Religion and Ethics Forum
Religion and Ethics Discussion => Philosophy, in all its guises. => Topic started by: Alien on September 16, 2015, 03:52:20 PM
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Anyone going? https://richarddawkins.net/dinnerwithrichard/
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Anyone going? https://richarddawkins.net/dinnerwithrichard/
Knowing how the antitheists here think I am so obsessed with the man I expect them to move heaven and earth to secure me a place at table.
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We don't have to think it Vlad; your posting record tells the story eloquently all by itself ;)
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Anyone going? https://richarddawkins.net/dinnerwithrichard/
In view of the thread title, I was surprised to see who the chance referred to. I'd be asking to be paid to attend a meal with RD; I would far rather dine with Prof. Brian Cox, or Stephen Hawking.
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If it's Hawking, take sandwiches and a flask. You're going to be there a while.
Interesting that you choose Cox and Hawking, neither of them religion-friendly to say the least.
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Attending this dinner qualifies you as a Dawkins Circle member and a VIP of the foundation
It's as though Dawkins has read this forum and decided that, if Vlad is accusing him of religion, he might as well live up to it.
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Anyone going? https://richarddawkins.net/dinnerwithrichard/
'A brief candlelight dinner in the dark' sounds rather odd doesn't really sell it does it. Sounds somewhat odd.
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Anyone going? https://richarddawkins.net/dinnerwithrichard/
'A brief candlelight dinner in the dark' sounds rather odd doesn't really sell it does it. Sounds somewhat odd.
“Creepy” is the word.
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“Creepy” is the word.
A little touch of Dick by candlelight?
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Anyone going? https://richarddawkins.net/dinnerwithrichard/
Knowing how the antitheists here think I am so obsessed with the man I expect them to move heaven and earth to secure me a place at table.
Strawboy, you are not under the delusion that people like you? Not that I'm anti-theist. :)
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Interesting that you choose Cox and Hawking, neither of them religion-friendly to say the least.
Shaker, does one have to only eat a meal with people who are in agreement with you? Hawking is, from all I've read and heard of his material, far more honest than Dawkins, willing to treat others with different views as reasonable human beings, unlike the far more dogmatic, single-minded (in this respect) RD who seems to treat those who disagree with him with a degree of disdain.
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Hawking is, from all I've read and heard of his material, far more honest than Dawkins
On what basis is Dawkins "far more" dishonest than Hawking? Evidence?
Hawking, remember, considers religious beliefs to be fairy tales for adult children afraid of the dark, i.e. death. Those are his exact words, by the way, not my paraphrase. That's honest and accurate to him and to me as well. Is that honest enough for you? That doesn't sound very much different to anything Dawkins might say. So on what basis do you consider Hawking to be "far more" honest than Dawkins? About what has Dawkins been or is he dishonest? Dishonesty, you'll remember, is a specific thing - not holding an opinion you disagree with, not being accidentally factually incorrect, but conscious and deliberate deception - so I think we'll be needing to see your evidence for this smear.
Obviously none will be forthcoming, as we know of old that you're not in the backing-up-your-assertions business, but you won't be able to say you weren't given the opportunity.
willing to treat others with different views as reasonable human beings
Even when they're not. Dawkins is one of that band of people who, outside of clinical psychiatry, has probably met more downright unreasonable people than most. There's filmed evidence for many of them.
unlike the far more dogmatic, single-minded (in this respect) RD who seems to treat those who disagree with him with a degree of disdain.
Examples?
Not that I have any great problem with disdain for disdain-worthy ideas and attitudes, you understand.
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Anyone going? https://richarddawkins.net/dinnerwithrichard/
'A brief candlelight dinner in the dark' sounds rather odd doesn't really sell it does it. Sounds somewhat odd.
Sounds to me like an invite from Mrs Bucket.
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According to the link "Spaces are extremely limited".
You'd think that for what they're charging you'd at least get a decent sized chair...
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Doh ::)
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If it's Hawking, take sandwiches and a flask. You're going to be there a while.
Interesting that you choose Cox and Hawking, neither of them religion-friendly to say the least.
I would never have dinner with Cox..................knife and fork or chopsticks at a pinch.
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Anyone going? https://richarddawkins.net/dinnerwithrichard/
Knowing how the antitheists here think I am so obsessed with the man I expect them to move heaven and earth to secure me a place at table.
Strawboy, you are not under the delusion that people like you? Not that I'm anti-theist. :)
People tend to........... antitheists like ''no fucker.''
