Richard Dawkins On Mormons.

[_beastie]

Well, Trevor, take comfort in being an asshole who, at least, possesses a brain.... unlike another asshole on this thread I won't name.

[_Trevor]

You are right Trevor, I absolutely do not want to read the book.

And Marg is wrong about you being an "asshole". You are much worse than that. J/K.

Well, you are both probably right. I am an asshole and worse. LOL!!!

[_Trevor]

Well, Trevor, take comfort in being an asshole who, at least, possesses a brain.... unlike another asshole on this thread I won't name.

I try to use my brain. Not everyone likes the results.

[_marg]

So Trevor what do you mean by you're a cultural Mormon?

[_Trevor]

So Trevor what do you mean by you're a cultural Mormon?

Sigh. I didn't really want to get into the subject of "me." And, that really has nothing to do with the fact that I am an asshole. It has to do with privacy.

However, I think it does no harm to say that, regardless of my personal views, I am very much the product of my LDS background and that I maintain a certain affection for my roots.

I do think that Mormons should be able to worship as they please, and although I do not believe religion is above criticism, I believe ridicule should be avoided. In my experience those things that appear to be an almost personal attack, or are likely to be interpreted as such, do little to persuade people or bring them together to discuss things rationally.

[_marg]

However, I think it does no harm to say that, regardless of my personal views, I am very much the product of my LDS background and that I maintain a certain affection for my roots.

I already know that.

I do think that Mormons should be able to worship as they please,

I know that as well

and although I do not believe religion is above criticism, I believe ridicule should be avoided. In my experience those things that appear to be an almost personal attack, or are likely to be interpreted as such, do little to persuade people or bring them together to discuss things rationally.

That has nothing to do with my question. However to comment on it, what you might view as ridicule I might not. I don't view Dawkins' response to that question about Mormons as ridicule, I view it as being honest. He said he couldn't understand why people couldn't see through Mormonism. That, the Mormon religion is an obvious fake, founded by a transparent charlatan and he pointed out there was a Presidential candidate who believes in J. Smith who wrote the bogus book, the Book of Mormon, although writing in 19 century chose to write in 17 century english.

In the video, he's responding honestly to a question and not distorting facts. He's not being manipulative, deceitful, taking advantage of anyone in any way.

For some people I can see why they'd not want family, friends and business associates to know their views if those views are likely to have negative repercussions, but then in other cases it may be a matter of a lack in integrity, not wanting to acknowledge being taken in all one's life for example, or to acknowledge how absurd the beliefs actually are that one once held, or perhaps that one wasted so much of their life believing and supporting it all.

Given your comments on Dawkins' Trevor, I'm quite confident you have not read The God Delusion, nor do you understand his position well. The Bible itself can be respected as literature and/or with respect to understanding history but that does not mean that the interpretation encouraged by churches to view it or other religious books as being sacred, true and of divine origin or association should be respected.

[_Trevor]

However to comment on it, what you might view as ridicule I might not. I don't view Dawkins' response to that question about Mormons as ridicule, I view it as being honest. He said he couldn't understand why people couldn't see through Mormonism. That, the Mormon religion is an obvious fake, founded by a transparent charlatan and he pointed out there was a Presidential candidate who believes in J. Smith who wrote the bogus book, the Book of Mormon, although writing in 19 century chose to write in 17 century english.

Yes, clearly people who are ignoramuses on the subject of religion and tone deaf would not find Dawkins' comments to be ridicule. For those who believe, or those who understand the subject, there is indeed an argument to be made for his having ridiculed Mormons and Mormonism. Dawkins and you do not understand what motivates religious conviction, because you both view science as the only reasonable means for forming convictions on anything.

In the video, he's responding honestly to a question and not distorting facts. He's not being manipulative, deceitful, taking advantage of anyone in any way.

What does honesty and fact have necessarily to do with ridicule? Please don't be so disingenuous. Much can be done in the way one presents things. If one acts as though no respect should be accorded a subject, and mostly on the basis that one does not find it worthy of respect, then it is easy to present things in a way that sounds ridiculous. His comments are an excellent example.

