# Theists, agnostics, beleivers: Have you attempted to read a book by Richard Dawkins? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 18, 2009, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theists-agnostics-beleivers-have-you-attempted-to-read-a-book-by-richard-dawkins/510623 "2009-09-18T18:06:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![emarkp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3be4f8/32.png) [@emarkp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emarkp)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2009, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theists-agnostics-beleivers-have-you-attempted-to-read-a-book-by-richard-dawkins/510623/61 "2009-09-21T06:51:47Z")
> [@glee](#): > > [No it isn’t.](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/901723.stm) > > “A hospital paediatrician has hit out at vandals who forced her to flee her home after apparently taking her job title to mean she was a paedophile.” Except [she wasn’t attacked](http://msgboard.snopes.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=57;t=000970;p=1): > [@](#): > > Dr. Cloete was not “attacked by a mob.” Her home was vandalized by an unknown number of assailants, but Dr. Cloete was never harmed nor even met her harassers face to face. I’ve found similar statements of “fact” in The God Delusion that are easily found to be urban legends or simply false. What’s the specific claim Dawkins makes? Oh wait, here it is: > [@](#): > > Others have noted that we live in a time of hysteria about pedophilia, a mob psychology that calls to mind the Salem witch-hunts of 1692. In July 2000 the News of the World, widely acclaimed in the face of stiff competition as Britain’s most disgusting newspaper, organized a ‘name and shame’ campaign, barely stopping short of inciting vigilantes to take direct violent action against pedophiles. The house of a hospital pediatrician was attacked by zealots unacquainted with the difference between a pediatrician and a pedophile. So that seems to accurately represent the story of the doctor. The claim of the paper “inciting” people is something I can’t confirm. ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2009, 8:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theists-agnostics-beleivers-have-you-attempted-to-read-a-book-by-richard-dawkins/510623/62 "2009-09-21T08:25:42Z")
[QUOTE=Revenant Threshold;11573560] Really, what’s needed at this point is someone who’s more polite and more careful. [/QUOTE] I do realize that many people critize Dawkins for not being gentle enough. But really–how gentle must one be when rejecting the idea of the existence of fairies, goblins, or the Loch Ness Monster? Isn’t this really the problem here? That religion (God belief) gets an undue pass, and therefore authors like Dawkins are expected to treat this subject with kid gloves? Objectively speaking, why should Dawkins treat the belief in God with any more respect than a belief in the existence of monsters under my bed? Merely for the comfort of the duped? ---
**Author:** ![Blut\_Aus\_Nord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Blut\_Aus\_Nord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blut_Aus_Nord)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2009, 11:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theists-agnostics-beleivers-have-you-attempted-to-read-a-book-by-richard-dawkins/510623/63 "2009-09-21T11:00:33Z")
Because there is actually some semblance of logic behind theism, as opposed to the Flying Spaghetti Monster or the like. ---
**Author:** ![Fantome](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9c0ed/32.png) [@Fantome](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fantome)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2009, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theists-agnostics-beleivers-have-you-attempted-to-read-a-book-by-richard-dawkins/510623/64 "2009-09-21T12:20:35Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > Dawkins may be slightly better read and more polite than outright hatemongers like Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens, In another thread you said the following: > [@ITR\_champion](#): > > Authors like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens who write books full of hatred and lies directed at religious people find themselves peinited to better jobs and invited to the most prestigious forums. I then asked you: > [@Fantome](#): > > Can you cite any hatred or lies towards religious people that came from Dawkins or Harris? You answered: > [@ITR\_champion](#): > > How about [this](http://summatheologiae.studium-piusx.org/08-8.html): “People who believe in God behave like ruffians: they kill and they murder others along with themselves. Faith in God is like a mental disease-it disorientates you and makes you do evil things.” - Richard Dawkins > > That sure sounds like hatred and lies towards religious people to me. > > Can you just imagine what would happen if he said “Gay people behave like ruffians” or “Blacks kill and they murder others along with themselves” or “Poverty is like a mental disease-it disorientates (?) you and makes you do evil things”? If he said any of those things, he would immediately lose his job and become a pariah, no longer welcome in respectable society. It is only because he directs his hatred and slander at religious people that he instead earns widespread praise from so many sources. My response: > [@Respecting Religious Beliefs](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/respecting-religious-beliefs/487367/101): > > Great, now find me one more piece of evidence (a reliable one would be nice) that Dawkins actually said that. I find it hard to believe as a Google search yields me not even