Dawkins and the perception of his current---

[Sibling Chatty]

We don't get the program here, just the reportage, and the clips of him ranting at a Rabbi that he's ruining the intellect of these children by telling them lies.

I have no problems with him doing face to face discussions with people, and as I understand, he didn't go off an Haggard until Haggard went off. I have no problems with his disagreeing with that which people of faith believe.

I have a problem with him, or with any person, presuming to tell the rest of the world HOW to believe, or that their beliefs are WRONG. He's not 'just some crank', he's a well-known, respected scientist, a person supposedly given to ration and reason.

Supposedly, he should know better.

Well, maybe it's time for the poor abused athiests to get to be assholes, just like Fallwell and that bunch of manipulitive cretins.

[Griffin NoName]

We don't get the program here, just the reportage, and the clips of him ranting at a Rabbi that he's ruining the intellect of these children by telling them lies.

Which Rabbi?  I can think of a few that might give good cause.... not that it would excuse ranting 

[beagle]

The C4 Liddle program - The Trouble with Atheism - seemed totally biased to me.
...
Aside from that, it just seemed to me to be a kick the atheists trip. A carefully crafted hype.
...

To be fair, I think it was intended to be biased, a reaction to the Miller/Dawkins programs. However it seemed pretty lightweight.

First of all it proposed atheists generally rant, but only managed to dredge up one tiny internet TV channel and one  eccentric "American atheist Messiah" who wore a billboard and accosted churchgoers with leaflets. There must be ten thousand religious leafleteers and canvassers for every one atheist.

Secondly it went to great lengths to set up Darwin's "Origin" as the "Bible" of atheism, and was delighted to find one reputable scientist who could show it may be incomplete. Not wrong, incomplete.  He clearly chose to ignore or minimize, that there were atheists a rather long time before Darwin, and that many become atheists without understanding biology at all. There are plenty of alternate routes, such as the conflicting diversity of religions, the randomness of events, the implausibility or self-contradictory nature of religious texts and so on.

His "Fine tuned physical constants" theory came close to Intelligent Design for physics, but he steered well clear of the "why is the universe so over-engineered for one small chosen people" question.

I agree about the carefully crafted part. It's always suspicious when there are so many cuts in interviews. It may be to do with TV addressing short attention spans, but it's often because the interviewer came off worst in the discussion, and later cherry-picked his/her finest moments.

To me he seemed on slightly more confident ground with his "look what the atheist regimes did" line of attack, but again it was a very lighweight compared to say, Brownowski's "Knowledge or Certainty", where he identified dogma as the common evil:

It is said that science will dehumanise people and turn them into numbers. That is false - tragically false. Look for yourself. This is the concentration camp and crematorium at Auschwitz. This is where people were turned into numbers. Into this pond were flushed the ashes of four million people. And that was not done by gas. It was done by arrogance. It was done by dogma. It was done by ignorance. When people believe that they have absolute knowledge, with no test in reality - this is how they behave. This is what men do when they aspire to the knowledge of gods.

Liddle's program reminded me a bit of Cristina Odone's one broadcast last year. It put forward the proposition that societies can go off the rails without religion. But many have gone off the rails with it, or with its compliance and tacit or fervent approval. It also didn't address the flip side of the coin. Which religion is right? Is it better to believe in anything than nothing, however unproven? I think it behooves anyone laying into atheists on TV to say which religion is right and if/why the others are wrong or incomplete or less good.

[The Meromorph]

Having defended him (slightly), I also want to say that I do think he ought to follow our principles of discussion, and, as a moderator, I would be giving him a serious warning...

[Griffin NoName]

I'd love to read the warning Quasi 

It'd be interesting to know exactly how/why he got to take this line in the way he did. I'd love to have him on the counselling couch and help delve into his unconscious !

Re. Liddle - and Odone ref. - Liddle did go down that route proving that society without religion is a disaster citing Stalin, Eastern Bloc communism, bla'de'bla, kills millions. So convincing with a small sample size. 

The long frequent shots of Liddle looking thoughtful were helpful too.

[Sibling Chatty]

I think that society without religion is viable. Society without a conscience isn't. (See also: Dick Cheney, Geo. W. Bush, et al)

[beagle]

It'd be interesting to know exactly how/why he got to take this line in the way he did. I'd love to have him on the counselling couch and help delve into his unconscious !


Re. Liddle - and Odone ref. - Liddle did go down that route proving that society without religion is a disaster citing Stalin, Eastern Bloc communism, bla'de'bla, kills millions. So convincing with a small sample size. 

I'm not sure it would take too much delving. It was all pretty standard stuff, even repeating the cliche that the word "atheism" showed it was a negative thing. If he'd paid any attention (or hadn't ignored) the previous atheist programs he'd have known many prefer the term posttheist, but aren't hung up about it.

