P.S. Dennett’s book was better.
I represented what you did with complete accuracy, and I certainly don’t “know” that I did otherwise.
You paraphrased Dawkins’ argument in your own words (within quotation marks, though clearly not claiming to be quoting his words) and then claimed that you felt this was “like” something that Dawkins never said.
If it’s inconvenient for you to quote Dawkins accurately, that’s fine. But that’s the exact opposite of what George was pointing out, that objections to Dawkins tended to avoid quoting him directly and then showing where the objection came from. You made up your interpretation of Dawkins, and then you attacked that. Maybe you should wait until you can unpack your books, re-read them, and collect your thoughts, before responding to this.
I “made up my interpretation” of Dawkins? Please help me out here; what exactly IS an “interpretation” other than what someone “makes up”? It’s a fucking OPINION. Of COURSE it’s “made up”. If you’re attempting to accuse me of a Straw Man fallacy, you didn’t do a very good job of it. Or is the subtext really that any interpretation other than the one YOU “made up” is, ipso facto, wrong? Maybe you need some time to “collect your thoughts” before you respond.
Perhaps. But it’s the claim you’re making about having to agree with him that I’m curious about.
Does the part after the “and. . .” qualify the God that Der Trihs doesn’t believe in? Does he only not believe in the Christian God? Does he believe in other God(s), goddesses or god(s).
I thought that the atheist position was that they don’t believe in God, full stop. So their belief is, “There is no God.” That’s not a complicated thesis. Are you saying that there’s more to claiming to be an atheist?
That may be true, but those beliefs would be anti-religion or anti-Christian, not atheist.
Which God? I don’t agree with your statement as to the pantheist God. . . so far anyway.
The difference in my eyes, generalising hugely, seems to be that athiests don’t necessarily want to associate themselves with Dawkins’ anti-theist views, while still agreeing with his atheistic ones. Same goes for Der Trihs. More so for Der Trihs, since his anti-theistic views are rather more intense and unpleasantly expressed, but I suspect that that’s the main problem.
OTOH, I think also there may be on behalf of some religious people an expectation that Dawkins is more representative than he is, due to the priestly expectation. But I have no idea how common that is.
His main thrust would seem to be that religion makes people *more *sick, delusional, crazy and dangerous.
I’m not sure about the others, but it definitely makes one more delusional. Maybe not in terms of the DSM, but religion involves belief in a bundle of highly unlikely factual assertions with no more poof than gut feelings. That certainly isn’t rational.
As for dangerous, I think that religion is good at erasing doubt from some people. I think not having doubt can make people dangerous. If you had strong doubts would you kill thousands of innocent people with a plane?
Does the Mayan Calendar guy see you as simply abrasive? Does the Moon Landing Hoaxer? How about the Alien Abduction Loon?
People who believe fanciful things based on silly evidence get pissed off when you point out their beliefs are silly.
I’m willing to bet most of the atheists who want to distance themselves from Dawkins have not read much if any of Dawkins’ work. They distance themselves because they need an atheist asshole to distance themselves from and they’ve heard enough 3rd hand about Dawkins that he represents an imagined archetype. If so, may I suggest Hitchens as a more appropriate whipping boy?
I’ve read Hitchens, Dawkins, Dennett, Miller, Russell, Sagan, Shermer, and many others. In most cases I’ve re-read the books many times. Why would you assume that atheists that want to distance themselves from Dawkins would do so without having read his books? Is it because you agree so strongly with him that you simply cannot fathom why any atheist would possibly disagree with him in any way?
Okay, I haven’t gotten around to reading Dawkins’ book yet (it’s on The List), but based on this description, I do disagree with his thesis. Although I am an atheist, I think that religion is fascinating and has influenced culture hugely, and is well-worth studying in a respectful way. (Well, I majored in anthropology of religion, you’d expect me to say that.) I do find Der Trihs’ anti-theist sentiments distasteful, although I certainly don’t hate him, either.
If this means that prr thinks I’m trying to score brownie points with the theists, so be it. I’d rather get along with them and respect their beliefs than be an asshole and alienate them all.
It could be because Dawkins is generally calm and rational, while Hitchens is superior and dismissive. Although that doesn’t mean he isn’t right. 
I’m fairly sure that many who are up in arms about Dawkens are actually half remembering Hitchens from a news show appearance.
One of Der Trihs’s main axioms is that religion, of any kind, is always and completely bad. It doesn’t just do more harm than good, it doesn’t do any good. And he’s not shy about sharing this view, and the conclusions that follow from it, in any religion-related thread.
