Tal Bachman wrote:Most of us also know your criticism is way of the mark, baseless.
---Is my characterization of Dawkins's utopia-through-atheism "baseless? If so, tell me why.
I'm not gonna go that far, Tal. You started your treatise with;
It kind of seems that for some folks, rejecting the nonsense of religious charlatans requires accepting the nonsense of high-profile anti-religionists like Richard Dawkins
You dug yourself a hole with this one and are trying to find some support to get out of it.
I don't think Tal despises Dawkins, he just doesn't seem to agree completely with a THEORY. What's wrong with that?
If I don't completely agree with a theory, I don't usually condemn the proponent of the theory of being a witch doctor.
So what have you to say to that?
You have a point. Witch doctor is a bit hyperbolic for my taste, but putting that aside, its good to have a healthy skepticism of new(ish) theories which are largely untested, regardless of how promising they sound. Doesn't that make sense?
I think Tal is simply saying that religiosity has many masks and maybe, just maybe some atheists and secular humanists are a little too dogmatic about their views, especially, it seems, those who are fresh out of a hyper-dogmatic religion like Mormonism.
The rapid rate at which some people jumped to protect Dawkins and to dis Tal just tastes too much like my experience on MAD. I'd prefer (since you are all here to cater to my preferences ;) to see some more thoughtful consideration instead of knee jerk reactions.
I also think it's good to have healthy skepticism. I don't think Dawkins' meme idea is wholly original and it certainly hasn't received much attention from cognitive scientists, philosophers, or sociologists. Based on other stuff I've read by Dawkins, the farther he strays from biology, the less interested I am in hearing what he has to say, so given my time constraints already, I doubt I'll ever read that book.
What it really comes down to is that there are so many smart people out there competing for pennies in research grants that no one person is going to master the broad scope of subjects required to write an original and definitive book of the scope Dawkins did. And while I think Dawkins can appreciate his limitations based on qualifiers he's written If I remember right, some of his supporters might mistake a thoughtful and zanny opinion piece for the foremost serious scholarship of the day.
Hardly makes Dawkins a witch doctor though. So there is reason for the Tarski second-order witch doctor accusations, I mean, if self-righteous preaching and wordy condemnations of self-righteous preaching is equally self-righteous and wordy to its object of disdain, then the self-righteous and wordy condemnation of self-righteously denouncing the self-righteous is also equally bad and will probably cause us to react the same way as the self-righteous did who were originally offended by us.
I don't have time to post a lengthy reply. Suffice it to say that I approach Dawkins like I do everything else. I read (or listen), consider the arguments, and make up my own mind. While much of what Dawkins argues appeals to me on an intellectual/evidentiary level, I don't buy into everything he says. I think he is quite clear that he offers memes as a theory, not as fact. He is putting it out there for our consideration and making his best argument for it. If he's wrong, or parts of the theory are wrong, then that's ok. But it is in the process of offering and debating such theories that we can move incrementally toward some kind of "truth," as it were. A lot of very bright people have put forward theories that have turned out not to be wholly correct. I fail to see how this makes Dawkins, or anyone else, witch doctors. Tal, I am sure, holds theories about human society that perhaps lack 100% veracity (if analyzed in full), but which he believes in and expounds. Does this make him a witch doctor too?
I have no problem with Tal criticizing Dawkins--I think no one should be immune to this type of criticism. But I think he goes too far in labeling Dawkins a witch doctor, for reasons mentioned above.
God . . . "who mouths morals to other people and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, . . . and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites this poor, abused slave to worship him ..."
Tal Bachman wrote:---Is my characterization of Dawkins's utopia-through-atheism "baseless? If so, tell me why.
I believe I am picking up what you are putting down. It reminds me somewhat of Marx. He was going to get rid of the ideologies which hampered human progress, but when you get down to it, his was yet another of the ideologies.
One moment in annihilation's waste, one moment, of the well of life to taste- The stars are setting and the caravan starts for the dawn of nothing; Oh, make haste! -Omar Khayaam
Moniker wrote:There are a bunch of Dawkin flunkies on this board! Sheesh.
baaaaa
You little instigator, you.
I'm no Dawkins sheep. I just happen to like a lot of what he thinks. I also really like the thoughts of Sam Harris, Dan Dennett, Michael Shermer, Neil deGrasse Tyson, etc etc. Does that make them my shepherds as well?
Don't make me come over there.
;)
God belief is for people who don't want to live life on the universe's terms.
Moniker wrote:There are a bunch of Dawkin flunkies on this board! Sheesh.
baaaaa
You little instigator, you.
I had a good weekend.... feeling giddy... my apologies. :)
I'm no Dawkins sheep. I just happen to like a lot of what he thinks. I also really like the thoughts of Sam Harris, Dan Dennett, Michael Shermer, Neil deGrasse Tyson, etc etc. Does that make them my shepherds as well?
Here is a link to Richard Dawkins' website, in which people who claim he "converted" them have posted their stories, for what it's worth to you, Tal. Scroll down to read. There are many, many pages of them. (About 279 people have bothered to post their story. Have you in fact decoverted more than Dawkins, as you claim?) Here is a sample:
Professor Dawkins,
I recently de-converted from Christianity, the faith I have been brought up in for the past 17 years. I wanted to give an explanation as to how I came to this, and why.
At 16, I "gave my life to Christ" and was baptized. After that event, I was in evangelist mode. I passed out Gospel tracts, witnessed to people, read my Bible everyday, studied apologetics, etc. I was quite sincere in this, but about 5 or 6 months after ago, I began to experience doubt. Part of this was due to my study of the Old Testament, which prior to this I had avoided reading. In the Old Testament I encountered a God I had not seen before. You described his behavior quite eloquently in chapter 2 of your book. I sought explanations for the cruelty of a God whom I had henceforth believed to be "loving" and "just". None were satisfactory. This gnawing skepticism led up to the day I went to the public library and checked out a copy of "The God Delusion". All of my life, I have been taught that the world is 6,000 years old, created by the Judeo-Christian God, and I believed it without question. Needless to say, when I began reading "The God Delusion" I was floored. I started to see the world as it really is, and appreciate my life far more than I did as a Christian. I want to thank you for this book, which has helped remove the shaded glasses I have been wearing, and view the world in it's full light. Best wishes to you.
Thanks for posting that. I knew of its existence, but couldn't seem to locate it on his website. I chose not to bring it up to refute Tal's claim specifically because I couldn't provide the information to back it up.
I knew about it because Dawkins was on Bill Maher's show recently talking about this very thing. In that interview, he even admitted that his book wasn't really aimed at the hard-core religious fanatics. He's not dumb enough to think he can convert those people. It was more aimed at the folks who sort of sit silently on the fence about the god issue and just need a little nudge to topple one way or the other.
God belief is for people who don't want to live life on the universe's terms.