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Dr. Richard Dawkins On Why Disagreeing With Religion Isn't Insulting
In part 2 of this video interview (with transcript), Dr. Richard Dawkins explains the function of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science, headlined by his website. They're holding it up as a blueprint for similar groups: "We're trying to encourage, with some success, other organizations to make use of our facility, so that they will use our website, or have their own websites which are based upon ours, and have the same look and feel and use the same infrastructure." One of the Foundation's other purposes is to oppose organizations like the Good News Club. "What it is, is a group of Fundamentalist Christian organizations, who go into public schools after the school bell has rung for the day. So that it's no longer violating the Constitutional separation of church and state. ... And it's actually the Good News Club people masquerading as teachers, and they're being extremely effective." Dr. Dawkins also talks about his own comments, and explains why they're perceived as offensive: "Ignorance is no crime. There are all sorts of things I'm ignorant of, such as baseball, but I don't regard it as insulting if somebody says I'm ignorant of baseball, it's a simple fact. I am ignorant of baseball. People who claim to be Creationists are almost always ignorant of evolution. That's just a statement of fact, not an insult. It's just a statement. But it sounds like an insult. And I think that accounts for part of what you've picked up about my apparent image of being aggressive and offensive. I'm just telling it clearly." Hit the link below to see the rest of the interview.
He made a pretty good point there. There's only solution I've found to the problem of people taking your disagreement as an insult, and that is to pose every concern as a question for more detail. I've found it's a lot easier to do such conversations one on one as well, which I think is an often overlooked component of why debates on the internet seem so pointless and shouty.
The difference being, if you're ignorant of baseball you don't deny its existence and insist that divine intervention causes the game to play itself.
to some groups, disagreeing with their religion is, by definition, insulting it. There's no process of debate involved. It's right there, written in their Book of Facts.
And it's a complete waste of your time to argue with them over their "Facts".
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
From an interview:
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
Do you really want to get that tattooed on you? People might think you have a Bachelor of the Arts in English and that would be embarrassing.
I mostly agree with Dawkins on this and I think he walks a fine line. Many pro-knowledge/anti-religious people are quite aggressive and offensive. So much so that, despite the fact I'm not at all religious, I find myself quite put off by them. Their idea may be right, but their presentation lacks and just drives away people.
Dawkins is usually respectful when he is speaking. He may be blunt, but he isn't often insulting. I feel this puts him in much better standing than other people trying to educate. He is generally quite good at explaining his points of view and giving reasons for his ideas without bashing other people.
>> People who claim to be Creationists are almost always ignorant of evolution.
I'm not sure the good doctor has this one right. In my experience, creationists have been exposed to the general theory of evolution, but have found one or more reasons in the telling (often an intentionally injected reason) to reject it. Look up "straw dog" to see how this is often done on a number of topics.
Dawkins is completely ignorant when it comes to understanding of culture, tradition, and the human mind. This is demonstrated by the fact that he believes rational arguments should work on people who are inherently faith-based thinkers.
No need to be insulted by this. It's simply a statement of fact.
I think Dawkins has spent too much time in modern England, where, yeah, Christian fundamentalists are very, very, rare, and alas, the Muslim fundamentalist group is surprisingly large (largely because of a substantial refugee population from Pakistan.)
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Yes, Richard has shown that you don't have to be disagreeing to be insulting.
Don't stop where the ink does.
I don't see much about it that fits in with this site. I make exceptions for Presidential election coverage because the stakes are so far-reaching, but this?
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
I disagree with the theory of evolution, and I am a creationist. But, I think you'd either have to be blind or completely ignorant to agree with everything that goes on within churches and has gone on throughout history. Of course some things do adapt, the thing about it is if you knew some of the things I survived, you would definitely question it.
Telling somebody that they're ignorant about a particular topic may potentially (and more often than not) have the underlying connotation that that person should have known better in the first place. Nobody is going to tell Dr. Dawkins that he's ignorant of baseball because that's a useless statement. When somebody tells you that you're ignorant of "traffic laws", "etiquette", or "geography" you get the point.
Applied to the religious, telling them that they're ignorant of evolution, and being defensive about them getting mad about the statement because you think it's just a fact IS ignorant. The religious already believe that they've considered everything they need to know about evolution, and have discredited it in their own minds. The real strategy here is to not start with a public conclusion of them being ignorant, but to simply ask questions and answer their rebuttals. Eventually you'll hit a contradiction or hole in their misunderstanding, and the real question there is what they'll do next. Do they open their minds to truth, no matter how repugnant it is to their faith, or do they stay aggressively closed minded about the subject?
I am currently reading Carl Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
Sagan does an incredible job at promoting skepticism, fighting ignorance and all while being extremely respectful of religion. While I love Sagan, I just can't stand Dawkins.
No, no. That's "BA". This is BA+! It's differenter! That guy from the A-TEAM is sure gonna be ticked off, though.
As a Buddhist, I find the entire tree of Abrahamic religions insulting: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Mormonism. Since they put the afterlife ahead of this life, and the Magic Man in the Sky ahead of Humanity.
Daily we get confronted with ideas people wrote down thousands of years ago, because somebody thinks they were right and still are. How should disagreement be insulting?
He's a douche about the whole thing. People think he's insulting because he's a total dick when he talks about religion. There are lots of folks who can critizise religion without being jerks about it. At least for me, it's not Dawkin's ideas that people are offended by, but how he expresses them. More proof Dawkins is a jerk:
http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2012/10/sexism_in_the_skeptic_community_i_spoke_out_then_came_the_rape_threats.single.html
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/files/2011/07/dawkins_watson1.gif
Mad Software: Rantings on Developing So
The point on "ignorant" being insulting is an interesting one. As a English person who hears a lot of American spoken, I have observed a few words that are not insulting in English are taken to be so in American. I had "dumb" (now we have to say "mute" in order not to offend) and "retarded" (being a medical term). Now apparently "ignorant" is taken pejoratively too in the US. Any more examples?
Why is this prick on the site every few days now?
The Christian fundies do exist here (and I've run into quite a few militant anti-abortionists and young earth creationists). It's just that they're overshadowed by a bunch of very, very ugly Muslim extremists, who for various reasons, can get away with showing a persistent level of hatred and intolerance that would get the Christians shouted down at best, and thrown in the slammer en masse at worst.
Just last week, there was a bunch of bearded brown Muslim extremists in skirts screaming their heads off in the street at Oxford Circus, with big banners ("JESUS = SATAN") written on them. The only reason why they didn't get a hiding off anybody, because they where there in such force of numbers, that nobody dared challenge them. In the middle of Oxford Street. This is in 2012, after September 11 and the 7th of July attacks.
Britain DOES have a problem with religious extremism, and while there ARE Christian extremists, the Muslim extremists are multiplying at a rapid rate, are out there, in your face, and are virtually unassailable, because everyone is too scared of being stigmatized as an Islamophobe for not tolerating vile Islamic extremism.
So if I don't think something is insulting, I guess then it doesn't matter if the person being insulted thinks it's insulting or not? I see the logic here. It's great, anyone can do whatever they want and ignore the tolerance that the world has worked so hard to achieve! The KKK could probably apply this logic when launching their next website...
Dr. Dawkins has made a critical error in judgement here. I guess maybe the title "Dr" really doesn't mean what it used to.
Disagreeing with religion is not insulting. Calling its followers unthinking, ignorant, brainwashed, delusional: this is insulting.
Dawkins has been deliberately insulting in his books, and he knows it. He's gone out of his way to call people who disagree with him "evil," "child abusers," etc., the list is long:
-------------
The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully
--------------
I agree that Islam is a serious problem. There are serious problems with some hindu and buddhist beliefs, thinking it's okay for people to suffer the way they do and not even try to help. I am a Christian, and I don't believe the world is as old as scientists say. One reason behind this is instrumentation does lie. I've seen someone resurrect, amongst numerous other things we won't even go into. I'm not even saying this to argue with you. There is no need to try to state a debate with me because I would likely ignore any further comments that try to discredit things I believe, which is not ignorance because I know nearly every side to that argument. What I've seen is not your everyday phenomenon, explainable by swamp gases or delusions.
It went something like:
Stop whining, will you. Yes, yes, I know you were publicly lashed tortured by the cultural police yawn don't tell me yet again, I know you aren't allowed to drink, and and live in a tragically patriarchal society, and many of your friends of alternative religions are either being killed or are trying to kill you, and you are likely to be beheaded for offenses which seem trivial in more civilized parts of the world. But stop whining, will you. Think of the suffering your poor First World skeptics have to put up with.
Only this week I heard of one, he calls himself Richard Dawkins, and do you know what happened to him? People in the same country as him invited children to stay after school to learn about religion. I am not exaggerating. They really did. They invited them to stay in their own school classrooms to learn about religion. Of course Mr. Dawkins said this will not stand, and of course the religious types didn't force his children to stay after school, but even so
And you, Muslimo, think you have social evil to complain about! For goodness sake grow up, or at least grow a thicker skin.
More here: article with more details (you have to read down the page a bit for Dawkins).
"So without being particularly deliberately offensive or insulting, just tell it like it is. Just be clear. And clarity, as I say, can sound insulting. A good example of this was a few years ago when I wrote a book review, I think it was in the New York Times, about a book that I think was about Creationism. I said "Anybody who claims to be a Creationist is either stupid, ignorant, or insane. Probably ignorant." Ignorance is no crime. There are all sorts of things I'm ignorant of, such as baseball, but I don't regard it as insulting if somebody says I'm ignorant of baseball, it's a simple fact. I am ignorant of baseball. People who claim to be Creationists are almost always ignorant of evolution.
"That's just a statement of fact, not an insult. It's just a statement. But it sounds like an insult. And I think that accounts for part of what you've picked up about my apparent image of being aggressive and offensive. I'm just telling it clearly."
Note that he didn't address the "stupid" and "insane" parts of his accusation. I'd like him to make a case for why calling someone "stupid" is not an insult.
I half expect Dawkins to start breaking out "Your Mama" jokes and then claiming he's "just telling it like it is".
Is that you, David Mabus?
IIRC Atheism plus is an actual thing that distinguishes itself from . . . uh . . . regular atheism. (Little known fact: the next iteration is Atheism++, which is the predecessor to Dennis Ritchie's C). There's a bunch of drama involved in the atheist/skeptic community involving them, but what good is a community if there isn't a bunch of petty drama? :P
I read TFA and all I got was this lousy cookie
Unless you practice Islam.. Then everything non-Islamic is insulting.
The title reads like it's from the Onion News
It's great that science has a lot of answers and that we are no longer killing people over what planet revolves around which, and if it's flat, but we haven't evolved as a species, out of the witch hunt stage. People seem to have way to much fun eradicating those who do not share the same world view (Religious and Atheist alike).
