Split atheist/Dawkins discussion

[The Minx]

I'm sort of curious, General Havoc and Charon. What is it you have against Dawkins? I know that there are people who think (or thought) that he's the best thing since sliced bread, I'm not one of them. But I never thought of him negatively, at least not until this point.

[Charon]

He's an arrogant ass who treats religion as though it shot his dog and raped his mother.

To be less graphic, he is, in my opinion, overly aggressive in his fight against religion. To the point where I don't label him as an atheist, I label him as an Anti-Theist. In my opinion he is just as radical as any other fundamentalist, he just does it for the other side. Furthermore, his popularity ensures that this "Religion is the most evil thing man has ever produced" opinion of his gets spread to his fans.

(Note, I consider the Religious Fundamentalists to be just as bad, and I recognize that there are a lot more of those assholes, but that doesn't give Dawkins a free pass in my book.)

[General Havoc]

Dawkins is a fundamentalist atheist. He's the "freethinkers" version of the hard core Christian Right. He gives every atheist in the world a bad name with his moralizing about how religion is not merely wrong but mental abuse and evil. As with Charon, I do not credit the notion that simply because there exist lunatic religious people that the obverse is justified.

Terry Brooks, I thought, once put it best when discussing authors who chose to mock, not religious extremists or the absurdities of religion (of which there are many), but ordinary folk who have religious beliefs. "Why would you choose to denigrate people who've simply found something to believe in?" It's a question I do not accept Dawkins' answers for. Like many an academic (and extremist) I know, he cannot physically accept the notion that there exist people in the world who disagree with him in any regard. The non-provability of religion works both ways as I see it. I do not believe in a God of any sort. Another man does. Based on this, who gives either of us the right to claim moral superiority over the other?

Richard Dawkins believes that he has that right. And thus I believe that he is an ass. Atheists in general would be well-served were he to simply shut up.

[Cynical Cat]

(Note, I consider the Religious Fundamentalists to be just as bad, and I recognize that there are a lot more of those assholes, but that doesn't give Dawkins a free pass in my book.)

Oh please. Religious fundamentalists are much, much worse. Religious fundamentalists regularly try and change laws in western countries to conform with their beliefs and they do worse in other places (like the death penalty for homosexuality in Uganda and lets not even get started on Islam). You can loath the man, but to say he's as bad as fundamentalists is not supported by the facts.

[Charon]

You are correct, he isn't quite as bad as many Religious fundamentalists.

[General Havoc]

(Note, I consider the Religious Fundamentalists to be just as bad, and I recognize that there are a lot more of those assholes, but that doesn't give Dawkins a free pass in my book.)

Oh please. Religious fundamentalists are much, much worse. Religious fundamentalists regularly try and change laws in western countries to conform with their beliefs and they do worse in other places (like the death penalty for homosexuality in Uganda and lets not even get started on Islam). You can loath the man, but to say he's as bad as fundamentalists is not supported by the facts.

The existence of Islamic fundamentalists is entirely irrelevant to whether or not I like Richard Dawkins, as both Charon and myself made great pains to point out. We did not claim that he was the worst person in the world, merely in my case that he is wrong-headed, arrogant, fundamentalist, and obsessively denigrative of anyone who does not view the universe in the same manner as him. I do not countenance, as he does, the notion that to believe in God makes one a worse person than myself. The fact that there exist other people who are religious and believe the opposite of that does not change the matter.

We are not talking about Ugandan fundamentalism. We are talking about Richard Dawkins.

[The Minx]

@ General Havoc & Charon


OK, I can see where you're coming from. It's similar to my own vague misgivings, though I don't go nearly as far. I agree that Dawkins paints with too broad a brush when he attacks religion, but I don't really see him as being as bad as the fundamentalist religious groups.

He claims that non-belief in a god can't motivate people to destructive acts, and that is true, since "I don't believe in a god" is not a positive belief statement. OTOH, the belief that "religion is evil" is a positive statement of belief, and therefore can motivate people.

His main line is that belief in something without evidence is unwise and potentially dangerous, more so if there's also evidence against it, and especially if the underlying philosophy is hostile to science. It's a point I can see, and with apologies to Lady Tevar and frigidmagi, one I happen to mostly agree with. But one must distinguish between methodological materialism and philosophical materialism. And I absolutely don't think that any type of religious belief makes one a worse person.


One nit-pick though, I've never really found the term "fundamentalist atheist" to make much sense, to be quite honest. You can be fundamentalist about many things, but the absence of belief in something isn't one of them. Fundamentalist anti-theist makes more sense.

[frigidmagi]

I got to make some disagreements and nit picks off topic here. I won't go into Dawkins.

One nit-pick though, I've never really found the term "fundamentalist atheist" to make much sense, to be quite honest. You can be fundamentalist about many things, but the absence of belief in something isn't one of them. Fundamentalist anti-theist makes more sense.

That because it doesn't make sense for anything but as a application to a set of Christian Sects based mainly in the American South. Fundamentalism is a very well defined and narrow set of Christian beliefs that were first gathered together in a set of pamphlets written and published in the 1960s as part of the backlash against Christian Liberalism and various experiments conducted under that banner. One of the big things was a rallying around Biblical Literalism which had been in the process of dying. Hell not even the Catholics are Biblical Literalists anymore.

