Richard Dawkins' rage of reason
cosmosmagazine.com
cosmosmagazine.com
But Dawkin's is both an asshole, and a worshiper of evolutionary theory. His smug demeanor and equation of belief in god with stupidity is small minded. It smacks of everything he supposedly rails against. It's teenage atheistic angst with a book deal.
40 per cent of people in most Western countries say they still think that God created men and women and that Earth is only 6,000 years old
Sorry, what? Only evangelical Christians of certain persuasion believe that the earth is 6000 years old. Outside of the US, there is nowhere on the planet where that belief system comes close being 40% of a population.
This is the type of conformist single-minded fear-mongering crap they teach in churches and mosques Mr. Dawkins.
A professor at Oxford and the man who wrote The Selfish Gene, one of the best science books EVER, is many things. Nimrod is not one of them.
> Outside of the US, there is nowhere on the planet where that belief system comes close being 40% of a population.
This is patently false. Alot of europeans think this. They think this is a uniquely American problem. I have no idea where this myth comes from, but I have my suspicions: they are a victim of poor media coverage and a sense of cultural superiority.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/4410927/... http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4648598.stm
39% of people in the UK chose "creationism" or "intelligent design". One in three believe the earth is under 10,000 years old. These numbers are slightly, but not substantially, higher in the US.
In the survey, 51 per cent of those questioned agreed with the statement that "evolution alone is not enough to explain the complex structures of some living things, so the intervention of a designer is needed at key stages" A further 40 per cent disagreed, while the rest said they did not know.
Turning that into "40% of people think that the earth is 6000 years old" is called twisting your statistics.
What the surveys you link to suggest is that people can accept both evolution and the existence of a god. There is no conflict there, and that doesn't turn them into young earth creationists.
In fact, Charles Darwin himself would fall firmly into that category.
You clearly did not read what I linked you.
Asked whether it was true that "God created the world sometime in the last 10,000 years", 32 per cent agreed, 60 per cent disagreed and eight per cent did not know.
32% of UK are young earth creationists and 8% "do not know". So please do not sit there and tell me that this "does not approach" 40% of people anywhere but in America. Your statement is simply false. This is NOT uniquely an American phenomenon.
You said young earth creationism was uniquely an American phenomenon. You said that nowhere in the Western world does young earth creationism approach 40%. Except.. that's -exactly- what is happening in the UK (32% + 8% "don't knows"). I've provided you with the evidence. The reason I chimed into this conversation is because you were making statements that were simply false.
You don't think I'm acutely aware of the US acceptance of evolution? Why is that relevant? Did you somehow read into my statements that the US didn't have a major problem? Dawkins statement is SLIGHTLY exaggerated, statistically. Your response, however, was substantially more inaccurate.
In other words: evolution.
I know you would like to continue to belabour the point that 40% of the population of most western nations are young earth creationists, but that simply isn't supported.
Dawkins' statement is a distortion of the facts. Most people in modern countries - with the exception of the US - have accepted the basic tenets of evolution. Like I've said elsewhere, it is only Dawkins that attaches to this the condition that in order to believe evolution you must not believe in a god.
Dawkin's is both an asshole - ad hominem.
and a worshiper(sic) of evolutionary theory - strawman.
Honestly, what a load of rubbish. Dawkins doesn't worship anything. If you show him evidence that demonstrates a flaw in the current theory of evolution, he'll happily change his mind. That is the direct opposite of all that worship implies. He does not value the idea of evolution any more than any other idea on the planet - he is sceptical, and will reject it if that is where the evidence leads.
At any rate, opening up your objection with three fallacies is not likely to convince anyone of your position.
As per the original post, it seems to me that the demonizing of Dawkin's is largely unfounded. Even though I've never met him, from what I can tell from videos and interviews, he is a fairly meek man who just writes passionately about his position. I would hardly call his position evangelical because he is neither unwilling to change his position nor is he founding his statements upon unverifiable evidence.
Just because the man is confident, doesn't mean he's an asshole.
It's the arrogance that he is above error combined with the - obvious! - error itself that makes him come off as an asshole.
Frankly, I doubt very much that he accepts Dawkins' factual claims. Why to I think this? Because he rejects the one factual claim that Dawkins is quoted as making in the article (40% of the western population holding creationist beliefs). You only have to watch Dawkins in action for 5 minutes in an interview to know that the guy weighs what he says and writes very carefully indeed, and will always have studies to back up these types of claim. This all leads me to believe that'fallacy' is the right word in responding.
