Investigating Dawkins

[blackpudd1n]

Haven't read any of the athiest writers. Nothing new there really I'm sure all of us haven't contemplated ourselves at some point.

 

oh, I'm learning absolute shitloads. It's awesome. My favourite so far was found in a footnote, about major mistranslations. You know how the muslims believe that if they become a martyr they'll get 72 virgins in heaven? Well, it's not actually "virgins"- the correct translation is "white raisins of crystal clarity".

 

I'm not sure what "white raisins of crystal clarity" is meant to mean, but jesus, there's going to be a lot of disappointed muslim martyrs!!!

[blackpudd1n]

I am learning a lot, too- like there being 10 planets in our solar system now (I had no idea),

Actually, that information is old. We have only 8 planets now.

 

Pluto was downgraded to dwarf planet not long ago. The reason is that we will most likely find many more "planets" in the different asteroid belts. There are something like 5 dwarf planets at the moment, and Pluto is one of them.

 

Ugh, seriously? Sounds like I'd better make a thread on this subject in the Science forum- I clearly need a crash course. I'm confused, as I thought there were 9. There will probably more come out of that, so I'll start a topic over there.

[Suzy]

I read "The Selfish Gene" and "The Blind Watchmaker" by Dawkins. Those are good books if you don't know a lot about evolution. They helped me in my deconversion process, although I think by the time I read them I was already convinced evolution was a fact.

 

I am less pleased by Dawkins' speeches I have seen about religion. He seems to be attacking a very specific form of Christianity - I mean, it only goes so far.

 

Hitchens was a smart guy, but I have some problems with him. I think I read one of his books on God - "God is Not Good"? maybe, and it was very shallow and not so well done.

 

Yes, but Dawkins' point is that moderate christians don't stand up enough to the fundamental extremists, and as such enable them. And he's got a point there, I think. Not only that, but even moderate christianity can be very damaging to a person. However, he does cede to British Anglicanism, but his concern is that that the Anglicans themselves are beginning to become increasingly influenced by extremism.

 

The moderates don't stand up to the fundamentalists because at their core (and the fundies understand and constantly reference this in their attacks on the "liberal churches") they don't have any firm foundation to stand on to be honest. Once the infallibility of scripture, the atonement, the exclusivity of the faith, and resurrection all come into debate, the foundations are gone and the liberal churches don't have much to offer in substance as compared to the ironclad dogma of the fundamentalist outfits. This is the reason for growth in fundie churches and loss of memberships in old mainline liberal denominations. The fundie message is so absolute, so firm, so black and white it has a certain appeal for those who prefer to think in this way. Liberal Christianity surely is a watered down version of the thing itself, Christianity-lite if you will.

As far as my own personal experience goes, I stopped briefly during deconversion at universalism, and was able to remove hell without drastic surgery, but when the validity of the essential gospel accounts was shown to be dubious, the rest fell apart very swiftly indeed. I think one has to "think away" a helluva lot of the biblical material if you wish to maintain a "liberal Christian" view, to the point where to my view at any rate there's not a lot left at all.

 

I agree.

 

Moderate Christianity is pretty much an oxymoron, just like moderate Islam. That doesn't mean there aren't moderate Christians/Muslims, but those are the ones who either don't know their Scriptures or don't take them seriously. Neither the Bible or the Quran are moderate. They are both pretty much extremist books, that's why it's the fundamentalists who actually get them right. Fundamentalist Christianity is the real face of Christianity! Does it look ugly? Yes, it does. Because Christianity IS ugly!

 

That's why Dawkins isn't ill advised when he mainly addresses fundamentalism, IMO. The so called moderate Christianity is nothing but sugarcoating.

[Deva]

It is simply naive to expect that liberal Christians would ever do anything to work against fundamentalists. They share the same book, they have a hell of a lot in common. The liberals don't have the guts to admit that they ignore large passages of the book. To get into a conflict with fundys they would have to admit to it.

