Dawkins>Prospect(?)

[Edwardo Piet]

Dawkins was voted by Prospect as Britain's top intellectual, and also - on another poll - he was voted as the world's 3rd top intellectual.

However then he was either genuinely criticized or he was double-crossed for political reasons.

Here is the article that criticized TGD - I think they surely 'believe in belief' -:

http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/artic...hp?id=7803

Dawkins the Dogmatist! WTF?! He's the opposite! Dogmatism is exactly what he's against!

Sounds like a SERIOUS case of 'belief in belief'. I know of people who say 'I haven't read the book, but that doesn't matter, from the reviews and responses it got, it was clearly a bad move. Because after all, Dawkins wrote this book for Political reasons, why else would he write it? You write things like that for political reasons.'

Such an idea is political correctness gone mad!

Dawkins said himself "I'm a bad politican".

BUT he also replied when more or less asked 'what if religion is winning?':

"So what if it is? What I care about is what's true"

Dawkins clearly writes his books more for scientific reasons than political reasons, it just so happens that when you stand up for the truth - rather than delusion - you're in accordance with morality aswell. Dawkins clearly states that Religion is immoral, basically because of faith. And faith is immoral because its not based on evidence - ie its blind - its ignorant, its a delusion.

Dawkins cares about truth. And rightly so.

This is the paragraph from the article that shocked me - and I've highlighted in bold the important bit -:

'...This persistence is what any scientific attack on religion must explain—and this one doesn't. Dawkins mentions lots of modern atheist scientists who have tried to explain the puzzle: Robert Hinde, Scott Atran, Pascal Boyer, DS Wilson, Daniel Dennett, all of them worth reading. But he cannot accept the obvious conclusion to draw from their works, which is that thoroughgoing atheism is unnatural and will never be popular.'

IF that's true...So what?! So popularity is more important than THE TRUTH all of a sudden?!

(Actually I don't think its sudden!)

Crazy Frog's terrible version of Axel F got to number 1 in the charts here in Britian. For several weeks! That's popularity for you!

What's scientific truth/evidence done? What's Darwin done?

I think we can see what's more important: Crazy Frog or Natural Selection(?)...

I'll leave it at that.

[Tiberius]

To be perfectly honest, when the reviewer starts with the subtitle "Incurious and rambling, Richard Dawkins's diatribe against religion doesn't come close to explaining how faith has survived the assault of Darwinism" I can hardly be surprised at the attitude. The guy is a theist, and theists will always think Dawkins book is bad. Why? Because it is such a great book that explains a heck of a lot.

[Edwardo Piet]

To be perfectly honest, when the reviewer starts with the subtitle "Incurious and rambling, Richard Dawkins's diatribe against religion doesn't come close to explaining how faith has survived the assault of Darwinism" I can hardly be surprised at the attitude. The guy is a theist, and theists will always think Dawkins book is bad. Why? Because it is such a great book that explains a heck of a lot.

Ouch. I didn't even know the guy was a theist! It sounded to me like he was just one of those Atheists/Agnostics/(or even Deists) that defend Religion because they 'believe in belief'.

I didn't see him mention he was religious in the article, or that he believed in God, he even was in favour than religion can be very irrational and dangerous at times.

I didn't know he was a theist as well, interesting, now I really know why he was defending religion. What a goit.

[Kyuuketsuki]

Yeah Dawkins is cool ... I get in trouble too for saying things much like him (though obviously he says them better) and am regarded as a fundamentalist atheist whereas actually I'm simply sticking to what I understand are the facts, pointing out that what people believe, fairy tales, myths and so on are exactly that (mythical rubbish). Diplomacy, as far as I'm concerned, is the art of saying "Nice Doggy" until I can find a large enough rock (dunno who first said that) so I'm well in there with not being a politician too.

