Atheist Richard Dawkins Compares Brexit, Trump Supporters to Hitler Backers
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
British atheist Richard Dawkins issued an tweet on Saturday where he accused every individual with “national pride” of harboring an evil, Hitler-esque agenda.
Dawkins also stigmatized those who support independence from the European Union in his home nation as well as President Trump’s supporters in the United States of being similar to the Germans who got behind Adolf Hitler at the formation of the Third Reich.
The disgraceful tweet can be seen here:
Dawkins was taken to task immediately by individuals from across the political spectrum for his divisive remark.
National pride has evil consequences. Prefer pride in humanity. German pride gave us Hitler, American pride gave us Trump, British pride gave us Brexit. If you must have pride, be proud that Homo sapiens could produce a Darwin, Shakespeare, Mandela, Einstein, Beethoven.
You spent your productive career deeply immersed in biology and don't know enough about history to pontificate like this. Unfortunately, like many eminent men, you've carried over the habit of speaking authoratively about matters you understand to matters you don't understand.
While Dawkins’ remark is typical of the Left’s groupthink mindset, there may be an even more sinister agenda afoot behind his comment. Dawkins has made a startling number of statements in the past defending the diddling of children by pedophiles, and the issue has remained on the esteemed academic’s radar for many years.
“I am very conscious that you can’t condemn people of an earlier era by the standards of ours. Just as we don’t look back at the 18th and 19th centuries and condemn people for racism in the same way as we would condemn a modern person for racism, I look back a few decades to my childhood and see things like caning, like mild pedophilia, and can’t find it in me to condemn it by the same standards as I or anyone would today,” Dawkins said, justifying the predatory behavior of a former boarding school official who used to molest him and other students.
Dawkins claims that “just mild touching up” should be permissible by authorities, and these child molesters should have free reign to corrupt more young souls. These are not the end of Dawkins’ statements justifying abuse.
“There are shades of being abused by a priest, and I quoted an example of a woman in America who wrote to me saying that when she was 7 years old, she was sexually abused by a priest in his car,” the world renown scientist said.
Dawkins would then make the audacious claim that belief in religion can be more traumatizing than child molesters victimizing kids.
“At the same time, a friend of hers, also 7, who was of a Protestant family, died, and she was told that because her friend was Protestant, she had gone to hell and will be roasting in hell forever,” Dawkins said.
“She told me, of those two abuses, she got over the physical abuse; it was yucky, but she got over it. But the mental abuse of being told about hell, she took years to get over,” he added.
Dawkins has spoke and written extensively about his stance that physically abusing children isn’t necessarily as bad as teaching them about Christianity or other religious beliefs.
“I have never personally experienced what it is like to believe – really and truly and deeply believe – in hell. But I think it can be plausibly argued that such a deeply held belief might cause a child more long-lasting mental trauma than the temporary embarrassment of mild physical abuse,” Dawkins said.
Although Dawkins loathes the Catholic Church, he was quick to defend them from persecution over the children they have systemically victimized over the course of many decades.
“For all sorts of reasons I dislike the Roman Catholic Church. But I dislike unfairness even more, and I can’t help wondering whether this one institution has been unfairly demonized over the issue [of child sex abuse], especially in Ireland and America,” Dawkins wrote in his popular book God Delusion .
“We should be aware of the remarkable power of the mind to concoct false memories, especially when abetted by unscrupulous therapists and mercenary lawyers,” Dawkins wrote, denigrating the testimony of the whistle-blowers who have come forward exposing Catholic Church abuses.
Mr. Dawkins should perhaps re-examine his own questionable ideology before judging the supposedly “evil consequences” of his nationalist opposition.
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“Dawkins would then make the audacious claim that belief in religion can be more traumatizing than child molesters victimizing kids.
“At the same time, a friend of hers, also 7, who was of a Protestant family, died, and she was told that because her friend was Protestant, she had gone to hell and will be roasting in hell forever,” Dawkins said.
“She told me, of those two abuses, she got over the physical abuse; it was yucky, but she got over it. But the mental abuse of being told about hell, she took years to get over,” he added.
Dawkins has spoke and written extensively about his stance that physically abusing children isn’t necessarily as bad as teaching them about Christianity or other religious beliefs.
“I have never personally experienced what it is like to believe – really and truly and deeply believe – in hell. But I think it can be plausibly argued that such a deeply held belief might cause a child more long-lasting mental trauma than the temporary embarrassment of mild physical abuse,” Dawkins said.
Although Dawkins loathes the Catholic Church, he was quick to defend them from persecution over the children they have systemically victimized over the course of many decades.
“For all sorts of reasons I dislike the Roman Catholic Church. But I dislike unfairness even more, and I can’t help wondering whether this one institution has been unfairly demonized over the issue [of child sex abuse], especially in Ireland and America,” Dawkins wrote in his popular book God Delusion.
“We should be aware of the remarkable power of the mind to concoct false memories, especially when abetted by unscrupulous therapists and mercenary lawyers,” Dawkins wrote, denigrating the testimony of the whistle-blowers who have come forward exposing Catholic Church abuses.”
You really need to stop seeding what 'leftists' think. Your penchant for labeling the opposition and sticking them in one group gets you in trouble every time. You choose a person who has some odd thoughts and attribute them to 'Left groupthink'. WTF? I am definitely to the left of you and consider this seed mindless babble by somebody whose opinion I don't care about and don't agree with, at least on the weird subject matter of sexual abuse you chose. If you stopped trying to define 'the left' and just put your own opinion and belief out there it would be more productive. Useless to debate a false premise. Define yourself.
