Dawkins Choice: Abuse and Religion
- Thread starter S.A.M.
- Start date
I started it, read the whole shebang about the "confusion" between Einstein's "religion" and "other religions" and had a good laugh and set it away. Its a feel good book for athiests. I'm more concerned with what he is doing than what he is preaching.
Tell me James, do you flinch when introduced to a Christian child or Muslim child? Are you pointing out to those parents their gross abuse of their childs rights? And is it your opinion that atheism nearly always indicates a healthy mind and healthy independence? Are you promoting atheist pride? :m:
Tell me James, do you flinch when introduced to a Christian child or Muslim child? Are you pointing out to those parents their gross abuse of their childs rights? And is it your opinion that atheism nearly always indicates a healthy mind and healthy independence? Are you promoting atheist pride? :m:
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Bells
Staff member
Ermm ok.
So you are commenting about his views on child abuse and religion, when you haven't read chapter 9 of the book yet?
Your commenting about this, without even having read his views on Edgardo Mortara, for example? :bugeye:
I'm commenting on what he says and does; I am more interested in what he projects as his beliefs, since even Osama bin Laden has the very prestigious Ibn Taymiyya as his idelogical guide.
I'm sure he has found ample examples to justify his antitheism, but thats nothing new in history, is it? Really Bells, is it any different from homophobes fantsasing about the horrors of anal sex and AIDS?
Bells
Staff member
But you still didn't read what he said in the book on the very subject we are discussing...
So how can you say you are commenting on what he says and does, when you have not really read all of what he has said?
Does he speak on other people's behalf? Or his own?
I find the book trite and condescending and it would take me ages to wade through it. I'm going to take his advice and not force myself into it.
Lets hope he keeps representing himself adequately when he speaks. I've grown up with people of all religions and find his polemic an insult to all of them.
Bells
Staff member
So you find it insulting when he says that people should never say "Catholic child", "Muslim child", "Jewish child", for example, because it seems to lock them into a belief system the child might not share and has not consented to belonging to? You find it insulting that he says that the child should be viewed as being an individual born of "Catholic parents" or "Muslim parents", so that the child then feels they are free to choose the belief system of their own?
Your stance on this is interesting, to say the least. You are taking comments here and there and attempting to formulate his viewpoint, all while you refuse to read his book, which details his feelings on the matter quite clearly, because you find it "trite and condescending". It is akin to many of the members on here who take parts of the Qu'ran (as one example) and then go on to comment on the religion as a whole, without having read or understood the religious text in its entirety.
You have started this thread on the premise that Dawkins has said that children should be removed from theist parents, when he has said no such thing. Why? Isn't that "trite and condescending"? Or when you asked James the following question:
"Tell me James, do you flinch when introduced to a Christian child or Muslim child? Are you pointing out to those parents their gross abuse of their childs rights? And is it your opinion that atheism nearly always indicates a healthy mind and healthy independence? Are you promoting atheist pride?"
Aren't you being condescending there?
Since you haven't read the book, I find your question to be "trite and condescending", since you failed to realise that his comments on the matter has more to do with the fact that by introducing a child as a "Muslim child", that parents are denying their child the right to choose for themselves. Isn't that more "trite and condescending"? Don't you think children should be given a choice in such matters? Or do you follow the same line of thought as the Catholic Church in the case of Edgardo Mortara, whereby they removed him from the care of his loving Jewish parents because his Catholic nanny had seen fit to baptise him and the laws of the time held that Catholic children were not to be brought up by non-Catholic parents. Don't you think Edgardo should have had a say in whether he was baptised or not?
Had you read the book, you would have understood where he was coming from. But you have not, yet you see fit to comment based on a few little quotes taken out of context?
So do you you flinch when you see children reenacting a nativity and dial 911?
Do you think athiests on the whole, have a more independent and healthy mind?
Do you think the "fact" that more professors or PhDs are atheists automatically makes them finer and better people with vast stores of moral wisdom?
Do you think physicists should avoid the word religion and God when discussing their beliefs as intellectual treason?
etc...and this is just the preface.
