The Dawkins Delusion - the book

[challupa]

To presume to use science to disprove my faith is meaningless. Because nothing can be disproven any more than anything can be proven. There is evidence to suggest my faith is incorrect. There is evidence to suggest my faith is correct. It is up to everyone to decide, based on the evidence which they see before them, the truth. I have weighed the evidence which has been presented to me - not only scientific evidence, such as the results of experiments, but also the testimony of others to something, and my personal experience.

I admit, there are some who believe blindly. They believe without reason, merely because they have been told to. But not all people of faith are such. I examined the evidence before me, and ruled that G-d exists and that the faith I now hold is the correct one. Mr. Dawkins, and any man, may examine the evidence before themselves and rule that G-d does not exist. That is their issue. It is, however, presumptive of Mr. Dawkins to call my ruling incorrect, and claim that his ruling is correct for everyone and that everyone else's ruling is obviously incorrect. He may attempt to argue in favor of his ruling, saying that he believes it to be accurate and to explain it. It is not, however, acceptable of him to insult me by calling me irrational because I don't agree with him.

It comes down to the same issue as evangelism and proselytizing. The former is okay - to try to spread your beliefs, to convince people of your opinion, and possibly change theirs. Proselytizing, i.e., the assertion of your belief as correct and obvious, and those who disagree with you as fools for not agreeing with you, is what Dawkins is doing - and it is no better than the Christian Right.

Yes I think it's fair to say that no one should be able to tell someone else they are stupid for their beliefs. On the other hand if those beliefs are harming anyone, I believe it is our duty as humanity to try and stop them from happening. By harm I don't been subjective beliefs but more laws society has agreed to put in place to protect humans from each other. eg. abuse, murder etc. In this way I do see Dawkins as crossing a line when he calls people stupid for believing in god, but I do agree with many of his comments overall.

 

[logician]

Proselytizing, i.e., the assertion of your belief as correct and obvious, and those who disagree with you as fools for not agreeing with you, is what Dawkins is doing - and it is no better than the Christian Right.

This simply is untrue.

 

[crystalonyx]

This simply is untrue.

And unfortunately the defensiveness of Christians and others who have read Dawkins expose' of the many problems with religion in general have led to these absurd attacks. There are literally tens of thousands of books denouncing the evils of atheism, I don't see anyone complaining about that.

 

[Luminous]

Proselytizing, i.e., the assertion of your belief as correct and obvious, and those who disagree with you as fools for not agreeing with you, is what Dawkins is doing - and it is no better than the Christian Right.

correct. this is why Dear Gautama said that our beliefs should not be Proselytized. However, even though it is a short term struggle, the spread of truth should depend upon itself, since we know not what it is. Buddhism=Agnosticism with guidelines.