Check out this photograph:
What do these four men all have in common? They are all atheists. It is well known that Pinker, Dennett, and Dawkins are New Atheists. As for Brockman, he is a literary agent and friend of Dawkins who is described as follows:
For instance, he would never call himself an atheist, he says, in America: “I mean I don’t believe: I’m sure there’s no God. I’m sure there’s no afterlife. But don’t call me an atheist. It’s like a losers’ club. When I hear the word atheist, I think of some crummy motel where they’re having a function and these people have nowhere else to go. That’s what it means in America. In the UK it’s very different.”
More on Brockman later.
So we have four hardcore atheists. The year? It was 2002. Two years before Sam Harris published his first book and four years before Dawkins published his anti-religion book.
Yet these men are all flying to a TED conference. And how so? On Jeffrey Epstein’s private jet. Yes, pedophile, atheist, and sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein flew Dawkins and others to a TED conference in 2002.
So who was speaking at this conference? Did you really think Dawkins was flying somewhere to hear someone else talk? Of course not. Dawkins was a major speaker at the event. And what did he talk about?
In recent years, Dawkins has become outspoken in his atheism, coining the word “bright” (as an alternate to atheist), and encouraging fellow non-believers to stand up and be identified. His controversial, confrontational 2002 TED talk was a seminal moment for the New Atheism, as was the publication of his 2006 book, The God Delusion, a bestselling critique of religion that championed atheism and promoted scientific principles over creationism and intelligent design.
Did you catch that? In 2002, sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein flew Richard Dawkins out to California to give a talk entitled, “Militant atheism,” something TED now describes as a seminal moment for the New Atheism. In essence, it was the spark that started the New Atheist movement.
Y’gotta love the irony – Jeffrey Epstein, of all people, helped give birth to the New Atheist movement, a movement that would later devour itself because of issues surrounding sexual misconduct.
Shadow To Light 
Meanwhile, Francis Collins is chilling somewhere playing guitar, enjoying his family and not kissing up to obvious creeps dangling money.
“New Atheist movement, a movement that would later devour itself because of issues surrounding sexual misconduct.”
Dawkins, Dennett, and Harris are still going strong and Hitchens died of cancer. So, where is the assertion of self devouring by sexual misconduct coming from?
Oh my, Stardusty is back. Have you heard of “Elevatorgate?” Do you recall Dawkins’ protégé, Lawrence Krauss? Have you been following the accusations against David Silverman, Michael Shermer, and Richard Carrier?
Stardusty Psyche > “New Atheist movement, a movement that would later devour itself because of issues surrounding sexual misconduct.”
Dawkins, Dennett, and Harris are still going strong and Hitchens died of cancer.
Your implicit assertion that the New Atheist movement is the
FourThree Horsemen is questionable.Also questionable is your assertion that the Three are “still going strong”: 1) in the last nearly three and a half years Richard Dawkins has received just six fan mails.
https://www.richarddawkins.net/mailbox/
2) Dan Dennett has been barely noticed for many years.
3) Sam Harris has become a professional pundit, discussing with other pundits all sorts of subjects on his podcasts and tours. So far has he travelled from New Atheism that at the start of a January 2018 podcast he said:
Plainly many of his podcast listeners had no idea Harris was ever a “deep” New Atheist, so far behind has he nowadays left his former vehemently outspoken, overtly disparaging self.
(My further comments are at: https://shadowtolight.wordpress.com/2018/02/12/the-new-atheist-show/#comment-22896)
“Have you heard of “Elevatorgate?” Do you recall … Have you been following the accusations against …”
God-deniers, like leftists and Darwinists (I mean, to the extent that the three circles are not co-extensive) have a … complicated … relationship with truth.
Hasn’t Dawkins publicly stated that he considers it a virtue to cheat on one’s spouse?
Not in those precise words, but that’s what he has said on the matter means.
Dick to the Dawk (at RationalResponders): “https://www.rationalresponders.com/banishing_green_eyed_monster_repostBanishing the Green eyed Monster”
“… I want to raise another question that interests me. Why are we so obsessed with monogamous fidelity in the first place? Agony Aunt columns ring with the cries of those who have detected — or fear — that their man/woman (who may or may not be married to them) is “cheating on them”. “Cheating” really is the word that occurs most readily to these people. The underlying presumption — that a human being has some kind of property rights over another human being’s body — is unspoken because it is assumed to be obvious. But with what justification?
… [a mini-rant about “one of the most disgusting stories to hit the British newspapers“, in which a “horrible wife” hired a PI to provide evidence that her famous husband was cheating on her, after which she “divorced him, in unusually vicious style.“]
… but I want to make a different point. Sexual jealousy may in some Darwinian sense accord with nature, but “Nature, Mr. Allnutt, is what we are put in this world to rise above.” Just as we rise above nature when we spend time writing a book or a symphony rather than devoting our time to sowing our selfish genes and fighting our rivals, so mightn’t we rise above nature when tempted by the vice of sexual jealousy?
