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The Dick Dawkins Summer Camp

There's plenty of people in this country whom I hate with a passion. But there's one particularly smug bastard who always gets my goat - Richard Dawkins. How anyone can treat him seriously after he was mocked in South Park, I don't know.

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This cocktrumpet is a man who wastes no opportunity to tell us that people who believe in God are stupid and deluded, a man who condemns the brainwashing that religious nutters carry out in summer camps in the USA. So what does he decide to do? Ah yes, he decides to start one up himself!

According to the Mail, (yes, I know) they will have the chance to "sing along to John Lennon's Imagine and have lessons in evolution". The reporter excitedly tells us that "There will even be a £10 prize for the child who can disprove the existence of the mythical unicorn" and that the day will finish with the "Kim-bi-ya budding atheists will belt out 'Imagine there's no heaven...and no religion too'." Wow, I bet children all around the country can hardly wait! :rolleyes:

When religious fanatics and nutjobs run summer camps, it's called called brainwashing. When a pure as driven snow atheist such as Richard Dawkins does it, it's something completely different. What a cunt.

Over to you for your reasoned and relevant contributions/musings/bile etc...
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Comments

  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    A warrior without a cause it would seem
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Atheism is a religion like any other and it has more than it's fair share of fundy nutcases. Dawkins is definitely one of them. He is an odious man who seems to spend most of his time trying to upset everyone.

    How odious you find him just depends on your particular religious view.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    When religious fanatics and nutjobs run summer camps, it's called called brainwashing. When a pure as driven snow atheist such as Richard Dawkins does it, it's something completely different. What a cunt.

    Mmm. Of course, if you actually to bother to read the article, you'll see that neither the existing US version of the camp, nor the new UK one, has actually been set up by Richard Dawkins at all; the UK version has simply been subsidised by him.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    FireFly85 wrote: »
    Of course, if you actually to bother to read the article, you'll see that neither the existing US version of the camp, nor the new UK one, has actually been set up by Richard Dawkins at all; the UK version has simply been subsidised by him.
    If he's subsidising it, it means he effectively owns it.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    stargalaxy wrote: »
    If he's subsidising it, it means he effectively owns it.

    You can't really assume that, would depend how much he is contributing. Since it is modelled on the US version, clearly the original idea had little to do with him or his influence, and I do believe at least some atheists are able to come up with ideas independently of RD and without clutching a copy of the God Delusion (shocking, I know!).

    Would we be surprised at a high profile religious establishment providing funding for childrens' activities with a religious ethos? In fact - would it even be newsworthy? I think not. The fact Dawkins has thrown some cash in that direction isn't worthy of debate in my opinion, just seems like an excuse for people to ride the hatred wave for him without actually considering the idea of the camp itself.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I find something creepy about sending kids either to a religous camp or an atheist one - give me the good old Scouts any day
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Kermit wrote: »
    Atheism is a religion like any other and it has more than it's fair share of fundy nutcases.

    You don't believe that.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    stargalaxy wrote: »
    There's plenty of people in this country whom I hate with a passion. But there's one particularly smug bastard who always gets my goat - Richard Dawkins. How anyone can treat him seriously after he was mocked in South Park, I don't know.

    Ah, yeah, South Park - a fantastically cogent critique of Dawkins, if ever there was one.
    According to the Mail, (yes, I know) they will have the chance to "sing along to John Lennon's Imagine and have lessons in evolution". The reporter excitedly tells us that "There will even be a £10 prize for the child who can disprove the existence of the mythical unicorn" and that the day will finish with the "Kim-bi-ya budding atheists will belt out 'Imagine there's no heaven...and no religion too'." Wow, I bet children all around the country can hardly wait! :rolleyes:

    When religious fanatics and nutjobs run summer camps, it's called called brainwashing. When a pure as driven snow atheist such as Richard Dawkins does it, it's something completely different. What a cunt.

    Over to you for your reasoned and relevant contributions/musings/bile etc...

    Oh, hang on, I must apologise! It appears you have actually done your research. Oh wait... no, you've just regurgitated The Daily Mail.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    You don't believe that.