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
"There is a belief that every word of the Koran is literally true, and there's a kind of closemindedness which is, I think, less present in the former Christendom, perhaps because we've had long - I don't know quite why - but there's more of a historical tradition of questioning."
So Dawkins is ignorant of even Western historical roots of tolerance and the decline of Church influence. He apparently never heard of Voltaire, the French Revolution, the Enlightenment, or the religious oppression that the American colonists fleed and their subsequent concern to found the US on a basis of religious tolerance.
He also paints Islam with a such a broad brush as to further cement the impression people have of him as an ignorant blowhard. He gives no indication he knows anything about the history of Islam or the diversity of Islam.
"There are people in the Islamic world who simply say, 'Islam is right, and we are going to impose our will.'"
So what? There are plenty of people in the Christian world who say the same thing. What's more, these Dominionist Christians have far more power and influence than the Islamists could ever dream of having.
...therefore, it can be treated like a fart: Whomever created it loves it, but if you don't like people who constantly create and revel in their own farts, walk away.
... a belief that every word of the Koran is literally true, and there's a kind of closemindedness ...
I have an enourmous respect for professor Dawkins, but he is human, like everybody else; and he sometimes seems to closed-minded himself. He sees Islam as 'one of the great evils in the world' - yet, the Islamic world was at one time the most open-minded; this was, in fact, at a time when the Christian culture was at its darkest.
I don't think any religion is inherently good or bad - it is as good or bad as its followers.
But Sagan didn't motivate people to stand up and say, "Enough is enough."
Do you know what skeptics are called in the Christian community? Doubting Thomas'. They are brushed aside.
I have a relative that is an engineer: BSME. He is very analytical and skeptical of everything BUT his faith. When it comes to religion, he just turns his brain off. He's like this over grown child who still believes in Santa Claus - He knows when you've been bad or good and He will grant wishes (prayers). And as far as evolution, he firmly believes that the evolutionary biologists WILL find evidence one day that will prove that God did it all.
Pray tell, how do I promote skepticism with him?
Religion is an emotional issue; NOT an intellectual one. That's why you have folks here post things like "I know Jesus exists."
Know? I guess it's like I "know" I love my wife. Ask for proof and all I can show is how I treat her. That's what Dawkins and Sagan didn't get.
And that's what religious people don't get. Faith != Science. Faith CANNOT equal data when it comes to the facts.
Or to put it another way - Religion is NOT science so give it up. But they won't and unfortunately, they will keep up this non-sense of trying to insert Creationism, ID or whatever they call it now into legitimate science classes.
So without being particularly deliberately offensive or insulting, just tell it like it is.
I happen to agree with him completely WRT to beliefs and logic, however, WRT to offense/insult I would theorize that most of the disagreement is caused by a confusion of one side believing they're operating under the politeness/hospitality rule where it all boils down to a gentleman does whatever makes his guests feel comfortable, including letting them blabber foolishly if they really want, but the other side thinks they're at the debate table brainstorming solutions where anything goes. Sometimes there's more than a little passive aggressiveness taking advantage of that confusion.
WRT his public school indoctrination story, teachers spend years yelling at kids to behave around adult classroom visitors giving a presentation... sneaking a cult in creates a confusion where a cult should be laughed at, yet they're in a gentlemanly polite hospitality suite of visiting a classroom. Not so much confusing the visitor with a substitute teacher but confusion the visitor with someone you need to be polite to.
I've defused innumerable in-person "disagreements" with something along the lines of "there's about 10000 distinct and completely incompatible current and dead religions, our religious views are almost identical in that you DISbelieve in 9999 of them, I merely DISbelieve in one more than you". The reaction from believers to this line of reasoning is completely unpredictable other than I haven't been accused of offensiveness or insult... so far.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Well, then they just demonstrated a quite stunning level of ignorance of their proclaimed religion, didn't they? Maybe the local Iman should have pointed out that the Koran quite clearly labels Jesus as a prophet and a Messenger of Allah, agrees with the New Testament of the Bible about the Virgin Birth and many other points of Jesus' supposed life and teachings therein. So, walking around with a sign saying "Allah's Messenger = Satan"... maybe they ought to go and try that in somewhere like Afghanistan or the Pakistani FATA and see how long can they keep their head or avoid getting stoned.
As a poster above pointed out, quite often Christian Fundamentalists have not actually read the Bible, and the same is also true about Muslim Fundamentalists, it seems.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
to some groups, disagreeing with their religion is, by definition, insulting it.
As a friend of mine (and Richard Dawkins) says "'Take offence at the drop of a hat' is the unwritten eleventh commandment".
"with big banners ("JESUS = SATAN") written on them. "
A little odd considering that Jesus is regarded as a prophet by Muslims, second only to the prophet Mohammed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_in_Islam
Anyway, I'm a atheist, so what do I know ;-)
Or, at least 50% wrong!
Whatever you say to sustain your point of view, that won't ever be close to theirs.
Religion fanatics (aka fans) won't ever discuss with you about that. Their (whatever) religion is sacred, deserves respect and doesn't allow for insults coming from whoever.
If you keep on failing to comply with the above they will:
- provide you with a suitably ugly death
- provide you with the excommunication you deserve
- provide you with a selected list of curses
- wipe your GMail/Me.COM/Facebook account
- all or part of the above
You insensitive and materialist clod!
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
Read some old testament "stone naughty children" verses then when they pull out the line about how Jesus makes the old testament obsolete show them Matthew 5:17-20
Don't forget the holy attack bears
2 Kings 2:23-24
... Bright Atheist Plus! BA+ for short! I'll get it tattooed around my anus....
When you bend over people are going to wonder why you love Bank of America so much.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
By definition, a fundamentalist would have to be aware of the fundamentals of a religion, and distrustful of anything else. Using the name of a religion as a veil for a political purpose is not fundamental, it is heretical. Unfortunately, no one seems to care what words mean anymore, so this crucial part of the debate is not even brought up.
" There is no need to try to state a debate with me because I would likely ignore any further comments that try to discredit things I believe, which is not ignorance because I know nearly every side to that argument. What I've seen is not your everyday phenomenon, explainable by swamp gases or delusions."
Yup - definitely a christian! No, it is not necessarily ignorance, but it IS willful disregard for facts.
Andrew, I think you need to read more about Buddhism.
The Buddha always encouraged to help people, actually that is the whole point of him teaching, to help others understand suffering and be free from it.
Here is just one example that can be read in the rules for Buddhist monks:
"One when he discovered a monk lying in his soiled robes, desperately ill with an acute attack of dysentery. With the help of Ananda, the Buddha washed and cleaned the sick monk in warm water. On this occasion he reminded the monks that they have neither parents nor relatives to look after them, so they must look after one another. If the teacher is ill, it is the bounden duty of the pupil to look after him, and if the pupil is ill it is the teacher's duty to look after the sick pupil. If a teacher or a pupil is not available it is the responsibility of the community to look after the sick"
Source: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/desilva/bl132.html
Because he's much more interesting than the crap on Slashdot:
How Dawkins got pwned (part 1)
How Dawkins got pwned (part 2)
How Dawkins got pwned (part 3)
How Dawkins got pwned (part 4)
How Dawkins got pwned (part 5)
How Dawkins got pwned (part 6)
How Dawkins got pwned (part 7)
Hey guys! I'm still an atheist! Let there be no doubt about this! Atheism, atheism, atheism! Imagine Dawkins saying this, jumping up and down like Ballmer at Micro$oft! Checkmate, closed-source programs!
Your attack on atheism is funny. It's certainly easier than defense.
You're all assholes because you don't believe the crap I believe, I find that insulting, and calling you names is the only avenue left to me to defend my fairy tale god.
Good work dude.
I love (sarcastically) the part abou investigative journalism about Good News Club. You can learn everything you'd want to know about GNC and Child Evangelism Fellowship from their own promotional materials. Basically, they work in neighborhoods and schools around the US (and internationally) for after and before school programs tageting pre-teenagers. They do often use teachers who have a Christian faith to lead these clubs. What the atheists view as blurring the lines between school (state) and religion, CEF would say that teachers are muzzled during the school day but are free to express their opinions after they are "off the clock".
Regardless of your views on the subject, noting CEF does through its GNCs is secret. Go visit one of their offices and they'll gladly explain everything they do. Heck, if you want you can show up at one of their clubs and I doubt you will be turned away. So the investigative journalism part seems to be the equivilent of a researcher who only reads Wikipedia.
Some atheists argue GNC should be baneed fom publically funded schools. CEF argues that if other activities are allowed after school hours that GNC should be allowed as well. So far the courts have mostly agreed with CEF and I tend to agree. If there can be a Republican and Democrat actvist group meeting with students then I don't see how GNC somehow becomes unconstitutional.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
They were muslims? Jesus is God's prophet in Islam, so what you describe makes no sense for a muslim. Unless they have no clue at all about their religion...
It blows my mind too. And I'm sure that plenty of ordinary people of Muslim background despair of these clowns whipping up hatred, hiding behind political correctness, and letting ordinary people be tarred with the same brush as the haters.
To be fair: I've spent a lot of time around devout Christians too, and it's stunning how often a lot of people act superior and intolerant, and fail to live up to their own ideals. There's nothing more loathsome and disgusting than hypocrites standing around on street corners letting it all hang out for the world to see.
Most right thinking normal people think that religion, if practised, is a matter of personal conscience and is completely integral to living in a modern country. Governments are doing society a huge disservice by letting hate-mongering extremists roam free to spread their poison; whether they are anti-abortionists hassling women in the streets (I've seen this too), or the EDL, or Andrem Choudhury's mob whipping up hate and trying to start race wars.
I don't think there is a difference between the freedom to practice one's religion freely, and the freedom to not practice religion freely. It's a precious freedom that needs to be actively, vigorously defended.
More Dawkins spam!
Don't argue with that, you'll be labeled ignorant.
I've seen someone resurrect, amongst numerous other things we won't even go into..
Have you ever seen someones amputated limb restored? Isn't it odd how such claimed miracles always happen within that gray area where unequivocal documentation just isn't avaliable.
I would likely ignore any further comments that try to discredit things I believe, which is not ignorance because I know nearly every side to that argument.
Sounds like a preemptive statement of wilful ignorance with an armour plating of dunning kruger.
Personally I would make a statement almost 180 degree opposite of yours. I will listen to and consider all evidence and welcome critiques of what I believe. I known full well my limitations as a finite creature and do not know every side of any argument and have positioned myself to accept possible changes in my beliefs or worldviews in accordance with the availble data.
The truth doesn't matter. It's what they believe. That's Dawkins' whole point. These folks in the street are ignorant not just of other religions, but of their own was well. But if you call them on it, they'll claim that you are insulting their religion and are therefore evil.
