Richard Dawkins receives massive backlash after calling some kinds of rape worse than others - Polidicks

[QUOTE=certified;45583663]Why has noone in this thread acknowledged the Daedric Lord of Rape?[/QUOTE] Boethiah is probably into that.

[QUOTE=PelPix123;45584587]As a sexual assault victim: why? My sexual assault was completely nonviolent, and while I have PTSD from it, my PTSD isn't nearly as bad as some of my friends that were violently assaulted. Admitting there may be a bit of a sliding scale doesn't mean invalidating everyone's experiences.[/QUOTE] Because he just filled in the variables, and as soon as he dared to mention rape the internet threw a tantrum. Odd how nobody mentions him talking about paedophelia

[QUOTE=gokiyono;45586207]Because he just filled in the variables, and as soon as he dared to mention rape the internet threw a tantrum. Odd how nobody mentions him talking about paedophelia[/QUOTE] They're pretty much the same thing, let's be honest.

[QUOTE=Zeke129;45583860]If he didn't want to be a spokesman for atheism he wouldn't write books and give speeches where he assumes to speak for atheists. [editline]3rd August 2014[/editline] Because GODS ARE NOT REAL [b]LEARN TO THINK[/b] and buy my book[/QUOTE] He wrote a book on religion and gets invited to talks and debates and gets asked his opinion He's never spoken on behalf of all atheists, you don't know what the fuck you're talking about

And water is wet

[QUOTE=Laputa;45586287]He wrote a book on religion and gets invited to talks and debates and gets asked his opinion He's never spoken on behalf of all atheists, you don't know what the fuck you're talking about[/QUOTE] I read The God Delusion

[QUOTE=Zeke129;45586341]I read The God Delusion[/QUOTE] Then why do you think he's a spokesman for atheist or something?

The reason is, when someone says rape a is worse than rape b, some people tend to think the person means that rape b is not bad at all which the person never said. The people who are getting mad at this are just indirectly getting mad about their own stupidity and lack of understanding basic logic. It's kinda funny.

[QUOTE=SigmaLambda;45572825]The fact that he's digging his heels in over some useless blanket statement says to me he's just trying to provoke people. Saying that all instances of one abstract "variety" of rape are worse than another abstract variety rape is a meaningless statement which doesn't accomplish anything. It doesn't help anyone heal or conjure up any sympathy for victims or apprise anyone of any valuable information or help the justice system function more effectively. He's just being a pedantic dick.[/QUOTE] Pretty much this. Quoting someone else over this: "is Dawkins really so clueless as to not understand that this very argument has been explicitly used to discredit date rape over the years? remember when Rep. Todd Akin got into trouble for making a distinction of “legitimate” rape? ever heard someone claim that date rape isn’t “real rape”? well they justify these claims by saying date rape is “not as bad” as stranger rape, or not “legitimate” rape. minimizing date rape as “not as bad” as violent rape has been a rhetorical technique for portraying date rape as somehow not actually rape for decades. it doesn’t mean those people are “endorsing” date rape, but it is used to minimize it and discredit the concept, and yet Dawkins for some reason can’t understand why, when he does the same thing in this tweet, people get upset. is he unaware of this history regarding the status of date rape as “real” or “legitimate” rape or is he just utterly clueless? not only that, but he has tried to say this whole thing is just a “logical point”. but the context matters, richard. here we have a guy who in the past has expressed disdain for feminism in various ways, minimizing date rape and then claiming it is merely a point of logic. it does not “logically follow” from his remarks that he is endorsing date rape - but is language always used in this way? if i say, “boy, richard dawkins sure ISN’T a big fucking idiot” it doesn’t logically follow that i think he is a big fucking idiot. but believe it or not, i actually do think that, and that sentence is expressing precisely that, though perhaps not “logically”, because the context makes it clear i am being sarcastic."

