefue said.
@218 Tony
You have put into internet words exactly the things i have been pondering all day. I’ve said it before, but i’ll say it again, this whole thing (since i became aware of it) has been hugely disappointing to me but it has also been very educating.
Not only do we not need him, we also don’t want him. Not like this.
malefue @219:
Your words were clear as day. Not weird at all. I’m glad you’ve found value in the bloggers at FtB. Please delurk anytime.
@Tony! The Queer Shoop #221
Oh yes, he does, and has for years. Exhibit A: Rebecca “Don’t speak of her to me” Watson.*
.
* He actually said that to me a couple of years ago, when I met him at an event, and mentioned her name.
I would just like to add my voice to those posters expressing sympathy for the situation PZ has been put in by all of this. It can’t be easy to have a relationship implode in public in this fashion, and to realise that someone you counted as a respected friend not only didn’t deserve your respect, but is prepared to turn on you in the most petty and venal fashion in an instant.
I think PZ has handled himself well. It is one thing to talk about your principles when you have nothing on the table, but entirely another to truly live your life in accordance with them, especially at the cost of longstanding interpersonal relationships.
Long before the gilt peeled off Dawkin’s public persona, I borrowed a copy of The God Delusion dvd from the local library. I didn’t make it past 10 minutes before I had to turn him off. The man was insufferably smug then too, i decided. I found there were many better atheists to learn from including many of those at the Friends That Behave site.
There is a lesson in this, which has been hammered into my skull over the past few years and has finally reached a breaking point.
White straight cis feminists who prioritize issues of sexism that relate to them and are dismissive of or ignorant about the relationships between sexism and race, class, disability, trans* status, orientation, religion, etc, are supporting the status quo. They’re just trying to get a bigger slice of that status quo pie for themselves.
Anti-racist straight cis men who prioritize issues of race that relate to them and are dismissive of or ignorant about the relationships between racism and gender, class, disability, trans* status, orientation, religion, etc, are supporting the status quo. They’re just trying to get a bigger slice of that status quo pie for themselves.
White gay cis men who prioritize issues of anti-LGBT bias that relate to them and are dismissive of or ignorant about the relationships between anti-LGBT bigotry and gender, race, class, disability, trans* status, religion, etc, are supporting the status quo. They’re just trying to get a bigger slice of that status quo pie for themselves.
And successful, famous, straight white cis atheist men who prioritize issues of religion that relate to them and are dismissive of or ignorant about the relationships between religion and gender, race, class, disability, trans* status, orientation, etc, are supporting the status quo. They’re just trying to get a bigger slice of that status quo pie for themselves.
The moment you say “solving my problem will solve everyone else’s problems”, you are a liar. It’s not fucking true. You cannot defeat societal ills by ignoring all the many ways toxic hierarchies manifest. No matter how low on the privilege scale you might be, you are not everyone on the planet. You are not an expert on every single ethnic group or religion or disability or gender. You do not know what it is to live in someone else’s skin and if you’re not willing to listen and think and really closely examine yourself, then shut the hell up and move aside for someone who is.
There are millions of things I’m ignorant of and I will never be an expert in. There are many members of the Horde who humble me with their knowledge and remind me of my ignorance on a daily basis. But you know what? I’ve got one up on Dawkins there: I’m willing to admit my ignorance and offer my support to those fighting battles outside my immediate experience. And, ultimately, it’s all the same war and only by recognizing that can we ever reach anything that could tentatively be described as victory.
I don’t want a slice of Dawkins’ status quo pie. Throw it on the fucking ground and bake a new one.
Mellow Monkey- hear, hear!
yeah… when I said at the beginning of the first Shermer thread on this, that I was hoping this might be the beginning of the end of it?
I had no idea that this would be the direction it took.
as with others, I’m sorry to see PZ have to defend himself against someone who was once considered at least a close acquaintance if not a friend.
Remember crashing the “Expelled” movie together?
so sorry it has gone this direction.
:(
As I started to compose this comment, I thought: we’re not asking much of people like Dawkins and Harris. That all people are asking is that they listen to what we’re saying. That they open themselves up to criticism and accept that they can be wrong. That they peel back their layers of privilege and recognize the signs of the internalized sexism they’ve carried with them their entire lives.
But then I thought:
Framing it that way appears as if this is an easy task.
I remember when I started confronting my biases. It *wasn’t* easy. I remember when I started seeing how women were treated. When I started listening to what women were saying. When I started recognizing the signs of sexism.
I was horrified.
It was everywhere.
I couldn’t escape it.
I couldn’t go to work and escape it.
I couldn’t go to a gay bar and escape it.
I couldn’t go to the movies or turn on the tv and escape it.
I saw it in the way people dressed.
I saw it in the way people acted.
I saw it in the way people spoke.
I saw it in the way people interacted.
One of the most striking moments for me came when I was sitting at a local gay bar and having a conversation with a friend. We were talking about effeminate gay men and drag queens and dating sites and more. This was maybe 2 years ago. I’d accepted that feminism was a worthy cause and was becoming comfortable calling myself one. But I was still in the process of understanding the sexist views I had.
Well one of those sexist views up and slapped me across the head right then and there.
I realized as my friend and I spoke, that all those people talking about how they won’t date a “girly gay man”…
•or those times when I said that phrase, followed by “I want to date a man bc he’s a man. I don’t want a date a man who acts like a girl”…
•or those people who put at the top of the Adam4Adam, Manhunt, or Grindr profile “not interested in nellie men, only want masculine men”
…I realized then and there that we…I…was trapped in thinking about gender in very rigid terms. I realized that I thought “men are supposed to be this way, and women are supposed to be this way”. I thought that any deviation from that was wrong. I thought that there was something wrong with a man acting like a woman, or having traits or characteristics typically associated with women. I realized how deep sexism ran. It runs so deep it affects how we view ourselves, as well as the people around us. It shapes our opinions of our friends, our family, our coworkers, even strangers.
It.
Runs.
Deep.
Reflecting on that, I realize now, that we *are* asking for a lot from Dawkins and Harris.
But you know what?
We’re not asking the impossible.
We are not asking either of them to do anything we aren’t willing to do ourselves…what we are continually doing ourselves. We’re asking them to be better people. We’re asking them to look deep inside themselves and confront all that is ugly within them.
That’s where it becomes difficult.
Who wants to accept that there’s ugly shit inside you?
Who wants to accept that you can be capable of being a sexist/homophobic/racist/transphobic bigot?
That is hard to do.
It ain’t easy.
But that’s how we’re going to become better people.
That’s how we become a better species.
It’s not going to be a cakewalk. It won’t be unicorns and butterflies and chocolate covered strawberries. It’s going to be tough and it’s not going to end. It’s going to be a continual process that we carry with us for the rest of our lives.
Confronting the internalized issues that we all have is not easy.
But it’s damn well worth it.
And it’s something Every. Fucking. Person. Should. Do.
That’s the only way we’re going to reshape this world and leave it better for those who come after us.
I…We are not holding Sam Harris or Richard Dawkins to some impossible standard. We’re holding them to same standard we hold ourselves and others to. They continue to fail to measure up to that standard.
One day I hope they’ll recognize what they’re doing and dig deep…deep into their core and realize that they have some shit to come to terms with. I hope they do this because not believing in gods is NOT. FUCKING. ENOUGH.
@ The Mellow Monkey
Perfect.
@Tony 231
And there is another perfect one with a personal experience. Thank you.
Mellow Monkey @228:
::applause::
Well said.
The Mellow Monkey @ 228;
Quoted for truth. Some people seem to be afflicted with the mentality ‘fucking intersectionality – how does that work?’ as if only their own concerns matter, and as if their membership of an oppressed and marginalised group somehow erases the ways in which they are privileged with regard to other potential axes of oppression
———————————————————————————————————-
Tony! The Queer Shoop @ 231;
Yet more truth. Sexism is so inground into our society that it takes a concerted effort to resist its insidious influence on our behaviour, culture, language, art, entertainment – every aspect of our daily lives. That said, hard does not mean impossible, and if someone like Dawkins or Harris wants to set themselves up as paragons of rational thought, then they have to expect to be held to the same standards we hold ourselves to.
————————————————————————————————————–
On an off topic note; darn, but there are several people with a wonderful way with words here today. I am experiencing an eloquence shortfall.
Of course that <10% of other things happens to involve more than half the population of human beings on the planet and their interests, you know, topics like the respect, justice, and consideration due them as humans by the others on the planet. There is that.
“You murdered my wife!”
“So? Surely the fact that we agree on everything else means we should still be friends, right?”
Tony!, The Mellow Monkey,
You are both awesome writers. I’m glad you are here to share your thoughts so eloquently.
Whenever I face criticism from my theistic friends – and mind you, we’re talking about liberal, non-6000-year-old-Earth, non-creationist, evolution-recognizing, separation-of-church-and-state-favoring theists – about my atheism, the first person they mention as a personification of the evils of atheism is… Richard Dawkins. Can you blame them? How long till we all have to explain in every interaction with a theist that Richard Dawkins doesn’t represent atheists any more than the Westboro baptist Church represents theists?
PS — Big thanks to The Mellow Monkey and Tony! The Queer Shoop for contributions to this thread. It’s been a long read up to comment 236 (or so) but it’s been worth it because of comments like yours.
Yup; they don’t want to dismantle the kyriarchy, they just want to be at the top of it themselves.
Or as Kimberlé Crenshaw put it in one of her papers about intersectionality: they are stuck in the basement with the other oppressed people, but all they want is to be pulled out through the trap door onto the ground floor where the privileged people are, nevermind that most oppressed people can’t even reach the trap door.
coffeehound @ 236;
Well, that is what happens when two people who totes should be friends focus on the little things that come between them… */Snark*
You would think that Jeff S and people like him would realise that disagreement on 10% of things can be incredibly profound depending upon what particular 10% you disagree on. When it covers things like whether or not women should be viewed as fully human, a disagreement really cannot get much more fundamental
I used to think it was a tiresome thing to have to do.
Now? I’m actually looking at it differently. Having to explain that yes, people can indeed be quite well reasoned on some things, and completely UNreasonable on others, rather is a good place to start trying to explain how humans manage to compartmentalize things.
In a way, Dawkins has done me a favor by acting as someone counter to someone like Ken Miller. both quite well reasoned on science, very UNreasonable when it comes to just about anything else, and a lot of that is entirely due to the compartmentalization both employ.
The “90% your allies” is interesting to me.
Went to both the Melbourne Atheist Conventions and two moments stand out.
Phillip Adams’ advice not to dismiss partners in promoting progressive causes because they are religious.
Marion Maddox (practicing theist) being the most aggressive defender of secularism on a panel of atheists.
The question then arises, what percentage would I view the likes of Harris, Shermer and Dawkins as being allies in promoting the ideals I find important and in building the kind of society I want to live in.
If “Atheism” is to some just a form of identity politics, then I’ll opt out of it as a label, practice Atheism (whatever THAT entails) in a private way and find my own damned allies not viewing the presence of trace elements of Atheism as an indelible signifier of moral correctness or (for that matter) a marker of a Man or Woman of Reason.
I happen to work in a very conservative office, and often hear people say things that just put my teeth on edge. Some are Biblical literalists, others loudly denounce any decision of Obama as the absolute worstest possible.
Yet most of the time these people are competent, compassionate, and intelligent. Most I consider friends, and we can on occasion debate on the validity of political and/or religious positions. I’ve come to the conclusion that most people have, through experience or temperament, attached themselves to some beliefs that I do not agree with and find unsupportable. Of course, based on the debates I’ve had I can say that several people there find some of my positions to be unsupportable as well.
It appears to be human nature to succumb to the “I’ve made up my mind, don’t confuse me with facts” syndrome, and I’m not often successful in getting people to change their minds on these topics. The change process seems be one of erosion and not explosion, so I’ll keep wearing them down.
By the way PZ, congrats on becoming “He who must not be named”. I tip my wand in your general direction.
Mykroft @ 244.
