Silk Road forums
Discussion => Philosophy, Economics and Justice => Topic started by: Limetless on October 19, 2012, 02:18 am
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Anyone who has read/watched his programs want to share an opinion? Discuss. :)
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Bump. Come on someone must have an opinion and I'm interested.
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I have and I'm a fan of him :)
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Why? :)
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Because I think he is an intelligent man with sound opinions.
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What do you specifically like about his arguments? I mean what have you read and seen that stood out?
I'm not giving my own opinions him on this thread, more just an interest in the thoughts of others.
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What do you specifically like about his arguments? I mean what have you read and seen that stood out?
I'm not giving my own opinions him on this thread, more just an interest in the thoughts of others.
I would like to tell you, but I need to go to school soon, so I'm just going to make a few posts in my own thread and then I'll be leaving. Whenever I find time I'll tell you what I like about him :)
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I think Richard Dawkins is an exceptional scientist, former professor at Oxford University, expert in Biology, and a thought-provoking speaker. As far as his stance on atheism goes, I believe he is misunderstood by many people. He has plenty of intellectual integrity and is determined in his logic and arguments to the point of being militant. He just wishes for all of us to apply reason and evidentialism to pass judgement over scientifically unjustified faith and region (I am not an atheist, but do appreciate his reason and logic), so we may evolve and prosper as a species and progress in technological, intellectual, and other pursuits of our choosing.
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What have you read/seen of his?
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What have you specifically read?
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What have you read/seen of his?
I have read 'The Magic Of Reality' and 'The Selfish Gene', I have seen 'The Enemies of Reason' and 'Faith School Menace'. I am hoping to watch 'Root Of All Evil' when I have time. How about you?
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The God Delusion and all his docs.
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Cool.
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Dawkins is the man! And I'm amazed that this thread has progressed to a second page without someone who is purportedly "no fan of religion" saying how much they HATE Dawkins.
And why do they hate Dawkins? Because he is, like, SO rude!
There are far too many atheists (or people too cool to identify the term that describes them) who cry about The God Delusion because, hey, atheists don't need some BOOK to tell them what to think- leave that to the Christians! Meanwhile, these folks can't find their ass with both hands and a map when they encounter the most elementary, William-Lane-Craig-caliber pro-God arguments imaginable. So Dawkins actually did something very necessary in The God Delusion: he showed you how to demolish the most typical arguments for the existence of God; he codified that shit so you can parrot his rebuttals (assuming they make sense to you) until you come up with something better on your own.
To quote/paraphrase Dawkins' friend Daniel Dennett: "there's nothing that upsets me more than a bad argument for a position I support." Don't be part of the problem.
A final thought, this time paraphrasing Dawkins: whether or not a proposition is desirable (e.g. the existence of a benevolent, omniscient, omnipotent God) has nothing to do with whether that preposition is TRUE- yet many people seem unable to tell the difference.
(OK, one last thing: The Blind Watchmaker is one of the more dazzling Dawkins books I've read, and Dennett's Darwin's Dangerous Idea is on a whole different level.)
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Most people love Dawkins for his contribution to the Atheist agenda, which I think is fabulous. 'The God Delusion single-handedly helped me shed my garb of agnosticism and embrace Atheism completely.
However, his scientific contributions are often overlooked in popular media. 'The Selfish Gene' has literally revolutionized the way scientists think in many diverse fields, including computer science, cognitive science, physics and philosophy.
Easily my favourite Brit. :)
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I have read all of Richard Dawkins books from The Selfish Gene and The Extended Phenotype onwards. I have them all on my bookshelf right now. He is an extremely well respected scientist who changed the way we think about genetics and natural selection, by (I think) showing clearly that the "unit" of genetics that natural selection acts on is the gene, rather than the organism or species.
His evolution books are masterpieces of clear reasoning which, when I first read them, blew my mind completely. For example:
Male bees only have one set of chromosomes unlike the usual two.
This means that the single male who passes on his genes by mating with the queen contributes 100% of his DNA to the offspring. Thus the female worker bee offspring are related to each other by 3/4 rather than usual 1/2 ( The queen is related to the workers by 1/2 as she has two sets of chromosomes)
This means that the best way for a worker bee to pass on genes is to 'persuade' her mother the queen to have more children. Hence, the Hymenoptera ( bees and wasps) have evolved the Eusocial behavior they display so often, where the queen has all the children. The workers are not her slaves, she is theirs.
His books are full of elegant, game theory explanations of animal behavior like this. I honestly recommend that everyone should read them if you want to understand how life works.
To be honest, I feel like the God Delusion is just him blowing off some steam in old age. He has been a target for creationists for 35 odd years, and I think he just is like "Look you ridiculous people THIS is what I think of your silly book!"
It's a decent enough read but he tackles the easy targets of religion. I'm an atheist myself ( don't get me wrong I believe we can only perceive a tiny fraction if the real universe, but what we can understand is amazing. I just don't think there is anything we should worship as a god) but I would have liked to hear his arguments against the more subtle religious beliefs, rather than the literalists.
Richard Dawkins is a great scientist and I get tired of criticisms of him from people who know only his television work. He rails in his later books against people who read only the title of "The Selfish Gene" and feel able to comment on it. As Russell Brand pointed out though, he does resemble Professor Yafl from bagpuss.
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Like the guy and he's a great scientist, but he can come across as a bit of a dick at times and sometimes as aggressive and fundamentalist as the bible thumpers. At least he uses logic and science for his arguments though. I've only read the god delusion and was hooked from that intro to one of the first chapters about the god of the old testament being the most unpleasant character in all fiction!
I know he says the book isn't having a go at the einsteinian god and mostly concentrating on people who believe in the literal truth in the bible/koran/other religious texts but to be fair that's sort of an easy thing to do. In fact taking on any argument for a prayer answering god is pretty easy and in our rational moments most scientifically thinking people can get there. However, I sometimes think he can be a bit like he's taking down a strawman.
You have to accept that science will never answer everything and there will always be something that no matter how far we advance will be beyond human comprehension. Perhaps i'm moving into einsteinian god territory here but to me this is where total atheism comes unstuck. I'm not talking about a prayer answering god but say something much greater that we can't comprehend, that allowed existence to be a certain way so that life could develop and the universe could understand itself, then how could we possibly understand other than with the very simple analogies which religion provides. I'm sure the strongest atheist pray when their loved ones are in danger and why is it that every society in human history has had a religion. Yeah they are nothing like the truth in the literal sense. But when a kid asks you how are babies made, you might say when two people love each other they have a baby - its not the truth but an approximation put in a way they can understand, Perhaps that innate tendency towards the theories of religion are the same. Its not a big man with a beard who will answer your prayers sat on a cloud but just maybe there is something, and if it created the universe that something is more than any of us possibly even conceive, so through some fucked means we perceive an approximation of it through religion and theology.
Like i say i've only read one book and seen a few interviews but i've not seen him come out with anything that can counter that but to be fair science probably never could as there's always gonna be a bigger question but that's where the atheist argument comes unstuck in my head. For that reason whilst i'll never believe in a prayer answering god, Dawkins and anyone else is gonna struggle to stop me being agnostic of what i percieve to be god (though my definition of god is probably different to others).
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I think he's an arrogant jackass who, through gross generalization, deliberately misrepresents the positions of religious people.
There are atheists whom I respect. He's not one of them.
