Should Dawkins be arrested for covering up atheist crimes

ISAW

Galvasean wrote: »

Hmm, its nice to see some of teh usual suspects have leaped to the author's defense (or rather to have apop at Dawkins). Four pages in and they have yet to establish exactly what Dawkins should be arrested for. Seriously, what crime?

Hmmm. Nice try but i don't think shifting the burden again is going to point out WHAT points made in the Huffington Post article are wrong. I haven't said that I agree with it by the way. that isn't my place. All i did was ask those who said it was "tripe" to show whjich parts were tripe and support their position with reference to evidence.

i don't know what you mean by a "usual suspect" or how you apply that to me. what do you mean? Nor did i claim that Dawkins should be arrested. He probably should be though if he tries to assault the Pope or any other head of state for that matter.

ColmDawson

ISAW wrote: »

He probably should be though if he tries to assault the Pope or any other head of state for that matter.

What has made you think he's going to try to assault the pope?

As for the article being tripe, The Mad Hatter's post above is a good explanation for why we're not all investing our time in dissecting it.

ISAW

Ickle Magoo wrote: »

None of that negates my point - you are just confirming exactly what I said.

"Atheism is the natural and inseparable part of Communism.".....shows that the communists themselves saw atheism as part of the regime.

I'm sorry ISAW, I have a lot of things to do and picking over the minutiae of an article that I struggle to find a single valid and rational point in, is just not my bag today,

I'm sorry but "I know this article is wrong but I haven't the time to show it" is just lazy scholarship. it is for those who make their position to support it!

and neither am I under any obligation to do so.

actually under the standards of scholarship and debate you ARE! If I write a paper on something and you just dismiss it saying "it is all wrong" you have to to show WHERE it is wrong!

Suffice to say it

that is the point It isn't sufficient just to say is riddled with fallacy! You have to show the fallacies!

falls into every single tired anti-dawkins/anti-atheist fallacy ever invoked and much as you clearly think the article is brilliant

Where anywhere did i claim the article was brilliant or even that I agreed with it? Please don't try to shift from a personal attack on the author to a personal attack on me! If you claim he is fallacious then care to show where?

- a quick search of this forum/google regarding any of the points made would highlight exactly why it is just so bad. :cool:

Again this is a fallacy of "shifting the burden" . You demonstrate double standards. Would you accept "a quick read of the Bible will show you where you are all wrong" ? No ? well then if others have to show where in the bible and demonstrate how that supports their point then why don't you have to?

Sam Vimes

ISAW wrote: »

i don't know what you mean by a "usual suspect" or how you apply that to me. what do you mean? Nor did i claim that Dawkins should be arrested. He probably should be though if he tries to assault the Pope or any other head of state for that matter.

Yes he should be arrested if he tries to assault the pope just as he should be arrested if he goes on a killing spree but who ever said that anything of the sort was going to happen?

Sam Vimes

ISAW, do you actually agree with the load of sh!te that guy was spouting or are you just being pedantic, insisting that we spell out something that all of us already know?

ISAW

ColmDawson wrote: »

What has made you think he's going to try to assault the pope?

Other than a verbal assualt i refer to the fact that If you lay hands on someone else it is an assault.
How is he going to "arrest" the Pope unless he can physically stop him?

As for the article being tripe, The Mad Hatter's post above is a good explanation for why we're not all investing our time in dissecting it.

But that post contains nothing1 No points made by anyone here! It only contains a reference to someone else.

I could just as easily say. http://www.biblegateway.com/ shows how wrong you are.
without quoting from the source and discussing how it supports YOUR position you are not making any point!

As for the coyne piece.
It asserts the huffington post piece is a "rant". evidence?
It misquoted the title.

It also is wrong when it begins "He doesn't know who Dawkins is" when what he clearly means is "he misquotes Dawkins' academic field"

He mentions academic fields being wrogn but it would seem the original poster showed that biologists or other scientists may or may not believe. In order to be a scientist it isn't a requirement to believe in scientism!

He mentions that Dawkins decried atheistic regimes. so what? so diod Stalin Hitler and Mao! they decried other atheists who didn't subscribe to their regime. Dawkins subscribes to scientism.

