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+--- Thread: News Prominent atheists ditch Freedom From Religion Foundation as org doubles down on censorship, 'extreme gender activism' (/showthread.php?tid=502)
Prominent atheists ditch Freedom From Religion Foundation as org doubles down on censorship, 'extreme gender activism' - Clover - Dec 30 2024
Western Standard, December 29 2024.
https://www.westernstandard.news/news/prominent-atheists-ditch-freedom-from-religion-foundation-as-org-doubles-down-on-censorship-extreme-gender-activism/60792
Quote:Just hours apart, evolutionary biologists Richard Dawkins and Jerry Coyne, and psychologist Steven Pinker announced they no longer wished to be associated with FFRF, though they each made it clear they still supported the group's core mission of maintaining separation of church and state.
Coyne was the first to go, tendering his resignation early on Saturday morning following a dispute over an article he wrote for FFRF's Freethought Now! website on December 26. In the piece, titled "Biology is not bigotry," Coyne defended "the biological definition of 'woman' based on gamete type." It was penned as a response to a piece by Kat Grant that essentially argued that a woman is anyone who says they are.
Following backlash, FFRF pulled the article and released a lengthy statement reaffirming its commitment to supporting the LGBTQIA+ community.
"Despite our best efforts to champion reason and equality, mistakes can happen, and this incident is a reminder of the importance of constant reflection and growth," Co-Presidents Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor wrote. "Publishing this post was an error of judgement, and we have decided to remove it as it does not reflect our values and principles. We regret any distress caused by this post and are committed to ensuring it doesn't happen again."
In a post on his own blog, Why Evolution is True, Coyne shared the email he had sent Barker and Gaylor declaring his resignation and explaining why he made that decision.
Jerry A. Coyne in "I resign from the Freedom from Religion Foundation" But because you took down my article that critiqued Kat Grant’s piece, which amounts to quashing discussion of a perfectly discuss-able issue, and in fact had previously agreed that I could publish that piece—not a small amount of work—and then put it up after a bit of editing, well, that is a censorious behavior I cannot abide. I was simply promoting a biological rather than a psychological definition of sex, and I do not understand why you would consider that “distressing” and also an attempt to hurt LGBTQIA+ people, which I would never do.
[...]
Mission creep was surely instantiated in your decision to cancel my piece when its discussion of biology and its relationship to sex in humans violated “progressive” gender ideology. This was in fact the third time that I and others have tried to warn the FFRF about the dangers of expanding its mission into political territory. But it is now clear that this is exactly what you intend to do. Our efforts have been fruitless, and if there are bad consequences I don’t want to be connected with them.
[...]
I will add one more thing. The gender ideology which caused you to take down my article is itself quasi-religious, having many aspects of religions and cults, including dogma, blasphemy, belief in what is palpably untrue (“a woman is whoever she says she is”), apostasy, and a tendency to ignore science when it contradicts a preferred ideology.
Quote:Pinker was the next to go, lamenting the fact that FFRF was "no longer a defender of freedom from religion but the imposer of a new religion, complete with dogma, blasphemy, and heretics."
Dawkins echoed their sentiments a short time later.
Richard Dawkins Publishing the silly and unscientific 'What is a Woman' article by Kat Grant was a minor error of judgment, redeemed by the decision to publish a rebuttal by a distinguished scientist from the relevant field of Biology, Jerry Coyne. But alas, the sequel was an act of unseemly panic when you caved in to hysterical squeals from predictable quarters and retrospectively censored that excellent rebuttal. Moreover, to summarily take it down without even informing the author of your intention was an act of lamentable discourtesy to a member of your own Advisory Board. A Board which I now leave with regret.
Discussion on Ovarit.
RE: Prominent atheists ditch Freedom From Religion Foundation as org doubles down on c... - YesYourNigel - Dec 31 2024
I don't understand why this is in Gender Critical, tbh. Bioessentialist male ahteists are mad that they can't talk about how God-given natural the patriarchy is. More at 11. Who gives a shit about them, or wailing conservative men, just because they happen to coincidentally be one of the targets of trans activists? I will reserve my pity for women and feminists.
