Why does this man insist on making such stupid comments? He’s all over the British media at the moment because he’s got a 2 part documentary out where he argues for the abolition of all religion. It turns out that his complaint (as per usual with people who makes grand attacks on religion) is limited to particular aspects of institutional Christianity in Europe, so not ‘religion’ at all…
That the radio presenter Simon Mayo insisted on calling him ‘professor’ was, I think, intentionally ironic.
what were his suggestions? no more pointless rituals and baseless dogmas? or no more believing in god?
I think it’s just cultural, really. People like that have a worldview in mind, a way they want things to be, and they think that the abolition of religion is the way to get to it. Occaisionally they salivate loudly into a microphone or over a word processor.
Really, his statements are rather believable considering his view is that the summation and purpose of life is only to pass genetic code to next generation. He does not believe there is any meaning whatsoever, to life beyond the need to reproduce.
That this man has an audience at all, I assert as proof that the overwhelming majority of humans are naught more than mindless sheep.
what if he simply thinks that stem cells, abortion and evolution are better ideas than eucharist, confirmation and faith over works?
he should just be able to explain this to the church and they can change their silly ways. unfortunately, the church thinks reason (believing things for a reason) is not as good as faith (believing things for no reason).
I agree w/ future man. Religion is kind of hard to believe. We may use it as suggestions about how to live life, but I don’t see how anyone can actually believe that there is a heaven and a hell and a God, and all of that. The church has been wrong about many things in the past, ex. that the Earth was the centre of the universe, and everything revolved around it. If the church can still rant about their beliefs today, which are probably also wrong, Dawkins has just as much of a right to say whatever he wants. The church calls for ppl to turn to religion for an afterlife, Dawkins can rant all he wants about evolution, life as reproduction, etc. So, someoneisatthedoor, what do you find so stupid? That all people don’t believe things in pure faith, or that free speech exists?
Until you can produce decent comments I’ll ignore your responses on this thread. Just a note.
What’s wrong with his statement? The Reason/Faith conflict is at the heart of the Science/Religion controversy.
William Webber
What percentage of people are atheists again? You may have to rethink about what exactly is hard to believe, unless the above was just meant to be a statement about yourself.
I don’t think anyone has said he doesn’t have a right to say the things he has. Some of the things he says maybe be silly, though.
In case you didn't notice, Dawkins is apparently calling for the [i]abolition of religion. [/i] How on earth did you construe criticizing [i]that[/i] as an attack [i]against[/i] free speech? Dawkins actually wants to ban people from saying certain things, and engaging in certain social activities. Some people think that's dumb. Which of the two is a concern for free speech? You must see how rediculous that is.
In my opinion only, I find Richard Dawkins, his colleagues, and followers to be the nadir of human existence.
To purport that the only necessity of life is procreation/reproduction means that all else in human existence is a summary waste of effort.
I, for myself, cannot agree to such darkened thoughtlessness. Then again, in true hypocritical form, he will tell you that you should continue your useless existence anyways, but realize it has zero value. Also that it is okay to wallow in selfishness, avarice, immorality; because nothing you do amounts to anything, and is all for naught anyhow.
The Richard Dawkins theory of life: You are penis or a vagina. Life ends. Move along, nothing to see here.
I hae to come out in defence of Dawkin on that point, you’ve mischaracterised his arguments. Did you watch his program or are you basing it on the radio interview (which I didn’t hear)? The scope of his attack on TV was far beyond that simple statement, it was a far more fundamental attack on religion, namely that religion is inherently irrational because it relies on faith. As it is irrational it means two sides with opposing views can never reconcile (his example was Palestine/Israel as a religion to religion incompatability, Evolution/Creationism as a Science to Religion incompatability).
While he gleefully ignored one of the fundamental problems with this attack, namely that in the Palestine/Israel problem there is a non-faith based argument that is irreconcilable (that there’s not enough land to go around), on the whole I found his arguments to be well presented and quite compelling. Although he went a little too ‘sciency’ for the layman a few times, for example skipping through his ‘Mount Improbable’ argument with a little too much speed.
