Culture I resign from the Freedom from Religion Foundation - It's because of trannies. It's always because of trannies

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This is the result of a dispute I’ve explained before (see here). Because the FFRF has caved into to gender extremism, an area having nothing to do with its mission, and because, when they let me post an article on their website about this, they changed their mind and simply removed my post, I have decided I can no longer remain a member of their board of honorary directors. So be it. Everything is explained in this email I sent FFRF co-Presidents Annie Laurie Gaylor and Dan Barker about an hour ago, to wit:

Dear Annie Laurie and Dan,

As you probably expected, I am going resign my position on the honorary board of the FFRF. I do this with great sadness, for you know that I have been a big supporter of your organization for years, and was honored to receive not only your Emperor Has No Clothes Award, but also that position on your honorary board.

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.

As I said, I think these folks should have moral and legal rights identical to those of other groups, except in the rare cases in which LGBTQIA+ rights conflict with the rights of other groups, in which case some kind of adjudication is necessary. But your announcement about the “mistake” of publishing my piece also implies that what I wrote was transphobic.

Further, when I emailed Annie Laurie asking why my piece had disappeared (before the “official announcement” of revocation was issued), I didn’t even get the civility of a response. Is that the way you treat a member of the honorary board?

I always wanted to be on the board so I could help steer the FFRF: I didn’t think of it as a job without any remit. The only actions I’ve taken have been to write to both of you—sometimes in conjunction with Steve, Dan (Dennett), or Richard—warning of the dangers of mission creep, of violating your stated goals to adhere to “progressive” political or ideological positions. 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.

I will continue to struggle for the separation of church and state, and wish you well in that endeavor, which I know you will continue. But I cannot be part of an organization whose mission creep has led it to actually remove my words from the internet—words that I cannot see as harmful to any rational person. I am not out to hurt LGBTQIA+ people, and I hope you know that. But you have implied otherwise, and that is both shameful for you and hurtful for me.

Cordially
Jerry

https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2024/12/29/i-resign-from-the-freedom-from-religion-foundation/ (Archive)


Another one leaves the fold: Steve Pinker resigns from the Freedom from Religion Foundation


Like me, Steve Pinker has resigned from the Honorary Board of the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF). His resignation was sent yesterday. Steve is a bigger macher than I. both intellectually and, in this case, because he was Honorary President of that Board. I put below his two emails, reproduced with permission.

The first one was sent yesterday to the co-Presidents of the FFRF as well as the editor of Freethought Today!, which originally published my piece and then removed it.

From: Pinker, Steven
Sent: Saturday, December 28, 2024 11:49 AM
Subject: resignation

Dear Annie Laurie and Dan,

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.

There are not the values of not the organization I have supported for twenty years, and I can no longer be associated with it.

Sincerely,
Steve

*************

As Steve notes above, this second letter was sent over a month ago to the same people, with copies to me and Richard Dawkins, as all of us were discussing the issue of “mission creep” with the FFRF.

From: Pinker, Steven
Sent: Monday, November 11, 2024 10:04 AM
Subject: RE: Comment for FFRF

Thanks, Annie Laurie. But I think it’s important to distinguish two things:

1. The right to bodily autonomy, an ethical issue.

2. The nature of sex in the living world, a scientific issue.

Some trans activists believe that the only way to ensure the first is to rewrite the second, imposing what we regard as fallacious and tendentious claims in defiance of our best scientific understanding. This is unfortunate for two reasons: it’s a conceptual error, confusing the moral and the empirical, and it’s counterproductive to force people to choose between trans rights and scientific reality. Those who favor scientific reality will be alienated from the cause of safeguarding trans rights.

I see FFRF as in the vanguard of separating key moral and political commitments from honest scientific inquiry (after all, a major impetus for enshrining religious doctrine such as creationism is that it is necessary for the preservation of moral values). Many people have noted that the radical factions of the trans movement have taken on some of the worst features of religion, such as the imposition of dogma and the excommunication and vilification of heretics. FFRF can be firmly on the side of trans rights without advancing tendentious (and almost certainly false) biological claims. Of course, it’s fine for views that we regard as tendentious to be expressed in FFRF forums, as long as respectful disagreements are allowed to be expressed as well.

