Not that there’s anything good about this, but hearing that both Steven Pinker and Richard Dawkins “resigned” from whatever honorary positions they had with the FFRF rather made my heart sink.
I was a linguistics student for a time, and Pinker’s books always had a sociolinguistic aspect to them, but I never saw transphobia. It was admittedly a while back, so it really wasn’t yet settling into the national consciousness.
I also admired Dawkins’ writing style; again, I saw nothing transphobic.
So for both of these guys to be like “nope, you should have totally kept a piece up that says transwomen should have fewer rights and options” is, maybe, the final insult of 2024.
I just don’t trust anyone who actively identifies themself as an Atheist. It’s not some lifestyle, cult, or movement - just the absence of religion.
Feels more like Dawkins et al are trying to build a power base on a rather spurious commonality so they can tell other people what to do; who does that remind you of?
I just don’t trust anyone who actively identifies themself as an Atheist. It’s not some lifestyle, cult, or movement - just the absence of religion.
Feels more like Dawkins et al are trying to build a power base on a rather spurious commonality so they can tell other people what to do; who does that remind you of?
All atheism is is a lack of belief in a god or gods. Unfortunately, that means anyone can be an atheist, including shitty transphobic assholes. That doesn’t mean atheism itself has a serious transphobia issue.
Witaf does atheism have to do with transphobia?
One is a rejection of God beliefs, the other is about identity and people’s bodies. It’s like comparing a parking structure to a grapefruit.
That’s pretty damn disheartening, considering Richard Dawkins being one of the writers responsible for my world view today. His books really made me understand the questions I had about my beliefs in religion after growing up in a fundamentalist family, and my understanding of the beauty of evolution when all that info was skipped in a private religious schools
Truly a sad day to read this
We can think for ourselves, we can look at Dawkins work and go: “That is reasonable, I agree with that.” and look at his Tweets and go: “That is unreasonable and morally wrong, I don’t agree with that.”
We can look at them as teachers who teach us in their field of expertise, not as heroes we can aspire to be like.
There’s a section of the atheist movement that went deep into Islamophobia after 9/11, and they came out of that aligned with the Christian Right in the end. Not sure if this is part of a grift or just an age thing.
Not sure if this is part of a grift or just an age thing.
Neither, it has to do with teaching of Islam itself, which I recommend you take a look at
There’s been quite a lot of massacres and evil shit generally that’s been done in the name of any religion. No religion is inherently worse than another.
No religion is inherently worse than another.
That’s not what we’re discussing, perhaps you should ask where the evil comes from? maybe then you’ll start getting some explanations on why people do these ‘massacres and evil shit’, people are not sitting around doing nothing, and then suddenly being like: “Oh we should commit massacres in the name of <insert religion’s name here>.why ? because <insert God’s name here> said so”
And then people with surface level knowledge ( no offense 🥺🙏 ), come and say: “They’re doing it in the name of <insert religion name here>” and they repeat what other people with surface level knowledge say: “these people don’t represent real <insert religion name here>”
had everyone asked the right questions, such as the one I asked you to ask, the source of evil, the evil behind all the ‘massacres and evil shit’, wouldn’t have been lost in the noise of the blame games, such as someone’s age, or personal grift…
If you’re not willing to dig deep ( like Dawkins did ) in the history the culture and most importantly the teachings of <insert religion name here>, then you wouldn’t understand why said religion is always associated with massacres and evil shit, and you wouldn’t understand why followers of that religion would commit those atrocities
Finally, I’ll also add that humans aren’t inherently evil, which is what your approach suggests, humans are influenced by their environment, humans copy, learn, obey… And Religion takes advantage of their obedience… by threats, fearmongering, torture and executions…
The question that you just asked is the wrong one, thank you and have a nice day.
If I understand your argument, it is as follows, “Certain religious entities are responsible for the worst terrorist attacks and crimes against humanity in the modern era. Therefore, the content of the religious teachings of those religions must be responsible for the motivation to commit said attacks.”
If this is the case, then if I were to provide one of two counter examples, the burden of proof now comes back to you.
