Dawkins banned due to atheism

[Darkness]

How do you conclude that Dawkins believes atheists are morally superior? He certainly believes they're not delusional about believing in something that can't be verified, observed, tested, confirmed, etc. -- that's just him being a scientist. I've never read about him asserting that atheists are otherwise "superior."

A lot of the titles Dawkins has been branded with weren't his own. He did not like the title, "The Root of All Evil," for example.

He does not believe religion is the root of all evil. I do not believe that, but many of his statements, such as comparing religion to child abuse, turn me off. It is his focus which turns me off. We should be focusing on the actions themselves and not whether they come from a theist or a non-theist. Atheism has not stopped Castro and Stalin from viewing homosexual as unnatural and immoral.

Your impression of Dawkins is the exact opposite of mine. He has never held himself out as morally superior to believers. He understands perfectly well that religion is deeply ingrained in culture. Have you bothered to read anything that the man has written, or is your impression of him based entirely on hearsay and the out-of-context quotes that people use to bash him with?

I watched his Root of All Evil? and have seen him debate or give a talk. I really did enjoy his Guardian series on Pope Benedict's coverups.

Also, your generalizations about atheists are pretty sweeping. How can you say that most of them in the former Soviet Union are authoritarians? That has definitely not been my experience.

Well, first of all, I am a non-theist, so much of my criticism of other atheists comes from being one. For Russia, the most virulent atheism is in connection with the Communist party, which is an authoritarian group. Maybe things have changed now, but the assertion holds better for the heyday of the Soviet Union. A disbelief in God and a hyper-rational worldview does not always lead to positive humanistic morals.

 

[Copernicus]

He does not believe religion is the root of all evil. I do not believe that, but many of his statements, such as comparing religion to child abuse, turn me off. It is his focus which turns me off. We should be focusing on the actions themselves and not whether they come from a theist or a non-theist...

Dawkins has written and said a lot of things, so it is easy to quote mine him for statements that sound outrageous when stripped of their context. He qualified his analogy between religion and child abuse, but you won't find those qualifications in the snippets that his detractors publish on the internet.

Atheism has not stopped Castro and Stalin from viewing homosexual as unnatural and immoral.

This is a red herring. Who here has argued that atheism makes people more moral? Dawkins has never argued that. What he has said--and I agree with him on this point--is that religion can undermine moral behavior. That is not the same as saying that atheism makes you better than, or morally superior to, people of religious faith.

Well, first of all, I am a non-theist, so much of my criticism of other atheists comes from being one...

Being an atheist who is critical of other atheists does not make you unique here.

For Russia, the most virulent atheism is in connection with the Communist party, which is an authoritarian group. Maybe things have changed now, but the assertion holds better for the heyday of the Soviet Union. A disbelief in God and a hyper-rational worldview does not always lead to positive humanistic morals.

So here is my background on that subject. I began studying Russian in the early 1960s and first visited the SU in 1965. I have known quite a few Russians since that time, many of them members of the CPSU. I have been exposed to Soviet atheist propaganda, and I even once subscribed to Наука и религия ("Science and Religion"--the main atheist journal in the SU). Your generalization that most atheists in the SU were authoritarians is simply false. It is based on a very skewed picture of that complex society. Not everyone who claimed to be an atheist was actually an atheist, and that became clear when the Communist regime was swept away. The authoritarians nowadays tend to promote Russian orthodoxy rather than atheism, although there are still plenty of conservative Stalinists to be found.

 

[Mister Emu]

show me any footage where dawkins is hostile and contemptuous...

Why footage? He is quoted as saying his comparison of religion to a mental virus is contemptuous and hostile... I don't need him acting his contempt out to know, since he himself acknowledged it.

 

[Copernicus]

Why footage? He is quoted as saying his comparison of religion to a mental virus is contemptuous and hostile... I don't need him acting his contempt out to know, since he himself acknowledged it.

Source?

 

[waitasec]

Why footage? He is quoted as saying his comparison of religion to a mental virus is contemptuous and hostile... I don't need him acting his contempt out to know, since he himself acknowledged it.

prove it...


oh that's right, you can't...
because if you could you would have already

 

[Kathryn]

Essay by Dawkins comparing religion to a mental virus:

Viruses of the Mind


But wait - there's MORE!
In The Selfish Gene Dawkins explains this phenomenon of denial and deceit: "The survival value of the god meme in the meme pool results from its great psychological appeal.

It provides a superficially plausible answer to deep and troubling questions about existence. It suggests that injustices in this world may be rectified in the next.

The 'everlasting arms' hold out a cushion against our inadequacies which, like a doctor's placebo, is none the less effective for being imaginary.

These are some of the reasons why the idea of God is copied so readily by successive generations of brains. God exists, if only in the form of a meme with high survival value, or infective power, in the environment provided by human culture."

