I didn't feel like getting clobbered by Walter again

Nonsense. I'm a very sweet guy and have nothing against you personally at all. It's your religious ideas that are idiotic.

T. H. Huxley was called "Darwin's bulldog". He dumbed down Darwin's nuances, hesitations and openness, and produced the version of (social) Darwinism that justified the capitalist and imperialist expansion of the late Victorian period.

Fascists corrupted Darwinism to justify their rapacity. Not Huxley.

Evolution is a fact. Doesn't that just get your goat?

Dawkins's atheism is not so much a fight against a malevolent irrationalism as it is a defense of the prerogatives of the scientific establishment

The evidence clearly shows otherwise. You're just annoyed because Dawkins is such an effective critic of the inanities of religion.

Religion hates science for the simple reason that science has long since disproved the idiotic claims of religion. Religion is bitter about that.

But now the important fundamental discoveries have all been made

All by science, and none by religion. And yet, even science does not make that claim.

On the other hand, science can claim to have made tangible advances in human health and happiness; religion, none at all.

I could rant on.

Thanks for admitting that you are, after all, ranting.

Part the second: The Religious Wisdom of Lazarus Long

Any priest or shaman must be presumed guilty until proved innocent.

There is no conclusive evidence of life after death. But there is no evidence of any sort against it. Soon enough you will know. So why fret about it?

A fake fortune teller can be tolerated. But an authentic soothsayer should be shot on sight. Cassandra did not get half the kicking around she deserved.

History does not record anywhere at any time a religion that has any rational basis. Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the unknown without help. But, like dandruff, most people do have a religion and spend time and money on it and seem to derive considerable pleasure from fiddling with it.

Of all the strange “crimes that human beings have legislated out of nothing, “blasphemy” is the most amazing--with “obscenity” and “indecent exposure” fighting it out for second and third place.

One man’s theology is another man’s belly laugh.

Men rarely (if ever) manage to dream up a God superior to themselves. Most Gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child.

God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent-it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks, please. Cash and in small bills.

The most preposterous notion that H. Sapiens has ever dreamed up is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of all the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of His creatures, can be swayed by their prayers, and becomes petulant if He does not receive this flattery. Yet this absurd fantasy, without a shred of evidence to bolster it, pays all the expenses of the oldest, largest, and least productive industry in all of history.

Thou shalt remember the 11th commandment and keep it Wholly.

A touchstone to determine the actual worth of an “intellectual”--find out how he feels about astrology.

One man’s “magic” is another man’s engineering. “Supernatural” is a null word.

“God split himself into a myriad parts that he might have friends.” This may not be true, but it sounds good--and is no sillier than any other theology.

The profession of shaman has many advantages. It offers high status with a safe livelihood free of work in the dreary, sweaty sense. In most societies it offers legal privileges and immunities not granted to other men. But it is hard to see how a man who has been given a mandate from on High to spread tidings of joy to all mankind can be seriously interested in taking up a collection to pay his salary; it causes one to suspect that the shaman is on the moral level of any other man. But it’s lovely work if you can stomach it.

Mike Sulzer wrote: Do you have some better examples of why you believe that Dawkins is a "yahoo"? I cannot see it myself.

Sorry for the delay in replying. I didn't feel like getting clobbered by Walter again, & I see now that I've jumped into a discussion that has been going on for months.

Yahoos are stupid and brutish. Dawkins is brutish but not stupid, so not really a yahoo. Apologies. His reputation for pugnacity, belligerence and insult hardly needs references. The charming moniker "Darwin's rottweiler" says it all, tho it's worth a gloss. T. H. Huxley was called "Darwin's bulldog". He dumbed down Darwin's nuances, hesitations and openness, and produced the version of (social) Darwinism that justified the capitalist and imperialist expansion of the late Victorian period. Dawkins's atheism is not so much a fight against a malevolent irrationalism as it is a defense of the prerogatives of the scientific establishment, made up principally big pharma (which has learned how to adapt the scientific method into a procedure for squeezing billions out of the public's fear of pain and death), the military industrial complex, the production of pollution on vast scales, and futile money pits like the space program and sub-atomic colliders. The enlightenment saw science as a new force to combat ignorance and despotism. But now the important fundamental discoveries have all been made, and Science is an earthly power in its own right, corrupt and ruthless. I could rant on. I'd like to but I haven't the time. Anyway, Dawkins is endowed Oxford professor of the Public Understanding of Science; one may wonder why the critique of religion is number one on his agenda. A trenchant critique of the selfish gene btw can be found at http://www.stateofnature.org/scientistOrPropagandist.html

well how 'bout that, it looks like you and I went and exchanged ideas in a civil manner!

Maybe there's hope for this crazy world yet :D

cheers!