Second: If you show him evidence that demonstrates a flaw in the current theory of evolution, he'll happily change his mind.
Given his attitude towards those with differing opinions, I'm not sure he would even get to the point of being able to see any perceived flaw. It is this arrogance that I question in him, and yes, it does equate to worship.
If you hold your opinion so highly that it prevents you from evaluating other arguments, you have moved into the realm of religious belief. IMO, Dawkins is firmly in that realm, regardless of how he got there or whether or not I hold to the same things.
What gets me even more is the seeming willingness of his followers to excuse outlandish statements like the one in my earlier post with nary so much as a comment.
At any rate, opening up your objection with three fallacies is not likely to convince anyone of your position.
That would assume that I have a) a contrary position and b) care to change anyone's mind.
And here, one feels, lies the paradox about Richard Dawkins. For a committed atheist, he can also be fervently evangelical about the causes he believes in and sometimes seems as driven as a preacher who wants to pass on The Word.
It is an analogy that goes down badly, needless to say. The difference between science – where every statement has to be tested and proved – and religion, where basic tenets go unchallenged, is too vast to justify such comparisons, he says.
Nevertheless, there is no disguising the chilly exasperation he exudes when confronted by the godly, whose extreme adherents, the creationists, he has described as "pig-ignorant and thick". Such remarks infuriate believers and have earned Dawkins a fearsome reputation for arrogance.
If you are going to quote, you should as well include the whole statement on the issue.
So he's not being dogmatic. But he's quite clear that religious beliefs are not susceptible to logical refutation. But this means that you must make a choice: if you are going to demand that the world follow logic, you're stuck with a disbelief in a god. Conversely, if you believe in a god, you are willing to accept non-logical propositions. This is where science and religion wind up in conflict.
Evolution really has nothing to do with god. The only people who think it does seem to be ones like Dawkins and creationists that discount it completely. The rest of us don't see the conflict.
Evolution does not allow one to come to a conclusion that there is no god. Nor does it create - in any critical assessment- the environment to say you don't believe in god, and that this belief is supported by science.
Only faith allows for that.
And as I said, Dawkins freely admits that his disbelief is not supported by science: he cannot scientifically prove that there is no god. Rather, he identifies himself as an agnostic who believes that the likelihood of there actually being a god is extremely low -- but he can't prove it.
There is a crucial difference between actively believing there are no gods, and not believing there are any gods. I think Dawkins states the latter.
There are many things not worth believing because of a lack of evidence, and one need not provide counter evidence in order to rationally withhold belief when there is no evidence to support a claim.
He is also quite clear in The God Delusion that by any rigorous definition, he an agnostic and not an atheist. So I don't get why people keep arguing as if he's making a factual statement about the (lack of) existence of a god. He talks about (a) how it can't be proven, but (b) it seems highly unlikely that there is a god.
"An atheist before Darwin could have said, following Hume: "I have no explanation for complex biological design. All I know is that God isn't a good explanation, so we must wait and hope that somebody comes up with a better one." I can't help feeling that such a position, though logically sound, would have left one feeling pretty unsatisfied, and that although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.[67]"
As a former Christian (I left Christianity in early February), I can understand Dawkins' frustration. I'm almost ashamed to admit it, but when Obama got elected, I thought he was the 'false prophet' of the book of Revelations, who would set the stage for the Antichrist. Ain't that some shit...
There are many more who've 'deconverted.': www.de-conversion.com www.unreasonablefaith.com www.debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com
All of those are run by former Christians. In fact, Nathan Phelps, the son of Fred Phelps (of GOD HATES FAGS fame) recently gave his account of what it was like growing up. Moving stuff.
Some groups, however, such as the Seventh-Day Adventists, believe that the Roman Catholic church, as an institution, is the Antichrist. This was also the position of the Reformers such as Martin Luther and John Calvin.
+the gentleman who narrated Earth an Blue Planet, as well as the "BBC Life" nature documentary series.
It is a logical, critical assessment. I feel that Dawkins misses this, even though he may play it some lip service.
"I think of a little child in east Africa with a worm burrowing through his eyeball. The worm cannot live in any other way, except by burrowing through eyeballs. I find that hard to reconcile with the notion of a divine and benevolent creator."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mandrake/4347954/...