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<removed>
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I think he's fantastic. He's an extremely intelligent individual and he provides logical, thought-out arguements to all his points. Unlike many atheists, he's actually read all the holy books and has sought a large variety of opinions before forming his own.
Dawkins is certainly better versed in Christianity than I could ever hope to be, but the most Biblically literate atheist I know of is the late Christopher Hitchens. He admitted to knowing next to nothing about science but was able to show how Christianity is a wicked proposition even if it WERE true. Search YouTube for "Christopher Hitchens Todd Friel" (without quotes) to hear him doing what he did best.
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He's a biologist, but he's not very interesting as a philosopher or physical theorist. Trying to read The God Delusion was like being on public transport and listening to a biology professor being really nasty to some old lady reading her bible on the train. Not really interested in the old lady's theories nor his refutations, but gee wiz do I want to move to another carriage.
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I think that Dawkins adds extra weight to his arguments through his ego simply because he has to make his arguments stand up to the power of the church, which thankfully is losing its centurys long battle against our minds thanks to people like dawkins making way with the death of god
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I HATE organised religion. I HATE any centralized organisation of peoples thoughts (political parties included). I dont know a whole lot about dawkins but i understand his a very intelligent man however i get the impression he is the head of atheism(if they have one, his at least the spokesperson or posterboy) which is quickly starting to become very hard to distinguish from a religious organization or a political party. Humans were given the ability of free-thought which supposedly separates us from most animals yet the majority tend to choose not to use it and the manipulative (predators, no different to sexual predators) take advantage of this.
Sorry in advance for anybody offended just had to get that rant out.
peace
BC
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From "the selfish gene", I infer he's a great biologist, but from most of the media appearances he's made, he's an annoying preacher and integrist, as close-minded as the people he accuses. And worse, for someone puts rationality before everything, he makes a lot of fallacies. Last, he also ignores the virtues of religion and only focus on its dysfunctions.
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Dawkins is a genius, his actions in public are understandable given how asinine most religious fucks act.
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He's a biologist, but he's not very interesting as a philosopher or physical theorist.
And worse, for someone puts rationality before everything, he makes a lot of fallacies.
Ah, glad you guys could finally make it. ;)
You hear it all the time: "Dawkins is a philosophical philistine who should stick to biology." * There's a name for this kind of attitude:
Non-overlapping magisteria (NOMA) is the view advocated by Stephen Jay Gould that science and religion each have "a legitimate magisterium, or domain of teaching authority," and these two domains do not overlap.
Gould is, of course, wrong. The domains do overlap. Scientific ideas have philosophical/religious implications.
For example: there appears to be design in nature. This design, it was once thought, implies a designer, i.e. God. But Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection provided an explanation for the appearance of design that, rather counterintuitively, does not require a designer. This idea most certainly has philosophical/religious implications - namely, that God doesn't need to exist - and this was immediately recognized by the countless Christians who opposed Darwinism and continue to do so.
Dawkins actually agrees with the Christian fundamentalists on a key point: whether or not evolution is true MATTERS. Stephen Jay Gould and most liberal, secular "Christians" do not hold this view.
So was the question, "Can organized complexity come into being without the intervention of a designer," a philosophical question or a scientific one? I would say it's both- maybe even more philosophical- but there can be no doubt that it was science, not philosophy, that provided the definitive answer. Consequently, an intimate understanding of the mechanisms of natural selection is crucial for anyone presenting a modern defense of atheism, and that's why Dawkins is as qualified as anyone to do what he does.
* - Just recently a friend of mine said this ("Dawkins is a philosophical philistine who should stick to biology.") I then asked him to name a single living philosopher ("since you clearly give a fuck about philosophy.") He couldn't. I'm not saying that's the case with anyone in the thread, but it was revealing...
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Now I've got time to tell you what I like about him. I have read a few of his books and it is the flow of logic that stands out to me. They are the closest to reading a math book you can get without actually reading a math book. When I first started reading The God Delusion I worried that on the next page there would be thought errors and I'd have to throw the book away, but it never happened. His books are some of few books I manage to read about religion etc., because they don't frustrate me. I feel safe and calm reading Dawkins. What I admire perhaps even more is his patience, that he sits on these shows and has the patience to talk to people who spit bullshit at him, without ever loosing his temper or tranquility. When they don't listen/understand and run away from the discussion point, Dawkins will just sit in his chair and repeat the point seemingly unconcerned. Also, his voice is a bonus, I love that accent, and he is a pleasure to look at as well. Whenever I have an argument with someone about religion I tell them to read Dawkins, because if they don't understand the logical fallacies of religion when Dawkins spells them out it, they won't understand them when I say them.
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Now I've got time to tell you what I like about him. I have read a few of his books and it is the flow of logic that stands out to me. They are the closest to reading a math book you can get without actually reading a math book. When I first started reading The God Delusion I worried that on the next page there would be thought errors and I'd have to throw the book away, but it never happened. His books are some of few books I manage to read about religion etc., because they don't frustrate me. I feel safe and calm reading Dawkins. What I admire perhaps even more is his patience, that he sits on these shows and has the patience to talk to people who spit bullshit at him, without ever loosing his temper or tranquility.
Very well said, xtians tend to try and emotionalize everything, they want you to devolve to their level of ignorance and arrogance. Dawkins and others like him are arrogant, egotistical and honestly amazing. After all they do it with intelligence, which is something you wont find in the highly religious dbags that surround most of us.
When they don't listen/understand and run away from the discussion point, Dawkins will just sit in his chair and repeat the point seemingly unconcerned. Also, his voice is a bonus, I love that accent, and he is a pleasure to look at as well. Whenever I have an argument with someone about religion I tell them to read Dawkins, because if they don't understand the logical fallacies of religion when Dawkins spells them out it, they won't understand them when I say them.
Something I have found to be both irritating and true, is a fact is a fact is a fact, it cannot be contested though many will use emotional fallacies to try, and as with some of the haters above, they will claim all sorts of logical fallacies against facts simply because they are unwilling or unable to see them. I like repeating facts especially when I am barraged by emotional bullshit from others.
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I bought and read The God Delusion when it came out 6 years ago, shortly after I renounced my Christian faith.
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RD is a very clear thinker and an exceptional mind. I nominate him troll of the previous decade. I also understand why some people are irritated by him. It's partly because they're hearing something they don't like, but also that they're being preached to. But I think this is OK to some extent, in order to redress something that has been out of balance for a long time. Many of us have had a whole lot of being preached to by evangelical Christians/Muslims and others. So there's a certain amount of the shoe being on the other foot for a change. I doubt this will cause vast quantities of introspection, but at least pine finds it humorous that many religious people find Dawkin's propositions outrageous bullshit, because funnily enough that's pretty much exactly... Well anyway. Pine is clearly enjoying the schadenfreude moments, so precious!
But in all seriousness you have to read The Selfish Gene to understand his ideas proper. In fact you might want to read the Origin of Species as well. Many of his statements that people take the wrong way are actual biological statements of fact and it's not a matter of "well, that's just your opinion man". These may not be what you think they are, you have to read his stuff. You cannot describe something as arrogant if it's actually true. Dawkins pissed off a whole bunch of people who were going along with the concept of 'group selection' for example. It's not that he's militant about religion in particular. He's militant about anything he sees as an untruth.
For example. Pine's obvious pet example. People are completely wrong if they don't accept they need to hide the paperwork related to their illegal transactions from LE agents using cryptography. Is that arrogant? No. It's a description of reality. We know empirically that people who don't use crypto get mowed down in a bust. If you do the (grisly) research of reading the court statements from situations like child exploitation rings or stolen(intercepted!)/declassified LE and intelligence documents, this will just jump out at you.
Nonetheless, there is a distinction between telling people facts and calling people names. It's fun to call people names, but not very productive if you want people to see your point of view. FWIW RD isn't trying to convert people to 'atheism' or something. He's trying to unearth those people who are mild mannered, who aren't believers but are 'quiet' about it to make life easier. Since he began his project along with a few others, the number of declared agnostics/atheists in the USA has dramatically increased in the polls by several hundred percent or something crazy like that. It's not that they all didn't exist before, it's that they were, well, afraid to express their opinion too openly.
The only real distance between Dawkin's views and mine is that I'm content with a certain type of believer. The type who are thoughtful enough to think logically about their worldview, often have a very different point of view to the classical believer (follows church social custom but hasn't actually read his/her bible and thought about the contents). I wouldn't describe them as more 'liberal' in their views, they're frequently more extreme. But they are consistent. That's important. So long as they are able to converse without finding it a personal affront that somebody else has a different opinion, I can live with such people. This is called tolerance, and it's in short supply. Dawkins is never going to physically force believers to change their views, but many Christians in the States could take a leaf out of the Bible (some biblical principals are excellent, a fact that Dawkins also recognizes, his critique is actually a whole lot more selective than you might imagine at first) and turn the other cheek, probably some unbelievers as well.
The only thing that confuses me about Dawkins is that he is a socialist. To me that's replacing a metaphysical god with a secular one, but that's another story.
Conversely it is also inconsistent, at least to myself, when believers in god appreciate the market, but don't apply similar principals elsewhere. Competition and the division of labor are universal principals, whether we're calling them titles like evolution or capitalism.
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So in conclusion, everyone likes Dawkins?
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He's a biologist, but he's not very interesting as a philosopher or physical theorist.
And worse, for someone puts rationality before everything, he makes a lot of fallacies.
Ah, glad you guys could finally make it. ;)
You hear it all the time: "Dawkins is a philosophical philistine who should stick to biology." * There's a name for this kind of attitude:
Non-overlapping magisteria (NOMA) is the view advocated by Stephen Jay Gould that science and religion each have "a legitimate magisterium, or domain of teaching authority," and these two domains do not overlap.
Gould is, of course, wrong. The domains do overlap. Scientific ideas have philosophical/religious implications.
While domains do overlap all the time (it's not like the universe is actually constructed from a field of discrete mathematics), it is also true that "asshats" from one field will mouthflap away on topics they haven't an inkling about.
Just because one guy is good with, say, mathematics, doesn't make him a good chemist or historian, and visa versa. Fields of academia in particular tend to be highly compartmentalized, expertise in one area doesn't predicate expertise in another no matter how confident the speaker sounds.
A classic example of this is economics and sociology. Sociologists are usually quite confident they know something about economics. They are almost always wrong. This is for the above reason, but it is also that sociologists in particular have an especially strong illusion of competence in this field from a political perspective, when people's collective opinions don't actually have a whole lot to do with economics, it's literally a different level of organization, they are living in the moment when what they are bladdering about takes place over decades or even centuries. It's like biologists finding political repercussions they dislike from the rules of chemistry, it's actually lubriciously inane, it just doesn't sound like it because of scientism. e.g. the way a lot of people know a whole lot of tech jargon from using a particular corporations products e.g. Mac, but don't get the fundamentals of tech.
However I don't think NOMA is quite the same thing because religion does (or did) make certain claims that are scientific in nature. e.g. the age of the universe or earth in some cases. I think people today sometimes forget that Science used to be called "Natural Philosophy", and was in fact part and parcel of "Religion" several centuries ago. All the major scientists in history were religious, being very religious was (for some genuine individualists, it still is) a higher motivation to learn what we today call Science. People laugh at the 'household gods' of the Greeks/Romans and others, e.g. the god of wine, dancing etc. But I think we're forgetting that such 'household gods' have their roots in concepts that today are not considered religious by either scientists and/or the faithful. A 'house god' was a particular way of thinking about the world, not necessarily religious in the sense we think of it today. It would be more accurate to think of some gods, I'm thinking of finance, as being mascots or corporate logos for a way of seeing the world, rather than literal metaphysical entities that people really believed existed. Consider the idea of the 'Market' or 'State' in this context. Are these gods worshiped? In a way, yes they are. So my point is that many seemingly metaphysical concepts were actually rooted in practical memeplexes, and thus what is newer is the idea that NOMA exists. That religion is completely separated from science or philosophy is a very new idea, not an ancient one. People seem to think our ancestors were complete godbothering twits with the simplest possible frame of reference. Actually that's not quite right... we have probably about the same per capita amount of twits per hectare as we always have done...
As long as people, yano (word theft from Limet), think, we should be happy. It's anybody who accepts the status quo overly so that concerns me, and that can be any ideological framework, including my own which is capitalism, which is why I have read the works of Veblen and Marx as well as Smith and Hayek. It is similar to the deal where you purchase a copy of the New York Times and the Economist, and compare and contrast, that is a way to aggregate more meaningful information, that is what it really means to be a skeptic. You're not necessarily a skeptic just because you think religion is dumb. Being an skeptic is an activity, not a fixed position.
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So in conclusion, everyone likes Dawkins?
On SR perhaps, by Beelzebub it's filled with ungodly heathens! :D
But we don't really represent a general crosssection of the population. Yano.
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So in conclusion, everyone likes Dawkins?
Why did you ask? Are you going to print Dawkins on some blotters?
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I was interested because I watched him in a documentary recently. Personally I find him in this odd bracket of "I agree with you on principle but if I met you I'd end up punching you". As well as that I don't like how he manages to turn Atheism into a religion in itself where he seemingly appoints himself as high priest. It just makes me think he's come full circle to be as bad as the people he doesn't like. So yeah, I agree with most of what he says but his delivery and MO just make me want to give him black eyes. He's probably the only 60+ year old I wouldn't feel bad about punching. :)
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There is a series on More4 at the moment. The next episode(#3) is on Monday (29/10/12) at 10PM.
If you have missed the first two episodes you can catch up here; http://www.channel4.com/programmes/sex-death-and-the-meaning-of-life
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There is a series on More4 at the moment. The next episode(#3) is on Monday (29/10/12) at 10PM.
If you have missed the first two episodes you can catch up here; http://www.channel4.com/programmes/sex-death-and-the-meaning-of-life
Yeah I've been watching it, still want to punch him.
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I think he makes some reasonable anti-theist points, but not as well as Christopher Hitchens, and I do not think he has much interesting to say philosophically about atheism. Doesn't explore the moral implications of an atheist position, as someone like Sartre or Dostoyevsky does; comes up with his own commandment based morality in the God Delusion which annoyed me. Also saw him speak a few times, he tended to extend the range of his argument quickly in the last 10 mins or so - you know, go from: "So we have no arguments that prove the existence of God...therefore science will one day be able to explain everything; there is a probably a multiverse."
I guess my relationship to him is that I read the God Delusion and went from agnostic to atheist, now am more inclined to think that the sort of arguments put forward by people like Dawkins show the absurdity of an 'old man in the sky' type position, but his 'science is the one true path' type position isn't really enough for me either. But maybe he's right and I'll have to shut up whining for something more. His stuff about how great and fascinating and beautiful the scientific view of the world is is certainly great to read...but then so are stories of God - the human imagination and its history are just as fascinating as the world outside, at least from my perspective.
