The Richard Dawkins Foundation is not gender critical... **Title Edited by MNHQ**

[SPOFS]

I saw this yesterday, but I don't think anyone's posted about it yet.

Basically, the Richard Dawkins Foundation has tweeted several "trans women are women" type statements on their Twitter account. They claim to have lots of science, but they do not provide any...

From the Tweets, I'm guessing it's not Dawkins himself tweeting this... Dawkins is famously science-based in his arguments and doesn't accept anything that's "in your head" from what I've seen.

Amy way, this should be interesting....

Talk of Dawkins always bring to mind this quote:

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.

Pratchet Agreed. it's only tricky when someone says "well I always thought there was something out there that cared for us" and you have nowhere to start with that.

Yes, you can't disprove 'something out there' but you can disprove 'omniscience omnipotence + all good God'. Yes we are violently agreeing.

OP, I'd consider editing the title maybe? I'd imagine many gender critical feminists are pro-trans, in that we don't hate trans people and believe they deserve rights etc. Only that we protest where their rights encroach on womens' and all that that entails. I just worry that your title might be taken the wrong way, as evidence of transphobia, which isn't what this is about at all.

Well, in a way, I'm quite glad. Dawkins caused me no end of stress some time ago. I'm an Anglican chorister. I don't believe in God, but I believe people should be allowed to believe what they like, and I value community organisations. So far, so politician-lite-acceptable. Dawkins started bouncing around saying Down With Those Religious Believer Scum and - yeah, other people started criticising or mocking me, and it was horrible.
So I'm quite pleased to see that he's as prone to magical thinking as anyone else.

Pratchet I like 'violently agreeing' :)

smithsinarazz Atheists say slightly mean things about religion, but then again religion used to murder unbelievers (and still does in many places) so I think we're still ahead on points.

LastTrain

People forget most mass murder in 20 th century was in the name of rationalism and science and secular ideologies. I am not sure who is ahead. Generally when it serves the powers to be to murder, the right excuse will manifest itself, be it the religious cause or social Darwinism or the sacred nation-state.

MagnificentDelurker If you mean Hitler/Stalin then I'd remind everyone about "Gott Mitt uns". Hitler was a staunch catholic (at least to begin with). Stalin was a dictator who wanted people to only worship him so religion was a rival. It's not as though these people did things specifically because they were not religious.

But yes people can be evil without religion. It's often said that bad people can do bad things, but religion enable good people to do bad things too. You just have to tell them god wants it and that trumps their personal morality.

Not all believers. Nowadays the vast majority of Christians do the same things I do. It used to be much worse though. (and certain other religions have some catching up to do)

OP here. I'm sorry if I offended anyone with the title. I agree that it was badly worded, and I have asked for it to be changed.

No no, not offended just unwilling to give TRAs unnecessary ammunition!

I once made the mistake of posting on social media about Dawkins and his Disciples. It didn't go down very well.

I am not religious, but he and his followers are a bunch of supercilious sneering snobs.

I am not religious, but he and his followers are a bunch of supercilious sneering snobs.

Agree. I did take great glee when his honey got confiscated at check in that time. Did a parody version of his Dear Muslima letter

@LastTrainEast yeah, I know, I know, and that was what made it difficult. I knew that if it came to a competition - have religious people or non-religious people caused more damage? you'd have to go for the religious ones, a) because throughout history they've been more frequent b) because they BELIEVE. You never saw an apathetic suicide bomber.

But a) it doesn't have to be a competition
b) two wrongs don't make a right
c) I bloody love my choir, in all its screwed-up, dodgily-pitched, ardent glory. I am a massive depressive, and Choir - and the church community to which it belongs - have - seen me through. And it pains me no end to think that there are people out there who think that my friends are tantamount to suicide bombers.

I could bang on for ages about how the immensity of sacred music has helped me articulate and deal with my histrionic sensibilities, and about how the church baby group provided a safe space for me to pontificate about the unbearable lightness of being at a time when I was lightheaded with loss of sleep and postnatal depression and sometimes wanted to talk and talk, and sometimes wanted to - just be held within the comforting hug of a group identity. And about how we sang "My Beloved Spake" in an empty cathedral with full organ and no congregation, just for the hell of it, and it felt like the most transgressive and exciting thing in the world even though we all got trolleyed the same weekend and took all our clothes off - and that, after years of shame regarding my body, was - like shedding a heavy skin.

And, yeah, I just want to be able to carry on being part of that.

@smithsinarazz

@smithsinarazz - your choir sounds bloody marvellous!! Lapsed Christian, now agnostic here. Still value lots culturally about Christianity.

May I take issue with some of the atheists on this thread? Saying that God and religion are evil because some fundamentalists murder people in His name is as fatuous as saying the whole English population are scum because some England football supporters are violent thugs.
Christ only gave us two commandments - to love God and to love your neighbour as yourself. There’s nothing there about murdering non believers or heretics.
God is love incarnate, and must be horrified by the behaviour of some patriarchal hierarchies of organised religion, who have taken His name in vain to justify murder, just as Gareth Southgate does not endorse football hooligans.

Yes, but being all powerful he could stop it. He could also stop it while at the same time affording us free will, because he is all powerful, and being all powerful, that would be possible.

That's the point if faith, surely. You can't argue it. It's just believing despite everything.

There's no 'gotcha' in faith.

@Babdoc

But God merciless kills thousands of people in The Bible? So surely he does endorse murder?

I must say, the God I know from The Bible is not a nice character by any means.

Bringing the subject back (from the frankly far more interesting one) perhaps RDF followers would like to ponder this Carl Sagan quote (which I guess they'd generally agree with) in the context of TWAW:

'For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.'

No - he can't stop it - that is the point - the cat was out of the bag once we got free will. That is why Jesus came along and said he is a father. It is parenting - you love them but ultimately they do what they want.

not sure what I am doing here as I don't even go to church

Richard Dawkins does address the idea of fundamentalist atheism in The God Delusion and any accusations made towards him regarding being a fundamentalist. In this refutation, he states that people using the term are merely confusing "passion" with fundamentalism. Dawkins is clearly passionate. But, as he openly admits that sufficient evidence will change his mind, he cannot possibly be described as a fundamentalist, someone who by definition can't, and won't, change their views.

atheism is agreed on by pretty much all atheists as not a religion, and certainly not possessing any active dogmas or beliefs, it is difficult for an atheist to be a fundamentalist in the usual sense. If an atheist believes unwaveringly that there is no God and cannot and will not be convinced otherwise, then they would be classed as fundamentalist; however, very few people actually hold that sort of position. In The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins proposes a 7-point scale of theistic belief, similar to the various Kinsey scales: 1 being fundamentalist belief and 7 being fundamentalist disbelief. Dawkins argues that while there appear to be plenty of individuals that would place themselves as "1", no thinking atheist would consider themselves "7", as atheism arises from a lack of evidence and evidence can always change a thinking person's mind.

Therefore fundamentalist atheism is, at best, a distortion of the accepted definition of fundamentalism.

This doesn't surprise me. Dawkins says a lot of dumb stuff.

No - he can't stop it

Then he is not omnipotent

I am not religious, but he and his followers are a bunch of supercilious sneering snobs.

This.