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Anyone going? https://richarddawkins.net/dinnerwithrichard/
'A brief candlelight dinner in the dark' sounds rather odd
I thought so too - the word is candlelit :)
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Anyone going? https://richarddawkins.net/dinnerwithrichard/
'A brief candlelight dinner in the dark' sounds rather odd
I thought so too - the word is candlelit :)
I think candlelight is more common in America than candlelit - but both really infer something a bit more romantic than I think it will turn out to be!
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Oh, you never know ;)
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Oh, you never know ;)
Indeed :)
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OMG. That is beyond parody.
The grand a night thing and the 'exclusive VIP circle' membership is straight out of the USA Life Coaching manual for flogging people a personality cult. Richard's obviously hired himself a marketing guru Stateside.
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According to the link "Spaces are extremely limited".
You'd think that for what they're charging you'd at least get a decent sized chair...
Nice one.
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Examples?
The very filmed evidence you refer to earlier in the post. I have now seen about half a dozen of them, and I haven't always been in any form of agreement with his opponent, but he has always been pretty unpleasant and rude.
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I can't call to mind a single example of where he's been unpleasant and rude, not even in situations where it would have been entirely understandable.
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I can't call to mind a single example of where he's been unpleasant and rude, not even in situations where it would have been entirely understandable.
Would being pompous count?
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I can't call to mind a single example of where he's been unpleasant and rude, not even in situations where it would have been entirely understandable.
Would being pompous count?
He's no more pompous than any of the religious leaders that pontificate from their own stand-point, arguably less so.
O.
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I can't call to mind a single example of where he's been unpleasant and rude, not even in situations where it would have been entirely understandable.
Would being pompous count?
Not without examples, no.
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I can't call to mind a single example of where he's been unpleasant and rude, not even in situations where it would have been entirely understandable.
Would being pompous count?
He's no more pompous than any of the religious leaders that pontificate from their own stand-point, arguably less so.
O.
Outrider and Shaker, let me clarify my question. If Dawkins has been pompous, would that count as being unpleasant and/or rude?
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I can't call to mind a single example of where he's been unpleasant and rude, not even in situations where it would have been entirely understandable.
Would being pompous count?
He's no more pompous than any of the religious leaders that pontificate from their own stand-point, arguably less so.
O.
Outrider and Shaker, let me clarify my question. If Dawkins has been pompous, would that count as being unpleasant and/or rude?
(1) No.
(2) You could have clarified your question by adducing specific examples of where you, in your opinion, consider Dawkins to have been pompous, instead of ducking, diving and dodging the issue by asking another question. Can you do that?
No, spose not ::)
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Dearly Beloved,
The worlds greatest thinker, F*** me!!
Seriously, worlds greatest thinker :o :o :o
No honestly!! I did read the link, Prospect magazine says, worlds greatest thinker, someone is having a giraffe.
A thousand dollars!! I would rather watch Shaker cutting his toenails :o :o
Now I would pay that obscene money to sit in the presence of Wigs, Sane and old Blue, they are great thinkers.
I wonder whats on the menu, no Gonnagle, it is such an old joke :P :P
Gonnagle.
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That's Bouquet, Mr Humphy, BOUQUET!
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The great thinker
http://m.huffpost.com/uk/entry/8165644?1442760775
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The great thinker
http://m.huffpost.com/uk/entry/8165644?1442760775
I once saw Robin Ince n stage. He said of Richard Dawkins “a man who should not be allowed on Twitter”.
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The great thinker
http://m.huffpost.com/uk/entry/8165644?1442760775
I once saw Robin Ince n stage. He said of Richard Dawkins “a man who should not be allowed on Twitter”.
It's a conspicously bad medium for the expression of ideas and the imparting of information for someone who has otherwise written so many so beautifully lucid books that they made him a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, that's for sure.
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The great thinker
http://m.huffpost.com/uk/entry/8165644?1442760775
I once saw Robin Ince n stage. He said of Richard Dawkins “a man who should not be allowed on Twitter”.
It's a conspicously bad medium for the expression of ideas and the imparting of information for someone who has otherwise written so many so beautifully lucid books that they made him a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, that's for sure.
Then maybe the 'world's greatest thinker' might realise that after consistently making an arse of himself on it?
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I can't call to mind a single example of where he's been unpleasant and rude, not even in situations where it would have been entirely understandable.