He mentions Fitzgerald disrespects Dawkings and uses insulting language. This is probably true bt the a much lesser degree then the language used her against Fitzgerald without any proper critique of his writing.

Dawkins by the way does subscribe to scientism and militant atheism and is himself ascerbic in this regard.

ISAW

Sam Vimes wrote: »

ISAW, do you actually agree with the load of sh!te that guy was spouting or are you just being pedantic, insisting that we spell out something that all of us already know?

First of all you haven't shown it to be "sh!te"! Which is one of my points!
Second what I BELIEVE is not at issue here so please don't being me personally into it!

Third - this being the "we all know" argument.
I remember some years ago I appeared on a TV show where i was lined up against all sorts of kooky believers paranormalists, UFO watchers and channelers, numerologists, astrologers, diviners etc. They used to resort to "we all know" a lot.

We don't all know! If you make a claim then it is for you to describe what you are claiming and support it with evidence!

The very nature of scientific philosophical or legal debate is that is it pedantic.

If someone claims the Moon landings were a hoax then I will ask then for evidence. If they post a load of arguments such as in the book "dark Moon" I will go off and read the book and post counter evidence! If I don't do they I can claim it is "tripe" and "we all know" it is wrong but until i actually show how I am correct I have not supported my claim.

By the way Phill Platt has done a fairly good job on the arguments in Dark Moon.

this is how it is done:
http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html
http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/apollohoax.html

nothing in this thread comes anywhere near that which is showing that "we all know the Apollo landings happened"

King Mob

ISAW wrote: »

Other than a verbal assualt i refer to the fact that If you lay hands on someone else it is an assault.
How is he going to "arrest" the Pope unless he can physically stop him?

Because he's not the one who's going to actually arrest the pope, nor did he ever say he was.

What he did say was that he supported the idea of bringing a legal case to the authorities to see if it was possible to have him charged while he was in England.

But then that wouldn't have made a good headline.

But you wouldn't be as so bold as to assume something from a headline, especially after saying something like this:

Did the original author write the headline? If you know anything about journalism you would know sub Editors write leading headlines. Where IN THE BODY of the work are claims made which you can argue against?

Sam Vimes

ISAW wrote: »

First of all you haven't shown it to be "sh!te"! Which is one of my points!
Second what I BELIEVE is not at issue here so please don't being me personally into it!

Third - this being the "we all know" argument.
I remember some years ago I appeared on a TV show where i was lined up against all sorts of kooky believers paranormalists, UFO watchers and channelers, numerologists, astrologers, diviners etc. They used to resort to "we all know" a lot.

We don't all know! If you make a claim then it is for you to describe what you are claiming and support it with evidence!

The very nature of scientific philosophical or legal debate is that is it pedantic.

If someone claims the Moon landings were a hoax then I will ask then for evidence. If they post a load of arguments such as in the book "dark Moon" I will go off and read the book and post counter evidence! If I don't do they I can claim it is "tripe" and "we all know" it is wrong but until i actually show how I am correct I have not supported my claim.

By the way Phill Platt has done a fairly good job on the arguments in Dark Moon.

this is how it is done:
http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html
http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/apollohoax.html

nothing in this thread comes anywhere near that which is showing that "we all know the Apollo landings happened"

What you believe is very much at issue. If you are reading the article and you can see just as much as we can that it's a load of crap then spelling something out to you that you already know is a waste of your time and ours. So do you agree with him or do you want us to convince you of something that you already agree with?

ColmDawson

ISAW wrote: »

Other than a verbal assualt i refer to the fact that If you lay hands on someone else it is an assault.
How is he going to "arrest" the Pope unless he can physically stop him?



But that post contains nothing1 No points made by anyone here! It only contains a reference to someone else.

I could just as easily say. http://www.biblegateway.com/ shows how wrong you are.
without quoting from the source and discussing how it supports YOUR position you are not making any point!

As for the coyne piece.
It asserts the huffington post piece is a "rant". evidence?
It misquoted the title.

