Richard dawkins

[Earthling]

Could you use the correct term? One doesn't refer to atheists as "atists" or "atHEY!ists" or "atheamsts."

Woosh.....almost as bad as O'Reilly! Not only is there inherent sarcasm about not just writing "Christian;" I even said, in my next sentence, the above is an example of what not to say.

Edit: Lord Gay edited his post...no problem of course, but basically, previously it was more concise, saying essentially, "Mise, what are examples of what not to say to religious people." Which is what I was saying...

 

[Dachs]

I disagree with Luiz and the tiger. Religion and religion alone are to blaim for much of what has happened in the middle East. If it weren't for religion, many of the peoples who are figthing now, might have intermarried before dawn of history.

You're wrong, but it's a cute wrong.

I would like to hear Plotonious thoughts about this man.

I think that version of his name is far better than the actual spelling. AFAIK Perfection's asked him about Dawkins somewhere but I dunno where or what he said.

 

[Lord Gay]

I personally intend no slur or sarcasm when I say xian. Apologies if anyone thinks that's the case. It's a common abbreviation used for Christian. Having spent many years discussing religion and politics over and over, I've come to use abbreviations for the more common words. Off the top of my head, the ones I use are: R, D, gvt, US, xian, big 3, lib, con, Con, CA.

x = christ
xian = (christ)ian
xmas = (christ)mas

The only change I did to my last post was, as I said, to fix the tags, the quote tags in this case, which accidentally covered the first half of the post. I didn't change the text at all. I'm very particular about noting text changes I make, not only including "EDIT", but coloring blue the text I modify.

 

[Earthling]

No, again, perfectly alright Lord Gay, I got what you meant, and yeah - I think only previously the quotes from Mise were placed differently, basically what stood out was this at the end:

So, assuming that you are xian, perhaps you could share some common things that you think atheists should avoid or refrain from saying when discussing xianity, or just talking with xians.

I've probably said before around here how stupid I find using terms like "Darwinist" or "evolutionist" and, of course, "athiest." At any rate, I agree such distorted name-calling isn't conducive to much discussion - same goes with Islam as well. Doesn't stop people from doing so- in fact, I still know other Christians in real life who'll say stuff like "Mormons aren't real Christians" - does really get people worked up.

 

[Harbringer]

Dawkins got me into biology. I think his religious debate is correct, and hes mostly rite, but I think he could convince a larger audience if he had more tact in his argument instead of being so arrogant.

 

[Mise]

To avoid these weird presumptions, I'm atheist... I positively assert that God does not exist. My opinion of Richard Dawkins is largely due to a series of documentaries he produced for Channel 4 in the UK a few years ago. It was his documentary, presented by him, directed and authored by him, rather than random cherry picked youtube clips. I don't feel particularly compelled to present any kind of evidence or links, because I don't care enough about the issue to waste my time on it.

 

[Winner]

Dawkins got me into biology. I think his religious debate is correct, and hes mostly rite, but I think he could convince a larger audience if he had more tact in his argument instead of being so arrogant.

I really can't imagine how could anybody be more tactful and less "arrogant". He's actually keeping it as simple as possible. He doesn't even mock the lunatics in the documentary about new age spirituality, astrology etc., he just shows how wrong they are without insulting them.

I honestly think I could never restrain myself as much.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

The thing about Dawkins is, and I said this before, he can make a documentary about evolution about God. And it's really a shame since he really is knowledgeable and engaging talking about evolution. After the 6th time, "So you see it's evolution, not God" or "Therefore we know the Earth is much older than what the religious want you to believe". It's a shame he keeps hammering the obvious when you can simply make the evidence hammer it home. As always, let the science do the talking. This doesn't make him a jerk, it makes him a bit of a fanatic. Which is a pity.

 

[Winner]

The thing about Dawkins is, and I said this before, he can make a documentary about evolution about God. And it's really a shame since he really is knowledgeable and engaging talking about evolution. After the 6th time, "So you see it's evolution, not God" or "Therefore we know the Earth is much older than what the religious want you to believe". It's a shame he keeps hammering the obvious when you can simply make the evidence hammer it home. As always, let the science do the talking. This doesn't make him a jerk, it makes him a bit of a fanatic. Which is a pity.