Male scientists and thinkers have always pushed evopsych and drew arbitrary lines on which parts of the patriarchy are inborn, natural, and unavoidable (generally the ones that are the sexiest and the most appealing to their personal status), with no effort whatsoever exerted on addressing how any of it could be fixed. Their motivations are very clear and this is especially obvious with atheist men who keep being portrayed as somehow more enlightened on women's rights for...some reason.
Finding a biological basis for gender roles is a very likeable and relatable position to our patriarchal society that still sees misogyny as something that is, at worst, a little evolutionary quirk that makes men act funny in a "oh you 😚" way and unfortunately occasionally results in some man's wife or daughter getting damaged, but that's it. And because men in particular control these insitutions and are so obsessed with having a natural justification for their supremacism, we never move farther than going from "God created women to be inferior and exploited by men" to "Nature created women to be inferior and exploited by men". And it's very telling that these things would not be acceptable with racial biases, at least in the mainstream, but since women have the fewest oppression points, we still get the same musings from men on this that we've been getting for centuries (though I don't doubt that many of these white male scientists are positively itching to do racist research, they're just smart enough to keep their mouths shut in public).
I don't like biological determinism for many reasons, but I'd respect a "facts and logical" big-brained male thinker slightly more if I saw even a single one bemoan this status quo and advocate for, say, chemical cures to address destructive male behaviour, or social programs that sought to compensate for it instead of encourage men in it, or any other measures to deal with men who are apparently fundamentally broken on a biological level, to the point of ruining all of society and esp biologically far more advanced women in terms of moral and basic humanity. Instead, said male problems are not even treated as problems but as some pinnacle of humankind, their impact on women's, hell, everyone's rights, safety and freedoms isn't even addressed, and copious words are wasted on hymns singing how normal, natural and relatable this all is. Sure, sometimes men kill and rape women, but otherwise things are going swell, except I should get more money and be higher up on the patriarchal totem pole.
Radical feminists have been mass-censored for ages, before trans activism was even in the picture. I suppose ideas that might be called "gender critical" were more accepted as long as they remained abstract platitutes about how gender roles don't NEED to exist, but never actually challenged them to the fullest in ways that might offend gender-conforming people and esp nowadays trans ideology (i.e. as long as they remained in the realm of "choice feminism" where everyone pats each other on the back over how enlightened they are for freely choosing gender roles with no societal nudging whatsoever). ofc actually holding men accountable to the extent of their destructive behaviour is unthinkable and is erased or is straight up proclaimed extremist and man-hating, especially by the very facts-and-logical "men are biologically broken" big-brained thinkers.
Am I supposed to feel a sense of kinship with some bioessentialists who are mad because their precious girls-boys dichotomy that their world revolves around is coming under fire and they can no longer wax philosophical about how sexy and scientific this dichotomy is? Not only are these men in no way feminist (Steven Pinker said it's biological that women prefer reading [lol, reading is biological now?] and men prefer building things. Dawkins straight up called Western women privileged because they don't live in Saudi Arabia, and I don't think you can get more brainless-male-parrot than that), but their worldview revolves around reaffirming the natural divisions inherent to gender roles that they profit from. Maybe they can go fund some research into why men's brains evolved over millennia to jerk off to pink panties or sth. Or hey, I guess humans just didn't evolve to be able to consider things rationally and objectively, so shut up and stop complaining💁♂️
RE: Prominent atheists ditch Freedom From Religion Foundation as org doubles down on c... - Clover - Dec 31 2024
(Dec 31 2024, 12:59 PM)YesYourNigel I don't understand why this is in Gender Critical, tbh.Well, initially it was because I thought left-leaning people might have their interest piqued in seeing atheists leaving the Freedom From Religion foundation and criticizing transgenderism, especially by them noting the parallels to religion in the transgender movement. Kind of like "baby steps gender critical" for any left-leaning lurkers. (I also like to archive articles/quotes in the forum categories I find relevant to more easily reference later. I guess I still consider the gender critical category relatively "big tent.")
