Reply #30: Since you'll obviously play up any cheap rhetorical trick...

[Silent3]

...regardless of honest intellectual merit, here's a flat out answer for you: No, Dawkins is not my "god", not even by your convenient shifting definition du jour. I rather doubt that Dawkins is a "god" to ZombieHorde either, regardless of whatever points you think you might score by maintaining that pretense.

I called you on the "comfort, security" thing not because I truly believe that that's all you think a god is, but to point out (via, I would hope, obvious sarcasm) that it's intellectually dishonest to bring such a watered-down meaning of "god" into a discussion of Dawkins and what he has said.

Dawkins has argued against the validity of religious beliefs, and the potential pitfalls and dangers of the kind of uncritical and magical thinking that goes along with religion. He isn't running a campaign against all things that provide comfort and security, he isn't challenging the reality of all things that provide comfort and security, and he isn't trying to set himself up as a new to-be-worshiped source of comfort and security.

I will confess to the deep, dark secret that I like the guy and that I find it pleasant that there are articulate spokespeople like Dawkins out there promoting a philosophy similar to my own, writing books, giving lectures, and participating in public discussions that are getting good exposure. This brings up an important question: So what?

Show me something that I supposedly "believe" in that's based on nothing but feel-good, self-reinforcing Dawkins worship, something I can't argue for apart from appealing to my supposed Master, and you might have a point. Otherwise all you have is sly, dishonest innuendo.