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I once saw an interview with Richard Dawkins about the possibility of a 'Homosexual gene'. He was discussing how such a gene could be passed on from generation to generation without dieing out (due to the none reproductive nature of homosexuality). It seems there are two schools of thought about this, one being the 'Sneaky Fucker' theory. Something about bisexual men using their gayness as a front, so they're trusted to stay with the women and look after the children, when the dominant males go off hunting and gathering. And whilst the masculine hunter gatherers are away getting food, the bisexual men are impregnating the tribes women with their 'Gay gene'... The Sneaky Fuckers lol. Props to whoever came up with that name. ;D
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I was interested because I watched him in a documentary recently. Personally I find him in this odd bracket of "I agree with you on principle but if I met you I'd end up punching you". As well as that I don't like how he manages to turn Atheism into a religion in itself where he seemingly appoints himself as high priest. It just makes me think he's come full circle to be as bad as the people he doesn't like. So yeah, I agree with most of what he says but his delivery and MO just make me want to give him black eyes. He's probably the only 60+ year old I wouldn't feel bad about punching. :)
Ive been saying this for years now, minus the punching part.
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I once saw an interview with Richard Dawkins about the possibility of a 'Homosexual gene'. He was discussing how such a gene could be passed on from generation to generation without dieing out (due to the none reproductive nature of homosexuality). It seems there are two schools of thought about this, one being the 'Sneaky Fucker' theory. Something about bisexual men using their gayness as a front, so they're trusted to stay with the women and look after the children, when the dominant males go off hunting and gathering. And whilst the masculine hunter gatherers are away getting food, the bisexual men are impregnating the tribes women with their 'Gay gene'... The Sneaky Fuckers lol. Props to whoever came up with that name. ;D
The same thing could be said about a "Kiddy Fiddler Gene" sure we could get the pitchforks and wipe them all out, but more will just appear due to the gene just being a mutation in nature, thats why we have all being saying maybe we should try and treat them so THEY DONT fiddle with our kiddies.
The Sneaky Fuckers, are just as bad as any sex offenders in my opinion, and should be lynched
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I used to consider myself agnostic and people could believe whatever helped them through their day. These days the militant atheism is kicking in more and more. The more fundamental religious bullshit (whether christian/muslim what have you) I see the more I want to call the people practicing it fucking imbeciles. Nobody has the right to tell you that the way you live is wrong, there's no such thing...there is only living. The fact that people believe that somewhere out there in this ginormous clusterfuck of a cosmos we live in that some deity actually gives a fuck about what they're doing on the this insignificant speck of dust is just nutty.
As far as Dawkins is concerned, if he's trying to turn atheism itself into a religion that's just fucking absurd. I've seen him debate some religious nuts with factual evidence and it's always the same loop of them falling back on what they've been told in a fairy tale rather than something they've learned in fact, truly pointless interviews/debates or whatever you want to call them.
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I used to consider myself agnostic and people could believe whatever helped them through their day. These days the militant atheism is kicking in more and more. The more fundamental religious bullshit (whether christian/muslim what have you) I see the more I want to call the people practicing it fucking imbeciles. Nobody has the right to tell you that the way you live is wrong, there's no such thing...there is only living. The fact that people believe that somewhere out there in this ginormous clusterfuck of a cosmos we live in that some deity actually gives a fuck about what they're doing on the this insignificant speck of dust is just nutty.
As far as Dawkins is concerned, if he's trying to turn atheism itself into a religion that's just fucking absurd. I've seen him debate some religious nuts with factual evidence and it's always the same loop of them falling back on what they've been told in a fairy tale rather than something they've learned in fact, truly pointless interviews/debates or whatever you want to call them.
I fail to see how fundamentally aetheism is any different to religion
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I'm not really sure it is to tell you the truth. I'm not exactly sure what distinguishes main line religions from cults either though.
I actually see atheism turning into any other preached message, a circle jerk of types. For me...I think I'm still truly agnostic because even though I feel the need to berate idiots at times...I don't (most of the time). Your point makes sense...I renig my militant atheists tendencies mentioned previously :)
Fuck it, maybe I am a goddamn hippy. Peace and love motherfuckers.
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I'm not really sure it is to tell you the truth. I'm not exactly sure what distinguishes main line religions from cults either though.
I actually see atheism turning into any other preached message, a circle jerk of types. For me...I think I'm still truly agnostic because even though I feel the need to berate idiots at times...I don't (most of the time). Your point makes sense...I renig my militant atheists tendencies mentioned previously :)
Fuck it, maybe I am a goddamn hippy. Peace and love motherfuckers.
people have always beleieved the religion they were taught because it was all they were taught.
now everyone beleives "science" because its all tha is shoved in our face ala how religion use to be
See the difference? Not much is there.
Dont get me wrong i have a hatred for organized religion and im abit of a tech geek, but you just have to look at the bigger picture
BC
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I used to be a fan of Dawkins, but then I discovered LSD and experienced God. I was an atheist and a materialist at the time of that particular trip. I now believe in God, although I am not committed to any one religion. If anyone wants to experience God, I would recommend the ingestion of about 300ug of LSD in a comfortable setting, while focusing the mind on the eternal present. This will evoke a mystical experience in which the Self goes outward and finds the One in the external world. The experience is phenomenologically indistinguishable from the reports of mystical experiences described by traditional mystics.
What Richard Dawkins needs is 300 ug of good LSD and an open mind.
I have since learned that Richard Dawkins also has a very poor understanding of theology and philosophy. He presents school boy arguments against theism. He doesn't define what level of God he is talking about. He "refutes" mythic-magical conceptions of God as if they were applicable to transrational and integral conceptions of God (see Ken Wilber). I recommend watching the videos of William Lane Craig for a thorough refutation of Richard Dawkins. For example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fP9CwDTRoOE . Although he is a Christian, his arguments are applicable to a generic theism. I also recommend looking up Ken Wilber for a non-Christian perspective on these issues.
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LSD ='s God? lulz :P
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i like the atheists' agenda of mocking conventional religion and debunking all their ludicrous beliefs, but i am not an atheist. done too many psychedelics. their hard line of "there is absolutely NO higher power" starts to seem arrogant and closed minded after a while. but whatever, i'd rather that than the religious loonies.
someone question Dawkins recently about what he thought of people claiming to have spiritual experiences with drugs like ayahuasca and he admitted to being curious about this. he then specifically said that he was most interested in trying LSD.
my question to the psychedelic family is: why has no one gotten this man some acid yet? if anyone ever needed to see the light...
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LSD ='s God? lulz :P
LSD isn't God any more than meditation is God. It's just an aid in evoking a mystical experience in which the Self discovers who it actually is. And it's not what you /see/ on LSD that is God, but what you /don't/ see. This is why people find it difficult to believe you can experience God on LSD. They think it's some kind of hallucination. It's not. It's not something that can be defined in terms of sensation. Nor is it an emotional or ecstatic experience. It has the quality of perception, not of emotion.
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i like the atheists' agenda of mocking conventional religion and debunking all their ludicrous beliefs, but i am not an atheist. done too many psychedelics. their hard line of "there is absolutely NO higher power" starts to seem arrogant and closed minded after a while. but whatever, i'd rather that than the religious loonies.
someone question Dawkins recently about what he thought of people claiming to have spiritual experiences with drugs like ayahuasca and he admitted to being curious about this. he then specifically said that he was most interested in trying LSD.
my question to the psychedelic family is: why has no one gotten this man some acid yet? if anyone ever needed to see the light...