If you don’t mind activating the trace and summoning his Fedora-Eaters, you can always call him VoldeMyers
#240, Jadehawk’s summary of The Mellow Monkey:
And funny if the anti-feminists wouldn’t accuse all of use of wanting this very same thing while we’re clamoring for real, true equality in lieu of stepping stones to the top. They just can’t conceive of people who prefer to eliminate the top altogether; they relate better to the folks who want their own piece of the status quo pie.
It just occurred to me: we share 50% of our genes with bananas (or so I’ve been told). We share quite high percentages of our genes with many creatures, and when we get to primates we share very large amounts, up to about 98% (give or take) with chimps.
Turns out, those few percent are important.
Just a quick de-lurk to echo malefue @219, and to thank PZ, FTB and all the commenters for persevering.
Also, Rebecca Watson’s latest response is truly wonderful for those who haven’t already seen it.
Jacob Scmhids @ 247
Well said. Solidarity is a tricky concept to invoke. ;-)
“But other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?”
@182
I actually still agree with him on the first point. Using such a threat on children that serious, albeit impossible, is abuse. However, it is in no way worse than physical sexual abuse. That was the part of the book that most disturbed me. Although, I must admit, I really liked the book at the time (I still like some of the arguments in it), and it was what transitioned me from agnostic to atheist, one of the most liberating moments of my life.
Perhaps its that last point that makes this all the more sour.
I am ever more grateful in recent years that the writers who most influenced me with respect to atheism/freethought/skepticism were all long dead when I read them and cannot now demolish their legacy by blurts on blogs or social media. Especially since almost nothing said by the Four Horsemen wasn’t said first and better by the likes of David Hume, Baron d’Holbach, John Stuart Mill, Robert Ingersoll, Arthur Schopenhauer, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Bertrand Russell, Mark Twain, Ambrose Bierce, Simone de Beauvoir etc (and they were all ultimately piggybacking off philosophers from classical antiquity such as Diagoras and Theodorus). There’s also some strong books by folks who were still alive when I first read them but who are now deceased and thus not tweeting (e.g. Douglas Adams, Carl Sagan) .
Some of these writers I’ve listed are known to have made problematic statements that require acknowledgement and consideration as part of their legacies, but at least they’re all now beyond the possibility of continuing to stick their foot in their mouth. I recommend looking into some of these older writings to understand more about the long history of atheist/skeptical thought, safe in the knowledge that nothing they say now can taint their existing works.
Jeff S @118:
I think this is a bit over the top.
We’re not talking about Harry Potter and Voldemort (I cannot believe that spellcheck recognizes that word, but doesn’t recognize ‘spellcheck’!).
We aren’t discussing Superman and Lex Luthor (it doesn’t recognize Lex’s first or last name).
We’re talking about two very real human beings who have a history of friendship together. From where I sit, that friendship appears to be dissolving and I don’t think PZ is happy about that. Perhaps you could avoid referring to their relationship in hyperbolic terms like ‘mortal enemies’.
PZ:
I know I pushed for you to reconsider your friendly feelings towards Dawkins, but damn I never wanted or expected this kind of immature and hurtful bullshit to be leveled directly at you. I am truly sorry.
To keep this short (it’s surprisingly difficult to type on a phone with your hand in a cast): Dawkins can go ahead and fuck right off now.
gmacs @ 251:
I never said it wasn’t. I have repeatedly explained that I was taught about hell, old school catholic hell, I had it hammered into me, and I was terrified of it. It was a very real fear for me. I was also raped for six years, ages 3 to 9. As terrified as I was of hell, it didn’t come close to the nightmare of being raped on a regular basis.
One of Dawkins’s major problems is his extrapolating his feelings onto others. Yes, I agree that teaching hell constitutes abuse, however, Dawkins does not get to pronounce a value judgment that it’s worse than being molested. That’s fine if it was the case for him, but it sure wasn’t for me, and I know other people who feel the same way.
Dawkins should start by distrusting himself:
Can it be true that that he has strong motivations to maintain the inequal status quo because it benefits himself?
Can it be true that he has strong motivations not to examine the reasons laid about by others lest his ego be hurt by his inadequate understanding of the topic at hand?
Can it be true that he has strong motivations to guess at, rather than demonstrate, the motivations that others have in an attempt to silence an uncomfortable debate?
I can’t say “hope not” for the evidence speaks otherwise.
gmacs @251:
I might quibble over it [using the threat of hell to scare children] being abuse, but I don’t have a problem with saying that such threats can have a negative effect on children. I do *not*, however, think it worse than sexually assaulting a child.
I’m still hoping that RD will read this post and change his mind.
I’m an idiot.
@254.
I’m sorry if I implied otherwise. I cannot disagree with a word you said, but offer sympathy for what you went through.
Even with the clumsy renaming of FTB, that just read to me like “women have been too uppity too long and it’s time they were put in their place.”
Nothing about this surprises me; it just reinforces my scorn for this misogynist PoS. Everything he’s said for years seems to reinforce the “White men are Great Minds and Clear Thinkers and, golly, Human. Women? Children? Those ::shudder:: brown men? No, they really don’t count. They don’t have Nobel Prizes! They think there’s something wrong with a little kiddy fiddling when we know the ha-ha-‘victims’ can just get money for it! They don’t know what the REALLY TERRIBLE things are, they make things up, they are not Rational and do not listen when I tell them what to do with their bodies or what to think!” message.
Even though he’s a product of Western culture and its long-established religious thinking, he’s also the sort who makes me think misogyny probably predates and informs religion, and will outlast its current forms.
Thomathy, Such A ‘Mo @61
“Brights” always made me think “Arrogant gobshites, or are you really so clueless you don’t see you’re labelling everyone else as dim?” But blight, now, that would be a word for Dawkins, Harris et al.
malefue @219
Nthd. Little personal thing (okay, derail): I’m not atheist, not these days, nor do I wish to be. But Feline Totalitarian Bolshevists is the only specifically atheist site I read, precisely because Spockism and all that shit isn’t allowed. I read Pharyngula far more than the other blogs, because of its large and lively commentariat, though I’m still nervous about commenting. Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, the whole boys’ club thing, disgusts me, mostly because I despise misogynists, but partly because of the “male emotions = Rational Reasony Thinking” shit they throw around, and partly because it hurts good people within atheism.
/derail
2kittehs @260:
“Blights”-I like that.
That’s exactly what Dawkins, Shermer, and Harris are.
Thank you, gmacs. The two other horde members I discussed this with on a different thread felt the same way as me, and there were differences in the whole taught hell between us. It is a good illustration, I think, of Dawkins’s wrongheadedness – he seems to think that his feelings on any given matter are universal. When that’s the case, you never can get very far in trying to get across a different viewpoint.
2Kittehs:
You don’t need to be. You are not the only non-atheist here, and back in the Molly days, several non-atheists were OM’d. Your posts all read on point and good to me.
And look who’s taking advantage of the endorsement.
https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/2gl2ak/are_video_games_sexist_christina_hoff_sommers/
2kittehs @260:
I agree with Iyéska-there’s no need to be nervous about commenting (I suppose I’m making the assumption that your nervousness is connected to your non-atheism-if it’s not, I apologize). I’ve read many of your comments, and not only do I agree with much of what you’ve said, I think you have a unique voice and are a natural fit around here.
PZ, I know that you and Dawkins used to be friends. I’m sorry that things have turned out this way… but so, so glad that you’re willing to stand up for your principles. Thank you.
An enthusiastic rationalist such as Dawkins should be able to recognize an ad hominem before using it…
Tony! and Iyéska, thank you!
Yeah, it’s being a not-atheist (how’s that for a double negative?) and completely ignorant in matters of science that makes me a bit wibbly, nothing else.
What were the Molly days? I’ve seen them mentioned once or twice. I’m guessing an OM is an Order of Molly, yes?
F.O. @266:
An enthusiastic and competent rationalist would be able to recognize an ad hominem before using it.
A cherry-picking dabbler in the forms of rationalism who doesn’t really understand what it means to be rational, on the other hand . . .
2kittehs @267:
I’ll leave someone else to explain the Mollies, as I started commenting around the time PZ stopped doing them.
As for this:
I’m pretty ignorant about science myself. I think we all have ways to contribute to discussions that play to our strengths. That’s one of the reasons I don’t comment much (if at all) in the threads that are more science focused. Thankfully PZ blogs about all manner of topics, and there are many I feel more confident weighing in on.
R Johnston @268:
Are you hinting at something? I can’t quite make it out.
::whistles innocently::
I’m sorry for PZ, but the latest round from Dawkins doesn’t surprise me a bit. Despite his writings on atheism and evolutionary biology, he is still a typical upper class British snob. You cannot explain this crap by appealing to advanced age or misunderstanding. You can hear the same shit coming out of the mouth of David Cameron or any other random Tory, or any American plutocrat. Those of us who grew up in the lower classes have heard it all before.
Tony!, @269, that’s one of the things I like about Pharyngula – the variety of things PZ blogs about.
Even kitties. The Cat Brain Control plan is progressing. ::laughs evilly::
R Johnston @268
Ka-POW!
Tony! @278:
I might just be hinting at something. Maybe.
278? Where’d that come from? Ugh.
270. Oh for an edit function!
“Feedingfrenzy Thoughtpolice Bullies”? Is that really the best Dawkins could manage? It’s so… inelegant and unambitious. Instead of sticking his words together like overcooked spaghetti, he should have gone with something properly grandiose, like Fanatical Ragey Estrogen-Exuding Totally Hysterical Obsessive Uptight Guy-Hating Tw*ts and B*tchy Little Outraged Grudge-Seekers. See, that’s more like something I’d be proud to get offended over, not the pathetic pastiche of dog-whistles and in-jokes he came up with.
2kittehs @260
“I’m not atheist, not these days, nor do I wish to be. But Feline Totalitarian Bolshevists is the only specifically atheist site I read, precisely because Spockism and all that shit isn’t allowed”
I feel exactly the same way, I am exhausted now to even look at many other sites’ headlines because I know I’d have to wade through dozens of comments of Skeptics and Atheists pontificating on how women should react to stuff or how we are living in a world where no one really needs feminism anymore because reasons.
Having spaces where that kind of behavior is frowned upon helped me a lot, specifically in times of depression, where my feelings of blind rage and despair at those attitudes tend to really really really get me down. Coming here and reading comments on Pharyngula or B&W is like taking a hoz shower after walking through cold mud for miles.
I realize now I’m starting to sound mushy here. but fuck it, I know people here take ramblings like mine in the right way.
Carry on, carry on forever please!
weird phrasing and wrong terminology is down to me seldomly commenting in english
Oh, and I wanted to add that I too was wary of commenting, I felt I had nothing to contribute that would really add to the already great commentariat. I’m trying to get over that though. So thanks for being kind.
malefue
Here is the Lounge
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2014/09/13/lounge-476/#respond
don’t worry about relevancyness
just jump in
Brrr! That’s all too vivid an image, the rain’s been pelting down here today. :)
Look, I don’t mean to derail, but that’s not weird at all. We see that kind of behaviour from Christian fundamentalists all the time. Figures with a lot of funding and privilege end up bullying certain groups, such as homosexuals, and yet also act like martyrs for their cause, claiming that Christians are being persecuted simply because the rest of society doesn’t share their bigotry.
It’s not weird or inconsistent to claim that a bully is playing the victim. It’s just not true that feminists are doing that.
MM
What you said @228.
With Glitter.
I’ve long come to the conclusion taht many peole aren’t against discrimination as such, they’re just against being at the receiving end of it.
Ravenred
I always go with Samwise Gamgee: Pretty is who pretty does.
If I could magically change the world and I had to choose between a world in which everybody was like my catholic, feminsist, pro LGBT, anti racist, pro social justice friend who fastes during lent, and a world in which everybody was like Richard Dawkins, I’d start stocking on food for lent. Because she might believe silly things, but she’s a decent human being.
+++
Iyéska
Ha, I’m getting into teh habit of the nym!
He really, really believes that
A) you can put harm on one objective scale, especially if it involves psychological damage
B) he’s got it absolutely correct
I don’t think that “Pope of atheism” is too far off
Just seconding ekwhite!
You can hear it now in the negative and bland campaign against a YES vote in the Scottish referendum. There is a case to be made against the YES position but every time someone makes it, Gordon Brown for instance, it is drowned out by those who just want the plebs silenced and back in their cages as quickly as possible.
