For Reason and Science?

[Calilasseia]

Hermit - he very consciously set up the charity ostensibly to "kill two birds with one stone" - to fund his mistress tax-free, using public donations to lessen the brunt of the cost on his own pocket - while also honestly endeavouring to promote critical thinking and scientific understanding. This was the official plan - no two ways about it. Straight from the horse's mouth.

You actually extracted a confession from him, admitting this? Without either resorting to waterboarding or blow jobs?

Dawkins has succeeded measurably in fulfilling one of those goals.

Problem being, using the same order you've used above, goal one could not help but compromise the achievement of goal two. If he'd wanted to persuade other people to fund his shag banditry, he should have tapped the Templeton Foundation, concocted a suitable fabrication about the connection between religious belief and sexual morality in practice, and arranged for some hapless intern to do the donkey work of producing the paper, thence published in some fleapit journal with less than stellar review standards. He could have asked Atheistoclast over at RatSkep for advice on a suitable choice of journal. Though I gather, courtesy of a nice thread on TalkRat where 'Clast is given a thorough nuking over plagiarism, that 'Clast's services will be of limited availability.

[lordpasternack]

Cali, Hermit - the evidence comes from emails that I won't release publicly until after they've been submitted to the IRS.

[Calilasseia]

Oh shit. 50 megatons of of it.

[lordpasternack]

Dawkins has succeeded measurably in fulfilling one of those goals.

Problem being, using the same order you've used above, goal one could not help but compromise the achievement of goal two.

Exactly.

Dawkins is really very clever, isn't he?

[Hermit]

Cali, Hermit - the evidence comes from emails that I won't release publicly until after they've been submitted to the IRS.

Damn. Now I'll have to get Ian to use his contacts within the NSA for copies of them. If he can't do it, there's always Assange, I suppose, but he'll probably demand the services of cooperative women in return.

[Calilasseia]

Dawkins has succeeded measurably in fulfilling one of those goals.

Problem being, using the same order you've used above, goal one could not help but compromise the achievement of goal two.

Exactly.

Dawkins is really very clever, isn't he?

And even cleverer ... er ... er, telling you all about it in E-Mails you could save and screenshot for posterity.

I think if I was going to indulge in shenanigans like this, I'd remain mindful to watch my fucking pillow talk, let alone anything preservable in hard copy form. Though fortunately, I'm the kind of individual this wouldn't have occurred to in the first place. For that matter, bedding multiple whilst whilst married to a different woman probably wouldn't occur to me either: I'd probably be too grateful to my wife for taking on a slob like me.

[lordpasternack]

He didn't mention the "secret agenda" to me, Cali. It was discussed with all Trustees at the inception of RDF - and Dawkins had made a point of intending to disclose the fact, at least in part, with all future Trustees, so that they could be aware that RDF was supposed to be semi-corrupt, and they weren't just imagining things.

He did this, I might add, through "secret email addresses" so that he really wouldn't be caught. Totally discreet...

The trouble is that they'd have a much easier time denying all this now, had Robin Elisabeth Cornwell not subpœna'd the former Trustee, Karen Owens, during the initial Timonen lawsuit.

Cornwell had alleged, insanely, nine months into that lawsuit, that RDF had no record of the (nonexistent) contractual agreement requiring Timonen to share profits with RDF - but that Karen Owens did possess such records of information.

The long and short of it is that Karen Owens was essentially forced to submit a statement, under penalty of perjury, in which she had to reveal the existence of the "secret email addresses" her former employer used to correspond with her. And needless to say, Josh's lawyers had to fact-check Owens' claim before submitting the statement - and that involved a little forensic analysis of some of the actual emails.

See Exhibit E - Declaration of Karen Owens

[Calilasseia]

So, the short version: Dawkins lied to the punters, and used the money to fund his shag banditry.

[DaveDodo007]

Oh, FFS is this ever going to blow up. The religious have already painted Dawkins as the anti-Christ. Even if true the fact that he 'only' had other people pay for his spare pussy is a bit of a climb down from the most dangerous man in the world shit they were coming out with. Even the loonytunes at FTB, Skepchick and atheism+ wont touch this as we are cockroaches and rape apologist scum remember. If you can catch Richie baby on film eating a baby it will only elicit "we knew it all along." There must be some scandal somewhere that involved a ratz member. Shermer must have raped one of us, myers used his tentacles to fondle someone. We keep being told that the atheistosphere is rape and sexual assault central yet us bunch of sexual deviants miss out? The whole orgy passed us by? One of you slags must of been in a threesome with Klaus or Silverman? I mean Ben Radford has a better sexual assault record than any of us and it all looks made up anyway. God, everyone else in the atheist 'community' is being raped, molested and/or sexually assaulted and it passed ratz by, where we getting our coccoa then and having an early night. Well I'm off to hit on women in lifts at 4 am in the morning, just coffee mind and if they are lucky some back door action.

