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Dr. Richard Dawkins On Education, 'Innocence of Muslims,' and Rep. Paul Broun
In this video interview (with transcript), Dr. Richard Dawkins discusses religious exceptionalism with regard to the teaching of evolution, and the chilling effect of fundamentalism on the production of scientists and engineers. He says, "I can think of no other reason why, of all the scientific facts that people might disagree with or disbelieve, [evolution] is the one they pick on. Physics gets through OK. Chemistry gets through Ok. But not biology/geology, and I think it's got to be because of religion." He also addresses the recent comments from Rep. Paul Broun, who denounced evolution and the Big Bang theory as "lies straight from the pit of hell," and the recent Innocence of Muslims video that led to unrest in various parts of the world. "Freedom of speech is something that Islamic theocracies simply do not understand. They don't get it. They're so used to living in a theocracy, that they presume that if a film is released in the United States, the United States Government must be behind it! How could it be otherwise? So, they need to be educated that, actually, some countries do have freedom of speech and government is not responsible for what any idiot may do in the way of making a video." He also has some very insightful comments about religion as one of the most arbitrary labels by which people divide themselves when involved in conflict. Hit the link below for the video.
Since he retired from "Family Feud", I thought he had passed. Good to know that he is still around.
The problem I see with Islamic theocracies - compared to the US constitution saying that we are endowed with unalienable rights by our creator - is that they get their laws from their god, not their rights. The are therefore free to trample on the rights of the individual in the name of their god. In the US, we are free to act like fools in the name of our god.
Rep. Broun needs to learn than belief in god and even Christianity does not mean the big bang or evolution are wrong. One cannot snap their fingers and make a cake; the ingredients must be mixed together and have heat applied. Why should god be able to circumvent the rules just because his cake is the universe?
Help fight poverty: Punch a poor person.
Was there nowhere quieter to record? Piped music, other people chatting and moving about etc. A shame...
"If you think the problem is bad now, just wait until we've solved it." --- Arthur Kasspe
He's got it backward here -- it's one of the least arbitrary labels, since it reveals what underlying philosophy and values we stand for. It's similar to wars breaking out between existentialists and determinists, but we've found more interesting ways to encapsulate those philosophies in mythological symbolism.
The protesters there were religious, no, even if the state is not a theocracy?
There certainly were protests in Iran with Iran's supreme leader calling the making of the film "a criminal act".
Can you provide ONE example of his Bigotry? I can name thousands of example how Religions around the world are Bigots to non-believers! Mr. Dawkins doesn't go around beheading people for having different beliefs.
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller%E2%80%93Urey_experiment
We can make the building blocks of life from inanimate objects.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Also, you don't understand what evolution is. Evolution says what happens *AFTER LIFE STARTED TO EXIST* and how it changes over time. How those original life forms were created is an entirely different theory.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
have been both a Christian and an Atheist at different points in my life, so have a different perspective than most. Folks like Dawkins tend to be the loudest, but are the most ineffective at changing mids. If I were writing a play book for the Atheist movement, I would instruct all influential Atheists to model Michio Kaku. Dr. Kaku rarely strays into religous discussion, may make peripheral comments but doesn't seek to create a lot of controversy. Instead, he sticks to the main points of what he is proficient at and gives people, even those who are Christian or Muslim, someone to want to emulate. It becomes apparent that he is a non-believer in God, but doesn't alienate those who begin with a diferent viewpoint. Focus on living the life you should and people will follow.
I'd make a similar argument to Christians. Don't try to be like Ann Coultier or Rush Limbaugh. Like your lives like Mother Teresa who instructed people "to find your own Calcutta". Focus on living the life you should and people will follow.
-- MyLongNickName
(Slashdot keeps logging me out when I leave the main page)
...because you'd sound pretty fucking crazy sitting in a flying airplane denying Newtonian physics and most every man-made object in the modern world relies on chemistry to make it -- plastics, composites, even metals.
Those two fields start out so far ahead in working, every day examples of their basic truths that challenging their more exotic variants seems risky and many of them are too complex for the drooling religious zealots to even begin to criticize.
Evolution doesn't have those kind of concrete, hands-on examples in every day life (well, OK it does, but...). To most people it's been distilled down to MAN USED TO BE A MONKEY AND GOD DIDN'T CREATE HIM BECAUSE THERE IS NO GOD AND THAT MEANS GAY MARRIAGE IS OK and they just can't accept that.