I am very sorry that PZ has had to see someone who was (at the least) a respected colleague and very cordial acquaintance behave so poorly and be so petulantly eager to take anyone who fails to respect his authoritah and throw them under the bus .
I am grateful to PZ and the Horde for creating one of the few places in the desert where you can get a drink of water just by turning up and not downright refusing to listen.
I am still obliged to Dawkins for one thing, though – years ago his mention of Pharyngula was the first time I’d seen the name, so I suppose I have him to thank for having found my way here.
Dawkins is fine on the motes; pity he refuses to even consider the existence of the beams.
A distrustful killjoy would toy with the idea that Dawkins’ motivation was starting a long feud with an adversary he knew to be much feebler than him so he could enjoy a very long streak of rhetorical victories.
***
The thing is, outrage is sometimes indeed faked, especially when displays of outrage are little more than insincere tribalistic shibboleths (*cough
TeaPartyAbortionsHasbaracough*), the trick is resisting the urge to assume that every dissent is made in bad faith.
Giliell @281:
That’s EXACTLY the realization that has allowed me to return to enthusiastic participation in Unitarian Universalism. With the added bonus that there is nothing whatsoever that I’m called upon to do or believe that is the equivalent of “stocking up on food for Lent”- I’m perfectly welcome to be the hardcore scientific materialist atheist that I am and have been since childhood. If words like “God” (though never meant in the sky-daddy “up there” sense) or “spirituality ” get thrown around more than I would ideally prefer- so what? The values we hold in common are FAR FAR more important.
I find it interesting how often this ‘90%’ shows up in comment threads about human rights. Half the population of the world, half of all actual and potential atheists, only counts as 10%?
Which is also another example of him taking his experiences, his feelings, his reaction to childhood sexual assault, and assuming that his experience is universal. Same for the whole ‘gradations’ of rape (which is problematic for me because the assaults I went through that torment me more today are not the painful assaults but rather the times when he made me feel pleasure — when he was gentle) idiocy. This bizarre idea that his personal experience and feelings trumps all is a big part of the disconnect.
@ 262 Iyéska
As another childhood sexual abuse survivor, I completely agree. I was taught about hell as a child but it never really scarred me or bothered me (children are so self-centered, aren’t they? It didn’t bother me because I was a Child of the Lord so didn’t have to worry about hell) until the purity stuff was brought up when I became older and I realized that for being molested and impure, I was considered a good candidate for hellfire.
Also, once when I was 10 and my father had just died, a friend told me that he’d go to hell because he committed suicide and I completely lost it. It’s the only instance I can remember before the puberty purity stuff about hell specifically negatively.
::Banging head on desk at the stupidity of it all:: The believers have finally found their wedge issue.
Ranzoid:
Theists are not the problem. Atheists are the problem.
Dana Hunter – Done with Dawkins
Dana Hunter:
Yep, in a nutshell.
Ranzoid @ 288;
As Iyéska points out @ 289, this isn’t about theists. This is about movement atheism and how poisoned it has become, as expressed in the person of Richard Dawkins (not to mention Sam Harris among others) and his descent into open misogyny and rape apologia.
Toxic misogyny and the de facto refusal of some prominent atheist community leaders (for want of a better term) to fully recognise the humanity of women or the legitimacy of their experiences and perspectives (not to mention ugly, dismissive treatment of rape survivors) is not some minor point that only has relevancy in the ways in which it can yield the dreaded ‘deep rifts’. How atheism as a community and a movement treats politically and socially marginalised groups like women determines whether it is worth maintaining at all. If atheism is to become nothing more than smug cis/het white guys club, then no person of conscience should have anything to do with it.
To my mind at least, pursuing the creation of a genuinly equal and progressive society that views women as fully human and respects their bodily autonomy is infinitely more important than endlessly reiterating the frankly – in this day and age – obvious non-existence of a magic sky fairy as if it is some grand revelation.
Like other commenters on this thread, if it were a choice between progressive, ethical, women’s and LGBTQ rights promoting, anti-racist, anti-ableist moderate theists on the one side, and bigoted, regressive, straw vulcan atheists on the other, I would happily throw my lot in with the decent people who happen to believe a few silly things, rather than prejuduced arsehats who have managed to get the non-existence of god(s) right, and now are deluded enough to imagine themselves infallible oracles of rationality simply because they made this not very impressive leap .
It is emphaticlly not stupid to say that there are some ethical lines we won’t cross, some people who we won’t call ‘allies’ just because they don’t believe in god(s) when their other positions are oppressive, bigoted, and contribute substantially to net human suffering and misery.
The only worthwhile atheism is a principled atheism.
in my wanderings, revisiting this, from PZ in January of 2013.
Relief for the heartsick
Back then I linked to this, so I’ll link it again:
Greta Christina – Why I Have Hope
OK, OK, I was wrong, goddamnit.
Yes, but were you wrong to have hope? I don’t think so. I think many of us still held out hope.
PZ, your way of being wrong is the best there is – to look for the best in people, to expect better of people and – of course – to know when you’re wrong.
I would be proud of myself to have anything even close to that kind of attitude and integrity.
I’m not so sure about all of them, but hey, five out of eight isn’t so bad. I think that counts as a Gentleman’s D.
PZ. You were right to think that a person you respect as a clear thinker and who talks cogently about being “good without god” could/would/should think his way through these issues and come out with a good result.
He didn’t. None of us really know why. You’re rightly disappointed in his failure. Your own optimism is a good thing – it’s good in a teacher, it’s good in a friend.
And in baseball it’d get you into the Hall of Fame.
Yeah, PZ, you were wrong, but in a good way, and at least you’re decent enough to admit it. Dawkins just keeps getting worser every time he taps out his 140 characters.
Me in 2010: Atheist activism is a kick-ass movement where no heroes are sacred, people are willing to change their ideas if evidence is given, and the religious scourge of homophobia and misogyny is shunned at the door.
Me in 2012: Atheist activism is a big tent with a few bad apples, but they’re a fringe element and we’re just going through growing pains. The vast majority of leaders and participants are humanists who support women and minorities, we’re working to make things better, and we’ll be a force to be reckoned with in a few years.
Me in 2014: What the fuck happened? Atheist writers and organizational leaders are defending harrassers and rapists. The optimism of the Out Campaign, the Reason Rally; the idea that we were changing the world…gone. My closest friends and allies haven’t changed, but we’re on the outside looking in and the big social movement I thought I was part of is disintegrating before my eyes.
Now I wonder if there’s anything from the last decade of activism we’ll be able to salvage at all, or if we’ve been thrown back to the dark days of 2004 and left to rebuild from scratch.
mildlymagnificent @ 298
QFT
I really can’t imagine the level of disappointment this has to be for you, PZ, but I admire your optimism. I admire your belief in the ethical strength and intellectual honesty of those around you. For those willing to change and willing to be self-critical, that optimism gives us all something to strive for. It’s sad that not everyone is willing to take those steps, but the general trend towards improvement is still there. We’re still getting better.
Iyéska, Giliell, Tony!, etc. all have it right. Religion was never the enemy. It may have slept with the enemy, but the real enemy is misogyny, racism, homophobia, transphobia, and just generally bigotry in all its many and ugly forms.
I don’t need a movement, I don’t need leaders, I just need people who will challenge me to think and change and act.
Andrew T @300:
I offered some thoughts (probably more like vague hopes) over at Perry Street Palace, after Iris Vander Pluym wrote a post about Dawkins, Harris, and the late Hitch (she also wrote a little about Dennett, who seems thus far to be nothing like the others):
And yes, I realize that last sentence would get me in trouble with English teachers everywhere.
I can’t stand this kind of bullshit. Yeah, it is. It’s not “the” one and only enemy. But it is. And it’s a real enemy, no doubt about it. Maybe it’s not the biggest, baddest bad guy in the room, but it’s nobody’s fucking friend.
PZ, on behalf of us many survivors and potential future survivors who just want to be atheists or scientists or bloggers or tweeters or educators or game players or science writers (see: Bora) and go about their lives in peace… thank you for being able and willing to listen, learn, and do better, out where everyone can see you.
Since Dawkins can’t be bothered, we’ll have to make do with you.
I agree with consciousness razor @304. If I gave any indication that religion isn’t an enemy, I apologize. It is. I just don’t think it’s the Big Bad (for that matter, I don’t think there *is* a Big Bad-would that we could just go battle The Master, Angelus, The Mayor, Adam, Glory, Dark Willow, or The First and be done with this shit).
Well, it IS technically possible to pretend to be a victim and yet actually be a bully. Lots of MRAs do this all the time, so that part of Dawkin’s rant isn’t logically inconsistent, it’s just incorrect.
It’s a shame, I really have to wonder if Dawkins has always thought like this, or if he internalized that terrible “Dear Muslima” comment and the just criticism of it to the point he eventually TOOK this position. Basically, I’m trying to figure out how to alter people through social engineering. Who’s with me?
Seconding Tony! @ 306. This is what I was getting at in @228:
Religion is a problem, because it’s not true and reinforces the kyriarchy. It’s just not the only problem. There’s a hell of a lot of stuff we need to deal with and, frankly, I don’t ever see a time when humanity in general won’t have to deal with it to some degree. This is pernicious shit and if we stop fighting it, then it’ll just find some new way to pop up.
@2Kittehs:
Mollies were, as you surmised, an award more formally known as the Order of Molly. The Molly in this case being Molly Ivins.
The final winner was Maureen Brian. There was a list of all the mollies on a single page, but I can’t find it. The address it used to occupy now bounces to the page honoring Maureen. But Iyéska, Anthony K, Ichthyic, Sally Strange, Alexandra, Carlie, Jafafa Hots, A Noyd, David Marjanović and a number of other folk whose nyms would be familiar to you were recipients. [I’m sure I’m forgetting some with whom you’re familiar- like I can’t remember for sure off the top of my head if chigau or Theophontes were recipients, but they’ve both been such good contributors for so long, it’s probable.]
Molly Ivins, of course, was known for her wit, reason, and insight. She was particularly skilled at driving home a point sharp, true, and barbed. I don’t know how it was originally named, but clearly PZ was familiar with her writing even if the name was suggested by someone else or he never would have adopted it. From his original post introducing the Mollies, he doesn’t credit anyone else, so I believe he came up with it on his own.
The Mollies were a way of rewarding people who had made a particularly valuable contribution to the commentariat – either once or over time. I had actually originally misinterpreted the Mollies as both “lifetime achievement” and as something upon which only other OMs voted. Neither were true, and I was well skewered for my misconceptions, by chigau.
Tony,
Apologies for including you in my 302; I was misremembering what you said (and apologies in advance to Iyéska and Giliell if I’m misinterpreting y’all).
As for my comment about religion not being the enemy, first let me qualify that by saying nearly every religion is. But like Giliell @281, I know too many religious people who, aside from a silly belief in god and an afterlife, are otherwise decent, rational people to think that religion is inherently the enemy.
But anyway, I’m pretty much in agreement with your 306 and The Mellow Monkey’s 308, so I’ll let it go.
Hah!
@2Kittehs:
I finally found the initial Molly award. It’s here.
As you can see, PZ chose 2 folk to reward that month. Interestingly, one, Scott Hatfield, is a theist.
So from the early days of giving recognition to good commenters, non-atheists were being included. hope that helps.
/OT
Religion, or more specifically unquestionable religious faith and a belief in the anti-scientific and authoritarian concept of revealed truth, is always an enemy because it short-circuits the ability to think critically and leaves people vulnerable to instruction not to empathize with others. It’s the lack of critical thinking and empathy that are the underlying enemies, and those can certainly happen with or without religion, but religion itself is always problematic.
but that doesn’t fit in a tweet
OK, I think this whole business requires us to examine and possibly rebuild the foundations of New Atheism- foundations which we can now see were not without significant flaws. I’ll play devil’s advocate here (and I expect to be bashed for it)- I’m increasingly uncomfortable with confident statements- often, though coming from people who have seen through Dawkins, still insulting in tone in the classic Dawkins manner- that throw around the word “religion” in an unexamined way, a category that any reader of an anthropologist like Pascal Boyer should recognize as an extremely problematic one. But let’s stick to Western Christianity for clarity’s sake. Suppose the only Christians around were UCC types who barely qualify as theists. What genuine problem of the world would be solved if they all became avowed atheists overnight? This could even be a net loss to the world if the energy devoted to social activism thereby decreased- and we need to face the fact that it might. The kind of dogmatism that refuses to confront this is the same kind that energizes the Dawkinses and Harrises.