It's not a problem with a pleasant solution.
The determined Real Programmer can write Fortran programs in any language.
Edwina Currie (former British politician) just revealed that when she married out from Judaism her father refused ever to speak to her again. Yet her father was a nonobservant Jew, an atheist. Now there is a high level example of failure, not only to re-evaluate your views, but even to do so in the interests of consistency. So - even having a real problem resulting from those views may not be enough.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
is that we evolved after god created us. At least in America (for now) you have the right to believe what you want, but in some areas of the world, they will cut your head off if you disagree with them.
Muslim folks' views on left-handedness demonstrates this very clearly: http://islamqa.info/en/ref/82120
It is part of Allaah’s complete blessing upon us and the perfection of this great religion, that Islam organizes all aspects of our lives. There is nothing good but it has shown it to us, and there is nothing bad but it has warned us against it. As well as beliefs, acts of worship, interactions with others and morals and manners, that also includes our private affairs in which Islam shows us the way that is befitting to man’s noble status and the way in which Allaah has honoured him. That includes the way the Muslim eats and drinks, and so on.
And Muslim (2020) narrated from Ibn ‘Umar (may Allaah be pleased with him) that the Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: “No one among you should eat with his left hand or drink with it, for the shaytaan eats with his left hand and drinks with it.”
Allaah has warned us against disobeying the commands of the Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him), as He says (interpretation of the meaning):
“And let those who oppose the Messenger’s (Muhammad’s) commandment (i.e. his Sunnah __ legal ways, orders, acts of worship, statements) (among the sects) beware, lest some Fitnah (disbelief, trials, afflictions, earthquakes, killing, overpowered by a tyrant) should befall them or a painful torment be inflicted on them”
Sure, I guess way back when, folks wiped their assess with their bare left hands. However, left-handedness has been proven by science to be a genetic trait, not a matter of faith. But since it has been written in the Koran, that Allah doesn't like people to be left-handed, you've got a bit of a problem there.
So any Muslims can, and do, claim that using your left hand is insulting to Islam . . . as I experienced when signing in to a hotel in Egypt.
So how does Islam handle other cases, where sound science contradicts the Will of Allah . . . ?
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
At one point, I decided to watch some videos of Dawkins and found him to be obscene and utterly rude. While I am personally an atheist, I truly disagree with people suggesting that this man is representative of me. It's reached a point where religious people use him as an example of the raving lunatics atheists are. So far as I can tell, while he's also an atheist, he takes atheism to a degree of being a religion. Between him and organized non-religion groups, I'm thoroughly disappointed.
The point is atheists shouldn't ever be organizing as being atheists. It should not be a defining characteristic. A person who is an atheist should be something else. Maybe an artist, a musician, a scientist, an engineer, a good will worker. In short, an atheist should have a great deal of time to spend on things that are just more important and more meaningful than religion. Instead, these groups (including the Dawkins lackies) spend all their time being atheists and they even get into the "I'm better than the people who define themselves as believing in nonsense since I'm a person who defines myself as opposing believing in nonsense." It's like the morons who stand outside of meat plants protesting slaughtering cows while wearing a leather jacket to stay warm.
People... please just be more.
Western nations say they have the "freedom of speech" to insult any religion as they please. Then why is it that scientists want to outlaw any questioning of scientific theories? By definition, a theory is not absolute truth.
When I got my PhD in statistics, one of the first things I was taught in grad school was to never extrapolate inferences beyond the range of observed data. Yet, that is exactly what evolution, geology, and cosmology does. There are no 5-billion-year-long experiments to verify that everything follows a neat linear (or log-linear) pattern as the theories claim. We have some experiments that lasted at most about 30 years, and say that since they followed a log-linear pattern for the first 30 years, it must also follow the same pattern for the remaining 4,999,999,970 years.
From what we know from the world of biology, patterns that appear to hold in the short term will often deviate greatly in the long term. But somehow, we are required to believe that such deviations could never happen elsewhere.
I was an atheist before going to graduate school, but I learned the huge number of assumptions upon which science is built. Upon close examination, many or all of the assumptions are wrong; but scientists merely ostracize those who question the assumptions, saying it is "irrelevant" or to avoid "paralysis by analysis".
" I am ignorant of baseball. "
Dawkins is also ignorant of religion. So I don't pay much attention to his views on either baseball or religion.
He's willfully ignorant of the limits of reason and science. So you need to take that into account when he talks about the role of reason and science.
But those are not attacks, they are just "facts".
I think few atheists who know anything about it would argue that, in their time and context, Jesus's teachings were bad. But that isn't enough for sectarian Christians. Their identity tends to be bound up with a positively tribal interpretation of Christianity; in fact, Protestants may hate Protestants of a slightly different sect more than they hate Muslims or Catholics, because it is easier to hate someone where you can point to an exact area of disagreement. In the same way, the present "Pope" is more opposed to the Catholic theologian Hans Kung than to married priests joining the Catholic Church from the Church of England. (I put "Pope" in quotes because I personally regard him as an anti-Pope. But that's just me: I'm an agnostic).
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
What I've seen is not your everyday phenomenon, explainable by swamp gases or delusions.
Do tell, I for one really want to know what phenomenon you are talking about. Just let me know what your senses picked up and I'll draw my own conclusions.
In my my experience, most theists on the internet are insulting towards atheists. They link Hitler with atheism (Hitler sure wasn't a traditional Christian, but he was no atheist), they expressly claim that people become atheist just so they can justify their evil ways, etc. If you want to find argumentative people in any area, you won't be searching long.
So you can point to the existence of argumentative atheists. Bully for you. Now, do you have "grounding in fact" to indicate that "hardcore internet atheists" are, say, a majority of atheists or a major problem or something?
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
I know exactly what I saw, and these guys were bonkers.
I'm not insulted by his disagreeing with me. I'm insulted that he says I'm ignorant because I disagree with him. I believe God created the universe, and I am not ignorant on the subject of evolution.
If he quantifies "almost always" and gives proof that that portion of people who believe some form of Creationism are ignorant of evolution, I'll stop being offended.
For now, it's just the best example of condescending patronization I've seen in weeks.
Pat Condell: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Condell has got pretty funny views: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uTypnaP5X4 on the matter. (Caution: it can offend some people depending on beliefs and sense of humor.)
And it is possible to disagree with religion without being insulting. In fact, Dawkins should try it more often ;-)
Seriously he is often extremely condescending and insulting--as a long-time atheist I often cringe at his attacks on religion precisely because they will alienate so much more than persuade.
Dawkins is my least favorite of the four horsemen (Hitch later amended the number to five, citing another crusader I had not yet heard of). Dawkins just can't seem to downplay his innate astringency. He's the Jynnan Tonnyx at the end of creation, where Hitch is the Caife Gaelach. I prefer one drink more than the other, but in a pinch, I'd drink from either well.
Part of the problem is that he treats religious belief as a Gordian Knot to be severed with a brilliant sword stroke. The reality is that loosening the bonds by degrees often works better. He seems not to connect with people whose self-esteem is based on some other principle than subtracting falsehood. Persuasion often works better when you help people to move towards.
I personally despise the doctrine of original sin. It's a blatant attack on self-esteem. Dawkins seems mild as milk compared to the God these people defend.
Methinks the crazed, fundamentalist, scientific materialist doth protest too much.
Dawkins admits to ignorance of both religion and baseball. But he doesn't go around attacking the designated hitter rule, and does go around attacking Christian religious tenets. He is offensive because his outrage is selectively targeted at something he admits to not knowing about, and which by definition is not reached by science, which is his expertise. (And I'm Pagan, so you can only imagine how offensive he is to the 70% of Americans who are Christian.) If Dawkins contained himself to arguing for science, he'd be on solid ground. Instead, he argues vociferously against Christianity, and thereby frequently looks the fool.
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
I have never felt insulted by disagreement, even strong disagreement. However, what people like Richard Dawkins do often goes beyond disagreement into the realm of being intentionally insulting. And regardless of what he says in this video, which strikes me as duplicitous, he has at other times specifically advocated ridiculing religious people.
If you are neither stupid nor ignorant, then it would seem you're insane.
Dawkins believes - and I happen to agree - that the evidence supporting evolution is just overwhelming. Denying it takes the kind of mental gymnastics or sheer ignorance of flat-Earthers. If he's correct, then his characterization is accurate. You can accuse him of being wrong about the evidence for evolution, but you can't accuse him of being mean-spirited.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
Duh. Because Dawkins' definition of "insulting" can't be forced on people any better than a religion can be forced on people. They're insulted. The argument that matters is whether or not we are obliged to change society because some groups are insulted, and the obvious answer to anybody but an insultee seeking political gain is "no, No, NO! A thousand times, No. You have no right to live in a world where your precious little thin-skin doesn't itch".
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
People who claim to be Creationists are almost always ignorant of evolution. That's just a statement of fact
As much as I hate to quote Dwight Schrute: False. Sort of. Well, technically true but presenting a false non-equivilancy.
Creationists who are well versed in creationism are usually also well versed in evolutionary theory (they are the most studious of believers, after all). There are a great many people who believe in creationism or evolutionary theory as origins of man who are not well educated in either and who are just following along with whatever someone in a robe or lab coat says. But these people aren't usually well educated in anything, so Dawkins' statement is true, but his unspoken implication ("most believers in evolutionary theory are well educated in creationism and/or evolutionary theory") is not. And I've seen more of the opposite of his statement: people who belief that the current diversity of life is wholly a product of the evolutionary process generally hold religion in such disdain that they don't investigate creation stories beyond the first sentences (or consider the possibility of a creation event which has been as yet unvoiced).
There are all sorts of things I'm ignorant of, such as baseball, but I don't regard it as insulting if somebody says I'm ignorant of baseball, it's a simple fact. I am ignorant of baseball. People who claim to be Creationists are almost always ignorant of evolution. That's just a statement of fact, not an insult.
The problem isn't that the religiously zealous are taking a benign interpretation of the label "ignorant" the wrong way. The problem is that many religions try to assert their dogma in spite facts that this generous fellow would claim they are simply "ignorant" to.
The proper analogy would be (ooh this one's fitting) someone understanding the NFL enough to comprehend the game they are watching, but then go on to claim that American football is just a well-designed brainwashing advert-tainment channel, and then claiming that soccer is the one true futbol and only one worth watching. Sound familiar?
Everybody knows God exists, most of us are either confused about what He wants from us or are naive about life and death. Law and absolute exist because He is perfect, but we exist because He is love and needs someone to love. Romance tells us that God is a romantic. Science like chaos tells us that God is creative and structured. He is beautiful and we should take no shame in worshiping Him while exploring and enjoying His creation.