You don't need to believe in abiogenesis in order to believe in evolution. When people say that the evidence for evolution is overwhelming, they're not talking about abiogenesis. They're talking about the evidence for there having been periods billions of years ago when there were only single-celled organisms, and the evolution of those organisms into the complex life we have today.
If you like, you can imagine that a deity put life into those primitive origins.
Nonetheless abiogenesis seems plausible to me, and there have been experiments that demonstrate the processes that may have set things off. Look for the Miller-Urey Experiment, for a classic. Bear in mind that to go from primordial soup to single-cells, we're talking about a handful of freak occurrences, each one some 40 million years apart.
I don't think it is. In his own book, The God Delusion, he gives an example of a PhD Paleontologist who ignored all his education so that he could believe in the literal interpretation of the Bible.
Then there are the folks, like my father in law (BSME Texas A&M) who will say that current evidence _may_ show that humans evolved on this planet but one day there will be evidence that shows that we were put here. I am not joking or exaggerating. He uses science's own thinking to "show" that they may be wrong.
All the education in the World will not change the opinion of someone who puts their fingers in their ears and yells, "La la la la la la la ...".
Religion is all about people's emotional "thinking". When you ask a believer, their "proof" of God or whatever eventually boils down to a feeling. They "know" He exists and by "know" they're talking about their feeling.
It's that irrational trap humans fall into all the time and they confuse it with rational thought.
Google Venter and synthetic bacteria. They already made a synthetic genome from raw chemicals and created a new species by putting the genome into an empty cell. Does this not even create any doubt in your scientific mind that this is just as possible as curing cancer? My bet is we will create synthetic life from scratch a long time before we find a cure for cancer.
Korma: Good
Not to mention:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/7745868/Scientist-Craig-Venter-creates-life-for-first-time-in-laboratory-sparking-debate-about-playing-god.html
http://www.forbes.com/sites/sciencebiz/2010/05/20/life-made-in-the-lab-but-dont-freak-out/
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/06/tpna/
There were protests in almost every single Muslim majority country without few exceptions (such as Singapore, which had it blocked), as well as some western ones, such as France, where violence also broke out. Was it because of the video? I'm not so sure. A week after the video was released the french satirical paper Charlie Hebdo released cartoons that were by far more vulgar than Innocence of Muslims (for example, depicting Muhammad naked). There was almost no response at all to that. Either they're becoming desensitized to cartoons or as many have commented, this was just yet another excuse to blame the foreign devil yell "death to America", "itbach al yahud" and run rampage burning stuff down.
"I can think of no other reason why, of all the scientific facts that people might disagree with or disbelieve, [evolution] is the one they pick on. Physics gets through OK. Chemistry gets through Ok. But not biology/geology, and I think it's got to be because of religion."
Thats an easy answer. Biology and Geology are taught in school. For most middle-aged adults, these were high school requirements. Or the easiest versions were "Life Science" and "Earth Science". Physics and chemistry are electives for the nerds who are interested in the stuff.
Those that just don't "get it" are more apt to dismiss science and fall back on mysticism.
oldhack: "Security is a waste of money until shit hits the fan. 5 minutes later, it becomes waste of money again. "
Can you provide ONE example of his Bigotry? I can name thousands of example how Religions around the world are Bigots to non-believers!
Calling all religious believers "delusional" by definition, meets your criteria fully.
As for "beheading", can you name something within Darwinian Naturalism that argues against it, if it increases the propagation of the behead-ers DNA? Stalin certainly didn't see that reason for restraint that isn't there, and you can easily google millions of examples of his own citizens, believers and atheists alike, killed by this formally-atheistic state. How much of Dawkins' non-correspondence to this demonstrable history of an actual large-scale test case, rather than a fantasy utopian atheist projection, is due not to the fact he -wouldn't-,,but rather -can't-, seems like a germane question. As is the reality of existence before any religion existed to blame--it would have been an ongoing intertribal bloodbath that is the very reason offered for why we exist in our current form and capabilities. Most of these projections against religion, are, simply, an "Argument from the Never-existed" fallacy that doesn't even propose to offer hard metrics, such as statistics, for -relative- comparison on what is a -relative- normative question. Understandably so, since the atheist worldview would lose immediately and overwhelmingly if we introduced actual hard data, simply by reference to the 20'th Century alone.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
To some, sports is religion.
Addlepated - punk & metal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller%E2%80%93Urey_experiment
We can make the building blocks of life from inanimate objects.
