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Dawkins seems a bit *confused* here
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handofdave
handofdave
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Re: Dawkins seems a bit *confused* here
Jul 01, 2009, 12:39
Well, I should know better than to go up against your impeccable debating skills, but I'll stick with what I feel, which is that the guy's approach is very much the same as many religious evangelists... essentially, that there is only one right way to be, and the other ways are damned. It's a message of exclusion, not inclusion.

And I'm not convinced for a second that religion is the root of all evil anyway. 'Us vs. Them' doesn't require deism at all... it might appropriate it, but it's not based on it. And any movement that seeks to amplify this towards the end of demonizing 'them' while smugly celebrating 'us' rubs me the wrong way, although it's very hard to avoid sometimes (politics comes to mind).

Religious thought is far too broad to be pigeonholed. Do I think that the clichéd interpretations of God are ridiculous? Yes! But look beyond the surface and there's a rich world of intellectual debate and questioning going on in the more scholarly realms of the world's less militant religious orders. Doubts, even challenges to doctrine are entertained.

On a personal level, I've known and liked people who are deeply faithful... and they've respected my agnosticism. So I suppose I feel I owe it to them to defend them against the harsher judgements that I've heard expressed against religious folk.

Atheism is little different from a religion itself, when it is framed as a movement, right? It has a doctrine that preaches absolutes, it seeks to tear down opposing belief systems, etc.

So as far as being a bulwark against religion, I guess you could see it that way, but to me it's just another form of faith, with the vital difference being that it claims to be scientific. And up to a point, science serves it well, but past that point you end up in the very same place as religion- declaring truths based on the will to believe alone.
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Re: Dawkins seems a bit *confused* here (Merrick)		 Replies:
Re: Dawkins seems a bit *confused* here (stray)
Re: Dawkins seems a bit *confused* here (Merrick)
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