Richard Dawkins - Anti -Christ or Great Thinker?

I think it's time those who are intelligently without conviction became, er, stupidly brash and convinced of their own, er, intelligence.

(Actually I quite like the geneticist's explanation of religion, basically that there might be an evolutionary advantage in short circuiting your intelligence in this specific area. I've certainly met plenty of very conventional Christians who, with the whole "meaning of life" problem conveniently taken care of in a couple of hours on Sunday morning, are able to be much more single minded about getting on with career, family etc. But if these people are brain surgeons or nuclear physicists you're not going to impress a lot of people describing them as the unbrights).

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I hate the "brights" thing because it smacks of the same bullshit that I would happily criticism in dumb religious people. Speaking as an atheist myself, I'd rather be around an humble believer than a smug atheist any day.

Moreover, I've never seen the benefit of trying to proselytize atheism or "spread the meme." Seems to me that dumbass atheists are just as capable of causing havoc as are dumbass believers. While I'd like American culture to be more hospitable to atheism, I don't think that acting superior is a way to achieve that result.

That's not an insult to an animist. The penis is venerated in our religion.

Um, no I'm not. As noted above, I am an atheist--I just hate smug people in general. I suppose you're an exception, Nick!

a) be smug
b) put the humble on a pedestal, which risks being seen as
c) smug and
d) patronising

Whereas being unabashedly smug is merely:

a) smug.

Nick, are you familiar with Madeline Murray O'Hare?

Nick, what you've outlined above makes no sense, and certainly doesn't apply to anything I've posted. I DO mind the smugness of those devout Christians who RUB IT IN MY FACE. I WOULDN'T mind it if Dawkins was being smug ABOUT BEING A WORLD-CLASS BIOLOGIST, since he seems to me to be perfectly entitled to be smug about that! What I mind is that Dawkins ADVOCATES smugness about SOMETHING UNRELATED TO HIS WORLD-CLASS BIOLOGISTNESS for what seems to me to be NO GOOD REASON!

Hur hur considering some of Dawkins' comments I'm not worried there

N.B. I still wouldn't want to hang out with him, tho!

I don't think it's unrelated at all. Dawkins is a follower of Darwin, who lost his religious faith when his daughters died. Darwinism is the main intellectual enemy of Christianity, and sees itself as the only rational, post-Enlightenment way to treat the fallacy of Creationism. It is necessarily at odds with the religious worldview. 'Brights' is a word which makes direct reference to 'the Enlightenment'.

WRONG

WRONG

Nick, you're accepting the devout Christian's version of Darwinism! I don't believe any smart Darwinist would define the doctrine in such silly terms!

Relativism is what prevails in those American schools which teach Evolution only as 'one of several different ways of explaining how we got here'. And I think science has a right to feel threatened by this outlook, and to say, look, some explanations are better than others, and even 'brighter'.

Hmm, I think that depends on a number of other factors. The smugness of your boss, the smugness of the vulgar rich etc etc can all get very grating, notwithstanding a secret conviction of superiority.

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On that you have a small point. However, it begs the question of whether, in this context, it is necessary/sufficient/justifiable/helpful to merely be "provacative." And that just gets us back to the question of whether smugness is "good" or "bad" in this context, doesn't it?

That's a good point. But humanism has its roots in the renaissance. It is a movement which replaces worship of gods with worship of Man. It has its differences with science. For instance, the Krokers say we are in a period they call the 'post human'. It may be that we are already being superceded by genetech and computers. It may be perfectly consistent with the science of evolution that humans should now be displaced from the centre of the picture, having forged more effective lifeforms.

(Note to self: next time, remember to remember that Momus doesn't care about arguments, he just like to play. duh.)

Howbout "affirmists"? Or "persistants"

I prefer 'Momus doesn't care about arguments, but he likes to think.'

Why would Dawkins wish atheism to echo the somewhat propagandist conduct of a religion, particularly Christianity (though Christianity, or at least its true essence or meme – altruism – has all but been lost)? What’s wrong with having the courage of your convictions? Convictions imply ideas packed with emotion; hazardous and worthless! Septembereleventh came for courageous convictions. You catch more flies with jam than vinegar.

Watch out, Charles, there's a lot of baby in that bathwater!

Nick in pointing out the speck in my eye while ignoring the plank in his own shockah

You're paraphrasing Matthew 7 there in support of your claim to have 'logical reasoning' on your side. Somewhat... illogical, captain? I also can't really accept that because my argument went to a place you didn't expect -- the idea that intelligent machines may one day rationally fail to believe in their creators too -- it isn't rational any more. (If you had blamed me for talking like a bad sci-fi film, though, you might have had a point.)