Wöhler's synthesis of urea probably did more harm to religion than evolution ever did.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
since it programs what underlying philosophy and values we stand for.
For a website with so many coders, it should be obvious all religious texts are Basic HomoSapiens software hacks.
Viral reproduction, root access(Externalized authority), disabling malware-detectors(Will believe bullshit), it's all in there. Suxnet.
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
People don't kill in the name of Atheism.
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
You'VE MissEd the poinT.
But, nonetheless, Hitler's use of a Christian "us" identity (including the pressure his regime exerted on Christian Churches) and a non-Christian (and, most significantly, Jewish) "them" identity (targetting not only actual Jews, but also tarring other enemies with association with Jews, through portrayals of both conscious collaboration and being duped by Jewish conspiracy) is pretty typical of the way religious identity is used to divide people into "us" v. "them". (You see almost identical things being done with religious identity -- with Islam replacing Christianity, but Judaism still the enemy -- by authoritarian regimes today that are either overtly Islamist, or even mostly-secular totalitarian regimes in areas where the population is largely Muslim; and closely parallel things -- with Christianity retained in the "us" role, but Islam and/or secularism/atheism the leading "them" labels -- in a weaker form in the US; historically, almost exactly the same thing -- with the Christian "us" being specifically Catholic -- was pretty the hallmark of the Spanish Inquisition.)
No, you are simply wrong about factual history.
Review the defined worldview of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as a political entity, and the millions of people killed, internally and externally, by it, to correct your error.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
I cannot believe the kind of false equivalency you just shoved out there. You just compared Dr. Dawkins who publishes well researched biological and philosophical books and levels disagreements with the religious against Coulter who literally calls for the outright slaughter(on multiple occasions) of those she disagrees with, and Limbaugh who makes a profession out of repeatedly misrepresenting facts. That's completely unreasonable.
You make it seem like having publicly stated atheist opinions is somehow equally vitriolic as calling for the murder of those you disagree with. This is why people like Dawkins speak out, because right now, its perfectly acceptable to equate atheists with monsters.
Not to mention that if you have mutation, selection and replication, it's all-but-impossible for evolution *not* to happen. Once you have a single-celled organism with those properties, in an environment ready for colonisation, the evolution of complex organisms to exploit that environment is inevitable.
Getting that single-celled organism in the first place, that's more of a mystery, but there are several plausible non-religious theories.
Communist personality cults are religious in nature. Same mental bug, different exploit.
The French Revolution had nothing to do with religion or lack thereof.
Any other questions?
Is a man who wants to stamp out homosexuality a bigot? I would say he is. How is that any different than wanting to stamp out religion?
Just because many religious folks are bigots doesn't excuse Dawkins' bigotry.
Mr. Dawkins doesn't go around beheading people for having different beliefs.
You don't have to go around beheading gays to be a bigot, either.
Free Martian Whores!
We're discussing Dawkins comments about the role of religious identity as an arbitrary basis to divide people into "us" and "them". Arguing that Hitler failed to meet any particular theological criteria for being a faithful Christian is not helpful to the attempt to refute Dawkins characterization; indeed, it would seem to undermine the argument that religious identity is one of the "least arbitrary" labels used to motivate "us" v. "them" distinctions because it "reveals what underlying philosophy and values we stand for", since it highlights the vast gulf between religious identity used to motivate "us" v. "them" distinctions and the underlying philosophy that is supposedly indicated by association with the religion.
Those people weren't killed "in the name of atheism" no matter how much revisionism you shovel at it.
Dawkins would have a name for himself with or without his opinions on religion. If you read his works, he has traveled the world trying very hard to understand religion and it's conflict with what he finds to be "very obvious principals of science."
I'm not faulting your observation about his general opinion on religion, I simply don't see it as a prejudicial thing. He's alluded to many of the benefits that religions have had in the formation of modern society. But today, on the balance are they doing more to enslave or to free mankind? Now that we have more advanced justice systems than "And eye for an eye; tooth for a tooth." is it time to put those old teachings to behind us and use our own reason, our own humanity to shape the next generation's world. I think Dawkins would argue "yes."
His arguments are predicated on the idea that we are ready to cast off "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." and can still retain "Love thy neighbor as thyself."
If you believe as he does, that we are, then it makes sense to focus on the problems caused by religion, and try to enrich the positive side of a secular state. I don't think anyone could argue that the Catholic Church doesn't do an amazing amount of good for impoverished African states. The question is, can we learn from their examples, adjust our foriegn aid policies to something nearly as good, but have the benefit of providing alternatives to the Rhythm Method in a country whose population has outstripped its food supply?
