GENIUS FORUMS

The Richard Dawkins discussion forum site has a feature which loads random quotes from him and other atheist types. So, I decided to start a thread criticizing them. The response I got was kind of odd (well, maybe not). You may or may not find the dialogue interesting:

Dawkins Debate

Well, you are not approaching with your usual degree of tact. You might want to take a rest and rethink your approach.

I didn't approach it "tactfully" for a reason. Tact is over-rated anyway. In fact, I don't think it means anything objectively.

You are in a strange mood tonight Dan. I'll leave it at that.

Am I? Why? What does "tact" mean, objectively? I think tact means all sorts of things to all sorts of people.

I didn't look at the discussion.

Tact is shining a bright light on egotism, in such a way that people really do look at it.


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Kelly Jones wrote:Tact is shining a bright light on egotism, in such a way that people really do look at it.

Agreed.

Dan, I think it's a brave attempt with some interesting possibilities, perhaps sparking some real thought in some atrophied minds. The following attempt to criticize your topic and method made me laugh:

Homo economicus wrote:Posted: Thu Jun 07, 2007 11:30 am: The trap you are falling in is reading the quote and than applying a negative reductionism to that quote. You are not taking into account the body of Dawkins work, or the man's often stated opinions. All that exists is that quote, and then you deliver your critique.

This is exactly the defense often raised by religious types and with sometimes good reason. Lets see the following examples.

- Dawkins in his preface of the Blind Watchmaker: "This book is written in the conviction that our own existence once presented the greatest of all mysteries, but that it is a mystery no longer because it is solved. Darwin and Wallace solved it, though we continue to add footnotes...."

First of all we have the conviction of Dawkins that the main mystery is solved because we know something about evolutionary processes now. No reasons given. For the majority of the people struggling with the great questions of life however evolution doesn't answer much. Why consciousness, why do I have an I, who is responsible for what I do, what are the limits of our knowledge, what is absolute? Knowledge of evolution doesn't seem to help there much.

- Dawkins in "The root of all evil" ( his TV documentary) where he quotes among others Deuteronomy 13 which "instructs believers to kill any friend or family member who favors serving other gods".

Typical rather moralistic quote against validity of the Bible and Qua'ran. But any theologian could tell you to read historical and cultural context, explore a proper translation, perhaps join a church for a while to get exposure to god and his community, pray a little and explore the whole she-bang and then you can understand why the bible is what it is without discrediting the concept of God.

This reply would be the same as some Dawkins parrots supply: watch the video, read the whole work, get scientific education, post a bit longer at our forum and then you might perhaps understand why the quote is so funny or profound to us. Or perhaps not so important at all.

The reasoning is really similar and would demonstrate possibly that people dissing religion do not know anything about its larger purpose and background, spanning many centuries as opposed to their short-lived attention-span culture, having mostly heard some of the popular horror stories. Or it shows how people in name worshiping reason still fall in religious traps without realizing it. Truely religious people (in the most negative sense) almost never realize they are following a religion. For them it's the obvious, the real, the given. They cannot overcome their own context.

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:This is exactly the defense often raised by religious types and with sometimes good reason.

Dawkins is one of the "new atheists" who are more outspoken about atheism, and don't seem concerned about the possibility of science turning into a religion. They are dogmatic about rationality and advocate atheism with religious fervor.

Dan Rowden wrote:The Richard Dawkins discussion forum site has a feature which loads random quotes from him and other atheist types. So, I decided to start a thread criticizing them. The response I got was kind of odd (well, maybe not). You may or may not find the dialogue interesting:

Dawkins Debate

........


Yo, Dan... i think you've stumbled upon a dumb and dumber list of village idiots. Going by the posted "photos" of themselves should give an indication of their intelligence quotient (IQ)

Give it a few more days and you'll know "if" some longer-time subscribers will get into the mix.

I'll maybe (maybe not) breeze around some other threads and see what's cooking. sniff-sniff


As it is, Worldly Matters (the brothel) keeps me interested enough.

Most chat lists are a dime-a-dozen.


The Internet - what a beautiful choice!