It's obvious to you or me, not to the audience such documentaries are meant for.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

It's obvious to you or me, not to the audience such documentaries are meant for.

I'm talking added value in a documentary or book about evolution. If his aim is to sway people, the direct approach targeting their believes is counter-productive because it forces them into a defensive position. If you present the evidence and let people make up their own mind, trusting in the evidence presented, I believe he'd have a higher success rate, however low it will remain.

 

[Fifty]

I would like to hear Plotonious thoughts about this man.

Plotinus, and everyone who is conversant in real philosophy of religion, doesn't think much of Dawkins.

I respect him very much for a) his works like Selfish Gene, b) his work against the ID movement.

But when he goes into his general work against religion he isn't all that good philosophically, and people who study religion (like Plot) say he isn't good at his historical or textual claims either.

 

[Harvin87]

You're wrong, but it's a cute wrong.

I think that version of his name is far better than the actual spelling. AFAIK Perfection's asked him about Dawkins somewhere but I dunno where or what he said.

Haha, actually it is ...

 

[Xyan]

I personally intend no slur or sarcasm when I say xian. Apologies if anyone thinks that's the case. It's a common abbreviation used for Christian. Having spent many years discussing religion and politics over and over, I've come to use abbreviations for the more common words. Off the top of my head, the ones I use are: R, D, gvt, US, xian, big 3, lib, con, Con, CA.

x = christ
xian = (christ)ian
xmas = (christ)mas

The only change I did to my last post was, as I said, to fix the tags, the quote tags in this case, which accidentally covered the first half of the post. I didn't change the text at all. I'm very particular about noting text changes I make, not only including "EDIT", but coloring blue the text I modify.

xian or 贤 in chinese means wisdom.

I don't think Christianity is a good measure of wisdom. Hence xian seems awkward to those of us familiar to pinyin..

 

[Brighteye]

I would have thought the 21st century would have dispelled this whole "Religion is t3h ebul!11!!" talk.

...And, for the love of God people, please stop talking about "religion taking us back to the Dark Ages". Not only is the term "Dark Ages" a colloquialism, but it only refers to the period directly following the collapse of the Roman Empire. And I'm not even going to point out that the thoroughly religious Byzantine Empire was way more advanced in both math and science then Western Europe was, or the fact that the Catholic church was the biggest driving force in Europe which promoted education.

*waits for the whole "But look what they did to Galileo!" speech*

The Catholic Church educated its own people only. I hardly call that the promotion of education. It is education outside of monasteries that people need.

 

[History buff33]

Another thing I liked about Dawkins was the Athiest bus campaign that he participated in. That was actually started by my favorite athiest, Ariane Sherine. She is a beautiful and funny woman, and I am so proud to know that athiesm has someone like her to promote it. Bottom line, I respect Dawkins no matter how much of a jerk he is, and to be quite honest, I'm kind of a jerk myself, so the jerk thing doesn't bother me! Besides jerks are susually right. There's a reason why he is one you know. It's called logical fallacy (religon) by the public.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I would have thought the 21st century would have dispelled this whole "Religion is t3h ebul!11!!" talk.

...And, for the love of God people, please stop talking about "religion taking us back to the Dark Ages". Not only is the term "Dark Ages" a colloquialism, but it only refers to the period directly following the collapse of the Roman Empire. And I'm not even going to point out that the thoroughly religious Byzantine Empire was way more advanced in both math and science then Western Europe was, or the fact that the Catholic church was the biggest driving force in Europe which promoted education.

*waits for the whole "But look what they did to Galileo!" speech*

True.

Also, the Renaissance was likely at least a big a step backwards for science as it was a step forward for the arts. It embraced many superstitions that had been dispelled for over a thousand years, and replaced a highly rational and determinist (although not completely right) paradigm with a mystical one. There were almost no witch hunts in the middle ages (likely because the church insisted that there was nothing supernatural behind the charlatans who claimed to practice magic), but they were common in the Renaissance and likely even more so in Pagan times. Much of the Enlightenment was about undoing the damage done by the Renaissance and getting back to late medieval thought to continue from there.


