It certainly didn’t surprise me for someone to come up with baseless accusations to insult people criticizing a baseless religion. It’s all very consistent; being a defender of religion, you don’t value facts or reason. If you are willing to believe in a god with no evidence, why not believe that I want to kill billions of people with no evidence?
I did think that you’d at least have the guts to actually accuse me by name instead of referring to a post number.
That’s not a cite, it’s still just an accusation. Post #78 consists of Der Trihs doing his usual thing, but not (as far as I can see) wishing for the explicit and sudden eradication of all religious people.
I tried a google search against this site, using various combinations of the following keywords:
snap + fingers
switch
button
eradicate
destroy
theists
religion
I found a number of threads with titles like “Will we ever kill off religion” - if one of the more vociferous atheists on the site were to have declared their wish to eradicate all theists, I’d expect to find it in a thread like that, but I came up blank - and I don’t recall such a comment either.
I’m pretty sure that if DT or PRR had ever said such a thing, and still remembered saying it, they would be happy enough to admit it - they’re not exactly shy, as far as I can tell.
regardless or whether you approve of terrorist attacks or not, what you did is called a No True Scotsman fallacy and is not considered impressive around here. Which is why you got called on it.
Big post incoming. Sorry, late to the thread.
I’d never seen or read anything by Dawkins until recently. But given the way he was portrayed by popular culture, I imagined him to be this wild-eyed raving mad hateful atheist. Turns out he’s a rather meek, polite guy who simply describes well all the reasons that we should grow up because Santa Claus doesn’t exist - but everyone hates him for ruining the party because we REALLY want Santa Claus to exist.
You are trying to draw similarities between demographic groups and groups that exist because they follow a certain idea. For instance, if I said
People who believe their race is superior to all other races
Are less intelligent
Are more violent
Have abhorrent beliefs
Would you then be commiting hate speech and intolerance? No, you’re making a judgement on a particular belief - you’re making a judgement that racism and racists have certain inherent faults. Judging them based on their beliefs is not equal to judging them on just who they happen to be. Since theism is a belief system, they are much more equal to a group as racists than, say, blacks, since blacks are not united by a common ideology.
People apply a weird double standard, where only religiously-motivated murders count against the religious, but any harm done by any atheist, even if it has nothing to do with their atheism, is held up as a counterpoint. Atheists don’t point to a crime or act of terrorism that was purely politically motivated and say “look! religious violence!”, so why is it remotely fair to do the opposite?
For example, Tim McVeigh commited an act of political terrorism. He happened to be a Christian, but he wasn’t committing the act for religious reasons, so it’s irrelevant. So when Stalin purged his country of people who he found to be political threats, why is this held up as violence in the name of atheism just because he happened to be an atheist? It quite simply does not make sense. The only credible idea of atheistic violence equivelant to religious violence would be if atheists killed all religious people simply because they were religious. That’s probably happened a few times scattered throughout history, but it’s a tiny insignificant speck compared to religiously-motivated violence.
You’re doing that absurd thing where people like to see both sides of an issue as equally credible or equally extreme, and you seek to achieve a false balance where you feel that right in the middle of the two positions is correct. This is fallacious and silly.
Really - people who want to force your kids to read a religious text as the truth are “equally wrong and equally right” with people who want to teach your kids the best information we have about the way the world works? Is a physics teacher who teaches your kid about gravity just as wrong and right as a religion who says we’re all held to the ground by invisible fairies?
Do you really need an answer to this? Religion is a pervasive force in our modern culture and human history. People act out their lives in accordance with these religions. Our last president thought he was on a mission from God. Hell, our current president probably doesn’t - but he has to at least give lip service to the idea because people would rather elect a crippled black jewish lesbian child molester than an atheist. Religion affects so much about the world around us.