It also is wrong when it begins "He doesn't know who Dawkins is" when what he clearly means is "he misquotes Dawkins' academic field"

He mentions academic fields being wrogn but it would seem the original poster showed that biologists or other scientists may or may not believe. In order to be a scientist it isn't a requirement to believe in scientism!

He mentions that Dawkins decried atheistic regimes. so what? so diod Stalin Hitler and Mao! they decried other atheists who didn't subscribe to their regime. Dawkins subscribes to scientism.

He mentions Fitzgerald disrespects Dawkings and uses insulting language. This is probably true bt the a much lesser degree then the language used her against Fitzgerald without any proper critique of his writing.

Dawkins by the way does subscribe to scientism and militant atheism and is himself ascerbic in this regard.

I'm amazed that you've been posting so much on this topic and yet actually seem to think Dawkins is going to slap is hand on the pope's shoulder and arrest him. The lawyers in question plan to ask the Crown Prosecution Service to initiate criminal proceedings against the pope.

You want 'evidence' to back up our assertion that the HP journalist is ranting? Sigh.

The title is not misquoted; the original title of the HP article was changed. This was stated in Coyne's article. You did read it, didn't you?

As for Dawkins being "ascerbic [sic]", why shouldn't he be?

ISAW

King Mob wrote: »

Because he's not the one who's going to actually arrest the pope, nor did he ever say anything he was.

I didn't claim he was the one only that if he was he himslef should be arrested.

In fact I accept Dawkins does not intend to lay a finger on the Pope He himslef stated:
Needless to say, I did NOT say "I will arrest Pope Benedict XVI" or anything so personally grandiloquent. You have to remember that The Sunday Times is a Murdoch newspaper, and that all newspapers follow the odd custom of entrusting headlines to a sub-editor, not the author of the article itself.

But then that wouldn't have made a good headline.

and Dawking would not get the publicity and you might not be commenting on it.

But you wouldn't be as so bold as to assume something from a headline, especially after saying something like this:

I don't have double standards! I claimed that IF Dawkings out a hand on the Pope he would and should be arrested.

ISAW

ColmDawson wrote: »

I'm amazed that you've been posting so much on this topic and yet actually seem to think Dawkins is going to slap is hand on the pope's shoulder and arrest him.

Im amazed you actually think I seem to think that!

Please READ what i wrote" if he tries to assault the Pope "

notice the work "IF"?

Nor do I say I think Dawkins intends to assault any other head of state! Just that if he does he will be arrested!

King Mob

ISAW wrote: »

I didn't claim he was the one only that if he was he himslef should be arrested.

In fact I accept Dawkins does not intend to lay a finger on the Pope He himslef stated:
Needless to say, I did NOT say "I will arrest Pope Benedict XVI" or anything so personally grandiloquent. You have to remember that The Sunday Times is a Murdoch newspaper, and that all newspapers follow the odd custom of entrusting headlines to a sub-editor, not the author of the article itself.

That's not true at all. You said in response to:

Originally Posted by ColmDawson View Post
What has made you think he's going to try to assault the pope?

Other than a verbal assualt i refer to the fact that If you lay hands on someone else it is an assault.
How is he going to "arrest" the Pope unless he can physically stop him?

So if you knew that Dawkins had no intention of actually physically arresting the Pope, why where you asking this question?

ISAW wrote: »

and Dawking would not get the publicity and you might not be commenting on it.

Just like that bastard who wrote the Huffington Post article!
How dare people express opinions and have them appear in News media!

But are you seriously suggesting that Dawkins asked the newspapers to run with those headlines?

ISAW wrote: »

I don't have double standards!

Well I'm see a lot of you own posts used against you and a lot of backtracking....

ISAW wrote: »

I claimed that IF Dawkings out a hand on the Pope he would and should be arrested.

And I'm sure if he flashed his junk at the Pope he'd be arrested as well.
What's your point?

robindch

Folks, this conversation is going nowhere -- please (collectively) discuss something or pop out for a walk in the sunshine.

Waking-Dreams

First of all you haven't shown it to be "sh!te"! Which is one of my points!

