[Just mythoughts]

This guy is a piece of work. Now it was the *law* as given by Moses that set for the death penalty for specific law breaking. Christ said he came NOT to change one jot or tittle (Matthew 5:18) of the law that means the law is still in effect.

Yes I know that many Christians claim the *law* was fulfilled but they are wrong.

[eleni121]

I cannot even read this drivel. He is a morally abhorrent man.

[Dreagon]

I don't know, if I were to turn his logic in another way I could simply state that nature selected towards vengeance in our species, therefore vengeance obviously has utility. Therefore I can accept vengeance as a part of the justice system.

[Felis_irritable]

Mr. Dawkins spare me. When a mechanical contrivance I own becomes defective I stop using it. The same position taken with regard to criminals is that you take them out of society so they cannot re-offend.

Of course our legal system introduces debatable concepts such as rehabilitation, but in the end, we're taking them off the streets so they cannot offend for a period of time. Nothing more, nothing less.

[satchmodog9]

for later

[RichInOC]

Ah, yes, but you see, Dr. Dawkins, even if you leave any trace of supernaturality out of the equation (which I wouldn't, but I digress) it should be obvious that a human being is not a car. If a car has mechanical problems, you can change parts out, or with the newer jobbies, put in a new on-board computer, if that's what is necessary to fix the problem. You can't really change a defective or misbehaving mind or will out of a human being.

And this guy is an Oxford don? Fascinating.

[Criminal Number 18F]

Well, let'e engage him on his own terms.

When a computer malfunctions, we do not punish it. We track down the problem and fix it, usually by replacing a damaged component, either in hardware or software.

Ah, but when a machine is hazardously defective, we scrap it. The USAF just scrapped over $100 million in training planes because they had dodgy spin-recovery characteristics. If your car fails inspection, you may not register it to drive it on the public roads, and if it is not registered, many jurisdictions expect you to scrap it.

If a ladder or toy is hazardous, it is recalled from the market and destroyed.

So, if we accept that a criminal, pervert, or violent brute, is a "defective unit," the answer is obvious.

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

[My2Cents]

mental constructs like blame and responsibility, indeed evil and good, are built into our brains by millennia of Darwinian evolution.

Prove it.

This stuff is just assumed to be true because...well, because evolution is "true," therefore concepts like personal responsibility and evil and good HAD to be the product of evolution. No need for proof; it just fits the unassailable theory of evolution...the only absolute that Dawkins believes in.

[Semi Civil Servant]

I know all Darwinists don't end up in such a moral muddle as Dawkins. But it's sad to see what was once a fine mind so utterly corrupted and confused. On the dreary ocean of determinism, there be monsters.

[sailor4321]

He's got a helluva good point! Someone who commits murder obviously has a broken brain. So, let's tie the b@%$#$d down and remove it --- we can just give him/her a new one when it is technologically feasible to do so...

[blake6900]

Richard Dawkins Writes About Human Responsibility In Light of Darwinian Evolution

I didn't like this guy when he hosted Family Feud.

[VOA]

People want to kill a criminal as payback for the horrible things he did.

So much for Dawkins as any sort of omniscient entity.
A fair number of people simply want the perp to never repeat the crime.
And neutralizing the perp for eternity is one sure-fire way to get that job done.

[microgood]

Retribution as a moral principle is incompatible with a scientific view of human behaviour.

We do not need a higher power to give us a moral framework, we have Charlie for that.

[VOA]

Assigning blame and responsibility is an aspect of the useful fiction of
intentional agents that we construct in our brains as a means of short-cutting
a truer analysis of what is going on in the world in which we have
to live.

Bill Clinton: Hey, where was this guy Dawkins when I needed him?

My dangerous idea is that we shall eventually grow out of all this and
even learn to laugh at it, just as we laugh at Basil Fawlty when
he beats his car.

Bill Clinton: Memo to self, get Branson to give this guy Dawkins
a big cash grant to fit out this new moral framework and get it
into the grade schools.
I may save my legacy yet!

[beckett]

It's impossible for Dawkins to write a single sentence that doesn't drip with arrogant cocksureness. The profound lack of humility in the man makes him one of the most unappealing -- and unserious -- public intellectuals on the scene today.

[MitchellC]

As scientists, we believe that human brains, though they may not work in the same way as man-made computers, are as surely governed by the laws of physics. When a computer malfunctions, we do not punish it. We track down the problem and fix it, usually by replacing a damaged component, either in hardware or software

And who gets to determine what constitutes human 'malfunction?' What function exactly are humans supposed to be performing, and why exactly are we supposed to place value on any particular ends?

These are questions to which atheism is incapable of giving an answer... though of course there are hordes of individual atheist-ideologues who think we should replace the ways that made this country prosperous with their particular vision of how to achieve an 'advanced society.'

Isn't the murderer or the rapist just a machine with a defective component? Or a defective upbringing? Defective education? Defective genes?

Incredibly disturbing. To Dawkins, every person is merely a soulless machine that invites tinkering when it meets Dawkins' own idea of "defective."

[SoldierDad]

Why don't we laugh at a judge who punishes a criminal,

Probably because the crime the criminal committed renders joviality impossible to achieve. Hard to laugh when someone is lying dead in their grave.

[OriginalIntent]

Dawkins has no real source of right and wrong..BUMP

[planetesimal]

This thread should have been closed after comment #2:

This guy is a piece of work. Now it was the *law* as given by Moses that set for the death penalty for specific law breaking. Christ said he came NOT to change one jot or tittle (Matthew 5:18) of the law that means the law is still in effect.

The perfect whiff. Dawkins would appreciate the above, if he had the time and inclination to read it.

[dennisw]

This Dawkins clown used to write some books that were halfway valid and that I liked. "Blind Watchmaker" 1977. He is fast turning into the Pope of his self founded religion. This is his latest Papal Nuncio. He's taking his theories to their logical conclusion