Going to see Richard Dawkins at Berkeley today

[Taverner]

At least, if it doesn't fill up - tix are first come first served

[Rabrrrrrr]

1. Take a great big "JOHN 3:16" sign!

:rofl:

[theredpen]

3. And wear a rainbow fright wig!

[tigereye]

15. aha

:rofl:

good one..

[GreenPartyVoter]

16. *snarf* You are such a hoot!

[Heidi]

2. I like Dawkins, and I'd like him a lot better if he wouldn't take the same condescending tone

regarding science and atheism that Christian extremists take about creationism and morality. I would love to have dinner with Dawkins, buy him a beer, and maybe discuss with him more effective means of changing people's minds. Being intelligent and well-educated isn't a license to be mean-spirited; in fact, it's the very thing that Christian extremists use to support their "intellectual elite" arguments against us liberals. x(

[Taverner]

4. I don't really think he's condecscending

We just come from a society which gets all googly-eyed about faith and belief, so when someone comes along to challenge it, we consider that condescending. People probably said the same thing about Galileo.

[Heidi]

5. He makes fun of people for their religious beliefs.

I realize that Christian extremists do this, too, but they're nuts. Dawkins doesn't have that excuse.

[Taverner]

6. It's not making fun when you point out the obvious absurdities

[Heidi]

7. Have you seen "The Root of All Evil"?

When you laugh at people and roll your eyes, that is both condescending and making fun. Obviously, much of what the religious right believes is pure fiction, but there is absolutely no need to be mean-spirited. That approach only underscores what the religious right believes about us non-believers, and it contributes nothing to enlightenment.

As I've said, I very much like Richard Dawkins and am like-minded with regard to the harm religious extremism can do, but there is no need to be mean-spirited. Further, I find it mean-spirited to beat up the masses or attempt to deny them their opiate when we can't assure them of rational expectations: food, shelter, medical care and any sort of healthy future.

People have all sorts of dependencies to alleviate their suffering. Some people have drugs. Some have money. Some have co-Dependant relationships. Some have alcohol. Some have religion. Until we can do better at meeting people's basic needs, it's cruel to browbeat them about irrational dependencies.

That's all I'm sayin'.

[Taverner]

9. I agree with you in concept

And I do see going after the Religious Modernists and Humanists as a bad idea; they will eventually grow out of it.

But I do think we freethinkers need to fight back - they declared war on us , not vice versa.

[Heidi]

11. Indifference is much more effective than hatred.

That's a universal truth, by the way.

[laconicsax]

22. Dawkins actually makes a couple very good points on this.

The first I'll just quote from The Devil's Chaplain.

The reason organized religion merits outright hostility is that, unlike belief in Russell's teapot, religion is powerful, influential, tax-exempt and systematically passed on to children too young to defend themselves. Children are not compelled to spend their formative years memorizing loony books about teapots. Government-subsidized schools don't exclude children whose parents prefer the wrong shape of teapot. Teapot-believers don't stone teapot-unbelievers, teapot-apostates, teapot-heretics and teapot-blasphemers to death. Mothers don't warn their sons off marrying teapot-shiksas whose parents believe in three teapots rather than one. People who put the milk in first don't kneecap those who put the tea in first.

The second, in The God Delusion, that I'll try to summarize without mangling it too bad, centers on the idea that teaching children the idea that faith is a virtue, blind faith the highest of all, plants the seeds out of which fanaticism grows. People who commit heinous acts of violence in the name of whatever god they believe in do so because they were taught, typically from very nice, moderate teachers, that serving their god is the highest duty and that they will be rewarded in heaven for their service--especially if they themselves give their life in the process. Under this guise, the ends will always justify the means--something which has a tendency to lead to abhorrent behavior.

It is through the idea that by dying for your god, one becomes a martyr and is richly rewarded in the afterlife that suicide bombings become palatable. It is though the idea that service to God supersedes all else that the murder of non-believers, heretics, and sinners is not only justified, but carried out with total indifference to whatever 'earthly' penalty may be suffered as a result. This may have actually been shorter had I just excerpted the whole chapter summary I took it from.

[Deep13]

14. His central point is that we do not owe any more deference to religious ideas...

...than we do for any other ideas. He thinks (and I agree) that religion gets a free pass because of this undeserved deference.

[alarimer]

21. I agree 100% with him.

Religion deserves NO deference. So what if he hurts the feelings of people who believe nonsense. If their belief is so strong, why are they so threatened by Dawkins and others? Is it because they know, somewhere inside that he is right? That there is no real defending irrational beliefs?

We pander to them, we tiptoe around them. I am frankly sick of it. Look what excessive religiosity has done to this country. It brought down a few buildings when some religious wackos decided to fly planes into them and subsequently allowed an abortion of an administration to get away with murder.

It has also created any number of homegrown terrorists.

Anyway, just which religious beliefs am I supposed to respect anyway? Fred Phelps? Pat Robertson? Joel Osteen? Yours? Are some more deserving of respect than others? Catholic beliefs but not Muslim? Where do you draw the line? Am I supposed to respect George W. Bush's religious beliefs even though he is an evil bastard?

[laconicsax]

23. As Daniel Dennett has said,

"There's no polite way to say to somebody do you realize you've wasted your life? Do you realize that you've just devoted all your efforts and all your goods to the glorification of something which is just a myth? Or have you ever considered - even if you say have you even considered the possibility that maybe you've wasted your life on this? There's no inoffensive way of saying that. But we do have to say it, because they should jolly well consider it. Same as we do about our own lives."

link

[tigereye]

17. there's a certain level of condescension that goes with his argument

and it's really unnecessary and makes him look petty.

:hi:

[GirlinContempt]

18. Great post.

[CreekDog]

8. I'm not crossing the Bay Bridge to see him

hell (oops, he says that doesn't exist)...heck no!

:rofl:

[no name no slogan]

10. Cool! I loved him on "Hogan's Heroes" and "Family Feud"

wait, what?

[khashka]

12. Cool!

Really wanna get his hackles up? Ask him about his wife - the lovely Lalla Ward. (Actually, the Honourable Lady Sarah Ward).


Or you could pretend to be a fundamentalist - that'll have him foaming at the mouth.


Khash.

[LeftyMom]

13. Oooh, I didn't hear he'd be out here.

I don't have a sitter today or I'd go. :(

[Taverner]

19. I didn't go :(

Life came up - oh well.

I think the show Six Feet Under summed it up best when they said "There's never going to be a perfect time for anything - life just throws stuff at you and you deal with it as it happens."

[LynzM]

20. Sweet!

Hope you got to go! :bounce: