Richard Dawkins - Anti -Christ or Great Thinker?

shakey: giving credit to an organization for doing worldy, non-religious things doesn't mean you can't also think their belief system is a sham

that's totally true - but Dawkins doesn't stop at calling the belief system a sham, he actively accuses it of being the source of human misery. The very first page of the intro to his book introduces the oft- and very easily discredited canard that religion has been responsible for the vast majority of violence and oppression.

x-post

So Augustine found physical evidence of the existence of God?

It's not lazy to not read up on a bunch of theologians if you're coming to the table with the assumption that NOTHING they can say will persuade you (<--- that's the lazy part): it's an efficient use of your time.

xp ah, I haven't read the God Delusion. I stick mostly to his science-y stuff.

I like the idea that we'd somehow have missed the idea of printing without religion.

But Dawkins would merely reply that it was organized Christianity that played a role in losing that information to start with

This is not historically accurate. It wasn't Christians that regularly sacked Rome and essentially destroyed the Empire.

It takes some difficulty to say (with a straight face) that without the Catholic Church we'd never have, say, learned of evolution, doesn't it?

Depends how far you want to draw the line - if you want to draw the line between Aristotle and Darwin, the Church is right in the middle.

He's saying that when you approach the subject as true believers, when 'teaching' has elements of 'witnessing,' you aren't participating in any kind of dialogue that would belong in another academic discipline.

I don't disagree with this at all, dogmatists are no use in any kind of rational debate. But again, Darwin doesn't stop with a specific brand of belief - he writes off ALL belief.

x-post

I like the idea that we'd somehow have missed the idea of printing without religion.

religious impulse is essentially at the root of the written (and, much later, the printed word). before it, based on all the available archaeological evidence, people didn't have anything they felt compelled to write about.

As with the other Dawkins thread, I'm still utterly unclear why anyone needs to be an expert on individual theologians to write off the belief in God. Theologians don't deal with proofs that would satisfy anyone looking for scientific evidence - which is, rather clearly, Dawkin's point of attack.

you dont have to be an expert on individual theologians to write off a belief in god, but you DO have to be an expert to write off "theology" as a discipline

and honestly why is he trying to separate out "organized religion" from any number of belief systems that have contributed to shitty things in history?

So Augustine found physical evidence of the existence of God?

hey read him and find out. it'll be like a whodunit mystery!

eligious impulse is essentially at the root of the written (and, much later, the printed word). before it, based on all the available archaeological evidence, people didn't have anything they felt compelled to write about.

-- Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, October 2, 2007 9:24 PM (40 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

^^^ stupid. like, seriously dude?

xp to max

because he has an axe to grind, duh.

i just hate the idea that we can separate out "organized religion" from a whole multitude of institutions and belief systems that make peoples' lives suck

and honestly why is he trying to separate out "organized religion" from any number of belief systems that have contributed to shitty things in history?

I think the answer is clearly that he has an agenda - an agenda borne of years of fending off really ludicrous attacks from ignorant people professing to be religious (creationists, etc.)

river wolf show me evidence of writing that predates religion

also, as an evolutionary biologist, i imagine he's constantly pitted against the very religious and the very stupid. mainstream christianity would maintain that everything that he's doing is a sham, so it's not entirely shocking that that's where he's going to focus his ire.

xp

i mean for what its worth without christianity the enlightenment that dawkins is so fond of would likely not exist, both in the sense that it was a reaction to christianity and in the sense that it appropriated a lot of christian concepts and ideas

xp but ugh thats like me writing off the entirety of ev. bio because i think that dawkins is a fucking prick

Shakey, we didn't lose knowledge entirely because of the fall of the Roman Empire. The Christians set out from the start to eliminate (or co-opt) competing mythologies and belief systems - which included those nasty Greek and Roman pagans.

"Depends how far you want to draw the line - if you want to draw the line between Aristotle and Darwin, the Church is right in the middle." - and where do all the other Christian sects (the vast majority of which cannot exist without the Medieval church) fit into this line?

"But again, Darwin doesn't stop with a specific brand of belief - he writes off ALL belief." - in this specific instance, he writes off supernatural belief as an academic discpline deserving of a (in Dawkin's eyes secular) university's time.

oldest alphabet in the world = Egypt.

gee I wonder what they were writing about.

x-post

i think we all learned pretty early on that the crusades/fred phelps/the inquisition do not represent all of christianity--that there are in fact a multitude of ways to BE a christian or BE religious, not all of which require you to hate evolution or women or gays

correlation does not equal causation, shakey. that writing was invented at the same time as religion (or even as a direct result of religion) doesn't mean that "writing" as an activity owes it's "existence" or whatever the fuck to religion.

and honestly why is he trying to separate out "organized religion" from any number of belief systems that have contributed to shitty things in history?

Why didn't lawyers suing Big Tobacco also fuck with McDonald's? It wasn't on their plate.
Why do liberals primarily point their ire at Dubya rather than Congressional Democrats? Because he's the target in front of them.

