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trotsky

(49,533 posts)
Fri Oct 10, 2014, 11:58 AM Oct 2014

Richard Dawkins doesn’t deserve this fellow atheist’s smears

http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2014/10/richard-dawkins-doesn-t-deserve-fellow-atheist-s-smears

It’s not a good time to be Richard Dawkins, for he alone, like the scapegoat of Leviticus, must bear the brunt of everyone’s hatred of atheism. (Sam Harris sometimes serves as a backup goat.) Even though Dawkins has never proclaimed himself as any kind of atheist “leader” – his eminence among nonbelievers is purely a byproduct of his books and talks – he is the poster child for atheism, and everyone who hates atheists, including some other atheists, comes down on him. I can't count all the poorly founded attacks on the man, but one has just appeared that takes the cake.

John Gray is an English writer, philosopher, and an atheist who has it in for New Atheists. (I’ve previously analysed his missteps here, here, and here.) Gray seems to be one of those atheists who doesn’t like science, claims that its bad effects are as prominent as its good ones, and has a sneaking love of religion. But he’s never been as nasty as he is in his latest article in The New Republic, “The Closed Mind of Richard Dawkins”. And it is nastiness with no apparent purpose other than to smear Dawkins, which Gray does by pretending to review Dawkins’s latest book: An Appetite for Wonder, the first volume of his autobiography.

It’s okay to slam a book if the ideas are bad, or its thesis is insupportable. I’m thinking here of the best critical review of a science book I’ve ever seen: Peter Medawar’s crushing review of Teilhard de Chardin’s The Phenomenon of Man, in which Medawar fatally demolishes de Chardin’s gaseous lucubrations. But you won’t find Teilhard’s intellectual weakness in Dawkins’s book. If you’ve read it, as I have, you’ll find it a fairly workmanlike autobiography, dwelling mostly on the details of Dawkins’s life. There are a few bits about atheism (mostly about how Dawkins lost his faith, which appears to be a gradual process involving his exposure to Darwinism), but most of it is of the “I did this and then went here” variety. The best bits, for me, are at the end when Dawkins starts talking about science – it ends when he publishes The Selfish Gene, for a second volume is in the offing – as science is what really gets Dawkins’s juices flowing, and he’s best when writing about that, or about atheism. One senses that he’s unenthusiastically recounting the details of his life as a kind of duty, perhaps goaded by an agent or publisher.


Good piece that picks apart criticisms that we've seen variations of right here on DU. Posted here so we can be safe from disruptors.
12 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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Richard Dawkins doesn’t deserve this fellow atheist’s smears (Original Post) trotsky Oct 2014 OP
Ouch! AlbertCat Oct 2014 #1
Well, we've all seen "atheists" who seem to have "a sneaking love of religion", mr blur Oct 2014 #2
Science has good and bad points! Religion has good and bad points! trotsky Oct 2014 #4
Thanks! Lot of this going on right now... onager Oct 2014 #3
a link to the Bill Nye rumor: AlbertCat Oct 2014 #5
These rumors and anonymous accusations carry as much weight as Lordquinton Oct 2014 #8
He has called, on many occasions *for* a movement, and since we don't vote on it and shit, it AtheistCrusader Oct 2014 #6
I think he has Gelliebeans Oct 2014 #7
I like Dawkins. Manifestor_of_Light Oct 2014 #9
Not one of his comments skepticscott Oct 2014 #10
Yes, very good point. Manifestor_of_Light Oct 2014 #11
C'mon now, we have to feel for the poor theist. trotsky Oct 2014 #12
 

AlbertCat

(17,505 posts)
1. Ouch!
Fri Oct 10, 2014, 12:15 PM
Oct 2014

My 1st name is John and my middle name (that I'm called by) is Gray!

But if John Gray is an atheist with a description like:

"Gray seems to be one of those atheists who doesn’t like science, claims that its bad effects are as prominent as its good ones, and has a sneaking love of religion."

he is obviously as confused as any religionist. It is not "close minded" to dismiss magical crap. And how close minded is it to claim science's "bad effects are as prominent as its good ones"? The scientific method is not responsible for how science is applied, y'know.

 

mr blur

(7,753 posts)
2. Well, we've all seen "atheists" who seem to have "a sneaking love of religion",
Fri Oct 10, 2014, 01:08 PM
Oct 2014

and who are "as confused as any religionist", haven't we?

trotsky

(49,533 posts)
4. Science has good and bad points! Religion has good and bad points!
Fri Oct 10, 2014, 01:30 PM
Oct 2014

Everything is equal! No idea or answer is more correct than any other!

