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Dawkins answers the question of sex. He doesn't answer the question of gender. I have noticed highly educated, highly intelligent people have a very narrow lane when talking about their area of expertise. I noticed Dawkins did that.
Yeah, I mean, what Dawkins just said. Good answers to all the questions that were asked in that interview. I listened to the whole thing.
"Can a woman become a man, and a man become a woman?"
"No."
Then he emphasizes that we should have sympathy and compassion for those with gender dysphoria. Of course. There's never an excuse to be a bigot or a jerk, I mean. But, we also have to draw a line when something wanted by culture or society, is not scientifically sound. Progressives are insisting that trans women are women. No, they are just not. People who don't agree with that biologically non-factual statement, are not therefore bigots or right-wingers, etc.
And yes, there's the whole debate about whether sex and gender are inherently the same thing, if gender perhaps means something more social, and sex is just referring to the biological. On all of that, I don't know. I haven't really formed an opinion about what gender is, or whether any of that's valid. But I know that a woman is an adult female human, and therefore a male human cannot become a woman, no matter what they do. Sex is a binary.
Richard Dawkins is about the most knowledgeable biologist across the planet that you can find, and he seems to agree.
I think you can't answer that. Perhaps no one can.
How do you know it's your true nature when you were born with a blank brain and this was something scribbled on it?
First OP, I could have made your first post.
Second a comment about the mind being a blank slate at birth. I think it's important to make the distinction between mind and brain.
The blank slate theory was stated unequivocally in my freshman year sociology class in the late '70s. It was gospel. I remember thinking instinctively that that didn't seem right. Babies develop hearing in the womb and are affected by the mother's emotional state, loud noises, peaceful environments, etc. Carrying two children to birth later provided more evidence that they are interacting with the outside world long before we realize.
Who knows what kind of genetically influenced predispositions are also carried in the foetus? Not to mention concepts of the collective unconscious.
The mind as a blank slate is now a controversial theory.
Your remark about natural state is interesting. Do we learn about our natural state from self-awareness, introspection, experimentation? I think we do. It becomes that part of "To thine own self be true" which is a healthy principle of good mental health. Aside from outside influences and using those techniques we begin to understand that violating our values has personal and sometimes social consequences.
There is another thing I believe is true and that is that humans are born with body, mind and spirit and that the spirit part of our nature needs to be nurtured in order for us to develop to our potential. A reinforcing factor for me is that it can be seen in every culture in history.
People try to explain it away by saying now that we have the understanding of science or personal safety, or whatever we no longer need spirituality. But I believe they are using a narrow definition or actually describing the practice of religion. The practice of religion can but doesn't necessarily fulfill the needs of the spirit.
It's difficult to explain in a short post but if it helps perhaps listening to music may be the closest way to find the needs of the spirit. I think it may be the universal spiritual language. It unites us, incites us, moves us, alters mood and consciousness.
It is what lifts us to personal healing. Both psychology and medicine have learned this.
I think those who reject this aspect of our humanity end up wise but with a sharp adversarial edge or sometimes just a psychological block that work against wholeness with self and the universe.
It's as though they aren't fully opened to the mysteries of existence.
Do you think Dawkins acted in an empathetic way? I agree he has the right to offend.
Dawkins did not define Humanism, he wrote a book and maybe that is the first book you ever read on the subject. And what kind of response is it you make towards @primaltech? He never said anything about Dawkins. I am guessing you fixated on the word "satanic" and didn't read the tenets with understanding.
Dawkins did not define Humanism, he wrote a book and maybe that is the first book you ever read on the subject. And what kind of response is it you make towards @primaltech? He never said anything about Dawkins. I am guessing you fixated on the word "satanic" and didn't read the tenets with understanding.
Can you highlight what I said that lead to this post?
The reason humanism came in is because he lost an honor bestowed on him by the Humanists.
Yeah this thread is an offshoot of a side discussion in the "New atheism is dead" thread, about Dawkins, so I knew the context he meant there. No harm done at all.
In my personal opinion, the 'American Humanist Association' is a sham, for their retraction of Dawkins' old honors just because he said "discuss", about the double standard of people being vilified if they deny (based on the facts of science) that a male identifying as a woman is a literal woman, yet, Rachel Dolezal got vilified by the same progressive people for identifying as Black. Especially since race isn't even an objective scientific thing, but male/female sex is.
Yeah this thread is an offshoot of a side discussion in the "New atheism is dead" thread, about Dawkins, so I knew the context he meant there. No harm done at all.
In my personal opinion, the 'American Humanist Association' is a sham, for their retraction of Dawkins' old honors just because he said "discuss", about the double standard of people being vilified if they deny (based on the facts of science) that a male identifying as a woman is a literal woman, yet, Rachel Dolezal got vilified by the same progressive people for identifying as Black. Especially since race isn't even an objective scientific thing, but male/female sex is.
Do you think Dawkins acted in an empathetic way? I agree he has the right to offend.
Yes.
He was empathetic and rationally considerate of scientists, philosophical truth-tellers, realists, women, gay folks and children... all of whom have suffered under policies advanced by the political-religious cult movement known as Transgenderism.
Declining to submit to harmful TransActivists demands that we all collaborate with their delusions or support their agenda does not equate to a lack of empathy; it more correctly indicates a preference for truth, especially when the stakes are high.
Last edited by PamelaIamela; 10-04-2023 at 05:54 PM..
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