141 replies to this topic

[Arjan Dirkse]

I feel that being a murderer or trying to control people using the law can go both ways, and for that reason assuming that an atheist can't do harm because of their ideology doesn't work for me.

How do atheists do harm?

[Nicholas Taggart]

He needs to say there's no proof there's not a God a bit more too. And that you should believe in whatever you like without having biologists tell you you're wrong because you want to believe in something you can't observe or prove. I can't observe or prove I have a soul, but I don't want some asshole telling me I'm soulless because there's a lack of proof.

Rather than going back to Dawkins again I will just speak for myself. I don't think you have a soul. I don't think you have a soul because there is no evidence for it. I respect that you have the right to believe you have a soul but that doesn't mean I have to pretend like I don't think that way.


I don't really care that people get offended by Dawkin's message. He says some important things. Keeping religion out of the classroom genuinely is extremely important. If it is not that but rather the simple fact that he is out there in the public saying there is no god or whatever then that is another issue. I don't get offended every time I hear a public figure say there is a god.

The tone I often hear is that atheists use their reason to arrive at their beliefs, while religious people do not.

There is a difference between faith and reason though. Reason is about establishing and verifying facts. I don't have an issue with people believing things on faith but it isn't the same as believing things based on science.

[Arjan Dirkse]

That's not exactly a high bar though, is it?

Yes but that is what was militant atheists were compared with when they were called "just as bad as militant theists." So, just as bad as Fred Phelps or the people who shoot abortion doctors. Which seems rather an exaggeration.

[Johnny Henning]

If you count the history of "atheist regimes" like those in China and the Soviet Union (or Cambodia, etc.), you can see a bit more of what atheist militancy might be like, but in our Western society, atheism, like modern day anarchists, is simply too small a part of society to worry about abuses.

I think more people are atheists than really admit it. Or more to the point, I'm an atheist primarily not simply because of the rational reasons to be one, but primarily because if I really believed in God, then I would behave much differently than I do. I don't behave like I believe in God, ergo - I do not believe in God. That sums up the "reasonable" progression to my atheist perspective.

However, I have to also say that it seems like many people who profess belief in God do not actually behave like they really believe in God any more than they believe in Santa Claus. Honestly, come on, you have to admit simply looking at what people do every day, most of us have a much stronger belief in the power of paper money than in any sort of divine entity.

[Arjan Dirkse]

There is a difference between faith and reason though. Reason is about establishing and verifying facts. I don't have an issue with people believing things on faith but it isn't the same as believing things based on science.

True.

I have some half-hearted beliefs, which are in fact quite silly. I don't try to justify them, and any ridicule towards them is probably deserved.

However, I have to also say that it seems like many people who profess belief in God do not actually behave like they really believe in God any more than they believe in Santa Claus. Honestly, come on, you have to admit simply looking at what people do every day, most of us have a much stronger belief in the power of paper money than in any sort of divine entity.

Ha!

That's a great point.

I think that religious people and communities in general don't really live by the rules and philosophies they profess. The idea of money as a current day God, taking the place left behind by the Abrahamic God, is a pretty good one.

[Ulf Imwiehe]

Why do followers of any given religion get so bent out of shape when someone makes fun of or attempts to disprove their faith of choice anyway? If your faith is set and strong it should be water off a duck’s back. Especially if you feel your faith is kinda silly but feels good and true nonetheless. Whoever said that playfulness and faith don’t go together?

[Lucian Von Dooom]

However, I have to also say that it seems like many people who profess belief in God do not actually behave like they really believe in God any more than they believe in Santa Claus. Honestly, come on, you have to admit simply looking at what people do every day, most of us have a much stronger belief in the power of paper money than in any sort of divine entity.

Reminds me of this:

[Jim Ohara]

I don't really care that people get offended by Dawkin's message. He says some important things. Keeping religion out of the classroom genuinely is extremely important.

And as I mentioned, this battle over classrooms is happening at some fringe schools in America. It doesn't even qualify as a skirmish. The religion in science class rhetoric is up there with the war on Christmas rhetoric. Both are vastly overplayed in order to turn heads.

Why do followers of any given religion get so bent out of shape when someone makes fun of or attempts to disprove their faith of choice anyway? If your faith is set and strong it should be water off a duck’s back. Especially if you feel your faith is kinda silly but feels good and true nonetheless. Whoever said that playfulness and faith don’t go together?

Why do people get bent out of shape when you call them racist names or sexual slurs? Name calling is name calling.

[Ulf Imwiehe]

Faith is a thing of choice, your skin color or gender (and sexual orientation...?) isn't.

[Arjan Dirkse]

Why do people get bent out of shape when you call them racist names or sexual slurs? Name calling is name calling.

You mean like you and Will calling Dawkins an asshole...

[Ben Denkinger]

Some good names on these lists. My favorites in my field (psychology) are Oliver Sacks, Stephen Pinker, & V.S. Ramachandran.

You also can't beat Douglas Hofstadter (one of the writers who inspired Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol run). He once wrote a simple autobiography of himself that I always loved:

"Is so meta, even this acronym"

[Jim Ohara]

Faith is a thing of choice, your skin color or gender (and sexual orientation...?) isn't.

A vast majority of people follow faiths they were born into and raised in. They consider their religion no more a choice than they consider their own name a choice, even though both are technically choices.