- Counter-example 1 - Take a religion well known for its fundamentally peaceful texts, and see how it can still be twisted to commit terrorism(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aum_Shinrikyo)
- Counter-example 2 - Take a region with principally members of Religion A, see how many terrorist incidents were committed in said region(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in_Indonesia), compare it with another region of similar population with principally members of Religion B(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_United_States)
In the end, the actual texts of religions does not matter, people will use the text to justify whatever nonsense they already believe. If people actually believed in even an ounce of their religious texts, capitalist Christians and violent Hindutva groups could not exist.
Before I get to your counter-arguments, I must comment on your general stance since it strikes me as a bit contradicting, let’s start from where we don’t agree and then go to where we might agree,(although it should be the opposite but ok) let’s see:
Where we don’t agree:
In the end, the actual texts of religions does not matter, people will use the text to justify whatever nonsense they already believe in
this actually doesn’t make any sense from a common sense perspective basically, people are not just sitting around and deciding on their own to commit crimes and justify it with their religious scriptures later, even just saying that makes you want to take a look at those scriptures, doesn’t this alone makes you at least suspect that the scripture has to do something with their actions, I mean you just said this
people will use the text to justify whatever nonsense they already believe in
That’s the contradiction, as a detective/doctor who wants to cure Humanity from evil you have to suspect every element of the equation, not dismiss it… Especially if that element is the core component of the equation, I’ll explain why below
Where we agree on
Certain religious entities are responsible for the worst terrorist attacks and crimes against humanity in the modern era
Not just in the modern era, across history and it goes back all the way to the founding figures of these religions, why do you think that in this modern day and age, religious people dress the way they dress, slay a sheep or goat every year, pray a number of times at specific times each day… and all these kinds of rituals… God isn’t talking to them now, he isn’t sending more prophets… So how do they know what to do? Priests/Imams tell them what to do… Yes… But how do they know… they’re getting it from somewhere, right? An original scripture (Quran/Bible/Torah…etc.)… which bring us to your first argument.
Take a religion well known for its fundamentally peaceful texts, and see how it can still be twisted to commit terrorism
The issue is not of who’s making the twisting, the issue is that the text as peaceful as it might be, IS STILL Twist-ABLE, which doesn’t indicate that a Divine authority with infinite wisdom wrote it in the first place, does it? God doesn’t make mistakes, right? How could he fuc* it up so bad… Like you could avoid controversial lines, bruh… annnnd avoid genocides that took place over centuries, avoid entire civilizations, minorities, cultures, tribes being wiped out off the face of the earth because they don’t share the same beliefs
I’m not denying that people do twist the scripture and use it to manipulate people, “scholars” in Saudi Arabia for example keep making forbidden things allowed when it comes to their king… But there’s more into it than just powerful people and rich sheikhs and priests
I used to look at my old religion as the absolute truth, I read its scriptures and thought it was flawless, and only a Deity could have written it, despite also reading the clear, straightforward, blunt, grossly honest, explicit commands and orders to kill Jews, or to beat up women, harm gay people…just a few examples
Here’s the thing, in any religious society there are Categories of people, from the least conservative (progressives) to the most conservatives to the extreme fundamentalists, the great misconception people have about religion, is that people misinterpret the scripture and then become extremists, nope… like I said I used to read (explicit not vague) extreme passages that incite violence and still thought there’s nothing wrong with the text, there’s no hate speech, and that my religion was perfect… so what’s happening here?
The answer is people don’t actually follow the teachings of their religion to the letter, they’re just happy being conservatives, it already gives them all they need, a sense of unity, protection and that they’re part of something bigger… and then there is the serious minorities (AKA the fundamentalists) who take their stuff Seriously, and they’ll follow every single order with “blind faith” (being sarcastic)
a religion can have all the ethics in the world written on its pages, but the mere fact that it has passages that incite violence (even if it was just a single page) shows it’s not worthy of following, because it was enough to make a group of people carry firearms and go on a killing spree, or drive a car through the crowds or bomb themselves, and at many points in history, it moved armies to kill other armies and erase civilizations
if you were planning to convert to <insert religion name here> the approach of looking of what people say and do is a very flawed approach (I just explained why, it’s the Categories of religious people, fundamentalists, conservatives, progressives… Etc) and you’re setting yourself up for great disappointment, and you’ll feel tricked when you find out the truth.