Do you think athiests on the whole, have a more independent and healthy mind?
Do you think the "fact" that more professors or PhDs are atheists automatically makes them finer and better people with vast stores of moral wisdom?
Do you think physicists should avoid the word religion and God when discussing their beliefs as intellectual treason?
etc...and this is just the preface.
an actual quote, ja?
have there been any qualifiers or expansions on dawkin's part?
i noticed the petition
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what does the book reveal with regards to the above quote?
kindly present it instead of the red herring.....read the book
I think Dawkins is making the point that prevention is better than cure. For those who have been damaged in their childhood, whatever the nature and origin of the damage, it might be useful to seek the assistance of specialists in these matters. Or at least look at the numerous articles and books that have been written on the subject. It is possible to move on.
Bells
Staff member
Flinch and dial 911? No.
I run and tackle them to the ground, rip off their costumes, then turn the hose on them to try to wash the theism away.
I take it you also missed the part where Dawkins discusses keeping one's loyalty to religious traditions? About how there is no "justification" for removing religious texts from our education? About how one can study the objects while remaining objective and without being bogged down by "supernatural" beliefs? Yes? Since you found the book meaningless, my asking you these questions is meaningless really, isn't it?
I've known idiotic atheists, as I have known idiotic theists. He also points out the same thing, if you'd gotten past the preface.
In some instances yes. They aren't bogged down by religious restrictions. In other ways no, so long as they are not bogged down by religious restrictions.
Why should they?
I take it you don't think one should keep one's religious belief as being a personal matter and not allow it to interfere with one's work? For example, who makes the better physicist? The one who searches for answers even though he does believe in God? Or the one who simply says "God did it all" and leaves it there?
I'd suggest you get past the preface and read to the end.
"Teaching children that unquestioned faith is a virtue primes them – given certain other ingredients that are not hard to come by – to grow up into potentially lethal weapons for the future jihads or crusades . . . If children were taught to question and think through their beliefs, instead of being taught the superior virtue of faith without question, it is a good bet that there would be no suicide bombers." (Dawkins, The God Delusion, p. 208.)
Pape claims to have compiled the world’s first “database of every suicide bombing and attack around the globe from 1980 through 2003 — 315 attacks in all”. “The data show that there is little connection between suicide terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism, or any one of the world’s religions. . . . Rather, what nearly all suicide terrorist attacks have in common is a specific secular and strategic goal: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from territory that the terrorists consider to be their homeland” . It is important that Americans understand this growing phenomenon. (Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism)
Pape claims to have compiled the world’s first “database of every suicide bombing and attack around the globe from 1980 through 2003 — 315 attacks in all”. “The data show that there is little connection between suicide terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism, or any one of the world’s religions. . . . Rather, what nearly all suicide terrorist attacks have in common is a specific secular and strategic goal: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from territory that the terrorists consider to be their homeland” . It is important that Americans understand this growing phenomenon. (Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism)
To move on - whereto? From one situation that is bad in one way to another situation that is bad in some other way. From one unhappiness into another. From one set of fears to another set of fears. From "neurotically unhappy" to "normally unhappy".
- This is what psychotherapy is actually offering. So don't try to present it as if Salvation was being offered.
Bells:
Come now, surely its enough to just be awe struck by nature? Really, can't you just see the people around you all rushing to be dazzled by the fact that the farthest star is 10 billion light years away rather than in their own backyards?
I mean even athiests would rather sing Christmas carols than gaze at their respective navels for fun.
Richard Dawkins has a petition on his site to shut down faith schools. While he writes a book to promote atheism and runs a website for atheists. Much of which is centered around how clueless thiests are. A man who promotes atheism like a religion, using the tools of evangelicism while picking easy targets and winning cheap victories.
I think he makes it very clear, through the use of so much hyperbole what he thinks of the intellectual capacity of theists. I recall the one time he met a preacher or minister who was on the opposite side of a political debate from him and when the preacher extended his hand for a handshake, Dawkins kept his firmly to his side and said, very clearly, "You sir are an intolerant bigot". The irony is almost amusing.