I think we can.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_Soviet_Union
No revisionism here at all. After starting with the very first sentence in the above link (and the provided references), I'd check the label on your Kool-Aid, actually.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
Why is it bigotry to say that homosexuality should be stamped out, yet not bigotry to say religion should be stamped out?
There is one difference between the two: religion is a choice, homosexuality is not.
Though you did succeed in creating deep existential angst in me that I may be unable to read, I'll provide the same link to you as I did previously.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_Soviet_Union
Yes, in fact, people -do- kill "in the name of atheism", provably, as a matter of simple historical fact, and do so by the millions.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
Stamping out a biological diferences is very different from stamping out ignorance! Do you still believe the world is 6,000 years old? If not, should you blame so Bigot for changing your mind? Stupidity is the bi-product of ignorance.
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
I think the point is that Stalinist Russia is more commonly know for some other -ism that isn't atheism. The implication is, of course, that the other -ism is the real reason for the persecution of religion in Stalinist Russia.
I'm sure if you spend some more time studying the subject you will figure it out. While it's true that USSR was officially atheist, the question you need to answer is why it was atheist and why they persecuted religion.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
It's popular to conflate Stalin's insane need to kill people who were "out to get him" with atheism in general. Apparently he killed no atheists, had a sober mind, and his people weren't terrified of whether they would be the next ones to be dragged off to gulags. And yet, mysteriously, when the same thing happens in religious circles, it's always pinned on one or two people, not the whole religion.
In other words, we KNOW atheists can be brutal murders and dictators. We KNOW religious people can be the same way. And yet, we get dragged down by semantics simply because people are people, regardless of their faith or lack thereof. I would recommend everyone involved in these petty disputes stop leaning on this crutch. It's enough to say "look, both theists and atheists are perfectly capable of inhuman atrocities" without trying to blame the entire camp on a few nuts.
If you wish to point claims of revisionism, you first have to stop revising history yourself by using logical fallacies.
I find his comments to be interesting and insightful, but there's a sort of "why aren't people as smart as me?" arrogance behind it all.
I guess there's no reason someone can't be right AND insufferable.
It's altogether too easy (and becoming a little tiresome) to point at the excesses of religion and say "look how stupid that is". One can also point to the ample number of murders committed with guns and knives, yet it would be asinine to suggest that guns and knives are therefore valueless.
PERSONALLY, I suspect that religious faith has lost its attraction to the West largely because we have little to fear. We eat well, we live long mostly-healthy lives, we have comprehensive social systems that by and large will care for us regardless. We have little expectation that a passing famine, plague, or war will kill us, our children, or our community. Why would we NEED Faith or hope that a Supreme Being has some sort of great plan to explain some horrific tragedy we've suffered?
It's when life hands us inexplicables that we (as a species) resort to (as Dawkins might put it) contrived systems of belief, in order to try to put a human-comprehensible face on the unfeeling universe. Voltaire would call it Pangloss.
I don't know that this is bad. Genuine hope is a significant predictor of success in otherwise-hopeless situations. Faith can be a moral rudder in times of chaos and change. Sure, it can be (and has been) abused as a justification for horrible conduct and brutality. But it seems to me that humans in general are capable of ample brutality with or without the pastiche excuse of religious doctrine, so I'm hard put to BLAME such conduct on Faith.
-Styopa
I would like to point out that most of the people that Dawkins is allegedly bigoted against agree with him about most of the other people. The difference between Dawkins and most religious people is that they think that believing in any one of a thousand different gods is delusional, while he believes that believing in any one of a thousand and one different gods is delusional.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
Actually, its pinned not only on the whole religion, but on "religion" as a concept. By lots of people. Including, you know, Richard Dawkins. The pointing out of which was sort of a major point earlier in this subthread.
Very true. Religion is only one of the tribal markers used to determine "us" vs. "them". It's what irritates me about the oft repeated claim "most wars are caused by religion." Religion is a useful tool for convincing people to kill their fellow man, but so is political ideology, nationalism, and more fundamentally, potable water, arable land, oil, gold, Lebensraum, and so on. If you analyze most wars, causation is almost always economic in nature.
