One of my major complaints about Dawkins has been his gradual but continual shift from criticizing religion to ridiculing it. Criticizing someone's beliefs--pointing out the flaws and limitations of what they believe--is great. I think getting people to think about what they believe and why they believe it is important. But I disagree that ridiculing beliefs is effective in getting people "on the fence" to change their minds. Just take a look at the current political situation in America--all you see on TV are pundits ridiculing each others' ideas rather than actually discussing or debating the issues. Meanwhile, the rest of us just get so disgusted that we give up and tune out.

I think you'd get the same thing in religious discussions.

RELIGIOUS PERSON: "How can you look around and NOT believe in a God?" (:rolleyes).
NEW ATHEIST: "How come you believe in God and not Thor?" (:rolleyes)
ON THE FENCE: "You're both condescending and pretentious and I've got better things to do than listen to either of you."

But Gundam,

It's the great Dawkins who teaches us that it's not enough to stand up for what you believe, you also have to be a dick to everyone who doesn't think like you...

ALL HAIL THE GREAT DAWKINS.

AMEN.>> ^Ryjkyj:

But Gundam,
It's the great Dawkins who teaches us that it's not enough to stand up for what you believe, you also have to be a dick to everyone who doesn't think like you...

Moving this video to geo321's personal queue. It failed to receive enough votes to get sifted up to the front page within 2 days.

>> ^SDGundamX:

RELIGIOUS PERSON: "How can you look around and NOT believe in a God?" (:rolleyes).
NEW ATHEIST: "How come you believe in God and not Thor?" (:rolleyes)
ON THE FENCE: "You're both condescending and pretentious and I've got better things to do than listen to either of you."


This is basically my opinion. If I had time to go to an Atheist convention I'd fill it with something MORE IMPORTANT!

What is there to debate?
Whether we let people who choose to believe in ancient ignorant nonsense fantasy run our world and try to silence the rest of us? Or should we try and force a spotlight on dangerous delusions that should have evaporated long ego before another generation is poisoned against rational thought?

I'm an atheist and you'll sooner find me at the Global Anti-Santa Coalition. Defining who you are by what you aren't is just sad. Dawkins used to be a good intro to the subject. Some of his old books remain so. But yeah these days whenever I see him talk, he's being rather supercilious and insulting.