Whats your opinion of Richard Dawkins?

@Thomas,

Quote:

Rather, I was responding to your claim that since religion is part of the human condition and present in all human cultures, it follows that it makes no sense to call it good or bad.

No... my argument is that any judgment on what is good and bad is purely subjective-- it has no validity outside of a specific cultural context.

Whether you are a Chinese Shintoist, or a American Christian, or a Israeli Jew, or even if you are a Richard Dawkins atheist... your judgment about what is "good" or "bad" is no more valid than the other guy's.

What I am objecting to is the idea that Dawkins' subjective judgment about what is "good" is based on any truth (other than his own cultural understanding). There is nothing to make his viewpoint any superior than the values of any other religion.

When you brought up the "cancer" thing-- equating religion as a disease-- I took that to mean you thought "disease" would represent some universal moral truth that transcended culture.

I was just pointing out that this is not the case. There is no universal moral truth (other than the trivial things that Dawkins and the religionists have in common anyway).

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@ebrown p,

ebrown p wrote:

No... my argument is that any judgment on what is good and bad is purely subjective-- it has no validity outside of a specific cultural context.

I disagree with that, too. When you go to China, or some other foreign country, your intuitions of what's good and bad will usually keep you out of trouble in that country's foreign culture. Granted, you will get your foot in your mouth, and you will commit what your hosts consider to be gaffes, and cultural mismatches will be the reason for it. But problems like these will be the exception, not the rule. By contrast, they would be the rule if you were right and morality was totally subjective.

ebrown p wrote:

When you brought up the "cancer" thing-- equating religion as a disease-- I took that to mean you thought "disease" would represent some universal moral truth that transcended culture.

No, that wasn't the point I was arguing then.

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It ought to be remembered that Dawkins has put away two wives and is on his third who is an actress he met through his connection to that idiocy Dr Who in which he has played a part.

As Christian thinking despises that sort of behaviour he has it in for such thinking.

Once he gets there arguments are easy to find. They have been well known for a few thousand years.

His position, now defunct, of Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science in the University of Oxford, was endowed by Charles Simonyi and we all know what that means. He stood near the fundfan.

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@Thomas,

Quote:

I disagree with that, too. When you go to China, or some other foreign country, your intuitions of what's good and bad will usually keep you out of trouble in that country's foreign culture. Granted, you will get your foot in your mouth, and you will commit what your hosts consider to be gaffes, and cultural mismatches will be the reason for it. But problems like these will be the exception, not the rule. By contrast, they would be the rule if you were right and morality was totally subjective.

Problems like these are the rule-- and China is not a good example. If I went to China, it would be my knowledge of the Chinese culture... and to a point that there has already been significant interaction between the Chinese culture, and my own, that would keep me out of trouble.

It would be a better example I went to Bruknana. In that case I would keep my self out of trouble... particularly I would not do anything until I saw the Bruknanians do it first. I certainly wouldn't act according to my own culture;

Look at the myriad things that could cause you trouble. In my culture ...

-- kissing female casual acquaintances is expected-- something that could cause real problems in some cultures.

-- interracial couples should not be beaten.

-- men and women are expected to keep their genitals covered in public and women additionally are expected to cover their breasts. However, a woman's hair, legs and feet can be displayed without offense. Men and women can display affection, but not have intercourse, in public.

-- women have rights, even in respect to their husbands (oddly people in my culture event think this is the norm). A husband can not beat his wife for any reason.

-- criticism of the government is acceptable and sometimes fashionable.

Most of these things I could accept in other cultures (knowing that if I in their country, I should respect their way of life). I certainly wouldn't have a problem with clothing...

But there are issues on which different cultures have wildly different ideas.

I would have great difficulty in a culture that thought I should keep my wife in line.

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Since all theistic theses make no sense to me, I am an atheist. But I do not resonate with most of the thinking of Dawkins. I consider him to be an atheistic FUNDAMENTALIST. And from my perspective all forms of fundamentalism are immature and spiritually bankrupt.

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I share E Brown P's cultural relativism. At least I consider it critical consideration for any serious evaluations of arguments that claim universal validity.