[JimC]

Oh, FFS is this ever going to blow up. The religious have already painted Dawkins as the anti-Christ. Even if true the fact that he 'only' had other people pay for his spare pussy is a bit of a climb down from the most dangerous man in the world shit they were coming out with. Even the loonytunes at FTB, Skepchick and atheism+ wont touch this as we are cockroaches and rape apologist scum remember. If you can catch Richie baby on film eating a baby it will only elicit "we knew it all along." There must be some scandal somewhere that involved a ratz member. Shermer must have raped one of us, myers used his tentacles to fondle someone. We keep being told that the atheistosphere is rape and sexual assault central yet us bunch of sexual deviants miss out? The whole orgy passed us by? One of you slags must of been in a threesome with Klaus or Silverman? I mean Ben Radford has a better sexual assault record than any of us and it all looks made up anyway. God, everyone else in the atheist 'community' is being raped, molested and/or sexually assaulted and it passed ratz by, where we getting our coccoa then and having an early night. Well I'm off to hit on women in lifts at 4 am in the morning, just coffee mind and if they are lucky some back door action.

I've had occasional lustful thoughts about certain fellow Ratzians, does that count?

[DaveDodo007]

Oh, FFS is this ever going to blow up. The religious have already painted Dawkins as the anti-Christ. Even if true the fact that he 'only' had other people pay for his spare pussy is a bit of a climb down from the most dangerous man in the world shit they were coming out with. Even the loonytunes at FTB, Skepchick and atheism+ wont touch this as we are cockroaches and rape apologist scum remember. If you can catch Richie baby on film eating a baby it will only elicit "we knew it all along." There must be some scandal somewhere that involved a ratz member. Shermer must have raped one of us, myers used his tentacles to fondle someone. We keep being told that the atheistosphere is rape and sexual assault central yet us bunch of sexual deviants miss out? The whole orgy passed us by? One of you slags must of been in a threesome with Klaus or Silverman? I mean Ben Radford has a better sexual assault record than any of us and it all looks made up anyway. God, everyone else in the atheist 'community' is being raped, molested and/or sexually assaulted and it passed ratz by, where we getting our coccoa then and having an early night. Well I'm off to hit on women in lifts at 4 am in the morning, just coffee mind and if they are lucky some back door action.

I've had occasional lustful thoughts about certain fellow Ratzians, does that count?

Depends: if you are attractive, not rape; unattractive, rape, creepy, evil, misogynist. Hope that helps.

[lordpasternack]

So, the short version: Dawkins lied to the punters, and used the money to fund his shag banditry.

In part, yes. It was also "legitimised" by making her a salaried staff member, taking her on tour with him in the US and charging it as legitimate travel expenses - and most likely paying her mortgage through the Foundation, while giving the "mistress flat" the official status of RDF’S headquarters - which, on paper, looks like a legitimate expense.

And it was justified within the Foundation with the argument that Richard deserves to run his shop like a harem, since he's the main donor. Which is another potential oddity, since he's not listed anywhere as a donor - despite repeatedly claiming the height of generosity to his US charity.

I think I'll leave the IRS to have a little word with all of them on those counts.

But yes - the long and short of it is that RDF consciously went out of their way to pursue something illegitimate and mired in conflict of interest - and tried to launder it and make it seem legitimate - while purportedly in pursuit of the noble goal of advancing evidence-based understanding and critical thinking.

What could possibly go wrong?

[lordpasternack]

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.

[lordpasternack]

I can usually tell when I'm having some kind of tangible impact on Dawkins, from his behaviour on Twitter. There seems to be a positive correlation between criticisms seeping through, and Dawkins retweeting lots of praise for himself on Twitter, and following people who'll praise him at the drop of a hat.

I think it's his way of dealing with the cognitive dissonance. Another little form of defensiveness and denial. He is in no short supply of people (including attractive young women) who will tell him he's the bestest ever. What a great resource to tap when you're being criticised with harsh truths? I'm sure it beats the crap out of actually accepting harsh truths, and accepting culpability...

If you are reading this, Dawkins - I have a book recommendation for you. It will help you in a way that no amount of attractive young groupies nor endless praise, compliments and reassurance will.

It is called "Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me)" - and the blurb has some insight into your current quandary:

Why do people dodge responsibility when things go wrong? Why the parade of public figures unable to own up when they make mistakes? Why the endless marital quarrels over who is right? Why can we see hypocrisy in others but not in ourselves? Are we all liars? Or do we really believe the stories we tell?

Renowned social psychologists Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson take a compelling look into how the brain is wired for self-justification. When we make mistakes, we must calm the cognitive dissonance that jars our feelings of self-worth. And so we create fictions that absolve us of responsibility, restoring our belief that we are smart, moral, and right - a belief that often keeps us on a course that is dumb, immoral, and wrong.

Emphasis added to the particularly pertinent words there.

Richard - I think that your desire to maintain your belief that you are smart, moral and right - in the face of any contradictory evidence - is the greatest driving force keeping you on a path that is dumb, immoral and wrong.

Get the book here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/1780660 ... mdsc?dsc=1

[Scott1328]

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.