    It is a religion like any other. Atheism is couched in scientific terms but there's no empirical evidence for the Big Bang or for evolution. No 'missing link' fossils have ever been found and nobody can explain how nothing blew up one day into a Universe.

    I'm not saying there's no truth in it, but there's some truth in most religions. Hell, you can even find evidence for some of the things the Raelians say.

    Dawkins' stance is basically 'religions can't prove the existence of God'. All fine and dandy, but Dawkins can't prove what he believes either.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    It is a religion like any other. Atheism is couched in scientific terms but there's no empirical evidence for the Big Bang or for evolution.

    Unless you are on a piss take, that is just about the most clearly & demonstrably incorrect statement I've ever read on these boards.

    My view on Dawkins: I've met him and as a person he's horrid - but his earlier works, particularly in popular science in 'The Selfish Gene' and 'The Blind Watchmaker' are brilliant examples of rigourous popular scholarship.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I think atheists would have people believe that it's the absence of a belief rather than the belief in an absence. I guess it's whether you want to believe in something or not believe in something until you see evidence to the contrary

    However, I do find atheism and the whole doctrine, if you can call it that, a very small-minded view of things. Plus the zealous atheists, of whom Dawkins is the poster boy, are no better than those against whom they waste so much misdirected and often very ignorant bile.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    He's actually a vey very smart man. I do think he pushes his atheism too much down people's throats but so do a lot of religious fanatics so you can't criticise him too much.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Dawkins is the product of two thousand years of religious indoctrination. If his methods seem unpleasant and excessive, they are only the reflection of what he's opposing.

    Two wrongs might not make a right, but for as long as we are happy to tolerate the words and actions of one side we're going to have to tolerate those of the other.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I'm quite happy to tolerate both christianity and atheism as I am of all religions as long as they don't force me to go to Church on Sunday or force my wife to stop doing so. But its mad not to see atheism as a mirror image of christianity - with its adherents ranging from wishy-washy liberals to mad fanatics. It may not be a religion, but many of its supporters seem to treat it as such...
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I think atheists would have people believe that it's the absence of a belief rather than the belief in an absence.

    I think this is an important distinction to make - I said in a previous thread about religion that I was personally agnostic - that I didn't believe all religions were absolutely false. Actually I see them as more a part of our culture than a science but that's my perspective. We never ask if when a musician writes a song whether it was based on a true story or not and really to a big extent it doesn't matter.

    I was then informed in the aformentioned thread that agnosticism is an invalid perspective to hold, because its just saying 'i cant prove anything', and that either I believe that god created the earth in 7 days, or I don't.

    I don't quite agree with this, because I don't actually think you have to have an opinion either way. You can read the bible without fathoming whether it's true or not, you can read the stories and understand the lessons just like if you read harry potter.

    This is my personal experience, but some atheists are happy to acknowledge that everyone has their own beliefs and are entitled to them, and that they are no boundary to friendship and such - that they believe that there is no God, no divine presence in the Universe and that's as far as their belief goes. But some are of the opinion also that those who do have faith are somehow misguided, and that they are potentially dangerous (citing the horrific acts of some organised religion), and like Richard Dawkins I assume (I am not sure), feels the need to convert these to atheism. To 'save' them from their ignorance.

    I do believe, and this may come off sounding provocative, but I think this second set are largely 'warriors without a cause' as I said earlier. They are just trying to find something to stand up for and fight for and argue for, even if that thing is nothing. It's true that organised religion causes plenty of problems but that is to ignore the billions who enjoy their religion whether they just take lessons about humanity from the books or whether they believe it literally and do so peacefully and in harmony with their society.

    My 2p.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I'm quite happy to tolerate both christianity and atheism as I am of all religions as long as they don't force me to go to Church on Sunday or force my wife to stop doing so. But its mad not to see atheism as a mirror image of christianity - with its adherents ranging from wishy-washy liberals to mad fanatics. It may not be a religion, but many of its supporters seem to treat it as such...

    It really isn't though. Firstly, let's make the distinction between secularism and atheism, because the former is what you're talking about. Take China for example. The government are secularists. The buddhist monks are are atheists, but not secularists. It's a massive distinction.

