Not if his "evidence" is tainted by bias. Seems to me there is more big market corporation at play here than religion. I would not be surprised if the people in the white house were athiests looking out for number one. Nope, I have heard too many of Dawkins diatribes to ignore his bent. Stalin was a socialist so he used socialist arguments. Dawkins is an evolutionary biologist, so he uses those arguments. Otherwise there is no difference in the propaganda. Russels thesis is linked and explains why he does not believe in God. Which is more honest than Dawkins cherry picking of some "evidence" which fails under close scrutiny. One could argue that there were no school shootings where young boys killed children because they wanted to cull the population and aid natural selection before the militant atheists came in. So he replaces one form of indoctrination with another? Stalins anti-religious propaganda caused MUCH greater harm than any religion. You mean like saying suicide terrorism is due to religion?Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Or that theistic propaganda deludes people, when its clear that anti-theistic propaganda leads to gulags and dictatorships? For example? I'd like to see a scholarly criticism by an Islamic scholar that makes these "accurate observations"
SAM: Well, you couldn't know that, could you? You haven't read his book. You're not being honest here. When an Al Qaeda member shouts that as he sets off a bomb, he isn't having fun. He is praising his god, proclaiming that his god is great. He means it. It isn't just off-the-cuff slang. You can hear the conviction in the voices. Some of them, yes. But what are you trying to get at? You seems to be going off on some kind of tangent here. Who do you suggest I look at? We've already done Stalin. Suicide bombing is not guerilla warfare. You're conflating two quite different things there. My question, by the way, was not whether suicide bombing was a "natural response" of the religious, but whether they would still carry out suicide bombings without the promise of an eternity in paradise as a martyr. You avoided answering the question. Yes. Religion alone is not enough to make a suicide bomber. But remove religion and then what? You might want to check out the actual beliefs professed by people in the White House, rather than guessing. Interesting that the religious are considered gullible and easily led, don't you think? Don't be silly. There are huge differences. Stalinist atheist propaganda was simplistic and superficial, to say the least. Research this for yourself if you doubt it. In contrast, Dawkins makes a reasoned case against religion, or at least against belief in gods. Which evidence, in particular, fails under close scrutiny? Stalin's anti-religious propaganda probably did little, if any, harm. It also failed to dissuade many Russians from maintaining their religious beliefs, although they could not practice their religion openly. As for Dawkins, he isn't indoctrinating anybody. He is making an argument, which you and everybody else are free to accept or reject. He isn't telling you that you can't have an alternative point of view. He isn't suppressing other points of view. He isn't restricting your access to information. Comparing Dawkins to Stalin invites the communist equivalent of Godwin's law. You ought to just give up and end the thread right here. Do you have any evidence at all that anti-theistic propaganda leads to gulags and dictatorships? Please provide evidence that establishes the link, if you have any.
I've heard his arguments. But is he doing is because he is religious? Not according to those that have studied these people http://usinfo.state.gov/journals/itps/0806/ijpe/sageman.htm What tangent? According to Dawkins "real" scientists are naturalists; I am asking you if the religious beliefs of the unreal scientists (like Francis Collins) are a necessary discussion on a science podium. Try any society where an athiest has used anti-religious propaganda to get fame or power. North Korea, China, Cambodia Since I gave the example of the areligious LTTE, quite clearly they would. I don't see how this is avoiding the question. I also provided a link which indicated that most sucide bombers are better educated and more rational than their contemporaries. The occupation goes away? People no longer fight? Kill each other? Except that evidence from primitive societies without "organised religion" shows they were more violent, not less. You mean the gay Republicans? Unlike the introspective people under Stalin, you mean? The ones who were at peak fantasy, shooting a thousand people a day to attain their utopian society? I doubt the 20 million dead would agree. Not that I can see. He talks about child abuse then admits that most theists are not violent criminals, labels then admits that they may not persist and that children do get their values from parents, God being a scientifically testable proposition then adds a disclaimer that the scientists' God is a metaphor. In other words, he dissembles to make his point. All that I could see and have already discussed. I suggest you do some research into exactly how much harm Stalins propaganda did. I would call that a great deal of harm resulting from his propaganda. No, he is merely misrepresenting theism and theists to support his own anti-religion stance. I see no difference between the two, both were aiming for some fantasy society where they could get rid of all the theists and live in a science filled utopia. I'm using Dawkins tools of association. Anti-religion propaganda led to the death of millions in this century alone. Under the Khmer Rouge which banned all religion and killed all the Buddhist priests for example, following the "model" of Chinese anti-religion propaganda, for instance. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! The same for the people killed daily for their faith in North Korea, the people killed for their faith in the Soviet Union, in China, in all communist societies run by atheists. The reasoning? The same utopian society that Dawkins is aiming for: http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~hpcws/lelivrenoir.htm This is not a new pattern.