Dawkins said he would only do it legally and under medication supervision. Since LSD probably won't be legalised in his lifetime, he is not likely to give it a try.
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I'm not really sure it is to tell you the truth. I'm not exactly sure what distinguishes main line religions from cults either though.
I actually see atheism turning into any other preached message, a circle jerk of types. For me...I think I'm still truly agnostic because even though I feel the need to berate idiots at times...I don't (most of the time). Your point makes sense...I renig my militant atheists tendencies mentioned previously :)
Fuck it, maybe I am a goddamn hippy. Peace and love motherfuckers.
people have always beleieved the religion they were taught because it was all they were taught.
now everyone beleives "science" because its all tha is shoved in our face ala how religion use to be
See the difference? Not much is there.
Dont get me wrong i have a hatred for organized religion and im abit of a tech geek, but you just have to look at the bigger picture
BC
I'm on the same page here. science forget to teach them to be a nice compassionate human beings. it is just trade here and there everywhere, what is different is amount of lies and corruption. as a result people getting plain and stupid by losing cultural educational components which been offered by religion.
what is influence of science on culture, that is interesting topic to explore. our general culture incorporated and approved schizophrenic component, so been a mad is sort coll nowadays. is it how science and technology changing our lives.
I'm not against science by no means, just trying to be objective. Fact is that Sun will lose all energy eventually and humanity will have to prepare for transit to another start or go to extinction. So it is clear that only science can fulfill future need of civilization in long term.
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LSD just confuses you, it does not make you god
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LSD just confuses you, ...
An LSD trip seems confusing because your thoughts and perceptions are constantly changing. But because your thoughts and perceptions are constantly changing, LSD allows you to recognise that which does not change, which is the pure and eternal "I" as distinct from your changing thoughts and emotions, which you normally identify with your Self. You thus enter a state of interior detachment in which you cease to identify with your thoughts and perceptions, but stand apart from them and above them. You cease to identify with your ego, because it is temporal and dependent on brain function, and recognise the true or transcendental self, which stands above your thoughts and is immediately recognised as eternal. One can call it God, but I prefer to think of it as the Godhead, or the witnessing spirit of God, the mind that never sleeps, never turns its back, but contains the whole universe in its awareness. Spirituality is the journey from the empirical self, which is anything you can see or know about yourself, to this pure awareness which cannot be made an object of consciousness, but is that in which and through which all objects arise.
I have been able to attain this state of consciousness both with LSD and with disciplined meditation and concentration. There is nothing "confusing" about it.
What can be confusing are the aesthetic, cognitive, and hallucinatory phenomena of LSD, which people CONFUSE with the spiritual component of the trip. Most people also don't take enough LSD, if what they are ingesting is real LSD.
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One can call it God, but I prefer to think of it as the Godhead, or the witnessing spirit of God, the mind that never sleeps, never turns its back, but contains the whole universe in its awareness. Spirituality is the journey from the empirical self, which is anything you can see or know about yourself, to this pure awareness which cannot be made an object of consciousness, but is that in which and through which all objects arise.
On a related note, the problem with Dawkins is that he wants scientific evidence for the existence of God, which means he wants something that can be reduced to an object of his own consciousness. But as Shankara observed, how do you study something that is not a category of things? You can't describe its qualities, because it has no qualities. You can't describe its activity, because it is at rest. You can't describe its relationships, because it is without a second and is not the object of anything but its own self. Hence it cannot be defined by an idea. God is a pure subject that cannot be made into an object. To devise a scientific test in order to 'verify' its existence would be to look for an object, but by the very nature of the case, it cannot be made into an object, for it has no other but its own self. No, if you want proof of God, you will have to either submit to years of disciplined meditation and concentration, or you can try taking a higher dosage of LSD with an open mind. In this sense, God is a testable hypothesis.
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LSD just confuses you, ...
An LSD trip seems confusing because your thoughts and perceptions are constantly changing. But because your thoughts and perceptions are constantly changing, LSD allows you to recognise that which does not change, which is the pure and eternal "I" as distinct from your changing thoughts and emotions, which you normally identify with your Self. You thus enter a state of interior detachment in which you cease to identify with your thoughts and perceptions, but stand apart from them and above them. You cease to identify with your ego, because it is temporal and dependent on brain function, and recognise the true or transcendental self, which stands above your thoughts and is immediately recognised as eternal. One can call it God, but I prefer to think of it as the Godhead, or the witnessing spirit of God, the mind that never sleeps, never turns its back, but contains the whole universe in its awareness. Spirituality is the journey from the empirical self, which is anything you can see or know about yourself, to this pure awareness which cannot be made an object of consciousness, but is that in which and through which all objects arise.
I have been able to attain this state of consciousness both with LSD and with disciplined meditation and concentration. There is nothing "confusing" about it.
What can be confusing are the aesthetic, cognitive, and hallucinatory phenomena of LSD, which people CONFUSE with the spiritual component of the trip. Most people also don't take enough LSD, if what they are ingesting is real LSD.
all LSD does is rewire how your brain fires its signals for a period
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all LSD does is rewire how your brain fires its signals for a period
Just because a perception may arise from neurochemical causes, does not mean that it is a subjective illusion. For instance, if I see a tree, a part of my brain would light up on an MRI scan, but it does not follow that the tree does not exist outside of my mind. To point to an organic or chemical causation as a refutation of the spiritual validity of an experience is absurd because all of our thoughts arise from brain function.
Moreover, it is not the hallucinatory or cognitive changes in the brain that is regarded as spiritual in an LSD trip. It's the sense of detachment in which you /cease to identify/ with these changes in your thought processes and perceptions. You stand above and apart from your own thought processes and perceptions. You observe yourself from the perspective of a higher consciousness. And this state is accessible with or without the use of psychedelic drugs. Psychedelic drugs are merely an aid to attaining it.
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all LSD does is rewire how your brain fires its signals for a period
Just because a perception may arise from neurochemical causes, does not mean that it is a subjective illusion. For instance, if I see a tree, a part of my brain would light up on an MRI scan, but it does not follow that the tree does not exist outside of my mind. To point to an organic or chemical causation as a refutation of the spiritual validity of an experience is absurd because all of our thoughts arise from brain function.
Moreover, it is not the hallucinatory or cognitive changes in the brain that is regarded as spiritual in an LSD trip. It's the sense of detachment in which you /cease to identify/ with these changes in your thought processes and perceptions. You stand above and apart from your own thought processes and perceptions. You observe yourself from the perspective of a higher consciousness. And this state is accessible with or without the use of psychedelic drugs. Psychedelic drugs are merely an aid to attaining it.
quite attainable with K
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quite attainable with K
In the case of ketamine, I don't believe that this sense of detachment gives rise to an awareness of an undifferentiated unity, but if it does, then ketamine would be a useful means of evoking a primary type mystical experience. With sufficient dosages of LSD, there is an acute awareness of such a timeless, spaceless undifferentiated unity which is perceived as transcending the subject-object dichotomy, and this awareness is accompanied by a profound sense of objectivity, sacredness, blessedness, ineffability, and paradoxicality. Ketamine seems to induce more of a dissociative experience than a mystical experience.
