Do you like how Dawkins, Hitchens et al. represent atheists?

francois said:
I rather like Richard Dawkins. I've been on a kind of reading spree of his books lately and I think the atheist community is lucky to have him to represent them. He is a very clear thinker and communicator. However, I think he could do a little better to not sound so arrogant. In some of his speeches and writings, he does appear to think that atheists are superior to others.

In one of his speeches he talks about a woman who outgrew her religious upbringing "and she grew into the mature, well-balanced atheist she is today." I know it doesn't have to be interpreted as being a relative term, as in meaning atheists are more "mature" and "balanced." But it did come off that way and many in the audience seemed to laugh at his arrogance, and dare I say, bigotry. For some reason at the moment I'm having difficulty coming up with more examples, but at many times in The God Delusion he seems to imply that atheists are smarter than theists. While he may be right and there may be evidence that supports that assertion, it isn't an attitude one should wave around and flaunt. It doesn't make you (and other atheists) look good.

Overall, I very much like how he handles himself and consider ourselves lucky to have such a wonderful person to represent us. There's that other guy Christopher Hitchens... I've seen him on interviews and whatnot. He comes off as very strident and arrogant. Maybe this is just how these people develop as a result of having controversial and unpopular opinions, but I have to say that the arrogance many atheists exhibit really annoys me.

Maybe it's just me... but there's that whole "Brights" community. The Brights are a community of atheists trying to come up with a name and identification that doesn't carry the same bad connotations as atheist. But even that name, Brights... it's almost implying they're bright people. Perhaps brighter than you are, if you're not an atheist. Annoys me.

Do you guys get that too? That proselytizing atheists often come off as arrogant?
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I thought he represents only himself,his beliefs,no one apointed him as a spokesperson for all atheists.
 
S.A.M. said:
Strange, when I lived in Saudi Arabia, I found it was the women who had lived in the West who were most upset about their lack of freedom, the ones who had not, found the notions that they were caged most odd.:shrug:
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A mare in a paddock rarely complains. A wild mare dragged into a paddock, much more so.
 
S.A.M. said:
All property given to a woman by her parents or earned by her or given her by her husband (gold house etc) is solely her property, even in case of divorce. A man has the responsibility to provide for his children AND his wife, but a wife has no responsibility to share her wealth with him. Saudi women convert all their wealth into gold (since all the land belongs to the king) and sit on it. :p

edit: you have got to see the gold souks, unbelievable
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Interesting. So nobody really cares as long as they have filthy amounts of cash.
Did you read the article I posted? It goes beyond "women can't drive" - arbitrary detentions, secret police, beheading people for rather petty crimes. But I suppose that sort of thing happens to poor people and immigrants, to rich Saudis? Not so much.

Besides, there are no Saudi financial ties to the 9/11 attacks, so they are our good friends in the region. :rolleyes:
 
S.A.M. said:
What about mares born in the paddock?
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What about egg chickens in tiny cages? If you're arguing that freedom is not necessarily desireable, then I think the debate is done and that I have won it. Bluntly: choose, reader, which ye will: freedom or not?

Besides, wild mares go extinct. :p
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Ah, but they don't. They thrive. Where they do not do so, it is because they have been caged. Some people don't recognize their own cages, of course.
 
GeoffP said:
What about egg chickens in tiny cages? If you're arguing that freedom is not necessarily desireable, then I think the debate is done and that I have won it. Bluntly: choose, reader, which ye will: freedom or not?

Ah, but they don't. They thrive. Where they do not do so, it is because they have been caged. Some people don't recognize their own cages, of course.
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And some people wouldn't take the unfettered life if it was offered to them on a golden tray; appear to prefer the stress and benefits of entrapment. :confused::p
 
S.A.M. said:
And some people wouldn't take the unfettered life if it was offered to them on a golden tray; appear to prefer the stress and benefits of entrapment. :confused::p
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There's a difference between being free to make your own choices and being free of technology and centralized society. The comparison doesn't stand.
 
GeoffP said:
What about egg chickens in tiny cages? If you're arguing that freedom is not necessarily desireable, then I think the debate is done and that I have won it. Bluntly: choose, reader, which ye will: freedom or not?
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But you are the intellectual heir of the Western enlightenment. Saudi women? Not so much.
You are also an atheist - whatever we don't share in common, we certainly have a different world-view than people who have spent their lives believing in a higher and omniscient power that demands obedience.

Besides, look at the Patriot act or our drug laws in the U.S to see just how much we value freedom over feeling safe.

