Richard Dawkins says trans activists 'bullied' JK Rowling for standing up for women's rights

This is essentially Dawkins most important philosophical argument, but he doesn't seem to understand that it assumes a whole shedload of things about the nature of reality and how we know what we know. It's primary school epistemology. He just takes it as read and seems to be unaware that there are many other credible perspectives.

This is really not the issue. It's not that it's just "stuff no one believes anymore but they used to."

And the idea that just reading the Bible tells anyone what the content of Christian belief is - that's simply not true and has never been true.

Dawkins makes arguments about the very basics of Christian theology that really misunderstand what they mean.

Before anyone can make a solid attempt at criticism of any argument, they need to actually understand what it is supposed to be saying. Whether it's in theology, the sciences, or anything else.

He makes basic errors around epistemology as well, not just Christian epistemology. Many of his arguments are based around the idea of how we know what is true, which is a huge and foundational part of philosophy. It's clear he doesn't know even the most basic elements in this area.

The historicity of Jesus is just an embarrassing addition to it all. You could not go into any university department teaching ancient history and make the claim that Jesus was not a real historical person without some pretty amazing new evidence or thinking - you could certainly never get a job. The mistakes people make about this, including in this thread, again show that they just don't understand the standards for historical evidence in the discipline, and how they work.

Of course Dawkins, or anyone else, can have any opinion they like, and he doesn't "need" to engage with anyone. But if anyone is going to write a book on a topic and claim it's making a solid argument, and really be quite disparaging of anyone who disagrees, and yet openly admits they don't know anything about the basic elements of the subject, nor do they know the basic background or methods in the areas of knowledge they are discussing, it should be no wonder if people don't take them seriously and think they are being pompous fools.

The other discussion people are having on this thread arou about those infamous articles in Nature and SA - where they are saying, the authors clearly didn't know anything much about DSDs, they make basic errors about human biology, they conflate things that are not related in the way they think - that is, they don't know what they are talking about and look like idiots as a result.

It's not even like it's just theology he gets wrong. He has problems with his knowledge and understanding of historical study and philosophy.

@Grammarnut You’ve misunderstood me, I don’t mean there isn’t wealths to study - of course there is, and it’s fascinating.

But the actual urge to believe is nothing to do with that cerebral complexity.

Belief is a subjective experience and has nothing to do with how much reading someone has or hasn’t done.

Science is based on empirical experimentation, trial and error. It’s not apples and oranges - it’s apples and the imagined possibility of an all-knowing omnipotent orange which has a projected meaning beyond physical presence.

Belief in god is a subjective thing with no empirical basis

But this is the point. If you don’t have belief, you just don’t have belief. There’s nothing you can read and nothing anyone can say that will make you believe in something you have no belief in.

You probably can compare the study required for biology/physics with that for 'theological musings'. To understand Judaeo-Christian theology you will need a good knowledge of Hebrew and Koine Greek (demotic) in order to read the Torah and the New Testament with any real understanding. That's a lot of study. Also required is a good grounding in Middle Eastern mystic religions, some understanding of mythology including Norse, British, Greek, and possibly Egyptian - and that's a lifetime's study in itself, without exploring philosophy, which includes mathematical logic as well as epistemology (a subject Trans allies seem lamentably ignorant about). It does no-one any good whatsoever to denigrate the Humanities and the Arts as 'easy' compared to the sciences and mathematics - it's apples and oranges.

I don’t denigrate those who believe and I rather love those who follow the beautiful teachings of Christ...

Such as:

"I bring not peace, but a sword" ?

The number of books you need to read to be informed enough to decide you don’t believe in god: zero.

Belief in god is a subjective thing with no empirical basis.

I don’t denigrate those who believe and I rather love those who follow the beautiful teachings of Christ, as long as they’re not bigoted with it, but you cannot compare the study required to understand biology/physics with theological musings.

A scientist knocking organised religion is nothing like a vicar knocking evidenced based science.