For some people I can see why they'd not want family, friends and business associates to know their views if those views are likely to have negative repercussions, but then in other cases it may be a matter of a lack in integrity, not wanting to acknowledge being taken in all one's life for example, or to acknowledge how absurd the beliefs actually are that one once held, or perhaps that one wasted so much of their life believing and supporting it all.

You see, most people do hold beliefs that others find ridiculous. Like Harris' apparent openness to paranormal phenomena. Randi and his friends find plenty to ridicule there. Poor Harris just doesn't get that he is risking a lot by not ridiculing the things his buddies don't respect.

Given your comments on Dawkins' Trevor, I'm quite confident you have not read The God Delusion, nor do you understand his position well. The Bible itself can be respected as literature and/or with respect to understanding history but that does not mean that the interpretation encouraged by churches to view it or other religious books as being sacred, true and of divine origin or association should be respected.

Your propensity for misplaced confidence is well established indeed. I have read Harris, Hitchens, Dennett, and Dawkins. I understood very well what I was reading. I subscribe to and read Skeptics magazine. I think I get the damn picture already. And, for the most part I enjoy what I read. Your narrow views of religion and sacred writ, on the other hand, are so patently ignorant that it is really amazing to me that you bother droning on things about which you clearly haven't more than a surface awareness.

But then, you are marg, and I think we have come to expect a certain dogged persistence in your cluelessness. For you, repeating a mantra is winning the argument. As long as you post the same damn thing you have posted 50 times already as the last word, whether you have acknowledged anything your opponent has said or not, you count it a victory.

[_marg]

Yes, clearly people who are ignoramuses on the subject of religion and tone deaf would not find Dawkins' comments to be ridicule.

No it was not ridicule. He was stating facts, if facts come across as ridicule then so be it, he can't help that unless you want him to be disingenuous when asked about Mormonism. Respect needs to be earned Trevor, not given. Much of Mormonism as well as aspects of other religions have not earned respect to the point that you expect, which is to keep quiet or lie.

For those who believe, or those who understand the subject, there is indeed an argument to be made for his having ridiculed Mormons and Mormonism.

Get with the program Trevor. The whole institution of Mormonism promotes complete lies and feeds off individual's insecurities. Yet you want it to be respected.

Dawkins and you do not understand what motivates religious conviction, because you both view science as the only reasonable means for forming convictions on anything.

More propaganda bull-shit from you. You just feed off that stuff don't you. Science is a method and yes that method is a good method to lead to best fit explanations of how we perceive the world and how it operates, it uses evidence. It leads to fairly reliable conclusions about phenomena. It is not dogmatic, it is open to critical evaluation and criticism. This is one reason why Dawkins would see nothing wrong with openly criticizing Mormonism or any other religion if it so deserved. When one operates in a world in which one is not deceitful, manipulative, trying to control others, dishonestly is unnecessary. I know because I operate in that sort of world. I'm fortunate that I can be honest and not live a double life, believing one thing and hiding it from others for fear of retribution. It boils down to you being critical of him for being honest about things that are true. As far as what motivates religious conviction, just because you were indoctrinated and religious does not mean you have an understanding of what motivates religious conviction. You don't understand how the brain operates and how early indoctrination affects it. Science is still investigating that. I suppose you think I can't empathize, it's really not that difficult or complicated Trevor. You don't have some great inside track on this. I can appreciate someone being in love and not wanting to think or criticize their loved one, or it's okay for them to do so, but not for anyone else. I can also appreciate how if one doesn't know any better they could feel that the attention they get from an abusive relationship is love, at least they are getting attention.

In the video, he's responding honestly to a question and not distorting facts. He's not being manipulative, deceitful, taking advantage of anyone in any way.

What does honesty and fact have necessarily to do with ridicule? Please don't be so disingenuous. Much can be done in the way one presents things. If one acts as though no respect should be accorded a subject, and mostly on the basis that one does not find it worthy of respect, then it is easy to present things in a way that sounds ridiculous. His comments are an excellent example.

His comments were not an excellent example. As I said previously, if he states facts without distortion and they sound to you like ridicule I suggest you look at the subject matter as the problem. He certainly doesn't respect Mormonism as being something which shouldn't be exposed for what it is, a religion founded upon a bogus book. Keep in mind his focus is not one religion, he was answering a question posed to him about Mormonism.