Also worth noting is the pressure coming from the other end; current news includes the King of Saudi Arabia pushing the UN to sanction any country or group "insulting monotheistic religions." I guess it's ok if there are multiple gods, eh? Kali, etc.
The problem with Islam is that it isn't just a religion; it's also a complete political and social structure, and one that insists that it must dominate the world. There's no indication we can fix this; likely we're eventually going to be forced to eliminate it. Unfortunately, it'll probably take a lot more people suffering at the hands of this creed before we get up the collective social strength to just step on them like the cockroaches they are.
The day Islam settles down will probably be the day they pull another terrorist act, and a world leader with courage turns around and nukes Mecca. Until then, you're going to have your crowds of Islamic crazies giving everyone the stinkeye as if it was perfectly ok to do so.
I prefer Atheism# - much easier for the beginner.
"Who is this God person anyway?"
I will listen to and consider all evidence and welcome critiques of what I believe. I known full well my limitations as a finite creature and do not know every side of any argument and have positioned myself to accept possible changes in my beliefs or worldviews in accordance with the availble data.
Too bad that's a little long to slap on a button or T-shirt. It's a worthy motto.
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
Of course not. How could that be possible?
I find Richard Dawkin's fandom to be baffling. Especially the concept of people rallying behind him. Atheism as a "discipline" or "belief system" by its very nature, shouldn't exist. If you're a proper atheist, you should go about your business being a scientist or a sociologist, or a car mechanic and stop giving a moment of thought to religion. You are an Atheist. How much time do you spend dreaming or debating the Easter bunny?
Atheists should hesitate spending time at all on religion, especially time trying to persuade others into your beliefs.
Why should an Atheist believe someone else need to be freed from their religion? You don't approve of it when it's Christians doing it to people, why approve of it when you're revealing the"true nature of the universe?"
Oh... I see... because you're "right".
Also, Hitler thinks eugenics and genocide aren't unethical.
I saw things like that too. When I took LSD. And in flashbacks, without benefit of LSD.
So I know you can definitely "see" things that are amazing and inexplicable in terms of the mundane world and physics. However, where we differ is that I also know that just because I can imagine and visualize something in glorious visual, aural and other sense detail... that still doesn't make it real. It's only real if it is real. Which means other people will see it as well, and that repeatability and testability will be there.
I know that facts trump conviction every time; that physics always wins while prayer grabs its wins from random coincidence; and I know that there has never been a recorded case of superstitious presumption having made its way into known reality.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
If you read many of the stories, like Moses, King Nebuchadnezzar, Jesus, etc. They all express feelings of hatred to those who oppose God. Religious people are just surrogates of these stories, that’s why they like to quote passages in the Bible all the time.
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
I have no problem with people who don't believe in God, and I have no religious beliefs of my own, but (some) atheists creep me out in the same way that many born again Christians do. Especially atheists coming from strong religious backgrounds. They act like they have to prove the absense of God, in order to justify their lack of faith. If faith helps certain people, then that's good for them, and I have no desire to attack that.
But personally, I've never understood how people on either side could be so certain about the unknowable. If you can't know, who cares? I'll find out when I die and I have infinity on my hands to ponder it (or not).
If Dawkins truly believes that religion will quietly tolerate being told it is wrong, he is an idiot.
Well, he's not an idiot. He's trying to point out the absurdity of holding a point of view that takes offense at any question, challenge, or outright dispute. And that this type "offense" is fabricated to manipulate polite society and should be ignored.
There are such things as boundaries in human society, and while they're never absolute, there comes a point when one group extends the boundaries of its own propriety so far that there is no room for anyone else to exist--let alone coexist with a similarly absurdly broad set of boundaries. We can't all be pope.
Affected outrage is worn like a mask and used like a weapon to cow the rest of society to the will of an aggressive and dangerous few.
It's not the responsibility of the rest of the world to tiptoe around a group of people who have subverted the natural human desire for social harmony. Nobody offended you; you chose to "take offense". Well, now you've taken it; you have it; enjoy it. This is your offense, not ours.
To cite examples from the religion into which I have been indoctrinated:
Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.
Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea
You don't get to "opt out" and believe something else on your own time. You're either with or you're against. The domain of God and His representatives on earth is absolute. "Heresy" is ANY teaching inconsistent with dogma. It doesn't matter who teaches it or to whom. Church member or not, challenging dogma is not only an insult, it's a crime.
In modern times, the power of the Church to prosecute heresy has decreased significantly. They grudgingly acknowledge the existence of other views, but VCII, Ecumenism, etc. are still controversial with a lot of people. "OK, sure, we don't have to convert all the ignorant savages. We tend get a lot of really dirty looks from folks when we do that, and besides, we can't enforce it anyway. So, in the spirit of God's love for all His children, we accept that all..." But make no mistake if the Church had the power to enforce canon law everywhere, they would. Manipulation of the secular law where canon law has lost dominion is an effective and efficient tool.
One can only imagine that another's religion, especially offshoots of the one into which one has been indoctrinated has similarly totalitarian views of dissention--by members of the church or by people in general. I invite their own apostates to speak for their religion's tolerance to heresy.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
And in this time and age, it's fairly trivial to do a full-text search in the bible for verses that mention both "stone" and "death" in close proximity, and then you can go ahead and read the full context. But if it makes Joce640k feel better that he knows the bible better than a full-text search engine, then so be it.
I once had a signature.
While I largely agree with Dawkins views toward religion, I don't know if the The Good News Club is as bad as he makes it out to be. Their website says "In 2001 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Good News Clubs v. Milford Central School that Good News Clubs can meet in public schools in the United States after school hours on the same terms as other community groups. Children attend Good News Club only with their parents' permission."
/. crowd. I also feel like he is using his personal war against Christianity/religion to elevate his status and inflate a big ego (notice the name of his organization and the URL that he wants to other organizations to redirect too). Listening to him talk, I can't help but be reminded of.... RELIGIOUS PEOPLE. It's like he wants to be Science's Jesus Christ.
So, it happens after school (Dawkins says "after the bell rings" implying during class hours but he must be referring to the last bell of the day) and parents must give permission. I don't see how this would impact anyone's kids unless they wanted them to go. I had also never heard of that organization until today.
Clearly though, Dawkins is wording things to skew the
Anyway, that is all just one cynic's $0.02...
True, this word has acquired a stigma in the language, one that denotes lack of intelligence where, as Dawkins notes, there really is none in the word. But you can't simply ask questions and answer rebuttals. They already have rebuttals fed to them, and holes in their understanding simply do not exist. The important part is this: Evolution would mess up their worldview, and therefore it simply cannot be true.
However, don't be too quick to judge everybody to be like this. I get classified with them when it comes to globalwarmingcoolingclimatechange, but I have no problem with the concept of man-made global warming. We've screwed so much up, so why not that too? I'd be surprised if we didn't. But I have questions, mainly related to AGW as a political and socioeconomic movement with non-scientific motives corrupting the scientific community. There's a LOT of money and power at stake with government and corporate rulers (yes, corporations and the rich who run them have aligned themselves to reap the benefits of government AGW policies, hello Solyndra). It has also attained a quasi-religious status, with any who question treated as blasphemers and heretics, the automatic claim that you must be a corporate stooge (I guess as opposed to a stooge of corporations benefitting from AGW policies) reminiscient of chants of "Devil Worshipper!" Government and corporate power and money with religion thrown in, the ultimate combination for bringing out my distrust.
Meanwhile, natural selection fought its way up from underdog status, despite persecution from religious governments, for over 100 years. It definitely succeeded on the merits, not on government and corporate dictates.
Whaddya mean "too much" time in England? He's talking about his own experiences. If you wanna be "The American Dawkins" where you have to deal with Christians instead, then by all means, go for it. ;-) They guy has enough on his plate without you making him live here.
BTW, FWIW I know many Christians and none of them immediately lose their temper and resort to violent force whenever you say they're wrong. They're politically threatening, but it really is a friendlier game of chess with most of these jerks.
If you look up the definition of delusion, you seem to be a textbook case.
The existential questions that Dawkins wants to answer don't have answers. Life's beauty stems in part from its mysteries. A better, more informed writer on these matter is Karen Armstrong.
The difference is this is a broad statement about an entire group of people. And the statement itself is ignorant. In the US teaching of evolution in high school is commonplace, it's not reasonable to simply assume most of these people are ignorant of evolution. You can't make broad statements like this and not expect people to be offended. If I said black people are almost always ignorant of evolution, you probably wouldn't think I was being reasonable. His statement here is the same. Creationists are a diverse group of people, and his characterization of them is misguided.
No, no. That's "BA". This is BA+! It's differenter!
Perhaps BA+ is so some sort of anus size designation, like 34C for breasts.
Ezekiel 23:20
I have no mod points, but agree.
Dawkins' baseball analogy misses the point. I too am ignorant of baseball. But there are no elements of society that take umbrage with my ignorance or try to convert me. They simply don't invite me to watch games. Otherwise, we get along just fine.
Creationists aren't just ignorant of evolution. In fact, some of them are very familiar with its theoretical basis. But its a knowledge borne out of the need to fight against a competing ideology that they cannot tolerate. I don't understand religions. I haven't studied them much, because, to the extent that I have, they aren't of any use to me.
Likewise, I don't know every plot twist of every Star Trek series. Some people do, but that doesn't make it reality regardless of their depth of knowledge. And I don't think that any of them believe so either (a few nut jobs excepted). Understanding religion has its uses in understanding human society. In much the same way that understanding the mythology shared by any group does. Those that do understand it, but keep it in the context of a set of tales; more power to them.
Have gnu, will travel.
"Unless they have no clue at all about their religion"
that is true of a lot of christians too, proved by a survey done a year or so ago, Atheists knew more about the bible than the christians
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
whooosh me thinks
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
Apple fans would probably prefer objective atheism
I read TFA and all I got was this lousy cookie
yep, but have a look whats currently happening in Myanmar with the Buddhists beating on the muslims
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
"Metaphors We Live By" required reading for any thinker.
Argument uses the metaphor of war/battle/conflict. Just look at how we discuss argument in terms of that metaphor. That impacts how one views the whole topic without even knowing it; you pick up the style of talking from your environment and the style or form ends up becoming part of how you function.
Win/lose fight, defeat, conquer, decimate, battle, and debates... they are described chucked full of violent metaphors.
"I don't think any religion is inherently good or bad - it is as good or bad as its followers."
If you read the bible or the koran they both promote horrible things like stoning kids to deaf, genocide, homophobia so read one of them and see if you still agree with your statement.
Dawkins is saying what he says because the fundamental muslims carry out the message to the letter because they die doing it, they will get martyrdom and 72 virgins when they reach their heaven. The fundamental christians generally don't go that far because i guess they are not 100% sure there is a heaven and they haven't got the luxury of 72 virgins to play with up there.