[Suzy]

And I think this "going backwards" that my MIL noted is one of the reasons that christianity is getting increasingly fundamentalist. I don't know why it's happening, but it concerns me.

 

 

I think Christianity is dying on the long term but it won't go down without a fight and the increasing fundamentalism is a defense mechanism, a way to plug your ears and say "lalalala, I don't hear you!" to scientific discoveries and everything that contradicts religious dogma. Also I think most people like clear, black and white categories. I'm not quite sure why that is so but I have the impression most people get very uncomfortable with the idea of a world where things aren't either black or white but shades of grey. And religion, especially the fundamentalist type, provides them this safe black-and-white worldview.

[FeelHappy]

I read the God Delusion while I was still a christian and I hated it. I'm sure it slightly challenged my faith but for the most part I found lots of minor errors he mentions. For example he talks about how xenophobic jesus was even going as far to mention that when Jesus says love they neighbor that means only Israels. Completely ignoring a few verses down when someone asks who is my neighbor which leads into the story of the good samaritan which shows just how much this neighbor is everyone not just an Israelite. He had tons of wrong information in it. As a theist, it was easy to see holes in his logic and ignore the bigger picture. Plus he should know theology, if I'm going to make claims in my book, I better be sure they are correct. He makes it too easy for someone to publish a book pointing out his errors.

 

I agree with JadedAtheist about the where you're born parts = your religion parts, this doesn't prove that your were born in the part with the right religion.

 

Same thing with the old atheist argument that "No one believes in thor or zeus anymore, you're an theist to 99% of all gods, I just add one more", this completely ignores the fact that while its often a small step to reject 99% of all gods, there is an enormous leap between rejecting 99% of all gods and rejecting 100%.

 

I disliked Dawkins for a while until I read The Selfish Gene which I loved and I finally got why people liked him.

 

The things which caused me to question my beliefs were more scholarly critical biblical scholarship, the progression of the gospels from Mark to John, textual criticism, the epistles not actually written by whom they said, the ancient near east, ect.

 

I also agree with the atheists who say that his attacks on religion go too far. I'm not saying that he's wrong, but I personally believe in a more subtle approach. For example I think that the way that gays are in popular tv shows are challenging the homophobia in the younger generation and making it more tolerable for someone to be gay. From my experience, while on the other hand with the heavy handed approach by Dawkins does convert a few people, most christians wouldn't touch his works and he actually helps to reinforce the young earth creationist / or intelligent design stance. If you don't believe me just watch Expelled, they don't even mention science only the fact that evolution makes you an atheist like Dawkins (yes he's in it). In the bible belt area I'm in, people will rather accept YEC/ID than even considering the possibility of evolution and having to reject god (which is ridiculous because there is theistic evolution, but I think this is part of the reason we have so many idiotic YEC).

 

With all that being said, now that I'm a non-theist, I plan to revisit The God Delusion and his other evolution books, maybe I'll like it more. Although I did read Harris's The Moral Landscape while an agnostic and I hated it. Personally, I want tolerance from everyone and for everyone, I don't see that tolerance from the new atheists. I wish the new atheists were more like Sagan, someone who points out the errors but isn't so fundamentalist about it.

[Tealeaf]

Of course someone will call me on this being an extreme example.... But it is.

 

Stephen King's The Mist. Particularly the fairly recent film release (2007). Watch that (if you haven't already) to see it unfold on screen what can realistically happen and how easily moderate religion reverts to dangerous fundementalism. In stressful times humans revert to their more primitive instincts. A reversion to crazy fundementalist insanity would be on par.

 

The thing that this movie shows is exactly what Dawkins in concerned about. At the beginning most people regard Mrs. Carmody as just the town's local bible nutter. She's not to be taken seriously.