For some people I can see why they'd not want family, friends and business associates to know their views if those views are likely to have negative repercussions, but then in other cases it may be a matter of a lack in integrity, not wanting to acknowledge being taken in all one's life for example, or to acknowledge how absurd the beliefs actually are that one once held, or perhaps that one wasted so much of their life believing and supporting it all.

You see, most people do hold beliefs that others find ridiculous. Like Harris' apparent openness to paranormal phenomena. Randi and his friends find plenty to ridicule there. Poor Harris just doesn't get that he is risking a lot by not ridiculing the things his buddies don't respect.

Sure I agree most people do. Most people have blind spots in some area. So what?

Your propensity for misplaced confidence is well established indeed. I have read Harris, Hitchens, Dennett, and Dawkins. I understood very well what I was reading. I subscribe to and read Skeptics magazine. I think I get the damn picture already. And, for the most part I enjoy what I read. Your narrow views of religion and sacred writ, on the other hand, are so patently ignorant that it is really amazing to me that you bother droning on things about which you clearly haven't more than a surface awareness.

Back to your arrogant little self.

But then, you are marg, and I think we have come to expect a certain dogged persistence in your cluelessness.

It's so pathetic when an individual argues as "we".

For you, repeating a mantra is winning the argument.

I've never won an argument on a message board.

As long as you post the same damn thing you have posted 50 times already as the last word, whether you have acknowledged anything your opponent has said or not, you count it a victory.

More f'king propaganda b/s.

[_Trevor]

No it was not ridicule. He was stating facts, if facts come across as ridicule then so be it, he can't help that unless you want him to be disingenuous when asked about Mormonism. Respect needs to be earned Trevor, not given. Much of Mormonism as well as aspects of other religions have not earned respect to the point that you expect, which is to keep quiet or lie.

Here we have an excellent example of your failure to read and address what I wrote. Perhaps you really don't understand how someone could martial facts in such a way that they constituted a distortion or ridicule, or maybe you simply want to give him a pass because you like what he is saying, I don't know. But one cannot escape the responsibility attached to one's choice of rhetoric simply by hiding behind the simplistic notion that facts speak for themselves. Anyone with an ounce of intellectual sophistication knows that this is a fiction.

Get with the program Trevor. The whole institution of Mormonism promotes complete lies and feeds off individual's insecurities. Yet you want it to be respected.

"Get with the program" implies that I have some duty to agree with you because of prior obligation. I don't have to agree with you. I don't believe that Mormonism can be reduced to your deeply prejudiced caricatures of it. And, yes, I believe that most everyone deserves that measure of respect that should come with being human, even you.

Dawkins and you do not understand what motivates religious conviction, because you both view science as the only reasonable means for forming convictions on anything.

More propaganda bull-s*** from you. You just feed off that stuff don't you. Science is a method and yes that method is a good method to lead to best fit explanations of how we perceive the world and how it operates, it uses evidence. It leads to fairly reliable conclusions about phenomena. It is not dogmatic, it is open to critical evaluation and criticism. This is one reason why Dawkins would see nothing wrong with openly criticizing Mormonism or any other religion if it so deserved. When one operates in a world in which one is not deceitful, manipulative, trying to control others, dishonestly is unnecessary. I know because I operate in that sort of world. I'm fortunate that I can be honest and not live a double life, believing one thing and hiding it from others for fear of retribution. It boils down to you being critical of him for being honest about things that are true. As far as what motivates religious conviction, just because you were indoctrinated and religious does not mean you have an understanding of what motivates religious conviction. You don't understand how the brain operates and how early indoctrination affects it. Science is still investigating that. I suppose you think I can't empathize, it's really not that difficult or complicated Trevor. You don't have some great inside track on this. I can appreciate someone being in love and not wanting to think or criticize their loved one, or it's okay for them to do so, but not for anyone else. I can also appreciate how if one doesn't know any better they could feel that the attention they get from an abusive relationship is love, at least they are getting attention.

I understand that you have certain values, many of which I share and sympathize with, I simply lack your naïve conviction of "rightness." You attribute certain motives, thoughts, and feelings to Mormons, whom, as a non-Mormon who relies upon the testimony of ex-Mormons, you can't hope to understand. You have some strange utopian ideal of how children must be raised, even against the will of their parents, because religious education is, in your mind, a form of abuse. You tread dangerously in the direction of undermining the freedom you claim to champion, and yet the irony of that is completely lost on you. I never claimed to have an inside track on anything. I simply lack the arrogance that would push me into compelling others to see things my way. You apparently have no trouble playing bully and in fact feel justified doing so because "religion" has bullied so many others.

