LaMont Cranston wrote:Meph, It could be that you have a better take on the whole Dawkins thing than I do, or it could be a matter of semantics. I'd call "misinformed rage" a meltdown.
Idk, the term suggests some amount of desperation as well, which I just didn't get from his responses. This likely is semantic so we'll just assume we're talking about the same thing.
I must admit that I made certain assumptions about Dawkins and the community he created that probably were not true. I just sort of assumed he was more loyal to his people and that there was better communication going on. I also assume that RD is pretty well fixed financially, so I don't see why money would have to be an issue for him. Many people find that being famous is not all it's cracked-up to be...in fact, it's a drag...and that may have got to him.
It doesn't matter how much money he and his organization have, it's about how much more money they can get. Anything to help the atheist "cause." Which I'd be more inclined to support if their position, however true, weren't so off-putting to theists as well. Which is partly to blame on the theists' part for being so opposed to anything contradicting dogma, but at the same time displays a lack of tact on the part of the atheists. And Dawkins himself has gotten much better about restraining himself...it's his fans, new atheists barely out of the closet who are angry at the world for deceiving them and immediately want to start deconverting any and every Christian they find with their newly found arguments that they've barely researched themselves. It gives a lot of nonreligious people who are more judicious in how they approach matters like that a bad name. I personally no longer affiliate myself with the "atheist" movement; I find it a very negative term overall and is about as important to me as asserting that I don't believe in fairies, i.e. hardly relevant.
I was willing to believe that he actually might be a rational thinker. Even thought I'm a theist, I place a high value on a lot of things, including rational thought, reason, logic, etc. What's also true is that I assume that true rational thinkers are able to apply rational principles to different parts of their lives, including relationships. Rational thinkers, by me, should be able to figure out or recognize those tactics and modes of behavior that work well if the goal is achieving more harmonious relationships. For instance, I have found that being kind and nice works much better than being hostile and angry.
Basically what I said in the first paragraph. Which many theists are also guilty of. I just wish atheists wouldn't stoop to their level.
Does that mean I'm always kind and nice? No. I find that I have to expend energy to be happy, kind, nice, joyful, grateful, etc. Of course, being mean, angry, envious, hateful and all those other negative things also require expenditures of energy. For me, being happy and positive produces much better results than all that negative shit, and as conscious beings, we can use the scientific method to see which behavior patterns work best to achieve the results we desire. (If anybody would like to start a thread about this subject, I'm willing.)
I can testify to this as well. Sure, there must be limits or otherwise people will walk all over you, but on the whole treating people with respect and exercising a little altruism goes much further than incessantly criticizing them.
I've also got to say that I thought that RDF had an awfully heavy dose of Dawkins all over it. I get it that, to many people, he is/was "The Voice of the New Atheism," "The High Priest of Rationality," but I did sometimes think that all that stuff about the Dawk was the creation of an egomaniac. (There's that word again.)
Again, see above. Dawkins is partially to blame by simply accepting the figurehead role, but I think a large portion of the blame also goes to the fans for taking such a fundamentalist approach to Dawkins' book. The God Delusion is fine, but Dawkins is no philosopher, and there are much, much better stated arguments than those he puts forth.[quote
Anyway, I will continue to observe what's going on. I'm quite interested in movements, causes, etc. and how they function. I realize that many atheists don't like being considered as part of a cause, and that's fine by me. I do see quite a few atheists approaching what they do or don't believe with the same kind of zealot-like fervor of those true believer types they despise.
A lot of atheists do like to be behind a cause, though. Those of us who don't would rather wait for a more constructive cause to come around.
As a theist, I'm both a fan and a critic of atheism, and I'll be the first to admit that those people and groups who have done horrible things and claimed they were doing it in the name of God, Jesus, etc. have done a lot of damage. Simply because people claim they are doing something does not make it so.
And now we're getting into debate territory. I try not to debate theists. It gets pretty boring when thread after thread of pointing out all of the presuppositional flaws in a theistic methodology is met consistently with equivocation and straw men. So have fun with that; I won't partake.
