Question:
Richard Dawkins : Does this guy suffer from delusions himself?
2010-11-10 09:48:22 UTC
Okay

First of all...My questions is for all thiests, athiests, agnostics etc etc

I am against radicals from all sides... theist or atheist..I am equally against the stubborn religious leaders and both richard dawkins ..I just saw a video of him claiming that einstien was a atheist and was scared of religious leaders and hence gave out statements showing his belief in God ( although a totally different version from what we all think)..Yes Albert was against any form of personal God. But to go and claim he was atheist when He himself repeatedly said He is not one is pure foolishness and a insult to the dead person him. One can call Albert as agnostic. His religious views could be either Deist or Agnostic..But he was not atheist for sure

In the past also Dawkins HAS made out absurd statements like he wants to arrest the Pope, all ills in the world are due to religion blah blah


If Dawkins thinks he is so right then why is it that so many scientists do not support him??? This guy is mentally insane, a shame to the scientific community and the atheist community as well.( for all the lies he has told..)..his dad will consider him to be a waste of sperm
Fourteen answers:
2010-11-10 09:52:29 UTC
He suffers from OCD.. I pity him
Guerrilla Sauce
2010-11-10 18:10:22 UTC
I disagree with Dawkins political views, so I don't usually defend him, but you are mis-represnting his character enormously.



I think most people describe Einstein as a pantheist, which would also make him atheist. Dawkins does usually say when bringing this up that Einstein could have been a deist also though.



The calls to arrest the Joseph Ratzinger weren't absurd. He was in charge of sorting out the mess caused to the church by those priests that molested children. He is directly responsible for the re-distribution of these wanted criminals to help them evade capture - he personally signed the orders and should face the punishment for the crimes he's committed in doing so. The classification of the Vatican is complicated and it looked for a time that he wouldn't be eligible for diplomatic immunity. The lawyers came back with the news that the pope did have diplomatic immunity and so couldn't be arrested - that's the end of it.



To say anyone is delusional for attempting to bring a criminal to justice though is absurd. Nor does he say that all the problems in the world are caused by religion, but that some of them are, some are made worse by it and it has an overall negative effect on society. He is not mentally insane, and does a fantastic job in promoting scientific understanding - how many other scientists produce as many popular-science books, documentaries or have non-profit organisations dedicated to the cause?



I get that you don't like him; like I said at the start, I don't like his views on some things either - but to make absurd judgements on his mental health and contributions to science betrays your ignorance.
2010-11-10 17:54:07 UTC
How is arresting the pope absurd?

He knowingly covered up instances of child rape allowing the perpetrators to abuse more kids, add to that his well thought out "condoms are bad speech" and while I'm for free speech That wasn't speech so much as decree. How many will die because of it?

Arrest the Pope
2010-11-10 18:03:29 UTC
People like Dawkins and religious fundamentalists feed off of one another. They both hold up their opposite numbers as a means of justifying their own vitriol.



To be fair to Dawkins, he seems to have moderated his tone more recently.





QUOTE: "a shame to the scientific community and the atheist community as well"



He has certainly embarrassed a fair few atheists.
Simon T
2010-11-10 17:55:59 UTC
Care to post links to some of these claims?





Why is is absurd to want to arrest the pope? He presided over the child-abuse scandal and there is documentation of him failing to report crimes and attempting to cover up crimes. These are criminal actions. What level of crime is the pope allowed to perform before people consider arresting him?



As for the rest, you are guilty of the hyperbole that you accuse Dawkins of.
Mike Grotch
2010-11-10 17:52:22 UTC
So, standing up for what you believe and advocating for certain policies makes you insane.

I'll try to bear that in mind.
Bettie
2010-11-10 17:51:35 UTC
Errr, wrong again!



Einstein was a Pantheist. Learn to history.
Peter P
2010-11-10 17:51:22 UTC
You might not like what Dawkins says, but you can't deny it's true. If you ciould have proven him wrong you woulld have instead of the ad hominems, eh?
2010-11-10 18:19:46 UTC
Dawkins seeks to offer rational explanations that seek to demystify what you refer to as a mysterious order and arrangement of books.



Regarding your presumptions about Einstein are the following quotes those of an atheist or an agnostic?



"It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I also cannot imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere.... Science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death."

-- Albert Einstein, "Religion and Science," New York Times Magazine, 9 November 1930



"I do not believe in immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority behind it."

-- Albert Einstein, 1954, from Albert Einstein: The Human Side, edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, Princeton University Press





"Scientific research is based on the idea that everything that takes place is determined by laws of nature, and therefore this holds for the action of people. For this reason, a research scientist will hardly be inclined to believe that events could be influenced by a prayer, i.e. by a wish addressed to a Supernatural Being."

-- Albert Einstein, 1936, responding to a child who wrote and asked if scientists pray. Source: Albert Einstein: The Human Side, Edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffmann







"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.

-- Albert Einstein, 1954, from Albert Einstein: The Human Side, edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, Princeton University Press







"The more a man is imbued with the ordered regularity of all events the firmer becomes his conviction that there is no room left by the side of this ordered regularity for causes of a different nature. For him neither the rule of human nor the rule of divine will exist as an independent cause of natural events. To be sure, the doctrine of a personal God interfering with the natural events could never be refuted, in the real sense, by science, for this doctrine can always take refuge in those domains in which scientific knowledge has not yet been able to set foot. But I am persuaded that such behaviour on the part of the representatives of religion would not only be unworthy but also fatal. For a doctrine which is able to maintain itself not in clear light but only in the dark, will of necessity lose its effect on mankind, with incalculable harm to human progress....

If it is one of the goals of religions to liberate mankind as far as possible from the bondage of egocentric cravings, desires, and fears, scientific reasoning can aid religion in another sense. Although it is true that it is the goal of science to discover (the) rules which permit the association and foretelling of facts, this is not its only aim. It also seeks to reduce the connections discovered to the smallest possible number of mutually independent conceptual elements. It is in this striving after the rational unification of the manifold that it encounters its greatest successes, even though it is precisely this attempt which causes it to run the greatest risk of falling a prey to illusion. But whoever has undergone the intense experience of successful advances made in this domain, is moved by the profound reverence for the rationality made manifest in existence. By way of the understanding he achieves a far reaching emancipation from the shackles of personal hopes and desires, and thereby attains that humble attitude of mind toward the grandeur of reason, incarnate in existence, and which, in its profoundest depths, is inaccessible to man. This attitude, however, appears to me to be religious in the highest sense of the word. And so it seems to me that science not only purifies the religious impulse of the dross of its anthropomorphism but also contributes to a religious spiritualisation of our understanding of life."

-- Albert Einstein, Science, Philosophy, and Religion, A Symposium, published by the Conference on Science, Philosophy and Religion in Their Relation to the Democratic Way of Life, Inc., New York, 1941
Acid Zebra
2010-11-10 17:53:02 UTC
I think you're scarier to be honest. If Dawkins is the most radical atheism has to offer, then religion is getting off very lightly indeed.
Rawr! it means i love u in dino
2010-11-10 17:54:21 UTC
"a shame to the [...] atheist community."

Ugh. Don't group all atheists into one category. It's annoying.
Turn it up! Bring the Derp!!!
2010-11-10 17:50:52 UTC
Your rant has been noted.



Please give some statistics to verify the inferred claim ("so many scientists").
Random Panther
2010-11-10 17:52:57 UTC
Link the video or we have no reason to believe you.
2010-11-10 17:50:02 UTC
He is the drum major, in a parade of fools.


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