Here’s a little light viewing. This YouTube video shows Richard Dawkins reading some of his hate mail, shortly before confronting the unbelievably smug Wendy Wright of Washington-based Concerned Women for America. The first sixty seconds are the most amusing; the last sixty the most disturbing.
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36 responses
Ew, gross. That mirthless smile certainly helps me understand aspects of evolution, if I may be so ungentlemanly.
Wendy Wright’s arrogant, smug ignorance is typical of millions of people - not just Americans, of course - who hate thought and are happy in all-embracing belief. Hence Sarah Palin. No thought needed, just belief, and sneer at the elitists who say otherwise.
Which is ironic, given that one of the biggest questions in evolution is how we got our big brains. Perhaps biologists could spend a little time studying why so few people seem to want to use them.
Upon my word of honour, I cannot imagine why you should promote the fanatical, irrational and ignorant Richard Dawkins, inventor of the metaphysical and unprovable “meme” and “selfish gene” notions, as any kind of voice of reason. The best that can be said is that he and his enemies deserve each other. I would dearly love to see him try to patronize, say, John Polkinghorne; but we all know that that is as likely as the paper dog pursuing the fire-cat through Hell. Dawkins only ever “answers” people he thinks he can patronize and squash. Real intellectuals, he runs away from.
Fabio - I completely agree with your views on Dawkins. I would also love to see him take on Polkinghorne.
But the video, you have to admit, is still amusing!
well, almost completely agree (after a second reading of your comment)
Yes, it’s a pity you support this pseudo-scientific hack, inventer of the (to quote Moss) ‘patently false’ selfish gene, a ‘biology built of onto-theology’ (Moss again).
Sorry, should read: “tacitly support”.
My, my, what venom!
OK, I get the point that both Fabio and Clodius don’t like Richard Dawkins but why the vitriolic outbursts ?
If we can’t seperate out our personal views of RD from his arguments then it may not be too long before evolution itself ends up as a target for counterknowledge.
Disagree with his views by all means and debate them (John Polkinghorne and Alister certainly do) but name-calling does nothing but point up our own prejudices.
My, my, what venom!
OK, I get the point that both Fabio and Clodius don’t like Richard Dawkins but why the vitriolic outbursts ?
If we can’t seperate out our personal views of RD from his arguments then it may not be too long before evolution itself ends up as a target for counterknowledge.
Disagree with his views by all means and debate them (John Polkinghorne and Alister McGrath certainly do) but name-calling does nothing but point up our own prejudices.
Ooops!
Sorry I posted twice (well three times now!) but I left off Alister McGrath’s surname and I wouldn’t want to upset blog people who just love to spot typo errors!
Fabio, why is RD ‘fanatical, irrational and ignorant’?
‘No answer, was the stern reply’.
It doesn’t matter how smug and annoying Dawkins is, or how wrong he is in other areas. He is right about teaching evolution in schools and Wendy Wright is wrong - dangerously wrong.
Damian: that is like saying that Mussolini made the trains run on time. Dawkins’ wrongness is not an interesting feature of his thinking: it is the framework of it. And to say that he must be right because Wendy Wright is wrong is like saying that Stalin must have been right because Hitler was his enemy and was wrong.
Valdemar: I could not answer because my computer was broken. Not because I ever find any problems answering the likes of you. As for Richard Dawkins: he hates me. His malevolence towards Christians (he claims to have it in for all religion, but in fact he only ever attacks Christianity and Hebraism) is direct, personal and fiery. My detestation for him is like my detestation for a malignant bacillus or a mad dog - for something that, given his own way, would do me harm. I have no doubt at all that a Dawkins as dictator of the world would result in Christians being sent to the death camps. And I am surprised that neither you nor Damian seem able to perceive the hot and sulphurous breath of hatred that rises from all his polemics.
Fanatical: do I even have to demonstrate this?
Irrational: inventor of the “meme”. You work it out.
Ignorant: long after his influence has vaned, quotations of what he thought was Christianity will hold Christian apologists and scholars in stitches. He genuinely hates what he does not know, and, what is more, he is totally unwilling to be corrected even on matter of fact.
