Richard Dawkins: An Atheist's Call to Arms(video)

**Bearsy** · 01-12-2008 10:32 PM

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/113

"The session was titled "The Design of Life," and the TED audience was probably expecting remarks about evolution's role in our history from biologist Richard Dawkins. Instead, he launched into a full-on appeal for atheists to make public their beliefs and to aggressively fight the incursion of religion into politics and education (quoting Douglas Adams in the bargain). Scientists and intellectuals hold very different beliefs about God from the American public, he says, yet they are cowed by the overall political environment. Dawkins' scornful tone drew strongly mixed reactions from the audience; some stood and applauded his courage. Others wondered whether his strident approach could do more harm than good. Dawkins went on to publish The God Delusion and become perhaps the world's best-known atheist."

**Serkat** · 01-12-2008 11:10 PM

Very cool video. Haven't seen it before. But I do also think that calling oneself militant atheist and "attacking" religion may seem so war-declaring that people will actually go into defense more instead of less. Still, it was quite entertaining and funny, I've actually never seen Dawkins as half-scientist, half-comedian before.

I like the new Atheist movement a lot, the Four Horsemen

(Dawkins, Hitchens, Dennett, Harris) I just made a thread about religious intolerance in this forum some time ago, and analyzed opposing views from other sources. I was eager to see if there are any real arguments against it. There are not.

Also, this made me go from agnostic atheism to strong atheism, plus intolerant of religious nonsense as a whole, no matter if extremistic or not.

Of the 4 people named above, I like Hitchens and Harris best in terms of presenting their content. Harris is a very rational and brilliant thinker, very eloquent and has very precise use of language. Hitchens is pompous, funny and direct, plus sometimes drunk. When Jerry Falwell died, he said on Fox "If you gave Falwell an enema, he could be buried in a matchbox". Hilarious. For the case of any biological and evolutionary relation with the questions of religion, Dawkins is obviously the best.

Anyway, I think Sam Harris presents the most profound vision of taking a new stance towards religion. And out of all of these, he actually addresses the issue of spirituality from a perspective of a practitioner. He's actually been on months of meditation retreats and has a conception of what a "secular spirituality" could look like.

If anyone is interested, here's a video with a good overview of his ideas (20 minutes, he's not the old guy at the beginning) http://youtube.com/watch?v=J3YOIImOoYM

Here's another, "Misconceptions about atheism": http://youtube.com/watch?v=rLIKAyzeIw4

He argues that atheists shouldn't call themselves atheists because it is not a philosophical position, but rather a completely nonsensical, empty term, used by religious groups to denominate non-belivers as "special interest groups".
He says instead of arguing "as atheists" we should simply use words like reason, evidence etc. So the term "atheist" is really as unnecessary as a term like "non-UFOlogist" or something like that. I found this inspiring because unfortunately I had never thought of it that way.

On the religious side, the best debater seems to be Denish De'Souza, a Christian. He'll tie you into philosophical and linguistic knots, but you can untie them.

Nice.

**Mes Tarrant** · 01-12-2008 11:53 PM

Dawkins has made me SO ANGRY at religious people.

I used to be ridiculously tolerant. I've always been non-religious, but I never used to give two shits about what other people thought. Now I'm just pissed at the nonsense that people believe, and they cannot give a single shred of evidence to support anything that they believe. Could someone who is not religious please give me suggestions on how to not get worked up about this crap?

I am serious. I don't want to turn into some angry, intolerant creep.

**Serkat** · 01-13-2008 12:04 AM

Originally Posted by Mes Tarrant

Dawkins has made me SO ANGRY at religious people.

I used to be ridiculously tolerant. I've always been non-religious, but I never used to give two shits about what other people thought. Now I'm just pissed at the nonsense that people believe, and they cannot give a single shred of evidence to support anything that they believe. Could someone who is not religious please give me suggestions on how to not get worked up about this crap?

I am serious. I don't want to turn into some angry, intolerant creep.

Haha, the same happened with me. It totally shifted my view. If some time ago someone told me that they believed Jesus is the so of god, I'd just go "whatever" and move on to another topic. Now I just think "What? You actually believe this nonsense? Has it ever occurred to you that there is no reason to do so?".

Well, about the getting worked up... I think you just have to be patient and show understanding for the underlying psychological structure. Also meditation helps. Be aware that religion is not the only type of shitty beliefs people can have, just the one immune to criticism. Just act like someone told you that they believed a pink unicorn was living in their toilet and ask for evidence.

Know that religions are not only from the outside but also from within very protected against criticism, so any serious believer will not actually listen to what you're saying. There's no reason to get worked up about that though. Jesus said that his followers have to expect to be ridiculed for their beliefs... He's right.

Show compassion for the fact that they actually believe that they could go to hell if they even try for a moment to take what you're saying seriously. It's like a constant flying Stalin in your head. And it's extremely hard to get around that.

Also, instead of getting worked up about what's wrong, focus on what are the positive values that you try to invoke in people, namely reason and evidence and intolerance for bullshit.

If you simply don't want to debate religion, shift the topic and also focus on other things in your head.

**Mes Tarrant** · 01-13-2008 12:16 AM

Thank you Korittke, your post really helped!

BTW, have you seen the Q&A session with him at some Women's university? He gave terrific answers to pretty much every single question. After watching that video on youtube, I noticed that there was a highly viewed video of him getting (momentarily) stumped by a question. I really love how religious people try to take that moment as proof of anything. Just think about how many times they were stumped by questions.

Yeesh.

**Moonbeam** · 01-13-2008 12:26 AM

I am so glad for the new atheists being so outspoken about religious nonsense. All four of them are great in different ways.

Mes, I don't know if this helps or not, but I always wonder how these so-called religious people are always more worried about being right, not feeling sorry for you, even tho they think that we will burn in hell forever for our lack of belief. That is always so funny to me.

I've had two weekends in a row of yelling at my Dad on the phone about religion; that's a little upsetting. Otherwise, I never get mad when I'm arguing--it's always just funny hearing a creationist try to talk science.

**grasshoppa** · 01-14-2008 04:00 AM

Originally Posted by Mes Tarrant

Dawkins has made me SO ANGRY at religious people.

I used to be ridiculously tolerant. I've always been non-religious, but I never used to give two shits about what other people thought. Now I'm just pissed at the nonsense that people believe, and they cannot give a single shred of evidence to support anything that they believe. Could someone who is not religious please give me suggestions on how to not get worked up about this crap?

I am serious. I don't want to turn into some angry, intolerant creep.

Get over it. Belief is belief...