Well, except for those folks' opinions. Those are most assuredly better than anyone else's.

onager

(9,356 posts)
3. Thanks! Lot of this going on right now...
Fri Oct 10, 2014, 01:15 PM
Oct 2014

And from several different directions. Just off the top of my head, prominent atheists/skeptics attacked recently and charges currently pending in the Hopping-Marsupial/Atheist-Sharia Internet Courts:

Richard Dawkins (Islamophobe, General Poopyhead)
Sam Harris (Islamophobe, poor TV entertainer)
Lawrence Krauss (sexual assault)
Ben Radford (rape, sexual assault)
Michael Shermer (rape, sexual assault)
Dr. Harriet Hall, Paula Kirby, Abbie Smith, Miranda Celeste Hale, Maria Maltseva, Sara Mayhew, Ellen Beth Wachs and many others: openly practicing the wrong kind of feminism/atheism. Remember, if they float they're guilty...

And...Bill Nye The Science Guy! Nye has been accused of groping women at A/A conferences, AND having a gay fling with "Star Trek" actor Robert Picardo. Jeez, where does he find the time to do science?

Link to Michael Nugent's latest, where that "S" word comes up again and the Comments are even more interesting than the article:

http://www.michaelnugent.com/2014/10/07/the-smears-get-increasingly-serious-as-pz-myers-crosses-a-new-line/

And because inquiring minds want to know, a link to the Bill Nye rumor:
http://www.sfexaminer.com/sanfrancisco/star-trek-actor-denies-affair-with-bill-nye-the-science-guy/Content?oid=2866889

 

AlbertCat

(17,505 posts)
5. a link to the Bill Nye rumor:
Fri Oct 10, 2014, 01:40 PM
Oct 2014
"Star Trek" actor Robert Picardo, 60, is seeking a court order to stop his future ex-wife, Linda Pawlik, from spreading rumors that he's having a torrid relationship with the 58-year-old science educator.

Pawlik claims her private investigator says the two longtime buddies once spent hours together in Nye's bedroom, according to TMZ.



So you think his future ex-wife is lying!

You're obviously an atheist misogynist! Blaming the victim!!!!



Hey.... how does the PI know they weren't just play with Legos? Or having a conversation. OH that's right, people only have sex in bed rooms.

Lordquinton

(7,886 posts)
8. These rumors and anonymous accusations carry as much weight as
Fri Oct 10, 2014, 04:47 PM
Oct 2014

actual convictions and solid signed evidence of a cover up, why are you so bigoted?

AtheistCrusader

(33,982 posts)
6. He has called, on many occasions *for* a movement, and since we don't vote on it and shit, it
Fri Oct 10, 2014, 01:42 PM
Oct 2014

makes sense he might be interpreted as the 'leader' or organizer of it.

Wonderful delivery:


Gelliebeans

(5,043 posts)
7. I think he has
Fri Oct 10, 2014, 04:41 PM
Oct 2014

Been a target for a while now. Which has been unfair because we aren't organized as an institution with a rule book.

My hope is that the fury that is whipping up about him is because people know he is right and the argument to stay silent about non-belief or atheism is becoming less relevant.

Just look at how millennials feel about religion and sexual equality compared to just gen x'ers.

http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2014/03/07/millennials-in-adulthood/

I don't know, but look at how fast peole realized that LGBT long overdue and deserved to have equal rights under the law...once they knew someone who was "out" in a span of 10 years the numbers jumped.

 

Manifestor_of_Light

(21,046 posts)
9. I like Dawkins.
Sun Oct 12, 2014, 10:23 PM
Oct 2014

I think the hellraising over his comments is totally overblown in order to discredit him and all atheists. Apparently any atheist who says "I exist and I'm not going away" is a militant atheist. Oooooh scary militant atheists!!


 

skepticscott

(13,029 posts)
10. Not one of his comments
Sun Oct 12, 2014, 10:27 PM
Oct 2014

that people are throwing a hot fit over has any bearing on whether a god or gods exist, despite the attempts of fundies or the religionistsas over in Religion to paint it otherwise. Every bloody atheist in the world could be a raving sexist, and it wouldn't make their tribal gods any more real.

 

Manifestor_of_Light

(21,046 posts)
11. Yes, very good point.
Sun Oct 12, 2014, 10:30 PM
Oct 2014

When you ask a religious person "What is the rational basis for your belief? Do you have any facts to support this belief?" they lose their shit because they can't answer you and get furious at you for asking it.


trotsky

(49,533 posts)
12. C'mon now, we have to feel for the poor theist.
Mon Oct 13, 2014, 09:33 AM
Oct 2014

For thousands of years now they've had no response to that first evil atheist: "What's your evidence?"

When you have no answers, you have to attack the person who's asking the questions.

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