Viruses of the Mind - Richard Dawkins on Religion | Hacker News Reader

Viruses of the Mind - Richard Dawkins on Religion

cscs.umich.edu

8 pointsjey8 comments

Please, god, no.

>"I have just discovered that without her father's consent this sweet, trusting, gullible six-year-old is being sent, for weekly instruction, to a Roman Catholic nun. What chance has she?"

"What chance has she?". God forbid she grow up to be a Catholic. The way Dawkins phrases it, she might as well be dead.

I loved "The Ancestor's Tale", though, Richard! One of the four best books I've ever read.

"What chance has she .. in understanding and possibly rejecting religious dogma when she can't do the same with obvious nonsense like tooth fairies"

This comment section is really going to end up with a lot of bickering and very little progress made...

I will note that Dawkins has certainly succeeded in producing his own "virus of the mind" cult of religion-fearing individuals primarily fed by his vitriolic and scathing intellectual attacks against religion.

For every few Bible-believing Christians you find an atheist pseudo-intellectual clutching his hardbound copy of "The God Delusion". So much for free thinking there.

In order to be a "good" atheist, is it necessary to be an expert in genetics and evolution? In order to be a "good" Christian, is it necessary to be a expert historian and biblical scholar? In order to be a a free mind, do you have to write your own book?

I don't think "The God Delusion" is going to convert anyone with strongly held beliefs, although it might move some fence-sitters. Like most apologetics, it's not written for the other side. If it were, it would need a less shocking title. But as an long-time Atheist in America(tm), it's nice to see books about atheism in the front shelf in bookstores, and discussion of the topic on television. Finally, it doesn't have to be "my secret shame!"

I am one of those pseudo-intellectual book-clutching atheists and I must point out that your idea of free thinking is wrong.

Free thinking means you're free to make up your own mind, not free to be brainwashed by your parents.

Also, I did not know intellectual attacks could be vitriolic and scathing. They can be hard and cold, though.

As a cult, Catholicism has done way more harm in its history than Scientology. I think it's very sad to see another generation grow up believing in that sort of sick madness.

By being the sole center of learning and scholarship in the European Dark Ages, by giving birth to the modern university, and by inventing musical notation?

Yes, I am aware of the bad things too. Reality has nuance.

Edit: Now that I think about it, you are certainly right that the Catholic church has done more gross harm than Scientology, if only because it is much bigger and has been around for more than twenty times as long. However, I am not sure how the net harm stacks up, due to its central role in the founding of Western civilization, and other mitigating facts.

I think "learning and scholarship" is stretching the truth - the primary caretaker in preserving ancient scholarship, yes. But what new research and learning was going on? The really hot stuff was going on in the Arabic world at that time. While the monks were carfully copying old books, Al-Khwārizmī was busy moving forward.

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