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@JLNobody,

Quote:

Since all theistic theses make no sense to me, I am an atheist.

Does this make sense JLN?

There's two doors, right? One leads to a warm, steam room and two young ladies wriggling their fingers and the other to a corrugated iron shack in which two Spartan trainers are slapping wet towels at the legs of people running on the spot.

1 Reply

@spendius,

Quote:

There's two doors, right? One leads to a warm, steam room and two young ladies wriggling their fingers and the other to a corrugated iron shack in which two Spartan trainers are slapping wet towels at the legs of people running on the spot.

Doesn't this depend on whether you would prefer the wriggling ladies or the Spartan trainers? (I imagine lots of people would be more interested in the Spartans.)

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@ebrown p,

There's plenty of room for them eb. . It's a big shed.

I could devise doorways for ladies if you like

Of the ladies many will never have heard of Mr Dawkins, a fairly high proportion, those who look down upon him with disdain in the drawing rooms of the country houses and those in between. Judging by the record that last segment of womanhood, disproportionally represented in Media, the "thinking man's crumpet", seem to think him drop-dead dishy. The sort who help their sons with their homework and get them violin lessons.

But of my original choice, for us males, I can't think of any other creature extinct or extant that would stop to think twice. Snap a wet towel at a tomcat and check it out if you don't believe me. Choosing that is a rather unevolutionary thing to be doing I think it safe to say.

You don't know any men like that do you?

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@JLNobody,

Quote:

I consider him to be an atheistic FUNDAMENTALIST. And from my perspective all forms of fundamentalism are immature and spiritually bankrupt.

Eaxcellent point JL. Dawkins makes no room for opinions other than his own. Ever since he became a media darling hes become sciences MAdeline Murray Ohare. What has happened lately is that even his scientific dispassion has taken a hike.

I share your "Summa" also JL, .I find Dawkins an embarrassment.

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@farmerman,

In that case, please mark me down as immature and spiritually bankrupt, too. It sure beats your childish belief in fictitious Pennsylvania "mountains", allegedly hidden behind thick walls of clouds.

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@Thomas,

Quote:

In that case, please mark me down as immature and spiritually bankrupt, too.

We already have done Thomas.

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@spendius,

we?

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@dyslexia,

Well alright dys. I forgot about you. Sorry.

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@dazza 480,

just a point of observation i don't know who, if anyone here is aware of the idea/ philosphy of " what you resist persists" by this i mean you make things real by trying to deny them, for example if you dont' believe God really exists, you could take him/her/it out of your life equation, ie you just get on with it, the same applys to a religious person too ofcourse, your spiitual beliefs should be demonstrated in your life being lived, & instead of wasting our energies on trying to prove somthing that cant be proved 100 either way, we should concentrate on our common causes & work on coming up with solutions to the worlds problems together

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Richard Dawkins...

loved him in Hogan's Heroes, but not so much on Family Feud.

I'm neutral about match game...

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@Rockhead,

This is the Dawkins of evolution game?

Hogan's Heroes and Family Fued are about the survival of the fittest. The Match Game, well that's where one gene is ray-burned.

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Mr. Dawkins is well answered in

REVELATION, RATIONALITY, KNOWLEDGE AND TRUTH
(written in U.K.)
Ref:
Part V
The 'Blind Watchmaker' Who Is Also Deaf and Dumb:

No honest treatment of the realities of life can lead to the idea of life having been created with all its complexities without a preceding conscious creator, which natural selection is not.

http://www.alislam.org/library/books/revelation/index.html
in pages 515-564

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@Luv4AL hatred4non,

Luv4AL hatred4non wrote:

No honest treatment of the realities of life can lead to the idea of life having been created with all its complexities without a preceding conscious creator, which natural selection is not.

Just because you say it with conviction doesn't make it so. Especially when all the facts support evolution and none contradict it.

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@Luv4AL hatred4non,

Luv4AL hatred4non wrote:

No honest treatment of the realities of life can lead to the idea of life having been created with all its complexities without a preceding conscious creator, which natural selection is not.

The addition of a preceding conscious creator merely adds to the complexity.

1 Reply

Whats your opinion of Richard Dawkins?

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