    Now there are certainly examples of secularism becoming the equivalent opposite of religious fundamentalism. The equivalent would be anyone advocating the banning of religion from society, such as the aforementioned Chinese government, which place restrictions on religious activities (although in practice, that's more about destroying any potential threat to power than anti-religious sentiments - and the same would apply to many religious dictatorships too).

    However, there is this ridiculous idea that someone like Dawkins, or indeed any high-profile secularist I can think of, is just as fundamentalist as the people he's opposing. I'm sure he enjoys the reputation, but in reality, it's nothing but hyperbole. Suggesting that religion shouldn't be funded out of general taxation, and that religious beliefs should be subject to the same evidence-based scrutiny as the rest of public discourse, isn't an extremist opinion in the slightest. I'm unaware of any secularists who openly advocate restricting people's religious activities. They simply oppose religious privilage. To say this is the equivalent of people who think that people who draw cartoons and right books should be arrested or even killed, is clearly a pisstake. Complete religious freedom, but no religious privilage. I would suggest that there are many religious people who agree with this. But if we say it often enough, it'll become true, and none of these people will even listen to his arguments.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Kermit wrote: »
    It is a religion like any other. Atheism is couched in scientific terms but there's no empirical evidence for the Big Bang or for evolution. No 'missing link' fossils have ever been found and nobody can explain how nothing blew up one day into a Universe.

    Oh dear Kermit. Do you know what you actually mean by "missing link fossils." The fact that you put it in quotation marks suggests you're just parroting what you read on one of the many anti-evolution websites run by religious fundies who will oppose any scientific theory that challenges their religious beliefs. Incidentally, another clever use of language is "gaps in the fossil record." It's particularly brilliant because by definition, it's always true. In fact, with every fossil that is discovered, the number of gaps increases by one. Genius. Unfortunately for intellectually dishonest people like this, the fact is that you could wipe out all knowledge of the fossil record, and the DNA evidence would still be so overwhelming as to put the certainty of evolution up there with gravity or the fact that the earth revolves around the sun (which now I think about it, is the same thing). But there's no opposition to gravity, because there's no religion that it poses a problem for.

    You see the mistake people like Kermit make is to attack evolution or even the big bang as if it has any bearing on the question of a god existing whatsoever. Usually more accurate is that it poses a problem for the existance of their concept of god. Evolution has been opposed throughout history because it disproves the idea that God created all of the animals as they are, not because it disproves the idea of a god existing. Science only comments on what we can prove. People only have a problem with it when they made it all up beforehand and are then proved wrong. Especially when they've set up an entire moral philosophy on their assumptions, the authority of which is then essentially shattered. Because the difference between religion and moral philosophy is that philosophy has to survive rational scrutiny, whereas religion just has to claim divine authority and get enough people to believe it.
    Kermit wrote: »
    Dawkins' stance is basically 'religions can't prove the existence of God'. All fine and dandy, but Dawkins can't prove what he believes either.
    He certainly can prove what he believes in terms of scientific evidence for evolution and the big bang, which will disprove certain religious beliefs. And he can make a rational argument for the existance or non-existance of god. But frankly, the answer doesn't matter that much, because you've already said it. You admit religions can't prove the existance of God, which from the point of view of a secularist, is all that matters. Whether or not a god created the universe might be an interesting question, but since you can't prove it either way, it doesn't really matter in the way we organise society. There is no proof that any god exists, so there is no proof for anything that is attributed to him. And it means that any claims made on religious grounds have to be subject to the same rational critique as those made on non-religious grounds. But it seems certain religious people have a problem with that, and they want religion to have a special status. Admitting you can't prove that a god exists also makes in intellectually dishonest to teach children that there is, but not only do people do so, but we all pay for people to do so. That's all secularism has ever had a problem with, and you don't have to take a position on the god debate to recognise that if the evidence isn't there, the justification for acting under the assumption that it is isn't there either. I respect religion as a philosophy, I just don't respect the way it attempts to give itself additional authority by making claims it has no evidence for. Christianity, or indeed any religion, are no different from the work of Sartre, Russell or Confucius in the way they should be treated as a set of ideas.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    You can listen to an interview with the person who organised it here. It's 48 minutes into the programme, and it's not Richard Dawkins, unsurprisingly.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I’d just like to echo IWS comments. There seem to be a lot people equating atheism, a single position on a single issue, with, well I don’t know what with really... maybe Dawkins? Atheism != Dawkins. Anything an atheist believes outside of there not being a god (or gods), is not his atheism; ShyBoy seems to have be the only one who mentions the strong and weak atheism nuance – either lacking a belief or actively disbelieving, and that doesn’t really alter the debate too much.