Fabio,
Could you give an example of a “matter of fact” that RD needs to be corrected on ?
Fabio, I’d be pretty knobbed off if I recieved HATE mail every day!
Can’t you religious nut-jobs simply FORGIVE, instead of hate? Isn’t that what you’re 2000 year old Hebrew guide is all about? C’mon Fabio, forgive… HATRED is bad, you don’t have to be an aetheist to recognise that, or do you…?
Dawkins, for all his failings in the personality department, is right. The facts speak for themselves. You have no facts on which to base your opinions.
None.
DannyJ: you start with the language of hate and insult and then demand that we forgive you? Exactly who is a “nut-job” (that is, in your illiterate jargon, irrational, delirious, not sane) here? Please start engaging your brain before you let your hatred sweep you away.
Fabio
I’m still waiting for you to engage your own brain on the small matter of fact that rd RD needs to be corrected on.
Falsitas: Dawkins knows nothing whatsoever about what Christians and Jews actually believe. The point has been made again and again, and you would know it if, instead of limiting your reading to atheist trash, you actually bothered to read what Christians write. The extent and depth of his errors is such that I cannot undertake to cover them here. Why don’t you actually try to find out for yourself, instead of asking to be drip-fed factoids in an obviously inadequate and unsuitable forum?
Well, Falsitas, since you cannot be counted upon to go and investigate anything that migh disagree with your digestion, here are just a few of the myriad responses - mostly not very respectful - to be found on the internet
http://ignatiusinsight.com/features2007/tcrean_dawkinsreligion_nov07.asp
http://insightscoop.typepad.com/2004/2008/07/journalist-said.html#comment-123192986
http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=3184&var_recherche=Dawkins
Incidentally, I recommend the thunder of that noted agnostic, the late and never enough lamented Stephen Jay Gould, who showed that, even as a Darwinist, Dawkins was the most desperate and dangerous kind of reductionist.
What everyone has to understand is that the inadequacy of Dawkins as a critic of religion is not something you can find in a specific place. So many Christian and non-Christan writers have remarked upon it from so many different viewpoints, that being asked to prove it is not unlike being asked to prove that the English use “bloody” as a swearword. The problem is not to find the evidence, but to manage to stop.
Fabio
Just out of interest, are you actually interacting with anyone else on this thread other than yourself ?
On second thoughts, it doesn’t really matter Fabio. You seem happy enough in your little universe of hatred for those who dare to disagree with you, and I’m happy I’m not to be part of it, ergo, we’re both happy.
Anyway, I have to go now as Richard Dawkins is coming round for a cup of tea in a little while - I’ll give him your best wishes.
Bye, bye forever.
Falsitas - For someone who is trying to show contempt, you sure waste a lot of words. And for someone who claimed to want answers, you sure manage to vanish from the scene fast enough when even the smallest attempt at an answer is made. Like your hero Dawkins, you can dish it out but you sure can’t take it.
Fabio, who decides whether Dawkins is an adequate critic of religion? (
God springs to mind - He/She/It can have a word with RD in due course, if He/She/It exists. Everyone else is, by definition, a pipsqueak and imbecile in comparison. If He/She/It exists. And that, really, is the problem.
Though I’m not a Christian, I forgive you for your ill-temper. We all get angry sometimes.
Valdemar: anyone who has even a moderate knowledge of the Christian religion (Dawkins, being a model coward, never attacks any other) can tell that the man knows nothing about it. It is not a matter of debate, it is the equivalent of (to use a relevant comparison) someone who thinks that Evoluiont means that humans are descended from chimpanzees. His errors are basic, a matter of ABC, and he gets angry if he is corrected. If you knew anything about the Christian religion yourself, you would not have to ask, I assure you. Anyway, just follow the few little links I provided - a few out of possible thousands, so much mirth has this gentleman roused - you will see that his views are not treated with respect. They are treated, as I keep telling you, as grossly, foolishly, obstinately wrong.