Best,
Steve

https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2024...igns-from-the-freedom-of-religion-foundation/ (Archive)


A third one leaves the fold: Richard Dawkins resigns from the Freedom from Religion Foundation

Well, that makes three of us. Steve Pinker, I, and now Richard Dawkins, have all decided independently to resign from the Honorary Board of the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF). The organization’s ideological capture, as instantiated in throwing in their lot with extreme gender activism and censoring any objection to their views—as well as in the increasing tendency of the FFRF to add Critical Social Justice to their mission alongside their original and admirable goal of keeping church and state separate, has motivated us in different degrees to part ways with the group. I emphasize again that the FFRF did and still does engage in important work on keeping religion from creeping into governmental activity.

Richard explains his decision in the email below, sent not long ago to the heads of the FFRF. I, for one, hope that these resignations might make the FFRF rethink its direction.

I reproduce Richard’s very civil resignation with his permission:

Dear Annie Laurie and Dan

It is with real sadness, because of my personal regard for you both, that I feel obliged to resign from the Advisory Board of FFRF. 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.

Although I formally resign, I would like to remain on friendly terms with you, and I look forward to cooperating in the future. And to delightful musical evenings if the opportunity arises.

Yours sincerely
Richard

https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2024...ns-from-the-freedom-from-religion-foundation/ (Archive)
 
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This is because the transgender movement is about forcing TRANSHUMANISM down our throats. Tech moguls and tech companies with their billions won't support any organization that doesn't suck up to TRANSHUMANISM. They also have a stranglehold on all internet platforms and media companies, obviously, so that means the tranny agenda will be forced on us regardless of what we do or don't do.
That doesn't make sense, that's like the Wright Brothers supporting the "hold hands and believe really hard and you'll manifest flight" organization, a transhumanist that's honest should want to stay as far away as possible from the nitwits mutilating themselves and going "LOOK MOM I'M A REAL WOMAN NOW" and smearing shit all over biology.

Transhumanism is anti-human, but in a very different way from postmodern "reality is a construct duuuuude" niggerlicious fags: it hopes that through le science humans can modify themselves in ways that give actual, quantifiable improvements regarding lifespan, intelligence, disease resistance and strength, and in the process "principled" transhumanists make some very retarded assumptions but in a "I want to believe le science is better than it actually is btw I'm a naive materialist tips fedora" sort of way, not the "LALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU REALITY IS WHAT I SAY IT IS I'M A REEEEAL WOOOOOMAN REEEEEEEEE" way, it's like the computer virginity club vs drama nerds
 
The heart of atheism, more than any conversation about if god exists, is the idea that humans can and should live without doctrine. Self actualizing themselves with all the free time they have not working like in an episode of star trek. They found out this was widely, and fundamentally wrong. People destroy themselves without a moral code. Even with the free time and free will the have, they spend time uselessly or degenerate with drugs and entertainment. And, at a core, human beings desire a doctrine to follow to give their lives meaning. So when they tried to destroy christianity, they just cleaned the table for a different fish.
Yeah, human beings require doctrine, like wonderful Islam! Or the Hispanic Sainta Muerte.
 
atheism.jpg


The op-ed from Mr. Mehta from Friendly Atheist. Archive. You'll see it is just as "friendly" as you expect.

Three prominent atheists resigned from FFRF's Honorary Board. Good riddance.​

Jerry Coyne, Steven Pinker, and Richard Dawkins are big mad that FFRF removed an anti-trans article from their website

Somehow, there are even more updates to the anti-trans controversy I first wrote about on Saturday.

In case you missed it, the short version is that biologist Jerry Coyne, author of Why Evolution is True and Faith Versus Fact: Why Science and Religion Are Incompatible, wrote an article trashing transgender people. He insisted sex is binary, that trans women are more likely to be sexual predators (using misleading statistics), argued that trans women shouldn’t be allowed to counsel women who have been physically abused, rejected even the possibility of trans women playing women’s sports at any age, and said trans women shouldn’t be placed in women’s prisons (even though the alternative is disastrous).