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
Baseball is hardly the extent of his ignorance.
It's one thing to disagree and in our politically correct world, disagreement is equal to insult. However, his method of characterizing that disagreement by, in effect, demonizing those that are believers is the insult. Simply state you don't believe in God nor religion. That's fine, but don't go out of your way to insult those that do believe and seek further to find ways to outlaw those beliefs. As a believer, I have zero issue with atheism. It doesn't bother me in the least. People must come to their own conclusions. However, what does bother me is willful imposition of those beliefs onto others. Discuss, engage, dialogue, display even on the face of it some level of mutual respect, but the indoctrination stays in your head.
Fact: I have never had a discussion on the topic of religion with any intelligent self-proclaimed Atheist that didn't result after 15 minutes with the person understanding and admitting that he/she was actually Agnostic, not Atheist.
Being against organized religion or the biblical version of creationism does not make one an Atheist.
Religious = "Knowing" God exists
Atheist = "Knowing" God does not exist
The certainty of knowledge on either side requires faith. If you leave open the possibility that maybe you yourself aren't omniscient, well then you are really agnostic (which of course is the only scientifically sound path).
I think people were offended by the title of your book, "The God Delusion," and the disparaging remarks contained therein.
As for me, although I'm a "man of faith," I don't feel offended. I realize you're only speaking from your knowledge and understanding.
Larry
He and other Atheists, including myself, are not just telling someone who knows nothing about Baseball that they are ignorant of Baseball.
We are tell self professed experts on Baseball that they are completely ignorant and their entire way of reasoning and belief system is wrong and idiotic. We might say it nicely sometimes, and other times we say it harshly and with contempt, but every time that is what we are saying.
Richard Dawkins is saying that they cannot be offended because they are wrong, but until you convince them of that that argument is a waste of time.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Can't find that in my copies of the Constitution. Just that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. Black was very much anti-Catholic and disrespectfully invoked Jefferson for his ruling.
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2006/06/the-mythical-wall-of-separation-how-a-misused-metaphor-changed-church-state-law-policy-and-discourse
This really sounds like a straw man argument by RD here.
He builds up this one example where it should not be taken as a insult, ignoring 99% of its real world use and meaning.
Someone does not just go up to some geek and say, you are ignorant of Baseball.
In the real word someone expresses an opinion and you might call them ignorant as a way of blowing them off. Of saying that they are not even worth arguing against. It is an insult, and is just like f*** y**, except that it attempts to give a general reason for the disrespectful blowoff.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Yeah, that must be it. No way he'd inform himself on the subject. Especially any better than you, of course.
Mr Dawkins' is simply one side of a coin, and man-made religion is the other. Both equally ignorant and arrogant and fighting to win control over the hearts and minds of people with their opinions.
Pure Science and Pure Religion agree 100%. If mankind had the wisdom and knowledge, he would know that God is a being who does what he does according to the laws of the universe as HE knows them, not as man does. Naturally, man, in his infinite arrogance, decrees that there are laws to nature, physics, etc., that are absolute, and that God cannot exist because he doesn't follow those rules.
There is nothing insulting about Mr Dawkins' beliefs or the beliefs of religious persons beyond their coming from positions of ignorance. Human ego is the greatest obstacle to understanding greater truths. Once man abandons his Quixotic attempts to deny or make God in his own image, and starts to actually listen, he will find that God does and will speak to him. And for those who say they have and found nothing, then I say you have not, because you we're listening with your ego.
"Constitutional separation of church and state"
How it vexes me whenever I read this somewhere. Nowhere in the U.S. Constitution is a separation of church and state. The concept of separation of church and state as it is understood in the United States came from one of Thomas Jefferson's letters, which, if actually read, advocated for government to not interfere in religion. Many early settlers of America came from Great Britain, seeking refuge from the oppression of the government that killed people for daring to belong to a religion or denomination other than the state-controlled Church of England. Much later, churches and pastors played an important role in supporting the American Revolutionary War. The point Jefferson and his other contemporaries, like Madison and Locke, made was that religion ought to be safe from state tyranny - NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_church_and_state.
Religion is a very powerful force. When you convince people that they will be rewarded for following your rules, and punished for violating them; and that they cannot escape the sight and judgement of an omniscient, never dying being, you have them under your complete control.
Power can be used for good or evil. Given that power often corrupts those wielding it, this tends over time to skew to evil.
As the saying goes, "Faith can move mountains." Unfortunately, sometimes those mountains are just really tall buildings.
Calling someone who disagrees with you ignorant is an example of both begging the question and ad hominem, both of which are offensive. It is begging the question because you really just restated the assertion "you are wrong" and pretended that that was an argument. It is ad hominem because you are concerning yourself with discrediting the person instead of his arguments. Of course people are going to think that that is offensive.
You said: " People who claim to be Creationists are almost always ignorant of evolution. " In all actuality, there is no evolution, not an ignorance of it. Evolutionists will always be against creation because they want to explain things from a scientific method and make themselves look smarter when all truth comes out is those evolutionists are ignorant of creation. And you have no excuse. (Romans 1:18,20)18For God’s wrath is being revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who are suppressing the truth in an unrighteous way, 19because what may be known about God is manifest among them, for God made it manifest to them. 20For his invisible [qualities] are clearly seen from the world’s creation onward, because they are perceived by the things made, even his eternal power and Godship, so that they are inexcusable;
I think Dawkins has a sweet gig attacking religion for fun and profit. His arguments are very strong and the arguments opposing him are very weak.
Were Dawkins to destroy religion, what would he accomplish? He'd dissolve a social glue that helps keep everything together, and he'd replace that glue with . . . nothing.
What would Dawkins replace religion with? Fascistic moral codes that must be adhered to? Anarchy? Isn't it good when a bunch of people adhere to a moral code that basically says "treat your neighbor decently?
What is really important in this crowded world is everybody's own individual moral code. That code isn't what you think, or believe--it's what you DO. Who cares whether or not that personal code is founded upon monkey worship, your personal salvation in Jesus, or alien intervention?
Life is not a quest for the realization of a universal ideal. That's a stupid religious idea. Life is a contest of social forces. When the religious dominate the political world, then everything becomes awful. But when the religious are suppressed, then everything becomes even more awful.
You are never going to have fascism or authoritarian government in a country that has a wide diversity of religious thought. That's because religious people will never be able to agree on anything. That's why you want to protect all varieties of religious thought.
On the other hand, religion can turn into a rapacious and violent animal if it is not limited. That's the other side of the balance.
But, meanwhile, most religious people really believe in treating their neighbor decently on a much more than superficial level. That belief derives, at least in part, from their religion. That is wonderful and valuable and worthy of respect. That's what Dawkins misses.
Sure, I guess way back when, folks wiped their assess with their bare left hands.
You know they still do that, right? Incidentally I think I just figured out what the three seashells are for. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_toilet_etiquette
Comment removed based on user account deletion
While I am a fairly convinced atheist, I have to admit that while Dawkins himself walks the fine line between insulting and disagreeing, the same cannot be said for many of his devotees. I am not saying he is guilty by association, but I am saying that someone who stirs emotions the way he does is at the very least responsible for them. In other words, he is not guilty, but he is responsible. The same, by the way, is true of the religions which purport to espouse peace while creating civil unrest. The main theme of this is, of course, explored in Dune. Paul's main angst was not losing but creating a cult in the name of which millions would go on to be slaughtered. The same concern must be shared by anyone attempting to challenge social norms. Not paying regard to such concern is exactly how secular revolutions against dictatorships turn into the rule of Shah.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
People act like their religion is a diagnosis of cancer or something As soon as they announce it, etiquette requires that their belief be treated tenderly. Not a chance. Not when you're delusional shit for brains belief system threatens the existence of me and my family. Get ready for it, fundie fucktard.. Fuckin' have some...
Two quotes that I try to remember, and wished that everyone else would remember as well...
Believe those who are seeking the truth ; doubt those who find it.
The second is in my signature...
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
any disagreement with said faith is not only insulting it's looked on as blasphemy. It's no more complicated than this. So says the recovering fundie.
I gather that "Base-ballists" believe that there are nine players to what they call a "team" and they play with an oblong object they call "ball" which they alternately attempt to throw, catch or hit with a wooden club. That seems irreducibly complex to me. And yet Wikipedia claims that Baseball "evolved" from other games - that they themselves admit are difficult to trace. They refer to a 14th-century French manuscript (French!) that appears to suggest even clerics were not above playing a game resembling this "base-ball".
Now I ask of you: Is it plausible that a game as absurd as this would develop naturally by random chance out of other games? Ball games just changing into one another? And look at who is at the forefront of promoting and perpetuating this supposed game: The hopelessly secular public highschools and elitist ivory-tower universities again.
You may claim I'm ignorant of "Base-ball" or sports in general, but I'm just seeing this with the common sense God gave me. "Base-ball" is a scam!
"People who claim to be ____________ are almost always ignorant of _____________. That's just a statement of fact, not an insult. It's just a statement. But it sounds like an insult. And I think that accounts for part of what you've picked up about my apparent image of being aggressive and offensive. I'm just telling it clearly."
Fill in the blanks Richard. You, quite possibly have uncovered the template to insult anyone associated with anything. You're too brilliant to be this condescending, or so I thought.
There are serious problems with some hindu and buddhist beliefs, thinking it's okay for people to suffer the way they do and not even try to help
I don't know about Hindus, but I spent a year in Thailand, a country almost 100% Bhuddist, and they were nothing like you make them out to be. Whoever told you this was lying.
I am a Christian, and I don't believe the world is as old as scientists say.
I'm a Christian, and it's fools like you who embarrass thinking Christians. You might want to look a little closer at methods used tof determining dates. They'r not going to be accurate to minutes, but they're certainly accurate in terms of decades or centuries.
There is no need to try to state a debate with me because I would likely ignore any further comments that try to discredit things I believe
In other words, LA LA LA I CAN"T HEAR YOU. You, sir, are a fool. Try READING your bible, particularly Proverbs. "A fool despises his father's instruction, But he who receives correction is prudent."
"A scoffer does not love one who corrects him,
Nor will he go to the wise."
"The heart of him who has understanding seeks knowledge, But the mouth of fools feeds on foolishness."
Sorry, son, but Solomon was talking directly to you.
Free Martian Whores!
LOL :). I'm picking up on your sarcasm here.
I think this is a great conversation to have, not just with religious people but people into any kind of ism.
Publicly, loudly, clearly disagreeing with them raises charges of intolerance. No, intolerance is bulldozing the churches and killing people who believe x, y or z.
Endorsement and tolerance are two differnt things.
Intolerance is what you get from religious people and people into various isms if you publickly, clearly disagree with beliefs they know they don't have hard evidence for. They are intoleratnt of hearing it or letting other people hear it. They know they need silence or endorsement to preserve the illusion of a reality.
