Most of his allocated time for his 'devastating' critique consisted of showing the following sensational points:
- All religious followers, 'moderates' and 'extremists' alike, have faith in God.
- Religious faith is not a rational, intellectual exercise.
- Fundamentalism is a bad thing.
- Theocracy is a bad thing.
Completely forgetting the scientific method which he claims to love, he leaps from these points to assertions like the following (based on isolated anecdotal evidence in support, and ignoring plenty of inconvenient evidence to the contrary):
- All religion is based on top-down, authoritarian control from the leaders, and unquestioning total obedience from the followers.
- All religion is based on simplistic black-and-white thinking.
- 'Moderate' religion is a slippery slope to fanaticism
4 comments:
I deliberately avoided this... the trailer was enough: 'only religion can make good people do bad things' - and his rationale for that bizarre statement was...?
I doubt he was trying to make a valid point, just preach to his own followers.
I've been meaning to read a critique of him called Dawkin's God, but I haven't.
I did see a bit of the programme, and if I had realised it was him then I may have watched it so I could comment.
As it is, since I have (a) not read anything about him and (b) I didn't see the programme, then this post is absolutely pointless and I'll stop typing about this now.
(Incidentally, today I was trying to explain to a customer the reason I was boycotting the new film The Da Vinci Code was for artistic reasons rather than moral reasons, ie it looks crap. They suggested I had put my Christian principles to one side.)
Very interesting discussion. The program was without much scientific process, had only one basic argument and was generally 'dumbed down' however I would redefine the points above as:
* All religion is control of an individual based on something/someone other than themselves.
* Encourages black-and-white thinking (at least in terms of 'believers' and non-believers.
* This most common dangerous fanaticism is extension of moderate religion and could not exist without believe in infallibility (religion is a cause - there are others).
yeah . . . i saw it and posted some thoughts
i wish he would encounter some real power encounters
and i hope he opens up a little to the idea that science and religion are not incompatible
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