I, for one, feel drawn to the idea that there is something noble and virtuous in rising above nature in this way. I admit that I have, at times in my life, been jealous, but it is one of the things I now regret. …
Even sticking to the higher plane of love, is it so very obvious that you can’t love more than one person? We seem to manage it with parental love (parents are reproached if they don’t at least pretend to love all their children equally), love of books, of food, of wine (love of Chateau Margaux does not preclude love of a fine Hock, and we don’t feel unfaithful to the red when we dally with the white), love of composers, poets, holiday beaches, friends . . . why is erotic love the one exception that everybody instantly acknowledges without even thinking about it? Why can a woman not love two men at the same time, in their different ways? And why should the two — or their wives — begrudge her this? …
I’m not denying the power of sexual jealousy. It is ubiquitous if not universal. I’m just wondering aloud why we all accept it so readily, without even thinking about it. And why don’t we all admire — as I increasingly do — those rare free spirits confident enough to rise above jealousy, stop fretting about who is “cheating on” whom, and tell the green-eyed monster to go jump in the lake?”
Fancy that, he imagines that there is at least one entity which can “rise above its nature”.
But, yes, he is touting infidelity as a virtue, and indifference to infidelity as “something noble and virtuous”, no doubt on some “[even] higher plane of love”.
Michael had written a post about this: Rise Above Our Nature?
Well, shoot! My kingdom for an Edit button.
Dick to the Dawk (at RationalResponders): “Banishing the Green eyed Monster”
“… I want to raise another question that interests me. Why are we so obsessed with monogamous fidelity in the first place? Agony Aunt columns ring with the cries of those who have detected — or fear — that their man/woman (who may or may not be married to them) is “cheating on them”. “Cheating” really is the word that occurs most readily to these people. The underlying presumption — that a human being has some kind of property rights over another human being’s body — is unspoken because it is assumed to be obvious. But with what justification?
… [a mini-rant about “one of the most disgusting stories to hit the British newspapers“, in which a “horrible wife” hired a PI to provide evidence that her famous husband was cheating on her, after which she “divorced him, in unusually vicious style.“]
… but I want to make a different point. Sexual jealousy may in some Darwinian sense accord with nature, but “Nature, Mr. Allnutt, is what we are put in this world to rise above.” Just as we rise above nature when we spend time writing a book or a symphony rather than devoting our time to sowing our selfish genes and fighting our rivals, so mightn’t we rise above nature when tempted by the vice of sexual jealousy?
I, for one, feel drawn to the idea that there is something noble and virtuous in rising above nature in this way. I admit that I have, at times in my life, been jealous, but it is one of the things I now regret. …
Even sticking to the higher plane of love, is it so very obvious that you can’t love more than one person? We seem to manage it with parental love (parents are reproached if they don’t at least pretend to love all their children equally), love of books, of food, of wine (love of Chateau Margaux does not preclude love of a fine Hock, and we don’t feel unfaithful to the red when we dally with the white), love of composers, poets, holiday beaches, friends . . . why is erotic love the one exception that everybody instantly acknowledges without even thinking about it? Why can a woman not love two men at the same time, in their different ways? And why should the two — or their wives — begrudge her this? …
I’m not denying the power of sexual jealousy. It is ubiquitous if not universal. I’m just wondering aloud why we all accept it so readily, without even thinking about it. And why don’t we all admire — as I increasingly do — those rare free spirits confident enough to rise above jealousy, stop fretting about who is “cheating on” whom, and tell the green-eyed monster to go jump in the lake?”
Fancy that, he imagines that there is at least one entity which can “rise above its nature”.
But, yes, he is touting infidelity as a virtue, and indifference to infidelity as “something noble and virtuous”, no doubt on some “[even] higher plane of love”.
Michael had written a post about this: Rise Above Our Nature?
Dawkins, because he has an undeservedly massive ego, imagines that everyone but him accepts sexual jealousy and monogamy “without even thinking about it.”
In the real world, thousands of people much smarter than Dawkins have “thought about it,” at length. “Sexual Jealously” is:
1. Natural and beneficial to the individuals involved.
2. Natural and beneficial to the entire species on the whole.
3. What makes for the best possible outcome in regards to the upbringing of children.
4. A healthier and more fulfilling way to have a relationship, romantically and emotionally.
5. Better for the wellbeing of women (“free love” invariably favors the creation of female harems hoarded by wealthy men.)
6. Better for long term genetic distribution of favorable genes (see above.)
7. Not immoral or socially undesirable, by any logical determination.
8. Unselfish.
9. Noble, engendering desirable qualities such as sacrifice, self-control, and dedication
10. Preventative of the violent upheavals and massacres that historically result when too high a percentage of young men cannot find a mate…
I could really go on. The only real objections to monogamy are hedonistic ones- monogamy means missing out on specific pleasures. Dawkins might as well be extolling the “brave, free spirits” who huff paint.
Steven Pinker is one of the foremost advocates of ‘Enlightenment Values’ (sometimes dog-whistled ‘Science and Reason’). PZ Myers recently had this acid comment to make on ‘Enlightenment Values’:
Enlightenment Values are generally praised by atheists, but when you think about it the Enlightenment Era and the values (or Values) characteristic of it look like crap.