“Damian: that is like saying that Mussolini made the trains run on time. Dawkins’ wrongness is not an interesting feature of his thinking: it is the framework of it. And to say that he must be right because Wendy Wright is wrong is like saying that Stalin must have been right because Hitler was his enemy and was wrong.”
Excellent answer, genau.
Just a cursory read of ‘The God Delusion’ reveals that Dawkins does not fully understand the nature of belief nor the concept of God. He resorts to some wonderfully shallow and oft-heard) arguments that demonstrate the deficiency of his philosophical understanding of the subject he attempts to tackle. Some of these arguments insult the intelligence of thinking deists. His book offers nothing that has not been heard, refuted and counter-argued many times before. It is insulting in tone, as the very title predicts.
Dawkins is a gifted man. But his gifts seem to be primarily in Science, not philosophy. Dawkins demonstrates once again the problem of Science crossing over into faith, and faith crossing into Science. They are both in different spheres.Science can make no statement about the idea of God, because God, being a spiritual Being (if God exists) is beyond the measure of empirical Science. Likewise, and for the converse reason, faith can say nothing definitively about the nature of the physical world. Faith is primarily concerned with the question ‘why’? Science cannot ask that question. SCience is concerned with ‘what? and how?’.Faith, not concerned with empirical measures, cannot answer those questions.
good blog Gazza, especially the part about the difference between science and spirituallity. I could not understand why Dawkins wanted to devide into units, small or large, what I call merely Memory, not meme (sounds like cream). Maybe I understood it wrong???
Sylvia –
“Meme” is not simply “memory” divided into units. Let me see if I can explain by analogy what a meme is.
What do we mean when we say the word “virus”? Well, obviously, we can mean “a sub-microscopic entity smaller than a single cell.”
But what then do we mean when we say “I’m feeling sick; I must have a virus”? Obviously one single sub-microscopic entity smaller than a single cell doesn’t make us sick.
What we mean by “virus” in this context is a huge number of copies of that sub-microscopic entity occupying the body of the person who “has a virus”.
But if these are our only two meanings of “virus”, how could we make sense of someone else saying “oh, dear, you’re sick like me — I must have given you my virus”? Both our previous meanings of “virus” were limited to something that resided in a single body. Now we are touching on a third meaning, which is something that can transfer from one body to another, and thereafter exists in both bodies.
If you have followed me so far — “meme” is what you get when you take the base idea of “idea” but expand the idea of “idea” as we just expanded the idea of “virus”. That is why “meme” is most definitely NOT just “memory, divided into units”; the key concept behind the meme is that it TRANSFERS from person to person.
Here is a splendid over the top Fabio B rant. It’s pretty clear that Richard Dawkins is on the nail, and telling the truth, he’s certainly upsetting Fabio!
Fabio P. Barberi wrote:
“uld promote the fanatical, irrational and ignorant Richard Dawkins, inventor of the metaphysical and unprovable “meme” and “selfish gene” notions, as any kind of voice of reason. The best that can be said is that he and his enemies deserve each other. I would dearly love to see him try to patronize, say, John Polkinghorne; but we all know that that is as likely as the paper dog pursuing the fire-cat through Hell. Dawkins only ever “answers” people he thinks he can patronize and squash. Real intellectuals, he runs away from.”
posted by Gazza:
“Just a cursory read of ‘The God Delusion’ reveals that Dawkins does not fully understand the nature of belief nor the concept of God. He resorts to some wonderfully shallow and oft-heard) arguments that demonstrate the deficiency of his philosophical understanding of the subject he attempts to tackle. Some of these arguments insult the intelligence of thinking deists. His book offers nothing that has not been heard, refuted and counter-argued many times before. It is insulting in tone, as the very title predicts.”
You must have given his book a very very cursory read. His arguments are not shallow, and they have been refuted only in the fevered minds of the most stupid theologians. As for his arguments insulting the intelligence of deists, I think its the other way around; deists arguments insult the intelligence of rational folk. you might try reading the book without your righteous condescension spectacles on. Then you’d realise that religious apologists talk bullshit and then think even more bullshit, rather than thinking rationally.
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