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Richard Dawkins quits atheism foundation for backing transgender ‘religion’
(www.telegraph.co.uk)
I hate that I get to use this so often 😒
this post was submitted on 31 Dec 2024
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Did people still like Dawkins before this? I'm not an atheist or super interested in his particular field of biology, but every time I heard him get mentioned after his initial New Atheism stuff it was him being islamophobic/racist against Arabs, Iraq war apologia, being an apologist for sexual harassment, etc. He seemed pretty bad for a while.
I was peripherally aware of his biology work. He was asked to do some narration work on Nightwish's 2015 album which brought him top of mind for awhile, but I wasn't following closely. This is the first I'm hearing of anything like that. Disappointing, but not surprising.
the only thing i knew about him was that he was in a Nightwish song (The Greatest Show On Earth), so i kinda liked him before (didn't hear of the islamophobia or anything else), but uhh... not anymore.
thank god that never applies to david tennant <3
That <3 better be the knocking on wood emoji.
Yikes. Disappointing. "The reality that I recognise as true is the only reality that can exist and everything that doesn't fit is religious dogma" sounds awfully familiar.
Realism is a poison and underlies all oppressive ideologies - monotheism, capitalism, monarchism, race supremacy, gender essentialism. All progressive ideology is so because on some level it rejects belief in objective reality.
Can you elaborate? This sounds very interesting to me but I'm frankly not sure what the right questions would be here.
First of all, I can't remember the last time Dawkins was even relevant or newsworthy. As a kid growing out of religion, he was a source of support and inspiration for me. But after growing up, even still being a complete atheist, I can't remember the last time I even thought about the guy. He lives in a constant battle against theism, and frankly, I have better things to worry about.
Second, let's remember that even people that we truly respect and value for their contributions to a given field does not mean that that translates to other fields. Even absolute genius in one area doesn't translate to other areas. Newton created his 3 laws of motion, first described gravity, and developed Calculus, but he was also an advocate and practitioner of alchemy. Einstein was an amazing physicist who gave us relativity, the energy of mass, etc, but he believed quantum physics was hokum.
Sometimes that even goes beyond simple incompetence outside of their area of expertise and into outright bigotry. H.P. Lovecraft was an amazing horror author that essentially created the genre of cosmic horror and whose influence continues to this day, and yet he was WILDLY racist against literally anyone not white. Henry Ford dramatically increased the efficiency of modern manufacturing, made automobiles affordable for the average American, implemented the 40 hour 5 day work week, and paid his workers double the standard of the time, and he was also a huge anti-semite that put out a newsletter filled with anti-Jewish conspiracy theories and Hitler even wrote of him favorably in Mein Kampf.
Plus Hawkins is 83 years old. He's been spending the majority of those 83 years thinking about, arguing about, honing his views about, and publically speaking about atheism. It's little wonder he is considered an authority in that subject. Undoubtedly, though, he's given nowhere near that much thought (or any at all) to trans politics, so it is no wonder that he does not have a well formed and nuanced view there. He's more likely to fall in line, then, with the societal view of his generation's time. So of course he's an idiot about it.
It's little wonder he is considered an authority in that subject. Undoubtedly, though, he's given nowhere near that much thought (or any at all) to trans politics...He's more likely to fall in line, then, with the societal view of his generation's time.
He's also more likely to be full of himself.
Yes. But, to be fair.... Isn't everyone? At least a little?
Perhaps, but I'll bet he has more sycophants.
i think richard dawson is more relevant than him at this point.
Dawson does show up first in the search suggestions when I type "Richard D" into Google.
Old man yells at cloud.
Get fucked, Dick. No one has liked you in 20 years.
The concept of a dogmatic athiest is just so hilarious to me. Dawkins practically believes in all the Christian hate, without any of the iconography or idolatry.
He's litererally called himself a "cultural christian".
He's been slowly veering towards becoming a fundamentalist Christian. Waiting for him to announce he believes any day now.
Dawkins' problem always has been that he can't stop at a mere lack of belief (and in fact argues that a lack of belief is impossible, and that agnostics are therefore either confused or dishonest).
So effectively, his atheism has always been an act of faith. Rather than simply withholding belief in the unproven assertion that God exists, he actively believes (or more precisely invests faith in) the unproven assertion that God does not exist.