[QUOTE=MaxOfS2D;45587648]Pretty much this. Quoting someone else over this: "is Dawkins really so clueless as to not understand that this very argument has been explicitly used to discredit date rape over the years? remember when Rep. Todd Akin got into trouble for making a distinction of “legitimate” rape? ever heard someone claim that date rape isn’t “real rape”? well they justify these claims by saying date rape is “not as bad” as stranger rape, or not “legitimate” rape. minimizing date rape as “not as bad” as violent rape has been a rhetorical technique for portraying date rape as somehow not actually rape for decades. it doesn’t mean those people are “endorsing” date rape, but it is used to minimize it and discredit the concept, and yet Dawkins for some reason can’t understand why, when he does the same thing in this tweet, people get upset. is he unaware of this history regarding the status of date rape as “real” or “legitimate” rape or is he just utterly clueless? not only that, but he has tried to say this whole thing is just a “logical point”. but the context matters, richard. here we have a guy who in the past has expressed disdain for feminism in various ways, minimizing date rape and then claiming it is merely a point of logic. it does not “logically follow” from his remarks that he is endorsing date rape - but is language always used in this way? if i say, “boy, richard dawkins sure ISN’T a big fucking idiot” it doesn’t logically follow that i think he is a big fucking idiot. but believe it or not, i actually do think that, and that sentence is expressing precisely that, though perhaps not “logically”, because the context makes it clear i am being sarcastic."[/QUOTE] He's not minimising date rape, though. The only point he's making is that it's not as bad as violent rape. I don't know where you're getting the rest of this shit from.

[QUOTE=MaxOfS2D;45587648]Pretty much this. Quoting someone else over this: "is Dawkins really so clueless as to not understand that this very argument has been explicitly used to discredit date rape over the years? remember when Rep. Todd Akin got into trouble for making a distinction of “legitimate” rape? ever heard someone claim that date rape isn’t “real rape”? well they justify these claims by saying date rape is “not as bad” as stranger rape, or not “legitimate” rape. minimizing date rape as “not as bad” as violent rape has been a rhetorical technique for portraying date rape as somehow not actually rape for decades. it doesn’t mean those people are “endorsing” date rape, but it is used to minimize it and discredit the concept, and yet Dawkins for some reason can’t understand why, when he does the same thing in this tweet, people get upset. is he unaware of this history regarding the status of date rape as “real” or “legitimate” rape or is he just utterly clueless? not only that, but he has tried to say this whole thing is just a “logical point”.[B] but the context matters,[/B] richard. here we have a guy who in the past has expressed disdain for feminism in various ways, minimizing date rape and then claiming it is merely a point of logic. it does not “logically follow” from his remarks that he is endorsing date rape - but is language always used in this way? if i say, “boy, richard dawkins sure ISN’T a big fucking idiot” it doesn’t logically follow that i think he is a big fucking idiot. but believe it or not, i actually do think that, and that sentence is expressing precisely that, though perhaps not “logically”, because the context makes it clear i am being sarcastic."[/QUOTE] Good job the context matters. So it's important to know WHY he said that before jumping to ridiculous conclusions. He said [quote]X is bad. Y is worse. If you think that's an endorsement of X, go away and don't come back until you've learned how to think logically.[/quote] And then he replaced X with "date rape" and Y with "rape at knifepoint". The very point he made was that saying that something is worse than X doesn't endorse X. Which is the very opposite of what you're saying. The context is that he said that he thinks X ([U]date rape[/U]) is terrible regardless of him saying that more violent rape is worse or not. And to everyone having the argument "it's a stupid observation that nobody has to say blah blah", that statement was not the POINT he was making, it was an example. Stop taking a single statement out of context and acting like it's all he said out of blue or something. The statement that you people are getting upset about might have as well been: "Getting shot in the back of the head is bad, getting shot 5 times in your chest and bleeding out after 2 hours is worse. If you think that's an endorsement of getting shot in the back of the head, go away and don't come back until you've learned how to think logically." But the statement had the word "rape" in it and you are so sensitive about it that you have to find some kind of a way to overanalyze it to a point where you're saying he said the opposite of the very point he was making.

