For Reason and Science?

[lordpasternack]

What a great resource to tap when you're being criticised with harsh truths?

Probably an unintentional pun, but hilarious in the context of this thread.

The pun was partially intentional.

I really do think that he specifically goes after women who are infatuated with him, as a sort of "therapy". They don't even seem to require any qualifications beyond their willingness to praise him, and their likelihood of remaining uncritical towards him.

Take this lovely lady, who has a total of four Tweets and no blurb, and is followed by Dawkins:
https://mobile.twitter.com/bebebear1956/tweets

Clearly really impressed Dawkins with her eloquent and pithy expression of :

"@RichardDawkins I'm a HUGEEE fan ♥"

(Take note, gals - this is the sum and total of what you need to produce in order to get a Twitter following from Richard Dawkins. And take heed, those of you already wooed by him: Use condoms. You're not the first and you won't be the last.)

[Calilasseia]

In short, he's behaving in a manner we'd normally associate with a teenager, propelled into a career as a rock star, surrounded by adulation and a veritable sea of nubile young things ready to drop their knickers, and reacting to all of this by going into full bore "three year old in sweet factory" mode. Having found himself in a position where there are plenty of women ready to get horizontal with him, he's going for as much rutting as he can pack into his remaining years, and sending the bill to other people.

I'll bear this in mind if I see him taking shots at any adulterous politicians in future.

By the way, I get "page not found" on that Twitter link. Though I somehow suspect that someone with her user name didn't choose that as some sort of subtle existential joke. Even without being able to see the page, the word "bimbo" comes to mind. Though given that he's reputedly bedded women who are supposed to have functioning brain cells, such as Paula Kirby, I'm tempted to ask what makes these women turn said brain cells off in his presence. How the hell does a 73 year old man get women a third of his age to hop in the sack with him? Mind you, I could ask what the hell Kimberly Quinn saw in David Blunkett, given that at the time she was having an affair with him, she could have had her pick of suitors with ease, whilst he looked like something you'd see in the murkier parts of a MMORPG.

Yeah, I'm operating in snarky cynic mode at the moment. Bite me.

[lordpasternack]

This is getting rather personal, and drifting a little from relevance to RDF - but I personally think that this is his way of "acting out" over having harmed his marriage and (from what I understand) spoiled his relationship with Paula Kirby - due to Cornwell.

Those have been the only two genuinely clever and interesting women he's had a relationship with in past few years, that I'm aware of, and both relationships were harmed irrevocably by Cornwell.

I think he's going through a bit of a personal crisis, and I only hope that it's some sign of the death knells of Cornwell's ability to control and manipulate him.

He has seriously awful social judgement and emotional intelligence - and we'll all just have to wait for him to finish making all the mistakes we saw coming a mile off - before he maybe, possibly, gets a handle on things.

[Calilasseia]

This seems like an appropriate musical accompaniment to all of this ...

[charlou]

I'll bear this in mind if I see him taking shots at any adulterous politicians in future.

Not likely ...

Banishing the Green-Eyed Monster
Richard Dawkins

"Is sex outside of marriage a sin? Is it a public matter? Is it forgivable?"
No, of course sex outside marriage is not a public matter, and yes, of course it is forgivable. Only a person infected by the sort of sanctimonious self-righteousness that religion uniquely inspires would apply the meaningless word 'sin' to private sexual behavior.

It is the mark of the religious mind that it cares more about private than public morality. As the bumper sticker slogan put it, "When Clinton lied, nobody died." Officially, Bill Clinton was impeached not for sexual misconduct but for lying about it. But he was entitled to lie about his private life: one could even make a case that he had a positive duty to do so. Tony Blair should have been impeached for lying to the House of Commons about alleged evidence for weapons of mass destruction, because his lies persuaded Members to vote for a war when they otherwise would not. Lying to Congress by saying, "I did not have sex with that woman" should not be an impeachable offense, because where a man puts his penis is none of Congress's damn business. Nor is it any journalist's damn business whether a politician once took drugs at university. Or whether he is gay.

And please don't say the right answer to an impertinent question about your private life is "No comment", because we all know how that would be interpreted. Telling a lie is often the only way to convey an effective "No comment."

A censorious culture in which public figures are forced to answer impertinent questions about their past, or their private affairs, would lead to open season on everybody. Who, if challenged with a point blank question, could honestly deny some secret from the past that they know society would condemn? What is more, the revolting hue and cry that our religiously inspired society habitually raises over private sexual 'morality' serves as a dangerous distraction away from important matters of public morality such as the Blair/Bush lies about Iraq’s weapons.

Article

[DaveDodo007]

DaveDodo007 - as much as I would happily poke fun at the rhetoric of some feminists - I have also been sexually assaulted in the past, and I know how difficult it is to have evidence after the fact, and how much the victim will be blamed after the fact for "being a slut" or "making things up". I don't believe there is any other crime on the books in which the victim is so routinely doubted, blamed and shamed.

As for the Ben Radford case - even Ron Lindsay, head of CFI, is on the record confirming that Radford had been suspended from CFI for sexually harassing Karen Stollznow - and the suspension happened after an independent investigation into Stollznow's claims. Lindsay then added a further blog criticising Radford's "skepticism" about sexual harassment claims: http://www.centerforinquiry.net/blogs/e ... blog_post/

So, sorry if it doesn’t sit well with your feelings and your man-friends on this occasion - but your so-called "skepticism" is misplaced.

And another thing - I also hate the way the word "privilege" has been used by some feminists, to dismiss men rather than to genuinely make them consider what they take for-granted... But let me tell you, Dave - being privileged doesn't mean that you have shiny things - it means that there's a lot of crap that you just don't have to experience on a routine basis.