And, once more, don't try to foist on me this groundless accusation that I don't understand that science is a tool and not a religion. Just because you read that into my words does not mean it was there. The idea that you don't find the scientific method to be a reliable means for arriving at reliable information is bogus. That is all I was saying, and don't you try to turn my words inside out.

He certainly doesn't respect Mormonism as being something which shouldn't be exposed for what it is, a religion founded upon a bogus book. Keep in mind his focus is not one religion, he was answering a question posed to him about Mormonism.

Says the woman who is besotted with a bogus, albeit interesting, theory about the origins of the Book of Mormon. Really, your lack of self-reflection is astounding.

It's so pathetic when an individual argues as "we".

Or, rather, it is pathetic when you don't realize that I am not the only one who has noted your M.O.

More f'king propaganda b/s.

Do you even understand the meaning of the word "propaganda"?

[_marg]

You attribute certain motives, thoughts, and feelings to Mormons, whom, as a non-Mormon who relies upon the testimony of ex-Mormons, you can't hope to understand.

What motives, thoughts and feelings do I attribute to Mormons? And what makes you think I have only looked at comments by ex-mormons?

You have some strange utopian ideal of how children must be raised, even against the will of their parents, because religious education is, in your mind, a form of abuse. You tread dangerously in the direction of undermining the freedom you claim to champion, and yet the irony of that is completely lost on you.

Trevor it's called raising conscious awareness. No one is doing anything against the will of parents, but there are many parents who may not even appreciate they are indoctrinating or that it might be abusive because the child is defenseless and in no position to critically evaluate. It is not fully understood why earlier indoctrination so powerfully takes hold, but it does. I'll give you a mild example of consciousness raising. My sister in law who is not particularly religious, told her 11 year old daughter and repeated it in front of my dad and myself that the cat (which had died the previous day) had gone to animal heaven. Later without the daughter around, my dad said to her "why are you telling her that if you don't believe it? Tell her that some people believe when people or animals die they go to heaven, not everyone believes that". And that's what Dawkins is doing, nothing more, raising people's conscious awareness to look at something from a different perspective they might not have ever thought of. And yes I do think it's abusive, that is my opinion which I believe is Dawkins'.

I never claimed to have an inside track on anything. I simply lack the arrogance that would push me into compelling others to see things my way. You apparently have no trouble playing bully and in fact feel justified doing so because "religion" has bullied so many others.

Who have I bullied? Most of the people I discuss/argue with are not in the Church. Only recently I engaged Gaz briefly, because I thought he spends plenty of time and posts pushing Mormonism, he should be able to take some disagreement to his view that it's okay to accept conceptually that women can be treated as commodities and given to men as sexual objects. On the whole I don't engage radically religious individuals because I think it is pointless...they essentially are too far gone to be able to reason objectively about positions they hold or believe.

And, once more, don't try to foist on me this groundless accusation that I don't understand that science is a tool and not a religion. Just because you read that into my words does not mean it was there. The idea that you don't find the scientific method to be a reliable means for arriving at reliable information is bogus. That is all I was saying, and don't you try to turn my words inside out.

I have no idea what you are arguing. I argued that science is a method which uses evidence and does offer reliable conclusions.

He certainly doesn't respect Mormonism as being something which shouldn't be exposed for what it is, a religion founded upon a bogus book. Keep in mind his focus is not one religion, he was answering a question posed to him about Mormonism.

Says the woman who is besotted with a bogus, albeit interesting, theory about the origins of the Book of Mormon. Really, your lack of self-reflection is astounding.

Ya what an off the wall, crazy theory the Spalding/Rigdon theory is! (sarcasm) And now those Stanford nuts with their recent wordprint analysis supporting the theory, the crazy things people will do.

It's so pathetic when an individual argues as "we".

Or, rather, it is pathetic when you don't realize that I am not the only one who has noted your M.O.

There you go again Trevor, argue for yourself. Stop trying to round up troops.