I reckon you should investigate Odone first. Although a Catholic she obviously admired the strict morality of the Muslims, so it would be interesting to know if it is God, or the values of the 1950s she really wants.

The long frequent shots of Liddle looking thoughtful were helpful too.

But inadequate. It would have taken the pipe and leather patched tweed jacket to even start to make him look like an intellectual peer of the various bods he was interviewing.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

I think that society without religion is viable. Society without a conscience isn't. (See also: Dick Cheney, Geo. W. Bush, et al)

*rumble*

So far, historically-speaking, humans have come up with a number of philosophies that instill conscience into individuals.

These various methodologies have been more or less successful, with notable failures (the afore mentioned GHWB, et al).

By far, the largest (by participation) seems to be religiously based philosophies. Non-religious ones seem to require more work on the part of the individual, in order to comply with the moral standard as called for by the method.

It seems that "carrot and stick" work very well, in helping people act in a moral fashion.  Fear and Guilt are also very powerful tools, and Religion seems best poised to make use of these two.

What I'm saying, I suppose, is that humans have utilized various forms of religion quite successfully, in helping themselves (more or less) remain a viable community of folk.

The problem, it seems, is that once a community establishes itself, it tends to evolve or drift over the generations - and eventually, it's enough different from it's parent-culture idea, that there is conflict.

Where am I going with this? I'm not really sure - except to say that I think Religion still has a valuable role to play in human society -- so far.

And, it may always have a valuable role to play - who knows what tomorrow's culture will be like?

[Griffin NoName]

The long frequent shots of Liddle looking thoughtful were helpful too.

But inadequate. It would have taken the pipe and leather patched tweed jacket to even start to make him look like an intellectual peer of the various bods he was interviewing.

Off topic.... it looked like makeup had sprinkled extra grey in his hair. Maybe they didn't have any other props to hand.

I'm sure a non-religious society is viable. We almost have one in the UK these days. The legal system is the theoretical keeper of morality; they just need to bring back hanging and shipping criminals off to the colonies..... 

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

One point that I haven't seen is related to what can be called a strong or fundamental skepticism. If you look carefully, the arguments against trivial supernatural events (ghosts, ufos, the yeti, etc, etc) can be made against the non trivial supernatural (aka god(s)/religion). Just remember how the I'D case in Dover was treated.

Dawkins fundamental(ist?) approach doesn't  surprise me much, because it is in line with the same kind of skepticism.

Note: I am not equating religious belief with the trivial supernatural, only that the same arguments can be used. Personally I consider myself as an open minded skeptic and on the same token I call myself agnostic.

[Bluenose]

I am currently reading The God Delusion, and I will report back later when I'm finished.  However, I think that Dawkins has been, possibly deliberately, taken out of context and made out to be saying things in a way that he is not.

First he is not a fundamentalist atheist as has been stated.  He in fact uses a 7 point scale to describe various levels of theistic belief.  1 is certain knowledge of God (or other being of a similar nature) - which equates to the fundamentalist believer, 7 is certain knowledge of of the non-existence of God - a "fundamentalist" atheist.  Dawkins places himself in the same category in which I place myself, which is at 6 - God is almost certainly not true.  (BTW, I am paraphrasing these titles, I will post the list in full later, but I don't have the book with me as I write this.)

This is an important distinction for either of the two extremes purports to have perfect knowledge which does not and cannot exist and which says much more about the thought processes of the person holding such a thought system than it does about the existence or otherwise of any god.

Dawkins is discussing the various arguments put for God's existence and is discussing them in a rational way in the part of the book I am currently reading.  I will be interested to see how the rest of the book turn out.

One comment though, So far it seems that Dawkins main argument is with Steven Jay Gould (also an atheist, alas now a dead one) and his concept of "Non Overlapping Magesteria" (NOMA).  Whilst I actually agree with Richard's critique of NOMA, it does seem to me that Dawkins is rather too keen to have a go at Gould.  I wonder whether this is residual professional animosity towards Gould who was a prominent competitor to Dawkins in the area of popularising scientific thought on biology and evolution.  we are all of us subject to the same human frailty, I am afraid.

Sibling Bluenose

[Griffin NoName]

Whilst I actually agree with Richard's critique of NOMA, it does seem to me that Dawkins is rather too keen to have a go at Gould.  I wonder whether this is residual professional animosity towards Gould who was a prominent competitor to Dawkins in the area of popularising scientific thought on biology and evolution.  we are all of us subject to the same human frailty, I am afraid.

Feelings run strong around Gould in academia. It may not be particularly the popularising aspect.