I don’t think it’s pointless to try to get rid of religion, just as it isn’t pointless for those so inclined to to attempt to erradicate atheism. There are reasons for doing each. It is, however, fruitless, which is what I think you really meant.
A propensity toward religion, in some form, will probably always be a defining characteristic of humanity, until such time as our brains have evolved enough to suppress certain facets of the area(s) in the brain which make us susceptible to this type of suggestion…i.e.: a long, long, long time.
That’s not semantics at all, as far as I’m concerned. I would agree there are more outspoken atheists, but a ‘movement’ is closer to the conspiracy hoopla you sometimes hear from the religious right. Atheists don’t have a public face, organization or message, and that’s probably one of the reasons people have such a negative view of them - there’s nobody to counter the worst misperceptions.
It depends really on whether all those organisation are trying to effect change - to “move”. And I’d suggest that these would all be seperate movements; atheists aren’t a monolithic entity, and I would suggest that’s a result of us tending not to have designated “leaders of atheism” - Dawkins is high-profile, but i’ve never seen someone say “I believe this about atheism because Richard Dawkins says it”. He doesn’t have followers (ok, he might do. But they’d be a tiny whacko minority).
Although I do agree that presently it’s not possible to erradicate religion without genocide, and I question its success even then, I think it is a goal worth achieving as it would, yes, in my opinion, remove many, if not all, obstacles to unfettered human progress. I see no benefit to maintaining and promoting belief in the unknowable.
Hogwash, I guess I may have been vague about what I mean by Dawkins’ brand atheism. What I mean is a perspective where religion is viewed in a very negative light and generally regarded with disdain. And these atheists are very eager to let you know how they feel (or think if you prefer). I mean comparing religion to a virus is very offensive and of course the best way to convince people is to insult them first, right?
If Dawkins really wants ‘convert’ people (a fool’s errand IMO), he’s not really going about it the right way.
I don’t agree, and, in fact, Dawkins doesn’t either. He doesn’t think the government should be involved in labeled children as being of some religion by default of what their parents are (an issue really only relevant in the U.K.)
However, Dawkins has pretty clearly stated (after signing a petition that turned out to call for it and then realizing on being called on it what it was advocating) that he doesn’t support using governmental force against the practice. He’s advocating against it being considered acceptable and reasonable, but not for making it illegal. It just isn’t practical, and certainly not SoCaS-principle consistent to try and prevent it by force. That would just do more harm than good.
I’m all for an arrest and jail time. A big fine too. Just think of flux of revenue around Christmas and Easter. Not to mention the steady income from lost teeth.
Religion sometimes throws up some barriers to progress, for sure. But I think most of the obstacles you are thinking of are not caused by religion. Rather, they’re caused by the same impulses that cause religion. Probably the only thing that could change those is thousands of years of evolution.
Because it would encourage us to test the limits of what is knowable. Many of the first modern scientists were religious people, after all. If something is unknowable, it probably doesn’t make much difference what people believe about it.
You mean “Parent should not be able to force something I say is a lie on their children.” And how do you propose stopping that? Whether they are overtly religious or overtly atheistic, totalitarian societies are not much fun.
Dawkins, like too many atheists, insist that science ‘disproves’ religion. What they all fail to comprehend is that the information we have now is not the information we will have twenty years hence or two hundred years hence. If there are twenty-nine dimesions, then possibility is limitless and we, with our flawed and tiny human comprehension, tend to be far too unrealistic in apprehending how little of all knowledge we actually have managed to understand.
It would be funny if it weren’t so sad to watch them all up on their hind ends sooooo sure that they are right. And being rude, obnoxious, and condescending about it (some of them).
I haven’t read this book yet, but I’ve read lots of his other books. It amuses me no end that religion is blared on church bulletin boards, the radio, zillions of books, and our money, but a couple of atheist best sellers becomes “aggressive atheism.” The “movement” is just a result of the press actually covering us once Dawkins’ and Harris’ books showed there were a lot of us out there. Before this, if atheism was covered at all, it was covered once a year at most in the religion pages with an article that amounted to “look at the funny monkeys” and never gave any justification for not believing in any god.
As for what to do about religion, in his other works Dawkins just calls for not allowing theists special pleading, in other words to evaluate their claims in the same way we’d evaluate any other claims.
Cite? I’ve never heard him, nor any atheist with a reasonable intellectual background, make this claim. Science can disprove certain claims of some religions, but that’s about it.
Your claim, made very often by many is a strawman.
You missed quite a few debates right here in SDMB then. As I learned here, there are two strains of atheism, Strong and Weak. The positions, as I mentioned, are different. The arguments countering each are different. I don’t have the desire to rehash the same old ground, but you may do a search if you like.
But in a larger sense, in a DEBATE, since when is asking one to define terms a bad thing?
That I can believe, and you can be happy for it. In the US a black Lesbian Moslem NRA member has more chance of being elected president than an atheist. My Congressman, one of the most liberal in the House and from a very liberal district, is the highest ranking atheist in government, and that he is an atheist has just come out after 18 terms. Not that he ever lied about it, just that even for him its not a good thing to advertise.
So, his book is a lot more useful in more benighted regions of the world than yours.
I don’t think this is accurate. Dawkins hasn’t said that science does disprove religion. What he’s said is that science has given him reason to reject religion.
There’s obviously a goal, but I question whether that goal would be worth achieving even if it were possible to make it happen.