He’s a relative of mine.
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Well then get in touch, tell him he’s a doo doo head, and ask to be put in the will.
(You’re trying to be more American, right?)
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There’s no religion branch at all? His criticisms of christianity tend to be completely valid, and most of what he says about religion generally is true, but he does get into islamophobia (actual islamophobia, not the weak sauce bitching that comes out of the left when islam is criticized in any way at all. Islamophobia as in criticisms he wouldn’t level at anyone else because he’s attacking things other than the religion, and showing his prejudice) territory when talking about islam.
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Actually, I quite enjoyed the God Delusion. But I don’t remember ever not being an atheist. It’s a bit of a polemic, no? I know Dawkins likes to retweet praise about it, so maybe it helped some people.
I’d rather Hitch was still around though (maybe instead of his idiot brother).
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I dunno. I respect his work as an evolutionary biologist and all that, and it’s great to have people who are vocal about their atheism, but the dude is really full of himself and tends to take his views out of those who aren’t exactly powerful in this world. And at what point does sounding like a racist and misogynist become the real McCoy?
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For me, the thing illustrates how one can be serious about living right, and get it right in most respects, and still be very blind to certain facets of one’s own personality.
When am I an irrational dick? I gotta figure that out and kill it.
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I can’t say that I know. Hitch was absolutely a misogynist, but he said really fucking outrageous stuff like “women aren’t funny because men like them whether or not they even speak. They never had to be funny.”
Dawkins has said similar things though. Basically pontificating on gender differences using really braindead evo-psych just-so stories. It’s problematic, and I won’t defend him for being stupid. I’m just saying that the guy has done some good work, and I wish he were more ethically and rhetorically consistent. As it stands, he’s kinda becoming a crazy uncle on Thanksgiving type of personality and that makes the public image of atheism look bad. Just because atheists don’t have “pastors” in the sense the religious like to claim, that doesn’t mean the religious will ever stop considering Dawkins to be our dictator. For better or worse (usually worse) Dawkins is probably the #1 public face of atheism, and that makes people think poorly of atheists in general.
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I don’t think it’s a personality defect - I think it’s full on white, male, eurocentric privilege. The only way to kill that shit is through lots of introspection and actually listening to other human beings about their experiences. But when the culture that individuals are in reinforce that, and don’t challenge privilege in anyway, then it’s hard and why even do that when everything around you is telling you that you’re right.
This is true for all of us… the problem is when you can’t look at yourself and see a problem.
That being said, he’s human. And part of the problem is that people take his work and use that to elevate him to a position of “never being wrong”. So, it’s not just him, but likely his chorus of fan boys who reinforce his self-centered world view of his own genius that includes all aspects of life.
This.
[ETA] Gawd, drunk uncle is hilarious! Not quite as funny as Stefon, but almost.
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I only mention it because sometimes there’s a man… I won’t say a hero, 'cause, what’s a hero? But sometimes, there’s a man.
I’ve been very fortunate to have met a dozen or so heroes in my life. My, how they fall. Don’t meet heroes.
(Ok a couple turned out better than terrible.)
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Isn’t part of the problem that we attempt to elevate people to hero status? How can anyone live up to being perfect and heroic all the time? Especially now in the age of constant social scrutiny.
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Heroism is good porn. When the illusion shatters, there’s no putting it back together.
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I met Dawkins once in a bookstore, and he ejaculated, “JOFFREY KILLS DUMBLDORE!!”
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(also, Peter Dinklage won best actor in a dramatic series at the emmys just now!!!)
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Nowadays, the only true heroes are ideas. That’s not a bad thing, or a deficient thing or a cynical thing. It’s useful, because we can set our moral compass by it, rather than insisting that the figurative become the literal. Turning the figurative literal IS the entire fight encapsulated. People who’ve stepped away from religion see that religion has insisted on convincing people that fictions are fact, stories are real, take it on faith, magic happens. The quiet atheists realize it isn’t so. They let the heroes stay ideas.
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And Batman. Always Batman.
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Batman isn’t real you know.
Dawkins wrote a book about it. The Selfish Bat.
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And his follow up: Raz al Ghul is not Great.
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Honestly? This probably stereotype city, but he’s everything I imagine a British Oxford Don to be: Condescending, arrogant, and somewhat racist.
Oh, whaddayah know, he is an Oxford Don! (No seriously, I had that in mind before I looked it up to discover it to be fact, just now.)
In general I think he’s one of those people who’s hit that point in his career where he doesn’t have to listen to anyone, and makes the mistake of thinking that it’s a good idea.
I still believe in heroes, I just stopped expecting Gods. I think we live in a society that wants to kill heroes because deep down we find the aspiration to be a hero odious, and naive. So we do our best to discourage it. I just find myself thinking about any discussion in which someone states that they really like a particular person’s approach to a specific topic, and the speed with which someone else will inevitably point out how they’re problematic on another topic so far removed that it may as well be in the Oort Cloud somewhere. I don’t know what motivates that, even if I’ve done it myself.
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