Finally. Churches are using evolution to their advantage. And evolving the method of delivery...
Do they not realize that's all that evolution is? Established rules of order get put into question, then a way around the rules evolves...
People evolve. Science evolves. Religion evolves. Storms evolve. Countries evolve. People evolve, rules evolve, systems evolve..
And so does time, space, and physical bodies. As does genetic experimentation resulting in different forms of life...
And all this talk about 'highly confirmed', 'peer reviewed', etc., is awfully disingenuous considering just how much 'science' is really nothing more than superstition that we're told not to question because they're smarter than us, because they (supposedly) have the evidence of math, yada yada yada. It all reminds me of the old 'infallibility of the Pope' argument. I believe in questioning authority. Especially when the only authority it has was bestowed upon it by a bunch of intellectual elitists.
Anyone listening to Dawkins, et al, should study history as well as the high-school level science they think makes them qualified to air their opinions on the subject. In doing so, they might notice some disturbing parallels between the way the fascists slowly ramped up their hate-machine against their intended victims and scapegoats, and the way these self-appointed spokesholes are ginning up their rhetoric against their favorite scapegoat, the big, bad, evil 'religion', which they somehow find responsible for everything from acid rain to schizophrenia.
And make no mistake about it: It's all about money. What Dawkins, Kaku, Nye, Tyson and others fail to mention directly in their efforts to undermine any and all opposing viewpoints is that it's about their funding. Few people or industries hire such people. A few universities and big government (a la NASA) do. And, when funding gets tight, these guys rally their evangelists to beat the bushes for more dough. And the one thing they can't have is anyone else contradicting them, because that hurts their fund-raising campaign.
There's no getting away from religion's track record; so yes, religion needs to be neutered most thoroughly anywhere it even begins to impinge on governance. Look around you: Can't buy alcohol on Sunday (Why? What the fuck is Sunday to me?), six state constitutions officially include religious tests that would effectively prevent atheists from holding public office, and in some cases being a juror/witness, then there's that whole "swear on a bible" bucket of shit, there's the would-be laughable "creationism" thing (laughable except it snares a whole bunch of the bewildered and leads them down a most unscientific aisle full of crapola), there's toxic avengers like the Westboro pond scum, there's the whole "we can re-educate gays" idiocy...
Then historically speaking, we've got the inquisitions, the crusades, witch burnings, jihads, vilification of sexuality (we're still trying to dig out of that one: religion's biggest accomplishment ever was to convince people that sex was a bad thing except under aegis of the church, which really just means under the dictates of religious structures... you evil scumbags REALLY fucked up sexuality), murder of "heretics", suppression of science, burnings at the stake (eg. Giordano Bruno), blue laws, climic bombings...
I mean, really. Religion fucks up just about everything in touches. We don't need to speculate about this, we know it. So the best answer is, don't let it touch anything. You can think about your imaginary friend all you want. You can talk about him. But you can't make laws from your collection of imaginary crapola or force people to listen (eg, school prayer, etc.) That is best.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
It's not there "for context." Jesus himself explicitly says they remain in force.
Got that? Not one jot or tittle. Hint for interpretation: The earth has not passed.
Further hint: When Jesus says he comes to fulful, he doesn't mean fulfil all, or he wouldn't have drawn the distinction that the OT was in force until the world ended -- the two make zero lexical sense if you try to read them as if his fulfilling of prophecy is also the actual ending of the world.
Consequence: The OT is still 100% in force, and should you ignore it, you're toast. And that, my friend, is actual Christianity. Enjoy. :)
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
The noise level in the video is way too much. There are many ways to reduce it, including software processing, god dammit!
"That's just a statement of fact, not an insult. It's just a statement. But it sounds like an insult. And I think that accounts for part of what you've picked up about my apparent image of being aggressive and offensive. I'm just telling it clearly."
All I heard was
"Your sad devotion to that ancient religion..."
Speaking as an atheist, I prefer the KJV because (a) it is considerably more lyrical (and yes, that's an artifact of Ye Olde Englishe), and (b) reading it, you're reading the actual formative context that landed the US in such religious fuckery rather than some jollied-up modern version, and (c) having dug through this a bit and compared a number of the modern interpretations with textual criticism references close at hand, I find they have taken fairly obvious liberties. Textual criticism, the study of "getting the bible right", basically, also shows the KJV to be an *extremely* accurate translation; they worked really hard on it, they were 700 years closer to the original Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic, and it's withstood the scrutiny of scholars comparing about 5000 known scriptural fragments for this entire time... and it is only recently that people have had the urge to rewrite the thing. So it's the KJV that I use, though I usually look also at several others to see how they've mishmoshed some of the more critical details.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Your attack on atheism is funny. It's certainly easier than defense.
You're all assholes because you don't believe the crap I believe, I find that insulting, and calling you names is the only avenue left to me to defend my fairy tale god.
Do you have any idea just how hypocritical that is?
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
Here's the flaw in your argument: When you attempt to retrieve validity for claims outside of the ability of science to address them, you don't get to pick and choose. Whatever validity you assign to the existence of your unprovable diety is the exact same as the validity assigned to little invisible and undetectable pink ultra-intelligent unicorns that run around upside down along and through the earth's crust, eating magical beanstalk pies and who are *actually* the cause of earthquakes. Science can't disprove them, either, see. Or the magic 1 cm teapot that is zipping around Pluto, actually running the show by fractal progression of its ceramic patterns and application of the changes via Magical Ceramic HooHa. Or anything else unprovable that anyone makes up about anything. Is that really the amazingly shitty company you want to be in? Holy crap, really?
You see, saying "science can't address this" isn't actually something that adds credibility of any kind. What it does is slots the subject matter squarely in the "bullshit" hole.
That whole "non-overlapping magisteria" thing? On the one side, we have magisteria indeed: Science and technology and how we integrate those developing understandings of reality with our lives; on the other, we have a load of crap. And the only thing that's "right" about the non-overlapping magisteria nonsense is the whole "doesn't overlap" thing. Because you don't actually get to say "it's supernatural so you can't think about it." We do think about it. And we've concluded it's unmitigated bullshit.
All this is quite aside from the fact that some atheists are perfectly willing to stand up and mention the fact that claims for god are not only not present within themselves, but they *also* recognize them as absurd. They might also like pizza. Doesn't make them any more, or any less, of an atheist, and if Joe Atheist thinks Chicago Pizza is as good as NY pizza, he's still an atheist, even though he's obviously and completely wrong about the pizza.
None of that defines atheism any differently. It's just a one-point thing; without belief in a god or gods.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Yes it is. It's #000000.
If it's not a sound, how can it be music?
I'm inclined to agree, except in database terms it's cleaner (or at least simpler) to treat it as if it is. Or maybe not, if you're dealing with some Asians (a thing I only learned recently), but then you'd need a join and those are not webscale.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I don't know why anyone could listen to him he sounds like a warbled robot, I can see why all those anti-theist in their parents basements have a jolly for him. Maybe they should stop hating the world and start to enjoy their lives, if they did so they wouldn't get so caught up in hating other peoples beliefs.
I'm a liberal christian and I have hindu, muslim and even atheist friends, non of them really get to involved with the other peoples belief system unless we are discussing the subject. I've even read many atheist books and understand their arguments, but I don't believe any of these guys could understand my argument for God which for me personally is so much greater.
For me I'll continue to like a simple life, pray, enjoy church service and try and follow in the footsteps of my saviour Jesus Christ.
Where do these guys get off telling me what I can or cannot believe?
I wish anything that has been invented or advanced due to humanity's understanding of evolution was branded appropriately. Put a sticker that says something like "Evolution Inside" on various medicines, food, etc, and the problem will solve itself.
I'd use a different word because calling someone ignorant is taken as an insult by the average person.
Prof Dawkins is not politically correct, and he knows it. He recognizes that there is strategic or tactical value in compromise between popular opinion and established facts, but compromise is not on his agenda. His message is essentially that evidence and faith do not work together to provide clear understanding of the world, and he's clearly on the side of evidence.
Dawkins claims ignorance of the finer points of philosophy, and in doing so he properly defers to the knowledge of people of the caliber of Dennett and Grayling. Similarly, as regards theoretical physics, Krauss and Weinberg. The list could go on, but that casts no aspersion upon his character whatsoever. He knows his ignorance, but also knows where to find understanding.
Dawkins is a highly educated zoologist and a professor of science, and from those perspectives he is compelled, not only by his temperament but by the rigor of the scientific method, to challenge the claims of those who are ignorant of zoology.
That's the line he draws in the sand.
His adversaries are overwhelmingly from the various camps and satellites of Abrahamic religion. Storytellers and divisive guilt-mongers, IMO. They do not appear to understand the principles of science.
A dead body is found, and a murder case must be solved. Which group has the best record in these cases, detectives and forensic technicians, or storytellers and psychics?
I thought I said this already, but I don't see it. Anyway, I'd love to have you explain to my why that is hypocritical. And no, I don't see it. I have had these discussions a few times tho, FYI, so answer carefully.
I think he's referring to the "My Belief" is as good as "Your Belief" conversation. Now you would have to explain to him the reason he's buggered is that he has "A Belief System based on something somebody invented from some source other that verifiable physical reality", and you have a rational framework of ideas based on validation tested against the physical universe and that if at any point in time the universe disagrees with any of the ideas in your rational framework, you excise the offending idea as proven false. Beliefs exist in the absence of facts. There are many unanswerable questions about being human and alive in this place. For these eternal questions, beliefs are a potentially valid way to look at these aspects of life and the universe. There are a growing number of places for which we have good theories and experimental data, and in these places you can dispense with belief, because there are facts, and facts trump opinions every time.
Just because I don't believe in gravity don't mean I can pull a Bugs Bunny and float on my belief... physical reality trumps every single time.
LOL! :)
I think you have it covered, thanks.
Point of factual order, sirrah!.
Nature is perfectly capable of bringing this sort of storm down on you without Science's assistance. It is possible that Science, through it's handmaid "technology" and with the able assistance of "human greed", has had a non-trivial influence in increasing the probability of events like this, but that's a probability about which there is genuine uncertainty (it may be a 10% contribution ; it may be a 50% contribution ; but since there have been pretty serious storms along this coast recorded for centuries, it's unlikely to be a 90% contribution).
But otherwise ... a fairly normal rant. Don't give up the day job, and hurry up with my fries!
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
to you, for sticking up for the children, poor, uneducated, sick and desperate.
I'm guessing more than one of your heated debates with theists has ended up here. Wow. You're a twat.
(Really though, the children, poor, uneducated, sick and desperate are who have been helped one million-fold by theists over atheists.)