So the best approach, since it’s the most logical one, is to go to the official sources to read what it says and what’s it all about, and you’ll be surprised to know that some religions (e.g. Islam) require you to read the Quran otherwise you won’t know how to pray, and therefore you won’t go to heaven, you see the importance of scripture, without it, you’re already disqualified. So how could you say? :
the actual texts of religions does not matter
And guess what ?
It’s just so happens that ALL terrorist groups that I’m aware of, they do things by the book, the way they kill, the way they execute, they way they talk, the way they look, they didn’t invent a thing, it’s all already written in a book, and they’re just following holy orders that will get them into heaven
And when you open that book, you’ll see that They’re copying the founder(s)'s of that religion own doings (crimes)…
You say that you wish they took their beliefs Seriously, I take it you mean the good parts, in that, I’m with you… I wish that too… Personally, I want them to wake up to religion flaws because I hate seeing people being manipulated and exploited due to their ignorance… It’s actually very harmful, not to just them, but all of us.
Counter-example 2
Your first counter-argument had some weight to it (despite the little contradiction in your statements), this one feels pretty rushed out and doesn’t hold any weight… I’ll explain
I see you picked USA and Indonesia, and you compared the number of terrorist attacks in each, and your conclusion was that there’s more in the USA than in Indonesia (which seems right)
here where it falls apart: a quick search shows that the US is bigger and more populated
The United States is larger and has a higher population compared to Indonesia. As of recent data, the United States has a population of approximately 334,915,000, while Indonesia’s population is around 277,534,000. In terms of land area, the United States covers about 9,833,517 square kilometers, whereas Indonesia spans approximately 1,904,569 square kilometers.
This already makes the comparison unfair… But issue #02 why Indonesia? Like, why that country? Is it because I talked about Islam and Indonesia is a Muslim country so it qualifies for the comparison somehow… like if that’s the criteria I would say that Saudi Arabia is more worthy to choose for that comparison, especially since Saudis are fluent in Arabic, while Indonesians have their own language…
#03 issue; the US is a Christian majority country, and if your intention was to prove that Islam doesn’t have that much influence over these attacks by picking an arbitrary Muslim country, which makes the number arbitrary… well if we’re comparing religion VS religion and not a Country VS Country, you should compare every Christian country to every Muslim country ( combined ) and even then the results wouldn’t mean anything… Christian fundamentalists commit more crimes than Muslim fundamentalists, how would that help solve religious extremism again?
Stats you’re asking for wouldn’t address the problems (wars, violence, hate speech… etc.) that are associated with religion… Because you’re looking in the wrong place, you want to understand a religion, look no further than it’s official books, look into the history of its founders, you’ll find your answers and more.
sorry for the wall of text… Happy new year
This already makes the comparison unfair… But issue #02 why Indonesia? Like, why that country? Is it because I talked about Islam and Indonesia is a Muslim country so it qualifies for the comparison somehow… like if that’s the criteria I would say that Saudi Arabia is more worthy to choose for that comparison, especially since Saudis are fluent in Arabic, while Indonesians have their own language…
The region of the world does not change the text of the religion, which in turn should mean that the type of terrorist attacks committed by specific religions should be similar. This is the case when we look at the links between Indonesian Islamic terror orgs and other Islamic terror orgs. The reason I chose Indonesia was a population based comparison to show off an outlier in the United states. The united states despite being significantly less religious than Indonesia, a nation of comparable population has a comparable amount of terrorist attacks. In addition, why does the language of a religious text matter in the modern era? The Bible wasn’t written in English, but it certainly manages to be a part of lives of English speaking peoples.