That's not to say that religion in one way or another cannot be held responsible. When the Pope goes and tells a bunch of greedy Medieval lords and their armies to go "free" Jerusalem because it's what God wants, when in fact he's part mouthpiece for aristocracy who want a piece of the most valuable trade corridor in the world, and in part wants to make sure Constantinople is weakened and ultimately recognizes his authority because he's the guy sitting on Peter's throne, I think there's room for some condemnation.
The problem here is to some degree simply behavioral. It's how we have evolved. We are a social animal, with the same sort of tribal instincts you will find in most other social animals. Our closest relatives, chimpanzees, seem to have the same sorts of behaviors, if not quite as complex as ours (smaller brains means more simplistic rationalizations for beating enemy tribe's baby chimp to a pulp). In fact, one of the chief arguments for global integration of economies is precisely to create the kind of economic interdependencies that make aggression less likely on a large scale.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Stalin, Russian for "Man of steel"'s, real name was, Jughashvili, a Georgian name. In fact if not by design "Communism" with a BIG "C" is a form of state religion! and it folds neatly into a theory I've had for years that religion and government only work well when harshly suppressed by an educated secular population!
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
I, on the other hand, see another correlation.... Singapore has one of the fastest internet connections in the area. I guess they just looked at this flick of Bernadette Rostenkowski and realised that being violent is not cool.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlQ0NBwaqjc
For the peoploe without broadband, here is whet she said: Being mean is lame. What's cool is being nice!
Oh, and for all the people who are STILL convinced that "being offended" is a good reason to petrol-bomb embassies and the like, watch this on of Steve Hughes.: http://www.dumpert.nl/mediabase/1311191/704ed283/steve_hughes_offended.html
Thank you...
rm -rf --no-preserve-root /
Technically speaking religion is a belief and homosexuality is a sexual orientation. There's a difference between being born with a sexual attraction to the same sex and thinking that magic underwear makes you pure. You are free to call him a bigot for thinking that religion is doing more damage than good, however, it looks to me like you're devalueing the words "bigot" and "bigotry" when you use them in that fashion.
I find the argument carries as much weight as it would if you tried to tell me someone who says that whole wheat bread is more nutritious than white bread is bigoted.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
Clue time: Go to North Korea and try selling atheism. They will send you home in a cheap pine box.
There may sometime have been a revolution in France that had nothing to do with religion or the lack thereof, but the late 18th century revolution commonly referrred to as "The French Revolution", which featured the rejection of religion, the establishment of the "Cult of Reason", with its accompanying "Festival of Reason", and radical and violent dechristianization, certainly wasn't it.
As much as Dawkins may get a little direct, considering the treatment he has been subjected to by some of the True Believers, it's little wonder he says things the way he does. Coreligionists of True Believers seem to be quick to attack Dawkins, but slow to admit that some among them are purely immoral vicious bastards.
Or as some holy guy who lived in Palestine once said: "And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?"
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
They both involve orientations which have a demonstrated genetic predisposition and biological mechanism. They are also both used as labels for sets of behaviors which are choices (the propensity to make the choices are, of course, closely tied to the orientation, but also influenced by social context and other factors.)
Review the defined worldview of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as a political entity, and the millions of people killed, internally and externally, by it, to correct your error.
This is a ridiculous claim. Stalin and friends were not motivated by there lack of belief in a God, they were psychopathic bastards following an ideological dogma. They had the writings of Karl Marx as their sacred books. They were killing everyone that they thought threatened their dogmatic truth, or they didn't like, because of their interpretation on Communism [1]. Their beliefs in Communism where a replacement for religion and in competition with religion. Atheism itself is not a replacement for religion, it makes no claims except "I don't believe there is a God." No sacred texts saying who goes to Heaven, who goes to Hell, who gets to live and who we must kill because of what they eat, love, say, wear, do, or believe.
And to preempt the whole Hitler thing, he was raised Catholic, alluded to God and a higher power all the time and seemed to believe all sorts of mystical stuff. He may not have been a "true" Christian, but he was no Atheist. And his foot solders were all Catholic and Lutherans. Again, all the killing was in the name of the Fatherland and patriotism fueled by ideology and dogma.
[1] I have no idea how close Stalin and friends actions were aligned with Marx's writings. It doesn't matter, all that matters is a group of people intent on enforcing their will on others through violence, in support of an unquestionable dogma.
Some privacy policy Slashdot.
So, you are saying stamping out ignorance is bigotry?