one more instance of that particular quote. > > And then you can do the same for the identical accusation you made of Sam Harris. You never got back to me. Here you are again claiming Sam Harris is a hatemonger. Show some evidence or shut up already. ---
**Author:** ![SecondJudith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5ac83/32.png) [@SecondJudith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SecondJudith)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2009, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theists-agnostics-beleivers-have-you-attempted-to-read-a-book-by-richard-dawkins/510623/65 "2009-09-21T12:52:32Z")
The existence of (a) god(s) has never been important to my religious practice, so I don’t care about Dawkins “debunking” anything factual. Meanwhile, critical text (Talmud) study is probably the biggest part of my religious life. (Well, that and singing in the shul choir.) I do think _The God Delusion_ isn’t a very knowledgeable work about any religion other than evangelical Christianity. I haven’t read Dawkins’ other books, so I can’t say whether he continues the same generalizations, but I thought it was very sloppy. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2009, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theists-agnostics-beleivers-have-you-attempted-to-read-a-book-by-richard-dawkins/510623/66 "2009-09-21T13:01:07Z")
My super-fundie cousins paid me a visit once, and picked up _The God Delusion_ from my bookshelf and read it. When they got home, they sent me _The Dawkins Delusion_ by McGrath. It was certainly not a good refutation, but one of those books that is so filled with logical absurdities that I couldn’t make it all the way through. So I sent them _Why I Am Not A Christian_ by Bertrand Russell. Haven’t heard from them since. ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2009, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theists-agnostics-beleivers-have-you-attempted-to-read-a-book-by-richard-dawkins/510623/67 "2009-09-21T13:33:24Z")
> [@emarkp](#): > > Except [she wasn’t attacked](http://msgboard.snopes.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=57;t=000970;p=1): > I’ve found similar statements of “fact” in The God Delusion that are easily found to be urban legends or simply false. What’s the specific claim Dawkins makes? > > Oh wait, here it is: > > So that seems to accurately represent the story of the doctor. The claim of the paper “inciting” people is something I can’t confirm. The News of the World did run such a campaign in 2000, and it led to a vigilante mob rioting in Portsmouth, torching cars and running a sex offender out of his home ([cite](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/865633.stm)). Whether it had any influence on what happened to the paediatrician is hard to say, but given they both happened in the same year, in a pattern of vigilante attacks that hasn’t really occurred since, it’s probably fair to conclude that it did. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2009, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theists-agnostics-beleivers-have-you-attempted-to-read-a-book-by-richard-dawkins/510623/68 "2009-09-21T14:36:10Z")
It’s exceedingly lame to say that a mob vandalizing a home is not an “attack.” The most salient point anyway is that the mob really didn’t know the difference betwen a pediatrician nd a pedophile. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2009, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theists-agnostics-beleivers-have-you-attempted-to-read-a-book-by-richard-dawkins/510623/69 "2009-09-21T14:58:34Z")
> [@SecondJudith](#): > > The existence of (a) god(s) has never been important to my religious practice, so I don’t care about Dawkins “debunking” anything factual. > > Meanwhile, critical text (Talmud) study is probably the biggest part of my religious life. (Well, that and singing in the shul choir.) I do think _The God Delusion_ isn’t a very knowledgeable work about any religion other than evangelical Christianity. I haven’t read Dawkins’ other books, so I can’t say whether he continues the same generalizations, but I thought it was very sloppy. One of the more fallacious critiques of Dawkins is that he isn’t an expert on theology or world religions. This is a meaningless objection since no knowledge of theology is required in order to critique the metaphysical claims – that is to say, the _scientific_ claims – about them. This complaint is like is akin to saying that you’re not qualified to say there’s no evidence for wizards unless you’ve read tons and ton of fantasy novels. ---
**Author:** ![SecondJudith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5ac83/32.png) [@SecondJudith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SecondJudith)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2009, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theists-agnostics-beleivers-have-you-attempted-to-read-a-book-by-richard-dawkins/510623/70 "2009-09-21T15:08:14Z")
In that case, it doesn’t make sense for him to be attacking religions as social institutions, if he’s only addressing the metaphysical claims. As I’ve said, I don’t really care about the scientific question of god(s), but Dawkins’ arguments assume that all religions involve unquestioning belief in divine existence, which is just not true. ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2009, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theists-agnostics-beleivers-have-you-attempted-to-read-a-book-by-richard-dawkins/510623/71 "2009-09-21T15:09:37Z")
