At the same time though, as there is no concrete evidence for god surely their conjecture and opinion is as good as? If they were seeking outright to prove there is no god, maybe then would there be a problem but whilst they are encouraging people to have an open mind are they really doing wrong?
Bus Wars - The Christians Fight Back
- Thread starter DrDee
- Start date
At the same time though, as there is no concrete evidence for god surely their conjecture and opinion is as good as? If they were seeking outright to prove there is no god, maybe then would there be a problem but whilst they are encouraging people to have an open mind are they really doing wrong?
You say that now, but I'm sure your stance will be very different when he becomes leader of the country and gradually interns theists into special "joy-of-proof camps" where they're forced to throw watch bits at the floor for 18 hours a day.
In my opinion the original atheist advert is totally hypocritical. Dawkins criticizes the religious for just blindly believing things they are told, yet he expects the average punter to just blindly believe a random statement on the side of a bus with no justification or support. Such an idiot, why does he even care so much if people are religious?
Dawkins isn't an idiot. I would more describe him as a fool. There is a subtle difference.
I would describe him as both myself. It's a shame, he speaks well about science, but he should just leave religion to the experts.
To be fair, no he doesn't. He expects the average punter [whatever that means] to treasure critical, rational thinking over blissful ignorance dressed as faith.
I'm guessing it's because he's glanced back over his shoulder at the last couple of millennia and observed the large quantities of stabby-stabby-shooty-bomby that's taken place wherever religious people differ. It's just a simple "needless deaths of countless thousands" thing. He's quirky like that.yantorsen said:
So what is your point?
Since he was a revolutionary evolutionary biologist, which many people now forget, I don't doubt his intelligence.
So why didn't he have it say "think rationally" instead?
That's why I said he speaks well about science, it's just he doesn't know very much about religion. He had a debate with a Biblical Scholar on the History of the Bible, and he literally couldn't argue for most of it and just kept repeating the same rubbish. He simply didn't know what to say. I'm not saying this is an argument for the Bible being "true", but I'm saying he doesn't actually know very much abut religion. Certainly not enough when he is such an influential figure on the topic.
Fair point. I believe the campaign was triggered by a fear-mongering campaign by some christian group that was along the lines of "if you don't believe in God, you will burn in the pit of Hell forever" or somesuch. So there was an element of wanting to counter that original campaign.
I'm all for freedom of speech and I don't mind either messages. It's just both messages do more damage to each party than good in my opinion. And from what I know of Dawkins views it is hypocritical, but because he views his opinions as so superior he probably just thinks it doesn't matter because he knows he's right.
Well, the cheap'n'easy comeback to your first statement would be "yes, because he prefers only to deal with facts". Having said that, I will say that it is clear from reading his books on religion that he knows a lot more about the judeo-christian and islamic religions than the myriad other religions, so in that sense, he's not an all-round expert.
I've yet to see him struggle in a debate, however.
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He really doesn't. He thinks he does, but his knowledge is very one sided, he only looks at things in a very narrow way. I can't be bothered to turn this into a big religious debate though, so I won't elaborate.
There's probably an element of [observable, repeatable
] truth in that, I'll concede.I'm glad, as it's late and I initially only came in here to post a wisecrack
There's probably an element of [observable, repeatable
I'm glad, as it's late and I initially only came in here to post a wisecrack
I'm not going to bite, it's too late
But critical, rational thinking cannot lead to atheism, it leads to agnosticism.
In order to reach atheism, you have to start with a few unprovable assumptions before you start thinking about it. That's what makes it a faith, the faith is in those assumptions to be true.
Oh dear, not that argument again. You do realise, in the 20th century at least, the largest number of deaths in a conflict divided along religious lines belongs to Stalin.
Division along religious lines != religious conflict.