I said:
“Also you might think there is a difference between teaching kids about the Bible, and teach kids about evolution. I don’t.”
First, the bible and creationism are two different things in my opinion. Creationism is a pseudoscience that I don’t think any person should be exposed to. The Bible is a religious text of great importance, and between its pages of God’s wrath and sacrifice, are at least a few pages worth admiring.
In the God Delusion I got the vibe as well that he pretty much wanted kids raised on evolution because otherwise they had no choice, but to be slaves of propaganda. I think that’s BS. While I think that propaganda should be kept out of it, reading the Bible does not necessarily equate to propaganda. Just like a Christian might say Evolution is propaganda of atheists.
Both sides will argue the case and they are both equally wrong and equally right.
The distortion of religion by religious people is still religion. It may be bad scripture, but it’s religion. And in fact the Islamic terrorist attacks of recent years fall into that rare category of religious violence that can’t be blamed on anything else. It’s not like the European wars or the Crusades, which were land grabs that were marketed under the guise of religion.
There is plenty of stuff to be found in the bible, and if you like I can probably find the relevant video of Dawkins stating that the bible should be taught in schools - as part of a literary or social sciences/comparative religion curriculum. But not as truth or a source for morality.
You can’t “raise kids on evolution”. Evolution is just a fact that’s useful for our understanding of the world. And if some Christians say evolution is just atheist propaganda than they’re either lying (which is the case for the more prominent Christians saying that, in my estimate) or ignorant.
No they’re not. If one side is arguing on the basis of evidence and the other on blind revelation, then the evidence is the way to go. Even if both are probably wrong, at least the evidence will allow us to discard the more obvious false hoods.
This is the piece that I guess I don’t understand about my fellow atheists. Why do you care so much about what people think? So, ya know, someone thinks I am goign to hell? So?
As far as being reasoned with, turn it around. Absent any conclusive undeniable evidence of the existence of G-d (and, let’s be honest, some, even with conclusive undeniable evidence, would still not be convninced), would there be anything a theist could say to a Dawkins-like thinker to make that person “see the light”? One might say that that is also not being able to be reasoned with from the opposite side of the fence.
My point here, I guess, is that just by looking down your nose and sneering at a theist is not anymore convincing or reasonable than looking down your nose at an atheist and damning them to hell.
You are right that it’s not clear what Hitler’s religious beliefs were. What is pretty clear is that Germany was an overwhelmingly Christian country in the 1920’s to 1940’s period, and that the Nazis were more than happy to adopt Christian symbolism for whatever reason.
While I don’t know if Hitler was a Christian, I think it can be said to be pretty damn likely that many of the people herding Jews into gas chambers, or machine-gunning them in ravines were.
I was just explaining what I meant by the Bible and Evolution being equivocal.
I know Christians who believe in evolution.
Some are Christians who actually believe evolutions was God’s means of creation. Others who believe in Jesus Christ and respect him for what he did and his teachings, but also don’t really believe in God or any of the Christian pseudoscience.
I happen to be an ex-christian who is skeptical Jesus existed at all considering how similar he is to Egyptian Gods… though maybe they were real and tales about him were exaggerated (as that often happens).
Regardless, I don’t have a problem with people who are religious.
It’s the people who won’t mind helping me get to hell sooner that are an obvious worry. Luckily, they’re not all that common. The people who think that their religion excuses enforced ignorance and intolerance are more of a worry to me personally. I don’t like that a fairly recent minister of education in my country thinks that Intelligent Design should be considered for inclusion in the class rooms. I don’t like that there are (Christian) political parties in my country that exclude women from taking part in politics. I don’t like that there are Christian and Muslim religious “leaders” who think that homosexuals and women should not have the same rights as anybody else.
ETA: And the sad fact is, the only reason those wackjobs get the power and attention they do, is precisely because they can cast their intolerant fuckwittery as legitimate religious points of view. Take the religion out of it, and nobody would take them seriously.
It may be impossible to come up with conclusive evidence for the existence of gods, but really, if there were any theistic gods, we’d have at least some direct evidence of their existence - even if we might not be convinced that they’d be the all-powerful all-good creators of the universe. The fact is, there is no evidence at all for even that.
This is fair. My question is, however, in terms of the mass of the “regular theist”, folks who go to church every sunday, have Jesus in their heart, and try to be decent people to everyone, vs. the extremists/nutbars , what is the proportion? I would assume that it is significantly more the former than the latter at least in my experience which is a fair number of people over a lifetime. Is it fair to tar the entire population of theists, of all stripes, with the brush of the minority extremist? Is it productive to do that from the outset if the goal is to educate the theist?
Plenty of Muslim apologists will claim that the above instructions are only to be followed if those Pagans or enemies are fighting you and you are defending yourself. I find that hard to believe since they mention to “proclaim a grievous penalty to those who reject Faith”, and that you should kill them unless they repent and establish prayers, not if they stop fighting you. I bet Osama didn’t believe Muslim apologists either.
And I would agree that there are far more “regular moderates” of any religion than there are violent bigots. The problem is, what’s extreme? Is it just extreme if the majority doesn’t agree? Is it extreme to want to teach ID as a legitimate alternative to evolution? Is it extreme to claim that morality is directly guided by God and as a consequence, the irreligous can’t be really moral/real Americans? Is it extreme to think that homosexuality is a sin or a disease that should be cured? Is it a problem when the people with those beliefs are in positions of considerable political power?
It’s not fair or productive, and I don’t think Dawkins is doing that. Der Trihs is another story, unfortunately.
How do you KNOW this? Lots of people think God wants them to do horrible things. How do you know that you’re not the one with the twisted and distorted view of what God wants?
Oh, and who would that be? And regardless, the fact is that sort of thing is not an innate part of atheism; atheism being nothing more than disbelief can’t motivate anyone to do anything. It’s superior to religion because religion is wrong, not because atheism is virtuous. Religion on the other hand has been overwhelmingly tyrannical, violent and especially irrational for its entire history.
The standard religious disclaimer; it’s always just a few bad apples. And your evidence that the jihadists religious beliefs are less wrong than the non-jihadists is? There’s just as much evidence for Allah wanting them to fly a plane into a building as there is for Allah wanting them to pray every day.
Objective reality. The two sides in this argument are anything but intellectually equal; the religious side is nothing but baseless, irrational gibberish.
Yes, in fact that’s one of Dawkins’ points. The more moderate believers make the extremists look less extreme by making the insanity of religion something to be respected. They offer aid and comfort for the fanatics, because however little the more moderate believers like to admit it, the fanatics who kill themselves and others have exactly as much evidence for their beliefs as the more moderate types do. “God wants me to murder people” has exactly the same amount of reasoning behind it as “God wants me to go to church on Sunday”. And on top of that, such “moderate” people engage is less openly aggressive but highly destructive behavior all the time; everything from opposing same sex marriage to lying about condoms.
“Moderate” religion is dangerous because it teaches and justifies irrational, delusional thinking. I put “moderate” in quotes, because taking insanity seriously is anything but moderate.
Hitchens doesn’t have near the public visibility of Dawkins. And Sagan wrote for Parade and was parodied by Johnny Carson - you can’t get more mainstream than that.