I could have swore I seeded an article about the thoughts and words of a single leftist, one atheist so called scientist Dawkins who hates religion and thinks a grown man diddling little girls isn’t that bad.
Yet you made sure to include this:
It was a part of the seeded article and was thus included in seed.
You think I’m not well defined here?
No. What is the point (because how many 'leftists' care about Dawkins)? I read this and feel like this is another way to link liberals to nefarious ideas and opinions. What the hell is a 'leftist'? Its a new buzz word (usually comes with socialist/communist) and those are labels you are trying to put on others. The only thing I come away with is you trying to insult everybody to the left of you (because, again, wtf is 'leftist'?). I read this and wondered if it was about nazis, catholics, athiests. or perverts, and why anybody gaf what the guy says.
Aren’t there hundreds of posts here on a seed about some recent god hating speech he recently did on some pseudoscience topic?
Trump and the far far far right is desperately trying to label all of us to their left (90%+ of all Americans) very negatively like all historically fascisty regimes did...
Really? Trump got elected by 10% of the population? Shall we bring up the labeling of others done by Obama and Hillary?
Kinda like "Gun owners" ?
OR
"Deplorables" ?
OR
"(Fill in your preference here)" ?
Bitter clingers???
What an idiot. This guy goes around purporting to be an intelligent thoughtful person. This is strong evidence that refutes that. Life is just a wee bit more complex than "pride gave us Hitler."
Indeed. The man is not as brilliant or wise as he or his fans think he is. He is mr. science though with those opinions.
"British atheist Richard Dawkins issued an tweet on Saturday where he accused every individual with “national pride” of harboring an evil, Hitler-esque agenda"
Really? Let's take a look at the supposedly offensive tweet:
"National pride has evil consequences. Prefer pride in humanity. German pride gave us Hitler, American pride gave us Trump, British pride gave us Brexit. If you must have pride, be proud that Homo sapiens could produce a Darwin, Shakespeare, Mandela, Einstein, Beethoven."
So did he actually accuse "every individual with “national pride” of harboring an evil"? Of course not. This is just another big fat lie in a long list of whoppers coming from dishonest brokers of a tired and broken belief system. What he said was to "prefer pride in humanity" and pointed out that in the past, national pride has given rise to Hitler, Brexit and Trump, all horrible outcomes for sane humans.
It's not any less ignorant when you repeat it for him. Even if we agree for the sake of argument that all those outcomes are "horrible," pride is not the sole - or even primary - reason they happened. Nor are they the only result of pride.
However, Trump has talked much of his pride in his country and because people hate Trump, they have decided they must also hate everything he endorses, in this case, national pride - a thing most of us used to be able to agree on. To further demonize Trump, he is ignorantly equated with Hitler. Frankly, I think political party pride is doing more harm to this country than simple and humble national pride could ever hope to.
I've always been proud of the great accomplishments my country has made, proud of how we have evolved socially slowly ridding ourselves of deep seated prejudices as we become ever more diverse. I love my country, I am proud of our achievements and our contributions to the world. But I do not believe in 'My country, right or wrong'. We are only truly strong when we acknowledge our mistakes and work hard at never making them again. We've done great things, and we've done some really shitty things at times out of fear or expedience, and that is the true face of America. I really don't see the divide in America as being one of "political party pride", the Democrat party holds no special place for me, I've voted Democrat, Independent and Republican, even voted for a local green party candidate once. I do end up voting mostly Democrat recently but that is just because I feel as if the Republican party has completely abandoned their oversight responsibilities and become just an extension of the evangelical religious conservative (bowel) movement that is attempting to legislate morality and preserve some vestige of their old privileged position. So it's definitely not pride that has me leaning Democrat these days, the Democrats have a past filled with almost as much corruption and scandal, but at least they're vocally supporting diversity, equality and mostly keep their religion at home and in their Churches instead of in their legislation and politics.
I would have to know what you mean by that and what you think the implication would be. It seems to me that on its face, that phrase means that anyone who says "my country right or wrong" is acknowledging that the country can be wrong about something. To me, that speaks to a certain humility while also communicating loyalty. What is wrong with loving your country and trying to make it better than it already is? That is the goal (in theory) of literally every single person who runs for office. There's nothing about that that automatically, inevitably leads to some horrible outcome.
The statement "My country, right or wrong" implies one gives their support to their nation regardless of the offenses the country may commit. It's not an admission of wrongdoing and a promise to do better, it's a dismissal of the wrongdoing as an afterthought not worth questioning or rejecting in favor of blind allegiance to the country you happened to have been born in.
Who does not believe that, "No Man Is Above The Law", even Presidents?
Sorry, that is a derail...
I guess that's how some think of it, but it's not what the phrase says in plain language, and it's not what it meant originally.
Originally Stephen Decatur, in an after-dinner toast of 1816–1820:
Later amended as, and often attributed to, Carl Schurz, 1872:
I guess some people think they can use the phrase to attack patriots as wiling to defend any atrocity, but I don't think that's fair.
It isn’t fair and they know it and that’s why they do it. I endorse the two comments you quoted above taken together.
Isn’t that the motto of the great and highly esteemed Judicial Watch?
Not that it could have such consequences, not that occasionally it might have had such consequences, but that it DOES have those consequences. Period. Full stop. As if it can have no other consequences and that it ALWAYS has this consequence.
If that isn't a condemnation of national pride, then you don't what is.