    (And ShyBoy, you’re still wrong about agnosticism :p)

    I’m not quite sure what planet Kermit was on last night, but I’m sure he’ll have come back down to earth today. Too many Newcastles Browns, perhaps? :D
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    There is no empirical evidence whatsoever for the Big Bang theory, it is just a theory along with the theory that a benevolent God made all things bright and beautiful and Scunthorpe. Regardless of which theory you accept, you accept it because of faith rather than empirical study.

    Similarly, with evolution there is precious little empirical evidence of animals evolving into other animals. We have some anticedents and some more recent animals. There is no evidence of partially evolved creatures and, even more surprisingly, there is no evidence of the evolutionary 'dead ends' that you would expect to find.

    Personally I find evolution a more convincing theory than everyone stepping out fully formed, but that's just personal belief. I can't point to anything and say 'look, there- proof!' because there isn't any.

    Regardless of whether you call him an atheist or a secularist, Dawkins is a poster boy for secular/atheistic fundamentalism. Nothing wrong with that, but what he's saying isn't more valid because he has some pseudo-science behind it.

    Now of course, if we want to talk about removing religious privilege then I think we'll agree on that.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    There is no empirical evidence whatsoever for the Big Bang theory

    Again this is wrong http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_bang_theory#Observational_evidence

    Of course it hasn't been proven beyond all doubt, but the very reason it is taken so seriously is that it is the most likely scenario based on currently available empirical evidence (which refutes the above statement).

    Your conception of empirical evidence appears to be the same as irreducible truth, which is not the way in which most of the epistemologies of natural science would have it; and is not the way in which most knowledge in these areas is produced.

    The production of scientific knowledge in biology and physics is more in line with what philosophers commonly call skepticism - generally it is a gradual progression of building blocks of knowledge, build upon previous stable knowledge claims built in turn upon reproducible experimental and observational data.

    Natural science in general progresses along the lines set out by Thomas Kuhn - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradigm_shift. Only a few events of science - The Origin of Species, Gregor Mendel's pea pod plant experiments etc. - cause what he calls a 'paradigm shift', most science works within the lines of an existing body of theory and evidence, filling in the gaps in knowledge.
    Similarly, with evolution there is precious little empirical evidence of animals evolving into other animals.

    Apart from that fact that we've moved from the original statement 'there is no evidence whatsoever for...' to the above; the statement is still misleading to the point of being wrong.

    Following on from the above, the whole modern field of biology is underpinned by the current theoretical paradigm of Genetic Evolution, through the unison of Darwin's theory of evolution by means of Natural Selection, Grregor Mendel's pea pods plants, through to the discovery of the structure of DNA and the genome.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_origin_of_species

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_genetics

    There are gaps in knowledge because the way sciences progresses is as above - there are controversies and tests, refutations and conjecture; but there is still an overwhelming empirical and theoretical consensus on Evolution being THE most likely explanation for the development of species and gene selection.

    It cannot be overemphasised how much the whole of modern biology is based on this, and what makes it such an elegant body of knowledge, is that as ever more rigourous tests are developed and new areas of empirical endeavour explored; the theory may be augmented and developed into more sophisticate and complex forms (as befits scientific discovery) but the core tennants of evolution are affirmed, daily.

    For further information, see any respected museum, university, or your local biology department.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Kermit wrote: »
    There is no empirical evidence whatsoever for the Big Bang theory, it is just a theory

    Another typical fundamentalist phrase people, that shows the most basic lack of understanding of scientific method. What Kermit neglects to say is that to get to the stage of being considered a theory, a scientific hypothetis already has to have massive amounts of evidence for it. The big bang happened. The difference between a hypothesis and a theory is evidence, so this "only a theory" by definition has massive amount of evidence for it, which has already been posted. And it's only you who's crediting it with the beginning of everything. Scientists only credit it with the beginning of the universe as we know it.