You're kidding right? You think atheism makes a professor more moral? Like the guys who supported castration of the unhelpful contributors to gene pools? The guys who jot down notes in North Korea while they gas whole families? The guys who wrote the Bell Curve? These are the better guys?
Thats not what I asked you. I asked you if physicists who believe in God are committing intellectual treason. What about biologists who believe in God? What about atheists who return to religion? The idea that all who do not believe in God are somehow more likely to be awestruck by quarks than someone who believes in him, is so incredibly preposterous considering the history of science itself, that its amazing to me no one has laughed Richard Dawkins out of court yet.
He's a smart man, I am sure he has intellectual justifications for his prejudice. But he is in the habit of taking pot shots at easy targets.
Gustav:
Yeah, his qualifier is "Think of the Children!" Ironic.
In the 1930s, when the church was firmly against the castration of those who were contributing unhelpful genes to the human gene pool, which side of the debate was science on?
Was the church, in that instance, backward and regressive? Was science doing the right thing?
The idea that scientists with their high IQs and PhDs and atheism are somehow more capable or secular or even moral is a laugh for anyone who has been a graduate student. Intellectual supremacism has an ugly track record.
He's intellectually lazy (or worse, deceitful, for ignoring the largely athiest LTTE who are the frontrunners in suicide terrorism) and happy to promote falsehoods which adhere to his prejudices. From the rational point of view, and we even have the example of the French revolution and resistance before us, both secular and rational, some kinds of terrorism is inevitable in asymmetric warfare.
Come now, surely its enough to just be awe struck by nature? Really, can't you just see the people around you all rushing to be dazzled by the fact that the farthest star is 10 billion light years away rather than in their own backyards?
I mean even athiests would rather sing Christmas carols than gaze at their respective navels for fun.
Richard Dawkins has a petition on his site to shut down faith schools. While he writes a book to promote atheism and runs a website for atheists. Much of which is centered around how clueless thiests are. A man who promotes atheism like a religion, using the tools of evangelicism while picking easy targets and winning cheap victories.
I've known idiotic atheists, as I have known idiotic theists. He also points out the same thing, if you'd gotten past the preface.
I think he makes it very clear, through the use of so much hyperbole what he thinks of the intellectual capacity of theists. I recall the one time he met a preacher or minister who was on the opposite side of a political debate from him and when the preacher extended his hand for a handshake, Dawkins kept his firmly to his side and said, very clearly, "You sir are an intolerant bigot". The irony is almost amusing.
You're kidding right? You think atheism makes a professor more moral? Like the guys who supported castration of the unhelpful contributors to gene pools? The guys who jot down notes in North Korea while they gas whole families? The guys who wrote the Bell Curve? These are the better guys?
Like a biologist who writes a book on God and exploits his fame as a scientist to promote it?
Thats not what I asked you. I asked you if physicists who believe in God are committing intellectual treason. What about biologists who believe in God? What about atheists who return to religion? The idea that all who do not believe in God are somehow more likely to be awestruck by quarks than someone who believes in him, is so incredibly preposterous considering the history of science itself, that its amazing to me no one has laughed Richard Dawkins out of court yet.
He's a smart man, I am sure he has intellectual justifications for his prejudice. But he is in the habit of taking pot shots at easy targets.
Gustav:
Yeah, his qualifier is "Think of the Children!" Ironic.
In the 1930s, when the church was firmly against the castration of those who were contributing unhelpful genes to the human gene pool, which side of the debate was science on?
Was the church, in that instance, backward and regressive? Was science doing the right thing?
The idea that scientists with their high IQs and PhDs and atheism are somehow more capable or secular or even moral is a laugh for anyone who has been a graduate student. Intellectual supremacism has an ugly track record.