The Muslim terrorists and their supporters are not Fundamentalist, they're Wahhabi. The Hindu thugs and terrorists over in India who specialize in beating people to death with iron bars? They're fascists and militants not fundamentalist (fun fact, when your faith doesn't have a Holy Book as such, you cannot be a fundamentalist).

Athestist can be as extremist and discriminatory as anyone else, but that makes them assholes or extremists (in some cases communists) but not fundamentalists. I will pry the word from it's incorrect usage one set of hands at a time if I must!

His main line is that belief in something without evidence is unwise and potentially dangerous, more so if there's also evidence against it, and especially if the underlying philosophy is hostile to science. It's a point I can see, and with apologies to Lady Tevar and frigidmagi, one I happen to mostly agree with.

To be blunt I must disagree. While I have to concede that there are Christians hostile to science and other religions as well. If Christianity itself was hostile to science, it would have been strangled in it's cradle. Hell if Islam was hostile to science we would have had to reinvent... Damn near everything. If Hinduism or Buddhism was hostile to science we wouldn't be using Indian numbers (that's right, those numbers on your keyboard? Indian, the Arabs just huh... borrowed them) The Catholic Church after did kill several modes of thought and ideology in it's time as the dominant force of Europe and I don't need to go into Islam and Hinduism I think, expect to mention a Caste System is a good strangling tool (and a massive weight around your neck).

Science is a method of determining fact using ones senses and experimentation. Many of the early scientists were religious men and by that I mean they were Priests, Imans and Monks. For that matter today, many Priests hold Ph Ds in scientific disciplines. There is no reason to assume an opposing or even hostile relation between the two expect for groups of bitter, angry people who are opposed to pretty much everything expect their own perks and powers.

[Cynical Cat]

We are not talking about Ugandan fundamentalism. We are talking about Richard Dawkins.

Charon specifically claimed that Dawkins was as bad as the fundamentalists. I rebutted that and that's all I addressed. Charon was using fundamentalism in the broad sense of religious extremists, which is one of the usages of the word. The magi is correct that different terms are more accurate for other types of religious extremists, but that again does not invalidate my point.

Religious issues with science is at best mixed. Medieval monasteries were one of the biggest contributors to agricultural technology, for example, while more modern Christianity and earlier Christianity have long been foes. Islam is fairly antiscientific in outlook for most of its history, but isn't necessarily so. The scientific progress that is associated with medieval Islam was mostly associated with the moderate non Arab Silk Road cultures and eventually shut down by shifts in religious thought.

EDIT: This whole side issue is worthy of discussion, but it should get split off into philosophy and religion.

[Stofsk]

EDIT: This whole side issue is worthy of discussion, but it should get split off into philosophy and religion.

This looks like a job for... SUPER-MOD!

'Is it a plane? Is it a bird?' No, it's a slightly overweight, underachieving nerd.

[The Minx]

To be blunt I must disagree. While I have to concede that there are Christians hostile to science and other religions as well. If Christianity itself was hostile to science, it would have been strangled in it's cradle. Hell if Islam was hostile to science we would have had to reinvent... Damn near everything. If Hinduism or Buddhism was hostile to science we wouldn't be using Indian numbers (that's right, those numbers on your keyboard? Indian, the Arabs just huh... borrowed them) The Catholic Church after did kill several modes of thought and ideology in it's time as the dominant force of Europe and I don't need to go into Islam and Hinduism I think, expect to mention a Caste System is a good strangling tool (and a massive weight around your neck).

Note that I added the qualifiers "I mostly agree" and "if the underlying philosophy is hostile to science".

The difference between me and Dawkins is firstly that I don't think that religion is dangerous and hostile to science all the time, and second I don't go out of my way to preach against religion specifically.

OTOH, I do hold that one shouldn't place one's trust in things which have no supporting evidence if one is expecting a positive result, as opposed to using it as a guiding philosophy (for example faith healing springs to mind).

Science is a method of determining fact using ones senses and experimentation. Many of the early scientists were religious men and by that I mean they were Priests, Imans and Monks. For that matter today, many Priests hold Ph Ds in scientific disciplines. There is no reason to assume an opposing or even hostile relation between the two expect for groups of bitter, angry people who are opposed to pretty much everything expect their own perks and powers.

There absolutely were (and are) religious people who contributed to science, and that's where the difference between philosophical materialism and methodological materialism come into play. They may run into problems if the ideas of their religious beliefs come into conflict with the results of their science, though. But that's not going to be inevitable.

[General Havoc]

While there are many men of faith who have contributed staggering leaps of genius to the advancement of science, in a very basic sense it is true that religion and science find themselves often at odds. Religion, which deals in matters of faith, is explicitly not rational, whereas science is explicitly rational. This is not to say that religious people are irrational by nature, only that their faiths are. To say that religions are irrational is not to insult them. Faith is simply not a matter of reason.