> [@Blut\_Aus\_Nord](#): > > Because there is actually some semblance of logic behind theism, as opposed to the Flying Spaghetti Monster or the like. Maybe the intellectual theism that is practiced on internet message boards and in philosophy classrooms. [And I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt there - I’ve heard logical arguments for deism but never for theism.] There is no semblance of logic behind mainstream Christianity, which seems to be mainly what Dawkins is addressing. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2009, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theists-agnostics-beleivers-have-you-attempted-to-read-a-book-by-richard-dawkins/510623/72 "2009-09-21T15:10:10Z")
> [@PBear42](#): > > One, I didn’t like the ad hominem nature of the work, starting with the title. As far as I’m concerned, describing the opposition as deluded is a cheap shot. Is it ever fair to say that _any_ belief is deluded? If so, then what distinguishes religious belief from truly “delusional” belief? Dawkins’ point with the title is that there is no demonstrable distinction. > [@](#): > > It’s also assuming the conclusion. It’s declaring the thesis. Also, assuming delusion for impossible and unsupported beliefs is the rational, default conclusion. > [@](#): > > Two, the treatment of faith based on scripture struck me as facile. Basically, on what arguably is the key issue, all he does is lay out some of the Bible scholarship on how we know the New Testament isn’t literally true. Fair enough and something a lot of lay Christians don’t realize. But it’s scarcely fatal. The Q hypothesis dates back to the 19th century. Thinking theologians have been getting over this hurdle for a long time. Not engaging the issue at that level greatly weakened the book, IMHO. He does a lot more than this, and “thinking theologians” don’t have any actual proof for anything, it’s all just elaborate fanwanking. Theologians are the ones who assume their conclusions. Everything they say relies on the uncritical acceptance of their starting premises. If you don’t accept their premises (and ther’s no reason why you should), they refute nothing and prove nothing. > [@](#): > > Three, I found disingenuous the discussion of why religious belief seems to be adaptive, as it’s nearly universal. As I recall, Dawkins ends up plumping for a theory that it’s a misfiring of an adaptive trait of children accepting without critical thinking what they’re told by parents and other elders to believe, like not swimming in the river or they’ll be eaten by crocodiles. So, again an ad hominem. How is this an _ad hominem_? An _ad hominem_ against _who_? > [@](#): > > With little basis in reality (has Dawkins really never spent any time around children?). And no relevence to why religion appeals to adults. To my mind, it’s a classic example of pulling a theory out of thin air to suit ones agenda, something good scientists don’t do. I don’t think you read it very carefully. Dawkins presents it only as a hypothesis, for one thing, and does offer a scientific argument for it. I actually think it makes a lot of sense. > [@](#): > > Mind, these are only three examples and I may have mangled them a bit in detail, as I’m going from memory, but I ran into stuff like this throughout the book. At the time, as a mental exercise, I did a mock debate in front of a hypothetical Christian audience and trounced him. You trounced him in a daydream? Congratulations. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2009, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theists-agnostics-beleivers-have-you-attempted-to-read-a-book-by-richard-dawkins/510623/73 "2009-09-21T15:16:15Z")
> [@SecondJudith](#): > > In that case, it doesn’t make sense for him to be attacking religions as social institutions, if he’s only addressing the metaphysical claims. As I’ve said, I don’t really care about the scientific question of god(s), but Dawkins’ arguments assume that all religions involve unquestioning belief in divine existence, which is just not true. If you don’t have supernatural beliefs, then Dawkins isn’t talking about you. I agree that he overreaches when he tries to critique religion as a social institution, but that’s not a subject which interests me. It gives theists something to refute and allows them to avoid addressing the far more significant demolition of supernatural beliefs (something his critics rarely attempt to do). ---
**Author:** ![SecondJudith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5ac83/32.png) [@SecondJudith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SecondJudith)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2009, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theists-agnostics-beleivers-have-you-attempted-to-read-a-book-by-richard-dawkins/510623/74 "2009-09-21T15:59:21Z")
Well, Dawkins is talking about me, because he says he is talking about all religions and religious adherents. If he doesn’t mean to address all religions, then he should clear up his language. The discussion of religion as a social institution is much more interesting to me than supernatural belief. Many of Dawkins’ criticisms are of the effects of religion as a social institution, as those listed in the introduction of _The God Delusion_: > [@Richard Dawkins](#): > > Imagine, with John Lennon, a world with no religion. Imagine no suicide bombers, no 9/11, no 7/7, no Crusades, no witch-hunts, no Gunpowder Plot, no Indian partition, no Israeli/Palestinian wars, no Serb/Croat/Muslim massacres, no persecution of the Jews as ‘Christ-killers’, no Northern Ireland ‘troubles’, no ‘honour killings’, no shiny-suited bouffant-haired televangelists fleecing gullible people of their money (‘God wants you to give until it hurts’). Imagine no Taliban to blow up ancient statues, no public beheadings of blasphemers, no flogging of female skin for the crime of showing an inch of it. If, as you say, he is only addressing supernatural belief, then here he seems to be arguing that there would be no economic, social, cultural, gendered, geographical or national conflicts if no one believed in an active supernatural deity. Dawkins is attacking religion as a cultural institution but relying on arguments against the supernatural to do it. It’s sloppy. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2009, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theists-agnostics-beleivers-have-you-attempted-to-read-a-book-by-richard-dawkins/510623/75 "2009-09-21T16:04:14Z")