Kyu

[Edwardo Piet]

Yeah Dawkins is cool ... I get in trouble too for saying things much like him (though obviously he says them better) and am regarded as a fundamentalist atheist whereas actually I'm simply sticking to what I understand are the facts, pointing out that what people believe, fairy tales, myths and so on are exactly that (mythical rubbish). Diplomacy, as far as I'm concerned, is the art of saying "Nice Doggy" until I can find a large enough rock (dunno who first said that) so I'm well in there with not being a politician too.

Kyu

Yes, I agree.
Also Dawkins said - and I paraphrase here - : The difference between fundamentalism, and what's simply just passion, is that fundamentalism is what happens if you're passionate about something in the absence of evidence.
It becomes fundamentalism when your passion rejects evidence.
Hope I got that right.

[Kyuuketsuki]

Also Dawkins said - and I paraphrase here - : The difference between fundamentalism, and what's simply just passion, is that fundamentalism is what happens if you're passionate about something in the absence of evidence.
It becomes fundamentalism when your passion rejects evidence.
Hope I got that right.

I guess this must be the quote you're referring to:

"No, please, do not mistake passion, which can change its mind, for fundamentalism, which never will. Passion for passion, an evangelical Christian and I may be evenly matched. But we are not equally fundamentalist. The true scientist, however passionately he may "believe", in evolution for example, knows exactly what would change his mind: evidence! The fundamentalist knows that nothing will." Dawkins (from How dare you call me a fundamentalist)

Good quote so thanks

Kyu

[Edwardo Piet]

Also Dawkins said - and I paraphrase here - : The difference between fundamentalism, and what's simply just passion, is that fundamentalism is what happens if you're passionate about something in the absence of evidence.
It becomes fundamentalism when your passion rejects evidence.
Hope I got that right.

I guess this must be the quote you're referring to:

"No, please, do not mistake passion, which can change its mind, for fundamentalism, which never will. Passion for passion, an evangelical Christian and I may be evenly matched. But we are not equally fundamentalist. The true scientist, however passionately he may "believe", in evolution for example, knows exactly what would change his mind: evidence! The fundamentalist knows that nothing will." Dawkins (from How dare you call me a fundamentalist)

Good quote so thanks

Kyu

Thats the quote yes, just a slightly different version. I was thinking of the longer version of the quote from the Preface To The Paperback Edition of TGD, which is a quite a bit longer so I'm not sure if I'm allowed to post it for copyright reasons. The version of 'You are just as much of a fundamentalist as those you criticize' that I'm thinking of is about a page long, - it goes into more detail. But I'm not sure if I'm allowed to quote the whole (about a page), as I said - for copyright reasons.

[ManofGOD]

Hmmm. Sadly evolution, while consisting of facts and verifiable theories, cannot explain the origins of life. Attacks on religion are wrong. Spiritual truths are revealed by GOD in the religions.

[Edwardo Piet]

Hmmm. Sadly evolution, while consisting of facts and verifiable theories, cannot explain the origins of life. Attacks on religion are wrong. Spiritual truths are revealed by GOD in the religions.

That sounds like nothing more than plain skyhookery to me.

[ManofGOD]

Also Dawkins said - and I paraphrase here - : The difference between fundamentalism, and what's simply just passion, is that fundamentalism is what happens if you're passionate about something in the absence of evidence.
It becomes fundamentalism when your passion rejects evidence.
Hope I got that right.

I guess this must be the quote you're referring to:

"No, please, do not mistake passion, which can change its mind, for fundamentalism, which never will. Passion for passion, an evangelical Christian and I may be evenly matched. But we are not equally fundamentalist. The true scientist, however passionately he may "believe", in evolution for example, knows exactly what would change his mind: evidence! The fundamentalist knows that nothing will." Dawkins (from How dare you call me a fundamentalist)

Good quote so thanks

Kyu

Evidence of GODs message can be found by searching facebook for 'Message from GOD'. You will find a picture of a scrabble game with words describing Heaven.