Thoughtless for the Day

Rodney, I give you a lot of credit for expressing a perspective that goes unheard too often, but I will never understand your dedication to Dawkins. His overzealous attacks on Christianity just fuel the fire and encourage ignorant creationists to double their efforts, just like a crazed rioting mob erupting after a black guy gets shafted in a high profile court case: I understand where the rage comes from, guys, but you're really not helping matters by smashing windows and yelling about crackers. Besides, Dawkins knows hard science very well, but social science is clearly out of his range. Something is in our evolved cultures that has put religion there for a reason, as much as I personally dislike it. Really, its just there to help idiots cope with how much they suck while the elite few do their part to advance society and keep said idiots comfortable - all in the pursuit to get them to leave the elite the hell alone. Essentially what I'm saying is this: you can't keep creationism our of science classes by telling folks that their entire belief system is false. It just turns those monkeys into confused and angry shit-flingers.

U should become a social anthropologist Rodney.

I agree with Johnny about there being a reason that religion developed, but I disagree that it still has a valid reason to exist. The human mind has a need to make things make sense. Before and in the early days of science, making up bullshit was necessary to accomplish this. For nearly every everyday circumstance, however, science now provides a valid explanation (What the sun is, what makes rain happen, where human beings come from, etc.). Religion is now a useless vestigial organ, like a boneless third leg dragging along behind an otherwise healthy person. It's time for an amputation.

As for Richard Dawkins, the movement towards reason needs a full spectrum of adherents. Controversial people provide strong challenges to people's beliefs, while the more moderate types may help gradually put them in a frame of mind to listen. Dawkins is, at any rate, not always overzealous. I've seen him on youtube having a perfectly calm conversation with Bill Goddamn O'Reilly of all people. Lastly, Dawkins is awesome. That's a good enough reason for me.

I think that if Atheism is going to have a "face", we could do much worse than Dawkins. In my opinion (which, naturally, happens to be the correct opinion), Dawkins is the quintessential "smoldering intellectual": yes he's brilliant, methodical, and generally polite to those with whom he disagrees, but he's also capable of conveying that "Enough! This backwards way of thinking ends here!" sort of anger that broods within all of all who are attempting to stem the tide of ignorance and superstition.

This leads me to Julie Sweeney: the "sweet Atheist". Whereas Dawkins, like most of us, is concerned about the damage religion is currently doing to the masses, Sweeney sees the harm incurred by religious indoctrination on a personal level. It's a kinda interesting dichotomy.