PruePhillip
Well-Known Member
Frankly it looks as if at best you have had a severe attack of cognitive dissonance when it comes to Dawkin's work. You did yourself no favors by referring to your previous failures in interpreting Genesis and trying to squeeze a square peg into a round hole.
Once again, why not quote and link the places where Dawkins used the arguments that you claim that he did? I have never seen anyone else make those claims. In fact here is a recent article on the book and the only negative comment they have is:
"Dawkins showed some draft chapters to Tom Maschler of Jonathan Cape, who strongly urged that the title be changed to 'The Immortal Gene'. Today, Dawkins regrets not taking the advice. It might have short-circuited the endless arguments, so beloved of his critics and so redolent of the intentional stance (in which we tend to impute mental abilities to unconscious things, from thunderstorms to plants), about whether selfishness need be conscious. It might even have avoided the common misconception that Dawkins was advocating individual selfishness."
In retrospect: The Selfish Gene
Your mischaracterization of his arguments looked like you were making exactly that error.
Dawkins was claiming, indirectly, that the meaning of life was about procreation.
And that means what I said earlier about killing kids not your own and screwing
around so that other men can raise your kids. That's the sum of it for us humans.
Genes not only rule, the universe formed for their propagation, obviously.
I read the God Delusion when it came out. Nothing in the book I found to be
original. I suspect Dawkins did a bit of Googling and made some money on his
name.