And now it is especially useful because of your excellent breakdown of how atheist bio-essentialist men are not really "progressive allies" to the radical feminist/gender critical feminist movement. I think it's important for people to see such feminist commentary on the larger category of "anti-trans" articles. (Your post would be great as a standalone resource to reference on how leftist/secular men can be just as misogynistic as right-wing/religious men.)
RE: Prominent atheists ditch Freedom From Religion Foundation as org doubles down on c... - komorebi - Jan 1 2025
As an atheist and a skeptic myself, this whole thing is just embarrassing. Gender identity is just another kind of religion, so it's pathetic that so many self-professed "skeptics" buy into it without question.
This is not a counterpoint to YYN, but I feel it's worth sharing anyway as just another viewpoint. While agreeing that Dawkins and other high-minded "enlightened thinkers" are also misogynistic and not individuals to put on pedestals, I will say that his book The God Delusion (as well as other such books - Sam Harris's Letter to a Christian Nation, Christopher Hitchens's The Portable Atheist) helped me greatly when I was deprogramming from my religious upbringing. The amount of shame and guilt I felt even just picking up those books, and the subsequent "freeing" of my mind and lightening of the burdens that I'd been carrying, were an experience very similar to when I came to question the tenets of gender identity and subsequently freed myself from kowtowing to it.
tl;dr: Organized religion is a scourge, and so despite the fact that their authors are not half as clever as they think they are, such books (even written by men) may still be useful resources for women looking to break free from the stranglehold of religion.
RE: Prominent atheists ditch Freedom From Religion Foundation as org doubles down on c... - YesYourNigel - Jan 2 2025
I truly find male atheists to be false prophets that distract women from the real problem of the patriarchy that actually severely impacts their life completely independently of religion, and religion gets used as a convenient scapegoat for atheist men and their wives to avoid looking into misogyny because said Nigels are "above that" or "too smart for that" because idk, they're pro-abortion or some other 0-effort stance. The wives just prop up, adore and parrot their super big-brained Nigels while never even addressing the massive elephant in the room that is said Nigel's misogyny, which is trivial, irrelevant or straight up justified by SciEnCe.
It's like the men who insist that we all focus on The Economy, while screeching and screaming over feminists. Most men's motivation behind atheism is in inflating their massive egos and avoiding responsibility for even more shit. They also love to act as if being atheist makes them either immune to misogyny and other sickening ideologies, or that parroting the same regressive rubbish is smart and good because of how facts-and-logical it is this time, and this does wonders to scam women into thinking their Nigels are enlightened thinkers who are on their side just because they can get on their soapbox about Skydaddy and brag about not feeling any shame after jerking off porn and for wanting to date 3 women at once. Atheism makes precisely 0 difference in male approach to women, zero, and we need to stop treating it as if it does. The only area where I see a difference is in women who abandon fundamentally misogynistic religions holding them back, but even then it's useless when it's not combined with feminist awareness because they so often just get roped in and exploited by manipulative narcissistic men who tell them this brand of misogyny is hip and cool and rational and don't you want to be all 🖕🖕 to the religion that hurt you? Your boomer parents will hate this (and my dick will love it).
I'm not saying the work these men did is useless, but it is completely useless to feminism, in fact not only is it useless but it regularly gets used to fuck women over. These atheist men did not care to rethink their misogyny (which conveniently never got them cancelled from atheist groups), and they got screwed over by atheist men who did not care to rethink gender ideology. This concerns us how? We do not need to shed tears over men whose work gets used (including by them personally) to market misogyny and who got into controversy for doing literally nothing for women. Men like this and their fanboys are completely unconcerned with women at best, and straight up obsessed with reselling religious misogyny under the veneer of science at worst, and whether their work contributed to religion-vs-atheism debate is completely irrelevant to feminism. Do Civil Rights men who beat their wives deserve excuses and pity in a feminist space just because they happened to contribute to racial equality? This is how you get useless af intersectionalist feminism that is only concerned with how many oppression points other groups have that would make their misogyny not as important, and hog up all the feminist resources that are supposed to go to female people! If it doesn't contribute and esp if it takes away from women's rights, then bye!
