He’s been slowly veering towards becoming a fundamentalist Christian. Waiting for him to announce he believes any day now.

Old man yells at cloud.

Dawkins’ problem always has been that he can’t stop at a mere lack of belief (and in fact argues that a lack of belief is impossible, and that agnostics are therefore either confused or dishonest).

So effectively, his atheism has always been an act of faith. Rather than simply withholding belief in the unproven assertion that God exists, he actively believes (or more precisely invests faith in) the unproven assertion that God does not exist.

So it stands to reason that just as with any other person with an active and self-defining faith in an unproven position, the dogma of the congregation of fellow believers of which he considers himself a part must match his personal dogma - otherwise, he’s effectively betraying his faith by accepting a belief he considers heretical.

First of all, I can’t remember the last time Dawkins was even relevant or newsworthy. As a kid growing out of religion, he was a source of support and inspiration for me. But after growing up, even still being a complete atheist, I can’t remember the last time I even thought about the guy. He lives in a constant battle against theism, and frankly, I have better things to worry about.

Second, let’s remember that even people that we truly respect and value for their contributions to a given field does not mean that that translates to other fields. Even absolute genius in one area doesn’t translate to other areas. Newton created his 3 laws of motion, first described gravity, and developed Calculus, but he was also an advocate and practitioner of alchemy. Einstein was an amazing physicist who gave us relativity, the energy of mass, etc, but he believed quantum physics was hokum.

Sometimes that even goes beyond simple incompetence outside of their area of expertise and into outright bigotry. H.P. Lovecraft was an amazing horror author that essentially created the genre of cosmic horror and whose influence continues to this day, and yet he was WILDLY racist against literally anyone not white. Henry Ford dramatically increased the efficiency of modern manufacturing, made automobiles affordable for the average American, implemented the 40 hour 5 day work week, and paid his workers double the standard of the time, and he was also a huge anti-semite that put out a newsletter filled with anti-Jewish conspiracy theories and Hitler even wrote of him favorably in Mein Kampf.

Plus Hawkins is 83 years old. He’s been spending the majority of those 83 years thinking about, arguing about, honing his views about, and publically speaking about atheism. It’s little wonder he is considered an authority in that subject. Undoubtedly, though, he’s given nowhere near that much thought (or any at all) to trans politics, so it is no wonder that he does not have a well formed and nuanced view there. He’s more likely to fall in line, then, with the societal view of his generation’s time. So of course he’s an idiot about it.

I hate that I get to use this so often 😒

Yikes. Disappointing. “The reality that I recognise as true is the only reality that can exist and everything that doesn’t fit is religious dogma” sounds awfully familiar.