Hero of the Day: Richard Dawkins

AS, I’m slightly puzzled. The uppermost ‘berth’ of Dante’s inferno is held for people who don’t rightly deserve hell (e.g. unbaptized babies) but haven’t been able to do what is necessary to get into heaven. Are you saying you agree that Dawkins is great person, but you figure he ought to be condemned anyway?

LikeLike

Well, at least you kind of answered half my question. You do seem to think he deserves damnation of some kind. Your intentional vagueness is making it difficult to respond appropriately, so in an attempt for clarity, I’ll ask again, this time more directly:

Do you agree that Dawkins’ position in the above clip is just?

Followup-
If not, why not?
If so, why do you think a person fighting injustice deserve damnation?

LikeLike

“If Mr. Dawkins purpose was to confront the Pope just on the Priest child abuse issue, then I agree he is fighting injustice.”

Glad to hear it.

“I don’t know that I want to get into whether Adolph deserves to be called a Catholic or an Atheist”

As Dawkins rightly pointed out at the end of his evidence for Hitler’s catholicism, even if Hitler was an atheist, it makes as much sense to say he did the horrible things he did because of that atheism (just like Stalin!) as it would be to say he did those horrible things because he wears a mustache (just like Stalin!).

“Being a militant Atheist, his real cause is to destroy the Faith in God of anyone he possibly can.”

No. He is an educator. Education just happens to be the leading cause of people losing faith. But he has pointed out that people can believe whatever they want and he doesn’t care, BUT if they use these unfounded beliefs to justify atrocities (i.e. hiding child rapists, telling people that condoms increase chances of STD’s, etc) then the responsible thing to do is to get correct information out to stem the monumental suffering caused by religious dogma.
I agree. People can be as bigoted, homophobic, and hateful as they want, so long as they also recognize the only place for such a disgusting view of life is in their own basements. The second they cause suffering to any person based on that hate, however, it must be stopped immediately.

So, to recap, so called “militant” atheists only really care if religion is causing suffering. And boy oh boy, has religion caused a lot of suffering.

Which brings me back to my original question, if Dawkins is fighting child rape, encouraging education and free thought, all to the end of a better society for all, why do you say he deserves any damnation at all?

If his arguments against these atrocities somehow challenges your faith, I would see that as indicating a problem with your faith, not with Dawkins.

LikeLike

“You have listed all you believe is bad about Christianity and the Catholic Church.”

I’ve barely scratched the surface of what I believe is wrong with christianity and the catholic church. The suffering religion has caused (in a multitude of ways) is astronomical. It would take a book to list it all.

“You imply that there is nothing positive about them.”

No, I did not mention possible positives, as they are irrelevant to the post. I will reword a bit of my last post to address your claim.

I see nothing wrong with a person believing something ridiculous if it makes them happy, so long as their ridiculous belief does not lead that person to harm others. So, if someone gets a warm fuzzy feeling when they talk to their imaginary friend, or pray, or whatever, all power to them. Yay for being happy. Just because I think it’s nonsense, does not make me, in principal, against it.

As an example, I happen to think that most of today’s pop music is absolute trash, but it doesn’t bother me in the slightest that millions of people listen to it. I just avoid it. It becomes a problem when someone tries to force their abysmal music choices on others by playing it so loud you can hear it halfway down the block. Same as religion. Do whatever you want, as long as you don’t cause suffering in others.

“They are also attempting to take responsibility for the child abuse cases.”

What on earth gave you that idea? Last I checked, the offending priests are still being sheltered by church. If they actually wanted to accept responsibility, it would be as easy as turning themselves in and accepting the same justice that would be dealt to any other child-rapists. When I see the pope willingly go to his own trial for aid/abetting and accessory to rape, as a civilian, not a dignitary, then I’ll believe you that they are trying to accept responsibility. As it stands now, they are just saying ‘oh yeah, oops, um, we’ll work on that….OH LOOK AT THE NASTY ATHEISTS! ha, that’ll get ’em off our backs’.

“I’m sure some child abusers are Atheists.”

I’m sure some wear mustaches. So what?