Besides that - those of us who value critical thinking and skepticism in general aspire to apply our views in regards to rationality and evidence towards any subject. If your friend tells you about how the psychic from the psychic friend network hotline just knew all about her, you question that. If someone tries to sell you a magnetic bracelet to heal your chronic back pain, you question that. When someone tells you they live their whole lives based on a holy book with no evidence written thousands of years ago, you question that.
That’s actually what Dawkins is about. Religion gets a special hands-off treatment even amongst skeptics. It’s just as silly as any other belief for which there is no evidence, but because of how pervasive it is in our society, and because of historical importance, it’s given false deference as though it was somehow more real or more important than astrology or homeopathy. Dawkins seeks to attack that (logically) unjustified special status.
If a theist could present evidence, why not? People don’t come to the view of atheism by some sort of dogma - they realize there’s simply no reason to be religious and so being areligious/atheist is the logical conclusion.
Apply your standard to something else. Is there anything that would make you believe an astrology or a crystal healing therapist were correct? That would make you see the light? Just evidence, right? Presumably you came to your views of not believing in astrology and crystal healing therapy simply by applying your critical thinking skills and realizing they’re bunk. It’s the same deal with atheists and religion.
Dawkins is not just “sneering” at them. He writes at length eloquently exactly why their views are flawed and encourages them to critically evaluate their own views.
You have no reason to suspect this. You know nothing of the man’s character which suggests that he is more selfish than any other person.
You do touch on the point that death is less of a disincentive to someone who believes they’re going to an eternal reward greater than he could imagine. In fact, jumping on that grenade to someone utterly convinced of their religion is a free ticket to the greatest thing they could possibly imagine - they should be jumping at the chance.
So I actually throw that one back at you - the true believers who do this, while they do much good, aren’t really sacrificing much, because they’re convinced the outcome would be good. The atheists, however, who have thrown themselves on a grenade, knew they were giving everything, and hence made the greater sacrifice.
Setting aside the man’s work in explaining evolution -something I’ve greatly benefited from- and his summation of the arguments as to why god (almost certainly) doesn’t exist -something else I have greatly benefited from- I think his major contribution to public consciousness is simple: There is no reason, and you should not feel obliged to, put religion on some lofty pedestal that cannot be touched or criticized.
Essentially, that it’s ok (and entirely correct) to equivocate some random Christian putting a hand on your shoulder and asking if “Jesus has touched you” to some random drunk Irishman doing the same and asking “has a leprechaun molested you today”?
Same craziness involved (though to be fair in my little scenario at least the Irishman has the excuse of being drunk).
From a rational, logical point of view Religion deserves no such special treatment, and it should not be used as the sole arbiter or reason for doing something, specially when that something affects others (gay marriage for example). And I for one believe we all have a responsibility to call others on this, be they politicians, friends or family.
Or on preview what SenorBeef said.
Plenty of Christian apologists like to forget various texts such as large portions of Deuteronomy as well. Hell, for that matter, Judges 21, 2 Kings 10, etc.
Unfortunately (even us atheists can get into some erotica), they also like to pretend Songs of Solomon doesn’t exist, but for completely different reasons.
In the parlance of our times, this was an epic win.
As for the guy from Oxford, his evolution stuff is pretty good. His religious stuff is milquetoast though. He’s mostly a teddy bear, save for one really good youtube video where he actually breaks a sweat. There are far more entertaining demagogues out there.
In fact, I’ve said the exact opposite in the past; that I wouldn’t use force to outlaw religion ( much less kill the believers ) even if I had the power to try. Both because that would be hypocritical ( since that sort of thing is one of the behaviors I condemn them for ), and because it wouldn’t work short of killing off almost the entire population.
A desire to destroy religion doesn’t mean you intend or desire to destroy those who follow it.; you can destroy a belief without killing the believers. For a fairly recent example; the ancient prejudice against left handers has largely died out in America as far as I can tell, and you’ll notice that it wasn’t accomplished by rounding up everyone who hated left handedness and shooting them. Some problems are best not solved by brute force.