So it stands to reason that just as with any other person with an active and self-defining faith in an unproven position, the dogma of the congregation of fellow believers of which he considers himself a part must match his personal dogma - otherwise, he's effectively betraying his faith by accepting a belief he considers heretical.
I disagree with a couple of points.
There's a difference between something being unproven and it being reasonably impossible. Assertive atheists simply look at the state of research and conclude there's nothing to hold one's breath for and call it early with good reason since theology is not a science and no scientist worth their weight is actively looking for gods. One can be agnostic in formal debate but fully militant in practice (because, let's be honest, finding God is realistically not happening) and there's no conflict there.
Also, since faith is the belief without evidence, it can't possibly encompass disbelief without evidence as well. Disbelief without evidence is simply a reasonable and valid assumption that's formally called the null hypothesis. Disbelief leaves no room for faith.
There's a difference between something being unproven and it being reasonably impossible.
Certainly. The two don't even refer to the same thing - "unproven" is a measure of the extent of evidence for a proposition, while "reasonably impossible" is a specific position taken.
And I'd also note that "reasonably impossible" is arguably incoherent. "Impossible" is a nominal fact, so can only be supported with a deductive argument, while "reasonably" can only be relevant as part of an inductive argument. A proposition can be reasonably improbable or even reasonably likely to be impossible, but it can only be impossible in fact.
Assertive atheists simply look at the state of research and conclude there's nothing to hold one's breath for and call it early...
Right. They hold a belief in an unproven position.
Their position might well, and IMO almost certainly would, turn out to be correct, but that makes it no less unproven, nor their position any less a belief in which they've chosen to invest faith.
Also, since faith is the belief without evidence, it can't possibly encompass disbelief without evidence as well.
Right, but I pointedly wasn't talking about mere disbelief.
This is exactly, and not coincidentally, what I said:
Rather than simply withholding belief in the unproven assertion that God exists, he actively believes (or more precisely invests faith in) the unproven assertion that God does not exist.
Those are two very different positions. The first is indeed free of faith, simply because it doesn't assert a specific position, but merely withholds belief from a position advanced by others. The second though - the position that Dawkins not only takes but insists that all who do not actively believe in God must take - does assert a specific position, and a position for which there is insufficient evidence to actually prove it to be true.
And any gap between what can be proven to be true and what is nonetheless asserted to be true is and can only be filled by faith.
Certainly. The two don’t even refer to the same thing - “unproven” is a measure of the extent of evidence for a proposition, while “reasonably impossible” is a specific position taken. A proposition can be reasonably improbable or even reasonably likely to be impossible, but it can only be impossible in fact.
Those are distinctions without difference for what I mean. It can't be proven if it's not physically possible, and both qualifiers apply to the argument of god. One can confidently step into a position and be assertive about it if it literally can't happen. I argue that you're imposing faith onto this by merely entertaining the idea of a gap, which would be a false dichotomy. And that's where my second point is where you try to insert faith into disbelief. That only works if there's any hint or suggestion of a reality where that exists. But the world doesn't work that way and we've known this for generations meaning there are no god variables in physics.
And any gap between what can be proven to be true and what is nonetheless asserted to be true is and can only be filled by faith.
But the gap does not exist because it can't be disproved and we have no evidence and nothing major in our understanding has room for it. That's the sole reason we invented Russell's teapot, the Pink Invisible Unicorn and the Flying Spaghetti monster. They all point out this glaring incompatibility.
If I asked you if you believe in the Pink Invisible Unicorn's omnipotent and omnipresent existence, would you have faith answering no?
(PD: Sorry about the abuse of atheist tropes. I'm painfully aware. It just seems like it's such an old and fundamental issue that has been argued for ages when people say that Atheism is a religion because it's allegedly a position of faith--even though we're not the ones reminding ourselves of our dis-belief everyday via prayer, but I digress.)
that has been argued for ages when people say that Atheism is a religion because it's allegedly a position of faith.
And there's the straw man, right on schedule...
If you go back and read what i actually said, I never made that broad and obviously inaccurate claim.
My point, literally from the very first sentence that I wrote, concerned only those atheists, like Dawkins, who don't stop at disbelief, but instead hold to an affirmative belief that God does not exist.