"In the middle of the summer Moses the raven suddenly reappeared on the farm, after an absence of several years. He was quite unchanged, still did no work, and talked in the same strain as ever about Sugarcandy Mountain. He would perch on a stump, flap his black wings, and talk by the hour to anyone who would listen."
.. there it lies, Sugarcandy Mountain, that happy country where we poor animals shall rest for ever from our labours!'."
"'Up there, comrades,' he would say solemnly, pointing to the sky with his large beak -- 'up there, just on the other side of that dark cloud that you can see
"He even claimed to have been there on one of his higher flights, and to have seen the everlasting fields of clover and the linseed cake and lump sugar growing on the hedges. Many of the animals believed him. Their lives now, they reasoned, were hungry and laborious; was it not right and just that a better world should exist somewhere else?."
"A thing that was difficult to determine was the attitude of the pigs towards Moses. They all declared contemptuously that his stories about Sugarcandy Mountain were lies, and yet they allowed him to remain on the farm, not working, with an allowance of a gill of beer a day. link
AccountKiller
We're trying to encourage, with some success, other organizations to make use of our facility, so that they will use our website, or have their own websites which are based upon ours, and have the same look and feel and use the same infrastructure."
Another promoter in an ocean of "please give time to my precious website".
Religious people are intentionally ignorant. Being ignorant is, as Dawkins says, not the same as being stupid. However, keeping oneself intentionally ignorant-- ignoring all facts and clinging to an anachronistic belief system that explains the world through the eyes of the primitive people who invented it. Primitives, with their lack of understanding of the universe. This ignoring of facts, and intentionally remaining ignorant is stupidity. Religious people ARE stupid.
They are also violent (disproportionately represented in convictions for violent crime), cruel/hateful (godhatesfags.com), more likely to beat their children (a church even protested in the street for the right to beat their children-- evil fucking christians), and generally horrible people when compared to atheists, so atheists have every right to feel superior. They are superior-- in every way that matters.
This shows that you've gotten your information about Dawkins from sources other than Dawkins. Try reading one of his books rather than reading about his books. If you can't bring yourself to do that, try reading David Sloan Wilson or Jerry Coyne and find out why 'microevolution' is itself a problematic distinction.
Um, you need to read another of his books. He never argued that. What he argues is that evolution directly counters a specific argument for God, the 'argument from design in biology', and indirectly undermines other design arguments because it forms an 'existence proof' that other sources for design exist than directed intelligence.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." --George Bernard Shaw
Casteism
You can pray that a 100 ohm, 10% tolerance resistor is right at 100 ohms, and yeah, probably that's about what it'll be. Me, I'll measure the thing and I'll *know* what it is.
Obviously you've never done this. The good ones are sorted out and sold as higher tolerances. Thus, if you did find one that was actually 100 ohms, suspecting holy intervention may be appropriate.
One's religion is a core aspect of one's identity, similar in magnitude to their physicality. Most religions call for sacrifice and worship, binding one's basic desires in an unnatural way to change the form of their psyche.
So saying "your religion is wrong" is not quite saying "your face is ugly" - it would be closer to say "what you have done to your face is ugly." It's still insulting.
I'm a converted atheist, and agree 'clarity' is a good medicine... but please be aware when you proselytize that your message is precisely that: "What you have done to your face is ugly." Have kindness in your voice and in your body language, if not your mind.
I don't want to go to Sunday School anymore, so I must justify to myself how religion is teh evulz!
You say such things about the Catholic church and you're still alive!? According to the grim picture you painted in your post, you should have agents of the cloth breaking through your windows to slice your throat before you hit the submit button!
Here's a suggestion: That train of thought that brought you to Batshit Crazyville? It's time to get off of it and take a cold shower in reality.
I'm a Fundamentalist Supra-athiest and fuck-heads like Dawkins are ignorant of the true meaning of what they don't believe in.
Answer me this all you ignorant Atheists... how do you know that is God that does not exist? What if there is something else that does not exist? Something that you have not even considered not believing in?
Never mind --dont bore me with your ignorance. Most people don't have the intelligence to understand like I do. Many years of watching Nova and Mythbusters and other distilled sources of human knowledge give me a unique perspective.
This sig is not paradoxical or ironic.
If the UK is unable to deal with the problem in it's current severity, it's just going to continue to get worse and worse until the native population decides to take things into their own hands. Then you have a genocide (or the Muslims win). If you want to help the Muslims, deal with the problem now. My suggestion is to deport anybody who participates in such demonstrations or holds such ideologies. If they have citizenship -- pass a law to strip them of it. Facism? Perhaps. But better than the alternative.
As far as many Salafist / Wahhabi / fundamentalist Muslim beliefs go, they do not consider the Jesus of the Bible to be a prophet. They believe that the Jews corrupted Christian scripture and only their Jesus character is the true one. Similarly, only those who believe in their Jesus (who was not a god according to them) are considered to actually be "Christian" for the purposes of special benefits outlined in the Qur'an. Who we would consider to be Christians, they would consider to be polytheists (believing in the Trinity). You can read Sura 9 for yourself if you want to know what happens to polytheists.
They absolutely know about their religion. Jesus of the bible is not considered to be the same as Jesus in the Qur'an. Fundamentalist Muslims consider the Bible to be corrupted scripture (by Jews, of course), and Christians who worship the trinity to be polytheists, not protected "people of the book". It's western useful idiots who know one or two peaceful (abrogated) verses of the Qur'an and parade them around as if they know what they're talking about that's the problem.
Yeah, we get it, this clown is fundamentally as irritating as the street preachers he opposes, nosey into others business as a t.v. preacher and self appointed protector of right like a politician.
Maybe next week we can get a story about the physicist who wants us all to join the feminist movement, the microbiologist who wants to save the whales or the lab rat who types nasty words into a speak and spell.
All I know for sure is that if Dawkins hasn't sent in his $30 to the Subgenius foundation he will still be a "pink" on X-Day!
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
This is what I love about refugees they flee a shit hole country to quite frankly awesome countries and bring their beliefs with them. Not realizing (for the first few generations atleast) that it's the beliefs that made the country they fled the shit hole.
.
This completely explains some relatives of mine that felt the need to state that "they were going for a walk" on the night before Christmas, disappeared for 3 hours (a mom+dad+three kids), and reappeared later that evening with no talking about what they'd done. My parents already knew what religion they practices, already knew that they and the kids went to church, already had no problem with them doing that, so it was completely incomprehensible to me and to my parents which this pack of relatives would behave in this bizarre and sneaky way. It was only the next day when going to the park in their minivan that it became apparent that the brochures for evening services in their vehicle showed that they'd felt the need for sneaking off.
But your concept of "teaching him to [be] sneak[y] when it comes to relgion" has enlightened me. That must be the explanation. Wouldn't good people just be honest and up-front about their beliefs? It just seems to be people who want to indoctrinate others into becoming unquestioning followers of something who go around being sneaky about their beliefs. Thank you, thank you, thank you! (truly, not sarcastically). I now feel like I understand (a subset) of other human beings better (or at least a little bit more about their motivation).
You don't get it. Religion does not have fixed rules. There is stuff written down. You are free to interpret it any way you like. You are right becuase God guided you. These people can claim to be as true believers of islam as anyone else.
I have an enourmous respect for professor Dawkins, but he is human, like everybody else; and he sometimes seems to closed-minded himself. He sees Islam as 'one of the great evils in the world' - yet, the Islamic world was at one time the most open-minded; this was, in fact, at a time when the Christian culture was at its darkest.
I don't think any religion is inherently good or bad - it is as good or bad as its followers.
You can presume he is talking about the curent Islamic parts of the world. You might get a very different response from him about which religions are particularly bad (i.e. great evils in the world) in a separate hitsorical period. In a comparative fashion, current Islam versus current Christianity, it seems pretty apparent that the current Islam, as practiced, has a much larger level of violence and intolerance than the current Christianity. And considering the current Christianity, that is saying a lot.
"constitutional separation of church and state" Just Google "Letter to Danbury Baptists" that Thomas Jefferson wrote. This founding father quoted and made specific mention of the Establishment clause in his letter and added that it is intended as "a wall of separation" between church and state. Also, if you take into account the context of Jefferson's letter, the meaning is plain.
CREATE TABLE `people` ( `name` VARCHAR(255), `religion` ENUM('Christian', 'Muslim', 'Hindu', 'Other', '') DEFAULT '' );
"So... what should we call them when they are unthinking, ignorant, brainwashed, and delusional?"
Christian, Muslim, Jewish, etc...
Because for a start, I don't think it was an attack on Atheism. I think it was an attack on Dawkins, who is an arrogant, obnoxious prick, regardless of whether you agree with him or not.
And then, instead of debating the issue, you just attack the poster, with a "words-in-your-mouth" strawman that adds nothing to the discussion, other than an attack of the exact type you are decrying.
*That's* why it's hypocritical.
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
... virtually unassailable, because everyone is too scared of being stigmatized as an Islamophobe for not tolerating vile Islamic extremism.
I'm not scared of being labelled an Islamaphobe. I'm scared of myself and my loved ones being tortured and killed by the extremists.
If you read the bible or the koran ...
I have actually read the Bible several times, which is why I say this. The Bible and any other holy book are only books - they are made by humans, and already for that reason flawed. However, a person's religion is not what is written in any book, but what that person implements in their life. As far as I'm concerned, you can be a devoted Satanist, and a very good person at the same time; it's what you make of it that counts.
Personally, I don't give a toss - to me God is, for all practical purposes, irrelevant. I will take him seriously the day he shows up with reliable, testable evidence.
>This is wrong by any modern definition. Atheism and Agnosticism are not generally considered mutually exclusive, and most atheists would actually call themselves agnostics as well (including myself).
Yes. I am agnostic atheist. I know that i can be wrong. It could be that gods exist. But also i think that gods are as likely as the easter bunny. No evidence speaks for them.
>Anti-theism is the affirmative position that there are no gods. This is only a subset of atheists. Most atheists would not make this claim, because it shifts the burden of proof from the theists back to them,
Here is a difinition problem. Anti-theism is also used for people that are active opposed to religions.
I fore one call me an agnostic atheistic anti-theist. I think that the big religions are the biggest danger for the survival of the human species. I am against all religions. Not that i want to outlaw religions, but i think that they have no special right for respect. I have the right and use it to say that the jew/christian/moslem god is a evil ass that deserve no followers. I am an anti-theist.
Ok, I agree, Richard Dawkins evolved from Apes (he and he alone).....the rest of us, not so much.
"You don't accept my world view. Hence, you're ignorant!"
I don't find that insulting at all
So how would you propose pointing out that the attack on Dawkins or Atheism was ad hominem? One can use presumptuous latin terms ;) or one can be direct and informal but much more clear. The critique of someone's method is not an ad hominem attack and I think you are making this mistake.
