"Doc, give me an answer..."
Dawkins: "The point is whether religious faith is more likely to make people evil — and I suspect it is."
The rest of the team: "Good answer! Good answer!"
"Survey says..." *BUZZZZZZZZ!!!*
Posted on 10/31/2006 4:41:17 AM PST by zippy the razor
Hitler: Religion?
Mengle,other NAZI's: Religion?
Stalin: Religion?
Tojo: Religion? Emporer, human diety?
Pol Pot: Religion?
Every nightmare Communist state: Religion?
Who said anything about "biologists"? My original post specified "atheistic 'scientists'," and the response of "intolerant, self-righteous, and bigoted" was presumably describing that group.
Interesting intuitive leap from there to "biologists" in general ... I certainly didn't intend to equate the two groups, but maybe you know them better than I do.
Yup just what the world needs, more anti-religious bigots.
Dawkins is a joke. He speaks of evil as if it actually exists yet denies free will in the next breath. Absent free will, morality ceases to exist and by extension so does evil.
He adds nothing to the debate. He should stick to biology because when he stumbles into metaphysics he acts the part of the court jester and does damage to the relationship between people of faith and people of science.
Me thinks Mr. Dawkins is just in need of attention.
Dawkins ducks the question about Stalinism because he is a lefty. To him, as to all liberals, Christianity makes people evil because it makes them politically incorrect. To not share Mr. Dawkins' beleifs and ideology is an left wing atheist's defination of "evil." The folks targeted for persecution and murder by Stalin are folks who are "evil" by Mr. Dawkin's defination and therefore it is quite understandable why he would not feel the need to address the question and expose himself.
First lets account for this terror in the names of its leaders. Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, Ho Chi Mihn's heirs. Facisism (National Socialism) and Communism are responsible for more death and more evil than can be explained. Death torture and mayhem inflicted on humans by the 10's of Millions.
Modern Radical Islam has the promise of attempting the reprise the horror of the 20th Century wrought by the Atheist left, but this is still yet potential rather than actuality even when we recognize all of the terror and horror going on around the world including Darfur, Somalia, Iraq's internal violence, Palestine, and the murder of nearly a million people in the Rwanda. Its stunning that this guy can't just count this up. The scale is insanely weighted against the anti-religious. They spin evil all around them in their descent into the the noir world of relativism and the crisis of lack of meaning to life. Death has no meaning when life has no meaning.
That "splat!" you just heard, Doctor Dawkins, was your suspicions running headlong into objective reality and recorded history. Thanks for playing.
bump
Higher, more concentrated population to kill, plus better technology to kill them with, and better communications and transportation with which to round them up or go out to kill them.
Let's go back to the time of Charles Martel and give the Muslims all radios, machine guns with ammo and Humvees with fuel. Any bets on whether the number of infidel dead will increase several times over?
But it is one thing to see a Stalinist as evil and therefor cannot do more evil than they do. But as they create evil and propagate evil by subjugating otherwise moral people into doing evil acts by establishing dominance by terror. Stalinists and other Communists and Fascists have an incredible record of creating evil that has splashed around throughout the world.
"Doc, give me an answer..."
Dawkins: "The point is whether religious faith is more likely to make people evil — and I suspect it is."
The rest of the team: "Good answer! Good answer!"
"Survey says..." *BUZZZZZZZZ!!!*
You might be able to call secular humanism a religion, but atheism, by definition, is the absence or rejection of religion. It's like asking (using additive color) what color is black.
""Religion is man attempting, but failing to reach God. Jesus Christ is God successfully reaching man.""
GOOD ONE!
I think we need clarification as to what Tax-chick meant by:
atheistic"scientists"
...with the quote emphasis around scientist and not atheistic.
Some options:
1. all scientists are atheists.
2 scientists who understand and accept the theory of evolution are atheists (covers most biologists, including myself and a possible interpretation of the words)
3. scientists are atheists if they are not also Biblical literalists (My guess as to JCEccles intent)
4. scientists who are also atheists look bad because of Dawkins, even if they are not (My guess as to Tax-chicks intent)
4. scientists who are also atheists look bad because of Dawkins, even if they are not
Pretty close to what I meant :-). I was aiming for something like, "An atheistic 'scientist,' such as Dawkins, makes actual scientists who are also atheists look bad."
My use of "scientists" was intended to denote a person whose political or social agenda is clearly more important to him than investigation or analysis. I'd use the same term for global warming hyteriacs, for instance, or those who keep insisting that AIDS isn't spread by promiscuous anal sex.
I have never heard of someone more self-righteous and more evangelical than this Richard Dawkins.
Further, he's a coward. It's easy to go after Christians, they won't lop your head off. Neither the word "Islam" nor "Muslim" occurs anywhere in this interview.
Thanks for the clarification.
I like the distinction you made. It allows for theistic scientists, atheistic scientists who are good guys, and atheistic scientists who are bad guys (and probably also the theistic bad guys who are the subject of Dawkins essay).
Many of us in the sciences are feeling a bit prickly here and there aren't too many left posting. Your distinctions leave a bit more room for civil disagreements.
Just for the record: I took climatology more than 50 years ago and my prof back then predicted a warming trend, so I don't think it's all politics.
Putting out greenhouse gases should increase the temperatures, but I don't know by how much and I don't know if it is offsetting a new ice age. My poltical view is that if the threat was clearly coming from outer space we'd have less trouble dealing with it objectively.
It allows for theistic scientists, atheistic scientists who are good guys, and atheistic scientists who are bad guys (and probably also the theistic bad guys who are the subject of Dawkins essay).
Exactly. There are good and bad people of all types of belief, and there are good and bad scientists of all types of belief ... and there are good people who aren't good at science, even if they think they are, and so on through the permutations.
Paul said it best......
Hope that is seen
is not hope
For what a man doth see
why does he yet hope?
White is a color. The set of all sets is a set.
Atheism is a religion.
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