Even when men do contribute to feminism, they get too much attention, adulation and authority compared to WOMEN who usually do far more analysis and critical thinking, which allows these men to always draw a firm "facts-and-logical" line on where women's rights are "too far" (which is ofc always way behind men's rights) because Mother Nature and/or Fair Play. Atheist men are even worse than feminist men who scam women that they're safe and authoritative, because these men can't even assed to put any work into addressing women's rights. They get the "big-brained thinker who's more humanist and ethical and progressive than evil Christian men" for doing jackshit, and in fact often actively going against women's rights. But let's not focus on that, let's just appreciate the good they did in some indirect way...just no. They're misogynistic? Fuck 'em.
RE: Prominent atheists ditch Freedom From Religion Foundation as org doubles down on c... - komorebi - Jan 2 2025
I'm not asking you to agree with me, or appreciate any good they did, or care about my comment at all. :) I'm honestly not trying to get into an argument with you; broadly speaking, I agree with your thoughts and your rage. I do get it. I'm just sharing my perspective as someone who managed to escape the grip of religious thinking by reading atheist books. I am simply not that black and white about these things; I recognize that all men are misogynists, including these men, but it would be dishonest for me to act as though I'm some perfect feminist who never struggled with religion, who fell out of the womb completely understanding everything about the world, and I pray that we both agree that even though my life experiences have been different from yours, that my views are still welcome on this forum.
RE: Prominent atheists ditch Freedom From Religion Foundation as org doubles down on c... - Clover - Jan 2 2025
komorebi I pray that we both agree that even though my life experiences have been different from yours, that my views are still welcome on this forum.I think by virtue of this being an old-school internet bulletin board (BB) forum, especially one with a focus on feminist politics and analysis, some posts might not be intended so much to be seen as a one-on-one discussion between two users, and more of an open discussion focused on a class-based analysis, instead of a disagreement on an individual's personal experiences.
Your views and contributions are indeed welcome on this forum. I do agree that the works of flawed misogynistic men can still be helpful for women in working their way out of some aspects of a misogynistic society, eg. patriarchal religions. These men, like Dawkins, do not intend to help women recognize patriarchal systems, but by criticizing something like organized religion, which are overwhelmingly patriarchal in their nature, they inadvertently do so when women decide to abandon organized religion. So this is similar to the reason why I shared this article to begin with, in the sense of "little steps" towards recognizing the sexism in transgenderism, just like reading a male author's works debunking organized religion can be "little steps" towards recognizing the oppression of all-encompassing patriarchal systems. Perhaps some women lurkers might come across this article, who are more "male identified" (I think that is the right word) in the sense of being "okay" with being women under patriarchy because they get to be atheist/left-wing women under patriarchy, and unfortunately due to that, they might be more willing to listen to criticisms of transgenderism if it comes from atheist men than from feminist women. It's not great, but it's something. All women are at different stages in recognizing women's oppression as a class, so gotta cast a wide net, imo.
At the same time, I also find YesYourNigel's criticisms of atheist men important for a feminist forum, especially for me, since I consider myself leftist/left-leaning, and it's important for me to not become desensitized to the misogyny on the left, or make excuses for them, just because they're not as overwhelmingly sexist and oppressive as the right. It is important, since leftist men are more covertly sexist, to point out caveats in their seemingly "progressive" stances when it comes to dismissing/ignoring women. I personally don't think this means completely shutting out their works, it means keeping a feminist perspective in mind when analyzing the politics and viewpoints of secular/leftist men.
YesYourNigel It's like the men who insist that we all focus on The Economy, while screeching and screaming over feminists.I've seen this kind of thinking in a mixed-sex leftist Discord server I'm a part of. The focus on "the economy" as the ultimate liberation and the be-all-end-all, and women's liberation as only a small subpart of it, is so bizarre to me. One other feminist woman on there summarized her take on the ensuing debate between the leftist feminist women and this leftist man as "these discussions make me realize I'm too radfem for Marxists and too Marxist for radfems," which I understand her take, if she has to deal with such men in leftist political spaces as a feminist.