Saying "you're stupid and you're wrong" is an attack on the person. ;)
Saying "your analysis method does not actually broach the subject" is not an attack on the person but an attack on the analysis method... although it may still imply the person is stupid.
That is why it was not hypocritical.
I find this argument as delusional and dangerous, but not insulting. I think Mr Dawkins obfuscates the issues by creating a false belief that those with different views are insulted by his beliefs. I think that is far from the truth.
From my perspective, the main issue lies with the dilution of the education system and not anyone's individual feelings. Teaching creationism is a subject separate from science. Science has a clear method of repetitive observation, hypothesis, evidence, and theory. It is meant to be objective and discourages personal bias. That doesn't mean it discourages opposing views, but those views must also following the scientific method.
Creationism is part of a belief system. It should be taught in the context of that belief system. This is very similar to other "cultural" education (e.g. my wife is from Russia and my daughter attends Russian school.) If fundamentalist Christians are threatened by Science, then it is their problem, not those of the general population.
In the context of an increasingly technical world where jobs are requiring a higher level of skill, replacing technical skills with a cultural belief system is somewhat irresponsible. To put things in Dr Dawkin's words, his ignorance of Baseball will not ill prepare his for the world. It is a cultural knowledge. His ignorance of scientific method will likely stunt his abilities to compete in an increasingly science oriented world.
He is making some good points and perhaps he is learning how to temper his Skepticism with the realities of human models of the universe. The key question in any philosophical debate should be whether a particular philosophy, belief, culture, more or educational system is useful to the future of both the environment (which we depend on) and our future selves and offspring. Humans are notoriously bad at predicting what their future selves will want, and they overlay their future selves with their present selves' emotional desires. We then rewrite the logbook in our heads to say "I meant to do that."
People do stuff.
They have reasons for doing stuff.
In that order.
Systems of cultures are used to teach groups to be communities. Fighting this basic human behavior is unprofitable if we don't first understand its role in community and tribe structure.
You would thing scientists would spend more time on science and less time fighting fundementalism?
Fighting fundementalism doen't make you a scientist, it makes you a crusader...
Dawkins is no different than the religious nuts. He just spouts a "religion" of a different stripe.
Dawkins is simply an idol worshipper. In a universe where scientist are the one who should really know how improbable we are, and how crazy is the whole idea of human life is.... that they make us into an idol, and worship our scientific achievements is BEYOND laughable. I mean, seriously, our current scientific knowledge of what we estimate knowable is what? under 10e-10 part of it????? I mean we are really kidding ourselves to be so full of science and try to make any deterministic statement. And again, look the choice of enemy. And look the way of the weapon. It's the religious: because our righteousness is justified by his wrongness. And the weapon is science, because he has the opposite, belief. WOW!!!!! That's so profoundly stupid it screams, but then again, as a life strategy it works. You know, I am Professor Dawkins, and I really matter, because i am so ridiculously clever, and I will save society from a system that kept it alive for thousands of years. Oh yeah, and I wear my hair in a stylistic professor way, you know. The dude needs to wake up, look in the mirror, and then get off the high horse and really analyze what we KNOW (not what we assume) about evolution. But really. Who are you kidding, Mr. Dawkins?
Some people revel in their ignorance, they proclaim loudly that the ONLY book they've ever read is the Bible and so as to prove it, quote from it endlessly!
If presented with a completely thought out, rational argument, backed up with well documented facts all "they" do is dig in "their" heels and angrily storm out.
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
Can't find that in my copies of the Constitution. Just that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. Black was very much anti-Catholic and disrespectfully invoked Jefferson for his ruling.
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2006/06/the-mythical-wall-of-separation-how-a-misused-metaphor-changed-church-state-law-policy-and-discourse
Which is why America has been allowed to be quite badly infected with religion. America is a Christian Nation in all but name.
Its in their courtrooms, right on the wall behind the judge, an unmissable proclamation of belief in that particular God.
Its even in their money. Just look at most American coins and notes, you will see the same thing.
Its in their politics, no American President will get elected if he is not Christian. Its a "serious" question asked and hotly debated in the media.
Its in their public schools, even in the Science classroom, ignorantly shoved down your throat as "Intelligent Design" aka !Science
Bah!
Freedom(tm) my ass.
Its too disturbing to be funny, and too pathetic to be sad.
In my many years I have found most people become combative at least in their language or stance when you disagree with them and particularly about their religion. . I've only met one man that I could discuss opposing views with and he happened to be a Mormon. We spent many a lunch hour taking opposing views, knowing that neither of us was going to change the others beliefs, yet they were comfortable and even enjoyable conversations. Others? I just wanted to know about their beliefs compared to mine and they were about ready to fight after the first question.
"...shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" is basically the separation doctrine in its most succinct form: don't put one religion above the others, and don't stop people's right to practice their religion. What I think is often misunderstood about the idea is that it was about keeping the influence of politics out of the church and the influence of the church out of politics, insofar as you shouldn't have the same people running both, but should have two separate spheres of influence, both able to have a healthy input into society. The same would go for (for example) the free press (outside of government influence), or separating the judiciary and the legislature (e.g. so you can still arrest the president for breaking the law).
Saying that it means that the church should not be able to comment on politics is somewhat insane, in the same way that one could say a newspaper shouldn't run a story about a financial scandal involving the local governor. I would be interested to see a society where each sphere of influence (e.g. government, judiciary, media, business, church, education) was in a healthy balance to all the others, rather than the mess we have now...
Cases like taking prayer out of the schools are kind of tricky, because in fact: (a) the government and schools and judiciary shouldn't have any right to stop it there, (b) the same shouldn't be establishing it, either. Rightfully, it should be that anyone can observe - or choose not to observe - their religion without interference.
"...shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" is basically the separation doctrine in its most succinct form: don't put one religion above the others (or force it on people), and don't stop people's right to practice their religion. What I think is often misunderstood about the idea is that it was about keeping the influence of politics out of the church and the influence of the church out of politics, insofar as you shouldn't have the same people running both, but should have two separate spheres of influence, both able to have a healthy input into society. The same would go for (for example) the free press (outside of government influence), or separating the judiciary and the legislature (e.g. so you can still arrest the president for breaking the law).
Saying that it means that the church should not be able to comment on politics is somewhat insane, in the same way that one could say a newspaper shouldn't run a story about a financial scandal involving the local governor. I would be interested to see a society where each sphere of influence (e.g. government, judiciary, media, business, church, education) was in a healthy balance to all the others, rather than the mess we have now...
Cases like taking prayer out of the schools are kind of tricky, because in fact: (a) the government and schools and judiciary shouldn't have any right to stop it there, (b) the same shouldn't be establishing it, either. Rightfully, it should be that anyone can observe - or choose not to observe - their religion without interference.
If we evolved from apes, why are they still here?
A troll said mean things about me, of course I'm going to feel terrible! Or, y'know, not.
Actually, they were very ignorant. But you, too seem to have only read about Dawkins rather than, y'know, reading his actual words. The actual statement Dawkins made was: "It is absolutely safe to say that, if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid, or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that)."
The Nazi's rejected evolution because they thought the human 'races' had been created separately by God. They were ignorant... and wicked. And frequently insane, too.
There, there. Don't cry. :-)
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
The only time anyone is ever insulted is when someone is disagreeing with them.
Christians get insulted by rational thinking people of science that prefer facts, but the christians are never insulted when they disagree with others. People never get insulted when they disagree with something, its only when someone disagrees with them that they become insulted.
To me religion is outdated. Its purely based on the ideas of a people from a time when they were ignorant, opressed and very superstitious. I mean come on, religion predates the time period when everyone in the world knew for a fact that illness was due to tiny frogs living in our stomachs, it predates the time when upstanding christians would burn and torture their friends and family for being witches, when we would drill holes in the heads of crazy people to cure them. If everyone believed that just hundreds of years ago why would anyone believe religion that predated that by thousands of years?
Look at christianity. Its all stolen from pagans. Easter was stolen from the spring festival, april fools is a day invented purely to mock an entire culture because they didnt change their calendars, christmas traditions are all pagan tradtiions and so on. Hell they even stole the bible from the jews. Its all fairy tales and used to control a uncontrollable society back in the day and it still is today. The problem is most people are weak and stupid, they cant face the fact were just evolved animals and that we have no purpose because they are vain and weak minded so they use reilgion as a way of validating their exsistence and to feel like they are special.
Religion has caused more pain, more suffering, more misery, more anger, more death than anything ever in the exsistence of man. Even today millions die every year in the name of religion. It also keeps us from evolving. Hell look at all the great things we can do with stem cell research, if the christians hadnt been cock blocking stem cell for its first 20 years imagine how much further along we could be. And gay marriage is still an issue in this day and age because of the christians? Come on. The christians inability to accept, not be judgemental and not demand that everyone do what they think they should is the exact opposite of what a good christian is supposed to be. If you dont agree with them then they judge you and hate you and condemn you. There is no room for that in this day and age. We should be more evolved than that, but we arent.
Religion has got to go. The world will be better off for it. Peoples mind wont be so narrow and closed minded, they will be free to think on their own and unshackle the burden of living their lives around a stupid book that is 100% fiction. We laugh at scientoloigists for their stupid beliefs but we will turn around and believe a man built a boat big enough for 2 of every animal in the world and survived on it for 40 days, a man spent 40 years in the desert and split a entire sea in half. Thats just reallly stupid, the only thing dumber than a christian is a creationist christian.
A critique of someone's methods does not involve comments like:
You're all assholes because you don't believe the crap I believe, I find that insulting, and calling you names is the only avenue left to me to defend my fairy tale god.
That's putting idiotic words in the mouth of your opponent, which is exactly what your opponent was doing to atheists.
That's why it's hypocritical.
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
Thanks, but that is rather high praise for such little insight. This is pretty basic projection: she strongly believes in converting people, so she assumes the same thing of you, even if you say otherwise.
One possibility is that if you're going undermine his church instruction afterward, her best bet is to keep you from knowing about it, which includes teaching her grandson to keep his religion from his parents.
On the other hand, it could be that she's afraid that you'll eventually think 'enough is enough, no more of this nonsense', and the two of you (or you and your son) will have a conflict, and she wants to avoid that.
Unfortunately, she sees this as a war with no neutral position. As long as it seems harmless your best bet might be to just laugh it off.
The thruth can never be insulting...
There is a difference between religion and the rational framework. Religion serves a higher cause while the rational framework serves the factual cause.
Dawkins, who is an arrogant, obnoxious prick, regardless of whether you agree with him or not.
That's quite funny, because whenever I see him in a debate, it's usually his opponents who are the arrogant, obnoxious pricks while Dawkins patiently and repeatedly tries to explain to them what seems like rather basic logic to me.
Ezekiel 23:20