 

[Falvlun]

OK.

The OP's title is "Dawkins banned due to atheism."

My point is that Dawkins was not banned due to his atheism. Hell, Dawkins wasn't even "banned." His speaking engagement was cancelled. I'm quite certain that, as a guest of a member, he would not be banned from the club.

The OP's title, and the implication that someone is banned from a country club because they are an atheist, is disingenious and misleading.

I chopped the title down so it would fit and not be obnoxiously long-- not to be misleading. When you read the OP, the first statement clearly states that Dawkins was banned from speaking at the country club, which is factual and perfectly within the common usage of the word "banned". I think it disingenuous to claim I was being disingenuous.

 

[Falvlun]

Essay by Dawkins comparing religion to a mental virus:

Viruses of the Mind


But wait - there's MORE!
In The Selfish Gene Dawkins explains this phenomenon of denial and deceit: "The survival value of the god meme in the meme pool results from its great psychological appeal.

It provides a superficially plausible answer to deep and troubling questions about existence. It suggests that injustices in this world may be rectified in the next.

The 'everlasting arms' hold out a cushion against our inadequacies which, like a doctor's placebo, is none the less effective for being imaginary.

These are some of the reasons why the idea of God is copied so readily by successive generations of brains. God exists, if only in the form of a meme with high survival value, or infective power, in the environment provided by human culture."

What was that supposed to be proof of? It appears to be a pretty sophisticated and civil way of saying "Belief in the existence of god is a load of crock!"

Or is it too extreme for an atheist to claim that god doesn't exist? :areyoucra

 

[Kathryn]

I was answering waitasec's query.

Don't get your panties in a wad, Favlun. There's no need to be so defensive of Dawkins - his ego basically renders him impervious to attack.

And I'm not even attacking him. I already said that he may even have a legal case against the country club, for breach of contract.

 

[Falvlun]

I was answering waitasec's query.

Don't get your panties in a wad, Favlun. There's no need to be so defensive of Dawkins - his ego basically renders him impervious to attack.

And I'm not even attacking him. I already said that he may even have a legal case against the country club, for breach of contract.

Oh. My apologies regarding your quote.

But yes, my panties were more wadded in defense of myself, not Dawkins. Er...

 

[Kathryn]

Oh. My apologies regarding your quote.

But yes, my panties were more wadded in defense of myself, not Dawkins. Er...

LOL, my hat's off to you - you win the Most Disarming Attitude Award!

 

[Darkness]

Dawkins has written and said a lot of things, so it is easy to quote mine him for statements that sound outrageous when stripped of their context. He qualified his analogy between religion and child abuse, but you won't find those qualifications in the snippets that his detractors publish on the internet.

I heard his comparison of religion to child abuse in his documentary, not in a snippet.

This is a red herring. Who here has argued that atheism makes people more moral? Dawkins has never argued that. What he has said--and I agree with him on this point--is that religion can undermine moral behavior. That is not the same as saying that atheism makes you better than, or morally superior to, people of religious faith.

Religion can also promote moral behaviour, which he rarely acknowledges. When confronted with that, he basically says that we do not need to be religion to be moral, which is true, but missing the point. Religion can be a force for good and a force for evil. He purports no convincing argument that the world would be better without religion.

So here is my background on that subject. I began studying Russian in the early 1960s and first visited the SU in 1965. I have known quite a few Russians since that time, many of them members of the CPSU. I have been exposed to Soviet atheist propaganda, and I even once subscribed to Наука и религия ("Science and Religion"--the main atheist journal in the SU). Your generalization that most atheists in the SU were authoritarians is simply false. It is based on a very skewed picture of that complex society. Not everyone who claimed to be an atheist was actually an atheist, and that became clear when the Communist regime was swept away. The authoritarians nowadays tend to promote Russian orthodoxy rather than atheism, although there are still plenty of conservative Stalinists to be found.

We are splitting hairs here. I actually can speak some Russian and know more about Russia than most. I am aware that in the heyday of Soviet times only 10-15 percent were real party members and whatnot.

 

[Apex]

I chopped the title down so it would fit and not be obnoxiously long-- not to be misleading. When you read the OP, the first statement clearly states that Dawkins was banned from speaking at the country club, which is factual and perfectly within the common usage of the word "banned". I think it disingenuous to claim I was being disingenuous.

Well if there is one thing this thread has shown us, its that the actual definition of your words are meaningless in the face of what they ''really'' mean.

 

[Falvlun]

Well if there is one thing this thread has shown us, its that the actual definition of your words are meaningless in the face of what they ''really'' mean.

Touche.

You are correct, in that your designation of Dawkins as militant is perfectly within the bounds of common usage of the word. People were just pointing out the disproportionate usage of that word in regards to atheism.

 

[Copernicus]

I heard his comparison of religion to child abuse in his documentary, not in a snippet.

