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To: dandelion

If by happiness you mean that he's comfortable with himself, and he has all the things that he wants, well, yes, he's probably happy. Many people who want to control other people are very, very happy.

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Who exactly do you think Dawkins wants to control? He has expressed an opinion that the world would be better off without religion. Now, you may disagree or agree with that position. I happen to disagree, I think that all the evil things that people do in the name of religion would be done in the name of other things, and similarly with the good things they do in the name of religion. However, he has at no point expressed a desire to actually PREVENT people from being religious.
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Many of the great intolerant minds of the age have been very satisfied with their personal lives - it was other people's lives that bothered them.

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Well, yes, Dawkins is intolerant. But he is no more intolerant than some of the religious fundamentalists that he rails against. Indeed, he is no more intolerant than lots of the people on this forum.
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His intolerance for anything other than his own beliefs is disturbing, and his ambitions to eradicate MY belief systems and MY happiness are horrible.
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Again, he has never expressed a desire to actually eradicate any such thing. However, lots of the people he interviewed in his latest TV show DID express the desire to eradicate opposing belief systems.

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But if you are simply judging a man by whether or not he is happy in his own life and exulted by others, then I guess you would call him happy.

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Well, if we are changing the subject towards judging, then my judgement of Dawkins is pretty much as follows: I think he is one of the acknowledged experts in his particular academic field. However, he is also a man of very strong views on a particular subject and he tends to rant somewhat on that subject. However, as a citizen in a free (for now) country, he is perfectly entitled to rant against religion (for now). In my opinion, while he is sometimes able to draw out intruiging, and somewhat incriminating statements from religious fundamentalists, he himself is something of a fundamentalist himself, and is not particularly interested in actually listening to what people have to say on the matter.

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Hitler was happy too.

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You do realise how silly it makes you look when you compare people to Hitler dont you? After all, Hitler killed millions of innocent people and the most that Dawkins has done is go on TV and suggest that maybe the world would be better if people werent religious. Hardly a comparable action, is it?


11 posted on 01/13/2006 10:55:20 AM PST by TheWormster
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To: TheWormster

It is important to read the words of Dawkins himself, and not just the words of those discussing him. Have you read Dawkins latest proposals for the mass eradication of religion from public and private life? His suggestions that parents should be charged with child abuse for teaching children their religious beliefs? Have you studied his demands that sectarian schools of all kinds - not just Christian, but ALL religions - should be shut down? Have you studied his own suggestions for how the world should be forced away from all religions but his own secular one? Are you aware that he is not merely expressing his opinion, but was commissioned to do so by a public entity for broadcast?

http://www.sundayherald.com/53499

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1553982/posts

http://www.simonyi.ox.ac.uk/dawkins/WorldOfDawkins-archive/index.shtml

All are entitled to their opinions under the Constitution of the United States of America - and under the First Amendment, all are entitled to their religions as well. According to Dawkins, I do not have that right, and therefore I do have a right to be concerned about his opinion. I do not, however, have a right to suppress it, and that is the difference between Dawkins and me.

This wish to suppress all diverse beliefs should be called what it is - facism. The allusion to Hitler was not in reference to Dawkins, it was in reference to the idea that a man's own happiness in himself was the ultimate measure of his worth. If that statement fits Dawkins, it is only because they both share the desire to control the belief systems of others...


14 posted on 01/13/2006 11:11:29 AM PST by dandelion
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