Richard Dawkins

But to him science is going to "save" humanity. Through advances in science, reason, and rationalism, he sees the end of religion and a movement towards a utopia (implicitly mind you).

 

Dude, I seriously recommend getting out of America and seeing what the world is like. I've NEVER known anyone personally who has made those kind of ridiculous claims, even my old grandparents who are very much traditional Catholics.

You believe the "great flood" is based on an original fact? I'd disagree with that.

So if these people told you that they accepted that the Bible was a work of fiction, would it be okay with you if they continued to draw from its message?

Most people I've met do not take the Bible literally. They accept that it is largely parable in nature. They do not see this as a reason to give up their faith though.

Part of the reason I dislike Dawkins' position is that he adapts it for the media's sake. He has argued that "memes" - religious and non-religious beliefs - can have positive benefits as well as negative, in his books. But when he has a media soapbox, he tends to just go for the same dumb "religion = bad, science = awesome" line, because it's all his fans want to hear.

I do think you should look into people who've influenced Dawkins though. The likes of Habermas would probably appeal, as he actually asks difficult questions.

 

Yes, it seems misguided to think that the guy doesn't have as much interest in sociology as in science.

 

Religion = Bad, bigotry superstition grand scale murder.

Religion = Good, A nice place to go when you die? A false sense of comfort in times of need?

Science = Bad, Weapons that can be used by horrible people to kill.

Science = Good, Untold millions saved by vaccines and medicine.

 

I don't think so, nessecarily. he doesn't constantly talk about science in his interviews, I've actually only seen him talk about it in a few.
Science can show you the truth, the reason, but you also need the moral grounds to hold other truths to even start making a utopia happen.
like I said, we need other atheists to more public about this manner. unless the media 'bans' them because they are 'cruel' and 'immoral'
but hey, having him it better than having nothing at all.

 

Precisely. The issue is A LOT more complex, as you seem to understand here.

There are more complex issues too. For example, say science saves lives to the extent where the planet becomes unsustainably over-populated? You could maybe argue that that "=good" or "=bad". But it would be a pointless simplification of a more complex issue.

The reason we should debate issues like this is precisely because simply allying yourself with one "side" or the other and refusing to budge is not only foolish, but also allows you to be manipulated.

 

I don't know about other countries' media, but ours very rarely bothers to cover this kind of thing. Maybe it's because there's less of a religious presence in our media, but for someone to be on TV promoting their ideology - atheist or theist - seems kind of odd here. Dawkins seems to be immensely popular in the US. I'm wondering if it's because less people in the UK give a shit/are blown away by his "revelations".

 

lol it's fairly hard to offer even the mildest criticism of Dawkins these days without being hounded into the ground by a cadre of his more "zealous" appreciators.
And I am mighty weary of debating him.
So here (in short) are my praises and criticisms of Richard Dawkins...

Pros
I think Dawkins has done amazing things for Atheists, and for dispelling myths about Atheism. He articulately and eloquently defends his beliefs without having to fall back on emotionally charged arguments. This, combined with his unwavering defence of (and contribution to) evolutionary theory, make him into a pretty impressive figure in many respects.

Cons
Whilst his defence of Atheism is often fair, I think his attacks on religion are often unfair, often resorting to emotionally charged arguments, that are not always accurate or reasonable.
In a Beliefnet interivew, he was challenged on all the many great things religion has done for man, in terms of innovation, art, charity, etc etc, and he quite rightly pointed out that these things are possible without religion, and that religion does not inherently produce these qualities in people. However, in doing this, he contradicts himself, when he repeatedly claims that religion does bring out the evil qualities in people, such as violence, war and terrorism etc. He can have it one way, or the other, but not both.
Also, Dawkins knowledge of different faith groups, what they believe, how they practice, is actually fairly limited. A Scientist and Philosopher he may be, a Theologian or religious scholar, he is not.
Because of this, a great many of his criticisms of "religion" do not actually hold true for all religion.
Dawkins tries to manouver his way out of this in his works and interviews, by creating a definition of religion that excludes those liberal or alternative faiths, that do not fit comfortable in his catch-all definition.
Which is a logical fallacy, namely, he is begging the question.
It's like saying "I define a dog as a four legged animal that always bites humans"

If I say "My jack russel doesn't bite humans" A person can say
"Then it isn't a dog!"
And if I say it does bite humans, they say
"well that proves it then!".

Or, in simpler terms, the game is rigged. One can't defend religion on terms where religion is predefined as a malicious entity.

Also, when people accuse him of fundamentalism, he usually replies by saying he hasn't committed any acts of terrorism.
An absurd defence.
Most fundamentalist Muslims and Christians haven't committed acts of terrorism either. Violence, is not the definition of fundamentalism.

(taken from wiki) "Fundamentalism refers to a "deep and totalistic commitment" to a belief in, and strict adherence to a set of basic principles"

Which I think is a fairly accurate description of Dawkins. Whether he is justified in that commitment is a seperate debate


He is of course also brutally arrogant and dismissive, which is why a lot of people are turned off him, but I don't really think one can count his personal attitude against his actual arguments

 

Not against his actual arguments, no. Against him being some kind of spokesman for atheism, very much so.

I personally wonder how much he actually has done for atheism. He's allowed a lot of anti-religious people who could make peace with the fact that others don't believe as they do to languish in an aggressive, angry stage by giving them validation. I don't think atheism really needs a spokesman, to be honest; I'm not sure why it wants one either.