Then you must recall something of the context: Religion's Real Child Abuse. (See also the same argument in The God Delusion.) Dawkins was specifically comparing the actions of sexual predator priests with those who preach the doctrine of hell. He was making the point that the trauma induced by the sexual fondling of children, while extremely damaging, is not necessarily as damaging as telling children that they will go to hell if they do not belong to the right religion. I am not in full agreement with his point, but it was not exactly the same as comparing all forms of religion to all forms of child abuse. The essay was actually quite thought-provoking. It is also frequently quote-mined to give the impression that Dawkins was equating religion in general with child abuse in general.

Religion can also promote moral behaviour, which he rarely acknowledges.

Nonsense. He acknowledges that all the time. You have either had very little exposure to his writings, or you have a very selective memory. It can motivate good or bad behavior. When it motivates good behavior, it does so for the wrong reason--that good behavior is God's will rather than that it is humane behavior.

...When confronted with that, he basically says that we do not need to be religion to be moral, which is true, but missing the point. Religion can be a force for good and a force for evil. He purports no convincing argument that the world would be better without religion.

His argument is that religion suppresses critical thinking and that the world would be a better place if people were taught to think critically. He has explicitly argued that religion can promote both good and bad behavior. That is not the issue. The issue is that the means by which it promotes moral behavior can too easily be subverted to have the opposite effect.

We are splitting hairs here. I actually can speak some Russian and know more about Russia than most. I am aware that in the heyday of Soviet times only 10-15 percent were real party members and whatnot.

Well, I actually visited the SU in its heyday, and religion was something very much on my mind at the time. It was a far more complex society than you give it credit for when you make a sweeping generalization about atheism and authoritarianism. The SU was an extremely conservative, authoritarian regime. That authoritarianism had nothing at all to do with atheism but with the way that the Communist Party ran the country. Atheism was promoted for a number of reasons, not the least of which was that the Russian Orthodox Church was associated with the power structure that the Revolution had overturned. The Party attempted to inject itself as a substitute for the ROC. They became the self-proclaimed arbiters of moral behavior.

 

[Mister Emu]

prove it...


oh that's right, you can't...
because if you could you would have already

You shouldn't be so cocksure...

Source?

"To describe religions as mind viruses is sometimes interpreted as contemptuous or even hostile. It is both... The reason organized religion merits outright hostility [is blah, blah, blah]..."
A Devil's Chaplain p. 117

If I've misunderstood that is fine.

 

[Badran]

I am going to assent with Badran on this one. I seem to be saying that a lot lately, for some reason.

Probably because you're a fellow genius, we tend to agree.

 

[Badran]

I think at least we can agree that whether or not Dawkins is militant, extreme etc... he is at least not respectful in his approach, and for many mature, tolerant and respectful people, he does not have much to offer on the topic of religion.

 

[Copernicus]

"To describe religions as mind viruses is sometimes interpreted as contemptuous or even hostile. It is both... The reason organized religion merits outright hostility [is blah, blah, blah]..."
A Devil's Chaplain p. 117

Well, the devil is also in the details of that one. He does put the statement in context quite well--all that stuff that you heard as :ignore:. He is saying that it can sometimes be construed as hostile and contemptuous, and he explains the specific context in which it can be construed that way.

BTW, this is one of the most frequently quote-mined passages from Dawkins' work, and the page numbers are given with the mined quotes. So I am not taking it as a given that you have even read the essay. It is, again, a very thought-provoking essay, and a lot of people have given it a serious review. For those who are interested in it, it can be found online here.

If I've misunderstood that is fine.

I think that you can find cases where his rhetoric is over the top and even where he contradicts himself. After all, he has written a tremendous amount of material on the subject, and his moods vary. After 9/11, he wrote a very strong article condemning religion on the grounds that it reduced human brains to the level of homing pigeons for flying bombs. He later retracted those words and admitted that he had been carried away by his emotions. Like the Pope, who has condemned atheists vehemently from time to time, Dawkins can use some pretty extreme rhetoric when he gets passionate about a subject. To say that he is hateful or disrespectful as a person, however, flies in the face of the tone of the vast body of his writings and public debates.

 

[Badran]

To say that he is hateful or disrespectful as a person, however, flies in the face of the tone of the vast body of his writings and public debates.

Quite possible, like i said i haven't read or seen pretty much most of his work. However, to a public figure, a representative, i don't think certain mistakes can be brushed away like that.

That is, a couple of those mistakes are enough to turn people away from him and label him as disrespectful. Its not like the incidents where he 'slips' were just moments were he was surprised or not ready and made a mistake, its moments where he knows he's supposed to be offering what he has to say in a respectful manner and has the time to calm himself to do that, otherwise he's going to insult lots of people and dismiss their views or positions, beliefs etc.. in a rather too hostile manner.