 

Then shit starts to hit the fan. People get SCARED and desperate. All the sudden her nutty ramblings become comfortable to some. But why are they so quickly appealing? Because no doubt everyone in that store has been brought up around some taste of Christianity and have thus been implanted with that underlying meme that it's somehow 'normal' or the appropriate thing to do in that situation. Then the bible fuels any emotionally charged siutation with its epic dialogs of FEAR and shit to come; and promises of faith.

 

This can and does happen on a lesser scale all the time. Moderates may be even more dangerous than fundementalists because they don't appear so far out from reality and so extreme. But they have the programming laying dormant. They also provide the stepping blocks from the fundementalists to climb. The moderate is in a fence sitting state whether or not they know it. If they learn too much about religion, they'll probably go on to reject it. If they are bombarded with emotionally stressful situation, they are more likely and peppered already to fall into harder use of the faithamphetamine.

 

Who else practically jizzed their pants when Mrs. Carmody finally got what she/everyone needed?

[blackpudd1n]

With all that being said, now that I'm a non-theist, I plan to revisit The God Delusion and his other evolution books, maybe I'll like it more. Although I did read Harris's The Moral Landscape while an agnostic and I hated it. Personally, I want tolerance from everyone and for everyone, I don't see that tolerance from the new atheists. I wish the new atheists were more like Sagan, someone who points out the errors but isn't so fundamentalist about it.

 

Tolerance is all good and well. Problem is, "tolerance" is usually on religion's terms.

 

In order to be fully tolerant of religion, we would have to allow them their intolerance of certain groups, like homosexuals. There is no logical, rational reason, that I can think of, to be intolerant of a person simply because of their sexual orientation. Being that it is 2012, tolerance of homosexuality should not even be an issue to begin with- it should just be an accepted norm in society.

 

Unfortunately, religious tolerance means to accept unwarranted discrimination against some groups in our society, for no other reason than it is written in their books that it is unacceptable. And THAT is what I find unacceptable.

 

Religion is holding the advancement of the human race back. If religion could stop causing wars, murdering people, discriminating against people, and being used as a justification for the rape and physical abuse of women, then I would have no reason to have an issue with it. But it's not. And clearly, the moderates aren't being much of a voice against it. Not only that, but religion will discriminate and do worse things to anyone who does not agree with it.

 

As far as I am concerned, the major religions have had long enough to get their acts together. They haven't. Time to call a spade a spade, I reckon.

[florduh]

The thing that this movie shows is exactly what Dawkins in concerned about.

I share that concern. The pervasive Christian meme that lurks just beneath the surface of virtually all American endeavor is poised to awaken under the right circumstances. Those circumstances may arise by natural means or they may be created by government action. It is a meme that exists because of 'moderate' and 'liberal' Christians who can't stomach the true message of Christianity, yet are somehow proud to be part of this Christian Nation^TM.

[FeelHappy]

In order to be fully tolerant of religion, we would have to allow them their intolerance of certain groups, like homosexuals. There is no logical, rational reason, that I can think of, to be intolerant of a person simply because of their sexual orientation. Being that it is 2012, tolerance of homosexuality should not even be an issue to begin with- it should just be an accepted norm in society.

 

Well when I said tolerance for all, I meant religions having tolerance also. There are plenty of liberal christians / ect which are in fact tolerant. I don't want to trade one intolerant fundamentalist for another.

 

 

Religion is holding the advancement of the human race back. If religion could stop causing wars, murdering people, discriminating against people, and being used as a justification for the rape and physical abuse of women, then I would have no reason to have an issue with it. But it's not. And clearly, the moderates aren't being much of a voice against it. Not only that, but religion will discriminate and do worse things to anyone who does not agree with it.

 

As far as I am concerned, the major religions have had long enough to get their acts together. They haven't. Time to call a spade a spade, I reckon.

 

I don't really agree with this, we've come a long way since the days of Moses, it just takes a very long time for people to open their eyes. We don't kill our back talking children, people aren't killed for their religious beliefs, evolution is taught in school, homosexuality is legal, women can vote and have equal rights as men, slavery is illegal, ect, sure religion slows things down but you have to get the masses on board and that takes a while. (Note: I'm using a western bias, obviously some countries have much further to go).