Would being pompous count?
He's no more pompous than any of the religious leaders that pontificate from their own stand-point, arguably less so.
O.
Outrider and Shaker, let me clarify my question. If Dawkins has been pompous, would that count as being unpleasant and/or rude?
To a degree, both are aesthetic judgments - there's no definitive measure of either 'unpleasant' or 'rude', so it's a personal opinion on how you take the man.
Certainly he seems significantly less aggressive, abusive and combative than many public figures in the religion debates, even some on the godless side, but then there are some who will consider him rude and unpleasant not because of how he presents his opinion but because of the opinion he holds.
In much the same way, of course, there are some who will find the sort of bigot that characterises the worst elements of fundamental Christianity to be rude because of their homophobia, misogyny and racism, rather than how they present those views.
I can see, a times, why Professor Dawkins might be classified as pompous, he can take a slightly lecturing tone at times, but he is by profession an academic professor: he has spent a considerable portion of his professional life being asked to lecture. I do think he's given less tolerance than the preachy religious types who do much the same but are given some sort of carte blanche to do so because of the type of collar they wear.
O.
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I think I know why he comes across as rude, it's the way he classifies religious people.
He bases his arguments against Christianity ( or any other religion) on a fundementalist/ literalist almost extremist position which leaves no room for the moderate person.
He holds to a position - and there's a degree of justification to it - that to hold any position on religion is to be part of the problem of religion, but the sort of vague, wishy-washy semi-spirituality with a strong organisational background (C of E, for example) is arguably the worst. They don't have any strong feelings or beliefs beyond a general idea that there is a god who loves us, which is a difficult position to assail, whilst maintaining a fairly elaborate and strong civic structure (often with associated benefits such as tax breaks) and a tendency to involve themselves in secular politics.
For someone who sees religion itself as the problem - not, necessarily, faith or spirituality, though he has a degree of disdain for those as well, but the formal structures of religion - anyone supporting those structures is part of the problem.
I was talking to someone who met him who wasn't at all extreme and Richard Dawkins told him that because he didn't fit he was a " weak sort of Christian"
And on this very board in the last week we've had someone openly declare that they like to classify atheists into 'strong' and 'weak' varieties - it's become something of a trend from those that are fighting back against the growth of atheism - and I wonder if his response was along those lines. Certainly Anglicanism could be seen as the 'weak' correlate on the religious side to the agnostic atheist position.
Which is a bit rude, if you think about it.
If you choose to take it that way, but as I said: is it any ruder than the religious people doing it the other way?
RD seems to think that typical Christianity is the American fundementalist evangelical type or at least that real Christians believe in creationism etc.
If they don't then they are "weak" Christians.
Much as some religious people see Vlad's patented 'anti-theists' and the rest of us as somehow 'weak' or not really atheists, just pretending (after all, don't we all believe really, some of us are just pretending not to so we can fit in with the cool kids!).
RD's position is that religion itself is the issue. At its worst you have recidivist, evidence-immune savages, but even at its best you still have the evidence-immunity and you have people that attempt to justify religion itself, and in doing so provide a shield behind which the extremists can hide. In that sense, the 'weak' religious are as much a part of the problem as the 'strong' fundamentalist terrorists and theocrats.
That said, I do feel that Professor Dawkins sometimes forgets that not all of his audience are American and Saudis, and equally the press are just as keen to take comments of his that are aimed at the more openly religious sectors of the world audience to which he's addressing commentary and trying to manufacture outrage in the relatively innocuous religiosity of the UK.
O.
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Thanks for that post outrider, yes I suppose moderate religious people can be seen as supporting the more extreme sorts.
It's a continuum, and I think there's a sort of disinterested 'default' religiousness that's ultimately pointless and only serves to boost statistical claims for religion, there's the bulk of 'actually' religious people who are generally decent and then there are the extremists, but unfortunately the nature of religion is that it's difficult to isolate where the boundaries are to delineate 'acceptable' religious activity from 'unacceptable'. The moderates aren't actively supporting the extremists - they're likely as horrified as anyone else - but that lack of a clear boundary means that functionally they are all just 'religious'.
It does, for me, highlight the irony of the vocally pious Christians denouncing moderate Muslims for not speaking up enough against Islamic extremism when, to me, they're just as much advocates for the religious mentality as anyone.
Although I think many moderately religious people see the more extreme members as the weaker ones, who have issues.