I don't believe in spontanous generation, I am a creationist,
*blinks*
Back when the Tunisian uprisings started, and then started in Libya and Egypt the crowds on the street were carrying around posters of Mark Zuckerberg because Facebook would let them communicate and coordinate and let the world know what was going on. That was a full embrace of freedom of speech, and I even started to build a Twitter encryption tool to help make it even easier to for people to communicate freely (More complete projects have come out since *).
This was also right around the time of the State Dept WikiLeaks reveal, and instead of talking about how we need to encourage freedom of speech, and the press and assembly, Secretary Clinton made a big speech about the primary and absolute need for elections for a democratic transition in these countries. The ground could have been laid then that this was an expression of the peoples rights and take it as an opportunity to have an open accepting forum of competing ideas and that it was OK to have disagreeing views as long as everyone could express themselves.
Instead we got badly run elections more than a year later with the military pushing people around, and women mostly shut out of the process. And, no automatic thinking that uncomfortable ideas can at least be heard. As long as you have freedom of speech you can try to change the system. When that is gone certain changes become impossible. It was a huge missed opportunity to change attitudes about speech.
(*) My project was mostly done over a hackathon weekend and is on github: https://github.com/YasminApp/yasmin-client
Others include CryptTweet which needs improvement but is workable here: http://plexusproject.org/
And SilentCircle which is targeting a different user group https://silentcircle.com/
Is this the end yet?...How 'bout now...how 'bout now...how 'bout now?
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
As quoted in What Great Men Think About Religion (1945) by Ira D. Cardiff, p. 342; No original source for this has been found in the works of Seneca, or published translations. It is likely that the quote originates with Edward Gibbon who wrote:
The various modes of worship which prevailed in the Roman world were all considered by the people as equally true; by the philosopher as equally false; and by the magistrate as equally useful. --- Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. I, Ch. II
Elbert Hubbard would claim in 1904 (Little Journeys: To the homes of great philosophers: Seneca) that Gibbon was "making a free translation from Seneca".
(Source)
Or put another way:
The difference between an atheist and a believer is only in how many gods they don't believe in.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
So recognizing something for what it is makes one a biggot?! No wonder we are fucked. Ideas like this make any meaningful conversation a figment of the imagination. Political correctness at its worst.
So it's not a delusion to claim that Eve was created from Adam's rib? Or that Mohammed ascended to the heavens on a magical horse? Or that when you drink wine in the Communion rite, it's actually the blood of Christ entering your body?
Natural selection is an explanation of biological evolution. It's not a system for morality; it's simply the way the universe works.
you're confused.
The soviet union (and other similar crazies) didn't suppress religion because of some deeply held theological belief. they suppressed religion out of a desire to eliminate all competing power structures, both political, ethnic, historical and sociological. they wanted an absolute monopoly of influence over their citizens. once they had taken out the existing monarchy/elite the next most influential bodies in russian society were the churches. if there had been a widespread atheist church where every sunday folks gathered under one roof to talk about the non-existence of god and how they should do certain things in their daily lives to honor that fact (however rediculous that sounds) - that would also have been banned. they even decimated the striking power of the trade unions.
At least we have evidence of Dawkins existence. Do you know what God looks like?
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
Again, another human being applying their petty knowledge and understandings against God. God could create a diamond in front of your face that science could test to be older than anything tested in creation, yet you witnessed with your own eyes that it is only days old.
Cosmology is better left to explain how God has set things in motion and the rules He has established regarding them, however it should not be used to explain things God has done out of order or contrary to the laws of creation. Those are one offs and it neither disproves or competes with cosmology. And neither does cosmology and its science compete with God, for His Authority is the very act that may arbitrarily bind and unbind these things upon whim.
Your attribution of clumsy, wasteful, blundering, low and horribly cruel is really just your own opinion and is only an example of your ignorance.
I have found that every person against God has zero hesitation in blaming God for everything that goes wrong, but seems silent regarding God when things go right. The incoherency is within you and your ability to hold a double standard is in obvious view.
God created Good and Evil and is responsible for their existence, however as beings of free will, we are responsible for the evils we created. If God is busy slapping down every person or stopping evil from occurring then we have no free will, and neither can we be judged for our actions as they would not be our own.
The reason appropriate relative association between the actions and the worldview is that mass-killing is -directly contrary- to the principles of Christianity, and therefore, by definition, -not Christianity-.
If that were true, Christians would be deluded. I got death threats from Christians for being an atheist. Where are those "peaceful Christians" that you're talking about, and more to the point, where have they been hiding in the previous two millennia? Where are all the "true Scotsmen" you're talking about?