You've been given a link which you responded:

It isn't for me to go through Coynes points line by line it is for YOU to do it! Stop shifting the burden to me!

That's where I know you just love a good argument for the sake of it. Why would someone repost something here when it has been already stated elsewhere? Do you seriously need to be spoon-fed?

Not only has the original HP article been changed and edited because of its obvious fallacies, they suspended comments on the site. Hmmmm... What for?

Here's the original piece of tripe:

http://politics.ifoday.com/?p=9091

“You will not see him spouting off so vociferously about Mohammed. He is too cowardly for that. . .”

And apparently, Mr. Fitzgerald is too cowardly to stand by what he originally said, and removed various parts of the text after the inevitable backlash. Silly boy.

I can't believe I wasted time reading it to be honest. It's like he tried for a perfect stupidity score, going for every stupid cliche that's worth some stupidity points. The excessive name dropping, the misquoting, the Nazis, the commies, the ad-hominems, the "Dawkins is a fundamentalist" jive; he didn't miss a single one.

And please don't try and bait me into arguing with you. Your incessant desire to engage with others here, prompting them to go through some hack's rant, "line by line" is an absurd waste of time. Though I suspect you're getting a secondary emotional pay-off from it. Have a read of "Meeting The Shadow" for a look into that field of psychology.

What's the evidence for your pendantic behaviour you say? Well, when you post things like:

Where anywhere did I claim the article was brilliant or even that I agreed with it? Please don't try to shift from a personal attack on the author to a personal attack on me! If you claim he is fallacious then care to show where?

it does lead me to reason that you love an intellectual battle with others because it makes you feel good about yourself.

The article has been exposed elsewhere online. Why would others waste time typing out their own personalised rebuttal if someone else (who they agree with) has already done so? Everyone arrives at the same conclusion.

Do you have to put your own stamp on every argument, every single time an issue is discussed? Alot of your arguments are orginally, not your own, but those of others. How do I know this? Because alot of what people say everyday, is not originally their own point of view. That's life.

Take the moderator's advice and go for a nice stroll. That always cheers me up.

ISAW

King Mob wrote: »

That's not true at all.

Oh but it is true!

You said in response to:

the reference to this "response" you seem to have left out.
Here let me help you it is : http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=65471878&postcount=63

Which is a query from ColmDawson on the following post by me:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=65471794&postcount=62

I which i say: Nor did i claim that Dawkins should be arrested. He probably should be though if he tries to assault the Pope or any other head of state for that matter.


Note the word "If". I don';t say he should be arrested because he intends to arrest the Pope ., just that IF he does he should be.
If you think i am lying then please say so.

I hope that clears things up and clarifies and difficulties you might be having.

If you think that i implied that i believe that Dawkins intends to assault the Pope then I wholeheartedly withdraw any such assertion which was not intended or implied to my knowledge.

Happy now?

So if you knew that Dawkins had no intention of actually physically arresting the Pope, why where you asking this question?

Dealt with above

Just like that bastard who wrote the Huffington Post article!
How dare people express opinions and have them appear in News media!

nope! because the HP article was in reply to Dawking call for arrest of the Pope.

But are you seriously suggesting that Dawkins asked the newspapers to run with those headlines?

no. Im suggesting that fitzgerald might have asked the HP not to run with their headline.

Well I'm see a lot of you own posts used against you and a lot of backtracking....

Really? i don't! CVare to list all this backtracking?

Might it be anything to do weith the unreferenced message above from me which predated the comment on arrests containing the word "if" Dawkings intended?

And I'm sure if he flashed his junk at the Pope he'd be arrested as well.
What's your point?

QED

Zombrex

What has made you think he's going to try to assault the pope?

How is he going to "arrest" the Pope unless he can physically stop him?

Notice what you were actually asked, what makes you think he is going to try and assault the Pope, and notice how you answered it, with an explanation, giving the impression that the thing that makes you think he is going to try and assault the Pope is that he is going to try and physically arrest him.

If you wanted to be clear that you didn't think he was going to assault the Pope the answer to the original question should have been along the lines of "Nothing has made me think this because I don't think this"

Whether or not that was your intention by answering with an explanation to this question you gave the impression you did believe he was going to arrest the Pope, you can see where the confusion was I hope.

