Whenever I encounter an article about atheism, one of my “litmus tests” is to check how the writer refers to Dawkins and others. If I see anything like “Pope Dawkins”, or talk about his “apostles”, “acolytes” or “disciples”, I can pretty much stop reading at that point, since the author has just demonstrated that he or she doesn’t understand the most basic facts about atheism and atheists.

I’ve wondered about this tendency in religious writers for some time, and have come to the tentative conclusion that it’s tied in to the religious worldview. It’s a worldview of messiahs and apostles, of leaders and followers; of believers and heathens, insiders and outsiders. You are either for someone, or against them; since you are offered no objective reasons to believe what you are expected to believe, you have to have unquestioning faith in it.

Whether you call yourself an atheist, or free thinker, or skeptic;you aren’t expected to have unquestioning faith in anything, whether it’s religion, or atheism, or science, or Richard Dawkins. I have definitely had issues with his behaviour in the past, such as the nasty comments he made about the flight attendant embroiled in an argument about her crucifix. But the real value he offers is in his books, which are thoroughly researched, insightful, thoughtful and considered, clearly-written, and sometimes startlingly funny.

So, Richard Dawkins is not a “leader” in any sense other than in his field of evolutionary biology: we don’t follow him or see him as any kind of secular authority. If he were to say “jump!”, we’d say “you what?”

Posted: October 21st 2010

See all questions answered by brian thomson

I am an older atheist who thinks Dawkins makes atheists look good. He is polite, lucid, patient, knowledgeable, successful, happy, productive, well read, charming, witty, passionate, erudite, and gracious.

Posted: October 21st 2010

See all questions answered by logicel

I don’t think Dawkins is nearly as angry, as arrogant, as strident or as shrill as a lot of believers (and atheists) make him out to be. We shouldn’t all be quite as outspoken as he is because firstly he would have less impact, and secondly we can’t all afford to get the kind of bad press he gets, and lose religious friends who get rubbed the wrong way.

He reserves his most potent vitriol for creationists, especially young earth creationists, because he’s had to fight against their rhetoric and pseudo-science for his entire professional life as a biologist. That really gets up a lot of people’s noses, even other scientists, because they don’t think these people will ever come around if they’re being insulted. The main issue with this is that creationists, especially in America, work tirelessly to challenge evolution and substitute their own material in any setting where creationism is not openly derided, and that includes schools. Give them an inch and they aim straight at your kids, or they’d like to.

Dawkins values the truth above most other things, like politeness. He is still polite to a fault, mind you, but the fact that telling people that their worldview is wrong is regarded as impolite doesn’t stop him from doing so. He gives no judgement which isn’t perfectly clear in any conversation where two people find that they belong to different religions, or one belongs to none at all. Each person thinks that the other is completely mistaken about something very, very important. Bringing this into the open is seen by many, including Dawkins, as doing the mistaken a favour.

Posted: October 21st 2010

See all questions answered by SmartLX

First off, Dawkins writes very well. I came into his writing not because of his atheism but for his writing on evolution, and he is so much better than others (notably, S.J. Gould). So, as a scientist and author I think he’s great.

The real question is around how atheists should act WRT their beliefs. I was raised that one should keep their religious beliefs to themselves, and that it was impolite to do otherwise. But when you are a misunderstood and (lightly) oppressed minority, being quiet about it doesn’t help.

I am by no means equating what it is like to be an atheist in America with what it is like to be a homosexual in America – the atheists have it much, much easier in most places – but It’s obvious that we didn’t see gay rights make much progress until there were vocal supporters to talk about it and it became media-worthy to discuss. It’s still okay to say that atheists are communists, atheists are un-american, etc., while it’s generally not okay to say that about gay people – at least openly.

Dawkins’ approach is media-worthy in America, which brings more attention to atheism, which is good for atheism in the long run. Dawkins’ approach isn’t a very big deal in Europe because of the number of non-religious people there.

Or, to put it another way, the more outrageous people can be a pain for those of us who are more moderate, but they need to exist for us to be considered moderate.

Posted: October 20th 2010

See all questions answered by Eric_PK