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quite attainable with K
In the case of ketamine, I don't believe that this sense of detachment gives rise to an awareness of an undifferentiated unity, but if it does, then ketamine would be a useful means of evoking a primary type mystical experience. With sufficient dosages of LSD, there is an acute awareness of such a timeless, spaceless undifferentiated unity which is perceived as transcending the subject-object dichotomy, and this awareness is accompanied by a profound sense of objectivity, sacredness, blessedness, ineffability, and paradoxicality. Ketamine seems to induce more of a dissociative experience than a mystical experience.
Once again there is nothing mystical about LSD it just confuses the brain
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How LSD works and the validity of mystical experiences probably belongs on another thread.
How a trip would affect Dawkins view of the world is likewise totally guesswork. My personal guess is it would do him a lot of good and might soften this total rejection of the existence of anything beyond the purely material, but who knows. I have seen plenty of assholes take acid and remain total assholes after. If Charles Manson and this japanese cult guy that nervegassed the subway met god on acid they were either immune or met a really weird god.
Back to Dawkins - he is without doubt an extraordinarily gifted scientist and has made great contributions to evolutionary biology.
Its rather a pity that he turned counter-evangelist missionary as he is nowhere near as gifted in that role.
I can imagine and understand that he has gotten really pissed off on the fundamentalists/ceationists trying to mess with school curiculums and ban his books from public libraries but I don't think he is gaining much by giving them back a dosis of their own medicine. This just makes him come across as generalizing and narrow minded too.
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How LSD works and the validity of mystical experiences probably belongs on another thread.
How a trip would affect Dawkins view of the world is likewise totally guesswork. My personal guess is it would do him a lot of good and might soften this total rejection of the existence of anything beyond the purely material, but who knows. I have seen plenty of assholes take acid and remain total assholes after. If Charles Manson and this japanese cult guy that nervegassed the subway met god on acid they were either immune or met a really weird god.
Back to Dawkins - he is without doubt an extraordinarily gifted scientist and has made great contributions to evolutionary biology.
Its rather a pity that he turned counter-evangelist missionary as he is nowhere near as gifted in that role.
I can imagine and understand that he has gotten really pissed off on the fundamentalists/ceationists trying to mess with school curiculums and ban his books from public libraries but I don't think he is gaining much by giving them back a dosis of their own medicine. This just makes him come across as generalizing and narrow minded too.
top post couldnt agree more +1
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His book "The Blind Watchmaker" was a revelation to me at the age of 17 (yeah, some time back). He cops a lot of flak from the anti-Atheist brigade nowadays, I expect the religious fundamentalists are glad to have the New-Agers on-side.
Politics and religion aside, I have him to thank for very simple but in-depth explanations of concepts such as the selfish gene and the idea of the extended phenotype (not just the genome but its imprint on the extra-cellular world).
His books are the very definition of Popular Science.
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Once again there is nothing mystical about LSD it just confuses the brain
No one who has taken LSD would say that it 'just' confuses the brain. That is an absurd statement. W.T. Stace, one of the world's foremost authorities on mysticism, has this to say regarding the LSD induced experience: "It is not a matter of being similar to mystical experience; it is mystical experience." Again, he insists, "The fact that the experience was induced by drugs has no bearing on its validity."
Based on a historical survey of the literature of mysticism, scholars have also developed nine criteria of mystical states of consciousness, and have shown that LSD produces a state of consciousness that is phenomenologically indistinguishable from mystical experiences:
"Implications of LSD and Experimental Mysticism" by Walter N. Pahnke & William A. Richards (http://www.psychedelic-library.org/pahnke4.htm)
If you wish to show that LSD has 'nothing to do with mysticism', you would have to demonstrate that it doesn't meet any of these criteria.
In any case, I think I know the contents of my own experiences better than anyone else. I've experienced mystical states without drugs, by disciplined meditation and concenntration, and LSD does produce the same kind of state of consciousness. If the LSD experience is not at times mystical in nature, then the difference is so subtle as to be indistinguishable.
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Back to Dawkins - he is without doubt an extraordinarily gifted scientist and has made great contributions to evolutionary biology.
Its rather a pity that he turned counter-evangelist missionary as he is nowhere near as gifted in that role.
I don't think it's a pity at all, and he actually does an excellent job of communicating the message against religion.
He always remains polite, though fierce, and always comes with good arguments for that he advocates. Even if you do not agree with his vision, i'd find it hard to have a negative view on his thought processes, charisma, logic and verbal skills.
Personally i am a fan of his work though, and i admire his insights into the mechanisms behind religion and such.
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I just can't believe he hasn't had a psychedelic experience yet. It has the potential to expand his mind and write better (if that's possible). He may discover things about people with different beliefs/ideas that he wouldn't have been otherwise. Still love the guy. Reading The God Delusion now.
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No one who has taken LSD would say that it 'just' confuses the brain. That is an absurd statement. W.T. Stace, one of the world's foremost authorities on mysticism, has this to say regarding the LSD induced experience: "It is not a matter of being similar to mystical experience; it is mystical experience." Again, he insists, "The fact that the experience was induced by drugs has no bearing on its validity."
Based on a historical survey of the literature of mysticism, scholars have also developed nine criteria of mystical states of consciousness, and have shown that LSD produces a state of consciousness that is phenomenologically indistinguishable from mystical experiences:
"Implications of LSD and Experimental Mysticism" by Walter N. Pahnke & William A. Richards (http://www.psychedelic-library.org/pahnke4.htm)
If you wish to show that LSD has 'nothing to do with mysticism', you would have to demonstrate that it doesn't meet any of these criteria.
In any case, I think I know the contents of my own experiences better than anyone else. I've experienced mystical states without drugs, by disciplined meditation and concenntration, and LSD does produce the same kind of state of consciousness. If the LSD experience is not at times mystical in nature, then the difference is so subtle as to be indistinguishable.
I'm not at all sure why you'd have to demonstrate that mysticism and LSD are very different to disagree with you. Personally I think both mysticism and LSD are "confused brains." They may very well be the same or very similar states, though, and still not really be truly "mystical" beyond the sensations associated with those physiological processes. So why not call them confused. Call them inside out, call them fun, call them whatever you like -- the fact is it's pretty uncommon to be in that state, for better or worse. If you enjoy it, then by all means, indulge. But why does the experience of a sensation so powerfully move you to believe it's anything more than just a sensation?
I took LSD when I was younger, by the way; I kept taking more and more trying to see looney tunes or some garbage -- you know how it's characterized popularly. I was 15 and didn't know better. Finally ended up having an absolutely terrifying 8 hours one night when I took what was way too much for me, and I have only this to say: I cannot stand hallucinogens of any kind and I hope never to do them again. Psilocybin and LSD both... they make me feel bad. I don't know how else to say it. Very, very bad and very, very upset. There is nothing mystical about it for me.
Though it wouldn't surprise me much if what I got back then wasn't really LSD; still, whatever it was that I kept getting from different sources did all feel basically like the same drug -- so it was either consistent bunk, or I've experienced mysticism and have no clue why you people aren't running for your lives at the very suggestion of it.
Thank you for describing so vividly what you believe LSD teaches people though. I never did understand what it was supposed to have taught me, but I do now better than I ever have. If it's like that for others, then I suppose it would be a useful experience to have. But again, I don't see how the powerfully mystical feeling extends beyond being anything but a feeling. That doesn't make it indicative of reality, or truth, or understanding.
