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Comment by grifpete | Hacker News Reader

You're entitled to your opinion on his crusades against religion. But let's bear in mind that there are those of us who consider religious irrationalism a key challenge of our age, nationally and internationally, and hence that such a crusade is important.

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Yes, but he is royally screwing it up by being such a complete and utter arse about everything.

Also, you can't go and identify religion as being the biggest peril of our age when you have folk like Stalin lurking in the background of the 20th century to suggest that maybe it just might be blind adherence to dogma that is the actual issue here and that atheist political theories are just as susceptible to that particular meme as the religious when it comes to justifying blood with false utopias. I got no problem with people of a book, or not of a book, or whatever. I just have problems with the ones who take it seriously enough to kill over whose interpretation of the unknowable is correct.

And you cannot have a crusade against religious irrationality. A crusade is a religious war. It just doesn't work.

Where do I subscribe to your magazine...

Let's also remember there are people who believe that insults and condescension are the least effective ways to help someone see they are acting irrationally, and that attacking a group of people's shared identity is the worst way to work with them on the substance of the challenges of our time.

> attacking a group of people's shared identity is the worst way to work with them on the substance of the challenges of our time

"when we insult their intelligence and mock the things they hold sacred, they fight harder against us. maybe we should try something different?"

"are you crazy? they're bad guys. they believe what they want, regardless of what empirical reality says. now let's do the exact same thing again, maybe it will work better this time."

You're right it's a poor way to change someone's mind, and certainly doesn't foster inclusion, but what of people who are still making up their mind? Mainly, I'm talking about young people who have been raised in a mostly religious context, but haven't gone head-over-heels yet.

It might be that challenging superstition in the most brutal way possible (outside of physical violence, that is), serves to promote more rational beliefs among this group.

I doubt it. I won't repost my other comment which addresses this [1] but in my opinion people like Dawkins are fanatics. And science/atheist fanatics are no better than religious fanatics. Religious fanatics drive me away from religion but Dawkins fanaticism drives me away from atheism.

I think it's calm, rational argument that has swayed me most away from religion. Just a simple thought experiment:

1. You think religions like scientology are crazy. 2. You believe in a man who was born of a virgin, died, rose from the dead, and who hundreds of millions of people eat and drink every weekend. 3. How can you call them crazy when you believe that?

Even still it's hard for me to get off the fence but simple arguments like that, which aren't arrogant and totally patronising, but lay out the facts in an honest way, are what convince people.

I think the problem with a more aggressive approach is arrogance. Most religious people probably accept they could be wrong - their belief is based on faith. But aggressive atheists argue that religious people are wrong and stupid when from a religious persons perspective the atheist has no proof they are wrong. Evolution is real and correct but isn't proof their is no God. Atheists say it's not up to them to prove their is no God, it's up to religious people to prove their is. But if you're calling someone out as wrong they will think you need to prove it. Because there is and never will be a way to disprove the existence of a God I don't think this approach works. You have to present the facts in a way that is honest but in a way that the other person hasn't thought about before.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8289140

But it sure puts food on the table if you're a starving Princton economist!

Some of us have sympathy for his cause and still think his writings on evolution (out of a sense of "check out how amazing and exciting this stuff is!") are overwhelmingly better than his writings on religion (even if we frequently appreciate snark).

The problem is, Dawkins preaches to the converted. Only atheists and creationists listen to him, and neither are likely to change their minds.

>> "The problem is, Dawkins preaches to the converted. Only atheists and creationists listen to him, and neither are likely to change their minds."

This is very true. Over the last year I've been swayed towards atheism but people like Dawkins turn me off. Despite his protests that he isn't arrogant and people just mistake his confidence for it he is a smug, arrogant git. He's right about a lot of things but it seems he and a lot of 'famous' atheists just trade in religious fanaticism for science fanaticism. His fanaticism drives me away from atheism the same way that fundamental Christian fanaticism drives me away from religion.

Just because it's important doesn't mean Dawkins does anything useful for it.

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