this post was submitted on 01 Jan 2025
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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.

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[–] AbsoluteChicagoDog@lemm.ee 1 points 2 days ago

Non stamp collectors should leave behind their transphobia too

[–] Snowpix@lemmy.ca 10 points 6 days ago

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.

[–] NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone 2 points 6 days ago

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?

[–] NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

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?

[–] jansk@beehaw.org 1 points 5 days ago

This makes no sense to me. What exactly do you have against atheists? Are you religious yourself?

[–] Bronzebeard@lemm.ee 74 points 1 week ago (1 children)

This is not a part of atheism. These are old ass narcissistic bigots who needed a new grift as their old one wore thin.

[–] Powderhorn@beehaw.org 16 points 1 week ago (1 children)

That is a weird bit to me as well. I'm used to atheists being the group most likely to follow Jesus' teachings.

[–] metaStatic@kbin.earth 4 points 1 week ago

I think the purpose of religious teachings is to cast off the shackles of religion

[–] yessikg@lemmy.blahaj.zone 48 points 1 week ago (1 children)

As an atheist, I don't follow a single famous atheist because then it feels like preaching and that just reminds me of religion

[–] Obi@sopuli.xyz 6 points 1 week ago (2 children)

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.

[–] derek@infosec.pub 6 points 1 week ago

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.

?

As a non-religious person, I do not want to associate with people like Richard Dawkins 🤮

[–] within_epsilon@beehaw.org 32 points 1 week ago (1 children)

"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.

[–] LEVI@feddit.org 3 points 1 week ago (6 children)

Pretty sure it's "No masters, No slaves" but ok

[–] within_epsilon@beehaw.org 10 points 1 week ago

I have never heard this version. Still addresses elimination of heirarchy. Happy New Year and thank you.

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[–] millie@beehaw.org 27 points 1 week ago

Next time could you post some kind of warning that this is literally just 20 minutes of this guy reading out transphobic posts? Thanks.

[–] Honytawk@lemmy.zip 25 points 1 week ago

There is no transphobia in Atheism.

There are some individuals who ascribe to being Atheists, and who are also transphobic.

But "Not believing in a god" says nothing about transphobia.

[–] belated_frog_pants@beehaw.org 24 points 1 week ago

Fuck dawkins. Embarrassing bigot.

You arent a "awakened thinker" or w/e if you are a fucking racist and woman hater

[–] DonPiano@feddit.org 21 points 1 week ago

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.

[–] BlackLaZoR@fedia.io 21 points 1 week ago (1 children)

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.

[–] hemko@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

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

[–] jonne@infosec.pub 11 points 1 week ago (1 children)

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.

[–] LEVI@feddit.org 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

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

[–] jonne@infosec.pub 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)

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.

[–] LEVI@feddit.org 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

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 " and they repeat what other people with surface level knowledge say: "these people don't represent real "

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 , 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.

[–] ManithaNeyam@beehaw.org 9 points 1 week ago (4 children)

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.

  1. 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)
  2. 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.

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[–] josefo@leminal.space 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Well, I'm not familiar with the works of neither, but I'll throw a limb here and say that fighting religion doesn't really means fighting cult mentality. It's better to uproot the tree than laughing at the color of some apples.

Why we can't finally agree on the fact that humans deserve the same rights as others humans because, well, they are all humans, and you kinda can't loose that trait no matter what. It's simple, you are a human, you have the same rights (and obligations) as others humans do.

[–] LEVI@feddit.org 7 points 1 week ago

Why we can't finally agree on the fact that humans deserve the same rights as others humans because, well, they are all humans, and you kinda can't loose that trait no matter what. It's simple, you are a human, you have the same rights (and obligations) as others humans do.

Totally agree with everything you said here, I learned that it takes a lot of intelligence for people to realize it, believe it or not..

Most of them won't pay that tax, it's exhausting, which is why you have to think for them

[–] Scary_le_Poo@beehaw.org 9 points 1 week ago

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.

[–] CyberEgg@discuss.tchncs.de 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

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.)

[–] millie@beehaw.org 7 points 1 week ago

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.

[–] vga@sopuli.xyz 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Perhaps you should understand that people over the age of 60 have 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.

[–] 4am@lemm.ee 10 points 1 week ago

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.

[–] xilliah@beehaw.org 5 points 1 week ago (3 children)

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.

[–] VerticaGG@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Womens sports were never about protecting women, full stop. They were sold as such, sure (racist and transphobic moralizing fear campaigns have so often 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.

[–] xilliah@beehaw.org 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Wait, so, you're telling me men feel pain? 🤔

All joking aside I feel so naive sometimes. Women's chess? Like what the actual 🦆

[–] jansk@beehaw.org 1 points 5 days ago

VerticaGG is misrepresenting how this actually works. The main FIDE chess league is open to anyone, men or women or whatever. But because women tend to do worse in chess (for whatever reason, you can discuss why until the cows come home but it isn't the point) exclusive women-only titles and tournaments were created in order to encourage more women to take part.

For example there is the Woman Grand Master title which is significantly easier to achieve than regular Grand Master, but women can and have achieved both.

It seems to have worked, too. The top women players today are fantastic, and have dramatically reduced the gap in the top rankings. We could yet see a woman as world champion for the first time.

[–] VerticaGG@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 1 week ago

Yuuup. It'd be funny if it weren't so harmful 🙃

[–] Randomguy@lemm.ee 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

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).

[–] Revan343@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 week ago

It depends on the sport, but yes, many competitive sports have weight classes

[–] derbis@beehaw.org 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

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? 💦

[–] xilliah@beehaw.org 3 points 6 days ago
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