He's intellectually lazy (or worse, deceitful, for ignoring the largely athiest LTTE who are the frontrunners in suicide terrorism) and happy to promote falsehoods which adhere to his prejudices. From the rational point of view, and we even have the example of the French revolution and resistance before us, both secular and rational, some kinds of terrorism is inevitable in asymmetric warfare.
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Typical, didn't read the book but will comment on the non-reading profusely, with intellectual dishonesty as your guide.
Bells
Staff member
I happen to think my navel is quite interesting, to be honest. As for star gazing.. have you ever done it? Gotten so lost that you lose track of time? Stared until it all became a blur?
I personally find Christmas carols annoying after a few minutes. But that's just me. Carols are usually associated with Christmas shopping, something I abhor to my very bones.
So Dawkins has a petition to shut down faith schools, and all the rest of it. How different is he to theists who attempt to bring religion into the secular sectors of a secular country... for example, teaching ID and creationism in schools? Hell, they've even gone to court in the US over it.. several times. You don't like him because he is saying something that is in opposition to what you believe.
Are theists clueless? You tell me. As an atheist, I am not one who should judge. But when you have supposedly sane individuals praying to some great father figure in the sky... well.. they just do not seem so sane anymore. When you have supposedly intelligent individuals telling their children that if they misbehave, God won't like them anymore and they will go to hell.. would you refer to such an individual as having a clue? How about one who tells a child that if he or she is homosexual, then they are going to burn in hell for all eternity? Or takes them to a play to give them visual effects of what hell is supposedly like? Do you think that person as a clue? If you are walking down the street and some stranger falls to the ground and starts screaming that he's had a vision from God telling him he is Christ, would you rush to believe him (imagine you're not a Muslim for a sec.. sorry lol)? Or would you view him to be some kind of crackpot? Because I can assure you, there is always a guy standing on a park bench in the city where I live and he will always be screaming out about being Christ and no one believes him. I am sure in the mass of people walking past, some would be theists.. yet no one believes him. Why not? Is it because they think he is insane and clueless? Gee.. I wonder.
On the contrary. He comments on a lot of scientists who he admires, respects and people he considers to be friends who are theists. He does not say they are lacking because they are theists. He simply cannot understand why they are theists. He also comments several times on the priests he has met and discussed certain topics in the books with and he had nothing to say but great things about them as individuals. I'd suggest you actually read the book.
No. Re-read what I said. There are theists who are scientists who do not let their religious beliefs enter into their working lives, because they consider it to be something personal and outside of what they do for a living.
Tell me Sam, do you consider the morality of your actions when you hack into a rodent for research? Yes? No? Or do you separate your religious beliefs from your profession? Does that make you any more moral than an atheist who does the same kind of research as you do? An animal rights activists would view your actions as being highly immoral. You would disagree, as would the atheist who did the sort of research as you do. One does not need religion to be moral Sam. Just because I am an atheist for example, does not mean I am any less moral than you happen to be.
And my reply remains the same. Why should it be considered treason if their religious beliefs remain outside of their profession? If it does not interfere with their research, in that they refuse to do or research in an area because they simply think "God did it so no further research needed", why should they be charged with treason? Damn Sam, if you'd read the book, you'd see that he does comment on scientists who are brilliant at what they do (some of the best in fact) and who do happen to be theists. It does not mean they are any less able to do what they do. And he does comment on that, several times.
Isn't everyone?
Not with any frequency, no. Occasionally when I went to pray for Fajar on the roof and the sky was still dark.
He's not. Thats all I am saying. :shrug:
I no more consider teleevnagelists who preach infidels are idiots than atheists who preach the religious suck dummies.
Clearly, this is the fashionable position of the moment.
Does this apply to athiests?
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Sam is lying.
Okay I googled it, it was ignorant bigot.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...HfM&q="an+ignorant+bigot"+dawkins&btnG=Search
Bells
Staff member
Pray harder.
When taken out of context, yes. You left out the middle bit I see..
Again.. context.. Everything appears as it is not meant to be when it is taken out of context.
Does what apply to atheists? Believing in God and keeping one's scientific research outside of one's religious beliefs? Atheists don't believe.