“…that is not enough to permanently condemn the Church or it’s faith.”

Condemn, oh yeah, its more than enough. I’m having a hard time coming up with a better reason to condemn anyone or anything over systematic child rape. As for permanent, I never advocated for permanent condemnation. That’s a christian thing that I certainly don’t approve of.

LikeLike

“I was exposed to anti Catholic prejudice until I had Catholic friends and found nothing wrong with them .”

Yes, most religious groups are full of prejudice, especially for other religions.

“I tend to look at Mr. Dawkins tirade as just another attack on all of Christianity by a left wing Marxist radical.”

Marxism is the view that social classes are constantly at odds with one another, particularly because the social class with power exploits the social classes without power (ie rich people exploit poor people). A radical Marxist would encourage anyone middle-class or lower on the social ladder to revolt and violently overthrow our economic oppressors.

How is this anything like peacefully protesting an institution that systematically shelters, protects, and propagates child rape? I’ll give you a hint: it isn’t.

“Anyway, is your problem more with this Pope not being fully honest about his role in covering up the child abuse, than it is with the Christian Faith ?”

I answered this two posts ago, reworded it one post ago, maybe third time is a charm.

My problem with faith, of any kind, is that it incites horrific behaviour in otherwise decent people. Not only do they enact these abhorrent deeds, the religious feel justified in doing them. The pope sheltering child-rapists is a detestably good example of this. Does faith have to lead to horrible behaviour? No. Does the prevalence of faith inevitably lead to gross social injustice. Yes.

So, you want to gather on Sundays, eat cookies, and believe in invisible magic men, go ahead. Your faith would not offend me in the slightest, nor would it trouble people like Dawkins. But it never stops at that (socially that is, some individuals do stop there, but alas, they are in the minority).

Because of these beliefs, the religious have taken many steps to limit education, oppress others, scare/demean children, and enable child rapists, just to list a few of religion’s atrocities. Those atrocities are what offend us and faith is their root cause.

LikeLike

“I am guessing you never went through a long period of doubt in your life.”

I am continually in doubt. I don’t like certainty, I don’t trust it. That’s why I’m such a big fan of reason and science. The guiding principle of scrutinizing everything for the slightest chance of it being wrong increases our odds at not holding false beliefs. Sometimes it doesn’t increase our odds very much, but it is always the best shot we have.

“Faith … has incited more than a few to do great good. Examples would be people such as Mother Theresa.”

People like mother Theresa are champions of what I call the ‘religious smile of duplicity’. They do things that look compassionate (i.e. tend to dying people in Africa), but then support dogmatic misogyny and hatred that spreads a great deal of suffering to those they are “helping”.

For example, mother Theresa strongly supported the catholic church’s position on contraceptives-that they are evil and somehow make the std situation worse. In a continent plagued with AIDS, how can you say that someone doing all in their power (and the catholic church has a LOT of power) to prevent condom use is doing good? Her legacy in this area is still going strong and guess what? AIDS is still running rampant in Africa causing unimaginable amounts of suffering.

Religious people continual boast about their good works, but the goodness is almost always tainted and corrupted with atrocious evils.

This is the important bit. Any good done by a religious group can be done, and IS being done by secular groups. And because it is non-denominational work, it is impossible to tag on any kind of hurtful dogma to those good works.

Look up ‘Doctors without Borders’. They are by far more efficient at helping people who don’t have access to industrialized world-class medicine than Theresa ever was, and they aren’t perpetuating the AIDS epidemic in the process.

I will close by reminding you of my last post were I said that religion does not HAVE to lead atrocities, and it CAN lead to good things, it’s just that, historically, it almost always DOES lead to atrocities and their goods can all be achieved with non-religious methods. When you do the math, there is nothing to be gained and everything to lose with faith.

LikeLike

“I thought Mother Theresa worked in India.”

Yes, she did most of her work in India, sorry for the mistyping, I was already thinking ahead to the catholic position on condoms (which she did support strongly) and it’s disastrous affect on Africa. Location is irrelevant, though. All that is important is with one face, she tended to the dying, and with another she supported a dogma that can only result in more suffering and death. And the latter was much more effective.