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No one who has taken LSD would say that it 'just' confuses the brain. That is an absurd statement. W.T. Stace, one of the world's foremost authorities on mysticism, has this to say regarding the LSD induced experience: "It is not a matter of being similar to mystical experience; it is mystical experience." Again, he insists, "The fact that the experience was induced by drugs has no bearing on its validity."
Based on a historical survey of the literature of mysticism, scholars have also developed nine criteria of mystical states of consciousness, and have shown that LSD produces a state of consciousness that is phenomenologically indistinguishable from mystical experiences:
"Implications of LSD and Experimental Mysticism" by Walter N. Pahnke & William A. Richards (http://www.psychedelic-library.org/pahnke4.htm)
If you wish to show that LSD has 'nothing to do with mysticism', you would have to demonstrate that it doesn't meet any of these criteria.
In any case, I think I know the contents of my own experiences better than anyone else. I've experienced mystical states without drugs, by disciplined meditation and concenntration, and LSD does produce the same kind of state of consciousness. If the LSD experience is not at times mystical in nature, then the difference is so subtle as to be indistinguishable.
I'm not at all sure why you'd have to demonstrate that mysticism and LSD are very different to disagree with you. Personally I think both mysticism and LSD are "confused brains." They may very well be the same or very similar states, though, and still not really be truly "mystical" beyond the sensations associated with those physiological processes. So why not call them confused. Call them inside out, call them fun, call them whatever you like -- the fact is it's pretty uncommon to be in that state, for better or worse. If you enjoy it, then by all means, indulge. But why does the experience of a sensation so powerfully move you to believe it's anything more than just a sensation?
I took LSD when I was younger, by the way; I kept taking more and more trying to see looney tunes or some garbage -- you know how it's characterized popularly. I was 15 and didn't know better. Finally ended up having an absolutely terrifying 8 hours one night when I took what was way too much for me, and I have only this to say: I cannot stand hallucinogens of any kind and I hope never to do them again. Psilocybin and LSD both... they make me feel bad. I don't know how else to say it. Very, very bad and very, very upset. There is nothing mystical about it for me.
Though it wouldn't surprise me much if what I got back then wasn't really LSD; still, whatever it was that I kept getting from different sources did all feel basically like the same drug -- so it was either consistent bunk, or I've experienced mysticism and have no clue why you people aren't running for your lives at the very suggestion of it.
Thank you for describing so vividly what you believe LSD teaches people though. I never did understand what it was supposed to have taught me, but I do now better than I ever have. If it's like that for others, then I suppose it would be a useful experience to have. But again, I don't see how the powerfully mystical feeling extends beyond being anything but a feeling. That doesn't make it indicative of reality, or truth, or understanding.
Couldnt have said it better im sick of the self righteous pot an LSD crowd
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I just can't believe he hasn't had a psychedelic experience yet. It has the potential to expand his mind and write better (if that's possible). He may discover things about people with different beliefs/ideas that he wouldn't have been otherwise. Still love the guy. Reading The God Delusion now.
Considering the quality of his work so far, i suppose he doesn't need it at all.
Then again i can imagine has tried various drugs, but doesn't want to make that fact public since people would be inclined to to reduce his writings to something coming from an unreliable junky instead of a reputable scientist.
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Amazing how many chemical users there are here...now if anyone of them had the smallest amount of background in the chemical sciences.
Your brain is a mess of chemical reactions, this is a simple fact. Drugs especially psychedelics, directly affect how your brain both releases and interprets these chemical reactions. There is no god, there is only emotional responses to external stimuli.
Our brain "learns" to interpret certain external stimuli based on what the situations are surrounding the initial experience. Meaning, if we are happy while at church with our parents we will always have a minor O when attending church and listening to a bunch of people sing about bullshit. The reverse is also possible, for instance, if as a child we are molested by older individuals and experience pain/ our brains will subconsciously tend to equate pain with sex/ and love with masochism.
There are a hundred and one thousand ways things can become wired or re-wired. Psychedelics simply re-wire or change how the brain interacts with itself, and how or what chemicals and feelings are experienced/released as a result.
Again this is biology/ biochemistry 101, its not rocket science. The experience is amazing, but like great sex, or near death experiences, the "amazing" is just the result of massive or minute amounts of serotonin, dopamine, endorphins, norepinephrine, tryptophan and more coursing through your nervous system.
Nothing mystic, simple science, action ='s reaction, neuro-transmitters functioning, chemicals released...
On a side note, here is a simple experiment for unbelievers.
Think back to the VERY first time you had a satisfying sexual experience OR satisfying drug experience. What were you listening too, where were you, what were the smells and more...now without the sex/ drugs recreate the surrounding events, the smells/ sounds and sights...get ready for a very satisfying experience...biology people- screw the god complex lol
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Amazing how many chemical users there are here...now if anyone of them had the smallest amount of background in the chemical sciences.
Your brain is a mess of chemical reactions, this is a simple fact. Drugs especially psychedelics, directly affect how your brain both releases and interprets these chemical reactions. There is no god, there is only emotional responses to external stimuli.
Our brain "learns" to interpret certain external stimuli based on what the situations are surrounding the initial experience. Meaning, if we are happy while at church with our parents we will always have a minor O when attending church and listening to a bunch of people sing about bullshit. The reverse is also possible, for instance, if as a child we are molested by older individuals and experience pain/ our brains will subconsciously tend to equate pain with sex/ and love with masochism.
There are a hundred and one thousand ways things can become wired or re-wired. Psychedelics simply re-wire or change how the brain interacts with itself, and how or what chemicals and feelings are experienced/released as a result.
Again this is biology/ biochemistry 101, its not rocket science. The experience is amazing, but like great sex, or near death experiences, the "amazing" is just the result of massive or minute amounts of serotonin, dopamine, endorphins, norepinephrine, tryptophan and more coursing through your nervous system.
Nothing mystic, simple science, action ='s reaction, neuro-transmitters functioning, chemicals released...
On a side note, here is a simple experiment for unbelievers.
Think back to the VERY first time you had a satisfying sexual experience OR satisfying drug experience. What were you listening too, where were you, what were the smells and more...now without the sex/ drugs recreate the surrounding events, the smells/ sounds and sights...get ready for a very satisfying experience...biology people- screw the god complex lol
lol this finally
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I've only read one of Dawkin's books and that was the best seller "The God Delusion", which is an excellent dissection of classic and modern day dogmatic belief systems. I also make sure I keep an eye out for any talks he makes at TED conferences as he always impresses. me. He is a credit to the UK Academic class.
My only criticism of RD is that he seems to be quite fundamental in his Atheism. His intellect dwarfs mine like a Bishop casting a shadow over a scared choir boy so I tread lightly when questioning him but I still think that a small door must be left open to entertain the possibility that there is a higher intelligence out there and that even the greatest minds on the planet just haven't evolved enough to be able to comprehend it. We may be the star children of the Cosmos but we may also be primordial soup compared to other life forms or "God races"
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I've only read one of Dawkin's books and that was the best seller "The God Delusion", which is an excellent dissection of classic and modern day dogmatic belief systems. I also make sure I keep an eye out for any talks he makes at TED conferences as he always impresses. me. He is a credit to the UK Academic class.