Besides being a comic book nerd, or a vegan or a goth are all choices, but if someone calls you names like nerd or hippie they're still calling you names. You can't justify open mockery or derision just because people live a different lifestyle from you. Well you can mock them, but you can't express they're wrong based on any empirical evidence. Dawkins has as much evidence that there is no God than the Pope has that there is a God. Instead he's drifted the conversation to be this play on words that you don't have to prove there's nothing there, but you do have to prove there's something there. Which is just a play on words, not some intellectual revelation. The answer has been and always will be 'no-one has a clue if there's a God or not'. What they choose to do with that information is how you judge a person. Dawkins chooses to launch a crusade against religious institutions, claiming there's a great movement to have religion replace science, despite that only happening at the very fringes of society to a tiny minority of people. It'd be like judging an entire culture based on the actions of a handful of it's citizens. And he focuses almost exclusives on the negative connotations of faith and religion, ignoring the aspects that make religion an incredible positive force in the world (the gathering of communities, the support infrastructure, the continual message of peace, love and being a good person, etc).

[Lucian Von Dooom]

A vast majority of people follow faiths they were born into and raised in. They consider their religion no more a choice than they consider their own name a choice, even though both are technically choices.

Exactly.

[Don Lerch]

One of my favorite sayings is "coincidences are random miracles". You say there is no proof there is a God. I say you are wrong. I lived in Colorado for twenty years and I saw evidence of God every day. The view out my window was so beautiful it had to be designed by someone "Up There". You can get all scientific and babble about geological facts but how do you explain that these actions result in such beauty.

[Will]

Why do followers of any given religion get so bent out of shape when someone makes fun of or attempts to disprove their faith of choice anyway? If your faith is set and strong it should be water off a duck’s back. Especially if you feel your faith is kinda silly but feels good and true nonetheless. Whoever said that playfulness and faith don’t go together?

It's more of the aggressive tone that I take offense to. And that's for the guy standing on the street corner telling everyone they're doomed if they don't repent as well as Dawkins or others who attack.
You (the general "you" not "you, Ulf") don't believe what I do, that's fine. I have faith we can have a rational discussion and remain respectful. I am under no delusion that we can if either of us are out to attack the beliefs of the other.

Live and let live.

You mean like you and Will calling Dawkins an asshole...

No, I called Dawkins a dickhead. I called O'Hara an asshole.

Reminds me of this:

Agreed.

[Nicholas Taggart]

And as I mentioned, this battle over classrooms is happening at some fringe schools in America

It really isn't just happening at fringe schools in America. A number of states in America allow creationism in schools. There is a huge lobby aimed at getting creationism into schools in many different guises. The Discovery Institute (not related to the educational network, it is a pro intelligent design think tank) for example has been very successful at making it seem like evolution is scientifically controversial as a way of getting creationism talked about in schools.

The Intelligent Design Movement has been less successful in the UK but not for lack of trying but rather because of people like Dawkins managing to nip it in the bud. But even then there are things like Peter Vardy's academies and various groups managing to get their junk reading materials and DVDs into classrooms.

[The Lorcan Nagle]

It's more of the aggressive tone that I take offense to.

Same here - Dawkins is fighting a fight he doesn't need to. In one of his shows on Channel 4 (I think it was the one where he was extolling Darwin), he confronts a bunch of different religious leaders about their views on evolution. And I don't have much of a problem with him confronting creationists when they're refuting well documented science in favour of what's effectively a fairy tale.

But then he talks to a senior Anglican - a faith who do agree with evolution, and frame it as being put in motion by God at creation, and basically tells him that's not good enough becaue then you're removing free will from the equation. In trying to put the arguement for evolution forward, he's becoming as intolerant of any conflicting view as many of the peopel he's railing against.

[Johnny Henning]

Actually, if you were born in Israel wouldn't there still be a good chance you'd be Muslim?

[Lucian Von Dooom]

It's more of the aggressive tone that I take offense to. And that's for the guy standing on the street corner telling everyone they're doomed if they don't repent as well as Dawkins or others who attack.
You (the general "you" not "you, Ulf") don't believe what I do, that's fine. I have faith we can have a rational discussion and remain respectful. I am under no delusion that we can if either of us are out to attack the beliefs of the other.

Live and let live.

I must admit that I am often guilty of this myself. Being more tolerant is something I'm constantly working on. I'm ok with actively attacking religion in politics because I think the world would be a better place if there was a separation of church and state but I am all too often catching myself making snarky comments towards friends and family when I see something posted on facebook or twitter, or even worse - in person. Sometimes I need to remind myself to live and let live.

[al-x]

And I don't have much of a problem with him confronting creationists when they're refuting well documented science in favour of what's effectively a fairy tale.

Well, I admit that you have to take it in FAITH that the Garden of Eden
existed at one time as there is no proof that it did... You also have to
take in faith that a man walked on water and turned water into wine and
so on.

If you are looking for proof to show beyond any shadow of doubt
that God exists or that what I just mentioned actually happened there
most likely never will be because it would throw faith out the window, that is
make it so obvious that we wouldn't need faith.

I studied both religion and some evolutionary teachings in the past. How
"well documented" evolution is, I don't know as I am not an expert on the
fossil record. It is backed by learned men, I will say.

As for Dawkins, perhaps he is as dogmatic in his own right as those he opposes.


Al...