He also doesn't understand how religious communities work or what they are for.

I freely admit to knowing the square root of fuck all about philosophy, so I'll refrain from commenting on that.

All the criticism of Dawkins and his tome seems to have missed what led him to write it:

Thousands of death threats from loving, forgiving Christians.

And I have a strong suspicion that gender identity isn't actually real, based on the fact that nobody who believes they have one can actually explain what one is or describe theirs

It's a bit like the Holy Ghost 😉

Well this is why I am more open to the idea that God might actually exist than I am to gender ideology.

Without claiming to be massively well-read on the subject, because I'm not, I understand more or less what Christians believe. I went to Catholic school. I am baptised as an Anglican. I got married in church. I know the main stories in the Bible, the creation, the birth of Jesus, the miracles, the crucifixion etc. I think some aspects of Christian teaching are good and valuable and common sense, whether you believe in Jesus or not, such as "love thy neighbour" and the Good Samaritan, and other aspects are hugely damaging and problematic, e.g. its teachings about homosexuality.

I have a pretty clear idea about what Christians think God actually is, and why all of this stuff is important to them. What I don't have is any proof that God actually exists. But I also don't have any proof that God doesn't exist. And that's why I keep a tiny part of my mind open to the possibility that one day I might see some proof that God does exist, and change my mind.

When it comes to gender, not only do I not understand what the proponents of gender ideology believe, I don't think they understand it either. If they truly understood what they believe, they would be able to explain it in at least basic terms, the way Christians can. But everything they say disintegrates with even the most basic questioning.

What actually is a gender identity, and in what sense do all people who call themselves women share the same identity? What are the features of this identity that we supposedly share? What do you think is assigned at birth? Because sex is determined way before birth, and yet all of the things which seem to make up "gender", such as norms, behaviours, expectations and stereotypes come much later. The only difference between my baby son and my baby daughter is that my baby son was more likely to pee in his own face whilst on the changing table.

When someone can't answer even the most basic questions about what they believe without shouting "bigot!" and "no debate!" and "you're endangering the lives of trans people!" at you, you have to conclude that they don't actually understand it themselves. If they did, they would be able to explain it.

I don't have any proof that God doesn't exist. I do have proof that not everyone has a gender identity; I exist, and I don't have a gender identity. And I have a strong suspicion that gender identity isn't actually real, based on the fact that nobody who believes they have one can actually explain what one is or describe theirs.

In the words of Stephen Roberts to a Christian:

I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.

I think you're right that he does acknowledge that atheism is a belief system that cannot be substantiated, but that doesn't stop him from sometimes adopting a sneering or at least patronising tone towards religious people. Seen more in his documentaries than his books, if I remember rightly (it's been a while since I read them).

I think part of the problem is that he is not always sure whether he is making/writing a polemic or trying forensically to dismantle an argument, so he comes in somewhere in the middle, which doesn't alway work. A polemic works for a rant about the harms that religion has done, but not if you are really trying to dissect why people hold religious beliefs.

It is hypocritical of Dawkins to sneer at Christians for holding one set of beliefs that cannot be substantiated (at least in this life), when his own atheism is equally impossible to substantiate.

I'm not at all sure that's what he does - I thought he put his atheism (or maybe even agnosticism) as a strong probability based on the evidence.

So if all a Christian has to do to criticise Richard Dawkins is read "The God Delusion", which most reasonably quick readers could do in a day, but in order to talk authoritatively about theology Richard Dawkins has to have read everything ever written on the subject, that's a much, much greater hurdle for Richard Dawkins to get over than it is for the Christian

Good point. Also, many of the objections to Dawkins seem to be that he is not au fait with current theological thinking. He is arguing against things that most Christians no longer actually believe. But in the past, Christinaity held those now apparently outdated ideas to be the revealed word of god. It has not, with a few exceptions, acknowledged having been in error in the past. So it's perfectly reasonable for Dawkins to use those older beliefs in his arguments.