Moving on ...

ISAW

Waking-Dreams wrote: »

Y. Why would someone repost something here when it has been already stated elsewhere? Do you seriously need to be spoon-fed?

It is called "citation". It shows you have a point to make and you use porior work to support the point being made.

Saying "that is tripe2 isn't really making a point!

SAying "that is tripe because of reasons A B and C. REason A is supported by citation A B by citation B etc."
IS making a point.

Not only has the original HP article been changed and edited

WHAT evidence do you have for this? All anyone has shown so far is that a full stop was changed to a question mark!

because of its obvious fallacies, they suspended comments on the site.

What evidence do you have it was changed to remove fallacies or that comments were suspended because of fallacie4s. In the past Dawkins own web page has had comments suspended as far as I know. Id that evidence Dawkins page is full of fallacies?

http://politics.ifoday.com/?p=9091

“You will not see him spouting off so vociferously about Mohammed. He is too cowardly for that. . .”

And apparently, Mr. Fitzgerald is too cowardly to stand by what he originally said, and removed various parts of the text after the inevitable backlash. Silly boy.

I have often submitted stuff for publication only to change it like this. It may well be he believed Dawkins never complained about Islam and then the editor said either "maybe he did have you checked?" or showed Fitzgerald where Dawkins had criticised Islam.

I can't believe I wasted time reading it to be honest. It's like he tried for a perfect stupidity score, going for every stupid cliche that's worth some stupidity points. The excessive name dropping, the misquoting, the Nazis, the commies, the ad-hominems, the "Dawkins is a fundamentalist" jive; he didn't miss a single one.

And you fail to supply a coherently supported argument for those assertions.

And please don't try and bait me into arguing with you. Your incessant desire to engage with others here, prompting them to go through some hack's rant, "line by line" is an absurd waste of time.

Which only proves the point that where you fail to go through the points made whereas I will be prepared to support my points by reference to the actual material and to other supporting citation.

What's the evidence for your pendantic behaviour you say? Well, when you post things like:
it does lead me to reason that you love an intellectual battle with others because it makes you feel good about yourself.

You can reason as you wich. Just SUPPORT your opinions if you want to establish them!

The article has been exposed elsewhere online.

The Moon landings were shown to be a hoax elsewhere too!

Why would others waste time typing out their own personalised rebuttal if someone else (who they agree with) has already done so?

It is called "developing the argument" just harping someone else's work isn't getting anywhere.

And if you are only going to post "like he said" and "me too" then you would be better no posting at all.

Everyone arrives at the same conclusion.

Everyone who agrees with you has! That does not mean everyone has! And it does not mean it must be true since you provide no evidence! Do you always relu on the "wisdom of crowds"? LOL. If everybody says slavery should be reintroduced or the Jews should be incarcerated would you think that is right too?

Do you have to put your own stamp on every argument, every single time an issue is discussed? Alot of your arguments are orginally, not your own, but those of others. How do I know this? Because alot of what people say everyday, is not originally their own point of view. That's life.

so what? If you are accusing me of plagiarism then you had better say so.

King Mob

ISAW wrote: »

Oh but it is true!

the reference to this "response" you seem to have left out.
Here let me help you it is : http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=65471878&postcount=63

Which is a query from ColmDawson on the following post by me:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=65471794&postcount=62

I did reference that post actually.

ISAW wrote: »

I which i say: Nor did i claim that Dawkins should be arrested. He probably should be though if he tries to assault the Pope or any other head of state for that matter.

And again, what leads you to believe that he intends or ever intended to go near the Pope?

ISAW wrote: »

Note the word "If". I don';t say he should be arrested because he intends to arrest the Pope ., just that IF he does he should be.
If you think i am lying then please say so.

Then why when asked: "What makes you think that Dawkins is going to assult the pope" you reply with "How is he going to "arrest" the Pope unless he can physically stop him?" when you claim to know that this was never his intention?

ISAW wrote: »

Dealt with above

No it wasn't at all.