Time spent fighting religion is time wasted unless it’s focused intelligently on fighting against genuinely harmful, dogmatic forms of religion, and on fighting for strict church-state separation. Sorry to sound like Chris Stedman- whom I increasingly find to make sense (I expect more bashing for that one!)- but it can even be worse than wasted if it drives away potential allies in the really important fights.
Side note: Arthur Chu is a good person to read about this stuff, too. He’s the guy known as “that guy who broke Jeopardy”, and writes all up in the atheist/skeptic/feminist movement sometimes on The Guardian Comment Is Free section when the mood moves him, and what he writes is good and supportive. It’s nice to see guys who get it.
on twitter
Steve LaBonne @314,
Citation needed.
*sigh*
**double sigh**
Gee, so you mean that maybe atheism, in the strict dictionary sense, isn’t the be-all and end-all? That “dictionary atheists” aren’t necessarily our allies, and that what we should be aiming for is atheism and social justice. Perhaps, one might phrase it, atheism plus other things?
Gosh, if only some folks had been blogging about this. But you’re right to be afraid, Steve. Clearly such sentiments would not go over well here. The Horde is so clearly pro-dictionary atheism and anti-associating-atheism-with-anything-else. You’re being so brave!
***massive sigh***
I’ve addressed your Stedman point (such as it is — you don’t offer any specifics about what Stedman “makes sense” about that the rest of us will supposedly “bash” you for — over at B&W).
Steve, you’ve either always had a very warped view of what New Atheism was, or you’re rewriting history in your efforts to portray yourself as the brave reasonable one standing up to us dogmatic types.
Steve LaBonne @ 314:
The thing is that once you hold up revealed truth and the rejection of critical thinking as good things, once you’ve let that cat out of the bag, the results are always going to bite you in the ass in the end. Sure, the UCC bunch might be nice fluffy kittens purring quietly in your lap, but so long as critical thinking is rejected, even selectively, in favor of revealed truth there’s nothing you can do to keep that cat from one night clawing your eyes out as you sleep. Even fluffy friendly religion is mindless and authoritarian, and if you allow mindless authoritarianism to thrive you inevitably get the bad and dreadful results along with the benign.
No, I don’t mean only that. I mean that blanket, undifferentiated denunciations of “religion”- and there are some residing not very far above my comment- are both beside the point and not necessarily harmless, and need to be better thought out. Do you disagree?
Can you tell me, R Johnston, how a church like the UCC that explicitly disavows any kind of dogmatic creed- no affirmation of any creed is required to be a member of a UCC church- and has as its slogan “God is still speaking”, holds up revealed truth and rejects critical thinking? I’m no fan of liberal Christianity and in fact find it irritatingly evasive and pointless, but your claims about what it entails are simply false. Let’s fight our real enemies, who are far stronger than the UCC anyway.
Also, Barry Lynn, director of Americans United, is a UCC minster. Is he an upholder of dogma and an enemy of critical thinking?
Is there a reason why it needs to be overnight? Are we supposed to overlook the genuine benefits that come with people reasoning through a problem they have, gradually coming to the right conclusion, and reshaping their lives because of the implications it has? They may not even know what could be reshaped, much less how to do it, until they’ve “avowed” these beliefs (to use your word) and actually put them to work.
And I think there’s something to the idea that a belief is a propensity to act. Unless you’re suggesting that there is no such belief (which is just absurd, so I doubt that’s the bullet you’d want to bite), it’s hard to see how it won’t have some kind of consequence. Not just one either, probably lots and lots of them, like anything else.
We also have to talk about what you’re willing to consider a “genuine problem” and how reasonable your criteria are….
Well, it might, but there might be unicorns on the other side of the galaxy.
How much “social activism” is there, actually? How much of this activism, to the extent it exists, is actually misdirected toward things like opposing gay marriage, abortion, etc.? Never mind that it’s possible. Why, if you came to the realization that there is no cosmic justice and no big magical friend to make things right (or to make them the way they should be in the first place)*, would you be less inclined to both notice and then act upon the problems you see in the world? There’s no actual motivation to be lost here, except ones you thought were dictated by a god and can’t have any other justification, so why would people deconverting to atheism lose anything? I just don’t see how that’s realistic psychologically. People still have needs, gods or no gods, and they in fact won’t be met by gods, so it’s fairly straightforward (at least for most people) that knowing that will have an effect which is the opposite of what you’re worried about.
Besides that, if we’re really worried about “genuine problems,” why should something like “social activism” itself be the first thing on the list? I’m not doing this to get my social activism merit badge — it’s not something I do, for its own sake, because it’s good (or avoiding it’s bad).
*Notice that defining what we’re talking about, making it explicit, makes it clear (to me) what’s happening in this line of argument. This isn’t just any old abstract belief — it’s a specific one, and we can use that information (along with other things we already know) to predict what the most likely consequences will be, not just talk about a bunch of free-floating possibilities.
the most important part of New Atheist activism wasn’t so much the attempt at making everyone atheist; it is in destroying religious privilege.
The fact that religion is the go-to authority for ethics is a problem EVEN when the resulting ethics end up progressive; because either way, they amount to “because I feel like it”, which is a shitty basis for an ethics system.
The fact that ethical exemptions are allowed when they’re religious, but not in secular contexts (conscientious objection being one huge example), or even just easier to achieve through the former is a huge problem, even when the exemptions are for ethically sound reasons.
The fact that in many countries, one particular religion gets involved in ethical deliberations even for people who are not members of that religion is a huge problem even when the outcome is progressive.
In other words, the biggest problem with religion is its structural status. If religion was a harmless private hobby, it would be still inaccurate and thus criticizable as much as any other superstition, but it wouldn’t be anything to have a movement about, any more than the superstition about lighting cigarettes from candles is.
Point being: there’s value in attacking a huge social institution that’s based on complete nonsense but is charged with handling many social services AND with supplying an ethical basis for a society/culture. That’s what, for me, the fight with the accommodationists have been about.
The part where more atheists happen is somewhat secondary; I’m really more invested in secularism than atheism, but OTOH not having people base so much of their lives on fiction would be nice.
all da Mollies
Not having to do social activism would be awesome. Can someone point me to that world? Is the sky there made of blue kool-aid and cotton candy? Cause this SJW would love nothing in the universe more than the chance to lay down arms because the battle’s won. That would be soooooo restful.
Steve LaBonne @318:
I mostly disagree.
We can’t always slice and dice everything up into fine distinctions; it bogs down discussions. So sometimes in discussion people use broad terms like “religion” and save the fine distinctions for another day or topic.
Of course, if you’re writing a whole book on the merits of religion, then it behooves you to address, at least in some fashion, the many different “flavors” in which it is found. I know Hitchens spent some time on this in God Is Not Great, I think Harris discussed “moderate” Islam in The End of Faith, and I’m pretty sure that The God Delusion differentiates between “moderate” and other forms of religion.
Inasmuch as you can say there’s a consensus in New Atheism, it’s that sure, we like “moderate” religion better than the other kinds. We’re more worried about the person wanting to bomb abortion clinics for Jesus than the person baking cookies for the church bake sale for Jesus.
Honestly, this is pretty old hat by this point to anyone who’s been reading Gnu Atheist blogs. And yet you seem to be acting like you think you’re the first to point it out.
You’ve brought up Barry Lynn and Chris Stedman. How often have you seen Barry Lynn bashed here? Not many times, if at all, I’d guess — which is why you brought him up in the way you did. Barry Lynn has generally seemed to be cool with Gnu Atheists; at a minimum, he didn’t go around telling them that they’re doing it wrong and need to shut up. Stedman, not so much, and that’s why he — despite being an atheist — came in for more criticism him than Lynn by a longshot. Which I think pretty handily refutes your point that we’re all a simple-minded anti-religious bunch incapable of recognizing such distinctions.
Or “because big mysterious authoritative figure says so, for mysterious reasons.” Which is also shitty, obviously.
What I’d really love? Ethics classes in public schools. No, they will not just pick it up by osmosis from their parents/guardians/friends, if they’re lucky, who also probably never learned a fucking thing about the subject. They’ll actually learn that shit. Because it’s as important as learning how to read and count (and think about any other subject), so it should be taught comprehensively. But it will obviously not be a “religion” class. Among other things, maybe over time the message would finally sink in for some people that “ethics” and “religion” are not synonyms. The effects would be fucking enormous, so much so that the side-effect of destigmatizing atheists (for being immoral nihilist fucksticks) and shutting down that whole line of religious propaganda would barely be worth mentioning. But don’t bother writing your local congresscritter or the dept. of education; it’s not happening any time soon. Where’s the activism on that front? We’re teaching evolutionary biology, and we’ve heard all about that from our “activist leaders” for who knows how many fucking decades now — but what the fuck else are kids learning?
Jadehawk @ 322
I was writing a big long response trying to say pretty much everything you fit into those three paragraphs. I’m going to cut my comment down in size and just go ^THIS^ at what you said.
Steve LaBonne, if revealed truth is accepted as a source of ethics (and, yes, the UCC accepts prophecy and other forms of revealed truth), that’s going to be an issue. If a religious conviction is given more weight than a secular one, that’s going to be an issue.
To focus on the UCC specifically when we’re talking about systemic problems is rather disengenuous. If a feminist says “patriarchy is a problem”, that doesn’t mean you start talking about some specific nice man. A bunch of nice men don’t erase male privilege and they’re not a counterargument to the problem of patriarchy.
The issues related to religion have little to do with the fact that there are lots of individual believers who are nice people, or religious groups that do good things. Yes, those nice people exist! Yes, those good things are done! But so long as ethics can be influenced by fiction and the words of prophets instead of principles that are repeatedly tested and examined and subject to reasoned analysis, so long as religion has a say in the lives of people who don’t want it, so long as religious faith is given greater weight than personal conviction, and so long as religious privilege of any sort continues, it’s a problem.
The Mellow Monkey @327,
Heh. #NotAllReligion
x-posting the comment I left at B&Ws Nugent thread (oh hooray, another dude has spoken out in defense of his atheist dudebros)
@321
Seriously? Since the context of my remarks was the UCC and other liberal questions, this is a VERY easy question to answer- precisely zero. And quite a lot of it is in SUPPORT of those rights.
Ethics are not (or not only) arrived at by reasoned analysis. Some people need to brush up on their Hume.
@330, liberal CHRISTIANS. Damn autocorrect.
Yes, it was not a rhetorical question. You telling me about “liberal” religionists who don’t do that is just changing the subject. If we’re actually talking about what the overall effect is, on balance, doesn’t there need to be something which is actually measured (or at least hypothetically measured!) in order to do the balancing act? Just ignoring these distinctions altogether defeats the purpose.
Well, you’re going to have to pick “not” or “not only” (or “aren’t not” if you swing that way). But yeah, somebody sure does need to brush up … and it’s not me:
I started at the beginning, a natural place to begin. Keep reading, if you like.
Beautiful stuff.
But what does he mean by “pure reason“? Well…. I’ll let you sort that out. Maybe you’d agree that empiricism is not in opposition to “reasoned analysis.” Hume thought that too.
However, since I’m not talking about ethics coming from “pure reason” (or “directly” from reason and nothing else), all of that is beside the point.
If @notallrelgion is supposed to be a clever comeback, then by analogy to @yesallwomen there must be s corresponding @yesallX. So what is X?
@333, keep reading. You’ll soon find that Hume did not assign an exclusive role to either reason or sentiment.
The corollary to #yesallwomen is #notallmen.
You keep reading this thread, to find a place where I did that.
I guarantee that it won’t happen in the future of this thread, so when the fuck did it happen in the past?
@336 The corollary to #yesallwomen is #notallmen.
Which does not answer the question I asked.
Huh? Rubbish. If that’s true, what is the equivalent “all” corollary to “not all cars are red”?