My only criticism of RD is that he seems to be quite fundamental in his Atheism. His intellect dwarfs mine like a Bishop casting a shadow over a scared choir boy so I tread lightly when questioning him but I still think that a small door must be left open to entertain the possibility that there is a higher intelligence out there and that even the greatest minds on the planet just haven't evolved enough to be able to comprehend it. We may be the star children of the Cosmos but we may also be primordial soup compared to other life forms or "God races"
I've been told (by several people in my life, actually) that I'm "the most unspiritual person they'd ever met." I believe in absolutely nothing that I cannot logically justify or somehow detect the influence of. Or things that I'm told by someone who's devoted half their life to mastering a field and feels confident believing in themselves. Ironic appeal to authority, in a sense, but it's not really optional: nobody can know everything in every field anymore. One life just isn't long enough.
Anyway, just thought I'd mention that I strongly agree with you. Not about a higher intelligence, I think that's poppycock :P About the willingness to be open to it though. Blind dogma really is one of the greatest enemies of knowledge, and we all end up with dogmatic beliefs without realizing it. If you aren't willing to swallow your pride and just be plain old fucking wrong, then truth will pass you by just as easily as it does any religious fundamentalist.
It really is awfully hard sometimes though, isn't it. Socrates must have been a really interesting guy -- I mean the way he's portrayed in literature as always being open to public derision for false statements, since the only way to separate what you should believe from what you've mistakenly concluded is to let someone challenge your ideas.
Or maybe he just had half the testosterone of your average teenager. Either way, I like his principles :)
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He's great to listen to/read when he's talking about science.
My problem with Richard Dawkins is that he seems to be less passionate about the eduction side of the theism/atheism argument recently. There is such a large group of people that just enjoy seeing theists made to look stupid and I think he's got carried away with it. He attacks dumb creationist preachers in the US more than he does the Catholic church or Islam.
I mean, everytime I see a link to a talk that he has done or a quote from him I just think - I don't want to hear how silly the bible is, or how a creationist used a fallacy, or how the percentage of atheists is rising. It's just the same old shit.
I'm probably just frustrated with the whole smug atmosphere of the "atheist movement", though.
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He's great to listen to/read when he's talking about science.
My problem with Richard Dawkins is that he seems to be less passionate about the eduction side of the theism/atheism argument recently. There is such a large group of people that just enjoy seeing theists made to look stupid and I think he's got carried away with it. He attacks dumb creationist preachers in the US more than he does the Catholic church or Islam.
I mean, everytime I see a link to a talk that he has done or a quote from him I just think - I don't want to hear how silly the bible is, or how a creationist used a fallacy, or how the percentage of atheists is rising. It's just the same old shit.
I'm probably just frustrated with the whole smug atmosphere of the "atheist movement", though.
Interesting. Yeah, that would really wear on me too I think. For perspective, from my atheist side, I've spent my entire life (I decided I was an atheist when I was like, 11 or 12 or something) being told that I should accept this fabulous being that I don't think exists. Then told I shouldn't do things this fabulous being who I don't think exists says I shouldn't do. Then told that people who believe in this fabulous being are the only really good people, and that I'm not a good person because I don't like said being. That said being dictates what's right and what's wrong, and that any contrary statements are obviously misguided and should be dismissed out of hand. So on. And so on. And so on.
Frankly man, you get very, very bitter after awhile. I admit it. I hear "christian" and before I can even consciously be aware of it, I think "oh fuck, not one of THOSE..." Some of the best people I've ever known were christians though. Some theology professors are truly astoundingly brilliant men that I could sit and talk with for days on end too. It's an unfair blanket statement, but in Dawkins' defense, we aren't bitter for nothing.
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He's great to listen to/read when he's talking about science.
My problem with Richard Dawkins is that he seems to be less passionate about the eduction side of the theism/atheism argument recently. There is such a large group of people that just enjoy seeing theists made to look stupid and I think he's got carried away with it. He attacks dumb creationist preachers in the US more than he does the Catholic church or Islam.
I mean, everytime I see a link to a talk that he has done or a quote from him I just think - I don't want to hear how silly the bible is, or how a creationist used a fallacy, or how the percentage of atheists is rising. It's just the same old shit.
I'm probably just frustrated with the whole smug atmosphere of the "atheist movement", though.
Interesting. Yeah, that would really wear on me too I think. For perspective, from my atheist side, I've spent my entire life (I decided I was an atheist when I was like, 11 or 12 or something) being told that I should accept this fabulous being that I don't think exists. Then told I shouldn't do things this fabulous being who I don't think exists says I shouldn't do. Then told that people who believe in this fabulous being are the only really good people, and that I'm not a good person because I don't like said being. That said being dictates what's right and what's wrong, and that any contrary statements are obviously misguided and should be dismissed out of hand. So on. And so on. And so on.
Frankly man, you get very, very bitter after awhile. I admit it. I hear "christian" and before I can even consciously be aware of it, I think "oh fuck, not one of THOSE..." Some of the best people I've ever known were christians though. Some theology professors are truly astoundingly brilliant men that I could sit and talk with for days on end too. It's an unfair blanket statement, but in Dawkins' defense, we aren't bitter for nothing.
Yeah I suppose I would be equally bitter if I lived in the "bible belt" or was raised in a christian community or something like that. That's the problem: there are people with legitimate motivation, like yourself, and there are people who are just wanting to look clever on the internet.
Slightly more on-topic: If there's anyone who likes Richard Dawkins and hasn't seen much of Christopher Hitchens' work, you should read some of Hitchens' work. There's a few debates where they share a panel and it's an interesting alternative to Dawkins approach to the argument.
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Several years ago I was an evangelical Christian (albeit an intelligent, informed, progressive one), so Richard Dawkins was supposed to be, you know... working for Satan or something.
My first impressions while listening to the guy was that he made some really good points about the pitfalls of monotheism as practiced today but he came off as a raging asshole about it. I guess if I was standing up on a podium talking about our culture's interpretation of monotheism I'd start raging too, but at the time he made a poor impression as a personality.
In more recent years I've much more enjoyed listening to him talk about Darwin and evolution because his mood lightens, you can hear the excitement in his voice, and during his examples and explanations he's very eloquent without sounding overtly British.
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Several years ago I was an evangelical Christian (albeit an intelligent, informed, progressive one), so Richard Dawkins was supposed to be, you know... working for Satan or something.
My first impressions while listening to the guy was that he made some really good points about the pitfalls of monotheism as practiced today but he came off as a raging asshole about it. I guess if I was standing up on a podium talking about our culture's interpretation of monotheism I'd start raging too, but at the time he made a poor impression as a personality.
In more recent years I've much more enjoyed listening to him talk about Darwin and evolution because his mood lightens, you can hear the excitement in his voice, and during his examples and explanations he's very eloquent without sounding overtly British.
Perhaps there's a lesson here to be learned, for me if no one else: giving in to bitterness seems to be even more counterproductive than I already assumed. Interesting.
Brilliant sig, by the way, Kwasi. Love it. Can we please make a rule that no member is allowed to use hot chicks as their avatar though? It unduly influences my opinion of people ::)
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I love his spirit in all of this. Dawkins receives a stream of hate mail, death threats and such continuously. Instead of feeling sorry for himself, he sometimes recites them on video, and especially enjoys the one that wish that he burns in hell - a very moot threat to an atheist. I suppose he sees the irony in that better than most people are able to.
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Brilliant sig, by the way, Kwasi. Love it. Can we please make a rule that no member is allowed to use hot chicks as their avatar though? It unduly influences my opinion of people ::)
Hahaha working as intended.
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i read "the Selfish Gene" . I highly recommend it. fantastic book.
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Thats a great book indeed, although the concept really doesn't require a whole book to explain.