As I said, I think he overreaches in trying to attack religion as an institution. He’s still right about supernatural beliefs being delusional, and there is SOMETHING in what he says about fanatacism. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2009, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theists-agnostics-beleivers-have-you-attempted-to-read-a-book-by-richard-dawkins/510623/76 "2009-09-21T16:16:50Z")
> [@Zoe](#): > > From Gunnar Jahn’s 1964 Nobel Peace Prize Presentation Speech > To Martin Luther King, Jr. > ((Jahn was Chairman of the Nobel Committee): > > In Gandhi’s teaching he found the answer to a question that had long troubled him: How does one set about carrying out a social reform? > > "I found " he tells us, “in the nonviolent resistance philosophy of Gandhi… the only morally and practically sound method open to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom.” > > Yet you claim that the idea that Dr. King had based his nonviolent philosophy upon the work of Gandhi is bizarre and that your link flatly refutes it. Your link doesn’t even mention Gandhi. It just leads to a long sermon. Next time, how about a direct quote instead of wasting my time looking for something to back you up? Quotes from King are in [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=488228&highlight=Martin+Luther+King), so I see no need to repeat them here. King specifically credits everything: his opposition to segregation, his non-violent tactics, and his broad base of support among blacks and whites, to Christianity and the Bible. As I mentioned in that thread, it makes no difference what he learned from Gandhi when Gandhi based so much of his philosophy on the teachings of Christ. Dawkins says: [King’s] “religion was incidental. Although Martin Luther King was a Christian, he derived his philosophy of non-violent civil obedience directly from Gandhi, who was not.” King says about King: “I am grateful to God that, through the influence of the Negro church, the way of nonviolence became an integral part of our struggle.” I’m just assuming that King knew King better than Dawkins knew King. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2009, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theists-agnostics-beleivers-have-you-attempted-to-read-a-book-by-richard-dawkins/510623/77 "2009-09-21T16:23:19Z")
> [@SecondJudith](#): > > …but Dawkins’ arguments assume that all religions involve unquestioning belief in divine existence, which is just not true. Which religion(s) are you thinking of? ---
**Author:** ![SecondJudith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5ac83/32.png) [@SecondJudith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SecondJudith)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2009, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theists-agnostics-beleivers-have-you-attempted-to-read-a-book-by-richard-dawkins/510623/78 "2009-09-21T16:29:58Z")
From my own experience, as I said above, Judaism. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2009, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theists-agnostics-beleivers-have-you-attempted-to-read-a-book-by-richard-dawkins/510623/79 "2009-09-21T16:31:57Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > Quotes from King are in [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=488228&highlight=Martin+Luther+King), so I see no need to repeat them here. King specifically credits everything: his opposition to segregation, his non-violent tactics, and his broad base of support among blacks and whites, to Christianity and the Bible. As I mentioned in that thread, it makes no difference what he learned from Gandhi when Gandhi based so much of his philosophy on the teachings of Christ. > > Dawkins says: [King’s] “religion was incidental. Although Martin Luther King was a Christian, he derived his philosophy of non-violent civil obedience directly from Gandhi, who was not.” > > King says about King: “I am grateful to God that, through the influence of the Negro church, the way of nonviolence became an integral part of our struggle.” > > I’m just assuming that King knew King better than Dawkins knew King. King himself said he got it from Gandhi. Here’s the quote again: > [@](#): > > "I found " he tells us, “in the nonviolent resistance philosophy of Gandhi… the only morally and practically sound method open to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom.” Did you not read this quote before you responded to it? It pretty much decisively buries you. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2009, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theists-agnostics-beleivers-have-you-attempted-to-read-a-book-by-richard-dawkins/510623/80 "2009-09-21T16:32:45Z")
> [@SecondJudith](#): > > From my own experience, as I said above, Judaism. Which part of your statement does Judaism NOT fall into – “unquestioning” or “belief” or “divine existence”? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theists-agnostics-beleivers-have-you-attempted-to-read-a-book-by-richard-dawkins/510623.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theists-agnostics-beleivers-have-you-attempted-to-read-a-book-by-richard-dawkins/510623.md?page=5)