@333, the overall effect of the UCC, not even on balance but period, is to promote gender equality, LGBT rights, female reproductive rights, racial equality, economic equality, and secular government. Any more softballs you’d like to toss me?
Thanks for making my point. This is precisely why the @notallreligion gibe is not a pertinent contribution to this discussion.
Chas, #323:
Thanks.
Fuck, I hate twitter sometimes. No way to avoid the non-thinking sloganeering horseshit.
It’s #YesAllPeople.
(There. Happy? I used a fucking hashtag and everything.)
It hurts everyone. Granted, some people manage to avoid some of the pain that others endure. But that’s still everybody.
I’m not participating in the philosophy discussion Steve LaBonne, just supplying the actual inverse of #yesallwomen. The #notallmen is an actual twitter thing started by MRA slymepitters and has been re-tweeted (therefore tacitly endorsed) by Dawkins.
Steve LaBonne #341
Again, huh? I was pointing out that your “refutation” was a pile of dingo’s kidneys. “therefore all X” is not a corollary of “not all Y.”
“It” being what? The undifferentiated blob into which you lump all sorts of disparate phenomena as “religion”? As regards liberal forms of religion I assert that your claim is empirically false.
@345 I was not “refuting” anything, simply pointing out that a cheap gibe is a very poor argument. You again made my point for me.
Jesus, I had to look up “UCC” just to make sure I had the right Christian denomination in mind. We were talking about all religious people deconverting to atheism. I won’t even ask how you think you know the entire effect of a huge social institution and can state it unequivocally in one sentence. Because that’s patently fucking ridiculous, so I’ll let you stew in that as long as you want.
So now it’s back to you, with a nice softball about religion as a whole, the actual topic at hand.
By positing your own bad argument. I’m not sure how you thought that would help.
Isn’t this philosophy discussion rather OT? Maybe it should move to the T-dome.
Oh, for fuck’s sake, Steve. The point is that #NotAllX is true but trivial. It’s a non sequitur, because it’s an attempted refutation that relies on an all-or-nothing fallacy: that unless all men are part of a problem, then none of them are.
It’s true that #NotAllMen harass women, but that doesn’t mean that women don’t experience harassment from men, or that in general men’s behavior towards women is problematic. So here you go:
#NotAllReligions campaign against women’s rights, but #YesAllWomen suffer from religion’s influence on our culture.
#NotAllReligions teach that gays are evil, but #YesAllGays are quoted religious scripture on why they are evil.
#NotAllReligions oppose the teaching of evolution, but #YesAllBiologyTeachers have their jobs threatened by religious creationists.
And just as the folks saying #YesAllWomen aren’t advocating that the solution to these problems is to “get rid of” all men, those of us who point out the problems that religion generally causes aren’t saying that the solution is to get rid of all religion.
Tethys
I kinda figure that after three-fifty-odd comments, and with other threads open on the same general topic, a bit of drift on this one isn’t likely to hurt.
Thank you, Jadehawk, at @322. I’ve been uncomfortable with comments of “I’d rather side with religions/religious people if they share the same progressive views”, but unable to put a finger on why. What you wrote is exactly that.
Daz
It’s the Hume references and the substitution of religion as a whole for the topic of sexism that I could do without. I have seen too many sexism threads get turned into philosophy discussions. Screechy Monkey managed to bring it right back on point with their last post though, so all is good. :)
All right, I agree that the diversion has gotten tiresome, so I’ll stop contributing to it.
well those are kind of separate issues for me. Given the choice between a Richard Dawkins and a religious person who agrees with me on all other social issues, I will ally with the religious person because that’s obviously going to lead to a better society; BUT that’s not the same as saying religion is not a privileged institution and harmful.
I guess what I’m saying is: any singular axis of oppression doesn’t trump all the others; I’ll never prefer a person who fights one specific oppression to people who fail on that axis but work on all other ones; but it’s still an axis of oppression, and thus still requires social work and activism.
And really, what I actually want is an atheist movement that’s intersectional, so I don’t fucking have to make these bullshit choices.
so’s the overall effect of PZ Myers, but that’s not an argument that patriarchy is not harmful.
you’re wrong. religious privilege is harmful even if its users use if “for good”.
Especially in the #notallmen example. It is not pertinent that not all men are rapists, the fact that 1 in 10 men are sexual predators is a shameful statistic made entirely possible by those people who know their friend has
done some questionable thingsa habit of sexually assaulting women , but still justify keeping him within their social circle.Jadehawk @358:
100% this.
my definitions of the words “liberal” and “religion” have juxtaposing them approaching an oxymoron.
what are your definitions of them, I wonder?
everyone have their bingo cards yet?
I think that fits the space labelled “Cross Hauling” .
well, if the idea is to convince people that the world is better if we make decisions based on actual evidence, instead of fiction, then all those people would then be helping make that a reality.
it’s that you CAN’T see that it actually WOULD help that is the problem, Steve.
Ranzoid @288
So women’s safety, or just women (you know … rather more than half the world’s population) are just a wedge issue to you? If that’s not what you meant, my apologies, but could you clarify, please? Because that comment reads to me like dismissal of everything that’s going on with the constant misogyny and actual rape going on in with these so-called leaders.
consciousness razor @326
So much this.
jadehawk @358
Thank you for encapsulating that. I haven’t followed the philosophy part of the discussion, but that captures the problem of privilege as an issue separate from what individuals or specific groups do with it so well. Same as any other axis of privilege, really.
Crip Dyke @309 and Chas @323, , thank you so much for that information! ::settles in to follow links::
It doesn’t seem to helping, though. Turns out that atheists are not more likely to value critical thinking and evidence – they just believe in one kind of bullshit less.
consciousness razor
re: ethics in schoolrooms
Eldest started grade 1 this year, and one of the nice things about the school system here is that they do, in fact, have an ethics class. Correction, parents can choose between christian ethics, and just plain ethics. We went with the just plain ethics option, because I’m hoping that it will at least induce some critical thinking and personal reflection, rather than defaulting to the bible and god-said-so.
Results pending.
But when I went to school (in Canada, not here), at an ostensibly catholic school, what was called ‘religion’ was actually, for the most part, just ethics and sex.ed. (the non-abstinence kind), with some side stuff on mental illness, relationship models, and world religions. And it was definitely a class worth having. Very little god to be found in it, though that may have been more the teacher’s fault than the actual curriculum.
true. also.. since atheism is often described as believing in “one god less”, how should we describe the more general position of believing in “one kind of bullshit less”.
abullist?
hypobullshitism:
believing one kind of bullshit less, or, generally, a philosophy known for advocating for belief in fewer kinds of bullshit.
My sympathies: it’s always sad when a friendship/comradeship/etc. goes *phut* for whatever reason; but Dawkins has made quite clear which side of the deep rift he stands.
@358: *Religious privilege” (which I emphatically oppose) is not the same thing as “religion”, especially since liberal religious people {like, once agsin, Barry Lynn) are some of the strongest advocates for secularism we have. Being too ignorant to know who your allies are is not a great advertisement for the superior rationality of atheists.
#370, Perhaps it’s not actually ignorance which leaves us failing to be impressed by your comprehensive demolition of straw-atheists.
Indeed, tigtog. I was going to use that straw to make a lovely pair of huge effigies, one of Guy Fawkes, and one of William Waad, who tortured Fawkes. Was looking forward to watching a pair of fanatical theistic bastards go up in smoke.
But no, Steve’s got to throw it all away making up straw atheists to bravely take on. Thanks a lot, Steve.
The people who lump all religions together as equally noxious but have to look up what “UCC” stands for, and the people a who claim not to know how the words “liberal” and “religious” can go together because their personal defdintiions of those words don’t, are hardly made of straw, since we see them in action right here. More rational than thou chest-beaters like Dawkins, and the unfortunate self-blinding consequences of that atttitude, are also all too real.
Who are these people? “Equally noxious” — quote me saying it, fucker, or anything like it, anywhere at any time.
I was trying to suggest how defensive and parochial and narrow-minded you were being about the extent of the disagreement, by focusing on your one favorite pet religious denomination. I have nothing in particular to say about the fucking UCC, because it is an insignificant speck in the grand scheme of things. However, I will add to what I said before with this: you said that church’s social effect (in its entirety!) has nothing at all to do with any Christian doctrines whatsoever. They are nowhere to be found in your list in #. That is simply false, and pretty astonishing from someone who’s now rubbing his hands over shit like this.
Hardly? Then it shouldn’t be hard to point to a single example. Why aren’t you doing this very not-hard-to-do thing for us, if your entire argument rests on it?
Where?
This doesn’t seem to mean anything in particular. It’s just more noise. Lumping me in with Dawkins, though, in some vague way: that’s a good tactic.
Sorry, “your list in #340.” Checked what it was, then forgot to type in the number.
At its very best, religion still does the harm of telling children dishonest things and discouraging individuality and thought, no matter how nicely or to however little extent it may do so.
Back (sort of) to the original topic: David Futrelle has all the win. Behold, Richard Dawkins Twitter Meltdown Bingo!
– Steve LaBonne
Says you, I don’t know what the UCC is. Her Ex-Cellency (my wonderful ex-partner) was raised in the UCC.
What? You mean you meant something in your local frame of reference, which (as usual) every Pharyngulite is assumed to belong to? In a Canadian context, I believe the UCC you’re referring to would be most closely represented in its activities by the MCC.
So pardon me if I blow a derisive raspberry at your assertion that there’s anything wrong with a lifelong atheist doing basic fucking research on a minor fragment of a generally-toxic movement that she’s never been a part of. Fucking Christianist supremacy, as always: “How gauche of you not to know all the doctrines of the 85,000 different ways we worship the same imaginary guy, and which four are actually not completely awful all the time!”
FFS.
UCC:
United Church of Canada
United Church of Christ (also seen as UCOC)
University Congregational Church (various locations)
United Catholic Church (various locations)
United Christian Church (various locations)
And I just had to note, in passing:
Unsolicited Commercial Communication (telemarketing)
Indeed, there are according to wiki at least four different “UCC” churches:
I do know about them well enough (in fact I’m acquainted with a UCC minister, who’s related to a friend, ffs) and had already figured he meant United Church of Christ. That is not the fucking point. Steve LaBonne, I’ve noticed you usually say things that are at least relevant and not strawmanning left and right. Please don’t let this Chris Stedman spree that you’ve been on change that.
Not only that Courtier’s reply bullshit, but from these accommodationist dissemblers we get “liberal Christians aren’t even Christian, since they have nothing to do with Jesus Christ, God, the afterlife, miracles, assorted other supernatural entities, etc.” But if they said all that so bluntly and explicitly, nobody would believe a word of it. So it has to be obscured somehow, or we’re supposed to look the other way while the “magic” happens in their arguments.
Just for laughs, I’m going to quote this again, talking about fucking Mainline Protestants mind you:
That all follows from “Biblical” principles, I guess. Or maybe an angel came down and revealed to these poor sods that despite everything in the Bible, this is actually what they’re supposed to believe. Either way, it’s pure fucking nonsense.
Daz, you left out Universal Cat Conspiracy.
(If it isn’t a thing, it should be.)
Latest bit of “critical thinking posture” from the chief Dawkbro himself:
Such thinkiness. Wow. Much critical.
Dawkins has deleted the tweet in question, as he did the other day with his tweet about “The REAL Rape Culture”. Fortunately once again I had the tweet in my iPhone’s Twitter cache, a screenshot of which you can check for yourself if any further proof were desired that Dawkins is now a colossal liability to atheism. https://twitter.com/xanthe_cat/status/512598073894137857
This is one case where I can say Dawkins should really listen to his own advice.
I haven’t read the whole thread yet, but I want Dick Dawk to know that my outrage is not at all fake.