By contrast, mass-killing is -directly compatible- with Darwinian Naturalism, by reference to what it -is-
You have no idea what the word "Darwinian" means.
Ezekiel 23:20
I think the point is that Stalinist Russia is more commonly know for some other -ism that isn't atheism. The implication is, of course, that the other -ism is the real reason for the persecution of religion in Stalinist Russia.
I'm sure if you spend some more time studying the subject you will figure it out. While it's true that USSR was officially atheist, the question you need to answer is why it was atheist and why they persecuted religion.
Well, if atheism gets a pass due to Russia being communist and other political details, then Christianity and Islam should also get a pass though most of history and even in many parts of the current day world as religion again is just being used as political and cultural device of control.
When it all comes down to it, lots of people blame religion for various things, but if they got rid of religion, the same things would still be carried out in the name of nationalism. Get rid of nationalism and you'll end up with other idealogies being the cause. Get rid of those and it will just default to clan and family matters. Get rid of them and you'll still have the same things being carried out over resources and money, which it could be argued that they are being done for even in all the other cases.
The motivations for many of Stalin's purges were political, realpolitik more than ideology or dogma. There's even some evidence that his purge of Jewish communists was motivated by political rather than antisemitic reasons (at least not his own personal antisemitism, which I don't doubt existed). Rather, it's possible that he purged Jewish communist leaders as a prelude to his pact with Hitler. And, yes, Christianity in quite a few cases supported fascism, in Italy, German, Romania, it certainly did.
That is, perhaps, one of the greatest delusions of those that claim to "believe".
One is verifiable real. The other is not.
"Yet those same SS soldiers were also forbidden to believe in a god (other than Hitler)"
Citation DEFINITELY needed.
They swore an oath to Hitler HIMSELF, but swore to GOD for it.
Seriously, Hitler was a Good Christian.
In my mind, Russia's athiesm was an instrument used to promote communism. Religion was explicitly seen as an impediment to proper communism, so it was opposed not because it was thought to be false, but because it was thought to be a tool of oppression used by the elite against the common man. In that case, it was not a root cause. I'm not even sure it was used as an excuse, it seems atheism was enforced because it was supposed to benefit communism.
If that's the case, then that's not at all the same situation as using religion as a cover for other issues. If religion adds legitimacy to illegitimate conflicts, is that not bad? Is that not a harmful effect of religion? A key difference here is that I find it hard to believe that you could ever rally thousands of atheists to riot under the pretense that the god they don't believe in has been insulted (or not sufficiently insulted). Atheism can be used a policy to harm theists, but I can't say I've run into anyone who could be motivated to do anything more than prattle on about how smart they are by their atheism.
Additionally, as others have pointed out previously, both communism and libertarianism (and probably many other -isms) are pretty much godless religions. They have sets of beliefs that their adherents must believe, and they even have their own "holy" books. They may belong to a superset that includes them and religion that is occasionally the problem.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
Why not? Is it not delusional to believe in a fairytale? Just because that fairytale has a huge church makes it not delusional any more?
The difference between a cult and a religion is simply the number of followers.
Is it "delusional" to "believe" that their is life on other planets? Is it "delusional" to believe that the "Higgs Boson" exists at some energy level? Believing in something that hasn't been proven isn't delusional. The difference in opinion you are having here is that you believe there is enough evidence to declare "no God exists" others believe that their is enough evidence to declare "God exists" and still others believe something in between.
[b]A delusion is a belief held with strong conviction despite superior evidence to the contrary. Unlike hallucinations, delusions are always pathological (the result of an illness or illness process). As a pathology, it is distinct from a belief based on false or incomplete information[b/]
Note the second and third sentence, so, yes it is wrong to consider them delusional. Note also that you and them would likely disagree on what is considered strong evidence for or against.
How should atheists call religious believers, then? People with special beliefs?
There is no way of saying that god does not exist without saying that all people who believe in god are delusional. But this is normal: anyone who claims that his god is the true god says that all the others are wrong and their believers are also delusional. If you want is us to keep completely mum about the issue? Of course we are not going to do that.
I am always puzzled by arguments things like this. Are you saying that god exists because of all the advantages religion brings? That's quite a fallacy there.