Indeed, on both sides of the theist/atheist equation the irony is that as an agnostic I find the 'weak' argument actually to be the more robust.
O.
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I can't call to mind a single example of where he's been unpleasant and rude, not even in situations where it would have been entirely understandable.
Would being pompous count?
He's no more pompous than any of the religious leaders that pontificate from their own stand-point, arguably less so.
O.
Outrider and Shaker, let me clarify my question. If Dawkins has been pompous, would that count as being unpleasant and/or rude?
(1) No.
(2) You could have clarified your question by adducing specific examples of where you, in your opinion, consider Dawkins to have been pompous, instead of ducking, diving and dodging the issue by asking another question. Can you do that?
No, spose not ::)
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/18/richard-dawkins-sexist-atheists-bad-name for starters.
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I can't call to mind a single example of where he's been unpleasant and rude, not even in situations where it would have been entirely understandable.
Would being pompous count?
He's no more pompous than any of the religious leaders that pontificate from their own stand-point, arguably less so.
O.
Outrider and Shaker, let me clarify my question. If Dawkins has been pompous, would that count as being unpleasant and/or rude?
To a degree, both are aesthetic judgments - there's no definitive measure of either 'unpleasant' or 'rude', so it's a personal opinion on how you take the man.
Certainly he seems significantly less aggressive, abusive and combative than many public figures in the religion debates, even some on the godless side, but then there are some who will consider him rude and unpleasant not because of how he presents his opinion but because of the opinion he holds.
In much the same way, of course, there are some who will find the sort of bigot that characterises the worst elements of fundamental Christianity to be rude because of their homophobia, misogyny and racism, rather than how they present those views.
I can see, a times, why Professor Dawkins might be classified as pompous, he can take a slightly lecturing tone at times, but he is by profession an academic professor: he has spent a considerable portion of his professional life being asked to lecture. I do think he's given less tolerance than the preachy religious types who do much the same but are given some sort of carte blanche to do so because of the type of collar they wear.
O.
Fair summary.
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...
And on this very board in the last week we've had someone openly declare that they like to classify atheists into 'strong' and 'weak' varieties - it's become something of a trend from those that are fighting back against the growth of atheism - and I wonder if his response was along those lines.
That would be me.
See the following for the use of "weak" and "strong" atheism terms:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_atheism
http://atheism.about.com/od/Atheist-Dictionary/g/Definition-Weak-Atheism.htm
http://atheism.about.com/od/atheismquestions/a/strong_weak.htm
http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=Weak_atheism
Those are the top 4 results from a Googles search on "atheism weak" (without the quotation marks).
Which of those sites would you say is "fighting back against the growth of atheism"?Certainly Anglicanism could be seen as the 'weak' correlate on the religious side to the agnostic atheist position....
O.
Define "Anglicanism" (good luck with that :) ).
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That would be me.
I don't like to name names too often :)
See the following for the use of "weak" and "strong" atheism terms:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_atheism
http://atheism.about.com/od/Atheist-Dictionary/g/Definition-Weak-Atheism.htm
http://atheism.about.com/od/atheismquestions/a/strong_weak.htm
http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=Weak_atheism
Those are the top 4 results from a Googles search on "atheism weak" (without the quotation marks).
I understand that it's in common use, and I get the differentiation - and the need for it, but I still think there's a degree of malice to the relish with which it's used in some circles.
Of course, I'm also pretty sure that the some of the 'strong' atheists accept the description with relish :)
Define "Anglicanism" (good luck with that :) ).
I would, but due to lifestyle choices I don't have an eternal afterlife in which to begin that particular task!
O.
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That would be me.
I don't like to name names too often :)
Your tactfulness was appreciated.
See the following for the use of "weak" and "strong" atheism terms:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_atheism
http://atheism.about.com/od/Atheist-Dictionary/g/Definition-Weak-Atheism.htm
http://atheism.about.com/od/atheismquestions/a/strong_weak.htm
http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=Weak_atheism
Those are the top 4 results from a Googles search on "atheism weak" (without the quotation marks).
I understand that it's in common use, and I get the differentiation - and the need for it, but I still think there's a degree of malice to the relish with which it's used in some circles.
That would not be me then coz I'm ever so sweet.
Of course, I'm also pretty sure that the some of the 'strong' atheists accept the description with relish :)
Define "Anglicanism" (good luck with that :) ).
I would, but due to lifestyle choices I don't have an eternal afterlife in which to begin that particular task!
O.
Nice one.