#03 issue; the US is a Christian majority country, and if your intention was to prove that Islam doesn’t have that much influence over these attacks by picking an arbitrary Muslim country, which makes the number arbitrary… well if we’re comparing religion VS religion and not a Country VS Country, you should compare every Christian country to every Muslim country ( combined ) and even then the results wouldn’t mean anything… Christian fundamentalists commit more crimes than Muslim fundamentalists, how would that help solve religious extremism again? … Stats you’re asking for wouldn’t address the problems (wars, violence, hate speech… etc.) that are associated with religion… Because you’re looking in the wrong place, you want to understand a religion, look no further than it’s official books, look into the history of its founders, you’ll find your answers and more.
The claim to compare terrorist acts by religion does make sense, so I looked up some data - https://www.visionofhumanity.org/maps/global-terrorism-index/ which does seem to indicate the majority of violence in terms of number of people harmed does seem to stem from Islamist terror organizations. However, these actions seem to be heavily concentrated in specific regions with specific terror groups. For instance, half of all terrorist deaths happened in one region of sub Saharan Africa - Sahel. Additionally, in the West, politically motivated attacks overtook religious attacks, which declined by 82%. There were five times more political attacks than religious attacks. This is my point fundamentally - We cannot draw a direct line between terrorist attacks and religious people, leave alone between terrorist attacks and the text of specific religions.
However, as I mentioned earlier, I will contend that groupthink caused the lack of a functional truth seeking algorithm, and the lack of a robust meta-ethical foundation does play an important factor in religious terrorism specifically. Religion by definition has a requirement of trusting claims without evidence, and is therefore strongly associated with groupthink, which also requires blind trust.
sorry for the wall of text… Happy new year
Beehaw is a leftist space, and leftists are known for their essays lol, as I have just demonstrated myself. Additionally, I think I’ve spoken my piece here, so I probably will not reply further, as it does take significant time to read and respond with evidence, to claims made without evidence.
Fuck dawkins. Embarrassing bigot.
You arent a “awakened thinker” or w/e if you are a fucking racist and woman hater
Perhaps you should understand that people over the age of 60 have a different fundamentals and different language than what you are trying to expect from everybody. You are losing potential friends by alienating them only because they cannot learn new things anymore. Not only is it ableist, it’s also bad strategy.
If you must have hate, focus it on people who actually hate you. Don’t try to imagine hatred in others, in the worst case you and they both might start believing your delusion.
Bullshit they can’t learn anything “new”, they just don’t want to, and they think because they’re older they are allowed to have power over the rest of us.
That’s the ableism.
Oh hey these three (Dawk, Coyne, Pinker) were disappointments/shitty back when the atheism movement of the Aughties split into those who combine it with social justice sentiments and those who just wanna be bigots without also going to church. That tracks.
This is not a part of atheism. These are old ass narcissistic bigots who needed a new grift as their old one wore thin.
That is a weird bit to me as well. I’m used to atheists being the group most likely to follow Jesus’ teachings.
I think the purpose of religious teachings is to cast off the shackles of religion
?
As a non-religious person, I do not want to associate with people like Richard Dawkins 🤮
Atheism was never related to gender politics in the first place. The title makes no sense
Given religion is often used as an excuse for misogyny and how much that crowd of atheists emphasis how backwards theists often are, it’s easy to see how people would have expected better from at least that sect of atheists. But then they turn out to be racist and misogynists just like the theists they criticize.
Of course it has nothing to do with atheism itself just like religion doesn’t really have much to do with why people who use it as an excuse are actually misogynist.
Regarding athletes, aren’t there like different categories within the genders too? Where I live there’s some massive cisgender women, like they’re muscular, wide, and tall. I can’t see those competing against a smaller woman in certain sports.
Where I live there’s some massive cisgender women, like they’re muscular, wide, and tall.
Oh well um… Whereabouts is this, out of academic curiosity? 💦
Holland
Womens sports were never about protecting women from other women. They were sold as such, sure (racist and transphobic moralizing fear campaigns have always scored political offices)
Women’s sports exist to protect (a faceless majority of) men’s egos from women’s excellence. The fact that FIDE still enforces women’s chess is a glaring example.
To “cover all bases” though: When it comes to physiology, it would make so much more sense to have weight classes irregardless of sex or gender identity.