Where I do think Christians have every right to be frustrated with Dawkins is his sneering tone. It is impossible to know for certain whether or not there is a god. None of us knows where the energy that became the Big Bang originated. It is hypocritical of Dawkins to sneer at Christians for holding one set of beliefs that cannot be substantiated (at least in this life), when his own atheism is equally impossible to substantiate.

The thing is though, saying that someone needs to have read widely on a certain subject to be able to criticise it or dismiss it as rubbish does put up unreasonable barriers to criticising or dismissing certain things.

Take Christians vs atheists, for example. The Bible will take you a long, long time to read, but even if you take the Bible out of the equation, there is much, much more Christian literature than atheist literature. How far back do you want people to go? Because once Christianity became the dominant religion in Europe, for hundreds of years there were educated men writing about theology. In the early middle ages, literacy was generally confined to the priesthood, and everything was written in Latin. Bede, who wrote the Ecclesiastical History of the English people around 700 years after the birth and death of Jesus, was considered one of the first scholars to actually write in English, and he was a monk himself. Even in much later centuries, when people were writing in more or less the English of the people and scholarship wasn't necessarily confined to men of the cloth, for a long time writing atheist literature would have been dangerous. Even if you didn't believe in God, actually saying that, or putting it in writing, would be more than your life was worth.

So if all a Christian has to do to criticise Richard Dawkins is read "The God Delusion", which most reasonably quick readers could do in a day, but in order to talk authoritatively about theology Richard Dawkins has to have read everything ever written on the subject, that's a much, much greater hurdle for Richard Dawkins to get over than it is for the Christian.

Now back to gender ideology. No, I haven't read all, or even much, of what Judith Butler, or other self-styled "trans inclusive feminists" have written. The little I have read was arrant/errant nonsense, as Richard Dawkins would say.

All I know is that I don't identify with the concept of "gender" myself, I don't believe I have a gender identity, much less that I share one with trans women, and so for me, every argument in favour of trans women being classed as women and allowed to access women's spaces, when properly deconstructed, comes down to "because it's what they want, and if you don't accept that you're a horrible TERF".

There is no book in the world that is going to convince me that I share any kind of identity with, say, Lia Thomas, or even that if I did, our shared identity would be a good argument for us both being eligible to compete in the same sporting categories. There is no book in the world that is going to convince me that toilets are supposed to match our gender identities and not our sexed bodies. The fact that toilets are only divided into men and women, and not "non binary" or any of the other numerous gender identities that apparently exist, and that men's toilets have urinals for people with penises who pee standing up, whereas women's toilets have sanitary bins for people who menstruate, is good enough for me.

So why would I waste my time reading these books, when the people who wrote them aren't prepared to listen to the other side of the debate anyway? Have they all read Kathleen Stock and Helen Joyce? No, didn't think so.

Hah.
This is like saying an astronomer shouldn't criticise astrology.
(Same goes for scientists daring to take on religions)

Sorry — referring to this post! ^

Oh, I’m in utter agreement.

The starting assumption of a "real historical Jesus" appears to take the Bible as a credible source, which is hotly debatable

If you are an atheist, it's also of no real relevance whether there was a historical Jesus or not. Whether or not there was a man to whom various myths were later attributed, if you are an atheist, you do not believe in his divinity. Therefore his existence or otherwise doesn't make Christianity any more or less true. I imagine that Dawkins is dismissive of the argument because it's irrelevant from his point of view.

Your assertion that “there is some proof that sex is a spectrum” does not, and never will be, applied to mammals.

Actually, sex is binary in all animals, and no animals change sex.

A tiny number of birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish are hermaphrodites, meaning that they are both sexes at once. Some of them show the sexual characteristics of both sexes at the same time, others - famously including sodding clownfish - show them in sequence. But they have the chromosomes of both sexes from the moment of conception and this never changes. And they are not a 3rd sex: they are both the normal two sexes.