Richard Dawkin's remedy...

One thing this thread has shown is that although many have accused Dawkins of hypocrisy nearly everyone here has shown to be hypocritical in some form or another.  I include myself too.

 

Only one person has so far actually been able to back up what they say, Ovidius, and although i dont agree fully with his opinion about memes being pseudoscience, i tend to think it the same as mental illness, at least he justified his opinion.

thankyou.

As for memes, i'm sorry but they just don't exist. There is no evidence for them at all. This has been clearly proved by things like Genetic science and neurology. Dawkins is not an expert in this field and really shouldn't form biological theories based on the Science of Behaviour.

As far as I know, Dawkins has never advocated laws infringing on peoples freedom to worship.   Personally I don't really like Dawkins all that much, he is very arrogant yada yada, but there is a lot of truth to what he says. Why does he have less of a right to try and convince people of the error of his ways than say, a Catholic missionary? why do you get so up in arms over Dawkin's and not say Pope Benedict who regards homosexuals to be scum and Protestants not to be Christian?

I don't think anyone is really arguing that Dawkins has anymore or less right to evangelise the cause of atheism, than a theist has the right to evangelise their own faith. You have merely misunderstood why the argument has formed when thinking about Dawkins and his work.

The God Delusion especially is a book DIRECTED at evangelising. It is like a political tract attempting to expose the weaknesses of an alternate political party or position. When attempting to show the shallow holes within Dawkins work, this idea of evangelising atheism is used to explain why Dawkins uses so much rhetoric and uses little evidence. It is a book completely on the offensive, there is no part dealing with the Science of his own position or a defence of that position. It is hostile rhetoric. That is why people are trying to lable Dawkins differently to how he would like to be labelled, otherwise Dawkins might be mistaken for a proper Scientist and his work taken to be accurate.

Religion often causes war.

I vehemently disagree with this sort of statement. Where is the evidence that Religion often causes war or has ever "caused" a war. There is a firm difference between the idea of Dawkins which is that "Theism" causes war and Religion causes wars.

If you are going to make such an opinion, maybe you could back it up with examples..

I would say that Religion cannot cause war often, or perhaps ever. People carry out actions, not "religion". People can have their outlook manipulated by individuals within a religion. If Religion often causes war, why is it not continually causing war or constantly causing war. Why is it a minority of the religious and not the majority? What is the relationship between wars "caused" by Relgion and those not caused by Relgion. etc.