Along the way, he just ignored the countless ways the trans community is under attack, largely by people making similar arguments.

None of this was shocking to those of us who have watched him go from a defender of science to an amplifier of right-wing propaganda.

But the problem wasn’t just that he wrote the piece. It was that the Freedom From Religion Foundation, a group that I believe does excellent work defending church/state separation, published it on their own blog. Despite including a disclaimer stating Coyne’s views didn’t necessarily reflect their own, they shared that post with their members and it was reasonable to conclude they were either comfortable with what he wrote or felt trans rights were worthy of debate. Neither option was a good one and the backlash was fierce.

FFRF responded by taking down Coyne’s piece and publishing a hastily written letter restating their support for LGBTQ rights. The letter didn’t explain how the article got approved in the first place. The words “sorry” or “apology” or “yeah, we really fucked this one up” didn’t appear anywhere in it. Dr. Aaron Rabinowitz, ethics director at the Creator Accountability Network, told me he was hoping to see a more direct challenge to what Coyne got wrong in order to justify their removal of the piece:

That would require them to admit they either didn't catch that before publishing Coyne's piece, or they considered his piece a legitimate position at the time and are simply apologizing for that fact. That is far more ethical than leaving the problem undefined, as that allows Coyne to mischaracterize the situation as trans advocates silencing legitimate debate. Until FFRF corrects the record there will be ongoing harms as a result of their original decision to publish Coyne's piece.

It was also a somewhat hollow letter because, at the end of the day, Coyne was still on FFRF’s Honorary Board, along with Richard Dawkins and Steven Pinker, two guys who have spread the same kind of anti-trans rhetoric.

But here’s some welcome news: All three of those men have now resigned from that board. The trash is taking itself out.
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(From L to R) Steven Pinker, Richard Dawkins, Jerry Coyne (screenshots via YouTube)

Coyne’s letter called FFRF’s removal of his article “censorious behavior I cannot abide,” He also said he was appalled because the move “implies that what I wrote was transphobic.” (Spoiler: It was.) Finally, he warned the FFRF from making political statements… which is a ridiculous thing to say when you consider how Republicans are intent on destroying the wall of separation between church and state by using Christianity as a weapon especially against LGBTQ people and women:

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.​

That last part is Coyne showing his whole ass to everyone. Apparently acknowledging the humanity of trans people, and defending their civil rights, and not falling for right-wing lies about who they are is a religion unto itself.

Again, good riddance to him.

Coyne then shared Pinker’s letter. Pinker, too, pretends there’s censorship at play here before going all in on the idea that defending trans people amounts to religion:

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.

“Reasoned advice”? Coyne flat-out lied about trans people being sex predators and here’s Pinker implying that if it came out of Coyne’s mouth, it must be honored. That’s religious thinking.

And then came Dawkins’ resignation, in which he treats Coyne like a king who can do no wrong because he’s a “distinguished scientist from the relevant field of Biology.” (Biologists have their blind spots, too, and plenty of scientists do not share Coyne’s anti-trans bigotry.)

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.​

All the letters sound identical because these guys all amplify each other’s worst ideas.

The only disappointing thing about the three resignations is that it deprives FFRF of the opportunity to get rid of them themselves. I urge FFRF, if it wants to keep its “Honorary Board,” to replace them with thoughtful people instead of guys whose old reputations have withered away and grown stale. They should find people who advance their cause instead of setting it back. There are plenty of great options out there!

Speaking of which, this is a good time to remind people of what this “Honorary Board” even does. When groups have these, it’s usually nothing more than a signal to potential supporters that the cause is worth supporting. Look! If Famous Person X likes us, you should consider liking us too! Maybe they’ll use those names when sending out fundraising letters. That’s about it. The Board doesn’t have any say in what the group does; they’re just lending their names to a cause.

But Coyne, Pinker, and Dawkins have been on this board for well over a decade. (The Internet Archive shows all three were on it in August of 2013.) FFRF’s membership has grown much larger since then—from roughly 20,000 in 2013 to about 40,000 in 2024— and it has taken on far more church/state battles in that time. Whatever benefits their names gave the organization in the past are no longer useful today when those guys are laughingstocks outside their inner circles.