It is therefore not surprising that, guided by faith (which is not rational), religions not infrequently find themselves at odds with the scientific world of reason. Scientifically, it is not possible for a man to rise from the dead, turn water to wine, or perform other miracles. Billions of people however, hold that these events did occur, despite the fact that most of them recognize that they are impossible rationally. They hold to these things as articles of faith, denying what reason would tell them.

The above example obviously was Christian, but the principle is the same for all religions. All of them hold to articles of faith which are either impossible or wholly outside the boundaries of reason. It is therefore no surprise that such faiths lead many people to reject elements or entire branches of science as in conflict with their faiths.

[Hadrianvs]

Hell not even the Catholics are Biblical Literalists anymore.

Roman Catholics were never, at any point, Biblical literalists. This for the simple reason that the Pope, and by extension official Church doctrine, outranks the Bible. The Holy See traces its roots directly to Peter, who was designated by Iesu Kristos to be the foundation of His Church. Basically the Pope is officially operating under authority which was ultimately delegated by the Son of God Himself. On top of that whenever a Pope chooses to speak Ex Cathedra it's treated like he got glowy eyes and a booming voice with echoing reverbations because the Holy Spirit possessed his body. Meanwhile, the Bible is considered to be simply a collection of divinely inspired works and not literally the Word of God.

As such the Roman Catholic Church has always had the ability to say anything it damn well pleases and use pages of the Bible as toilet paper.

[Comrade Tortoise]

To be less graphic, he is, in my opinion, overly aggressive in his fight against religion.

Heaven forbid (hahah) someone be passionate about something? Seriously, all he does is intellectually criticize. He does not try to destroy the rights of religious people, he does not try to institute discrimination regimes toward the religious. If all he does is be strident in intellectual criticism of religion, what is your threshhold? Is someone strident in their criticism of objectivism overly aggressive?

In my opinion he is just as radical as any other fundamentalist, he just does it for the other side.

I dont see him preying on the downtrodden, or making some inborn characteristic a death penalty offense. He also only refers to ideology as evil, as opposed to religious fundies who equate non-believers themselves to tools of the devil.

Furthermore, his popularity ensures that this "Religion is the most evil thing man has ever produced" opinion of his gets spread to his fans.

Ok. Look at the death toll. I have a hard time thinking of any human invention which has caused the most pain and misery. Can you think of one?

"Why would you choose to denigrate people who've simply found something to believe in?"

Except he does not denigrate the person. I have seen speeches by the man, I have talked to him. He answers criticism with a certain acerbic wit(he is british) and certainly laughs at his (piles and piles) of hate mail. However he does not denigrate religious people any farther than he mocks their ideas. He himself will often quote the adage "There will always be evil people. However only religion will get good people to do evil things". He explicitly makes that distinction.

Based on this, who gives either of us the right to claim moral superiority over the other?

Their actions. He does not denigrate the morality of some guy who believes in Jesus, but rather the people who think that their belief in Jesus justifies hurting people and particularly those who do go out and hurt people.

Do I necessarily agree with everything he says? No. I dont go to the level of thinking religious instruction is child abuse--certain types of it, like homeschooling can be(but not always--but not in and of itself.

He claims that non-belief in a god can't motivate people to destructive acts, and that is true, since "I don't believe in a god" is not a positive belief statement. OTOH, the belief that "religion is evil" is a positive statement of belief, and therefore can motivate people.

Yeah. It motivates you to change people's minds. That is it. Very explicit in all of his dialogue is the separation between person and idea.

Science is a method of determining fact using ones senses and experimentation. Many of the early scientists were religious men and by that I mean they were Priests, Imans and Monks. For that matter today, many Priests hold Ph Ds in scientific disciplines. There is no reason to assume an opposing or even hostile relation between the two expect for groups of bitter, angry people who are opposed to pretty much everything expect their own perks and powers.

Well, the hostility can take two forms. Ideological hostility (the catcholic church burning books, creationism etc), and epistemological.

The epistemological hostility is the mutually exclusive nature of the ways of knowing (faith vs reason and empiricism) that requires a certain degree of compartmentalization to reduce cognitive dissonance. You cannot be both a person of science and faith and still be logically consistent. There is nothing really demanding someone be logically consistent to be good at their jobs, but it does not help. Take Newton for example. He hit a stumbling block (multi-body problems), and threw up his hands, claiming God Did It. It took someone who had no such theology (LaPlace) to solve the problem.

[frigidmagi]

13 Months Ben? No. No. No. I don't care how high up the list it is you can't start swinging on a thread that has been silent for 13 fucking months. If you want to restart that kinda of shit go to PM

[Comrade Tortoise]

Oh, shit. Sorry. I didnt see the year part of the date

[The Cleric]

These forums are rather slow, and I've always gone by the soft rule that first page is ok. And it was an interesting re-read :).

[Derek Thunder]

I'm perfectly okay with forum necromancy, truth be told... Sufficient command of undead threads might allow for knowledge of a phylactery, allowing one to become a lich and troll boards for eternity.

[frigidmagi]

That's nice guys, but I'm the mod here. Bringing back an arguement over a year old is a no, no. If you guys want to start a new thread knock yourselves out.