ISAW wrote: »

nope! because the HP article was in reply to Dawking call for arrest of the Pope.

And if you actually read any of the articles on Dawkins call to arrest the Pope, you'll find that he was approached for comment.

I fail to see how the article can be construed as an attempt at publicity by Dawkins. Unless of course someone only read the head line...

ISAW wrote: »

no. Im suggesting that fitzgerald might have asked the HP not to run with their headline.

And remove certain other bits....

ISAW wrote: »

Really? i don't! CVare to list all this backtracking?

Sure.
Aside from the post above.
You backtracked on the fact the article said that Dawkins should be arrested.
You backtracked on your agreement with the article (which you've avoided clarifying.)
You backtracked on the subject of Einstein's beliefs.

ISAW wrote: »

QED

So Dawkins would be arrested for a crime he has no intention of doing, or given any indication of doing.
So what has it to do with the article?

What crimes could he be arrested for?
Or is the article, as we've shown, is utter crap?

ISAW

Wicknight wrote: »

[

If you wanted to be clear that you didn't think he was going to assault the Pope the answer to the original question should have been along the lines of "Nothing has made me think this because I don't think this"

I already showed the link the the earlier message but Nothing has made me think this because I don't think this


Happy now?

ISAW

King Mob wrote: »

I did reference that post actually.

No you didnt you quoted the words:

Originally Posted by ColmDawson View Post
What has made you think he's going to try to assault the pope?

the "view post" words do not contain a reference!

King Mob

ISAW wrote: »

No you didnt you quoted the words:


the "view post" words do not contain a reference!

Wow, seriously?

Very pedantic indeed.
And it certainly refutes my other points...

Zombrex

ISAW wrote: »

I already showed the link the the earlier message but Nothing has made me think this because I don't think this


Happy now?

Yes.

Your replies above implied that you never claimed this and that you are being misquoted, which is understandable if it was a mistake (you may not realise you had if it wasn't your intention to originally, we have all been there) but you did give the impression that you believed Dawkins was actually going to arrest the Pope and without clarifying that this is just going to go on and on, you saying you didn't they saying you did.

Hopefully we can now all put this traumatic experience behind us :pac:

Ickle Magoo

ISAW wrote: »

It is called "citation". It shows you have a point to make and you use porior work to support the point being made.

Saying "that is tripe2 isn't really making a point!

This is the A&A forum, there isn't any citations required because anyone who has posted here for any length of time would have come across most, if not all, of the assertions made in the article and rubbished them more times than they care to remember. When you have seen the same tired line trotted out 100 times and are in a forum dedicated to others who have done likewise then "tripe" is all that is needed to make the point - what is meant & why is well understood. :cool:

robindch

Waking-Dreams wrote: »

I can't believe I wasted time reading it to be honest.

ISAW wrote: »

Happy now?

Wicknight wrote: »

Moving on ...

Folks -- is it the full moon today, or were we all on the lash last night and suffering this afternoon?

Next person to post about what they happen to think that they themselves, or anybody else, may or may not have posted in a previous message or is likely to post in a future one, will have their post deleted and a rotten banana rubbed into their hair.

King Mob

So lets see.

It's been shown that the article cannot actually show anything that Dawkins could possibly be arrested for.

It's been shown that even it's true that Dawkins doesn't decry the crimes of Polpot and friends (and it's not true) that makes him as guilty of a "cover up" as Rory Fitzgerald is for not mentioning the persecution of non believers in the 15th century.

It's been shown time and time again that the whole "Communists where atheists-communism bad - therefore atheism bad" argument is nonsense.

It's been shown that Einstein wasn't as big as a believe as that article pretends he is.

It's been shown that the author has rather double standards when it comes to is and isn't qualified to comment on the existence of God. One paragraph decrying Dawkins as unqualified cause he was just a professor while in the next praising Einstein as the "Most important scientist ever" and therefore someone qualified.

I'm sure i'm leaving stuff out as well.

So what points of any merit are actually made in the article?

Dr. Loon

Well, that was one of the most idiotic arguments I've ever witnessed. Remarkable.

The Mad Hatter

King Mob wrote: »

I'm sure i'm leaving stuff out as well.