I would not be handle to take too much of it. That was enough for me to realize, never let your guard down around "leftist" men—even for them, it seems the idea that woman are human is just too much to consider. YesYourNigel [...] [Atheist women] so often just get roped in and exploited by manipulative narcissistic men who tell them this brand of misogyny is hip and cool and rational and don't you want to be all 🖕🖕 to the religion that hurt you? Your boomer parents will hate this (and my dick will love it).I recall something to this effect in Dworkin's Right-Wing Women—women using the "free love" movement and such as a way to rebel and differentiate themselves from their conservative mothers/parents, which in turn just benefited men['s dicks].
YesYourNigel Even when men do contribute to feminism, they get too much attention, adulation and authority compared to WOMEN who usually do far more analysis and critical thinking, which allows these men to always draw a firm "facts-and-logical" line on where women's rights are "too far" (which is ofc always way behind men's rights) because Mother Nature and/or Fair Play.Valid point. We can see the same apply for some atheist men (the other atheist men are actually now just excited that they can now use "transphobia" as a way to abuse leftist/atheist/feminist women, goes to show how "logical" they are that they will happily give credence to a New Age nonsensical belief system if it allows them to finally be misogynistic without losing "cool points" in their "enlightened" secular community) finally realizing "transgenderism is nonsense" even though feminists have been criticizing transgenderism/gender politics since the second wave. But now that it's on men's radar, affecting their world, now it's suddenly worth mansplaining decades of feminist arguments to society.
RE: Prominent atheists ditch Freedom From Religion Foundation as org doubles down on c... - YesYourNigel - Jan 5 2025
Quote:I think by virtue of this being an old-school internet bulletin board (BB) forum, especially one with a focus on feminist politics and analysis, some posts might not be intended so much to be seen as a one-on-one discussion between two users, and more of an open discussion focused on a class-based analysis, instead of a disagreement on an individual's personal experiences.
Exactly this! 👏
Also, just because there are disagreements or unfeminist takes, does not mean they need to be censored out of existence, so long as they are brought up with discussion and conventional feminist premises in mind. The patriarchy wants us to take attacks on it, and men, personally, but our goal should always be to figure out and promote whatever furthers the rights of women.
Quote:It is important, since leftist men are more covertly sexist, to point out caveats in their seemingly "progressive" stances when it comes to dismissing/ignoring women.
I will specify that I was mainly complaining about men who aren't necessarily even progressive, but literally just atheist (so, the usual career atheist idols who don't even have any progressive takes and just dismantle religion all day). And maybe this requires one to have been in more edgelordy male communities, but like...atheist men who are straight up sociopaths are a dime a dozen. Not being religious tells you literally nothing about their values, and due to how loosely followed religion is nowadays, neither does religion really (not to let religious people off the hook though, given that they have been hard at work dismantling our rights from the other side as well). Which is why so many atheists don't actually care about the ethical damages from religion beyond just "WAAAH they want to shame my dick!", so they still rush for emergency brakes the second things like feminism come into the picture. And I'm not surprised so many liberal atheists fall for metaphysical gender nonsense because they already promote metaphysical gender roles as fact and so many of them are the kind that would watch 20 hours of FLATEARTHER GETS REKT WITH FACTS & LOGIC content and come away not even being able to tell you one thing about how we know the Earth is round. It's not about rationality or learning, it's about inflating the giant male "I'm so much smarter than everyone else" ego.
But yes, I'm more passionate about taking down liberal men because they're so much more deceptive if you don't know what to look out for and because I myself have had a long journey in seeing through all their manipulation. Conservatives will straight up tell you women are subhuman, so there's not much more to add there.
But I do think it's good to point out that criticising liberals does not mean that we find conservatives better or even equally bad, because lord knows if you spend too much time portraying liberals as bad, that will attract conservatives like flies trying to brainlessly shit on "libtard SJWs" because that's the only thing guiding their thinking. And before you know it, you're Ovarit.
Quote:by criticizing something like organized religion, which are overwhelmingly patriarchal in their nature, they inadvertently do so when women decide to abandon organized religion.
