Comments on: Barmy Baptist resorts to sarcasm in dismissing new atheist book

By: calgarcus

calgarcus — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 00:31:05 +0000

Phil, I'm so glad I'm not the only one that finds so much entertainment value in the world. I was just thinking now that I'm a bit older and wiser, how many historical leaders were completely off there head on one chemical or another. I saw a pprogramme on the first Chinese Empror the other night. In his search for eternal life he had them feed him mercury, which sent him so mad that he sent thousands on quests dreamed up in his imagination. Wasting thousands of lives. He wrote a crazy law book, in which you lost limbs, for breaking trivial rules like blinking at the wrong time. History like modern life seems choc of .full this lunacy more satire on the news these days than on Dave.

By: heng

heng — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 14:42:09 +0000

The cause? what fucking cause? Pointing out idiocy is not a cause, and people that do so are not arrogant. As Richard Dawkins himself is so fond of pointing out (and I agree absolutely), why on earth does religion get some special status in debates? He would never be thought of as arrogant if he espoused views with the same intensity during a debate on politics.

People seem to have an innate desire to not take extreme positions, and view anyone that does so as "arrogant". In many cases this is sensible, because very little can be known. But there are many situations where one position is not the intellectual equal of the other. In this situation, it is not arrogant to point this out.

Please, find an example of Richard Dawkins making a forceful argument in which the alternative is actually reasonable, and I will happily cede to the view that he can be arrogant.

If there is a cause (which there isn't), it is actually the weak accommodationists that are undermining it.

By: Angela_K

Angela_K — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 14:25:53 +0000

In Mr Dawkins defence: some of us scientists are not too good at communicating ideas, nor do we have the marketing polish of our opponents. Richard Dawkins may appear “arrogant and aggressive” to some, but how many of us have done as much as he for our cause?

By: Kobachan

Kobachan — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 13:32:47 +0000

The teapot isn't Dawkin's idea, it's Bertrand Russell's.

By: barriejohn

barriejohn — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 11:37:18 +0000

I agree 100% Bubblecar. He may have a brain the size of the Empire State Building, but he comes over as arrogant and aggressive, and does the cause a great deal of harm!

By: Giant Teapots and Other Atheist Myths « Phil’s Boring Blog

Giant Teapots and Other Atheist Myths « Phil’s Boring Blog — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 08:34:28 +0000

[...] Six Ways of Atheism â€” twice over, in fact, as we are quoted at length by The Freethinker in Barmy Baptist resorts to sarcasm in dismissing new atheist book. It’s all highly [...]

By: Bubblecar

Bubblecar — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 08:23:29 +0000

I'm sure I'm not the only atheist who doesn't like Richard Dawkins. None of my atheist friends and relatives warm to him much, either.

By: The Six Ways of Atheism « UKCBD: The Christian Bookshops Blog

The Six Ways of Atheism « UKCBD: The Christian Bookshops Blog — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 05:00:12 +0000

[...] Barmy Baptist resorts to sarcasm in dismissing new atheist book: The Freethinker, 22/06/2009 (in which this review is cited) [...]

By: Phil Groom

Phil Groom — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 04:57:25 +0000

Quite so. Rather like Dawkins and his flying teapot, really. I took the lid off the teapot and it was empty. As I said, adds to life's entertainment value.

By: Brian Jordan

Brian Jordan — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 23:43:12 +0000

"You talk about the Bible as if it were a single coherent work, Dave: it isn't."
Well, you said it. I'd just subtract "a single" and "work". Then we're left with its being incoherent, which sounds about right for Bronze Age mysticism.
Jibes apart, Christians and other religious types might have things to say, reasonable or otherwise, about how people should live their lives. However, they are forever tainted by their superstitions and as long as they claim divinity as their source they are deluding themselves and trying to delude the rest of us. A shame, really.