I havent posted this to the site. I might, but not now.

[firecrest]

Dear Mr Dawkins

Its doubtful you will read or reply to this but I felt I should write it anyway.   ive been a member of this site around 6 months and like many people here, i came looking for a place on the internet where I could discuss atheism and rational thinking.     The forums on this site have been an eye-opener and not for all the right

Comments

"Oh my Science!"

[justreadingct]

Well...I agree that he's a jackass, and I don't know what he shot off on the radio, but I don't think he wants to promote a belief system without morality. He thinks altruistic genes have been selected through evolution, and we're naturally empathy...which is spoken like someone that's spent way too much time in the ivory tower. He's has been very active in the Ape's Right's Movement and I'll give him credit for that.

That being said, I read part of The God Delusion at Borders (and some old lady kept coming up to me and tellng me he was evil, but that's another story). He goes on about how religion always subverts science, creates fanatcism, causes discrmination, blah, blah, blah. I might agree with him - if the entire world was populated by Landover Baptist. I have lots of religious friends and colleagues that do not meet his descriptions. Most intelligent people learn that stereotypes are bad when they're fairly young.

Not that the entre book is drivel - he makes some valid points - the bible is a pretty bloody book - but then he goes on to say that don't do evil things in the name of atheism. What about when Stalin murdered all of those priest?

***
And South Park totally owned him.:)

Re: "Oh my Science!"

[staggeronward]

yeah I should have mentioned that I'm only familiar with him through random news clips and that interview, and that interview was just completely focused on how stupid and backward religious people are, and how religion and science are mutually exclusive (which is utter poppycock). He was snide with callers and just generally unpleasent. His behavior gave me the notion that he believed morality and science were mutually exclusive as well.

Re: "Oh my Science!"

[greatgreybeast]

Dawkins has been around for a long time, and I've always respected him as a scientist and progressive thinker in general. He is, after all, the creator of the concept of memetics, which is revolutionizing a number of fields. Recently he's become a lot more visible as he's ramped up this fight against religion, and I think he's kind of overextended himself. He seems kind of awkward in the encounters I've seen him in, as if he's become overly defensive under the limelight. Perhaps he should leave the politicking to somebody else. Perhaps it doesn't need to be done at all. But, frankly, I agree with most of his conclusions. I believe there is compelling positive evidence that God isn't real, at least not in any form that Christians would claim as their own. And even if it is impossible to prove God doesn't exist, it is certainly possible to prove that a number of other religious beliefs aren't true. I wouldn't go so far as to call anybody who believes the world is 6,000 years old 'stupid,' because the social pressures behind that belief are so complicated, but they certainly aren't thinking clearly. And a lot of the foundations of western religion are inherently dangerous, threatening everything from social justice to personal well-being. I think the extent to which the moderate Christians who make up most of this country are not part of that danger is precisely the extent to which they are unfaithful to their own religion. After all, it's the crazy Landover Baptist types and far-right Evangelicals who actually stand by what the Bible says and try their damnedest to spread the word. The moderate and progressive churches have to bend over backwards to reinterpret or outright ignore huge chunks of the Christian faith in order to reconcile it with our modern understanding of ethics and science. And even for most of them, insidious messages slip through in the most subtle of ways. Even as a teenager, it made me sad to see all my friends drag themselves off to church in a mood of gloomy obligation so that they could apologize to their own creator for being made broken. Now ask me why we have such a problem with personal responsibility in this country. Where religion encroaches on our cultural well-being, I think it is important to speak up. But we do need to maintain the distinction between attacking the argument and the person, and remember that even if reason may lead to atheism, atheism does not lead to reason.

Re: "Oh my Science!"

[justreadingct]

I really liked The Selfish Gene and The Blindwatchmaker. I liked him as a person until I read about half of The God Delusion. Dawkins had insufficient understanding of the religious concepts he attacking and it shows by his overbroad generalizations. He's said that wrote the book to help improve atheist public image. I don't think that this book is going to do that.

We need Carl Sagan back, man.

Re: "Oh my Science!"

[firecrest]

yeah I felt the same way. the god dellusion was thin on the ground, though he does specify he is narrowing it down to simply biblical gods its not correct to call religious people unrational

Re: "Oh my Science!"

[justreadingct]

Yeah. I've been reading articles on the possible "God gene." Dean Hamer (who is the quasi-founder of this research) has a much better understanding of faith than Dawkins. He noted that there isn't a record of an early secular civilization and notes that the impluse to believe in a higher power may be natural. He also notes how much comfort it often brings people - a concept that Dawkins failed to grasp.

While I agree with Robin that people who have faith in a supernatual being that there is no evidence for probably aren't thinking clearly, I don't really see faith in the supernatural as unnatural. We might possbily be the evolutionary abnormalities.:) Although it does seem that even secular humans need to have faith in something - be it each other, progress, the justice system, etc - to keep from slipping into despair.

Re: "Oh my Science!"

[firecrest]

Also people often forget belief in the supernatural isnt an `irrational` belief.
For instance, if you think you saw a ghost, it is more rational to feel that maybe you did, even if you dont know what it was rather than to imagine you temporarily hallucinated. sometimes science attempts to force a person to chose an option they inherantly feel is irrational. Im not saying the truth is one way or the other though. I was once extremely disapointed to be called a `crackpot` for claiming I saw a UFO. well i DID see a UFO. I never said I saw aliens, but I did indeed see a craft making maneuvres like no aircraft can (stopping and starting dead, going from 0 to 100mph in maybe 2 seconds in mid air. it was even next to an airbase on restricted land so im not mistaken in that I saw somthing mundane and mistook it something extraordinary.
also you often hear extremely compelling stories about the supernatural and if you get them first hand its no easy to dismiss as dillusion. I remember my sisters ex boyfriend said when he was 12 he went on holiday with his family on a boating trip. when they moored the boat he went to town with his friend but he could hear his sister shouting for help right in his ear even though she was back at the boat. He decided to go back because he was so alarmed by it. when he got there the police were there and she had drowned in the water. He insists he heard her, he would not make it up. it is rational therefor , for this person to conclude he somehow heard his sister (again Im not saying he did, though I certainly pull towards saying he may have) the atheist would insist this person conclude they imagined the voice, it was a coincidence , or his subconscious invented the voice because when he left he might have been worried she would fall off the boat and drown. To the person who experienced this, accepting the atheists answer would be a much less rational thing for them to do because it would be accepting second hand information over first hand experience.

Re: "Oh my Science!"

[justreadingct]

I also don't think belief in the supernatural is actually irrational. It's so deeply ingrained in our culture, perhaps even our genes. Humans are social animals and we always try to find common ground to connect to others on. Having some sort of belief in something is often that common ground.

I thought I saw a ghost once. When I was 5, my mother was obsessed with our basement being haunted. One day I was playing down there and I turned around quickly. I saw a woman in a white flowing robe looking at me, so I ran upstairs screaming. My mom, being kind of nuts, told me that she had "felt" the woman too and I must also have the gift.

I don't think I saw an actual ghost. I think I imagined it because people in my family were always talking about things like ghost and I was a creative child. Given the cultural history of ghosts, most people have an idea what a ghost should look like.

Re: "Oh my Science!"

[justreadingct]

I was just thinking I didn't finish this comment.

Anyway, I don't mean to imply anyone that sees something supernatural is crazy. I don't think there is anything outside the natural world, but that doesn't inherently mean us humans understand everything about what is natural and what is not.