The fact that Dawkins is neither a microbiologist nor a geneticist, as alleged by the writer?

Seriously? Six pages of this shit?

aidan24326

1fahy4 wrote: »

I couldn't keep reading after the writer dismissed genetics as an "arcane" field, and questioned Dawkins' authority to comment on religious matters because he's a geneticist. Ugh.

In any case Dawkins is not a geneticist, his specialist area is ethology, the study of animal behaviour.

ISAW wrote: »

the bit about Einstein is applicable as well: he was a believer who respected religious belief.

Einstein was often quite ambiguous about stuff like that. But really who cares anyway? What does it matter what Einstein believed?

all I have seen so far is personal attack on the author and scant actual counter evidence or citation.

The argument he makes is so bad there's not much to counter really.

fergalr

Looks like some very polar positions on this thread.

There's a good few posters seemingly wanting to do a hatchet job on the author of that piece because he attacks Dawkins.
Well, that attitude is sort of playing into the authors hands, isn't it?

The piece is honestly pretty even for much of it. Much more so than I expected from some posts here?

Critics have come on here and asked for posters to rebut the arguments made in the piece, and have been told its nonsense and that its too stupid to even counter. You may as well just say something is too heretical to even counter, with that attitude.

So here's my quick take on the article, its good and its bad, and some vague attempts to rebut some of its claims.


Headline:
Sensationalist and stupid copy. Possibly not written by the author, but either way, bearing little resemblance to the article, and clearly meant to raise a point of debate, rather than as an actual suggestion.

First paragraph:
Says Dawkins is trying to discredit religion, and have the pope arrested.

Seems factually correct to me.


2nd paragraph:
Author takes a very reasonable and open position that he doesn't vilify atheists, and says good things about them. Already this author is coming across more reasonable than many.

3rd paragraph:

Dawkins, however, often seems to have only contempt for the majority of human kind who, unlike him, do believe in the spiritual.

Bit of a harsh way of putting it, but fairly true - there's lots of public contempt of religion and the religious, from Dawkins.

His selective campaigning about political issues makes me wonder: is he really an objective seeker of truth, or is he someone who just wants to undermine Judaeo-Christian principles?

Author raises an interesting point. Contends that Dawkins campaigns selectively. Raises the issue of whether dawkins is mainly out to undermine religion. No argument yet, but only introducing the point.

Stuff about Einstein and how, No! He really did believe!

Yeah, who knows what he thought, inside his head. He's dead now and we can't ask him. He mightn't even tell us the truth.

People argue one way with one set of quotes, and then the other way with a different set.
1) It'd be nice if Einstein was going to make pronouncements on this sort of thing if he could have been more consistent and less ambiguous.

2) Responding to this sort of argument by holding up a different set of quotes only dignifies the stupid appeal to authority. Who cares, really, what Einstein personally thought about god. The guy was a (very good) physicist and thats what he's remembered for.

One logical flaw might be that its a little contradictory of the author to knock Dawkins for discussing things outside his area of speciality, but then use Einstein - also talking outside his field - to argue for the existence of god.
You either think that someone skilled in an arcane field should stick to that field, or you don't.

Richard Dawkins has become a sort of Messiah for some atheists.

I reckon this is a fair point. Realise that its not a particularly strong statement. 'sort of Messiah' is pretty broad, and some atheists doesn't necessarily mean a lot of people. I reckon there's a lot of people who look up to Dawkins a lot, to the extent where they think he has some sort of monopoly on the truth.


The author next points out there are other biologists that believe in god.
Fair enough, we are still in the dubious 'appeal to authority' area here - but maybe its fair game for the author of an article to say stuff like that, considering that a lot of Dawkins argument is that intelligence people, and good scientists, don't believe in god, and that religion is incompatible with science.


The author writes:

The debate about the reality of the spiritual is fascinating and is of profound importance to human kind,

This is hard to argue with.

but Dawkins increasingly only brings to it noise and hatred.

I reckon this sentence a bit strong. Its someone writing an article, trying to string flowing sentences together, and thus not to be taken completely literally; maybe it isn't exactly intended to be a factual claim - but its still a bit strong. Maybe if he removed the 'only', it might be fairer.

