Richard Dawkins - Anti -Christ or Great Thinker?

would argue that Hitler operated on his own path only using the Party when it was useful to him, and as far as i remember he wasn't the main dude into batshit Indiana Jones adventures

" For God's will gave men their form, their essence and their abilities. Anyone who destroys His work is declaring war on the Lord's creation, the divine will" - Mein Kampf

and you cd just as easily say that Marxist-Leninism was informed by Judaeo-Christianity if push comes to shove, or Maoism had some kinda warped Taoist/Buddhist shit going on, not that those two are Theist religions

but no, i like the idea that Nazism/Hitlerism was essentially a religious crusade

Yeah you could say it was all occult/post-Theosophical/turn-of-the-century mesh of scientific Orientalsm. But i think to the average Nazi in the street - who was barred from reading about occult shit - religion didnt have so much to do with it as the economic/political post-WW1 real life apocalypse.

arguing over what "belief system" killed more people is probably the least productive way to have this conversation

as i said tho, it's a molto stupid argument in terms of "is religion a terrible man for the genocide?"

How do we resolve the Abrahamic mythos of Raiders and Last Crusade with the Eastern mysticism of Temple of Doom?

xp yeah what i'm saying. just into historical pedantry :)

xp THAT BUGGED ME EVEN AS A KID.

i say "even" but i guess it should be "only" because who cares

don't Temple of Doom guy's powers turn out to be faked tho? so there's no metaphysical contradiction, they're just godless savages

don't Temple of Doom guy's powers turn out to be faked tho?

... no?

oh them stone things, forgot. still, they could be the work of Ark of the Covenant/Holy Grail god on the sly. or fucking space aliens or whatever.

i'm sure the pulling out the heart thing is faked??

YOU BETRAYED SHIVA

TOD is pretty much old school 19th-century borderline racist Orientalism

isn't the whole thing with the nazis in the indiana jones movies as well as like hellboy that they will profane any spiritual tradition they can in their reach for power

"borderline"

... are you forgetting the scene when they are hanging off of the broken bridge and dude is trying to pull out Indy's heart and manages to sink his fingers into Indy's chest about a quarter of an inch

"borderline"

ha x[

crut that was great btw

Leopard thing a load of old balls though,

wait, where does that episode of Star Trek with the Nazi planet fit in here?

the thing i like about the nazis in the indiana jones movies is that in both cases they're undone at the last minute without indy's assistance just because they're so gosh-darn evil

you guys know that "difficult listening hour" is not curtis, right

haha i was about to make that correction

plenty of room in christianity (pre-modern anyway) for 'other powers' at work in the world. as far as glowing stones etc go.

i think it weirded me out more that the 'cup of christ' actually did something in a movie made by steven spielberg

darragh i love you dearly but if you don't retract that dis of Borges so help me
x
xp oh i didn't, thanx max.

i wonder how big the overlap is between borges stans and people who find richard dawkins irritating

man, "difficult listening hour" is such an unwieldy name tho

i ctrl-fed "crut" because you guys were saying such nice things!

xp yeah i know i'll do something about this after i take a shower i promise.

haha oops my bad

did not know that, sorry non crut

He's the glasses dude now, that's right

NV, hypothetical schizophrenic leopards are no way to move us forward as a conscious collective, i stand by my criticism

Glowing magic stones, reprogramming people to be zombies, blood sacrifices, you could maybe argue the characterization of Hindu death cults in TOD is more or less a direct line from Nazi mythology to its supposedly historical post-Atlantean Aryan black cult stuff.

With some Nawlins voodoo tactics thrown in for good scare-the-xtians measure.

"TOD is more or less a direct line from Nazi mythology to its supposedly historical post-Atlantean Aryan black cult stuff."

I didn't think it was doable, but that's pretty good!
but dare we reconcile this with crystal skulls?

those were aliens

yeah that's another form of collective insanity entirely

that reminds me, this program on vodou was super interesting

http://being.publicradio.org/programs/vodou/

if you can stand christa tippett

Hah yeah we're dangerously close to Von Daniken territory now.

wait, where does that episode of Star Trek with the Nazi planet fit in here?

I do like the idea of reconciling religions with the idea of life on other planets, and sometimes it fits more than others. For instance there are a slew of Vaishnavite books written by Eastern holy men literally titled 'How to travel to other planets'.

arguing over what "belief system" killed more people is probably the least productive way to have this conversation

― ban drake (the rapper) (max), Tuesday, May 24, 2011 9:14 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

i'm astounded that any thinking person trots out "well, look at the amount of death, injury and suffering religion has caused!" as a serious argument. human interaction causes death, injury and suffering. period.

most every form of human social organization that has ever existed seems to wind up causing (and preventing) untold death, injury and suffering. this is true of family, tribe, ethnicity, government, philosophy and, yes, religion. so do we blame social organization for all the evil in the world? do we blame the mere existence of government? of course not! that would be idiotic. no more and no less idiotic than blaming religion.

and theology is a branch of philosophy, more or less. it's not science and isn't made more or less valid by its material falsifiability.

i'm astounded that any thinking person trots out "well, look at the amount of death, injury and suffering religion has caused!" as a serious argument.

That is because these people aren't thinking.

"so do we blame social organization for all the evil in the world?"

there's a certain kind of collective evil that is not possible without a religious mandate.
the kind of evil that goes on without such a mandate is more the kind of evil of inaction/legislative paralysis,
which is a pretty mild kind of evil in comparison, like people who can't decide what kind of pizza to get.
(though probably between dawkins and hitchens, hitchens will probably get his way w/r/t toppings)

there's a certain kind of collective evil that is not possible without a religious mandate

? I can't imagine what this is referring to.

xp: Do you think the Industrial Revolution was driven by religion or capitalism?

"there's a certain kind of collective evil that is not possible without a religious mandate
? I can't imagine what this is referring to."

"We're getting pizza... WITH ANCHOVIES!"
"What???"
"ANCHOVIES... GOD HAS SPOKEN"
"..."

That kind of collective evil.

tribal/ethic/racial conflicts (often dressed up in religious guise, sure) cause at least as much harm/evil/whatever as purely religious conflicts. think slavery in the americas. same is true of wars between nations.