FFRF is doing just fine on its own and it doesn’t need famous names—certainly not those famous names—to get anyone’s attention. Not anymore. The loss of those three guys shouldn’t affect them in the least. If anything, the board is more “honorary” now as a result of them leaving. And I think, at some level, those guys know that, which is why all their resignation letters share the same whiny “anti-woke” wording you expect to read in conservative outlets like The Free Press. Give it a minute and I’m sure we’ll see the resignation letters pop up on there.

Hell, Coyne is already desperately trying to get the attention of prominent transphobe JK Rowling, hoping she’ll boost his signal:
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It’s not like anyone was paying attention to the Honorary Board, anyway. (Seriously! Without looking, can you name anyone else on it? I doubt it.) It’s the same thing that happened when the American Humanist Association rescinded an old award they gave Dawkins in light of his bigotry. It became a huge scandal… even though virtually no one outside the organization even knew that award existed, and even though you’d be hard-pressed to find vocal atheists who could tell you recent winners of it. But for conservatives who think condemning one of their own amounts to blasphemy, a purely symbolic gesture was seen as some sort of major travesty. The controversy helped raise Dawkins’ stature among the sort of bigots he now attracts.

That’s the thing about the resignation letters these guys are letting Coyne post on his website. They’re not trying to sway FFRF’s leaders; they’re using this controversy to make themselves look stronger to their increasingly right-wing, reactionary base. That’s who their allies are now. All the more reason for other atheist/skeptic groups to cut their ties with guys like these as soon as possible.

(On a side note, the actual board of directors for the Center For Inquiry, which merged with Dawkins’ foundation years ago, doesn’t have a single woman on it. There are merely two women listed as “honorary board members,” whatever that means, and they’ve been labeled as such for several years.)
 
they shared that post with their members and it was reasonable to conclude they were either comfortable with what he wrote or felt trans rights were worthy of debate
The heathens have been vanquished, xister. The trans dogma shall not be questioned.

It's impressive how much fanaticism some "atheist thinkers" have when it comes to defending men in dresses, at least if you are a cult leader you get money and sex and power and all that. All someone "gains" by standing with troons is sucking the girldick (both metaphorically and sometimes literally).

Aaron Rabinowitz
This has to be a fake name
 
Let me quote again Steven Pinker's rally call:
FFRF can be firmly on the side of trans rights without advancing tendentious (and almost certainly false) biological claims.

However much you want your organization to be "firmly on the side of trans rights", the ideologues still regard you as "trash" to be "taken out". There is no raison d'etre for "trans rights" from either a scientific or moral standpoint, and it is an insult to religion to even call their ideology thus. Just drop them like a toxic dump.
 
Yeah, human beings require doctrine, like wonderful Islam! Or the Hispanic Sainta Muerte.
I said they desire it, not require it. Like humans crave food, either healthy food or junk snacks. It's inherent as an animal that lives in a group to crave those rules. You can argue whether the rules that do exist are fair and just, but my criticism is that just trying to remove them for a "live life the way YOU want to!" Is like trying to remove a part of your brain.
 
people say science isn't dogmatic, but dogmatic adherence to science is a big part of what was pushed during the COVID vaccine issue and with these troons. "you need to believe the science, chud."

whether you agree with them or not, they're appealing to the dogmatic belief in science that the majority of atheists online (redditor types, not the people in this thread, generally speaking) will adhere to and kowtow to when threatened with being bludgeoned by the very terrifying concept to them that they will be labeled as a disbeliever of factual statements. that they disagree with what the science proves. you can even see shunning behavior when this isn't followed, very similar to a lot of religions.

the semantic argument of if atheism is a religious belief because someone 'doesn't believe in God' is retarded, because it's obvious that it's not about does God exist. in this moment, it's a question about how the 'religion' or 'non-religious organization of thought' are being used. trannies weaponized going against scientific dogma that they themselves set, and you can be excommunicated from spaces involving them if you disagree with 'the science' as it's written, or interpreted, by trannies. the parallels to religion are really quite eerie.
Probably a big hot take but before I state this I don't deny evolution at all and believe it does have lots of evidence backing it up, but is it me or is there a certain of group of atheist that worship anything Charles Darwin? In the U.K, they have holidays such as Darwin Day and Evolution Day to celebrate and praise him for all the scientific accomplishments he made for science. Sure I think he was a great scientist but why just Darwin? Why is there no Newton Day or Gravity Day to celebrate the theory of gravity? The thing is you wont see atheists celebrating those holidays like they do with Darwin and its baffling how some of them don't see how they treat Darwin like how christians treat Jesus.
 
