Britain's new cultural divide is not between Christian and Muslim, Hindu and Jew. It is between those who have faith and those who do not.

[bossykate]

fascinating article in today's guardian.

here

He doesn't, ppb, honestly.
he just thinks the assertion needs evidence.

Actually, if anyone bothered to read The God Delusion they would find to their consternation that he DOES actually say he is an agnostic, if only in the sense that scientists never say something absolutely cannot happen. As he puts it, he is almost 100% certain that if he lets go of a hammer it will fall to the floor a hammer, but he cannot completely disprove that the molecules will not separate and reform into a totally different shape. What he says is that if there is absolutely zero evidence for a theory, and in fact, all the evidence strongly indicates that the theory is false, and that the evidence offered for the theory has been shown to be incorrect, then we tend to to think it is wrong. I just don't believe for one minute that there is a bit of Droile (an intelligent, rational person) that believes in Thor, the son of Odin and the giantess Jörd and whose wife, Sif, has golden hair which was made for her by the dwarfs after Loki had cut off her hair, and who makes thunder by banging with his hammer (presumably a different one to Dawkins' hammer). You don't believe it for one second. You know perfectly well it is a rather attractive and interesting man-made myth (especially now science can provide a rather better explanation of thunder). And that's what I believe about all gods.

He doesn't think they're morons, he wants them to support their unquestioning belief (and he really only tends to talk to the 'unquestioning' ones)

Yes, at one point he posits a sliding scale of belief from 1-7, putting himself at 6.

I love Norse mythology; it's beautiful and colourful and epic.

RD points out that you can be an agnostic (of sorts) without being split 50-50 - in fact, that it's rare anyone would be split 50-50. You're always going to lean towards which way you consider more "probable", and for him God is "almost entirely improbable".

I wish I had time to read all this stuff.

Briefly though - well, like Aloha says re mytghs n stuff.

I don't see Dawkins as being a "bonkers fundamentalist" at all. In fact his very argument is that too many liberal agnostics see certain religious beliefs as harmless and unquestionable. And they aren't.

...and, as a non religious person I find it quite irritating when I am described as someone who has "no faith". I have lots of faith. I just don'tv have faith in supernatural beings.

I will admit to not having read the book just yet. It is on my nightstand waiting to be read. I have listened to him in various interviews and he comes across as very hostile to religious people. Maybe he isn't in his book, I'll find out soon enough, I'm only going on what I have heard from him and what I have read in the press.

Oh, he is quite rude, especially about US fundamentalists, which I find very funny. But at least he doesn't think you will all burn in hell and he even owns and likes his 'Atheists for Jesus' t-shirt.

I want one!

This is what I mean, Which US fundamenalist are you talking about? I usually find people who talk about The "US Fundamenatlist" or the "religious right" have no experiance of them what so ever.

Well he does. He talks about the 'end timers' and the far religious right who have so disastrously influenced foreign policy.

Paula I strongly recommend you read the book and return with your comments afterwards. You just seem to want to argue. What are you finding so offensive in Aloha's comments?

I don't think you need to "experience" the US religious right do you? Call me bigotted, but the ugly protests against eg abortion doctors or gays say it all really. Or do the people in those photographs not exist?

Yes, the ones who kill doctors are especially charming I find. And the Pearls -the religious fundamentalist child-rearing 'experts' who advocate beating babies with specially purchased rubber tubing are pretty delightful too. He also talks very interestingly about the difficulties of being an atheist in today's US in the teeth of intense prejudice.

Well, while I agree with many of his positions....and he makes a few of them in the Ancestor's Tale which I commend to you all as an excellent read, I find his derisive attitude a bit disappointing at times. I keep wanting him to properly engage at an intellectual level with other intellectuals who possess religious faith, rather than starting from the premise that they are all obviously childish and unthinking. Only then will he really get his point across in a much more powerful way, and perhaps make some of them change their minds. After all, he should be proseltysing science in his capacity as Charles Simoni Prof for the Public Understanding of Science...

UQD - over to you

It's Simonyi. Just looked it up. Was writing from memory.

the thing i find most depressing about reading this thread is that DC hopes for a world populated with people like him. God [if he exists] help us all.
I found this God Delusion review rather interesting.

goddelusionreview

did i say 'he' exists? Oh dear. Never mind, everyone's gone home.

ruty - thanks for this review. This is the sort of author that Dawkins should be able to engage with. I note he's a prof of English, not Theology. But he refuses, seemingly, to engage on this sort of level.

What, or who, is DC?

hooray! Somebody's still here! What or who indeed Dr Daddy. I mean DominiConnor. [no offence DC] Yes, I found it interesting that the review's author was an English professor, and then looking at the book from a slightly different, perhaps more detached angle, but then and English professor is as good as a self -depleting Neanderthal in DC's book. No good can ever come from Arts Grads, you mark my words.

Monkeytrousers, "by our standards", I mean modern western ones. Yes of course we've evolved from primitive societies. My point was that their "ancient wisdom" is illusory.

As for "fundamentalist atheist", I have a definition which I offer.,
"Fundamentalist" used to mean someone who went back to the original texts and typically tried to interpret them literally. Moslems often find this path because they still have their original book, and it's in language that many of them can still understand.

Very very few Christians are true fundamentalists because they have lost their original text, and the 3rd hand accounts are in very dead languages. This fundamentalist Christians rarely read original texts, but instead take translations of pretty low accuracy as literal truth. The King James Bible is beautifully written, but at a price that much was "improved".
Thus fundamentalism is often a motivation, not a process of self education in what one believes to be the word of God.
The problem then occurs that if you get to the literal word of God, your faith will tell you that any contrary opinion is an attack on God. Many people get past this, with nothing more than a bit of a headache caused by stress. But some are flipped over the edge into violent paranoia. This is common enough that in contemporary English "fundamentalist" now usually means "extremist".

Thus we have extremist atheists, which contrary to what people round here may think, I am not. Many justify their atheism by quoting "original" texts. Dawkins "The God Delusion" read like any religious fundamentalist diatribe. It cites Einstein et al as purveyors of "original truth", which from a scientific point of view is just bollocks.
Most of the great 20th century scientists were some for of atheist. Both Einstein and Feynman believed in a wholly impersonal universe which cared not one bit for humans on a persona basis.
But that doesn't make it true.
I've heard the recordings of Feynman's refutation of the personal God, and it's rubbish, not even consistent with the physics he sorted out so much.

Actually the original text is not lost, it's in the Vatican museum.
You may view it and make your own translations if you so wish.

DC as Monkeytrousers pointed out earlier:-

"It's Muslim DC, not Moslem.
"Until the late 1980s, the term Moslem was commonly used. However, translated, Moslem is the Arabic word for "one who is evil and unjust."- thus the word is now most commonly written "Muslim".""

Please stop using this term

He won't you know.