Like it or not, that belief does not have sufficient evidence to prove its truth, and therefore to hold nonetheless that it is in fact true is an act of faith. That has nothing at all to do with religion either way - it's just simple epistemology. A claim of likelihood can be supported with incomplete evidence, but a claim of certain truth must and can only be supported by incontrovertible proof, and there is not incontrovertible proof for the assertion "God does not exist."
I fully recognize that that's not the position held by all atheists, and I sincerely doubt that it's even the position held by most - it's likely that most simply content themselves with disbelief in the assertion that God does exist. It is, exactly as I said, a position held by some, and most notably by Dawkins.
And more broadly, that's exactly why I never claim that it's a universal position and I never make claims about atheism broadly, and in fact, every single damned time that I try to address this topic, I go out of my way to make it clear that I'm referring only to the specific subset of atheists who do in fact hold to that belief.
And yet, just like clockwork, every single time I bring the subject up, someone like you shows up and slaps that damned strawman on me and proceeds to tediously recite all of the same tired and entirely irrelevant cant you've now recited.
So honestly, if you have some issue with having to cover all that same ground again, that's entirely and completely your problem, since none of it's relevant to what I actually said in the first place.
And there’s the straw man, right on schedule…
If you go back and read what i actually said, I never made that broad and obviously inaccurate claim.
What strawman, what are you on about? Your argument that disbelief requires faith is adjacent to another common but tangentially related accusation against atheism that is clearly wrong. I'm pointing out the parallel as the reason why I'm using those same tropes to refute it because they were popularized online in the early 00s when the religious right was was spreading their bullshit--that's it. It has nothing to do with anything else that we're arguing about. It was filler.
My point, literally from the very first sentence that I wrote, concerned only those atheists, like Dawkins, who don’t stop at disbelief, but instead hold to an affirmative belief that God does not exist.
And that's what I've been arguing about, no? I'm saying he's justified and that his position is completely valid and devoid of faith. I'm not ignoring your argument. In fact, I already explained why I think it's a pointless distinction to make. Are you sure you're not ignoring my argument instead?
that belief does not have sufficient evidence to prove its truth
And I'm telling you it doesn't need evidence because of its very premise. At the scientific level of rigor, yes, I fully agree with you that it cannot be disproved, that it needs a rigorous theoretical framework, and yada yada yada, to take a definitive position however ridiculous that is to onlookers who aren't obsessive. But at the engineering level of everyday life that requires rounding the numbers so we can live our lives, it's perfectly valid and sensible as it would be with any other baseless idea of that nature, hence why I brought up the Unicorn. So I ask again, would you have faith answering no if I ask you if you believe in the PIU's omnipresent & omnipotent existence? The answer is obviously no because such a thing can't exist for many, many reasons. So why are popular gods the sole exception that requires faith to reject?
and therefore to hold nonetheless that it is in fact true is an act of faith
I already said it's only an act of faith if we had any shred of evidence of the possibilities of deities. The possibility does not exist in the first place to require faith. It's a mere rejection of a baseless idea and you're saying otherwise by applying a strict epistemological rule arbitrarily.
(And by applying that epistemological rule arbitrarily is precisely what makes people think atheism is a position of faith when it's not, hence why I brought that up at all. But it's not related. It had nothing to do with what you were saying directly! It's just a parallel of this other fundamental line of argument, which is why I'm using those same devices to refute it.)
And more broadly, that’s exactly why I never claim that it’s a universal position and I never make claims about atheism broadly, and in fact, every single damned time that I try to address this topic, I go out of my way to make it clear that I’m referring only to the specific subset of atheists who do in fact hold to that belief.
Sure, but I'm not accusing you of any of that. I'm only arguing for what Dawkins is doing which is squarely within the subject matter. If I seem to bleed outside the lines with my argument it's only because of the fundamental nature of this line of thinking. (And am I really bleeding outside the lines, though? I was very conscious of that going in and I thought I was being precise.)
someone like you shows up and slaps that damned strawman on me and proceeds to tediously recite all of the same tired and entirely irrelevant cant you’ve now recited.
Nah, you need to reread carefully what I'm saying and stop assuming.
This is like r/atheism's kryptonite right here.
to be fair, richard dawkins is an idiot.
Don’t let the door hit you in the ass, asshole.
Dude is religiously atheist, fails to see the irony in that, and really needs to get over himself. The best way to be an atheist is by not making your life revolve around something you DON'T believe in.
Paywalled :(