Thing is, you can say the same for religion allowing some women to push back against things like porn, kink, prostitution, male-pandering hypersexuality etc. or trans for letting women push back on femininity because "muh dysphoria". These movements allow them to set boundaries on the basis of some mythical belief system that is still palatable to men*, rather than rational, universal opposition to them on principle that might be too "political" and "intolerant" of other people's choices. But since this rejection is not based in women's rights and revolves around prominent patriarchal idols who still use the movements to prioritise male interests, the women involved just fall victims to the same misogyny as usual.
*Atheism isn't a belief system, but as a movement it does profit a lot off of the assumptions that it's the enlightened and rational counterpoint to religion, while normalising the same misogynistic rubbish that every male community falls victim to (even moreso because atheism is just a lack of religion, rather than having any specific values of its own - like it's not even a nominally progressive thing but it profits off of the assumption that it is), esp when they have a victim complex that makes them go all ME ME ME and cause women to virtue signal their loyalty to the true apolitical all-human goal that men can care about and also easily snake their way out of for brownie points. It's a lot easier to just abandon religious tenets that you didn't even like because they were getting in the way of your wanking and violent tendencies, than work through the sheer extent of your male socialisation.
In the end we get two very polarized groups playing hot potato with misogyny, despite both engaging in wildly misogynistic practices that make women's lives objectively worse.
Speaking of, atheists LOVE to write off all criticism of porn, toxic and misogynistic sexual practices, prostitution etc. etc. as just religious prudishness. This attitude made me force myself for years to try and be okay with porn and female degradation because I thought my disgust was just a stuffy uncool remnant of an irrational religious culture. Fuuuuck atheist men 🖕
Quote:One other feminist woman on there summarized her take on the ensuing debate between the leftist feminist women and this leftist man as "these discussions make me realize I'm too radfem for Marxists and too Marxist for radfems,"
lmao yes, socialist men also love to play hot potato and make a scapegoat out of capitalism when it comes to misogyny and make it seem like it's all just an invention of rich CEOs (apparently poor working-class men never abuse women...or rich women don't suffer any misogyny to speak of) and i'm immune to all capitalist-born bigotry because I'm not capitalist 😌 It's always just about skirting responsibility and critical thinking instead of actually changing things for the better.
I am continuously amazed at the amount of men who will wax philosophical on the nature of humanity and ethics and morality and rights and just...not even think that even advanced countries with barely any female leaders after centuries of women legally being little more than sex objects for men, where men could fill an entire dictionary with degrading slang and expression targeting women and where women still deal with male violence on a daily basis to the point where most of them have had scary and traumatising experiences...that this is all normal and acceptable and how the world should be. Such big thinkers, and yet they can't recognise that maybe this is a little fucked up.
Quote:they will happily give credence to a New Age nonsensical belief system if it allows them to finally be misogynistic without losing "cool points" in their "enlightened" secular community
I think these progressive men are either hooked on trans porn (a massive porn category that's only getting bigger) which works nicely with their "failed men are basically women" patriarchal hierarchy, or they operate on sympathy for fellow bros living their best life even if it ruins countless women's. And even progressive men love any reminder that men are the real victims and that women should take care not to get TOO hysterical and biased in their support of other women because women are just as bad as men 🙃
RE: Prominent atheists ditch Freedom From Religion Foundation as org doubles down on c... - Elsacat - Jan 5 2025
[quote="YesYourNigel" pid='984' dateline='1736096468']
Quote:they operate on sympathy for fellow bros living their best life even if it ruins countless women's.
Bros before hoes. No matter where men are on the sociopolitical spectrum, most will default to supporting men against women.
RE: Prominent atheists ditch Freedom From Religion Foundation as org doubles down on c... - YesYourNigel - Jan 5 2025
I love how someone once put it, that progressive men sympathise so much with TIMs while not giving a shit about women (or TIFs lmao) because they would never place themsleves into the role of an actual woman and think "What if I lived in a world where men went out of their way to victimise me?" but rather "What if I thought I was a woman and no-one believed me?". Obviously the latter is more real and more important 🙄