 

I am on "one side" of this issue, I don't believe in any god and I don't believe people should have the right to tell children lies and corrupt the population of the world I live in with bigotry and superstition that is not even grounded in reality.

You are looking for hypocrisy in my opinion and you won't find it.

Religion is for fool's. That is my opinion, we obviously disagree on this topic quite a bit.

I respect your opinion but you have failed to show any proof that the elimination of all religion would do anything other than help the human race.

 

Yes, he may not talk about science in his interviews, but all of his books are science books. The God Delusion is a scientific treatise on why a belief in a god is illogical and unscientific--or that belief in a god does not hold up to a scientific test.

Like has come later, he talks about how religion causes violence/wars et cetera, i.e if his alternitive is scientific rationalism then he implicitly says that without religion we will have a less violent. In a perfect example, he says that if all Irishmen disolved the labels of Protestant and Catholic (which are the real terms behind the veils of Loyalist and Republican) then Ireland would have no more of the Troubles. This IMO is quite reductionist.

BTW- If anyone is interested in a book against Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris et al. check out "I Don't Believe In Atheists". The author also speaks out against religious extremism. I thought it was pretty decent.

 

I think the phrase your looking for is "belief system" which we all have.

 

You haven't shown that eliminating religion would help the human race. Allowing it to exist seems a little more practical than eliminating it, especially seeing as you've ruled out actually making people give it up.

And there is hypocrisy in what you're saying. So much of human culture is as flawed and baseless as religion. Our values derive almost solely from collective habit. I've pointed this out in the past and you've not responded to it.

As I said elsewhere, language is a convenient lie. Justice is a convenient lie. Mercy is a convenient lie. Altruism is a convenient lie. Racial equality is a convenient lie. Half the science we learned in school is a convenient lie. Yet we not only accept these lies, but go so far as to imprison or even put to death those who do not.

There is, to my mind, no inherent difference between believing in a god and believing that words actually mean something or that all men are born equal. These are convenient lies that get us to behave ourselves and to co-operate with one another, but very often are far from proven, far from provable, and sometimes actually factually disproven!

Unless you oppose ALL of these lies, then your focusing in on religion as a malignant lie is impossible to justify. If, however you can accept that religion is only bad when it leads to violence/hatred/torture, then you can do the same for justice, mercy, language and all those other handy lies that made our society great.

But that is basically the same as what we were saying earlier - that if you deplore all violence, religious or otherwise, there is no reason to hate all religion and then have to make exceptions for the ones that are pretty much objectively good.

 

I would like to add on this particular matter: why is it a problem if religion is for fools? I mean, why get rid of religion? Why not get rid of fools?

I would argue that you can't get rid of fools, and that religion is no worse for them than any number of other lies they'll buy into. In all honesty, I'd rather a fool believe in a major religion (which has evolved over thousands of years and had to adapt to the mass public will to survive) than in some equally false but far less tempered cult or scam that's been dreamt up purely to take their money.

 

Have I ever said that religion should be forcibly removed?

No.

Through world education religion will eventually disappear.

I believe if "modern" religion was not forced onto children (as all things are) in the private home it would quickly falter. (as it already is)

If there is anyway to speed up the process I'm all for it.

I've known people murdered by cowardly zealots using hidden road bombs.

When the devoutly religious men who planted the bomb's were caught all they could say for there actions was how much greater their god was than the god they believed the man they just murdered was.

Religion is for fool's.

 

What are you talking about?

 

Sorry misquote.

 

Or are fools for religion? Could it be that people who are naturally highly suggestive fall into religious extremism. If that was the case then, foosl can also fall into secular extremism (I am not going to say atheist). But for example the terros of the Soviets (and not only Stalin, but Lenin too). What caused the men in the Soviet armies to remove all of the food from Ukraine, letting the people starve to death, and give it to ethnic Russians? Was it enlightenment, or was it foolishness, a predisposition to following a charismatic leader, or even suggestion.

Did everyone in the Soviet army qualify as this? Probably not. Is everyone in a religion foolish? No.

I think you should also specify what you mean by "fool". Do you mean intellectually? Or like I said above, are fools people who do not think for themselves and give in freely to suggestion and submit to a charismatic leader a la Lenin, Hitler, Haggard, Khomeini, et cetera?

 

No, and I specifically mentioned that you had not said that, so I'm not sure why you're mentioning this.

Why? Because we're going to teach everyone that there's no god? Wouldn't it be rather hypocritical to claim certainty of something like that if we're against deceiving children?

Part of the reason that we act like we know more than we do is to imply authority where it is not really deserved, to position ourselves as educators. The fact that we are actually no more sure of what we profess to know than our students becomes irrelevant because our status is such that we no longer have to question anything we believe. By your argument, the child is in a far better position to educate the teacher.

Sorry, but that's just silly. People convert to religions from positions of atheism or move from one religion to another in their adult life all the time.

Do you think that someone who would do something like that would be a better person if they were not religious? Do you think they would cease to be the sort of person who would kill indiscriminately for what they believed in just because they stopped believing in a specific fairy tale?

 

yes, exactly. I'm saying, we should have Dawkins talk about its irrationality, and Hitchens talk about this subject, and another person another.. since Dawkins is only skilled in science [although he has done much research on religion]

how is it reductionist?
It's just that differences [especially in personal beliefs] can cause conflict [obviously] and getting rid of that causes that dispute to disappear. especially for something as huge as religion....
Captain obvious, over here.