Richard Dawkins - Anti -Christ or Great Thinker?

he has no experience with it cos he's a nobshank

not gonna big up this tit on a "my enemy's enemy" basis

Nob-Shank : A derogatory term for an individual not worthy of being called a Nob-end.

Now I just need to know what means "nob-end".

<3

awes trolling

i guess

its more like blissful ignorance of English slang! :)

lol, i was referring to dawkins

no duhkins

I just hate, hate, HATE this 19th century neo-colonialist "clash of civilizations" type bullshit

Though to be fair fellow "new atheist" (bleurgh) Sam Harris is even worse

Just depresses me to read this shit

The worst thing with guys like Dawkins, Harris or Dennett is the asinine poverty of their philosophical thinking, not to mention the dreary authoritarianism implicit in their positions.

^^^ speaking truth to bollocks

I admit I haven't thought this through but don't get it - the only thing they should be repeating over and over again is "no, YOU prove that your god exists" no?

They should think/explain/imagine what happens when gods die, for example - dismissing religions is only a minor fraction of the job to do.
Personally I guess I'm a sort of believer, but atheism is really THE issue of the last 200 years and it definitely deserves better interpreters.

I'm just depressed that the supposed popularizers of science and critical thinking are stuck in the 19th century imagining and rationalizing a glorious secular war against barbarian Islamic hordes.

the only thing they should be repeating over and over again is "no, YOU prove that your god exists" no?

and dealing with current supposed proofs. which they do, pretty well. anyone who suggests they're not deep thinkers or researchers, only deal with easy straw-man proofs, don't engage with the stuff real hard professional theologians are churning out, is pretty much talking shit. proofs for god are without fail elementary, and elementarily dismissed, you don't need to be a deep thinker or immersed in hundreds of years of bullshit theodicy.

otoh when they get off that pet topic then yeah, sure, they can be horrendous.

kinda think arguing about proof might be a huge missing of the point, espesh since there's only so many ways you can "politely" say to people "hey you're a idiot"

you can't reason people out of beliefs they didn't reason their way into, sure. still, i think there's value in popularising this aspect of basic philosophy.

but they're so proud about how clever they are, just like a small boy who wants to tell the whole world that he wiped his own bum.

i still think Dawkins et al need to think about religion as a social construct and consider its - ha! - evolutionary value and historical development rather than trying to make this some unwinnable "we're right you're thick" argument. when rationalists started sticking it to the christians in the 18th century the savvy theologians just backed up behind their wall of mysticism, where logic and reason couldn't really land and blow. religion, in the 21st century, in the pagan pleasurocracies we inhabit over here, doesn't even seem like the most heinous or pressing example of irrationality that one might want to confront. Big Dawk just comes across like one of those daft twats who feels good about trolling christian messageboards when the reality is that no conversation is taking place, just two sets of finger-in-ear numpties yelling at each other

I'm just depressed that the supposed popularizers of science and critical thinking are stuck in the 19th century imagining and rationalizing a glorious secular war against barbarian Islamic hordes.

― zingstreet (latebloomer), Wednesday, May 11, 2011 6:56 AM (32 minutes ago) Bookmark

otm

This - also it is kind of tricky talking of religion as a merely biological phenomenon without actually defining what "religion" is. Memetic theory at the moment is just a metaphor based on an assonance and it is not necessary to be Gadamer to see that Dawkins & co.'s ideas are nothing more than seriously flawed objectivism.

Do atheists have different factions? The talibatheists, the dawkinuits?

the Maherites

when rationalists started sticking it to the christians in the 18th century the savvy theologians just backed up behind their wall of mysticism, where logic and reason couldn't really land and blow

^^^otm. that Dawkins thinks he's some kind of genius for trying to re-fight this battle (when the territory has already shifted considerably) is just evidence of his myopia.

Do atheists have different factions? The talibatheists, the dawkinuits?

accomodationists vs 'new'/'gnu' atheists. spats all over the blogosphere. kinda lol, mostly tragic.

that Dawkins thinks he's some kind of genius for trying to re-fight this battle (when the territory has already shifted considerably) is just evidence of his myopia.

yeah, I know a lot of people working in theology and they always get a shock on the rare occasions it comes to their attention that there are actually still some people holed away somewhere in the darkest recesses of super-regressive theology departments working out proofs of the existence of god.

you know there are plenty of people who think the argument from design is pretty shit-hot, or that a godless world is necessarily immoral. i'm not sure exactly where you think the territory has shifted to, or what is wrong about popularizing the opposite arguments. 'oh hai we did all this 200 years ago, go read some baron d'holbach' doesn't really fly, imo. i don't care what dawkins' opinion of his own intellect is, i'm glad these books are out there.

xp to shakey.

it's just an exercise in arguing at cross-purposes - neither side is actually listening to or understanding the position of the other

let me just reiterate:

He used the word "God" as a metaphoric name for that which we don't yet understand, for the deep mysteries at the foundation of the universe.