[QUOTE=Silly Sil;45588000]And then he replaced X with "date rape" and Y with "rape at knifepoint". The very point he made was that saying that something is worse than X doesn't endorse X. [/QUOTE] And that's not what people are annoyed about... of course it's not an endorsement. People are annoyed about Dawkins' subjective and pedantic hierarchisation of "different rapes" in a context where extremely similar arguments have been used to minimize and silence victims; but also because it's a really ignorant way to see things because harm can't really be quantified and compared when it comes to sexual assault, especially with his broad categories. People have brought up the fact that Dawkins was sexually abused by a priest when he was a kid and that it wasn't "too bad" for him. There are other stories where it ended up really badly for other people. The point is that you can't generalize things like that and say "X is better/worse than Y", in such a terrible pedantic way on top of that

[QUOTE=MaxOfS2D;45588029]And that's not what people are annoyed about... of course it's not an endorsement.[/QUOTE] It's not an endorsement but he's trying to discredit date rape. It's either one or another. [QUOTE=MaxOfS2D;45588029]People are annoyed about Dawkins' subjective and pedantic hierarchisation of "different rapes" in a context where extremely similar arguments have been used to minimize and silence victims;[/QUOTE] Just because someone else used SIMILAR logic to do SOMETHING ELSE before doesn't mean that you can't say something. What the fuck. This is completely irrelevant to the point he was making, it's all overanalyzing and seeing what you want to see. [QUOTE=MaxOfS2D;45588029]but also because it's a really ignorant way to see things because harm can't really be quantified and compared when it comes to sexual assault, especially with his broad categories. People have brought up the fact that Dawkins was sexually abused by a priest when he was a kid and that it wasn't "too bad" for him. There are other stories where it ended up really badly for other people. The point is that you can't generalize things like that and say "X is better/worse than Y", in such a terrible pedantic way on top of that[/QUOTE] But he was talking from a third person perspective, he didn't say what's better or worse FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE VICTIM. That would be impossible. He didn't say that one kind is more mentally damaging than the other. Getting gangraped by 40 men while conscious is worse than getting raped by one person when you're drugged out of your mind. In general. Hypothetically. From a third person perspective. Which victim is going to be more mentally damaged is impossible to say and it would be retarded if someone tried to say that. And Dawkins haven't said it.

Oh fucking god/Alah/Buddha/nothing or whatever the fuck you believe in, You fucking people are butt-hurt.

[QUOTE=Judas;45572604]Richard Dawkins is a fucking idiot[/QUOTE] another quality post by Judas

Remember, it's only rape if she's still alive.

[QUOTE=MaxOfS2D;45588029]People have brought up the fact that Dawkins was sexually abused by a priest when he was a kid and that it wasn't "too bad" for him. There are other stories where it ended up really badly for other people. The point is that you can't generalize things like that and say "X is better/worse than Y", in such a terrible pedantic way on top of that[/QUOTE] I wonder, if he was raped as a child, wouldn't his word have more validity than someone who we don't know have? Furthermore, I wonder if this whole thing would have started if he hadn't filled in the variables with rape

[QUOTE=gokiyono;45589552]Furthermore, I wonder if this whole thing would have started if he hadn't filled in the variables with rape[/QUOTE] Of course not. Rape is the trigger word here. If the X was "getting shot in the head and dying instantly" and the Y was "getting shot in the chest and bleeding out after 2 hours" none of this would have happened. You are not allowed to say anything else about rape except that it's the worst thing possible, that men should be taught not to rape, that the conviction rate of rapists is way too low, that there is a rape culture and should be dismantled and that the rapist is a complete scum, etc. Anything else you say that's going to include the word "rape" will meet with an outrage and an enormous amount of misinterpreting and manipulation. And you will probably see it in the replies to this very post.