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

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

https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/scottish-news/richard-dawkins-says-trans-activists-29511706

Richard Dawkins claims trans activists 'bullied' Harry Potter author JK Rowling and Kathleen Stock for standing up for women's rights....

He claimed that it was very upsetting that a "tiny minority" of people managed to capture the discourse to "talk errant nonsense".

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

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

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.

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" ?

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.

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.

@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.

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.

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.

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

But nothing in epistemology tells us that either, does it?

So it’s largely a waste of time, unless of course you enjoy it.

Sorry, but that’s a lot of
bluster. I’m not arguing for Dawkins and his work - but if you believe in an invisible being, with no proof, the amount of reading involved is irrelevant.

You could write a thousand interesting books about an invented being. It doesn’t make a jot of difference to the core issue.

I wish people would state which of Dawkins' arguments are actually wrong, rather than telling us that he hasn't read enough theology/epistemology/whatever to have an opinion.

I have. Apologies. I suppose I was making a quite different point which was actually off-topic. Certainly one does not need to read to come to a lack of belief in God. Many believers would, of course, say that their belief is based in experience. It is this idea that actually fuels the trans agenda and it needs heavily pointing out that feelings are not facts. Oddly, I had this pointed out by a Christian who said that belief (any belief) should be based on fact, before any reliance on feelings.

Yes, there's a reason that the "Courtier's Reply" was inspired by the responses to Dawkins' The God Delusion: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courtier%27s_reply

Everyone believes in things that are outside of strict proof and empirical investigation. It's still worth trying to have a knowledge of how reasonable those beliefs are, and what arguments are used to support them. So yes, reading books is still important for those kinds of issues.

I love reading and I find all kinds of topics fascinating, including theology, but no - I think you’re missing the essential point. Which is a very basic one: an invention like the concept of a god cannot ever be qualified by spurious arguments that can be cyclically discussed or written about with no end point.

Those who believed in Zeus might insist others read widely about that mythology but it makes no difference to the fact that Zeus doesn’t exist.

One can learn and delve into history and conceptual positing and that’s of great interest, but it’s not connected.

But - reading and learning about mythologies tells us so much about the human condition, it is definitely both worthwhile and stimulating.

Again, we ALL have beliefs in things that can't be proven or scientifically investigated.

That doesn't make them wrong, or even unlikely to exist, or unreasonable beliefs.

It's now Dawkins' birthday - he's 82.

Good. JK Rowling was and is being bullied and more people should stand up for her.

I haven’t read enough about Dawkins but he seems to be ‘on the right side of history’ as in, debate, talk about facts, disagree, voice opinions.

Again, we ALL have beliefs in things that can't be proven or scientifically investigated.

Do we? What type of things are you talking about?

I'm trying to think of a belief I have that can't be proven, if we all have them then this should be fairly easy, but so far I'm coming up blank. What kind of things do you mean?

NotDavidTennant · Yesterday 20:28

I wish people would state which of Dawkins' arguments are actually wrong...

I'd like to know that, too! And what supplementary evidence, outwith the Bible, support his existence as a real person.

Do you love anybody?