[blackpudd1n]

I don't really agree with this, we've come a long way since the days of Moses, it just takes a very long time for people to open their eyes. We don't kill our back talking children, people aren't killed for their religious beliefs, evolution is taught in school, homosexuality is legal, women can vote and have equal rights as men, slavery is illegal, ect, sure religion slows things down but you have to get the masses on board and that takes a while. (Note: I'm using a western bias, obviously some countries have much further to go).

 

Even with a Western bias, doctors have been killed in recent times simply for working in abortion clinics. I can think of one death in an abortion clinic in Australia (it was a security guard trying to protect the others) in recent times, so it's not just America.

 

People are being killed as a direct result of christian beliefs: just look at the American missionaries and the deaths of homosexuals that they have caused in an African country (is it Uganda, or Nigeria?). This is happening NOW.

 

And how about the war in Iraq? Didn't god "tell" George W. Bush to invade? Did not that lead to widespread killing?

 

Evolution is still having to fight ID in many public schools in America, and in Christian schools, their either teaching both, with a creationist bias, or just creationism.

 

Homosexuality is legal, but plenty of christians don't want it to be. Not only that, but even in the Western world they're still fighting for their right to get married.

 

Sure, women can vote. But even in many moderate congregations, women aren't even allowed leadership roles, or if they are must defer to the males in leadership, and our rights are equal only on paper. A christian woman faces severe pressure to "submit" and not be anything other than her christian husband wants her to be. His dreams and aspirations are still more important than hers.

 

Not only that, but christian women face grave personal consequences for having an abortion. How are they equal, then?

 

I would argue that slavery is only abolished on paper. Sexual slavery rings still operate around the world, even in Western countries.

 

As far as I am concerned, religion is slowing us down. The scary thing about religion, is that people just don't question. Even the moderates. They just don't question enough.

[florduh]

As far as I am concerned, religion is slowing us down. The scary thing about religion, is that people just don't question. Even the moderates. They just don't question enough.

 

Couldn't agree more, Pudd.

 

I can understand moderate and liberal Christians claiming the faith is a harmless one, but atheists have been known to defend them as well for fear of being labeled a Fundamentalist Atheist. I don't get it.

[blackpudd1n]

As far as I am concerned, religion is slowing us down. The scary thing about religion, is that people just don't question. Even the moderates. They just don't question enough.

 

Couldn't agree more, Pudd.

 

I can understand moderate and liberal Christians claiming the faith is a harmless one, but atheists have been known to defend them as well for fear of being labeled a Fundamentalist Atheist. I don't get it.

 

Now the Fundamentalist Atheist label is a concept that I don't get. Atheists don't have something written down in stone that they all agree to and believe in. Isn't that crucial to the concept of being a fundamentalist? There is no Book of Atheism. There is no Supreme Phrophet in atheism. Therefore, what exactly is a Fundamentalist Atheist? What, atheists are not allowed to have strong convictions, too?

[blackpudd1n]

And I think the point being missed is that if religions were not harming anyone, were not lying to children, and were a very personal, quiet thing, atheists wouldn't have an issue with them to begin with.

 

If all religions were just a philosophy, a way of living, and nothing more, then there wouldn't be an argument against them. Problem is, the big three are not that. And their scriptures are not that, either. And unless they physically remove all the horrible shit from their scriptures, or add a disclaimer, saying what they really are, they're only going to continue causing problems.

[norton65ca]

hilarious, I just had the exact same debate here at work the other day with a young colleague who seemed to advocate the concept that tolerance is king. Here's my reply, in part a notice of dissent from the notion current that tolerance is the paramount virtue in the 21st century.

 

tolerance only goes so far, and has limits, and so it should.