Tomas (the tank)
VietNam veteran - 1971


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I really just thought you were making a play to lure Richard out, to get him to react.

I'd have to re-read your criticism of his quotes again to see if you are being pedantic or not. It is just when people are too pedantic about words given in the spur of the moment, it tends to spoil the dominant meaning of what the person was saying. Nobody can state anything that is even marginally complex, perfectly, nor can anyone be all things to all people at the one time - so if Richard wants to battle the religionists, he can't make it too complex. What you are getting at seems to be something that will only come as a prominent meme set, after sufficent doubt has been placed in the religionsists minds, not before. You're trying to leap to the top of the tall building, when the only real way up is to use the stairs.

Now I'll go and see what has happened since yesterday arvo.

Jamesh wrote:I really just thought you were making a play to lure Richard out, to get him to react.

Yeah, that's kind of what I thought Dan might be after as well, but trolling someone's message board to get them to be a guest on a podcast called "The Reasoning Show" is a long shot, at best.

Dan,

I think it's hilarious. Good job.

Carl G wrote:Dan,

I think it's hilarious. Good job.

Hey Dan, you got a vote of approval from the guy who thought that enlightenment makes people boring.

I've only read 3 pages, but I think they have a valid point in that the number of posts you started with was a bit odd. You might have done better to have one post with several quotations in it. The way you did it does look odd to me.

I've seen hostility like that before. It is a last resort of a man who has been utterly defeated -- when he does not have the ability to attack his opponent's position rationally, he attacks it with his remaining irrationality.

The best remedy, in my experience, is patience. It takes a long time for people who aren't used to thinking to work through their ideas -- if their attention does not collapse in the process. Make sure it looks like you are teaching them for their benefit, and not for your own immediate gratification. Part of that process is sticking around while they think.

The ideal scenario is, imho, to get the people in this forum to critcize Dawkins themselves. Try to get one on your side, and do what you did with the quotations. If they see your method used effectively by a familiar name, it will make you look a lot less malicious.

Katy wrote:I've only read 3 pages, but I think they have a valid point in that the number of posts you started with was a bit odd. You might have done better to have one post with several quotations in it. The way you did it does look odd to me.

Well, I guess I could have done it that way, but the quotes are randomly generated and I would have had to refresh the page and cut and paste each quote, which I didn't really feel like doing. I don't think it would have made any difference anyway. I'm not sure it should have made a difference, frankly.

Trevor Salyzyn wrote:I've seen hostility like that before. It is a last resort of a man who has been utterly defeated -- when he does not have the ability to attack his opponent's position rationally, he attacks it with his remaining irrationality.

The best remedy, in my experience, is patience. It takes a long time for people who aren't used to thinking to work through their ideas -- if their attention does not collapse in the process. Make sure it looks like you are teaching them for their benefit, and not for your own immediate gratification. Part of that process is sticking around while they think.

I think you're right here. The problem is I have no patience for them at all. I cannot stand their arrogance. I will not stand for their arrogance. They think they are so much better than religious people and yet they are essentially no different. I think it's true that I am not handling it very well, but for some reason I don't give a fuck at the moment. If I was to get just one - lonely - sensible response I'd grab it and change the dynamic considerably, but I'm not getting it. For some reason the disappointment at not getting such a response is really getting to me. It doesn't usually. I think I've had a lapse into hope somewhere along the line. What a fool I am!!!

Somebody slap me! Quick!

Dan,

Sorry I can't slap you, all I can do is feel your pain, every fucking day of my life. :)

To add to that, this relates to my recent view on Mr. Quinn's rule about assuming everyone is a wise individual when he first meets them. I try to stick to that rule as well, but it's very hard to when all I do is disapoint myself with it. But like you said, if I ever finally encounter that one reasonable person it will make it all worth my while.

It's more a case of innocent til proven guilty.

But I find that the evidence won't out, until after it's pointed out.