'Increasingly' and 'only' might not even make sense used together there.

Dawkins is right to be angry about the awful cover up of child abuse in the Catholic Church, but he seems to have a tendency himself to be very selective in the issues he shouts about, and those he remains silent about. In that sense, he can be seen to hush up the many horrendous crimes committed by atheist ideologues in the 20th century.

Hmm - so, this is where the headline is coming from.
I mean, theres a certain logic to this. If you say that big crimes were committed only by the religious, then by implication, you deny the crimes committed by the non religious.

I'm not sure Dawkins takes that strong of a stance (anyone?). But some people do in the surrounding discourse. It is fair to say that Dawkins does tend to emphasise crimes committed in the name of religion, and does argue that religion causes a lot of the big crimes against humanity. The author is raising an interesting point here - its not right to just cherrypick crimes committed by the religious and argue that religion causes much of the evil in the world; if you make an argument like this, you have to consider the crimes by secular societies too.

But its the next paragraph thats key, and perhaps where things fall apart.

Is it really meaningful to talk about 'atheistic ideologies' as a whole, and then look at what they resulted in? Well, a religious person might say its not meaningful to consider religious ideologies as a whole either, and might say that they too are as diverse as the belief systems of non believers.


I reckon that if you are going to attack religious ideologies as a block, because of the crimes that resulted in societies that followed them, then you have to look and see what happened in the societies that didn't follow them too. Its hard to argue that religion causes X if X is present just as much in non religious societies too.
Its thus reasonable for the author to explore the crimes of non religious societies, as a response to Dawkins claims...

Many now see Dawkins as something of a narrow-minded fundamentalist himself, increasingly redolent of a man with no sense of smell going around shrieking to everyone that their sense of smell is a delusion.

Probably true. He isn't a popular guy in some circles.
Although really, who cares what 'many' see? Really, this is just weaselwords... who are these 'many'?
Many also think Dawkin is the best thing since sliced bread.

Perhaps Dawkins imagines that by promoting his grim personal philosophy as the ultimate truth, and by viciously attacking ancient moral systems upon which Western Civilization is founded, he will bring about some sort of atheist utopia.

Maybe he does think that. Its an interesting question - whats his goal?

He seeks to magnify wrongs done by religions, and to breeze over the immense horrors brought about by some atheist belief systems. Yet we have seen what atheist utopias can look like.

Erm - its a bit disingenuous of the author here to refer to stalinism and cambodia as atheist utopias. Clearly, they weren't utopias, and nor are they (probably) the desired societies of modern day atheists.
This would be a bit like telling a moderate modern day christian that a hard line sharia law state was the religious utopia.

Next paragraph:
More appeals to authority. Getting boring.

Few paragraphs on atheists being bred out. Also boring. I mean, if its a question of breeding, and if religiousParent=>religiousChild, then were did all the current atheists - 'dawkins followers', as it were - come from? Its just a boringly bizarre few paragraphs.

Some of the new and militant atheists appear to have a lot in common with the more fanatical religious fundamentalists in that both are marinated in fear and hate, posses an iron certainty that they alone are right, and seek only to mock and deride those who think differently to themselves. These people create a lot of noise, and do not contribute meaningfully to a most fascinating debate about our universe and our place in it.

This is a harsh paragraph. But it might well be true. There are (now?) loads of unthinking people on all sides of the debate.

The picture painted by Eric Kaufmann of future society divided clamorously between fundamentalist atheists and dogmatically religious people is not pretty. Perhaps all sides ought to ponder Hamlet's phrase, "there are more things on heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophies." For as soon as we begin to think that we have all the answers, curiosity and wonder dry up.

Following very reasonable paragraphs pointing out that tolerance is important and that no one has all the answers

Its these last few paragraphs that makes me suspicious of those posters here slating the author. These are very even paragraphs - he's clearly not the most dogmatic guy in the world. Why is he getting such an incredibly tough going over here?

Did people not read that far?
Or was it the earlier stuff that got the teeth out?