Whats your opinion of Richard Dawkins?

I gave up a community and , just because we have to be honest to ourselves, never needed to look back with any of the silliness that spendi and a few others spout, Like "Time is relative to earth processes and their interpretation", or "christianity has given us all our sciences"

I am not assuming that, I'm concluding it, having considered both kinds of arguments.

Anybody reading his books rather than reading the great writers of the world is not doing him or her self a favour.

It's their precious time I'm thinking of fm. It can be better spent than reading that sort of repetitive jargon when all it tells you is what you already know

When it comes to arguing I'm fearless.

I don't have anybody on Ignore

It's about money and starlight pure and simple.

is he a good scientist?
what do you think are his views on religion?

As are his views on marriage vows.

I think he gets misunderstood in some regards.

Yes he has an invested interest in scientific research and understanding. He sees that in some regards religion tries to snuff out scientific research or prevent science from advancing. Many religious people want to roll back the system to some early mind set and he is firmly opposed to these sorts of actions. So much so that he sounds like an activist against religion.

Something similar happens with me, but the way i see religion is that it has gone on long enough without any discipline. It is like a five year old child who has never been taught right from wrong. It just acts how ever it wants because everyone gives it the go ahead because it is taboo to discipline religion. I don't want to end religion, but i do want it to keep itself to itself and stay out of political and social decisions. If a person wants to be religious they should have that right to, no matter what religion it is, but they should not be allowed to impose their religious views onto society in any way.

I will always be an activist against religion until it meets the same criteria that everything else must adhere to. The day that religion accepts criticism without playing an off limits card and promises to keep to itself, is the day I will stop being a religious activist. I bet I'll die before that day comes.

Dawkins's message is basically that we are social animals on an evolutionary trajectory to ever more rational and therefore higher moral standards, but that the process has been derailed somewhere along the line by the appearance of religion. It had looked until recently as though we were shaking off religion and entering an Age of Reason. But now, with the rise of religious fundamentalism, there is a relapse which accounts for the world's present troubles. Nevertheless, thanks to the enlightenment Science brings, we can root out religion and get back on track.

The Dawkins historicist variant of a trajectory from a primitive idealised state to a later higher one being knocked off course by religion derives from a particular Protestant historicism within the overall Christian pattern. This is the idea that the original Christianity of the New Testament has been corrupted by Catholicism but brought back on course by Protestantism, thanks to a messiah figure, Martin Luther.

In this context, we need to bear in mind that there is a very important sense in which 'religion' [2] has been a dirty word for Protestants. It has stood for all those aspects of Catholic Christianity which they rejected at the Reformation: idolatry, superstition, tradition, hierarchy, authoritarianism, mumbo-jumbo, whatever.

Overall, what Dawkins has done is generalise on the Protestant historicism. In his basic scheme, primitive Christianity has been replaced by a primal human state, Catholicism as bad 'religion' has been replaced by religion in general and the Protestant Reformation by the Scientific Revolution, by the discovery of evolution by natural selection in particular. The Protestant Age is of course replaced by the Age of Science and Reason.

Basically Dawkins historicism of religion is as follows:

Quote:

Dawkins's message is basically that we are social animals on an evolutionary trajectory to ever more rational and therefore higher moral standards, but that the process has been derailed somewhere along the line by the appearance of religion. It had looked until recently as though we were shaking off religion and entering an Age of Reason. But now, with the rise of religious fundamentalism, there is a relapse which accounts for the world's present troubles. Nevertheless, thanks to the enlightenment Science brings, we can root out religion and get back on track.

The Dawkins historicist variant of a trajectory from a primitive idealised state to a later higher one being knocked off course by religion derives from a particular Protestant historicism within the overall Christian pattern. This is the idea that the original Christianity of the New Testament has been corrupted by Catholicism but brought back on course by Protestantism, thanks to a messiah figure, Martin Luther.

In this context, we need to bear in mind that there is a very important sense in which 'religion' [2] has been a dirty word for Protestants. It has stood for all those aspects of Catholic Christianity which they rejected at the Reformation: idolatry, superstition, tradition, hierarchy, authoritarianism, mumbo-jumbo, whatever.

Overall, what Dawkins has done is generalise on the Protestant historicism. In his basic scheme, primitive Christianity has been replaced by a primal human state, Catholicism as bad 'religion' has been replaced by religion in general and the Protestant Reformation by the Scientific Revolution, by the discovery of evolution by natural selection in particular. The Protestant Age is of course replaced by the Age of Science and Reason.

From The Protestant Atheism of Richard Dawkins

However there are many questions which Dawkins does not even begin to comprehend. One of them is: why is radical Islam convinced that Western Society is actually satanic in origin, and are therefore prepared to go to such hideous extremes in order to destroy it? Why do they believe they are engaged in a 'cosmic war' of 'good against evil'?

If religious culture is and always been based on a delusion, why is it ubiquitous throughout society, culture and history?

It is very easy, having decided that religion is delusion, to proceed on that basis; as my late father used to say, such questions are always easy for those with black-and-white views.

So do I dys.