    And see how he refuses to clarify anything he means, just throwing meaningless phrases around that are more popularly seen on fundie websites. So in addition to explaining what you mean by "missing link fossils" can you also explain to me what an "evolutionary dead end" constitutes?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    i have a problem with the fact that he's trying to teach kids that unicorns don't exist...they're kids! let them live in a world that full of fairies and unicorns and dragons if they want, its a right of passage deciding if you want to continue into adult life believing these things....it is brainwashing...
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Well you can't categorically prove that god didn't invent the universe in a state of evolution etc. as we can't go back in time. Not that I believe that any kind of divinity drew up a plan to create things, I'm just playing devil's advocate.

    Kermit does really have a point though, at least if we are talking about strong atheism. It's not the same as science, and picking bits of science even if they're generally accepted to support it doesn't prove the idea, as afaik you can only prove a theory wrong, you can't prove it right. So we prove atheism wrong by finding god, or prove religion wrong by.. proving there is no god - yet atheists sometimes bring up science to confirm their perspective despite the fact it's no different from someone of religion saying 'God must exist, since we are so beautiful and perfect, this can't be an accident of nature'.

    So really the fundamental underlying point is that we can neither prove nor disprove atheism or religion (unless of course we find God, or we prove categorically that God doesn't exist - good luck with that - much like trying to disprove the APT :(). Therefore that's why I think to an extent it's irrellevent what you believe, and we should just appreciate religion as an element of our culture like the arts or whatever.

    I guess if we define weak atheism as a skeptic of the literal facts of religious texts then I am a weak atheist, but I still think it's largely irrelevent as long as your beliefs aren't encroaching on your life i.e. you are going out and attacking people because their beliefs don't agree with yours. I think it's possible to have that seperation - I am quite a fan of marx but you don't see me going out slaughtering the bankers (rather in fact, I am hoping to be one :p, bringing it down from the inside I say...).

    TLDR; atheism =/= rational science.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    ShyBoy wrote: »
    Well you can't categorically prove that god didn't invent the universe in a state of evolution etc. as we can't go back in time. Not that I believe that any kind of divinity drew up a plan to create things, I'm just playing devil's advocate.
    I agree. That's why I stated that these theories don't pose a problem for the possibility of a god existing, just particular concepts of god, and of course, particular accounts of gods.
    ShyBoy wrote: »
    Kermit does really have a point though, at least if we are talking about strong atheism. It's not the same as science, and picking bits of science even if they're generally accepted to support it doesn't prove the idea, as afaik you can only prove a theory wrong, you can't prove it right. So we prove atheism wrong by finding god, or prove religion wrong by.. proving there is no god - yet atheists sometimes bring up science to confirm their perspective despite the fact it's no different from someone of religion saying 'God must exist, since we are so beautiful and perfect, this can't be an accident of nature'.

    Well you've got two options really. Either you can claim that if a god does exist, he would by definition be beyond our comprehension and beyond any concept of evidence. If you take that view, you can say no more. That's it. By definition, you've argued yourself out of being able to make an argument either way. The best you can say is that we don't know and can't know. Now that's a perfectly acceptable rational argument, but it essentially destroys any concept of god having a set of teachings attributed to him, or anything like that.

    The other option is that we can use evidence that exists in this universe to come up with a likelihood. Many religious and non-religious people have this view. But the point is that you can't take this view, and then when the debate gets difficult, revert to the first viewpoint.

    Now I'm of the opinion that there are concepts of god that fit the first option, and concepts of god that fit the second. A deistic god fits the first, whereas most religious concepts of a god fit the second. If you come up with a concept of a god that will always heal sick people, that will be disproved the second that someone dies of an illness. A god full stop cannot have evidence brought against him, but a god with certain attributes can. We can quite clearly look at a concept of a god that is both moral, interventionalist, cares about us and is omnipotent, and look around the world for evidence for and against the work of such a god, and come to a conclusion. I don't think there is any problem with that. If you read The God Delusion, Dawkins quite clearly states in the opening chapter that this is the type of god he believes he has evidence to disprove.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I like the way Kermit went from saying there is absolutely no evidence for evolution, to very little evidence. Which is it?