Why do keep lying? You haven't read the book, so stop lying about it. You've been creating strawmen arguments based on your own ignorance. You haven't read the book, hence you've seen nothing. Your comments on Dawkins and his book are fantasies you created. Still haven't learned a thing about communism, yet you continue to use that fallacious argument. Denial is best, eh sam? Dawkins has a far better understanding of religions than you ever will. Of course you don't, you're a theist, and it is the very heart of indoctrination into Islam that he attacks. A science filled utopia is that which we already live. Theists live in it too. Look down at your computer and internet connection to confirm it. You really should try to learn a thing or two about communism. Your ignorance of it does make you look the fool and the fundie.
I'm using Dawkins methodology. I believe he wrote the book without studying any of the religions. I'm not dissing communism per se, just the use of anti-religion propaganda by atheists in all communist regimes (outside India, at least) resulting in the massacre of all people they perceived as opposed to their beliefs.
Sam, you are the least honest person on SciForums, after 'Sandy'. Atheists are not a group, and do not have an agenda. Atheists are merely not part of a specific group. You cannot attribute atrocities to a group that doesn't exist, for beliefs it doesn't have. Your etymology and set theory need a brush up, or at least, you need to stop twisting things to fit your warped perspective. If you can't debate honestly, don't bother.
Are you claiming that those who used the anti-religion propaganda and killed people for being theists and banned religion were not atheists? And aren't you, ironically, defending a belief system which you claim does not exist? Aren't all the atheists here?
Find out why an athiest is defending a belief system which he claims does not exist.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
That is simply guilt by association. What part of "God doesn't exist", says that killing people for being theists is good? ...That banning religion is good? The black and white, "with us or against us", good and evil worldview is a product of religion. That has to be taught. In the cases of socialist revolutions, the belief system that described how to treat believers as enemies was a particular brand of Marxist ideology.
Which was followed by athiests using anti-religious propaganda. By which they targeted people for being thiests and massacred them by the hundreds of thousands (e.g. 200,000 priests murdered under Soviet indoctrinated regime). You have only to read the posts by some atheists here (including the commentaries of people like Dawkins). Theists are delusional, uneducated, deceitful, deceptive, liars, unintelligent, fools, fundamentalists, ignorant, violent, hateful, intolerant, religion is bad. Theists are child abusers, terrorists, suicide bombers, ignoring all evidence that points to atheists as being more violent contenders for the same positions and dismissing the vast majority of theists who are none of the above. With a belief system dominated by such thoughts, is it any wonder they all escalated to genocide?