People suck. Don't attribute noble ideals to them.
 
GeoffP said:
There's a difference between being free to make your own choices and being free of technology and centralized society. The comparison doesn't stand.
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Yeah I'm sure the Saudi women hate having no economic responsibilities and a crime free, safe society.
 
S.A.M. said:
Yeah I'm sure the Saudi women hate having no economic responsibilities and a crime free, safe society.
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reported to have been arrested in 2001, aged 16, and to have been tortured for several days until he "confessed" to making "verbal comments contrary to Shar'ia". He was sentenced to death but this was later reduced on appeal to 14 years' imprisonment and 4,000 lashes, to which he was subjected in repeated sessions of 50 lashes at a time.
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Hadi Sa'eed Al-Muteef, who was sentenced to death for making "verbal comments contrary to Shar'ia" in 2001, had his sentence commuted to a prison term. He was reportedly denied access to a lawyer, and not informed of proceedings against him or appeal processes.
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• Twenty men, who were among 250 people reportedly arrested for attending a private social gathering in al-'Ashamia area in Jizan in August, appeared to be prisoners of conscience detained solely for their actual or perceived sexual orientation. They continued to be detained without charge or trial at the end of the year; others held at the same time were released uncharged.
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http://thereport.amnesty.org/eng/Regions/Middle-East-and-North-Africa/Saudi-Arabia

Not sure how safe that sounds.
 
Xev said:
Interesting. So nobody really cares as long as they have filthy amounts of cash.
Did you read the article I posted? It goes beyond "women can't drive" - arbitrary detentions, secret police, beheading people for rather petty crimes. But I suppose that sort of thing happens to poor people and immigrants, to rich Saudis? Not so much.

Besides, there are no Saudi financial ties to the 9/11 attacks, so they are our good friends in the region. :rolleyes:
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The Saudis have different rules for natives and foreign workers; there are definitely much much harsher punishments for foreigners than for natives. e.g. drug trafficking by foreigners = beheading; by Saudis = a prison sentence (sometimes just a couple of years)
 
S.A.M. said:
Compare to any other society, treason (as any opposition to the government is viewed in KSA) is punishable by death. :shrug:

PS its a monarchy, not a democracy.

PPS: these are not my views, but what I have gleaned from the Saudis.
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Oh, I know. I'm just saying that Detroit sounds safer. :D
Fair enough. As I said to GeoffP, most people prefer some level of repression. Or so other Americans would lead me to believe.
Weak-willed pussies.

Bonus round:
http://web.amnesty.org/web/ttt.nsf/june2001/saudi_arabia
 
We are straying a bit from the subject matter...oddly enough Stryder puts very strict restraints on my threads but allows others to wander off topic with impunity.

I shall start a new thread on Dawkins and see how it goes.
 
Xev said:
But you are the intellectual heir of the Western enlightenment. Saudi women? Not so much.

...

People suck. Don't attribute noble ideals to them.
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True. But one should aspire higher, rather than being content with mere obedience.

S.A.M. said:
Yeah I'm sure the Saudi women hate having no economic responsibilities and a crime free, safe society.
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So long as you don't question religion, or authority, or males. Oh: and if you keep your mouth firmly shut. Anything else is treason, you know.
 
GeoffP said:
True. But one should aspire higher, rather than being content with mere obedience.
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Yes. But there are obstacles to achieving that.
Sartre, for instance, saw the aim of most human interactions as escaping freedom.

So long as you don't question religion, or authority, or males. Oh: and if you keep your mouth firmly shut. Anything else is treason, you know.
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SAM's not necessarily defending it, just stating how people think.
Otherwise she'd shut her whore mouth when GeoffP and Q are talking
 
Billy Chyldyshe said:
""When people stop believing in God, they don't believe in nothing -- they believe in anything." -
-- GK Chesterton
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Firstly, I don't think that holds up. People who consciously decide to abandon their faith, tend to do so for a number of reasons. If one those reasons is related to a critical evaluation of their former faith, it seems unlikely that they will just accept any other faith. It seems far more plausible that they would judge another faith with some set of criteria influenced by their experiences and personal frame of reference.

Secondly, even if it were so, it's beside the point. In former posts, you seem to imply that atheism leads to the death of millions. It doesn't. The violent enforcement of an ideology or a faith, obviously, could.

Once you remove one belief then its simply replaced by another and there can't be better example than Communism. Communism was nothing if not a superstition.
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Obviously, Fraggle Rocker responded to this with far more eloquence than I ever could.
 
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