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I tried to soften up the audience a little. On page 8, a poster named "seals" finally responded to one of your arguments. I hope I helped... :)

For the record and perhaps someone's edification:

Topmum wrote: at the thread Dan is posting in at Dawkins': His forum: where posters have described us as ‘Dawkins parrots’

Hey that must be me! I wrote before here that some Dawkins parrots supply similar arguments as religious people do: study the context, do not dismiss something right away just because you don't have the capicity or background for it, wrong orientation, it's just a quote, verse, ancient text, it means not what you think it means, etc, etc. And as I said those can all be good argument but one has to apply them consistently, not only when someone else criticizes ones own cherished texts.

How someone can translate this paragraph into an attack on a whole forum with mostly complete strangers is beyond me. I suspect someone over-identifies a bit here. Make an argument to criticize a type of thought in this world and suddenly you are interpreted to attack or denounce some whole community somewhere. And I had not even that forum in mind, just people who repeat the same arguments as Dawkins et al. make without having investigated themselves. Some of course have investigated with various results. But those are normaly not the ones who include themselves so easily when a generic group is targeted, in my experience.

I couldn't resist:
Is Dawkins a philosopher?

The people replying, at least, are like every other forum on the net; a group of people with a like mind who have rallied around something. Yes, they are a bit fanatic in their atheism and quite intellectually-obsessed with themselves, but the general discourse there is far better than just about any politics, religion or even philosophy board I've ever been to. From the limited amount I've been able to read there are a lot of well written, fairly plain spoken, and well thought-out posts in each forum. Yes, when a Christian tries to stir things up they turn to insults very quickly (while complaining about the same behavior at Christian forums) but it seems to be a fairly decent environment when put in perspective.

Dan, I think your attempt to stir things up was hastily thought-out and grossly mishandled compared to what I believe you to be capable of. Ideally they wouldn't have responded as they did but as it is the responses were of the same tone that you started with. I mean seriously what did you expect when you start with:

Dan Rowden wrote:I have decided to take it upon myself, in response to being randomly assailed with quotes from Richard atop every page I open, to identify and object to the really dumb ones. To whit:

Sure, I may be criticising that quote out of context, in which case I case I say: either put it in context or get rid of that random quote feature.

Dumb quote the next (excerpted):

Duh, yes it will! Much of its wonder - do you know what "wonder" means, Richard? - is contained in the very fact of our lack of understanding of its nature.

and so on...

You quoted a goofy trinket on the forum which most people probably barely realize is there, you did it in an unnecessarily aggressive fashion, and on top of all that they were quotes out of context! If you criticized a book or paper or something with more meat maybe you could have gotten some real discussion but the tone of a thread is set by the first post and yours was doomed to become a childish crapfest from the start.

I agree with a lot of what Chochem just wrote. Their forum doesn't seem that much more or less intelligent, open or hostile than this one although I haven't explored this very far. I do agree with Dan that some quotes are really not worth even quoting as philosophical decoration. For example:

Dawkins wrote:We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia.

People who never were born for whatever reason are not dying and neither are they not "not dying". They exist as potential only, not to any quantifiable extent. Do you count abortion, weak sperm, spilled seemen, birth control, disinterest in sex, uglinesses, a world event, ending with anything near the totality? To define or count the unborn or unmanifest is totally arbitrary and turns into really saying nothing at all; that is philosophy 101 ("Either/Or").

Dawkin's work really doesn't support the conclusion he provides in this quote: that from a zillion possibilities a few emerge because of some cosmic statistical or physical law? One could just as well assert a divine will to pick and choose, or state that all that happens can only happen that way and no other, that all predictability only works in simplified models but breaks down when approaching real-life or chaotic systems that much of reality seems to be.

It's true then, the quote appeals to emotion and a faulty interpretation of 'to be or not to be'. Invoking a purely fictional concept of some 'unborn' state, combined with an appeal to 'luck' (the poor man's God) and again a fictional appeal to 'people' who could have been makes this quote a very religious one. And should warn readers to suspect religious undertones in all of his work.

Many giants of science were intensely religious or spiritual people so his being 'religious' to some extent is not something to hold against the quality of his work. It should however be a warning sign to take a critical look at his more pure philosophical writings and of course all of his critiques of religion. The harshest critics, as a rule, often focus on matters elsewhere that they do not want to face, hidden and twisted around, in themselves or the establishment they feel part of.

That goes for you too Dan :)