The “Fallacy of the Mindless Middle” I’ve heard it called; the assumption that the midpoint between any two positions must be correct.
Originally Posted by Zoe:
Where did I say anything about not feeling like backing it up? I said that it’s a waste of time. There are over 25,000 posts between the two people that I had in mind and both of them have “unusual” writing styles.
Time is a crucial factor with me at the moment. This mean old religious woman is helping to put on a luncheon, fashion show, and silent auction for two hundred people on Saturday. Last year we raised several thousand dollars for Alive Hospice. Picking on poor, helpless you-know-who (who would never contradict himself, right?) will have to wait for another time. (And I’m not talking about you DT.)
I am, however, wondering if your pushing of this issue, Marley, is any more on topic than some others that were unwelcome here. After all, I did begin my statements with “I believe…” I did not express absolute certainty or give names.
Liberal recalled his saying the same sorts of things too:
The accused denies having said such things.
Moving along…
Do you consider that statement to be a fact or an opinion?
In a hurry…To the person who mentioned the No True Scotsman Fallacy:
You got me! Yikes! How humiliating.
Well, ya gotta watch out for that sorta thing - fraudulent argument like that can kick the knees out from under your credibility, even if it’s just a throwaway comment.
A direct logical implication. Saying that a religious person doesn’t value facts or logic, is like saying someone pro-war isn’t a pacifist.
That’s overly broad. There are a decent amount of people who are generally logical or evaluate evidence on specific issues, but religion is their sacred cow that they don’t apply critical thinking to. Few are perfectly rational/logical/skeptical, but that doesn’t mean that everyone with a few wonky beliefs is totally devoid of any value of logic or evidence. It only means they are devoid of it on at least this one issue.
You don’t really respect facts or logic if you throw them aside whenever your particular sacred cow gets approached. Especially since religion tends to be so pervasive that saying that the problem only occurs when religion is involved means it occurs all the time. As well; the baseless accusation against me that I was using as an example WAS related to religion.
No I wound not say that Dawkins is God fearing as I understand it, but I’d say, from the posts of this thread, that Dawkins seems to fear religions, which would put him in a similar category as religions that fear other belief systems.
Not wanting to go too far off topic here, but since you asked, and ties in to the term God fearing, I will simply say that my fear is stepping outside the will of the Lord, this is what ‘God fearing’ means to me, if I am doing His will to the best of my limited understanding I have nothing to fear . As such Dawkins doesn’t know the Lord and therefore can not be directly guided by Him, and is operating outside the will of God, but not fearing His opposition to God, so his fear is not of God, so Dawkins is not God fearing IMHO.
Not only do I think Dawkins to not be dangerous I think he and others like Sam Harris are a real boon to the dialogue. I don’t agree with everything they say but the dominance of those who are believers and religious needs to be questioned and challenged. By having the arguments out there in an “in your face” fashion it promotes thinking and consideration of the issues at hand. I think that’s positive.
Not at all; he fears them for rational reasons; not just because they are different. Plus, they are factually and logically wrong; he isn’t.
Wait… I’m unclear now as to whether there are people on the SDMB who have endorsed the murder of religious people.
I think this whole issue is illustrative of the kind of persecution complex many religious people display, which is part and parcel with the denigration of Dawkins. He actually doesn’t say anything particularly unpleasant about religious people, yet he’s portrayed as a hate-monger.
All we’ve seen here are claims. With no evidence to back them up. Take that as you will.
I agree. He sometimes comes off as a little too smug, but that’s usually when he’s very irritated, and in my experience he’s very respectful to believers who are willing to actually discuss the matters he’s raising.
I mentioned this earlier in the thread, but it’s good to see it’s not just me that’s noticed it. There does seem a definitely tendency for religious people to misremember opposition as being more strenuous than it actually ever was.
I wonder if this is just something that humans do generally, or if it’s peculiar to religion.