Richard Dawkins speaks the truth

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[–]IMissPorn 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

It's easy to forget how smart that guy is. I tend to think of him as just "that famous atheist", which isn't something I'm as interested in as I once was (perhaps because religion no longer seems like the biggest threat to reason), but this was a great interview (good enough that I listened to the whole hour, which I seldom have the patience for). He really is very intelligent, and perhaps a more importantly, a free-thinker, unafraid to say things he believes are true just because they're unpopular, be that "god isn't real", "there are two sexes", "euthanasia should be legal", or "some rapes are worse than others" (The last is not in this interview, just something else he said that upset people recently).

[–]Alienhunter糞大名 6 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

When you get past the sound bites with him it's clear he's quite thoughtful. He just likes to go with his conclusion first and then explain his reasoning.

I think he got caught up in the culture war and vilified heavily back during the "do we teach about evolution in schools" "controversy" in the early 2000's.

[–]ClassroomPast6178 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The only thing that makes a Dawkins interview a disappointment is when the interviewer is a bit thick and asks boring or repetitive questions. This wasn’t one of those interviews, I think the questions on the whole were quite interesting and provoked interesting answers.

Dawkins has always been best when he’s communicating the wonders of science, his book Unweaving the Rainbow is a brilliant reply to anyone who claims science is removing the beauty of the universe by explaining it all rationally. It’s a shame that he had such a good publicist around the time that he wrote The God Delusion that for many people he got pigeonholed in the arch atheist role and not in the communicator of science role. His Royal Institution Christmas Lecture series is a gem and puts a lot of the modern Christmas Lectures to shame (they’re increasingly pandering to what is popular rather than exploring a topic that’s interesting).

I liked his answer to the euthanasia question, because it encapsulates the dilemma-it is probably right to allow those suffering dreadfully from terminal illness a means by which to end their suffering, but we know that the bounds of who would be granted access would be continually being pushed to include evermore trivial cases and we know this from Canada and Belgium’s example. So Dawkins rightly recognises the need for limitations on access to euthanasia, he doesn’t however recognise the political reality that, at least in Parliamentary systems, that one Parliament cannot bind a future Parliament- so the setting out of rules in 2023 cannot prevent Parliament in 2029 changing them beyond the wishes of those who initially agreed them. Interesting discussions are usually the ones without easy answers.

[–]LtGreenCo 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I like Dawkins but his crusade against religion always seemed a bit too zealous for my taste. But I think he's mellowed out on that lately and seems to at least be open to the idea that religion can do right by some people.

I'm Atheist but I consider myself culturally Christian, and I enjoy Christianity for its emphasis on decency, love, peace, family and tradition. And while I could do without the dogma and insane fables, I think the preachings of Jesus are a solid moral framework to build upon. Do I think you need religion to be moral? No. But I think there are some people who don't have an intuition about right and wrong, and those people are perhaps less danger to society if they have a peaceful moral framework to follow.

[–]ClassroomPast6178 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

He didn’t really have a crusade against religion, but you have to understand the context of what was occurring when The God Delusion, God is not great (by Hitchens) and Dennet’s book, which I forget the title of, all came out.

There was a push in the US and to a lesser extent in the UK to teach creationism in schools as fact, there were politicians who were increasingly leaning towards religious beliefs in policy (even Blair in the UK started to go that way) and so the time was right for a strident defence of enlightenment values.

Dawkins has always said that not only did he consider the Bible as a foundational text in world literature but that it should be taught as such in school and that there was immense value to teaching comparative religious studies to children to give them the context for the modern and modern culture.

His big argument was always with the loud Christians and Muslims, back when he criticised Islam without fear, who wanted to push their beliefs on others.

Lots of the arguments he got into on TV were because he was put up against fervent and loud believers who refused to debate rationally. His Channel 4 God Delusion tv series is well worth a watch if you can find it, simply for how quiet and considered he is in the face of some rather aggressive theists.

It’s interesting to note that in the God Delusion he says he considers himself an agnostic atheist, he’s an atheist but as he doesn’t have proof of there being no gods he can’t be a gnostic atheist which is the strongest form of atheist in his scale of atheism, from gnostic theist to gnostic atheist. It’s a position of rationality.