Sam
Well Roots of Evil are in two parts and I saw part 2 but not part one where he went to Israel.
Well I still didn't see the jewish person who converted to Islam. There was a religious fundamentalist who hated all atheists and secular society but he wasn't jewish or at least he wasn't identified as a convert. There was a Jewish man who was upset that he couldn't enter the temple of the mount but I don't think that was who you were referring to.
Well maybe I am living in a parallel universe but I have never experienced being discriminated against because I’m an atheist. Really the subject doesn’t come up too often but then again I am not a teacher or living in Colorado so who knows. Its probably a very different experience living and working in NY or LA or San Fransico than it is in other parts of the country.
Is Dawkins being unfair? I don’t think he is being unfair in challenging religious beliefs, even you challenge atheists on the science and for the most part this is deemed ok.
Is religion divisive? I believe it is, it would be interesting to know what the world would look like if there was no religion, would there be less warfare for example. It might just be that there will always be something to war about but how much that would arise without religion as a mobilizing device is uncertain.
I disagree with his assessment of 9/11. I don’t believe the secular west was hit because its secular, I believe it was hit because of political and military interference in the middle east. Also I think he makes a common mistake of believing that the troubles in Israel are religious, I would say they are tribal and that the trouble is land not religion. I wondered why he didn’t highlight the use of religion as a political tool to sway the masses. It could be argued that an atheist population is less likely to go to war for god and country, they would not go to war over the belief that it was ordained by god or that one is killing infidels or religious enemies but he really doesn’t focus on how governments use religion as a means of rallying a nation into a violent fervor. If you think about it an atheist population asks too many questions to be trusted by a government interested in swaying a population with this device for their own non-religious reasons. He also doesn’t go about showing how religious views can interfere in the lives of non-believers. Abortion in the U.S is a great example, the religious are not satisfied that they do not choose abortion they want to infringe on the rights of other women who choose abortion. Religion as a political tool is more important than how many people believe in the myth of mary or jesus going up to heaven on a cloud. If grown adults want to think these things then best of british luck to them so to speak it doesn’t really concern me. What I would actively fight against is religion seeping into secular life and infringing on my rights.
I still disagree with you that dawkins is hawking a new religion, he isn’t. He is deeply troubled by the lack of critical thinking, I still see this as his main purpose and not one of trying to dissuade in order to redoctrinate. I am not a scientist, science is hardly my forte yet I am still an atheist and came to it through my own thinking process, no one tried to convince me. I was raised in a household where all religious thought was open to investigation, this is why I was able to study vedanta as well as go to a church, dabble in catholic doctrine and look into various belief systems not any one of them was considered any better than the other simply different in their vision of man in the world. The books were there for me to read if I so chose and yet still I don’t think this was the definitive reason why I am an atheist. If Dawkins was sincerely trying to convert as you say he would require you to take on a new set of beliefs based on science and he doesn’t. He says one should believe or not believe AFTER looking at the evidence. He admits that science cannot disprove the existence of god. He is against religion as an authority who calls first dibs in who gets to mold the mind of a human being, he isn’t interested in any outside authority molding anyone’s mind towards anything the person cannot freely criticize or question. Science does not say you cannot question and refute. He does say that religion creates an inflexible morality and I believe this is true, he is also worried about the affects of religion on children and after watching Jesus Camp (you can find the link in this thread) I am inclined to agree with him. Its not that I don’t think children shouldn’t have religious instruction, I just don’t believe in religious indoctrination of children. He asks whether religious myths should be taught in schools and I would agree with him that they should not. It is up to the parents to decide what a child should learn in terms of religion and so should be kept out of schools. I would also say after watching Deliver Us From Evil that one should be careful of religious authority in religious schools but that is probably a knee-jerk reaction to having watched this documentary as its very intense and disturbing not that I really have anything against children going to religious schools though I don't think it should be paid for with tax payer dollars.
Perhaps Dawkins is alarmed because of all the religious rhetoric flying around since 9/11. His reaction could come from the fear of living in world were religion can decide how people will react to a governments call to war, or a call to discriminate against others. Remember that England had a long history of religious struggle; catholics pitted against protestants not only threatening the stability of the nation as it almost descended into civil war. England also had to go to war with other nations because it refused to yield to the authority of Rome and the Roman Catholic Church. So perhaps to see religion raise its multi-faceted head again and stir up feelings of fear and hatred has set him on a course of trying to instill 'reason' into the mix.