Steven Pinker follows suit. Jerry Coyne reports:
Like me, Steve Pinker has resigned from the Honorary Board of the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF). His resignation was sent yesterday. Steve is an even bigger macher than I am both intellectually and, in this case, because he was Honorary President of that Board. I put below his two emails, reproduced with permission.
The core of what Pinker told them:
With sadness, I resign from my positions as Honorary President and member of the Honorary Board of the Freedom from Religion Foundation. The reason is obvious: your decision, announced yesterday, to censor an article by fellow Board member Jerry Coyne, and to slander him as an opponent of LGBTQIA+ rights.
My letter to you last November (reproduced below) explains why I think these are grave errors. With this action, the Foundation is no longer a defender of freedom from religion but the imposer of a new religion, complete with dogma, blasphemy, and heretics. It has turned its back on reason: if your readers “wrongfully perceive” the opposite of a clear statement that you support the expression of contesting opinions, the appropriate response is to stand by your statement, not ratify their error. It has turned the names Freethought Today and Freethought Now into sad jokes, inviting ridicule from its worse foes. And it has shown contempt for the reasoned advice of its own board members.
We are the heretics, dissenting from the dogma and uttering the blasphemy. The FFRF is the prisoner of a new religion.
Comments
10 responses to “Imprisonment by dogma”
This is huge and getting hyooger by the moment.
More of this, please
It’s taken far too long for this fever to break within the atheist movement. It must be getting awfully awkward for the followers of “Friendly” (ugh) Hemant Mehta, Myers, Dillahunty, et al., now that a clear majority of the movement’s big heavyweight intellectual starpower has vocally sided against trans ideology.
Are there any big A-list academic atheists besides the blogger bros and Myers who haven’t already denounced trans nuttery? Who has yet to come around?
Good on ya Pinker
Dawkins just bailed out, too.
Plus, Dawkins left a comment in a Why Evolution Is True thread, implying that some people, perhaps even higher-ups at FFRF, are “trying to curry favour with their own children” who have taken on trans identities:
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2024/12/27/what-is-a-woman-my-discussion-on-the-freedom-from-religions-website/#comment-2124173
Arty, it does seem like a lot of people who advocate for trans ‘rights’ will talk about their trans child or their trans friend. Or their non-binary, or whatever…it’s how a lot of gay rights were won, as people realized how many family and friends were gay. Now it’s being turned to an ascientific, nonsense-laden ideology used to satisfy fetishes and strip women of rights.
Having a “trans child” in the family is like having a psychic child, a reincarnated child, a child with Multiple Personality Disorder, or a child who’s been to Heaven and returned to tell us about it. If you’re in a milieu which values their acceptance or which insists that it’s important to always believe and support your children, then a child’s insistence, sincerity, and suffering will be considered good evidence. You were skeptical, but swayed. You listened. You checked things out thoroughly from all sides, your evaluations are fair and your recollections reliable. So are theirs.
Being close gives you an advantage. Having “skin in the game” gives you authority. So does love. Your child’s improvement and smiles mean you must be on the right track. Their tears when they’re rejected or thwarted rightly stirs your protective instincts. Having a loved one or friend who’s trans is supposed to give someone better insight for judging whether the trans-identified are experiencing what they say they’re experiencing for the reasons they say they are.
It’s actually the opposite, if we’re really trying to get to the truth.
As opposed to trying to avoid it, which seems to be the hot new trend.
Atheists are revolting: news at eleven.
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