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He was a very bright man.

No, he wasn't bright, he was religious.
His personal beliefs flavored his politics - the worst sort.

Just because he doesn't believe in the supernatural you shouldn't assume he is an atheist he is probably a bright http://www.the-brights.net/ A bright's worldview is free of supernatural and mystical elements

We collectively propose the term "bright": http://www.the-brights.net/.

Make of that what you will.

So what was your counter-argument for considering atheists a group again? Or do you agree with me now?

The question is, does Dawkins consider himself and his fanclub a group. The answer seems to be yes.

Exactly Dawkin's point. In order for someone to do more than wave a flag and parrot a few communist memes they would have to have an understanding of what communism is, politics, economics, competing ideas... Things that most children are simply not capable of because, well, they are children. Generally speaking most people would not take such a child very seriously because communism is a political idea, but for some reason when it comes to religious ideas they are heartfelt beliefs and deserve the utmost respect. His point is that both concepts are too complex and require an adult level of comprehension and reasoning that a child is not capable of.

So as you say, when someone says "Christian Child" what they really mean is that the child knows the Christian memes and habits, probably some of the core beliefs, stories and dogma too, but without an understanding of true belief in them.

Yes. And Dawkins seems to think that this is awful, because it perpetrates these memes and frustrates Dawkins's campaign to stamp them out. This, then, leads to my original conclusion: that Dawkins simply can't take somebody not caring about what he cares about.

Okay, just look at the world around you for a moment. There are good parents and bad parents. Some of them lock their kids in secret dungeons and then abuse them for decades. I don't think it is hard to argue that society should prevent such things. If you accept that then the general principal follows that sometimes society has a duty to protect children, and although religion is accepted as an excuse those exceptions are slowly being removed.

You seem to be suggesting either that teaching religious memes to a child is equivalent to locking them up in secret dungeons and abusing them, or that locking kids up in secret dungeons and abusing them is common amongst religious parents. Both suggestions seem batshit insane to me. But they're exactly the kind of ridiculous bullshit Richard "Priestly groping of child bodies is disgusting. But it may be less harmful in the long run than priestly subversion of child minds." Dawkins keeps on spouting.

Yes. Probably not many, admittedly. I think you are forgetting a very large group, probably the majority in the UK: agnostics. I know a few people who went from being undecided to atheists after watching his TV programmes and in once instance reading The God Delusion. I lent another a book called "Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy" by Simon Blackburn which has an excellent chapter on God and they gave up any doubts as to his non-existence too.

And did this make any difference whatsoever, to either them or anyone else? Do they now think more rationally? Have their lives improved? Or was the only effect that they now agree with you on the matter?

WTF is a pastafarian? Pasta glued to a hat?

Is this a troll, or genuine lack of knowledge?
FYI, a Pastafarian is a member of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Most of my family are Pastafarians when a religious affiliation is demanded. Otherwise they're either Brights or just plain atheists.

I have another discussion on this very topic going here: The Terrorists Are Winning. Please steal anything from it for this discussion, because in the end I just want to see the situation fixed.

To see another discussion based on this comment, go: here.

http://www.the-brights.net/

Your statement is inconsistent. While the last 2 chapters of God Delusion are boring and re-hashed, your statement "that it rejects without proof" is wrong. Dawkins speaks specifically to this in God Delusion: extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof; case in point, the big invisible sky deity requires extraordinary proof of existence.

Dawkins doesn't say God doesn't exist, it's just very, very unlikely.

In short, you do agree with Dawkins, you just don't want to be associated with him because he's the bad kind of athiest, where you are the self-appointed good kind. Like any other minority, we're busy pointing fingers at each other rather than working a solution.

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http://www.the-brights.net/

The only "ideology" of science, if you want to call it that, is to go where the evidence leads you, no matter how unsettling, disruptive or embarrasing the truth may turn out to be.

Nope.

Science is a tool, a methodology. And a tool per se is clearly not an ideology. But this is a red herring. No one can use a tool without bringing their ideology with them.