“The Church’s influence is with a very narrow group.”

The catholic church boasts a global congregation of somewhere between 1 and 2 billion. It is also one of the most financially empowered institution on the planet. The political and marketing power it has is catastrophically large. This means the catholic church can (and does) use vast amounts of influence to enforce its disastrous views on condoms (i.e. withholding aide unless a country adopts its views on contraception).

So, your truckers get only one story about condoms, the catholic story. If the truth doesn’t get a chance (and the church makes sure it doesn’t) there is no reason for the truckers not to believe the catholic story.

On the other hand, the church’s stance of chastity is fighting a basic biological function. Telling people not to have sex is about as effective as telling them not to eat.

“I doubt that secular individuals can match the dedication of someone who believes they are on a divine mission…I don’t see an Atheist being that motivated”

Up until this point, I’d say this has been a fairly civil discussion, but I find that last bit unbelievably offensive and ignorant. How dare you imply that just because someone doesn’t belief in some supernatural entity, they are somehow less connected to our sibling humans around the world, that they care less? Being an atheist does not erase one’s capacity for compassion, empathy, or respect for life. Indeed, in most cases, it enhances these qualities.

That you’ve bought into religion’s lie that ‘atheists can’t care as much for people as believers’ truly saddens me.

Here is the site for doctors without borders Do you think these people who venture into war-torn third-world nations just to provide emergency medical aid to those who desperately need it are lacking motivation or dedication?

LikeLike

“Perhaps you merely tire of my defense of my beliefs.”

I tire of religious people telling me I can’t possibly be moral or caring because I don’t buy into their god story. ‘oh sure, you’re nice and help out others all the time, but you don’t REALLY care, you aren’t REALLY motivated. How could you? You’re an atheist.’
This condescending sentiment seems ubiquitous amongst the faithful. Religion tries really hard to say that it has a monopoly on good works, but the only thing religion has a monopoly on is flying planes into buildings and burning people for being witches.

“Only someone trying to save souls or seeing rewards in an after life is that motivated.”

Well, faith driven fervor can indeed push some people to go that extra mile. Just look at suicide bombers, funeral protesters, and child-rapists protectors. One would indeed need some extreme motivation for these acts.

Conversely, if you fail to see people fund raising millions, going into battle zones, laying their lives on the line to administer health care to strangers without pay as motivated, I’d say your scale is broken. Most likely due to that b.s. ‘atheists can’t be moral’ mentality that churches brainwash into their congregations.

“My point is that probably the truckers are not Catholic”

My point is that those truckers are much more likely to suffer from AIDS because of the catholics, like Theresa. They suffer due to catholicism whether or not they were converted.

To recap, it is possible for faith to bring lots of good, if we’re lucky and it happens to be pointed in the right direction. Unfortunately, when pointed in the wrong direction (which happens much MUCH too frequently) the suffering it can cause is astronomical.

Even if I were to give you that secularists doing good don’t do quite as much as believers doing good (I don’t by the way, but hypothetically) secularists pointed in the wrong direction don’t do a fraction of the harm that believers do.

So, in this overly charitable hypothetical, faith has a small chance of doing slightly more good then secularists, but has a huge chance of making a situation FUBAR.
Secularism has a fairly good chance of doing at least as good as the very best of believers, and next to zero chance of bombing clinics, lying to the world about condoms, promoting bigotry, enforcing misogyny, or “honor” killings. Cost/benefit charts says that faith loses.

Getting back to the original message, Dawkins is protesting some faithfuls doing horrendous deeds. From that you somehow got ‘Marxist radical’ bent on condemning any kind of behavior that’s even remotely connected to religion. This is a baseless leap of “reasoning”. Pointing out that faithfuls sometimes do good is nothing but a red herring.

History is jam-packed-full of examples of faith directly leading to massive suffering. Can you come up with one fragment of evidence linking Dawkins to radical marxism? Or can you provide anything that connects the protest of child rapists to demanding no one pray before they eat?

LikeLike