2kittehs #381
Why do they need to conspire, when they’re already sure they rule the universe?
asdf
I judge a particular group- religious or otherwise- by what it and its members actually do for good or ill in the world, not by whether they do it in accordance with my personal ideology. That seems to me, well, rational. By that standard, the world could dispense much more readily with the atheist “movement” as it currently exists than with liberal Christians. I personally find that a painful fact- I have come to accept it only as a result of my own difficult re-evaluation of New Atheism as I began to note the true character of too many of its leaders and the flawed thinking that contributed to their flawed behavior- and I would very much like that situation to change. And atheism+ indeed offers real hope for positive change. That hope will not be realized if well-meaning atheists do not stop responding to criticism of their crude generalizations about religion with derision and past their sell-by date riffs on the “Courtier’s Reply” (or “some of my best friends are liberal ministers”). Those bad habits of thought are exactly what prevented so many of us for so long from noticing what a person like Dawkins really is. Maybe we should have listened a bit more to people like Chris Stedman, however much he may stick in the craws of many around here.
In the universe I live in, Barry Lynn- however pointless I may personally find his theology- is my ally, and Richard Dawkins my adversary, in the things that really matter. I had to travel quite a distance to get to that realization but I’m glad I did.
My goodness … I was experimenting with enhancing the comment form with scripting for comfortable personal use, and erroneously submitted a bogus comment
m(_ _)m
—
Does Richard Dawkins have a PR person?
It follows from the fact that those are the issues they fucking advocate for and work for. I don’t give a rat’s ass for their motivations. Just as Dawkins behaves like a flaming asshole in the name of “rationality”, and I care about the behavior, not the claimed motivation.
Steve LaBonne
I live in country (the UK) which has a state church, headed by a monarch who rules by “divine right,” which has a voice in my government, which, like it or not, gives their imaginary friend a real voice in said government; a state of affairs unchallenged by the majority of “liberal” Christians. It is a privilege so ingrained that it’s almost unnoticed by most, and excused as “tradition” by many of those who do manage to notice itI
Damn right I shall continue to pour scorn on the belief in imaginary souls, beings and realms which lies at the heart of all religion. And if that’s too much of a “crude generalisation” for you, then fine. But please cease trying to tell me, a citizen of an (albeit mild) semi-theocracy, how to behave. And please curb your U.S.-centric argumentation; many of us commenting here do not have the 1st amendment.
@390: Then by all means work for church-state separation in the UK. To do that you will need to win allies, some of whom will almost certainly need to be liberal C of E people and liberal Christians of other denominations if you are to be successful. Treating them with scorn might not be a very effective means for winning them over.
I don’t want to win them over.
I want their religiously-engendered views and proposed policies examined for real-world efficacy and need, and I want those proposing policies not to have a built-in lobby in my government.
All I gain if I “win them over” is merely another, though more agreeable, flavour of “because God says so.”
And you don’t give a rat’s ass what else they’re doing. You’re evidently willing to portray them dishonestly. For what? To win a rhetorical point, which is only there to support yet another strawmmanning argument? To make yourself feel like you have “allies” and ignore all of their bad behavior, even when that isn’t true? To actively go around diminishing issues you pompously and recklessly deem to be “unimportant”?
Yeah, have fun with that. It’s a little too … let’s call it “pragmatic” … for my taste.
Then enjoy reveling in your purity while still having to put up with the absence of of church-state separation because you lack the political clout to work effectively for it.
Yeah, what we ought to do is tell them that they’re doing everything right! That’ll teach ’em to change their ways, real quick like.
Citation needed. As a Unitarian Universalist- whose Association works closely with the United Church of Christ on many social activism campaigns- I guarantee that I know a good deal more about the latter organization than you do. I have no use whatsoever for their theology- if anybody can even define what it is, which I doubt- but value them greatly as allies. They’re good people.
Now you’re just pretending to be stupid. Obviously you don’t change someone’s mind, or get them to examine their privilege, by telling them they’re right about everything. And of course I said nothing even vaguely resembling that.
Steve LaBonne #394
Again with the U.S.-centred views. I’m a fairly typical UK citizen and I know precisely two people who attend church for anything but weddings and funerals. We’ll get there eventually, and without having to rely on people’s all-too-changeable notions of what The Invisible Man In The Sky wants this month.
So they do have a theology. Well, I’m glad we cleared that up. It’s a start at least.
Don’t fret about it, Daz, he doesn’t seem to want to respond to anyone pointing out his US-centricness. He just glosses over it, like he can’t even see we’re commenting. It’s like we’re…invisible pixels. If it weren’t for other posters, I’d still have no idea what he meant by UCC, as it literally means something quite different where I live.
Sure is desperate to make sure we know that #NotAllChristians, though. Thankfully, he won’t notice that I’ve said this, because I don’t live in The United States of Relevance.
They claim to (well, theologies, plural) , but as we all know trying to say exactly what liberal theology is resembles nailing jello to a wall. I couldn’t care less about it one way or the other.
I will close this dialog of the deaf by quoting one of my favorite atheists, Phillip Pullman. “We sometimes see reason exalted as a great virtue, and so it is, but I’d like to say a word for kindness, which in the end is a greater thing than intellectual coherence.”
It’s a lot worse than that. The entire US doesn’t look like the fucking Harvard campus, Steve. Sorry and all that, but get the fuck over it.
Therefore, “it’s not a thing and/or has no effect in reality.” Yep. Got it. Crystal clear.
I’m really glad this thread that started out about a man who thinks attacking religion is more important than talking about misogyny has now become about a man who thinks defending religion is more important than talking about misogyny.
It’d just be awful if instead we had kept talking about intersectionality and privilege and how social justice extends beyond a single myopic focus.
Where I live and work doesn’t look anything like the Harvard campus either. But thanks for sharing.
Yes, the people punching down always want more kindness and civility from the people they’re punching at. Come back to me when they’re paying the taxes due on the things they get which are tax-exempt for no other reason than “my invisible friend told me so”. Until then, they’re just punching down with the rest of the religious, at those of us who don’t get to evade taxes because INVISIBLE FRIEND KTHXBYE.
Real allies don’t police oppressed people’s tone, they amplify our anger, they understand it, they help us do something about it. Being an ally is a process, not a state; you don’t get to just say, “Well, I’m your ally on that one thing,” and then expect to be above criticism forever. It’s very much a place of ‘what have you done for me lately?’ Sum total of what Christians have done for this queer disabled activist living in poverty: Fuck. All. Ask for help from their rent bank? “Sorry, you’re not a member of our congregation.” Try and pass laws for same-sex rights? They fight against me. They gang up to fight against me.
So no. Not going to cut your UCC any slack, because they don’t do shit for me. Why should I? I have limited time and energy, why waste it on a sometime ally who puts conditions on their help?
I have little problem with this on an everyday level. There are Christians whose general views and whose characters I deeply admire. At the same time, I have little faith (hah!) in the efficacy (especially long-term) of persuading people to a new belief of what a god wants them to do. A viewpoint which relies on no evidence but scripture can be changed again by little more than a smoother technique of persuasion. A viewpoint based in empiricism, on the other hand, can only be changed by new evidence.
You’re not supposed to give a rat’s ass about their conditions. Just beg and plead and dance a jig for them and tell them what they want to hear. Then, they might live up their responsibilities and do the right thing. Maybe.
Great comments by (most) of the regulars here.
I had to laugh at all the variations on FTB. I would like to suggest that we make a revolving FTB header that uses them all. :) (I would like to, but I’m afraid it would break the blog(s)….)
Funny, I just had a FB discussion with a friend who insists that, in order to win over (potential) racists, we must be nice and polite to them, otherwise they don’t like the anger and they will turn to racism (this was in a European political context, for what it’s worth).
What’s with the giant tone arguments, people? What about asking the bigots to be nicer to those against whom they discriminate?
That’s all well and good and well-said by Mr Pullman, but theists won’t be won over by the delicious cookies we’re handing out over on this side of the fence (and are they ever delicious!!!). If they are to stop spreading lies and hate (that is, stop campaigning against the full humanity of a lot of groups of people), that will occur through intellectual coherence and reason (not necessarily synonyms, yo), not kindness. Through kindness, yes, I’m sure atheists and skeptics can manage to work together on a lot of issues with, say, christians of certain stripes. But for them to drop the fancy language, self-imposed guilt and imaginary sky people? That takes reason, a lot of time, and sometimes harsh intellectual realities.
And the two things are not mutually exclusive.
(Because, hey, after all, where there are women atheists, there will always be kindness!!!! AMINOTRITE?)
TMM @ 404:
Yes. Always the way, isn’t it? Just can’t stay focused on patriarchy, kyriarchy, entrenched sexism, and misogyny, because really, there isn’t that much to talk about, is there?
No, much better to watch a man digging a hole. Yep. :eyeroll:
The next time somebody actually explains why it’s so important to “win over”, let’s again say Barry Lynn as a convenient example, will be the first. Are you people really so far gone that you consider his extremely mild form of Xtianity- which in no way prevents him from leading an organization that is one of the most effective champions of strictly secular government, as well as marriage equality and women’s reproductive rights– a disorder equivalent to racism or misogyny? And with all due respect that’s not changing the subject- it’s pointing out that too many people who are now ready to denounce Dawkins still think an awful lot like him. And that’s a big fat minus for the secular movement, and a distraction from actually doing anything about the misogyny within it. There has to be some recognition that something was not quite right with the intellectual foundations of a movement that produced the likes of Dawkins and Harris as widely respected leaders.
Well, with that minor correction, the word ‘patriarchy’ does come to mind. As entrenched in religion. And politics. And the work environment. And everything else, yes, but also in religion. It’s not the atheism that made them go bad.
(Also, racism and misogyny are not disorders. Learned/acquired traits in people, and as such, they can be unlearned. Just like religion.)
Look, Steve (who keeps talking to the supposedly deaf ears around him), people above have said they’d rather work with people more attuned to social justice and human rights rather than atheists as such. Did you not read those comments? This does not make religion a Good Thing (even extremely mild forms of christianity), it simply makes it one of many things on which people can disagree, one of many things that people would be better off without, one of many things that contributes to the general unwell-being of many people, but not an Insurmountable Difference.
A mild flu is still a viral infection that should be treated, because it won’t always go away on its own and can easily develop into something more serious, especially in those with susceptible immune systems. Or something.
Steve LaBonne #412
The whole reason for my outspoken atheism is that it’s a social justice issue. (One stark example, of many: the only organisation in my country which is not only allowed to, but is legally bound to, and extremely bloody happy to discriminate on grounds of sexuality is an organisation which forms part of my government. I happen to think that’s a fucking enormous social justice issue.)
You realise how empiricism works, right? The truth of a statement does not decrease merely because the person who made it turns out to be a flaming arsehole when speaking on other subjects. I’m not going to suddenly cuddle up to churches and pretend that faith-based reasoning is trustworthy, merely because Dawkins happens to agree with me on that one particular thing.
Indeed. Let’s fix the parts of the foundations that are in need of fixing. I’m all for that. Or we could waste our effort trying to fix the bits that aren’t broken. You know; like the “godless” part you keep chuntering on about.
Steve LaBonne @ 412:
Oh look, you paid attention to posts #404 and #411!
Wait…
You can stop digging, Steve.
This assertion keeps being made without being supported, which is ironic coming from people who pride themselves on their rational empiricism.. What is the argument that people would be better off without forms of religion that do not make false empirical claims and do not present their adherents with propositions to which they must assent in order to belong? (Let’s use non-theistic forms of Buddhism as an example this time.) It’s this inability to make distinctions- and the knee-jerk reactions when they are pointed out- that accounts for much of the mental rigidity of Dawkins and too many other New Atheist leaders. And I do not think it is so easily separable from their other failings.
In addition, there is little if any reason to believe, from psychology and anthropology, that the disappearance of all forms of religion is even possible. That makes it all the more important to ally with the harmless kinds- and I again point out that the harmfulness of ALL forms of religion keeps being trotted out as an article of faith rather than supported by evidence- against the harmful ones.
To our UK and European friends I will simply point out that the decline of Christianity- which is happening in the US also, at an accelerating rate- is leaving behind a lot more “spiritual but not religious” stuff than atheism. You will not reach those people, either, by greeting them with ill-disguised hostility.
Yes, this. I know that rationalizing makes people feel better by compartmentalizing uncomfortable information, but its like the subject of systemic and pervasive sexism is somehow coated with so much slime that the discussion always slides off into philosophical wanking about ideology. Denial, it’s not just a river in Egypt.
How about we all just agree to call out sexist fuckbaggery whenever it occurs, whether church-based or secular?
