Dr. Frank's What's-it

How condescending of him. Atheism is a "faith" too, one of science. I meet too many atheists consumed with hatred for the religious, like that's all atheism is about.

So does that mean that you disagree with Mr. Dawkins? I'm about 2,000 miles away and can't see your smirk from here. I actually agreed with about 3/4 of what he had to say. Although, I'm not overly impressed by how he said it. I suppose, if you're going to do an interview with Salon, you're going to have to throw out some outrageous blurbs, such as comparing Bush and bin Laden, to make bloggers link to you.

My own pea-sized mind has tried to wrap itself around the thought of what the world would be like if everybody would just accept that there is no such thing as god.

Of course, we'll never know, but for the sake of argument, I decided that large scale hate and violence would decrease a bit while individual occurences would probably climb. We would have one less "us and them" issue to fight over, but if the fear of going to hell is the one thing that's keeping someone from committing a crime...

You can read more about this in my blog at...just kidding.

Tim, despite his apparently considerable professional achievements, I see Dawkins as a 60-year-old adolescent, getting a thrill out of subverting a caricature of a paradigm that he imagines his figurative parents to embody. We've all been there, at the age of 13. In fact, though, you can't rule out philosophical questions simply by declaring them out of bounds or mocking those who ask them. At best, it is a childish and unseemly attitude, cool as "art," less so as philosophy or science.

If nobody believed in God, thing certainly wouldn't change as much as Dawkins think they would. People tend to pick and chose parts of religion they already believe anyway. Also, studies have shown that religious people don't tend to behave much differently from atheists while holding certain other factors constant. They certanly aren't more violent.

I do wonder how much of my oppinions on Bush and Bin Laden are based on which team they play for rather than their actoins and intentions. If I were from a neutral country I would probably see them both as "evil."

Heck, I don't believe in God, and I think Dawkins' assessment of American politics is laughably clueless.

Theocracy, my ass.

(And the "ignorant, uneducated people" voted Bush in? Not true, unless we define "voting for Bush" as proof of "being ignorant and uneducated". Certainly studies of party affiliation relative to education don't back up Mr. Dawkins' bigotry. This source, while ugly, reports the same thing everyone else who looks at the data has, to my knowledge; Democrats get disproportionate votes from the uneducated and the Graduate-level, while Republicans get "more" votes from people with education above no-degree and below a graduate degree.

Whatever we draw from that, we cannot assert that the "uneducated" are the 50+% of the country's voters who re-elected President Bush, at least if we let mere evidence sway us.

Though the numbers there don't seem to add up to the nearly 50% split that we experience, so It's hard to say.)

yeah, what a pompous jerkoff. I've known some very intelligent, even brilliant, people who were pretty religious. Of course I have, so have you. Him too I bet. We can all think of some brainy types who voted Bush. You can't just dismiss everyone with whom you disagree as being stupid or ignorant without making youself look like both.

And again with the bush = bin laden jazz. what is it with these people. "Both have implacable faith that they are right and the other is evil." Seems to me that Dawkins' faith in his own rightness and the other's evilness has an aspect of implaccablity too, no? Personally, I'm fairly implaccable when it comes to the rightness of my faith in bin ladin's evilness. Does that mean div = Dawkins?

'''''Atheism is a "faith" too, one of science.'''''

So belief in objective reality is the same as belief in Alice in Wonderland?

After all, both all "beliefs," aren't they?

Crusading atheist? Now that's funny.

I believe there is no need to eliminate god (and/or God) from society, and that's where Dawkins and others err. What is crucial is that church and state be separated: as long as there is public education, there will be controversy over which belief system to teach. You can't teach without teaching a belief system.

Still, your reference to "those who have had such experiences" is somewhat oblique. I gather you're not talking about the canonical "experience" of the born again Christian accepting Jesus but a more fundamental spiritual experience. And I've had an epiphany or two, though not in the classically religious tradition of angelic/saintly visitation., unless John Donne's beatification escaped my notice. Dawkins' argument would in fact be strengthened if he was more open to Donne's protohumanism: "Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind".

I'm trying to understand your point about objectivity vs. Alice In Wonderland. It's not coming through but thanks for playing the home game and good luck with bringing freedom to Iran.

Let me understand *your* point.

Are you equating "belief" in something real with "belief" in something not real?

Is "faith" in, say, the fact that water is composed of H20 is no different than "faith" in David Koresh being the messiah?

Seems to me that decisions based on observations of verifiable objects are slightly more credible than mere conjecture about things which may or may not exist.

Dear Doctor,

All my life I've had to listen while people in authority - priests, nuns, teachers, parents, bosses, colleagues, writers, opinionators, you name it - insist that not only that only right-thinking people believe in God and his church, but that it is evil incarnate to even hint about possibly considering that they might be talking out their arse and no better, really, than tree-woshipping vikings?

Why, only today I was reading Victor Davis Hansen call the likes of me "delusional".

They can give it, but they cannae take it.

Good for Dawkins, says me, except he's a Fascist-lovin' arsehole.

Dawkins is right on. Religion just gives people a reason to be elitist. There have been more people killed in the name of "god" (or allah or whatever) than for any other cause. Its is backwards. I dont know if there is a god at all, but if there is, s/he is looking down and just shaking his head, wondering how humans messed it all up.

aryahmehr u.-

i was beginning to miss you,no really your comments brought a smile to my face...

anyways my defination of faith is to hope for things which are unseen but are true.

so go where you will with that,but no it probably wouldn't apply to water.

Advancing the idea that Bush believes that killing Muslims will grease his way to Heaven proves nothing but that Hawkins is a complete ignoramus.

Also, and I realize that these petty distinctions are difficult for a brilliant mind like his to grasp, but Bush isn't a Catholic, which is the only conceivable way that the idea of getting to "paradise quicker" makes even the roughest sort of sense. As an Evangelical, Bush doesn't believe in Purgatory--or I'd be pretty amazed if he did--and presumably believes that when he dies, he immediately takes an express elevator upstairs. You die, you ascend. There's no getting there 'quicker'.