Galileo sort of deserved it. His views would probably have been accepted had he not been such a jerk about it, and insisted on putting the words of the pope into the mouth of a character portrayed as a complete imbecile. He was wrong on many of his points (if I recall his main argument relied on a horrible explaination of the tides), and was mostly punished for insisting that his findings be accepted as objectively true without real proof. Some of the prosecutors were sympathetic to a moving Earth and even open to heliocentricism, but insisted he follow something closer to what we would consider the scientific method.

 

[Winner]

the Catholic church was the biggest driving force in Europe which promoted education.

I've heard this before. The problem is that it was no "let's educate people so that they can doubt the things we're telling them" effort. In fact, the Church had insisted on using Latin (not understood by vast majority of population), it hadn't allowed independent translations of the Bible, let alone interpretation. This was the chief issue which started many heretic movements, including the largest one (known as the Protestant Reformation). It maintained a system of learning whose goal was to educate an exclusive elite, not the general population.

But let's get back to why the Church preserved literacy: it was the thing that made it so useful (and powerful). Priest were often the only people who could read and write in large areas of land - the administration of early medieval kingdoms relied on them and this gave the Church very high standing in the society. Too keep it, it needed to be able to preserve some sum of knowledge (left over from the Roman times) and to train people in order to maintain its ranks. It was a simple survival strategy - the Church used literacy as its main competitive advantage.

The trouble began much later when the general economic situation in Europe improved and more people had gained access to education. Inevitably, the Church began losing control over who gets educated and it lost its monopoly on the interpretation of scripture and related issues (pretty much everything, sciences, law, philosophy etc.). And then it tried to close the Pandora's Box by intimidating the dissenters.

I am far from saying that the Church was pure evil as some atheists claim, but let's be honest about its motives.

 

[civ_king]

I personally intend no slur or sarcasm when I say xian. Apologies if anyone thinks that's the case. It's a common abbreviation used for Christian. Having spent many years discussing religion and politics over and over, I've come to use abbreviations for the more common words. Off the top of my head, the ones I use are: R, D, gvt, US, xian, big 3, lib, con, Con, CA.

x = christ
xian = (christ)ian
xmas = (christ)mas

The only change I did to my last post was, as I said, to fix the tags, the quote tags in this case, which accidentally covered the first half of the post. I didn't change the text at all. I'm very particular about noting text changes I make, not only including "EDIT", but coloring blue the text I modify.

you mean bu xian?

 

[Huayna Capac357]

I would consider Jesusist slightly offensive, so I wouldn't use it. OTOH, there are many people who, for some reason, refer to evolution as Darwinism. I don't understand why they do that, but it seems to be to slur and trivialize ToE. When talking with such people who reduce a very large and broad concept to just the guy who started it, then I would have no problem in that context to calling xianity Jesusism, reducing a large and broad concept to the guy who started it. Then, as with Kirk Cameron and Darwin, we can come up with all kinds of ways to slur that one guy, and thereby dismiss the entire issue. I try to only use slurs and insults if they do so first.

And Cameron is a jerk.

Darwinism is slur, unless it is used in a conversation about Lamarckianism (I know I spelled that wrong)

Xian is ok as an abbreviation, but it does sometimes border on slur.

 

[Lord Gay]

you mean bu xian?

I don't get it.

Xian is ok as an abbreviation, but it does sometimes border on slur.

I would imagine that's more from context and usage. I don't consider calling my country the US a slur in the slightest. It's a hell of a lot easier than constantly typing out United States of America.

In case anyone missed them, I'd like to repeat my two offers. 1) Is anyone willing to show any examples of where they think Dawkins is being jerkish? 2) Any xians out there with suggestions on how theists/atheists can discuss religion without being jerkish, or, is the very act of challenging xianity considered jerkish?