(btw I am not a fan of the Catholic Church AT ALL and Milo is completely correct - I just think its important in the context of this argument to be cognizant of its central role in Western thought)

x-post

or, rather, that no one would have ever written about anything ever if we didn't also believe in God.

that alphabets were invented part and parcel with organized religion has waaaaaay more to do with the "organized" part than it does with the "religion" part.

re: religion and writing--lets not forget that "religion" means something very different to ancient egyptians than it does to us

dawkins is a fucking prick

THAT's my main problem with the guy, also with Hitchens when he gets on the subject. I don't have as much contention with the guy's particular opinions so much as the way he expresses them. I did get a kick out the jokes South Park made about him.

i.e. religion was NOT separate from art/philosophy/literature or whatever

xpost to myself

Because (organized) religion, supernatural belief, etc. are his targets.

yeah but i think what im trying to say isnt that he should attack all bad things but that you cant really separate out religion from capitalism or philosophy or science, so games like "WOW WHAT WOULD IT BE LIKE WITHOUT CHRISTIANITY PROBABLY A LOT BETTER HUH" are just totally useless

Yeah, the church was just the dominant institution of the times. Fuck all to do with the fact it was a religious organization. On the flip side, the same goes for wars. I disagree with Hawkins on that.

re: religion and writing--lets not forget that "religion" means something very different to ancient egyptians than it does to us

ironically, Dawkins would probably not entertain the value of such a distinction, since its all just bullshit to him.

for instance, that book where he tries to argue that we should find the impersonal, mechanistic operations of the universe sublime and beautiful. it's soul crushing, why cant he admit that?
-- ryan (ryan), Monday, 17 November 2003 01:23 (3 years ago) Bookmark Link

it's fine with me that life is essentially meaningless, it would do my head in if there was some sort of grand scheme or "purpose". as it stands, life is just a bit of a lol, innit.

whether it's separate or not is missing the point, you guys!

shakey is trying to tell me that w/o religion we never would have gotten around to writing shit down?? that's preposterous! writing as a social innovation has more to do with how people organized themselves. religion had a great deal to do with that, but privileging it as the sole source of cultural innovation is retarded.

xp

xpost-Amen

Yeah, the church was just the dominant institution of the times. Fuck all to do with the fact it was a religious organization.

yes the fact that it was dominant has nothing to do with the fact that it was religious and that its power was based upon the strength of its spiritual arguments. Constantine just converted for the hell of it etc.

wtf

x-post

it's fine with me that life is essentially meaningless, it would do my head in if there was some sort of grand scheme or "purpose". as it stands, life is just a bit of a lol, innit.

-- max r, Tuesday, October 2, 2007 2:36 PM (37 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

fwiw this is a "religious" position (more or less) held by a fair number of ppl, incl. spinoza

shakey is trying to tell me that w/o religion we never would have gotten around to writing shit down?

I didn't say anything of the kind - I simply pointed out the facts and drew a connection. Writing developed hand in hand with religion. To say it would've developed WITHOUT religion is purely hypothetical and also unprovable.

I can't believe the first 10-odd posts on this thread.

R U EVEN SRIUS

multi-xpost - I'm not entirely sure that Dawkins does look at religion in a vacuum. But if you trace back western culture far enough and find that the root for much economic/political belief is grounded in particular religious codes/beliefs - wouldn't it make sense to make those your target?

Once you break down the reliance on the 'man behind the curtain' you can then start to work on the damage wrought.

well youre all sort of right but guys dont you see that the point is that "religion" and "organized" religion arent static categories?? they mean v. different things to different people at different times and painting them all as loonies is fucking preposterous!!

Well if it was mainly the fact that they were religious which made them the dominant institutions, why aren't they the dominant institutions still?

yeah but i think what im trying to say isnt that he should attack all bad things but that you cant really separate out religion from capitalism or philosophy or science, so games like "WOW WHAT WOULD IT BE LIKE WITHOUT CHRISTIANITY PROBABLY A LOT BETTER HUH" are just totally useless

i can't speak to Dawkins' criticisms of religions past; i haven't read the book. w/r/t present-day organized religion: would you say that Dawkins might be willing to expand his argument to include dogmatic schools of thought, in general? i seem to vaguely recall that he wasn't thrilled with nationalism, either.

xposts like what

saying "all theology is useless" is just about the DUMBEST FUCKING THING IVE EVER HEARD

Taking Dawkins to task for not being nice to indigenous Africans who retain animist beliefs is missing the point. As RW says, he's an evolutionary biologist whose everyday conflicts are with modern Islam and Christianity.

It's unfair to saddle him with having to make exceptions for every minor and historical belief.

dogmatic schools of thought

like, i dunno--sweeping generalizations like "all theology is free of content"??

modern Islam and Christianity

ya but dude these are STILL multiple, non-static concepts--my grandmother goes to church every sunday but she believes in a VERY different god than fred phelps

painting them all as loonies is fucking preposterous!!

-- max, Tuesday, October 2, 2007 5:40 PM (17 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

I'd say there's a lot of evidence of abundant religious lunacy and it's high time that religion be put under the same kind of scrutiny as other items out there in the marketplace of ideas. For most of human history, this was not allowed. And in a lot of places, it still isn't.

why aren't they the dominant institutions still?

see: Gibbon

theres a lot of evidence of abundant scientific lunacy, too! i dont have a problem with placing religion or religious ppl under scrutiny but doing with a brush as large as dawkins and no flair or desire for complexity or subtlety helps no one

dawkins is a fucking prick

THAT's my main problem with the guy, also with Hitchens when he gets on the subject. I don't have as much contention with the guy's particular opinions so much as the way he expresses them. I did get a kick out the jokes South Park made about him.

-- kingfish, Tuesday, October 2, 2007 5:32 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Extremely lame objections. You mean you just wish they'd say what they say in a nicer way?

max, you're totally right. however, milo is, too, in that dawkins sees fundamentalist islam/christianity as major threats to human development and well-being. and i would tend to agree.