Thoughts on Richard Dawkins

I respect Richard Dawkings and share many of his ideas.  We both are Brights, for instance, and subscribe to many ideas of the IHEU. On his spectrum of theistic probablity, he rates himself as a 6.9 or there abouts, i.e., "[…he…] cannot know for certain but [...he thinks…] God is very improbable, and […he lives his life…] on the assumption that […god…] is not there." "Improbable", not "impossible". Along a similar vein, as a skeptic, until I get incontrovertible, factual proof otherwise, my worldview does not include the supernarual or mystical. "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.", Carl Sagan).


Dawkings advocates militant atheism but I think the approach is self defeating. For example, here are two incidents on his tapes that I find jarring.


In one, a woman asked him, "What if you are wrong?" Instead of giving a reasoned answer, such as he requires proof and he will decide when he sees the proof, he plays the rhetorical game of turning the question back on questioner, to avoid the answer or to lead her to decide for herself. Maybe the question is to hard for him to answer? But then he proceeds to brow beat the woman who had the temerity to question him, driving the issue into the ground, possiblity creating enmity and/or humiliation. What did the game and brow beating accomplish but end all discourse and possibly alienating the woman and others like myself who hold to be freethinkers? Of course, his nodding ornament followers smugly sided with him, but did they really think for themselves or just take sides, group think? 


Intellectul mind games are just that, games. Einstein and Bohr had a continous mind game lasting for many years. But they both knew the rules, they were at the same intellectual level, and they respected one another, thus the game sustained itself. 


In the other, a man comes forward during one of Dawkings lectures, and "witnesses for god" and the man's "rebirth". Dawkins angrily replys, "You are delusional" and it turns into the child's school yard argument of "Are too/Am not". Not only is the interchange inane, but it reflects on both Dawking's compassion and knowldege. If one has dealt with the mentally ill, one knows that confrontation often leads to several possible results, such as creating and/or escalating hostility, even leading to physical violence, or pushing the invidual deeper into his shell and delusions and widening the gulf between him and reality.


Yelling at the village idiot only irritates him and is a waste of your time.


Would you treat someone as he did the two? Or would you offer compassion, comfort, and guidance? 


Dawkings has won many awards and accolades, assuaging his ego, but has he persuaded a single individual to leave "theism" and embrace "atheism"? The issue is still contentious, each side throwing stones at the other, each preaching to its own choir, neither gaining new adherents. 


So much for militancy.


TTFN
(Bright)