Fact is we have entrenched, wealthy institutions with lots of bastards who refuse to see the humanity of another gender or skin tone other than their own, and until they croak they’ll drag out every backwards tradition they can force down our throats.
The fact that FIDE still enforces women’s chess is a glaring example.
There is no man’s chess, you know? Women can and do participate in open tournaments against men.
Woman’s chess is a DEI program to incentivize woman’s participation in chess in a more inclusive environment, because, surprise surprise, chess has a misogyny problem. You can argue that this doesn’t work or something, but it definitely isn’t there to protect men’s egos (especially considering titles acquired in women’s chess tournaments are worth less than regular titles).
Lol ok
Wait, so, you’re telling me men feel pain? 🤔
All joking aside I feel so naive sometimes. Women’s chess? Like what the actual 🦆
Yuuup. It’d be funny if it weren’t so harmful 🙃
It depends on the sport, but yes, many competitive sports have weight classes
While I like Steve Shives generally, I don’t like the title. Now, I haven’t watched this video yet so I don’t know if he differentiates, but from I read in the comments it’s (mostly) about Dawkins and Pinker (whom I don’t know). Most activists who support trans communities and the LGBTQIA±movement are atheists though.
Quite the same topic (Dawkins’ transphobia) is this video by Genetically Modified Skeptic: Why I Turned Down Working With Richard Dawkins
(I don’t want to take anything away from Steve Shives though. I’m not saying ”Watch this video instead“, I just want to add.)
I wouldn’t assume that most queer-supporting activists are atheists. They’re probably not latching onto bigoted religious organizations, but there’s a massive range of worldviews between adherence to any particular religion and a firm belief in a lack of deities or of other things we’d typically qualify as religious, spiritual, or supernatural. They’re probably unlikely to be your typical churchgoing conservative Christian, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re fully landing on atheism specifically.
As an atheist, I don’t follow a single famous atheist because then it feels like preaching and that just reminds me of religion
I can never remember which one between atheism and agnosticism is the one where you just don’t give a fuck, that’s the one I am.
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Agnosticism and gnosticism are actually not so much about doubt, but whether it is possible to know.
An Agnostic says it’s not possible to know whether there is a god or not.
A Gnostic says it’s possible to know whether there is a god or not
An Atheist says they don’t believe a god exists
A Theist says they believe a god exists.
You can be an Agnostic Atheist. “I don’t believe in god, but I don’t think it can be proven god doesn’t exist.”
Or a Gnostic Atheist. “I don’t believe in a god, and I think we can prove God doesn’t exist.”
Or an Agnostic Theist. “I think God exists, but I don’t think we can prove it. You just have to believe”
Or a Gnostic Theist. “I think God exists, and I think we can find proof.”
That would be apatheism. It’s not an alternative to the other claims but a disinterest in the problem space itself.
Atheism is a spectrum of opinion ranging from “I neither accept claims including gods nor put forward alternatives” to “I claim no gods can exist and here’s why” with some wiggle room on both sides as the arguments devolve or extremify.
Agnosticism is a strange participant as it lacks a cohesive definition. It’s more like a spectrum of reasons “adherents” think the claims made by others aren’t valid. It’s the last port of call for participants embroiled in philosophically rigorous metaphysical tedium and first stop for apatheists so disaffected they’ve never read a relevant text.
“No gods, no masters” also applies to demagogues like Pinker or Dawkins. Disconnecting an idea from the people associated with bringing it into your life can be difficult.
Pretty sure it’s “No masters, No slaves” but ok
I think they meant ”No gods, no heroes, no idols“ though.
Never heard either of those. I’ve heard “no gods, no masters”, but mainly in the context of anarchy.
And I have never heard that phrase before. Maybe it’s a regional with these?
And then as an anarchist heathen I’ve embraced “Many gods, no masters” because pagans in general are a more open minded and far less dogmatic group than atheists are as a group.
May I submit, also: “No Demagogues, No Managers” as a more modern, relevant and actionable version – Combatting Populism and refusing to be “Just Following Orders”, especially those of Fascists.
I have never heard this version. Still addresses elimination of heirarchy. Happy New Year and thank you.
