Monday, February 01, 2016

Dawkins booted from atheist conference

Here is the latest atheist controversy:
Controversial atheist Richard Dawkins has been dumped as the keynote speaker at an upcoming New York City sceptics conference after he praised a video equating feminism with radical Islamism.

"We have taken this action in response to Dr Dawkins' approving retweet of a highly offensive video," said a statement by the Northeast Conference on Science and Skepticism (NECSS). "We believe strongly in freedom of speech and freedom to express unpopular, and even offensive, views. However, unnecessarily divisive, counterproductive, and even hateful speech runs contrary to our mission and the environment we wish to foster at NECSS."
The video mocks both Islamism and feminism. I would not expect atheists to be offended at a video mocking a religion.

Feminism means many things, and the ones expressed in the video deserve to be mocked.

Atheism used to mean to deny belief in God. Skeptic used to be a code word for atheist. Now they are conformists more than skeptics, and use the word "skeptic" less often. Their organizations are being taken over by social justice warriors, and now atheists are expected to have leftist politics.

I wonder why atheists even have conferences. Are they trying to learn something? Are they trying to mimic a religious community? Are they trying to induce ideological conformity? Are they really as horrible as they sound from these news stories?

Update: The woman being mocked resembles this Toronto radical feminist activist. There are YouTube videos of her throwing tantrums against Christianity and men's rights at public events.

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