I agree that atheism combined with socialist revolutionary ideology is a dangerous thing. Atheism contains no particular moral code. Atheism is like knowledge of genetics, you could cure disease or create biological weapons with it. The terrorism, the child abuse, the denial of science is actually a direct product of religious faith, not because the religion doesn't specifically prohibit it. Basically, you are telling me that without a threat of eternal supernatural retribution for your actions in this life, it is impossible to develop a compassionate moral system? If faith has been ineffective in enforcing a moral society, what good is it? It doesn't do what it claims to. Atheism doesn't claim to be a moral system, that is up to you, your judgement. It's a rejection of the practice of accepting things central to our existence without any evidence, just because a book, or a religious authority tells you. Which more resembles a dictatorship? If your use of statistical evidence should be our guide to what's better, I am sure there was a culture at some point in history, probably long ago, that never committed any actions that modern humans would consider amoral. Their primitive form of religion must have been the best one. Therefore, we should all offer a portion of our harvest to the forest spirits, and they will bring the rain.
There is no evidence that atheists who are anti-theists can create a compassionate society. There is no evidence that atheists can create a compassionate society without some input from religious morality. There is no evidence that atheists can create a tolerant society There is plenty of evidence for the reverse. Why are you "sure"?
As I said, that is because atheism is not itself a moral code. "Religious morality" is similar to the morality of atheists since, at some point, someone long ago made it up. The difference is, if we know someone just made it up, we can change it to suit emerging information. Religious people that imbibed the principle of "be fruitful and multiply", could not react to overpopulation. Someone made it up, but you aren't free to question those choices because it would undermine the foundations of faith.
As for morality, atheism unleashes mind; to go on a right way is a choice but to go wild has no restriction. theism puts leash but has no control over going wild within the boundary of the leash. Often the leash had been snapped by some uncontrolable theists because their own shortcommings.
You're assuming its made up because you don't believe in God. And you ignore the fact that religious societies have existed for thousands of years, so clearly they have advantages. I do not see a single society that can boast of being atheist and productive and self sustaining. So whatever the defects of a religious society, an atheist society is clearly worse. The experiments with atheist society in the twentieth century clearly tell us why, as most of them have reverted to some form of religious belief. I predict the rise in athiesm is an evolutionary response to over population. Perhaps culling the population is easier under atheistic societies.
You assume that God talked to those people. You have no evidence that this is the case, you are taking them on their word. I don't know what you mean by atheist society, there has never been such a thing. There is secular humanism, which leaves room for people to make up their own minds. Atheism is associated with the rise in scientific knowledge that explains things without God. People with scientific differences ususally get along just fine. If knowledge is the highest principle, then questioning assumptions is a scientific value.
Actually religion is associated with rise in scientific knowledge, athiesm has no code that defines creation as something that God has provided for man to study and enjoy. Science was born of religion. Atheists are just so much baggage going along for the ride. And going by the Dawkins principle that the most extreme define the system, I would say athiesm has no room for secular humanism. They have no code that says love your neighbor, sin to kill etc. Their lack of code makes it unnecessary for them to practise altruism, unless they have some exposure to religious teachings. Atheism per se has NOTHING to do with justice or morality.
Oh please, you don't half waffle a load of old horse poop. "The indicators around the world are worrying. In the US, science and scientists are being harassed, intimidated or bought by a coalition of extreme religion and corporate hooliganism - a coalition thought by many to have President George W. Bush in its pocket. In the Islamic world, according to an August 2007 report in Physics Today, the 57 nations of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference have 8.5 scientists and technologists per 1000 population, compared to a world average of 41, and 139 per 1000 in OECD countries. Meanwhile, a well-funded Islamic campaign of anti-Darwinian propaganda, under the title The Atlas of Creation, is being mounted. Similarly, the Catholic Church, through its worldwide network of nuncios and concordats and its connections in the European Union, United Nations and other international bodies, continues its campaign to impose undemocratic controls on science and medicine..." Source Religion, by its very nature, is an enemy of 'scientific knowledge' and always has been. Saint Bernard of Clairvaux said: "The pursuit of knowledge, unless sanctified by a holy mission, is a pagan act and therefore vile". It seems nothing has really changed.
Thats probably the effect of atheism in these countries (those professing to be religious, I mean). Knowledge and religion have always gone hand in hand. Its a known fact of history.