I said they desire it, not require it. Like humans crave food, either healthy food or junk snacks. It's inherent as an animal that lives in a group to crave those rules. You can argue whether the rules that do exist are fair and just, but my criticism is that just trying to remove them for a "live life the way YOU want to!" Is like trying to remove a part of your brain.
Nigger, that's fucking retarded. You failed to understand my very initial post and just went on some lazy ass straw man shit. Do yourself a favor and throw that account away.
 
A lot of people seem to think that the atheists are predominantly on the side of the trans.

It’s simply not true. Yes, there is a loud minority that is. Yes, the public atheists will also virtue signal publicly.

But I’ve know a few of these public atheists. And as far back as I can remember-likely in the very beginning g of this issue coming into its form-almost every person I’ve spoken to figured this was a trend and would run its course and fizzle out of existence. Or at least fizzle out of the movement
 
A lot of people seem to think that the atheists are predominantly on the side of the trans.

It’s simply not true. Yes, there is a loud minority that is. Yes, the public atheists will also virtue signal publicly.

But I’ve know a few of these public atheists. And as far back as I can remember-likely in the very beginning g of this issue coming into its form-almost every person I’ve spoken to figured this was a trend and would run its course and fizzle out of existence. Or at least fizzle out of the movement
and how did that work out for them?
 
but is it me or is there a certain of group of atheist that worship anything Charles Darwin? In the U.K, they have holidays such as Darwin Day and Evolution Day to celebrate and praise him for all the scientific accomplishments he made for science.
Honestly, more countries should have days dedicated to their great men of history...and the U.S. has it too, it's just not talked about. We have Wright Brothers Day for example, not a holiday, but one of those 'history channel documentary marathon' days, it's codified and is meant to be observed. The issue is that pop culture is so far removed from these great men of yesteryear now that it takes a very strong national pride (that the UK still somehow has) to end up having actual observation of these days instead of just shrugging them off.

Hell we've seen a rapid pace in living memory being continuously forgotten as well. Not only in terms such as WWII, but also in acts of purely modern heroism such as United Airlines Flight 93, 9/11 first responders, and even closer with the Sully landing. All of these being steadily pushed aside for girldickomrade.

Anecdote on the Sully landing, I was one of maybe 3~5 young adults/teenagers in the theater when the movie came out. Had a wonderful chat with an older gentleman who retired from the aviation business, he was very happy that anybody from our generation showed up at all.

The bar is so low and yet culture is continuously tripping over itself. If we don't reassess our heroes, people of achievement, then we'll all end up wickless demons.
 
A few years back I noticed that there was, with some notable exceptions, a break between the 'activist' atheists and scientist atheists. Even if you didn't see it coming, it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that trans would create a giant rift between people who do not accept any gods for reasons tied to fundamental facts of material reality and those who do not accept any gods for rhetorical, moral, or philosophical reasons. Even a philosopher like Pinker is not willing to swallow that bullshit because he understands the consequences of rejecting material reality.

It's always been funny to see people claim Mehta is 'friendly'. He's a giant asshole who loves nothing more than getting permission to be that asshole openly when someone like Coyne steps out of line. Maybe he's insecure. Coyne, Dawkins, and Pinker will be remembered for their work long after they pass from this earth. Mehta's memory will not outlast his blog. Or maybe it's because the religious save their worst for the heretics and apostates.

Somewhere there's probably someone who has a better understanding of the social dynamics that power the take over of subcultures by trans. You see it from political subcultures like environmentalist groups and FFRF, to industry, to niche hobbies and fandoms.
 
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