Chad Orzel has a nice post that pretty much sums up my feelings on Richard Dawkins. Maybe some day I’ll actually read The God Delusion, but having heard summaries of his arguments, it sounds like he says nothing new and that he severely misrepresents the nature of science.
Wired has an article in the November issue about the “new atheism”. This is essentially a more aggressive form of atheism which says that not only is there no God, but belief in God is dangerous. Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett seem to be leading the charge in this fight, seeing as each has recently published a book on the subject.
One doesn’t have to look far to understand the motivation behind this movement. I mean, look at all the trouble religion has caused in the middle east. But, does Dawkins really need to be so bellicose? As an example of the sorts of things he says which get me riled up:
Highly intelligent people are mostly atheists
Maybe in certain sub-samples of “highly intelligent people” this is true, but I also know a lot of wicked smart people for which it is not.
Also, how is it that Dawkins and Dennett miss the rather obvious objection to atheism that it is really just another faith? They’ve exchanged their faith in God for faith in a rule-ordered universe.
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