That said, his reputation as the poster child for obnoxious atheism has, I think, become one of those self-perpetuating ideas that persists due as much to convenience as truth. There have been many other posters (including, perhaps, the Der Trihs of several years ago) who are far more obnoxious in their anti-religious stances, and who irk me more. Aside from this one quirk of being so thoroughly anti-religion, and maybe one or two others, I find Der Trihs’s posts to be usually sensible, well-meaning, and worth reading.
Hitchens is far more condescending than Dawkins, IMO. I actually thought Daniel Dennett was almost TOO soft at times. There’s got to be some kind of middle ground between coddling and hostility that I feel hasn’t been attained yet.
(The previous statement was “made up” by Cuckoorex)
OK. And that’s anti-religion, not atheism. One can be both, but as evidenced by Kyla’s post, one need not necessarily be both to be an atheist.
I’ve discussed a couple topics with Der Trihs before. I’ll pass on your characterization of his posts, thanks, although I’m not claiming to have read them all.
ETA: I’ll give you that he’s entertaining, though.
Well, this is getting serious, all of this discussion of what we vaguely remember various writers’ (and posters) positions as being. It’s not as though Der Trihs is some unapproachable godlike figure whose views we have to guess, nor Dawkins neither. Der Trihs is just a hijack to this thread, so I’d suggest we come up with passages from Dawkins’ books and discuss them here, or just drop the subject. I think we did a close reading of Dawkins’ book a few months ago (I didn’t participate so this may have been when I was still lurking and not posting) and maybe we should consult that to see if this has been gone over before.
Cuckoorex, I don’t get what’s twisting your panties. **George Kaplin ** complained that people were denouncing Dawkins without quoting what he actually said, and then you posted a complaint about Dawkins in which you didn’t quote him but still denounced his ideas. I pointed that out. Them’s the facts. Get over it, please.
I’ve never said that believers should be exterminated, or even that religion should be banned. That’s your paranoia talking. Or your need to make atheists out to be monsters.
I agree with this.
Except that I don’t say that, not that believers ever hesitate to lie and say I did. I say that religion is overwhelmingly destructive, and that if it does good it’s primarily by luck. Not that it NEVER does good; never doing good would be almost as hard as never doing evil.
Correct, and I’m both. I’d oppose religion even if I thought it was true, because I find it predatory and destructive, and most of it’s “moral” assertions disgusting.
OK, first of all:
Here we have a few blanket statements which I addressed earlier. In fact my point in responding to this post was to provide an example of someone who HAS read Dawkins and still finds his approach to be grating.
Here we have the call for direct quotes, for anyone who contends that Dawkins is “an irate, strident bigot.” I do not think he is an irate, strident bigot. Therefore, George did NOT specifically ask for direct quotes to support my position, since my position is NOT that Dawkins is an irate, strident bigot.
Are we clear now?
Well, lookee thar! Der Trihs agrees with me about something. :eek:
You’re just doing this to contradict what I wrote about you earlier, aren’t you? 
Although I sure don’t want to get into a religious debate with you, I just have one nitpick with your statement above. Would you say that most of religion’s moral assertions are disgusting? Because I think that most of religion’s moral assertions are identical to secular moral assertions. . . like do not steal, do not kill others, do not physically harm other people, etc.
Are you saying that most of religion’s moral assertions that differ from secular moral assertions are disgusting?
Perfectly. And as long as you persist in denouncing Dawkins’ general tone while being unable to refer to a single sentence he wrote, I’d suggest maybe this a good time for you to withdraw from a thread about what Dawkins wrote. We get it: you think that he somehow sucks in general from your impression of what you read but can’t specifically remember a while ago. Thank you for that insight.
Pretty much. When religion asserts something to be good that IS good, it’s just agreeing with secular morality. When it starts to make specifically religion based moral assertions, they tend to be destructive or foolish. Religion has little useful to say on ANY subject, because it’s based on lies and fantasies and illogic. Instead, it steals the credit for the efforts of other aspects of human culture, and pretends that without it we’d all be ignorant barbarians.
IIRC that Dawkins paraphrased a quote about Freud, that also applied to religion. “Where it’s profound, it’s not original; where original, it’s not profound”. Something like that, google fails me for the original.
Maybe it’s because his approach seems as strident as that of the people he is criticising? I realise it’s more of a ‘personality’ thing than an intellectual one.