Richard Dawkins?

[captainmeme]

Hmmm... Did someone say my name?

[poohcarrot]

Hmmm... Did someone say my name?

Arrrggghhh!
Begone foul fiend and spawn of Satan.

[Teppic]

Ugh, Dawkins. I like his books that concentrate on evolution but The God Delusion? What an ugly book. I'm not religious but this book struck me as very hateful and respectless to anyone thinking differently. Dawkins is like an upside down creationist extremist.

Funniest thing I've read in ages.

The copy I read certainly wasn't hateful and given the sheer amount of damage religion DOES cause I'd say it was a rather restrained effort on his part.

That's not to say I agree with everything he wrote in it, but hateful isn't a word that came to mind. Impassioned, certainly, but that's very different.

Also, to claim he is "like an upside down creationist extremist" is itself "respectless". This is a man who has spent decades at the forefront of evolutionary biology putting his case forward in a logical fashion. He is in no way comparable to some rabid religious type who's spent an hour reading Chapter 1 of the Good Book and won't hear anything said against it. If he is dismissive towards creationist ideas I would suggest he - more than anyone - has earnt the right to be so.

The God Delusion received such a welcome reception and so many copies were sold. And then - a couple of years after - we had a HUGE and unexpected level of donataions made to the atheist bus campagin.

The fact that both were so welcome, so well received, and more importantly so well supported shows to me that there is a need and indeed a want for this kind of opinion to be heard. It seems there is an unexpectedly large unsaited appetite amongst so many in the mainstream for this kind of literature, in an age when many religions are becoming more hardened and fundamental in their atttidues.

The secular majority is finding its voice in this country and a bloody good thing too!

[poohcarrot]

Way to go Teppic!

[captainmeme]

Hmmm... Did someone say my name?

Arrrggghhh!
Begone foul fiend and spawn of Satan.

Sorry? I just got lost on the forum boards. I wanted to ask the way to the Broken Drum...

Honestly, some people nowadays...

[poohcarrot]

The Broken Drum? Out the door, turn left, one cross each.

[captainmeme]

Do you have multiple personality disorder? One minute you're calling me a spawn of Satan, and the next you're giving me directions?

[captainmeme]

Oops! I can't believe I missed the Monty Python quote there!

[Werewolf87]

Funniest thing I've read in ages.

The copy I read certainly wasn't hateful and given the sheer amount [snip]

Uh, where exactly did I say that I think atheists shouldn't voice their opinion? Ah yes, nowhere. As far as I am concerned people can believe in (and speak for) flying spaghetti monsters, Jehova or whatever they like as long as they don't try to covert me to it.
I assure you the book I read came off as rather hostile towards anyone who dares to believe in a god (and the gist of it basically was "rational people don't believe such crap"), might or might not be that it was because of the translation. If Dawkins isn't careful he will be lowering himself to the same level as the creationists, by pretty much condemning everyone who doesn't share the exact same opinion.

[Dotsie]

Uh, where exactly did I say that I think atheists shouldn't voice their opinion? Ah yes, nowhere.

Where exactly did Teppic say you did? Ah yes, nowhere. Sarky bugger

You said the book was hateful, Teppic disagreed (he was voicing his opinion ). I agree with Teppic, although I did think the book went on a bit, it wasn't hateful. RD did get a lot of hatred coming his way as a result of it though, from all those love-thy-neighbour religious types, who want to kill him. Which kind of proved his point, really.

[poohcarrot]

I didn't think it went far enough.

And if 40% of Americans believe the world is only 6,000 years old, they need something to shock them out of their self-absorbed, pig-ignorance. But of course they won't read it, because if someone has the gall to ridicule their bizarre, fantastical beliefs, they'd rather just kill him.

The Greatest Show on Earth is possibly even better.

[Werewolf87]

I know he got quite a lot of hatred for this book, so did the guy who wrote an anti-book to his. Everyone is merrily screaming at each other.
By the way I am not defending creationists, as I said, it stops for me when they start to try to turn their views into my laws. I was the only one getting really angry back in school when my biology teacher suddenly started teaching Intelligent Design (and I'm not even in the US).
That said, there are so many flavours between the extremes on either side that you can't lump them all together, like, at least I think, Dawkins did in his book. Not all religious people are creationists, dumb or irrational.

[Dotsie]

Not all religious people are creationists, dumb or irrational.

Maybe not, but there's always an agenda. There's often also a request for special treatment, a need not to obey some laws, and a desire to segregate. All of which is damaging, particularly as often they might get their own way. Sexism is rife in religion, all religion, as is homophobia, racism... just because the people who follow a religion think that this is alright, it doesn't mean that it is, or that we should allow it. And yet we do.

[Teppic]

Secularism is important to me. Atheism not so much. Too much time is spent debating whether God exists to be perfectly honest.

Atheism, for me, is like choosing not to support a football team. It's really not an important thing to me personally, although to all intents and purposes I am atheist.

Similarly, other peoples' religions, as far as I'm concerned, are a hobby. It might be a very passionate hobby for many, but the fact that someone is Christian or Muslim or whatever ought to be treated in the same way as if someone is a fan of a football club or a particular singer. It should not be pandered to, but nor should it be cruelly ridiculed unless there's a very good reason for doing so.

That is to say, I don't mind religion if someone personally wants to believe. But when religious people - espeically those in positions of influence - start, for example, questioning equality laws as the Pope did in the UK recently, that's when a line is crossed.

Thankfully, for the most part, our judiciary is not having any of it.

On the case of a religiously homophobic couple being refused the right to adopt a child, the court said this:

Lord Justice Munby and Mr Justice Beatson ruled that laws protecting people from discrimination because of their sexual orientation "should take precedence" over the right not to be discriminated against on religious grounds.

In other words, the freedom not to be discriminated against on the basis of sexual orientation, gender, race...all the things we ARE and CAN'T HELP BEING should take precedent in law over things we CHOOSE like religious viewpoints. There shouldn't even be any controversy over this...it's quite a simple concept....a shame people like the Pope can't grasp it.

This thread's got me ranting a bit, apologies!

[poohcarrot]

Way to go (again) Teppic!