Posted on 05/18/2007 9:06:58 AM PDT by Jakarta ex-pat
ROOT OF ALL EVIL?
THE God Delusion - based on Richard Dawkins' book The God Delusion - is the best documentary I've ever seen. And, I imagine, will ever see. No jokes. No smart-arse cracks. No witty asides.
Dawkins is a scientist and passionate atheist who has produced a stunning, thoroughly researched and expertly executed work that flatly denies the existence of God and illustrates what a destructive force religion is. Even in its mildest form. This provocative and entertaining ride will have some believers coming out the other end as atheists. And every Bible basher, Torah toter and Koran carrier calling the ABC to complain.
As I watched this masterpiece unfold, I couldn't remember the last time I had seen something so brilliant on the idiot box. Dawkins unapologetically refuses to treat religion differently to any other subject. There is no tiptoeing in fear of "offending" anyone (how you can offend people with truth is beyond me). Dawkins has harnessed his skill as a scientist, his hunger for truth and his rage to prove that God is a delusion that's infecting the world. He refers to "the process of non-thinking called faith" and bemoans "that the idea of a divine creator belittles the elegant reality of the universe". He liberates the viewer with the conclusion that "atheism is life-affirming in a way religion can never be".
Atheists will watch this show and feel as if they have died and gone to heaven as they see a bloke far more smarterer than themselves poke that animal in the cage. The fundamentalists, the evangelicals, the dabblers and the moderates all cop it. Dawkins dismembers the lot with a scalpel. It's intoxicating for born-again atheists like myself. I have taken the Flying Spaghetti Monster as my Lord and personal saviour. That's right. I am a Pastafarian.
Atheism is, it seems, the new black. Dawkins' offering will not simply be preaching to the converted but actually convert fence-sitters with truth and reason.
Dawkins describes the God of the Old Testament as "the most unpleasant character in all fiction. Jealous and proud of it. Petty, vindictive, unforgiving and racist. An ethnic cleanser urging his people on to acts of genocide."
Then Moses cops it. Dawkins quotes a Bible story and asks: "How is this story morally distinguishable from Hitler's rape of Poland or Saddam Hussein's massacre of the Kurds or the Marsh Arabs?"
Dawkins' masterful command of the language and his glorious Britishness is a delight throughout: "So Jesus had himself tortured and executed for a symbolic sin by a non-existent individual. Nobody not bought up in the faith could reach to any verdict other than barking mad." He tells us that "killing for God is not just hideous murder but utterly ridiculous".
On Sunday night, if you listen carefully, you'll hear atheists all over Australia leaning back in their chairs, putting their feet on the coffee table and saying, "I'm with him." And I'll be one of them.
Frankly, your answers are as good as anything Dawkins can supply.
Who said love means that it makes one feel all warm and content? A parent reprimanding their child clearly isn’t a warm fuzzy feeling, yet the parent does so out of love and desire for the best for their child, no?
let him laugh- We’re not beholden to him for our eternity thankfully
Because, in a sense, Dawkins has hit one something. We all want to think that the way we operate is brilliant. We all want to believe that what makes us feel better, more secure, and more potent really is right. And, once we have accepted that as truth, then with zeal we must declare all others wrong.
No one (virtually) gets up in the morning, looks in the mirror and says to himself, “I’m gonna — if I’m really lucky — make a cataclysmically wrong decision today!!”
AS other posters have said, great atrocities have been committed by those of all religions. The common demnominator is not religion - or lack thereof. The common denominator is man. One need look no further than the examples presented here to see that man is capable of the most horrendous atrocities his massive intelligence can contrive.
What becomes harder to explain is man’s great and demonstrated capacity for selflessness and acts of grace, courage, heroism and sacrifice....IOW, explaining man’s depravity is easy. It is man’s self-sacrifice that is difficult.
I’m sorry?!! What was your last reply regarding?
Being beholden to anything eternally is... well, icky.
haha. so what is new about “scientists”, right? (not all but some)
what i find interesting is that i thought in staying true to the scientific nature....one examined all the information prior to making a conclusion. yet the scientists on the evolutionary/atheistic side refuse to look at one whole side of the data. guess they aren’t very scientific are they?
“one whole side of the data”
Superstition does not equal data.
your ‘feel the love’ comment which a Iassumed was a stab at what was being discussed
GCRuse:
Not as icky as being in eternity and discovering you should have been beholden when alive- eternity is, well, forever obviously- no second chances- a simply leap of faith can ensure eternity won’t be spent in regret and agony. Spaghetti monster won’t seem like such a brilliant joke when one is suffering needlessly.
“one whole side of the data”
Superstition does not equal data”
Noone said it did-applpie said data- not beleif. Nice try at denying the factual data contrary to evolution’s dogmatic beliefs though
One good that might have come from not having Christians found the United States is that Dawkins would not have been able to write his atheist screed and that no one could otherwise have read it.
“a simply leap of faith can ensure eternity”
And that’s the nub. I cannot make myself believe something so as to get a reward. My beliefs are based on life experience, and the mythology of milennia-old desert dwellers is insufficiently empirical.
Can you really make yourself believe something? I’m not sure I can. I am either convinced by reason or I am not. It’s not exactly voluntary.
No, I found it somewhat idiotic the argument that because Stalin(not Hitler, mind you) was an atheist, all atheists somehow share the bloodied hands. Note this, an atheist is to himself or herself. There is no connection between one and another, as the case is in organised religion.
Well Stalin also drank water. So are all water-drinkers evil?
People who argue against the idea of not believing in an imaginary being, based on that faulty logic for one, know squat what atheism is.
This sentence doesn't make sense. Why would a Bible "basher" complain? Did he mean to say "Bible thumper"?
Exactly. If faith(the kind that makes one believe in supernatural being/s ) is lost, it’s not like one can revert back as if nothing happened. Direct divine intervention, divine manifestation will be the only thing that can convince an atheist otherwise. Between being dishonest to myself, or sobering to reality, the latter choice is what I’d make any day.
I don’t have nearly the theological background to engage this on the level it deserves but thanks for lengthy response.
It’s generally understood that when people categorize- they aren’t doing so wholesale and are only talking about those of groups who hold extreme views and voice them like Dawkins does.
[Can you really make yourself believe something?]
God doesn’t mind disbelief as long as the person is honest- heck, one of hte gretest christian converts was doubting Thomas as he was rightfully called. Doubting Thomas absolutely refused to beleive unless he saw for his own eyes- Christ did not rebuke him for his honesty, He welcomed it. Tell God flat out you don’t believe and ask that if He be real, that He change that.
And just for the record- it’s not done to ‘get a reward’- True, a reward does come with it, however, the reward itself is not the reason to seek, infact, it is an impediment if that’s the real motivation as it obscures the real issue at work- the ultimate confession that God is God and we are creations in need of God and a Savior
[Direct divine intervention, divine manifestation will be the only thing that can convince an atheist otherwise. Between being dishonest to myself, or sobering to reality, the latter choice is what I’d make any day.]
Seems ot me that if you were wanting to be true to yourself, you’d want to know the truth so as to make the absolutely most honest descision possible. Being Atheist rules out/dismisses any other possibility right from the get go. Agnostics at least ceede that there might be another possibility, but they are unaware of the possiblity- that would at least seem a more honest assesment.
The person seeking the most honest stance it seems would hold their belief, but Ask of God to reveal Himself IF God indeed does exist, and would ask for the wisdom to recognize the revelation should it happen.
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