You don't have to worry about being pulled over for driving while black, or being shot at for wearing a hoodie while black. And indeed, you don't have to worry quite so much about being sexually assaulted, and being doubted and blamed for the pleasure - and indeed you can sit drinking tea in your room, and be as oblivious as so many pious Catholic churchgoers, to any abuse going on nearby.

How about fuck you you sick motherfucker. Richard Dawkins is worth a million of you pathetic whining victim blaming crybaby fucking retarded scumbucket maggots twat loser retarded prosititution whore mongering wankers. Say what again, did I get your attention How about I put my cards on the table, feminists are evil anti man scum sucking maggots who are also anti science and so full of shit that gender studies might as well be a 1984 was a manual and not a warning. Also what about the whole innocent before burning a witch (Ben Radford) just proves you are not interested in justice just you are interested in revenge and that revenge should happen against a man whether he is guilty or not. Seriously fuck you as you are either for equality or you are a ideologue. I await your response?

[Bella Fortuna]

[Hermit]

Now, that's what I call a spectacular dummyspit. Not even Seth can do it so well.

[lordpasternack]

I'll bear this in mind if I see him taking shots at any adulterous politicians in future.

Not likely ...

Banishing the Green-Eyed Monster
Richard Dawkins

"Is sex outside of marriage a sin? Is it a public matter? Is it forgivable?"
No, of course sex outside marriage is not a public matter, and yes, of course it is forgivable. Only a person infected by the sort of sanctimonious self-righteousness that religion uniquely inspires would apply the meaningless word 'sin' to private sexual behavior.

It is the mark of the religious mind that it cares more about private than public morality. As the bumper sticker slogan put it, "When Clinton lied, nobody died." Officially, Bill Clinton was impeached not for sexual misconduct but for lying about it. But he was entitled to lie about his private life: one could even make a case that he had a positive duty to do so. Tony Blair should have been impeached for lying to the House of Commons about alleged evidence for weapons of mass destruction, because his lies persuaded Members to vote for a war when they otherwise would not. Lying to Congress by saying, "I did not have sex with that woman" should not be an impeachable offense, because where a man puts his penis is none of Congress's damn business. Nor is it any journalist's damn business whether a politician once took drugs at university. Or whether he is gay.

And please don't say the right answer to an impertinent question about your private life is "No comment", because we all know how that would be interpreted. Telling a lie is often the only way to convey an effective "No comment."

A censorious culture in which public figures are forced to answer impertinent questions about their past, or their private affairs, would lead to open season on everybody. Who, if challenged with a point blank question, could honestly deny some secret from the past that they know society would condemn? What is more, the revolting hue and cry that our religiously inspired society habitually raises over private sexual 'morality' serves as a dangerous distraction away from important matters of public morality such as the Blair/Bush lies about Iraq’s weapons.

Article

Incidentally - note that the article is titled "Banishing the Green-eyed Monster", and not "Banishing Deception".

Note that Richard goes out of his way in that article to downplay the seriousness of lying, completely disregards the concept of cheating or being cheated in a relationship - and then focuses practically all of his moral outrage on the cheated partner for daring to feel indignant about being cheated and deceived at all.

At no point in the article is there a call on the "straying" partner to be upfront and honest with their partner about their desires and interests. The onus is placed on the cheated partner in a relationship to manage their own reaction.

Then read it all again through Lalla Ward's eyes - who discovered that her husband had painstakingly deceived her about his mistress for seven years, and who then found herself being maligned for daring to be upset about that fact - for being lied to, misled and placed at risk of STIs by her husband for seven years. And who then essentially had her arm twisted into an open marriage because things would be better if they just "banish the green-eyed monster".

For some reason, when you take these things into account, Dawkins' essay reads a bit less like an epistle of liberal progressiveness, and a bit more like the intellectualised justification of a selfish liar and coward.

[JimC]

Seemed that way to me too, LP...

Still, as always, I am able to separate Dawkin's literary and scientific achievements from his feet of clay as a person...

[Calilasseia]

Well, in reply to the above, I can understand that the essential argument being presented in that article, consists of the notion that we should be far more worried about lies that have malign influence upon policy, and as a corollary may have serious or even fatal effects upon many, than lies whose effects are confined to a small, immediate circle with no policy ramifications. But I would consider the whole RDFRS business as being an instance of the former class of lies, that Dawkins is seeking to place more emphasis upon in his online article, because he's basing an organisation's entire existence upon a grand lie, and expecting those not party to the lie to treat as fact assertions now known to be wrong, to the extent of providing funding for this organisation. Which to my mind comes under the heading of fraud.

[lordpasternack]

Exactly. Exactly!

The only thing I really wonder now, is whether Dawkins really was convinced, in the back of his head, that it was "no big deal" - or if he knew how serious it was, and was just banking on never being held to account.

[JimC]

DaveDodo007, this post: http://www.rationalia.com/forum/viewtop ... 1#p1559141

is a personal attack on a member of this forum. This is a reminder that personal attacks are against our rules. Please desist in future.

[mistermack]

DaveDodo007, this post: http://www.rationalia.com/forum/viewtop ... 1#p1559141

is a personal attack on a member of this forum. This is a reminder that personal attacks are against our rules. Please desist in future.

Are you sure?
Maybe you have misinterpreted his post. It's easily done, you know.

[DaveDodo007]

Exactly. Exactly!

The only thing I really wonder now, is whether Dawkins really was convinced, in the back of his head, that it was "no big deal" - or if he knew how serious it was, and was just banking on never being held to account.

Sorry about that stupid post LP.