    As someone mentioned, a lot of people seem to misunderstand the scientific method. We can gather evidence for and against hypotheses, but ultimately we can only say with a degree of certainty the likelihood a hypothesis is accurate. Science doesn't claim to know the truth, however evidence-based logic can be used to predict real world situations, which is something religious explanations lack.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    ShyBoy wrote: »
    Well you can't categorically prove that god didn't invent the universe in a state of evolution etc. as we can't go back in time. Not that I believe that any kind of divinity drew up a plan to create things, I'm just playing devil's advocate.

    Atheists don’t have to prove the negative; the burden of proof isn’t on them. They simply reject the claims for the existence of deities made by religion. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence ... and all that.
    Kermit does really have a point though, at least if we are talking about strong atheism. It's not the same as science, and picking bits of science even if they're generally accepted to support it doesn't prove the idea, as afaik you can only prove a theory wrong, you can't prove it right. So we prove atheism wrong by finding god, or prove religion wrong by.. proving there is no god - yet atheists sometimes bring up science to confirm their perspective despite the fact it's no different from someone of religion saying 'God must exist, since we are so beautiful and perfect, this can't be an accident of nature'.

    Kermit’s parroting apologist nonsense. He clearly has little-to-no knowledge on the topic of evolution. Evolution’s a fact – just about the most solid fact in science. He’s also being a naughty one by trying to equate atheism and theism. He’s using terms such as ‘fundamentalist atheist’ in order to try level the playing field between people who take the bible literally, and people who reject the claims because there isn’t a scrap of evidence for most of it, especially the supernatural parts. It’s an old, tired and disingenuous trick. It’s akin to people use who the term ‘Islamophobia’.
    So really the fundamental underlying point is that we can neither prove nor disprove atheism or religion (unless of course we find God, or we prove categorically that God doesn't exist - good luck with that - much like trying to disprove the APT :(). Therefore that's why I think to an extent it's irrellevent what you believe, and we should just appreciate religion as an element of our culture like the arts or whatever.

    See above.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I'm quite happy to tolerate both christianity and atheism as I am of all religions as long as they don't force me to go to Church on Sunday or force my wife to stop doing so. But its mad not to see atheism as a mirror image of christianity - with its adherents ranging from wishy-washy liberals to mad fanatics. It may not be a religion, but many of its supporters seem to treat it as such...
    I am yet to encounter a single 'mad fanatic' atheist I must say. Who are they? What do they do or say to qualify as such?

    Because not even Dawkins himself has ever called for religion to be banned, or religious people to be persecuted, imprisoned or put to death.

    When he does, we can start calling him an atheist fanatic.

    Until then, the only fanatics I have ever heard of have always been of a religious persuasion, being the only people on either side of the debate who ever call for foreceful indoctrination, discrimination, persecution, imprisoment or worse. All that vocal atheists such as Dawkins do is denounce religion as absurd, cruel and damaging, and campaign for separation of church and state and less influence of religion in education. Does that make a person a 'fanatic'?

    .
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Aladdin wrote: »
    I am yet to encounter a single 'mad fanatic' atheist I must say. Who are they? What do they do or say to qualify as such?

    Just because you choose not to pay any notice to people who go OTT because it would diminish your position doesn't mean they don't exist. Christ, I've heard plenty of otherwise reasonable people argue that religious people should be euthanised to make the world a better place.

    Lets stop perpetuating the myth that only religious people can be bigots and idiots and that all atheists are just enlightened people trying to save the world, mmkay?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Have you really encountered such people? Are you sure they weren't internet keyboard warriors or pissed people at a party just using a bit of a hyperbole?

    However the existence of religious fundamentalists is very much a reality, as mankind has found to its cost throughout human history and their malign influence going on as strongly as ever today.

    I'm interested in hearing how those who like to describe Dawkins as an atheist fanatic or fundamentlist have come to such conclusion. The man might be arrogant and rude, but that is a million miles away from being a fanatic or a fundamentalist.

    It seems that simply being a vocal opponent of organised religion is enough to be labelled an extremist or fanatic. Though I guess we are slowly progressing. Only relatively recently that would have resulted in imprisoment and/or death in the Western World, and it is still happening today in many countries.
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