Richard Dawkins opens mouth, inserts foot, mumbles something about "mild pedophilia" again

(Venting comment, soz)

Claiming that criticizing Dawkins hurts the cause of atheism is (to my mind) as fatuous as claiming that criticizing Miles Davis for being an assaulter of women hurts the cause of jazz. Dawkins != atheism. Now, the tendency of some atheist dudebros to start flinging poo the moment anyone DOES criticize him – that doesn’t make atheism look any better.

The coverage of this at Pharyngula is quite enjoyable, by the way.

It seems that abuse has taken more of a toll on Dawkins that he can admit, considering he’s still finding excuses for his molester so many years later.

Why wouldn’t you play that kind of intellectual exercise with something that isn’t likely to be so upsetting to victims of horrible crime? There are so many other examples and yet he chose something like this?

He’s got a nasty history of making light of harassment and assault. It’s no coincidence he chose to compare stranger rape at knifepoint and date rape. By downplaying the trauma of date rape, which is far more common, he is essentially declaring that rape as it stands is just not that bad, without saying it outright.

I would go so far as to say that the people who are whole-heartedly supporting Dawkins, and Dawkins at this point too, are completely blind as to the limits of the science magisterium, as Stephen Jay Gould called it.

Science tells us what is, and what could be, and what was. It has no basis to make a judgement on what “ought” to be because (“hard”) science doesn’t work that way. Morality tells us what “ought” to be. For Gould, he felt that religion was necessary for morality (he had a very positive view of religion). For me, I’m a consequentialist, to a particular point (yes I would divert the train, not sure I would throw the person on the railway tracks, definitely would not harvest the organs out of the person).*

The whole point of moral philosophical positions is that one uses empathy and logic to work out what is acceptable and what is not acceptable. Science has nothing to contribute here, except in specific circumstances (e.g. contributions to better understanding mens rea).

Dawkins and his supporters are well out of their depth and expertise in these areas. They should all just shut the fuck up, after they apologise.

*http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consequentialism/ I need to have further discussions with the friendly PhD student in philosophy who teaches this so I can work out what to call my philosophical position.

So this is Richard “Religion is the bane of all mankind, it should be destroyed root and branch” Dawkins, complaining that other people have absolute beliefs?

@Anarchonist:

Even before I found out about his assholiness (see what I did there? Tee-hee),

I LOVE IT

@WWTH:

The theft analogy also reminds me of the creepy patriarchal way fundy Christians talk about women’s virginity. That it’s a thing with a specific value attached to it, you lose something by giving it away and are worth less if you don’t have it

.

That’s exactly the message his stranger rape = stealing old woman’s life savings / date rape = stealing a little money sends. Someone on a date has low value, she was going to give it away anyhow.

@Michigan Guy:

Also this is unrelated, but what is the opinion in the feminist community on Obama.

FAIL. What the fuck makes you think feminists have a united opinion on Obama? Or that feminists necessarily think about the US president? You’re still not getting that women are individuals, are you?

@bluecatbabe:

First thing you’d notice in the office was a HUGE photo (I remember it as bigger than lifesize, but it might have just been rather big) of Dawkins and Lalla Ward (who was fairly famous at the time as a Dr Who companion, and married to Dawkins) lying in an embrace on a white fur rug. Top halves only but they appeared to be naked.

The second thing you’d notice was the white fur rug lying on the floor.

He had a display like that in his office? Feckin’ gross.

@katz:

That’s another reason I’m so leery of people who say other people are “irrational” or “deluded” because of their religious beliefs: If that’s zir attitude in that area, what else is zie going to write off as irrational or deluded because it doesn’t match zir personal experience?

Yep. Dismissing other people’s lived experience is a major part of His Assholiness’ attitudes and those of his doucheboy followers.

@saintnick:

I mean, this is a guy who raged over the child molestation scandal with the Catholic Church – presumably because such action was simply heinous – but suddenly acts dismissive towards the idea that, lacking a religious bent, pedophilia isn’t a “big deal.”

It’s even worse than that: he’s sneeringly said that children who were “fiddled behind the altar” (think those were his words) could make big money out of it. It’s not the sexual abuse he cares about, he just has a hateboner for religion.

@FortyTwoRose, hugs if you want them. It’s this sort of thing that makes me think Dawkins is on the malicious side of oblivious when it comes to women, or any victims of sexual assault.

@tedthefed:

The more I read about this, the more I realize I’ve seen the same exact thing percolating up on the internet from the usual suspects. More and more, there’s a smug, condescending type of pseudo-intellectual who really, really wants to convince you that empathy is immoral. The idea isn’t new, of course, but these types of arguments… it’s like people think they’ve stumbled upon a brave new frontier, or something. “Caring too much about rape victims makes you less aware of moral nuance.” That’s his point. Throwing survivors under the bus is secondary; he just is so scared of whatever he thinks emotion is, he hates empathy.

As a person who’s spent more than five seconds reading moral psych publications, and as a GODDAMN HUMAN BEING, it’s hard to think of a more asinine viewpoint than “caring about the feelings of others is bad.” But man, when there starts to be an intellectual backlash against goddamn empathy… jeez, this is a “go lie down for ten minutes” moment.

QFFT

This is what pisses me off about the intellectwankers of the New Atheism movement – take note, I am not talking about atheists in general – you’d think empathy = religion = bad, with some of them. Straw Vulcans to a man (and I say man advisedly).

His Assholiness, head of the church of Smugma.

I love this comment on Pharyngula: “As if we needed anything else to make Dawkins look more like your run-off-the-mill Republican minus creationism.” (For context, PZ posted a pic of Obama’s response to Akin’s “legitimate rape” shit. It applies equally to Dawkins and the post’s called Now look who’s picking a fight with Dawkins.)

I must say I liked the image of Dawkins with his foot in his mouth being thrown under the bus (presumably the one with the “there’s probably no God” sign on it). I’m impressed that he managed to shove his other foot in his mouth while being thrown and while keeping the first foot in place.

Oh, he’s now back to his standard whining about witch-hunts. Quelle surprise.

I should stop calling him professor, huh? Given the fact that he’s apparently passing out bad 70s porn photos of himself and his ladyfriend/s it probably gives him happy tingly feelings in his dangly bits.

(Note to professors – do not make your office look like the kind of Anchorman-style sex den that probably has a bottle of Sex Panther stashed under the desk, as it may make office hours awkward for students.)

(@vaiyt, I saw your “I’m being repressed!” quote on Pharyngula and had to do an appropriate pic.)