Do you like how Dawkins, Hitchens et al. represent atheists?
- Thread starter francois
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Like debate, on an internet forum.
Yeah, except having your kid walk on to a cluster bomb is more painful than having him stumble onto an internet forum.
Yeah, except having your kid walk on to a cluster bomb is more painful than having him stumble onto an internet forum.
And here I'd always been told that debate was a greater weapon than any bomb, since it changes mass opinion and thereby law.
Anyone who thinks the pen is mightier than the bomb is welcome to a duel.
The pen influences mindsets, makes sharia, signs off on wars. Bombs merely fall.
Sometimes on writers.
/sarc
True! But they bring it on themselves, don't they?
I mean, I don't want to see writers punished with bombs or death or all that whatnot, even if what they do is a huge sin against my deity. But if they go against the status quo, then what do they expect? I think writers should have the same rights as other (normal) human beings, or at least as many rights as animals, except when they do their evil writing or think about it, in which case they're sinning and probably shouldn't have those rights. I'm not trying to be some kind of anti-writing bigot; I'm just "playing it safe", religiously, since I know my god disapproves of writing in all forms.
See, it's their own fault. Modern and authoritative scientific studies show that writing can be cured through therapy. Not that it's innately wrongful! Of course not. Some of my best friends are writers; I know several at least. But it can be treated. Not that the treatment of writing is really treatment, as though writing were a disease or something; the fact that we talk about "therapy" and "cure" is just our innocuous way of implying "different...in a really really bad way".
The other thing is that writers are always writing about this and that, without ever sticking to anything for very long. And that's just not good, is it? There are probably sentences and paragraphs lying around half-finished all over the place, their futures irrevocably wrecked by the irresponsible permitting of writers to write. Everyone knows that a book always in all cases requires two writers, one male and one female. My-unspecified-deity knows, no pair of writers ever wrote a bad book. Or even half a dozen.
In some countries, writing is punished by death. Or not. Or, it is, but the sentences get commuted to things like several years of hard labour, which is better than death, isn't it? We need to try to be reasonable about these discussions; let's all be reasonable about the impending - but understandable , but wrongful or at least...not-nice - punishment of writing; not that writing is bad, but that it is bad to write.
I guess it's fine to merely think about writing; that won't get you in physical trouble, although of course you'll still be going to hell. But it's the irresponsible activity of writing - of being, in essence, a writer - that makes for a bad society, since as you know one is always forced to read the words that every writer writes. It's like a train wreck! Can't take your eyes away.
So: in conclusion - writing bad, and should be punishable, but not punished; sort of like a sword of Damocles to remind people what proper behaviour really is all about. Thinking about writing...well, we can't stop you there.
But you're still going to hell.
/sarc off
Yeah, lets fight the imaginary monsters while ignoring the giant man eating gorilla in the room. oooh look monsters under the bed; maybe the gorilla will save us.
That's odd. The media invents only the one kind of monster? The harder adherents of the Fifth Estate would be so upset to hear you say that.
You can color code them for easy referral.
The reds are gone; now the greens are here (that should take care of the anti-global warming group as well since green =seeing red)
Well, such things as this:
" A man can divorce his wife freely and has the right to retain custody of their children. Article 105 of the Civil Code stipulates: "In the relationship between husband and wife, heading the family is characteristic of the husband." The Islamic Council of Guardians decreed that "a woman does not have the right to leave her home without her husband
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Yeah, its obviously atheists who are religious; so Dawkins is pro-religion but anti-theist? .
Too bad he is does not cater to his own arguments.
It's obvious that some religious people are atheists, yes - perhaps the majority, historically: one's definition of "religion" and "god" come into play.SAM said:
In any case, posts about religion that get responses about gods, or vice versa, have not been responded to.
Dawkins is apparently anti-religion, but spends none of his time on the atheistic ones past or present - so it's hard to tell. His arguments all assume a context of theistic religion, religion incorporating indoctrination in the existence as a being of supernatural authority - or, in the view of some atheists, corrupted religion.
He does, though. Your contention that atheism is a kind of faith, or irrational belief, equivalent in its role to a theist's belief in their deity, is nothing you can assume for the sake of argument here.SAM said:
True.
It's fine to believe in something, but when part of the belief is forcing or coercing others, it's time to ask just who benefits. Follow the money, some people tell me. Well, let's follow it then; there's all kinds of currencies. Some people like to be paid in power.
If you ask me, it's the kind of meme that never changes throughout the ages.
What religious people are atheists?
Ok
There are religions which do not deal with rituals involving a higher power?
When I see a paper published in Science which accepts an argument like that, I will believe it.