Atheism and Richard Dawkins

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jekenai
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12 Jan 2013, 11:20 am

trollcatman wrote:

Those politicians in the first video are horrible. Why do we need to treat every opinion with respect? Sometimes ridicule is very much deserved. And that desire to appear balanced by calling both sides extremist is just silly.

I definitely agree. There should be no obligation to treat an opinion with respect, even if it's an opinion of millions of people. You have to respect that there is such an opinion and that there is a lot of people with this opinion, not the opinion itself. And I hate the false balance.

ruveyn
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12 Jan 2013, 12:24 pm

Dawkins had the gall (and courage) to distinguish between the quality of opinions/judgements and their quantity .

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Question14
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12 Jan 2013, 1:22 pm

Religion has a big part in american politics.
Some of you may already know, that the founding fathers of american goverment wanted no religion to interfer with american politics.

If they could see the state of it now...

If you are wondering how this is in context, dawkins uses this to show how religion is allowed to interfer because of 'respect'

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ruveyn
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12 Jan 2013, 2:06 pm

Question14 wrote:

Thomas Jefferson who was a crypto atheist or very nearly one, would be turning over in his grave.

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12 Jan 2013, 3:26 pm

yellowtamarin wrote:

The_Walrus wrote:

yellowtamarin wrote:

And he doesn't claim anything is a new idea of his, as far as I know.

What about meme theory?

Okay, I don't really know much about that, or how it relates to atheism, which is the topic that I was referring to. I understand he coined the term "meme" but I don't know how involved he was in introducing the theory. Does he act as though this idea is extraordinary, when it is actually plainly obvious?

Oh yeah, it isn't an "atheism" idea, but a biological one.

Essentially it is Darwinism applied to ideas, it says that humans can evolve by passing on ideas as well as genes, we can survive death through our cultural impact (which is basically stolen from Nietzsche).

Question14
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12 Jan 2013, 5:49 pm

I think REM 'losing my religion' is appropriate here

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Fnord
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12 Jan 2013, 5:58 pm

Just because the man comes across as a pompous jackass at times, that does not make his opinions on Deism or Theism any more or less wrong than those of the Deists and Theists themselves.

Religion is to Science as Fish is to Bicycle.

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TheValk
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12 Jan 2013, 6:12 pm

Fnord wrote:

It does help to trust a person exhibiting some semblance of humility instead of casually making a claim to it out of grandiosity that Dawkins clearly finds so difficult to hide. This is not every atheist's problem by all means, but I don't see how Dawkins would be a good role model for any reasons outside his scientific activity.

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12 Jan 2013, 6:23 pm

TheValk wrote:

Fnord wrote:

He is an excellent role-model for those of us who would express our opinions without concern for how popular those opinions might be.

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12 Jan 2013, 6:30 pm

Fnord wrote:

TheValk wrote:

Fnord wrote:

He is an excellent role-model for those of us who would express our opinions without concern for how popular those opinions might be.

Including ones Dawkins wouldn't be pleased to hear? Sure enough.

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12 Jan 2013, 9:33 pm

TheValk wrote:

Fnord wrote:

TheValk wrote:

Fnord wrote:

He is an excellent role-model for those of us who would express our opinions without concern for how popular those opinions might be.

Including ones Dawkins wouldn't be pleased to hear? Sure enough.

Including those, yes.

If the pursuit of scientific endeavors was based on a consensus of popularity, then it might be safe to say that human life expectancies would be considerably less than they are now.

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12 Jan 2013, 10:02 pm

jekenai wrote:

trollcatman wrote:

I definitely agree. There should be no obligation to treat an opinion with respect, even if it's an opinion of millions of people.

Indeed. Should we treat the ravings of conspiracy theorists with respect? Or members of the National Front?

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12 Jan 2013, 10:03 pm

I think the main reason for Dawkins' attitude is he doesn't see why there should be a taboo against questioning religion. That it has been wrapped in a cloak of respectability that it doesn't deserve. It should be open to criticism just and any political party or issue is.

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12 Jan 2013, 10:07 pm

VIDEODROME wrote:

THIS, FTW^^.

As long as (1) religious people keep making fools of themselves, and (2) there are no anti-blasphemy laws to over-ride free speech, there will be criticisms of religion.

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13 Jan 2013, 8:58 am

I dislike how him and all of his followers think of religious people as idiots.

It is disgusting, really. Previous comment an example, a very very tame example. But this site is very very friendly and not an accurate representation of reality.

Why is being right all the time so important? I realize all the religious people are almost certainly wrong, but I'm not interested in calling them fools. It is just kind of dumb.

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13 Jan 2013, 9:09 am

heavenlyabyss wrote:

I dislike how him and all of his followers think of religious people as idiots.

He didn't say that. He said that "religious people keep making fools of themselves", not that all religious people are idiots.

The real beef that Dawkins and crew have is with organised religion, not with people's personal spiritual beliefs about this God or that God or whatever.

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