In times gone by, there was no tolerance of dissent, no tolerance of unorthodox opinions. For example, in 15th century England, if you deviated from the theological norms, you were likely to end your life on the block or gallows. A protestant, in Mary Tudors England, would certainly be burnt at the stake for expressing opinions which varied from the position of Rome. In turn, the protestant regime of the successors of Elizabeth I had little mercy for popish plots. I have read much about the reformation and the religious wars of that time, and I used to own very old books about the trials and bloody executions of dissenters and the Scottish Covenanters and so on.

We, even in an enlightened society, are asked to tolerate much, in order that we not offend. This is an impossibility. I cannot tolerate all religions, and I will not. I don't tolerate gay people being referred to as sodomites. I don't wish to tolerate the medieval concept that all who don't worship a certain deity are worthless vessels of dishonour that are destined from birth to be burned as an offering for a god for all eternity. I will not tolerate a "God" who commands his followers through his prophets to disembowel pregnant women and dash the foetuses heads against rocks (Book of Hosea if you're wondering) or the same god ordering the mass slaughter of all men, women and children in a city, leaving the virgin girls to be raped by their conquerors. (Deuteronomy or Leviticus, can't quite remember which) This is disgusting, barbaric and loathsome and no civilized society should be "tolerating" this medieval belief system, in my opinion.. I don't tolerate Islamic scriptural references to infidels and what should be done with them. I despise the writings in the Talmud that refer to non jews as Goyim and advocates killing them both without mercy and without guilt, it is sanctioned by Yahweh. The same book condones child rape as well, so does the bible. I cannot admit tolerance for animist religions in Africa that advocate genital mutilation of virgin girls.

 

What I am compelled to do by this mixed up society we live in is tolerate anyone's desire to follow these sick and twisted theologies. And this I do, to a point. But when society tells me I must respect religions of all stripes, I cry foul. There is nothing in this world that will cause me to tolerate these ancient, destructive and divisive fantasy religions, and I would like nothing more than to see them ALL eradicated forever from the face of the earth. But I do RESPECT the RIGHT (which we as humans have bestowed, not some god) of anyone to believe whatever rubbish they choose to believe, this is my duty as someone who lives in a pluralistic society. I respect the mans right to believe and worship his god as he or she sees fit, but don't ask me to respect their religion, as I would rather spit on it. As for anyone who attempts to indoctrinate me of any of my family into these barbaric bronze age belief systems, they will not receive much of a welcome by me. This includes idiots in the public forum who attempt through disingenuous lies to convince society at large to rescind tolerance for all who don't believe as they suggest (Rick Santorum and his various attacks on liberty for example.) keep the rilijun to yerself Rickky boy.

That's my take on tolerance and compromise. There is no meeting ground in the middle, it would be lovely world if there were but there isn't. I, according to all my old Christian friends (I was one for decades) am firmly destined for the fires of hell for all eternity, and that's fine, but if they come anywhere near my grandson and try to convince him of the merits of this belief system, I'll blacken their self righteous eyes so fast it'll make your head spin.

[blackpudd1n]

hilarious, I just had the exact same debate here at work the other day with a young colleague who seemed to advocate the concept that tolerance is king. Here's my reply, in part a notice of dissent from the notion current that tolerance is the paramount virtue in the 21st century.

 

tolerance only goes so far, and has limits, and so it should.

 

Bravo, Norton!

[blackpudd1n]

I just had to write and say how very much I am enjoying The God Delusion.

 

It's amazing, the feeling of having cobwebs swept away by Dawkins, as I read his arguments and the reasoning behind his arguments.

 

And I am learning so much, too- my gosh, I couldn't even write down how much I am learning, how many new avenues I now have to explore as a result of this book. It makes me feel so excited to feel my mind being stretched and exercised in this manner. I'll definitely be reading this book again!

 

Oh, and I just wanted to add, too, for those that mentioned him being wrong on some things- I bought a revised edition of the original book, where he admitted and corrected some of his previous errors, and, I believe, added a couple of chapters at the end. This edition was published by Black Swan in 2007.