An ally who says “Women have rights, same-sex marriage is fine… etc because my invisible friend thinks those things,” is not a trustworthy ally.
And I’m done with this frankly ludicrous and insulting attempt to smear my views by association with someone I disagree with on other things.
So does anyone know where misogyny comes from? Misogyny: The World’s Oldest Prejudice by Jack Holland has a good history of its origins.
Since people keep wanting to focus on the USA, how about toxic masculinity in that region of the world? Manhood in America: A Cultural History by Michael Kimmel has got us covered there.
But it’s more complicated than that. What about multiple axes of oppression? Mapping the Margins by Kimberle Crenshaw will blow your mind and you can read this brilliance for free.
Okay, but what if you’re a dude who really, really, really wants to talk about religion? Never fear, for Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza is there and even coined a special term specifically because of this topic: kyriarchy! But She Said: Feminist Practices of Biblical Interpretation is where she introduced the term. See, kyriarchy goes beyond patriarchy to describe the dominating hierarchies based on “stratifications of gender, race, class, religion, heterosexualism, and age”. Wait, what? The theologian who coined the term kyriarchy was specifically talking about religion being part of it? WHOA!
Gosh. So here’s this theologian, criticizing religion in general. And up there I had two different men criticizing male privilege. Is it possible that one can be critical of religion, of masculinity, of whiteness, of any other privileged position in the kyriarchy without hating the people in those positions?!?!? I think it might be.
Here’s a wild idea, but maybe we should worry about the privilege instead of fussing over whether or not it’s mean to point out the privilege exists?
Steve seems to be unable to follow his own precepts of being inclusive while promoting a goal.
see Steve, some of us can actually be critical of specific ideas expressed by individuals, and encourage other ideas at the same time.
I can’t speak for everyone, but I know I can be critical of religious ideology exhibited by someone, and at the same time, encourage those same people when they express other ideas I agree with.
go figure.
so, hey, I CAN criticize Ken Miller for his inane rhetoric about God acting through quantum fields, while at the same time, I can pat him on the back for the excellent work he does in phrasing very clear arguments against creationism.
you seem to think this is all about wars and allies, and I for one think it’s all about people and ideas.
I think religion is a poor idea, and have no desire to pull punches when discussing it, for the sake of maintaining some irrelevant sense of pseudofriendship.
but I guess, some of us are able to do that, and others not.
to listen to you though… you’d think NOT being able to make those distinctions is somehow a good thing.
which, is something I see a lot of others here also disagree with.
I will simply point out for the record that this is a remarkably ignorant caricature, and leave it at that.
Miller is a Catholic and holds beliefs that I do consider harmful, though of course I’m happy to have him as an ally up to the point where he starts deviating into theistic evolution.
Hold on. What are these “forms of religion that do not make false empirical claims”?
Let me guess….
The People’s Front of Judea?The United Church of Christ?It would be nice if posing this sort of question wasn’t itself assuming a fuckload of false empirical claims, but things aren’t always nice.
Ah, right, of course. Let’s pick something that generally doesn’t even call itself a religion and use that as our paradigmatic example of religion. Because whenever anyone uses the word “Buddhism” in any way at all, it’s like fucking magic to ignorant Westerners. That’ll work.
Anyway…. What were you saying about certain particular cherry-picked forms of Buddhism that probably only a handful of individuals adhere to in private? Are you suggesting that, as an institution (to the extent it even is one), you aren’t aware of any problems within it? Or are you actually going to make the claim that you do know a lot of these self-identifying “Buddhists” and can vouch for everything they’re doing? And what exactly is it that they’re doing? Why are we just supposed to take your word for it?
Steve LaBonne: Have you read Alex Gabriel’s post “To the atheist tone police: stop telling me how to discuss my abuse” ? If not, you should.
http://freethoughtblogs.com/godlessness/2014/08/17/to-the-atheist-tone-police-stop-telling-me-how-to-discuss-my-abuse/
So, Steve LaBonne, you’re going to continue to ignore the women who are pointing out that you’re ignoring the big-ass elephant in the room? Yeah, that’s the stuff of allies, alright.
Not only have I read it, but as a UU I have heard plenty of first-hand stories of people who came to UUism as a haven from very serious religious abuse, and by serious I’m talking about being driven to attempt suicide. Much religion is plain evil. Your point?
Why not simply engage in the kind of discussion you want to see rather than telling other people how they should do it? I don’t quite see how multiple comments of the latter kind advance any discussion at all.
Yawn, tone troll is boring. Shut up SLB.
Sorry I’m boring you. Now, myself, I ignore things that bore me, but everybody’s different.
That’s not even a remotely adequate response to Gabriel’s article. It’s talking to people like YOU, Steve LaBonne, not the plain evil godbotherers.
What’s next? Actually read it this time? Continue to be oblivious? Change the subject? Flounce?
Okay, I’d resolved to leave this alone before and stay on topic, but you’ve proven yourself to flat out be a jerk.
Steve LaBonne @ 331
As I was the only person to use the phrase “reasoned analysis” in the thread before you did, it’s clear you’re referring to me. However, you misrepresent what I said, you do not identify me as an individual (I am “some people”), and then you go and misrepresent Hume while you’re at it. This is slimy behavior and if you were as dedicated to righteousness as you try to make it out to be as you wax on about the glories of liberal theology, you wouldn’t be unapologetically engaging in this behavior.
Here, I’ll cut out the bit about religion to make my statement clearer: …ethics … [should] be influenced by … principles that are repeatedly tested and examined and subject to reasoned analysis.
I could charitably assume that you lack reading comprehension or else half-remember something Hume wrote and so sit around anxiously looking for the word “reason” in ethical discussions so you can pounce on it without actually understanding what it means. That is the charitable interpretation, mind you. The uncharitable interpretation is that you’re a strawmanning asshole who purposefully misrepresented what I said, threw in some weaselly words to cover your ass, and then tried to smarm about your superior knowledge on ethics by name-checking a dead philosopher.
Problem: You do not understand Hume.
First, my charitable case. “Influenced by” and “subject to” are not the same as “only arrived at by.” In a non-exclusive list of multiple factors that should go into evaluating an ethical system, you cannot pull one item out and complain that it’s being suggested as the only source of ethics. You cannot do that because that’s not what the original statement said.
Now my uncharitable case: You disregarded the majority of my sentence and twisted the meaning of what remained behind, all so that you could make a very poor Appeal to Authority.
Charitably, I will assume you’ve had that bit about reason alone leading to destroying the whole world rather than scratching his finger Hume wrote stuck in your head and just failed to remember (or understand or read) anything else he wrote. Of course, even if you did get your Appeal to Authority right, you’d still fail because that is a fallacy. I do not have to have my ethical system agree with Hume’s.
Now let me explain to you how you utterly fail to understand Hume with a key quote that states his point most plainly:
The larger context here is that Hume isn’t simply speaking of an “ought” ideal moral system. He’s trying to describe the “is” of how he–sans modern cognitive science–believes human motivation works. He doesn’t believe people are capable of taking any action without emotional motivation. This is why reason is the slave of passions in his worldview. It’s not because reason has no place in morality, but because reason by itself is not motivation. You’ve adopted some pitiful buzzword version of a nuanced examination of human nature. Hume is describing a dualistic view of the world in which reason and passion are two different things instead of complex cognitive processes that cannot be entirely separated.
Furthermore–and hilariously, considering your line of argument in this thread–his big motivation to attack reason was because at the time it was “God given reason.” It was, according to more theistic philosophers, the means by which people could determine the mind of God. By focusing on emotion as the motivational force, Hume was rejecting God as the source of morality. He was focusing specifically on what was–again, in a dualistic system–seen as carnal and animalistic. Passion was earthly; reason divine. He saw morality as an outgrowth of our humanity, rather than the result of an external divine plan.
Yet it goes on. Reason is not dismissed entirely, but put into the position of “a slave.” It serves and obeys. While our goals are determined by emotions, Hume suggests that reason serves and obeys these emotions by determining how to achieve a given goal. Hume dismisses reason as the force behind moral motivation, not as a tool in morality at all. Perhaps you recognized that, because you inserted your “not only” into your comment, so that you could create a strawman version of my original statement and still name-check Hume.
You’re being a shit in this thread, Steve. From the moment religion-as-a-problem was brought up, you’ve been misrepresenting things people are saying and focusing on idealized versions of religions to avoid the actual arguments people are making. For us to ignore you as you twist what we’ve said is to give tacit approval. So as long as you continue this, people are going to call you out.
If you have any shame about derailing a thread where good discussion of social justice issues had been occurring before you started this, if you have any empathy for those of us hurt by Dawkins’ actions, you can shut up now. To continue illustrates that you’re completely dismissing whatever harm others here have suffered and have tried to discuss.
Tone troll, either show with evidence “being nice” actually works and doesn’t cause you to be assimilated into the religious Borg, or shut the fuck up. I’ll work with who I want and when I want. And never will I, outside of family, hold my tongue to maintain peace, as silence is considered acceptance by a lot of people. Which you are ignoring for your idiocy.
like i said… wars and allies vs people and ideas.
Steve LaBonne, you have been ignoring me, but I’ll point you back to #209 – read that. Not just the excerpt, but click the link and read the whole thing. And just because this bears repeating:
Where did I say that “being nice” “works”? “Nice” to whom? “Works” for what? There are many religious issues- such as the Catholic Church, which needs to go out of business sooner rather than later, preferably with the help of a bunch of RICO lawsuits- about which I am not the least bit inclined to be nice. But feel free to continue your arguments with the tone trolls in your heads.
Daz @385
True, true. I need to think of a different word. Universal Cat Control, maybe?
Though the little evils aren’t past conspiring now and then.
I just read the thread. Wow. Steve, you’re an asshole. You’re not just boring, you’re interrupting a conversation that wasn’t boring and diverting it to your boring little hobby horse.
UUC not UCC?
Tastes may differ as to whether repetitive (and redundant) bashing of Dawkins, who was just as big a shit back when our gracious host and many of the commentariat here were still big fans, constitutes an interesting conversation. Certainly it’s a convenient way to pretend that he’s an isolated phenomenon. Meanwhile, wake me up when (and I’m going to be US-centric again simply because that’s the country I know) the atheist movement offers anything more, to anyone really interested in working for progressive change, than a handful of Atheism+ bloggers- commendable though their efforts are- to set against interfaith partnerships like Moral Mondays and Standing On The Side of Love. I’m a lot more interested in working as a UU in such partnerships than in maintaining my atheist purity. On that question I will stand unashamedly with people like Stedman. Certainly I have seen nothing in this thread to make me want to reconsider that stance.
And you have said nothing to make me reconsider my stance. So you wasted a lot of effort for nothing.
Steve, we will be happy to wake you whenever you want. Just go the fuck to sleep.
Go, go work with whoever you want to. You aren’t working out here.
Steve at 132:
Steve at 355:
SEVERAL COMMENTS PLOPPED DOWN LATER
Steve at 431:
Most recent Steve:
History repeats itself. Its smug, ignorant, hypocritical, mansplaining self.
Sorry, I’ve been biting my knuckles trying to ignore this…
Tell me, Steve, which part did you find to be an ignorant caricature? The part about God being a friend who is invisible, or the part about believers generally either thinking something good because God says it is, or having to convince themselves that God agrees with their prior conviction that it is good? Or is your objection merely that I didn’t show
belief in invisible friendsreligion the unearned respect usually demanded for it?Steve LaBonne @ 441
Oh, is that what you think we’re doing? Really? That’s how you read the conversation? That’s weird, because…
The Mellow Monkey @ 228
Strange. That sure looks like it’s discussing a whole wide world of social justice beyond Dawkins, doesn’t it? And then here’s the really wild part, because here’s the first response to my comment:
Steve LaBonne @ 229
You are being so repulsively dishonest right now. The second we challenged religious privilege, you suddenly had to ignore the hundreds of comments before that were all about the broader scope of social justice and intersectionality. You had to ignore shit you already responded to.
The stuff you’re trying to shame us for not discussing? You’re the one who poisoned that conversation.