The ideologies of scientific practice are so intertwined with science itself that they often aren't even noticed, much less questioned. Examples include the belief that progress is both inevitable and beneficial (utopianism), or the belief that atheism is automatically more rational than theism.

But my favorite ideology is positivism, which claims that nonscientific statements cannot be true. This might sound plausible, even compelling. But it is not science. A silly example: (1) science cannot establish that humans have unalienable rights, (2) therefore human rights are a mere social fiction. Proposition #1 is empirically valid. Proposition #2 cannot logically follow without first assuming positivism -- it is a thoroughly ideological conclusion, yet often represented as "science" anyway.

It is equally valid to say, (2) human rights do exist (perhaps they are incorrigible, for instance), therefore positivism is a mere social fiction. In fact, this is extraordinarily plausible since all of us believe plenty of nonscientific claims -- such as the reliability of logic and the existence of the universe (rather than the Matrix) -- and we do not consider ourselves irrational for doing so. And Godel, of course, showed us that some of these unprovable beliefs will in fact be true.

The kicker is that philosophers abandoned positivism decades ago after discovering a slight problem: the statement "nonscientific statements cannot be true" is a nonscientific statement. It cannot be established by science. Therefore it is not true. =) Unfortunately, the notion remains firmly entrenched in both academic and popular culture, and I am skeptical that SEFORA will take pains to separate illegitimate ideological conclusions from their very legitimate anti-censorship activities. Pot, kettle, black.

The failure of positivism is an unsettling, disruptive, embarrassing truth that its adherents are frequently unwilling to admit. As Harvard biologist Richard Lewontin famously wrote, "We cannot let a divine foot in the door." And no, I am not defending ID. But it is terribly amusing to see how many objections to ID turn out to be ideological.

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Dum de dum.

Why not use intelligence in it's many forms for what the guy is after.

Atheist has a negative meaning foisted upon us by the Theists that seems to be unable to accord the Faith "reasoning" to non-theists that they themselves hold so dear.

Most would call me an athiest. I'd be more likeley to call myself a bright/. I live in the US. In Texas, deep in the bible belt. And your claims about how you would be considered a freak and ostracised are simply not true.

In other words, I don't have any qualms about your being an athiest - but it pisses me off that you will outright lie about the US just because you don't like Americans. And you are lying, no question about that.

Yeah.

Why are technical people so prone to it. There was that Paul Graham article (which made me lose all respect for him), not to mention ESR's notable ravings (eg, this "science" article, this "art" article, this lunatic fringe article), and of course the old chesnut of whether programming is art.

Basically, all these people are talking shit. They think that because they are technical people (perhaps even "scientists") that they are therefore logical, and since those outside the hard sciences are not logical, the techies are always right. Ignoring the fact that they rarely employ actual logic (read any of the articles linked to and find me a perfect logical argument in any of them), this totally ignores the contributions of those who are not hyper-rationalist. Certain people would like to enshrine this obnoxious, arrogant, Spock-like creature as the pinnacle of humanity. For them, I have only my greatest contempt.

The only "acceptable" choice right now seems to be to be an agnostic...

I think Douglas Adams summed up my sentiments quite well with the term "Radical Atheist".
From the interview:

Some people will say, "Don't you mean 'Agnostic'?"
I have to reply that I really do mean Atheist.

I rather like what Richard Dawkins and friends are doing to remove this particular taboo. Hopefully soon teenagers all over the world will be unashamed to say:
"Mom and Dad, I'm a Bright!"

No one knows how societies and individuals will react to such news. however, I would predict that there will some people in some cultures who will find that this contradicts their dogma. Need a new dogma? No - the usual mix of denial and hate. These however, are not the reactions that worry me most. There's the other end of the anti-humanist spectrum.

Brights would almost universally find the news exciting and cool. Many (I hope most) religious people will too.

I too, would lke to hear a good definition of life that would be cross-chemistry.

Except not quite the same thing -- Brights are trying to form a labelled community, whereas hackers already have one and are just getting a logo for it.

Comments unnecessary. Instead, check this out: http://www.the-brights.net/