Best Living Spokesman for Atheism

[athrock]

Rocket-

I have mentioned Dawkins here and here.

Would you be so kind as to explain how you have construed from these posts that I have asserted that you or anyone else here "followed Dawkins"?

Thanks.

You said, 

And as best I can tell, there are apologists on both sides of the divide...cranking out books to try to persuade people that their view is correct. Are Hitchens and Dawkins any different than Craig or McDowell? Haven't they banked a fair bit of money over the past few years? Are they simply "fooling" a different target market into handing over that cash?

This strongly implies that we would follow the beliefs of Hitchens or Dawkins, as churches formulate their creeds and use apologists to explain why that's the right way, effectively shaping doctrines for the church. It's how the Billy Grahams of the world get to the positions they attain, in their Christian fame. Except we have no such organization. I might find it interesting to go see Dawkins speak, as I respect him as a science-writer, but I'm not going to take anything he says as part of my doctrine with any more weight than I assign to any other source. We have no "pastors" telling us what to think.

You forget that many of us were former die-hard Christian fundamentalists/evangelicals, myself included. If you expect to slip implications of that nature into the conversations, do not expect us to miss them. I'm certain you'll cry foul now, and say that no such implication was intended, but I'm afraid I won't believe you. I spoke the language of the shibboleth, and I recognize it and its direction of tone, now.

Take your umbrage elsewhere.

I said they (theists and atheists alike) are writing books to make money, and your take away is that I'm accusing you of being a follower?

I think you're waaaaaay overthinking this.

But putting your own experience aside, I think it is fair to say that there will be people who read a book by Dawkins or Hitchens or Carrier or Graham or Osteen or Craig and absorb a certain amount of his ideas and material and have their own thinking altered as a result.

Reading has that effect on us, doesn't it? Especially when we are reading something that we are pre-disposed to believe? But that's not quite the same as saying that someone is a follower or disciple of that author, is it?