Off Topic > Beyond Belief
Tyson, Dawkins, and religion
gillianren:
--- Quote from: ka9q on January 14, 2013, 04:22:25 AM ---
--- Quote from: gillianren on January 13, 2013, 07:43:27 PM ---he's solely preaching to the choir.
--- End quote ---
And, uh, we're not? ;)
--- End quote ---
No, we're not. We, at least most of us, are actively trying to avoid antagonizing those people who might disagree with us on an irrelevant social issue. It's also why I'm so determined that throwing mindless insults that cover all people in a category is a bad idea, no matter what that category is. By insulting religious people so generally, what Dawkins is doing is ensuring that the very people who need the education most--those who don't believe in evolution because they only understand the strawman certain religions have put up--will ignore anything he has to say. He can explain evolution in the most beautiful, accurate language, language which makes it obvious how little you understand the world around you if you don't accept it, and it won't matter. The people who need the explanation won't listen to him, because he insulted them in the title of his book.
ka9q:
I actually agree that we need religious people who understand, accept and can clearly explain evolution simply because so many creationists refuse to even listen to anyone they know (or suspect) to be an atheist or agnostic. That's why Brown biology professor Ken Miller (a Catholic) is such an effective opponent of "intelligent design". (Then again, many fundamentalists don't even consider Catholics -- or anyone who accepts evolution, for that matter -- to be legitimate Christians.)
People like Miller can also make a theological argument for evolution that I could never make (at least not honestly): "Who are you to tell god how he can or can't work?"
That said, Dawkins, as a humanist philosopher and social critic has important things to say about the harmful effects of religion that only an atheist like him can say without being hypocritical. I don't think he really needs to pull any punches; he just needs to be more explicit about whether he's speaking as a biologist or as a philosopher.
Valis:
--- Quote from: ka9q on January 15, 2013, 05:45:40 AM ---That said, Dawkins, as a humanist philosopher and social critic has important things to say about the harmful effects of religion that only an atheist like him can say without being hypocritical. I don't think he really needs to pull any punches; he just needs to be more explicit about whether he's speaking as a biologist or as a philosopher.
--- End quote ---
Educating the public is role in which he's seen in popular media. Books like The Blind Watchmaker and God Delusion are part of this role; respectively, they try to tell in easy terms how complexity can arise from simple beginnings and rules, and why a theistic belief is intellectually dishonest. His books targeting the general audience are scientific only in the sense as is Hawking's A Brief History of Time: A simplified overview of the current understanding.
I don't think that any "New Atheist" book can convert a true believer, in the same vein that true Apollo hoax believers can't be converted (cf. Heiwa). However, it's the fence-sitters who can learn the feeble basis of a theistic belief compared to our scientific knowledge, and Dawkins's site has plenty of reader stories about this. Another example is the late Christopher Hitchens, who also had a book with a seemingly insulting title (God Is Not Great) making an impact even among Christian preachers: http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2010/03/18/dennett-and-lascola-study-on-nonbelieving-clergy/
Elaborate philosophical arguments don't work in theistic belief/non-belief for the general public. Nietzsche for example had little impact, and same goes for Bertrand Russell. In a world where Jesus appearing on a toast is taken as a sign of a higher power, basic education in an easily accessible form is definitely needed, and a way to get people to actually read it is using pointed titles.
raven:
Eh, just because you are religious doesn't mean you automatically think some toast burned in a pareidoliac pattern is actually some kind of miracle. It fascinates me, sure, but only because the way the human brain so easily latches onto face like patterns fascinates me.
It's as much a stereotype as saying *all* atheist are all Dawkins clones.
What makes stereotypes wrong is not that there isn't examples of the stereotype, but that it assumes everyone who has one thing in common necessarily has another.
Valis:
--- Quote from: raven on January 15, 2013, 07:55:06 AM ---Eh, just because you are religious doesn't mean you automatically think some toast burned in a pareidoliac pattern is actually some kind of miracle.
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That's not what I said. What I said that in a world where we still have individuals taking such things as miracles, there's a definite need for public education.
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