Atheism Should Leave Its Transphobia Behind in the New Year
Atheism Should Leave Its Transphobia Behind in the New Year
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.
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 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.
It seems neither atheism nor agnosticism, it's actually closer to apatheism. According to Wikipedia:
Apatheism (/ˌæpəˈθiːɪzəm/; a portmanteau of apathy and theism) is the attitude of apathy toward the existence or non-existence of God(s). It is more of an attitude rather than a belief, claim, or belief system.[1][2][3] The term was coined by Canadian sociologist Stuart Johnson.[4]
An apatheist is someone who is not interested in accepting or rejecting any claims that gods do exist or do not exist. The existence of a god or gods is not rejected, but may be designated irrelevant. One of the first recorded apatheists was arguably Denis Diderot (1713–1784), who wrote: "It is very important not to mistake hemlock for parsley; but not at all so to believe or not in God."
Atheism regards the non-existence of deities, whereas agnosticism regards the uncertainty, doubt and possiblity of the existence.
Questioned with "Does God exist?", an atheist would straightforwardly reply "No, God doesn't exist", an agnostic would reply "I don't know, maybe" and an apatheist would reply "It doesn't matter to me, I'm not interested whether deities exists or not".
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.
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As a non-religious person, I do not want to associate with people like Richard Dawkins 🤮
"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 have never heard this version. Still addresses elimination of heirarchy. Happy New Year and thank you.
Next time could you post some kind of warning that this is literally just 20 minutes of this guy reading out transphobic posts? Thanks.
Fuck dawkins. Embarrassing bigot.
You arent a "awakened thinker" or w/e if you are a fucking racist and woman hater
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
It depends on the sport, but yes, many competitive sports have weight classes
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
Yuuuup. It'd be funny if it weren't so harmful. 🙃
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?
This makes no sense to me. What exactly do you have against atheists? Are you religious yourself?
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?
