Funloving atheist Richard Dawkins takes time out from saving the world to warn about a dangerous new drug, “Gerin oil”:
But wait. It turns out he was talking about religion all the time!
Come now, Mr D. Attack religion if you like, just don’t use shockingly cheesy analogies to do it.
cuntfeatures
He’s a really smart, knowledgeable guy, but every now and again, he just seems to blurt out something incredibly stupid and inane; remember his suggestion that atheists should refer to themselves as ‘brights’?
Political differences where at the heart of the partition of Ireland. It was not an argument over transubstantiation of anything like it.
Many Protestants in the south were at the forefront of the fight for Irish self determination.
I have to say though he had me searching for Gerin Oil for a while there until I realised it’s an anagram.
Oh dear. I defend old Richard when his insightful and perceptive articles are misinterpreted or misunderstood by theists. This is haughty smartarsed condescension which isn’t even a very clever or funny pun.
When I hear or read theists impugning the character or intellect of atheists, it serves only to entrench my atheistic position more firmly. I wish he’d realise that this is precisely the same effect his preaching has on theists. And I wish he’d cut the “religion causes atrocity” spiel when, clearly, Hitler and Stalin are such blatantly obvious counterexamples. Atrocities are caused by Them vs. Us divisions over resources (land, mineral deposits, breeding rights etc.), and religion is just one such arbitrary criterion by which to separate Them from Us.
I used to count Dawkins as one of my favourite authors.
Until I got to that section in Unweaving the Rainbow where he unleashed a vicious, ignorant and completely irrelevant tirade against people who believe in crazy things like astrology, naturopathic medicine, etc etc - anything which didn’t fit his narrow definition of “science.” Anyone who didn’t share his derision for these was worthless and stupid.
What does it hurt you, Dick, if someone enjoys reading their horoscope? Why the venom? You had me with The Selfish Gene but now you’ve done gone messed it all up.
Can’t we all just get along?
Absolutely.
If there were no religions, we’d be inventing other things to motivate and excuse the exact same atrocities.
With this in mind, let’s get the ball rolling by killing all the astologists and their followers. They are stupid and worthless.
As a Pterry fan, I have to quote some line of his about a battle cry that runs “Remember <the atrocity They committed last time that excuses the atrocity We are committing this time>!”.
Is there some pun or joke with the name “Gerin oil”? I’m totally not getting it. Maybe a British thing?
This isn’t worth a pitting. Dawkins has gotten tired of honest, simple arguments being countered with shovelfuls of idiotic stupidity. He finally made a rhetorical misstep. ‘Tis a pity, but don’t nohow prove anybody right. Or even close. Or even worth listening to. Come to think of it, why am i here? Oh, yeah. God told me to tell you to shut the fuck up and figure out a way for Dawkins’ people to live in peace.
“gerin oil” is an anagram of “religion”
It’s an anagram of religion.
Reading a horoscope for entertainment and exploiting ignorant people mourning the death of a loved one by providing seance services are two different things. Reading a horoscope for entertainment and (allegedly) running a super-power with advice from your wife’s psychic are two different things.
We can definitely all get along, but when the world’s economy (for an extreme instance) or whatever can be influenced by the equivalent of my pulling shit out of my ass, hurling it against the wall and deciding on stocks or bonds by the splatter pattern, it is time to call a spade, a spade.
I like Dawkins, sure he may overstep pure science in his militant atheism, but at least he is honest about his feelings, if it looks like a duck, sounds like a duck, chances are it is.
As sardonic as Dawkins can be, I’m often at a loss to find any basic flaw with his position. I guess it’s because I’m one another one of those sardonic agnostics who finds it difficult to conceive of another polarizing force that could rival, as a source of inspiration, the gobsmacking insanity and depravity promoted and comitted by those whose one common characteristic was they purported to be following the will of the King of the Universe.
He does get testy from time to time, and hence can alienate, but it’s the common straw-man of his critics that he picks on religion to the exclusion of other negative human proclivities, like he’s some single-mindedly irrational hater. I’m sure if you asked him about pernicious nationalist and populist movements without religious affiliation, for example, he’d have plenty to say about those as well, but for reasons he’s made very clear, he targets religion in no small part because the vast majority of people who still insist on engaging in the delusory debate over the validity of our greatest scientific theories (namely Evolution) are religionists. Is it any wonder religion is the particular human scourge most prominant in his mind? Has he no justification for focusing his attention on superstition? The world is full of problems. I for one, and grateful a man of his intellect and authority is willing to put his popularity on the line for a principled argument against one of the biggest.
Thanks Eureka and yojimbo, shoulda seen that.
Pish, Loopydude, you’ve not even been paying attention to the rest of this thread. For gobsmacking insanity and depravity, you can go to Mao Zedong and Stalin for a start, who visited immense amounts of hurt on their own people with no reference whatever to the King of the Universe. Tu quoque is a tool with strictly limited application, but it’ll do to rebut the notion that it’s “difficult to conceive of another polarizing force”.
Evolution is our greatest scientific theories (sic)? It hasn’t done that much to put bread on my table, a roof over my head, or a computer on my desk, for a start, nor is it likely to put a man on Alpha Centauri III. I personally don’t find the issue of whether the bacon on my plate is the meat of an animal descended from an unusually hairy Jurassic lizard, or one designed by God. I only want there to be a steady supply of healthy, profitable swine available to the meat industry. The impact of evolutionary theory on that is minimal.
If you understood Stalinist and Maoist (esp. the latter) totalitarianism properly you’d see the incredible resemblance to the most offensive aspects of religious dogmatism, the grandiose claims to mortally-serious truth through philosophy, and the unquestioning and deadly authority such abuse demands. Mao is an examplary figure for the study of the modern-day demigod, and any serious critique of Maoist iconography and propaganda sees the obvious debt his political machine owed to the ancient understanding of an emperor figure as a mediator between this world and some higher plane. They don’t call them personality cults for nothing. This is the most oft-repeated, easily-refuted, and just plain dog-tired objections to the position of skeptics, and I’m repeatedly amazed by its continued use. A wet noodle isn’t much of a cudgel. And if your greatest criterion for worth is that something can provide " steady supply of healthy, profitable swine" you save me the further trouble of demonstrating how worthless your own position clearly is.
I have to say I’m with him on astrology. I don’t think that fits in any definition of science. I’m not up to speed on naturopathic medicine but giving this a quick read doesn’t blow my skirt up.
I don’t think that he’d have any problem slamming Stalin, Mao(ie. Autocratic oppression) etc. His point isn’t that religion is necessary for these atrocities to take place only that ‘my sky pixie is better than your sky pixie’ thinking has been the driving force behind many atrocities in the past and present.
So the criterion for a theory to be great is that it must benefit you personally? Huh. OK, then, Reevaluate it the next time you have to take antibiotics.
I don’t agree with Dawkins at all, but what most enraged me about this little piece of inanity was how very extremely LAME it was.
Like no one has ever equated religion with drugs before.
Like no one has ever spin out a clumsy analogy with a super TWIST ending.
It reminds me rather of that nasty pieces of glurge often posted on the Snopes site that spells out some excessively creaky analogy about how small puppies are actually Jesus and buying an ice-cream is like becoming a Christian.
I’m actually glad he’s been reduced to this (in his non-scientific writings at least) because it will mean that no one takes any notice of his mad prejudices ever again.
Unless the fundies find out about him, like O’Hair and make him their main persecutor. Not to be a bastard, but I think he kind of deserves it.
If monkeys hadn’t got smart enough to make ovens, houses, and microchips you’d have none of those things. So I think you owe quite a bit to evolution.