I mean seriously if he'd bother to READ any actual theology he would find this position of Einstein's is word for word - to the very letter - the position of various theologians from a variety of faiths, many of whom predated Einstein by hundreds and in some cases thousands of years.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, October 2, 2007 9:08 PM (3 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

he doesn't follow his own argument of the necessity of examining evidence. He readily admits he's never read Saint Augustine or Faruddin Attar or Gershom Scholem or whoever. The guy is a jackass.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, October 2, 2007 9:10 PM (3 years ago) Bookmark

it's just an exercise in arguing at cross-purposes - neither side is actually listening to or understanding the position of the other

^ see also every other political or social conflict ever

All I know is that I don't believe in deities and I think most religions have lost most of their relevance today, but I usually just say non-believer when asked. Maybe Dawkins is right about everything, I don't know, I haven't studied everything he said about everything and I don't plan to, but he seems so much like the official spokesman for atheism to most people, calling yourself one is like saying "I'm one of Dawkins' followers" in their religion-based world view.

(Don't read this as "Dawkins does more bad than good for atheism" because that isn't what I said)

I've never read much of interest from this stream of atheists. Religion's pretty much the most fascinating historical and cultural phenomenon, and they so often seem uncurious about it; historians and anthropologists who ask 'how did this happen?' or 'what is this?', or 'how does this work?' are more engaging and persuasive - I'd rather read a biblical scholar explaining what we can and can't know about the historical truth of the gospels than a hard sceptic shouting about their contradictions.

Hitchens I like best I suppose - he gets the aesthetic allure of religious art (rather than paying lip-serv), and enjoys an argument about history or politics (ie comfortable with the 'What about Stalin/Mao/Hitler?' argument.)

Goldacre-camp seems sensible - they choose manageable targets, and aim for a practical good often.

lots of good points made in this thread-revive. i think part of the aim of the "new atheism" seems to be throwing out the baby and hoping the bathwater will go away too...but if you're aim is really to reduce fundamentalism and increase tolerance i think it's much easier to do this through religious thinking (ie, Gianni Vattimo) than against it--as everyone said there's an implicit authoritarianism in doctrinaire atheism.

my favorite bit of dawkins book was when he proved aristotle wrong

i went out and sold all of my aristotle

lol

haha

I've never read much of interest from this stream of atheists. Religion's pretty much the most fascinating historical and cultural phenomenon, and they so often seem uncurious about it; historians and anthropologists who ask 'how did this happen?' or 'what is this?', or 'how does this work?' are more engaging and persuasive

How is that point of view any less blinkered than Dawkins? Some people don't find religion to be as fascinating as you do, and those questions you posed seem pretty easily answered. How is that uncurious? I think for some people, maybe particularly those raised without religion, their curiosity about religion is just satisfied very quickly.

I'd rather read a biblical scholar explaining what we can and can't know about the historical truth of the gospels

But again, doesn't that just speak to your own specialized interest? Why the gospels rather than any of the thousands of other religious texts? Or any other historical stories or documents for that matter. The supernatural claims are the unique aspect and if those aren't true then the rest of the historical minutia doesn't seem particularly compelling.

The supernatural claims are the unique aspect

uh...

Some people don't find religion to be as fascinating as you do, and those questions you posed seem pretty easily answered. How is that uncurious?

this is a joke, right?

like, that's the dictionary definition of being incurious about something

"rap music? that's just talking over other people's records! who cares?"

etc

shakey OTM.

that said, since i'm a quasi/soft atheist myself and often terrified by the thug religiosity of my countrymen, i'm glad someone is making a big ugly noise in atheism's defense. something i've learned from american politics and popular media is that an effective arguments isn't always a good or even a rational one. loud, angry and dumb seems to work pretty well, too, and if dawkins & co wind up making more room for secular points of view by (almost) any means, then good on them.

doesn't excuse the islamophobia though. fuck that.

it's funny because even RELIGIOUS people seem to be pretty damn incurious about religion. I can quote Ecclesiastes to a Christian and get a blank stare and told "that's depressing." I'm in favor of more education about religion, not less. As a former roommate who went to Princeton seminary once told me, he thinks most fundamentalism could be cured if people just "read the bible."

that, in short, the problem isn't so much religion (imo) but the fact that people delegate the responsibility for thinking about these kinds of things to authorities.

Speaking for myself, I know that God(s) exist(s) because I can feel it/Him/Her/Them. If I couldn't I might have my doubts. Poor Richard Dawkins, I pity him.

lol @ max upthread

remember "the brights"

i basically like hitch and amis and the rest of this whole sauna (except when they quote each other in epigraphs) but yeah not dawkins, because at least those guys have read history and can say affecting things about the pieta.

(plus his sanctimony infected douglas adams, angryface)