I'm an Iranian and let me tell you...99.9% of the Iranian population doesn't give a damn to the movie or its content. Hey...Youtube is even filtered in Iran. What CNN showed was just a show organized by the Iranian regime to make _you_ (yes you) believe people care. I mean, does the fact that the foreign media was allowed to make reports from this "protest", not seem fishy to you? How come during all the protest in the Iranian green movement CNN and other media were not allowed to make reports !?
When your god shows up for an interview, let the world know.
All that is necessary for the triumph of good is that evil men do nothing.
I presented no logical fallacies. The reason appropriate relative association between the actions and the worldview is that mass-killing is -directly contrary- to the principles of Christianity, and therefore, by definition, -not Christianity-.
It is with reference to sanctimoniousness hypocrisy that people criticise religion as violent. Logic has nothing to do with hypocrasy. Christianity has a lot going for it, but fundamentally, when people start to believe that they have special insight, and that they know better then others, then the greater good will justify all sorts of dangerous and irresponsible behaviour. It really cuts to the heart of psychosis -- religious or otherwise.
Your defence of Christianity would be more coherent if you acknowledged that violence is a direct result of moralism. By comparison, the evil psychopathic murder is only responsible for a drop in the bucket of human misery.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Clue time: Go to North Korea and try selling atheism. They will send you home in a cheap pine box.
Can you expand on that ? It doesn't seem like religions are very much welcome either.
Non-Linux Penguins ?
Your dictionary is broken:
So is your understanding of what your own dictionary says. "Bigotry 'a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices'".
Sounds like Dawkins to me. And you, to, if I may say so.
Your belief that there can be no god despite any evidence whatever takes a lot of faith. Without indication one way or another, the only logical conclusion is agnosticism. However, many of us have had such an indication.
Free Martian Whores!
In my experience, discussion with a handful of atheist on and off led me to believe that they are only topped by extremists when it comes to discussion on existence of God. Majority of the believers are busy living a life and thanking God once in a while.
I prefer agnostics to atheist. Atheists, IMO follow a religion that does not believe in God.
This article links at least 7 ; one of which I donate to, and one of which is such a fixture in British life that "the Oxfam Shop" is synonymous with charity retail.
You don't have to behead someone to be a bigot.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
Merriam-Webster
"BIGOT: a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices; especially : one who regards or treats the members of a group (as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance."
Please use your feet according to their intended purpose. They don't belong in your mouth.
Name names or be known as a liar. Christians don't hate athiests, we fear them.
I've corrected this on your behalf.
Ever wonder where all that money Christians put in the collection baskets goes?
To the churches. Some of it does trickle down to humanitarian programs, and sometimes there are "Special Collections" in addition to the regular one, usually for some particular charity, but most of that money in the collection plate goes to running the church, not to the poor.
Can you name one single athiest charitable organization? I certainly can't think of one.
You apparently fail at Google, too. There are plenty of non-theistic charities, including several you may have encountered, but didn't realize they aren't non-theistic. Amnesty International? The American Civil Liberties Union? OxFam?
Here's a list: http://freethoughtpedia.com/wiki/Secular_charities
Because Atheism is the existence of nothing...
No. That is called Nihilism.
...the denial of an existence of any kind of Lord...
Yes.
...and the lack of any belief in anything except what's 'visible' to the eye.
LOL! No. How did you come to this conclusion. Few atheists would deny the existence radio waves, bacteria, electrons...sounds...
We really need your help
http://www.gofundme.com/help-sherry
I suspect that the reason that Europe has a large Muslim population is the same as the reason that America has a large Mexican population: cheap labor. That and colonial ties to their countries of origin (this is certainly the case of France and Algeria, and the U.K. and Pakistan, India, and much of the Middle East) , as well as the fact that they are just much closer to the Middle East than we are.
Radical Islam in Europe seems to be the new punk for disaffected Muslim youth; their parents had enough of that crap back home, which is why they moved. What better way for a surly teenager to annoy his parents than to hang a bin Laden poster on his wall. Kind of like Che in the 60's (who was, by the way, every bit as batshit crazy as bin Laden, if not more so.) This will pass. Eventually, standing on the sidelines and watching life pass you by loses its charm.
If the European left seems crazy, a recent history of genocide will tend to push the needle into the red in any conversation about immigrants, outsiders, or other races and cultures. As for Muslims voting socialist, that doesn't seem likely, as socialists tend to be atheistic. Canada's recent turn to the right is largely attributed to an influx of immigrants who find the right's regard for religions more appealing. It's more likely that poor Muslim immigrants in Europe don't vote at all.