Steve LaBonne:
What fucking planet are you on, in that delusional brain of yours? Isolated phenomenon? All the feminists in my sphere (including me), have been noisily pointing out that it’s NOT an isolated happening, for years now! Just how fucking dishonest are you willing to be here? Because from where I sit, you’ll lie about anything in order to claim the upper hand. FFS, and there’s me, earlier in the thread, accepting your apology, and saying I look forward to your posts. Not anyfuckingmore, Steve.
With this, I’ve run out of doubts with which to benefit the man. For a guy who moans about creationists picking and choosing evidence, he sure seems content to do the same.
Jason:
He’s not even bothering to do that anymore, he’s simply claiming that it’s obvious people are lying.
UCC makes good coffee.
Dawkins is now all upset over this article: I was raped when I was drunk. I was 14. Do you believe me, Richard Dawkins?
In his twitter feed:
I think someone should cut off his supply of shovels and backhoes and all else that excavates.
Wow. Limited cases where a witness can’t remember. What does that say about her ability to consent, Dawkins?
Not that you care.
*spit*
rq:
It certainly says a whole lot about Dawkins.
I’ll join your *spit*.
So, if she didn’t have clear and convincing memories then he wouldn’t believe her? Someone being raped has nothing to do with how well they do or don’t remember the assault. Goddamn you Dawkins.
Oh, Dawkins might deign to believe she airquotes “Had Sex” airquotes, just like her rapist boasted. But she just “regretted it” and was “asking for it” by being in the same room with friends and guys and alcohol, whether she knew that or not at 14… I think my “sarcasm “button “broke.
Sometimes quite the opposite, to be sure.
I’m not on Twitter, so can someone who is, post a link to any of the recent Tweets by Dawkins? Especially this one:
Nevermind. I see that the Newstatesman article links to his responses.
Tony!, this is the link to Dawkins’s twitter feed: https://twitter.com/RichardDawkins/
You do not need an account to read.
Is this some random troll that is seen all to often at this blog or is this Richard Dawkins?
Yes, amazingly, males have rights too. Males are raped too. Males get drunk too. & an accused is innocent until proved guilty.
Janine @ 460, so he’s had a revelation or something? How many years have we here at Pharyngula been talking about men and children being raped?
Oh, by the way, I had an unpleasant surprise reading that twitter feed today – saw Steve Zara defending Dawkins and Hoff Sommers. That took me back, wasn’t Zara a regular around ’07 / ’08?
Yes, Zara was a semi-regular here around that time. I had a nasty run in with him that I apologized for. In retrospect, i should not have wasted the words on an apology.
@Tony (#457)
That one tweet in particular is so ridiculously dishonest. He sure does love arguing within invented scenarios while pretending they’re the same thing everyone else is talking about.
By the way, for public Twitter accounts you can copy and paste a quote into Google and it will usually spit back a link to the tweet or a link to the thread it’s from as the first result.
uh, DickieD is doing this TO HIMSELF. nobody is forcing him to continue tweeting this crap, people are just commenting on what he’s saying.
you frankly don’t know what the fuck you are talking about.
HERE is where I first started seeing discussion of the ridiculous tweets Dawkins had been making YEARS ago.
HERE.
right in the Thunderdome thread.
get that Steve?
HERE.
fuck off, wanker.
Steve certainly is fond of false dichotomies. It isn’t that we are getting annoyed because he keeps derailing the subject of systemic toxic and abusive behavior/attitudes of the sexist variety by RD and his buddies in favor of a nice comfortable chat about the merits of nice theists. It’s that we just want to bash RD/ we are soooo childish and angry. I’m curious Steve, just how angry are we allowed to be that RD is, has, and continues to demonstrate that he is firmly on the side of privileged white male so it couldn’t possibly be rape culture?
Iyéska @449
“He’s not even bothering to do that anymore, he’s simply claiming that it’s obvious people are lying.”
The old criticism = lying canard! This guy has his head so far in the sand he could clever statement involving one’s head in the sand. ¬_¬
@445: the ignorant part is the claim that liberal Christians think they’re taking orders from an invisible friend. The vague incoherent mush that is liberal and radical Christian theology has dispensed with anything close to being that comprehensible long since., starting with Tillich and his “ground of being”. That’s not particularly admirable, but neither does it carry the kind of harm caused by believing that one is acting on orders from above.
Yawn, bored of those defending any form or religion. Let us, not YOU, chose who are allies are, and how we interact with them. As I tell the Redhead when she gets too officious, in a very sarcastic manner, “Yes Mommy”.
So Steve LaBonne how many people have to express a desire for you to let them off this little merry-go-round of yours before you respect them and at least take it to the Thunderdome?
SLB, You have had your say, which is assertive. Now, at what point, which I personally think was past about 20 posts ago, does this become bullying, where you WILL continue until you are agreed with? You are at that stage. Show the regulars you know the difference between being assertive and having your say (which you have), and bullying which is you must get you way and will continue until that happens….
RD, in a tweet:
oh, you’ve gotta be shitting me. Way to take away the agency of a woman who clearly overcame quite a bit of anxiety to write that specifically to call him out. “exploited for clickbait” my ass; it’s evident from the text that the headline, whoever wrote it, is pretty fucking reflective of the tone and goal of the article.
Jadehawk @ 472:
Agency? Oh, that’s SJW piffle, right? *sniff* Dawkins has wandered down the witch hunt path, and is deep in the forest of thought police.
Oh as time goes by. Over the course of just a fucking day.
So Richard Dawkins tweets this:
Holy shit it is like he actually knows something and has an ounce of nuance and sympathy. And then…retweets….
The Masters of Logic strike again.
“Many women who are raped do not report the crime, but….LEGAL SYSTEM LEGAL SYSTEM PROOF PROOF PROOF!!!1!!1!”
Link to the second retweet: https://twitter.com/SliceOfPapaya/status/513009927582138369
Oh, and Dawkins also retweeted this bullshit
The utter idiocy and dishonesty of these people. Reminds me of creationists of all things, which is depressing as fuck.
And ya know, as opposed to being used as a bludgeon by Richard Fucking Dawkins (who clearly didn’t read past the headline) against people criticizing him. The insufferable fuckwaffle. Urgh.
1)I will forever be surprised at how many people continue to believe that just because a legal system handles something in a particular way, that is in fact the correct way to handle it. “Consensus of legal systems” not too long ago was that you couldn’t rape a spouse, either.
2)I’m actually fairly certain that at least some legal systems do treat “I don’t remember” as evidence for inability to consent, when there’s other evidence that suggests there’s been sexual activity. Especially now that some systems are switching to actually having to show there was consent, instead of having to prove a negative (i.e. the lack of it)
3)Fucking plausible deniability. That was not a hypothetical; it was not about a case that went to court; it was not about a case where there was any shortage of evidence, either. Fucking liars.
sooo…. no place that receives money in any way from people reading their stuff can ever be a platform for someone to share their experiences as part of awareness raising?
I. See.
What an interesting new silencing tactic.
because it’s just impossible to ever convict anyone when the victim can’t remember. This explains why no one is ever convicted of murder.
So this ghoulish thing occurred to me:
RD’s “hypothetical” is about how the victim “can’t remember”, and there’s no other evidence. What does “no other evidence” mean?
Sensibly, this would have to mean no evidence whatsoever of any sexual contact having occurred while the victim’s memory was out. Because otherwise, you have evidence for sexual contact + evidence for inability to consent, so evidence for rape. So if there’s literally absolutely no evidence for sexual contact, and absolutely no memories of what happened… then there wouldn’t even be an accusation. Because the victim themselves wouldn’t know.
Of course, that’s not what RD meant, because he’s one of those rape apologists who thinks its possible to give consent while so drunk you’re having blackouts. What he apparently means is not remembering enough to remember whether you indicated sufficiently clearly that actually you meant “no”.
Steve LaBonne, quit infesting this thread with red herrings. Your childish insistence on making it all about you is selfish entitled asshole behavior. The ideology of religious group X is completely irrelevant when sexism permeates and poisons our entire culture. Your repeated smarmy attempts to obfuscate and change the subject are providing a textbook example of the sexist behavior we are trying to change. Congratulations steve! You win teh golden blindfold!
Steve LaBonne
Answered in the Thunderdome.
Jadehawk @ 479:
Well, in fairness, we’re told we shouldn’t talk about rape here, either, because not safe. Also, anecdata.
I see the New Statesman is also currently making a profit from the Scottish referendum, the phone-hacking scandal, and the Pleiades star cluster.
Damn those profiteering bastards.
Yet Dawkins directly linked the New Statesman article in a tweet to his million followers, thus sending even more readers to their exploitative clickbait.
Dawkins:
Let’s see here. “Witch hunt” “feeding frenzy” “thought police”. Those were all written by you, Prof. Dawkins, upon not being able to take on any criticism at all. What was that about being sensitive?
I still love Richard’s whining about clickbait. Just from the last month, here are some articles on the RDF website.
“God-The Great Projection”
“Conference of a life-time on the Religious-Right, Secularism and Civil Rights”
“Study: Science and Religion Really Are Enemies After All”
“Who’s Afraid of a (Mostly) Fictional Bible?”
“The Intersection of Social Liberalism and Social Media is Brutal”
“Neil deGrasse Tyson Hit by Creationist Backlash for Explaining Universe Is Billions of Years Old”
“It’s my sacred right to leave the Catholic Church”
“Zombie Fungus Makes ‘Sniper’s Alley’ Around Ant Colonies”
“Admit it: some rapes are worse than others” (Okay, that one is from more than a month ago).
There’s also this old one from Richard himself:
“Ratzinger is an enemy of humanity”
To say nothing about his clickbaity diatribe about why he will never ever debate William Lane Craig, because he justifies hypothetical/fictional divine genocide. Oh my. Fake outrage, anyone?
Richard Dawkins only whines about “clickbait” if it isn’t done in the Holy Name of opposing religion. Or in the Holy Name of furthering his career. It’s only clickbait when Richard Fucking Dawkins isn’t doing it.
Anteprepro:
:Snort:
@Tethys, I was asked a question and I chose to respond to it.
Steve LaBonne, that discussion has been moved to thunderdome. If you wish to carry on, go there.
LeBonne, to the . No excuses other than your bullying here, which is your inability to shut the fuck up here.
Dang, #492 ate my link: Thunderdome.
FTFY
Here ya go Steve, I even warmed up a nice spot for ya in the Dome.
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2014/09/18/thunderdome-54/comment-page-1/#comment-855417
Iyeska:
Yeah. Much like the “Admit It” article, that is an article written by someone who wasn’t Dawkins, posted on the RDF website, and that Dawkins tweeted a link to as if to say “See, I am totally reasonable, these other people are totally saying how reasonable I am”. The man has become a living parody of himself.
By now RD has got to have noticed that people who are not atheists are criticizing him about the exact same thing that the SJW atheists have been saying for years. In the hoping for reason and logic to hold sway category, he has managed to not say something completely asinine about rape on twitter for an entire 24 hours. (yes, it is faint praise) However, in the a picture says a thousand words category, on 9-13 he retwitted a picture of the rapist Michael Shermer with an unidentified woman and a puppy with some bro-ingroup language identifiers. Sorry RD and FU for your patronizing implication that we should ignore the rapist because cute puppy!
Oh look at Dawkins’ lapdogs again coming to his defense:
http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2014/09/20/adam-lee-has-lost-it/
Fucking Jerry Coyne. Yet another atheist I don’t know why I ever regarded with anything resembling esteem.
Oh well. At least there is the article that Jerry Coyne weeps and gnashes his teeth over.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/18/richard-dawkins-sexist-atheists-bad-name
The article is good but it gets the timeline wrong: Sam Harris made his comments about women in skepticism just over a week ago, while Dawkins had been in “twitstorms” throughout the summer.
Anteprepro @ 497:
Yeah, that was talked about in the Call the police of GTFO thread. One thing I noted that makes me really uncomfortable:
That just won’t go away, the idea that Coyne was deliberately trying to sound like someone who has been raped/assaulted being triggered.
Me:
Or.
I just found that was being discussed in the other thread.
And by fuck, you are absolutely right. I already thought it was absurd and patently dishonest, but considering the context of this whole conflict…that’s probably a good point and if true it is just fucking terrible.