The American Fundamentalist leader featured on the program turned out to be (surprise, surprise) a complete freak who had no understanding of the arguments for Evolution (he reeled out the old “How can an eye form in a single step! I know lots of scientists who don’t believe in evolution because of this impossibility!” to much jaw dropping from Dawkin at such a complete lie).
siatd, i dont know what dawkins said, but a lot of people would prefer it if the church would stop interfering with the stem cells, abortions and condoms that most people think would be good for the world if fully implemented.
the existence of religion allows for the existence of brainwashing ignorant africans into not using condoms even though it will save their life from disease and unwanted pregnancy. if we could just ban people from proselytizing about things for which they dont have the slightest proof, id be ok with that. you can join your secret church and refrain from all the corporeal evils that cause happiness all you want. just dont infect ignorant farm folk with your baseless ideas, its not fair to them.
Does that mean we can ban socialism and communism as well? How about nationalism, altruism, and “subjective” morality?
Science involves faith. Reason argues on the basis of that which is not in evidence, just like religious faith. Plus religion has held societies together for centuries, the ‘Scientific Era’ has seen massive increases in abortions, STDs, the gap between the rich and poor…
Matt said:
Apparently we are basing assertions here on personal perspective of his interviews, so I will join that fray.
Many people of faith, not necessarily Christian, also take time to view scientific evidence as a counterpart to faith. Dawkins and many other uniperspective individuals may find issues to be irreconcilable, but it should not be broadbrush generalized in that manner, as it is summarily untrue.
Also, the Palestinian/Israeli conflict is not about “not enough land”. That is completely inaccurate. It is about the which nation has the inherent right to the land. You should be careful of posting such incorrect information as it tends to cloud the nature of the debate with fallacy or outright duplicity.
Dawkins is also a proponent of an amoral world, as he sees morality as a faith based societal construct with no empirical evidence as to its need.
Dear Matt,
Just the radio show, from which I took the phrase in the title of this thread.
Reason relies on faith. If religion is irrational due to relying on faith then reason is irrational, therefore saying that religion is irrational is in itself irrational. Dawkins is a twonk, and his rhetoric of ‘faith is irrational’ is self-defeating…
Because it’s not like secular cultures (e.g. Nazism, Soviet Communism) ever caused any trouble, oh no…
Attacking fundamentalism is one thing, leaping from that to calling for the abolition of all religion and to labelling all religious activity ‘useless’ is stupidity and worthy of the strongest criticism. The truth is that Dawkins is as much a fundamentalist, as much someone who is incapable of accepting anything other than his own view of things (which entails faith and presumption just like any other) as the man in his doc…
siatd can’t handle simple points…he must teaste everything out and make it protracted…but this makes for some great thinking and ideas…
futureman said: ‘what if he simply thinks that stem cells, abortion and evolution are better ideas than eucharist, confirmation and faith over works?’
this is crudely simple but it highlights the ‘conflict of interest’ quite well.
See thats such a fallacious statement. I suggest the book “Freedom Evolves” to anyone who holds this view of Dawkins, and Dennett. Neither think we are mindless sheep, they simply feel that our notions of life, spirituality, freedom, humanity… etc… should be based on actuality!! Look, I might like to believe in heaven, or some kind of nirvanna state, Hell I’d like to believe that If I meditated for an hour every mourning I could transform myself into some kind of uber-being, The Overman, Take all the women I want, and Rule the world… but none of those beliefs are based on solid fact so I don’t put any wasted energy in shaping my life based on them !!
http://www.positiveatheism.org/writ/dawkins1.htm
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,392319,00.html
Theres a couple of interviews from Dawkins, and Dennett which is a bit of an introduction of there views, in case anybody cares to judge the men based on their own words, and not secondary accounts. Their explinations are solidly grounded in science fact, and rationality!!
I love the term “Trickle Down Method” that Dennett uses to explain the simple intuitive fallacy that leads to many a faithful servant of god. 
Both Dawkins, and Dennett hold the view that religion is dangerous, and they are trying to rid humanity of this line of thought. Its time for us to put down the G.I Joes, and grow up. You can’t really blame them for mounting an attack on religion, any more then you could blame anti war protesters, for picketing. However you feel about their views they are trying to do some good.
I’m not going to make a big arguement here, since its almost pointless appealing to rationality and logic with you creationists. All I can say is that I can’t wait for Dennett’s next book “Breaking the spell”. He seems to be trying to pursue creationists that religion is open to scientific analysis, and does not have to be a ‘blind leap of faith’.
Anyways… peace… and go with god you unimaginative sheep 
Not really, because the point is that in different fields different institutions should have priority. In terms of scientific research the interests of pure research should prevail. Dawkins called for the abolition of ALL religion and blamed it for ALL evil. There’s a big difference between being practical and jumping on a bandwagon…
Just think of all the people to whom that description might apply.