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Also... Their arrogance knows no bounds in another way: they try to do demarcation debate 2.0 implicitly without realising it's literally not the way and never had been. Because for them to say what is not science instead of our deflationary* stance is impossible really without huge issues.

I‘m still not sure if the New Atheists are just a symptom or one of the reasons for th current wave of reductionist understanding, but it’s really telling that no one seems to bother with the fact that all of them have turned out to be the very cranks they claimed to fight

Oh, yeah Scientism

As a long time Robert Anton Wilson reader, I've long seen then as obviously religious in their anti religiousness. Committee For Surrealistic Investigation Of Claims Of The Normal 😆 surrealismtoday.com/manifestoes-...

Only one opinion that counts of course, and if only we'd listened...

Cc @irisvanrooij.bsky.social

hee hee bsky.app/profile/ncdo...

did you know "Brocken" is German for "honking big lump" it's generally used to describe big rocks, except in the compound noun "Kotzbrocken" which means "vomit chunk" and is an insult for people who make you wanna barf, like Richard Dawkins hope that helps

("Brocken" is also the name of the highest mountain in the Harz range in Germany from the top of which one allegedly sees the eponymous spectre. You can take a very expensive narrow gauge train up to the top, but climate change killed all the trees in the Harz, 2/10 wouldn't recommend.)

Remember that Dawkins spent years deliberately promoting the lie that Mary Midgley had not read the book before she wrote that review

ITS YOU! I LOVED Darwin Wars :) (And I've been flinging your Dawkins Golden Circle spectator thing every chance I get. Hope you don't mind) ❤️

Yes! You wrote a excellent piece in the Guardian about it. Such intellectual dishonesty by the great man. The rub is some think that Dawkins hadn't read James Lovelock's book when he critiqued Gaia theory in the 1980s

Not here to defend Dawkins (I find his atheist/religion stuff pretty tedious to say the least), but I read the Selfish Gene as an exploration of how complex behaviours (e.g. altruism) can emerge from the simple "selfish" operations of genes. Sounds like I need to read Midgley's review...

I'm a total partisan, but I'd say praps read later Midgley - she'd say herself that Gene-Juggling went in two feet above the shinpads on Dick (mainly because Mackie was her real target).

Never not embedding these, whenever someone mentions that balloon.

idk if this is made up but the idea of some dweeb paying $100,000 to access a club tier that grants you a discount on a crappy t-shirt is sending me

Saying this about the UK "we are a Christian country in that sense" in this context He's such a tool my goodness

Dawk dog whistle “So I call myself a cultural Christian and I think it would be truly dreadful if we substituted any alternative religion.” 🙅🏻‍♀️

And yes of course you all remember the "dear Muslima" thing... Their atheism is just hating everyone not a white guy basically rationalwiki.org/wiki/Elevato...

He's finally speaking honestly on what the "New Atheism" movement was always about: hating women and Muslims.

really can’t fathom an alternate explanation for this behavior. like purporting to be an atheist and then bootlicking theocratic cultural and political power is genuinely unfathomable in the tradition of atheist/secularist thought

I think he’s culturally “whatever billionaire is buttering my bread is my ethos” huckstering

oh he's also culturally "I will have a string of personal assistant mistresses over many decades and they will always remain the same age"

Dawkins rocks bc he has absolutely no principles. He's just against whatever he thinks is the prevailing attitude.

he should be against islamophobia then?

FWIW Dawkins has been saying this since at least 2006

sure, but my point is not just about him bsky.app/profile/oliv...

I wasn't trying to correct you, to be clear! Just adding that these developments have been very long underway Likewise with Hirsi Ali, of course. Hell, her entry into Dutch xenophobic politics was when I was still a child

Perché era già stronzo vent'anni fa also it depends on the meaning. I AM culturally "Catholic Tuscan" which means if I am upset I am naturally inclined to a selection of bestemmie and their sanitized versions. Not that I am proudly, openly racist (except against other towns in Tuscany).

I got a lot of very old "I told you so's" to dish out.

He said pretty all this in 2006/2007.

He's always wanted to retain cake after eating on cultural matters. He wants the intellectual clout and prestige of being enlightened and cynical, yet loves having a "priestly" role in public discourse. Righteous authority while being structurally protected from challenges to his authority.

Shopping for the bigotry without the comforting beliefs. Got it.

Did someone mention Dorkins(yes I know, very mature of me)? 1/3

2/3