Dawkins stopped from presenting one of his anti religion rants.

[Smidlee]

David Wood cover the Dawkin's Dilemma a few months back. Dawkins
selfish gene" thinks our so purpose it to reproduce... to pass on our DNA. Yet He wants to called Islam evil when Muslims, as of now, are the best at passing on their DNA (offspring) while atheist are the worst. Dawkins has two conflicting world views.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Dawkins
selfish gene" thinks our so purpose it to reproduce... to pass on our DNA.

Wrong.

while atheist are the worst.

Atheism is not a genetic trait. It spreads by knowledge.

 

[Smidlee]

Wrong.

Are you claiming "wrong" that Dawkins didn't make that claim when from the video he clearly did?

Atheism is not a genetic trait. It spreads by knowledge.

That's doesn't have any effect on the argument. Atheism no matter how it is spread has a low birth rate.

 

[Belk]

Are you claiming "wrong" that Dawkins didn't make that claim when from the video he clearly did?
That's doesn't have any effect on the argument. Atheism no matter how it is spread has a low birth rate.

What? Are you trying to say atheists have a low birth rate?

 

[AirPo]

What? Are you trying to say atheists have a low birth rate?

I fathered 3.

 

[Smidlee]

What? Are you trying to say atheists have a low birth rate?

I didn't have anything to do with the survey. According to it the survey the non-religious group has a low birth rate compared to other religious groups except Buddhists.

 

[Smidlee]

I fathered 3.

We are dealing with averages of course and not individuals. There are good reasons why Muslims are the fastest growing of all other groups.
David Wood gave an example of naming 9 famous atheist who have produced few children combined than Osama bin Ladin.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Are you claiming "wrong" that Dawkins didn't make that claim when from the video he clearly did?

I don't watch videos, but I have read The Selfish Gene, and that's not what it says.

That's doesn't have any effect on the argument. Atheism no matter how it is spread has a low birth rate.

What is the argument?

Atheism has a low birth rate.
Birth rate is an obvious measure of awesomeness.
Atheism is not awesome.

 

[GoldenBoy89]

We are dealing with averages of course and not individuals. There are good reasons why Muslims are the fastest growing of all other groups.
David Wood gave an example of naming 9 famous atheist who have produced few children combined than Osama bin Ladin.

What you don't seem to grasp is that atheism is not genetic. It's not something you pass on to your children through their genes. It is a concept and philosophical position, and even if you killed every single atheist alive you'd still have people born in the future who simply aren't convinced that gods exist. Those would be called atheists.

 

[LittleLambofJesus]

.

Deemed islamophobic

Richard Dawkins event canceled by station citing 'abusive' anti-Islam comments - CNN.com

Right or wrong? Sadly in my view free speech must trump his obnoxious views?
Or did the organisers fear becoming Charlie hebdo 2?

What I don't get is why they call him a " scientist". His anti religious polemics, are some of the least scientific works I have read. They are nothing more than badly based Apriori Opinions , that use every logical fallacy type there is, that he tries to dressed up with an aurora of respectability, misusing the word "science" to do it.

Well to be fair, there are Islamic Muslims that are radical terrorist {ISIS for example}, but RD seems to use too broad of a brush when talking about the them, imho.
I admired Ken Ham and Christopher Hitchens as they could debate against Christianity and still keep it mostly civil.

I was reminded of this debate some years back and Creationist Ken Ham and Atheist Bill Nye.

Bill Nye vs. Ken Ham Debate
Bill Nye vs. Ken Ham Debate

..............

 

[Breve]

Rather amused by this thread. I pretty much ignore Dawkins and have much better things to focus on. And I'm Christian. I just ran through all the "new" threads in the sidebar.



I'm interested to read that he made this statement. This is pretty much my thought on what I had gathered had probably happened. So yes, I can respect that he said this.

Carry on folks. Not my area of concern.

The core issue isn't what we think of Dawkins. It's the erosion of a major, vital value of modern western civilization - that free speech can no longer be guaranteed. Every incident of a public speaker bring deplatformed is us slipping a little bit further down that slippery slope to totalitarianism. Sounds dramatic doesn't it? But consider this: in 1989 the author Salman Rushdie had a fatwa put on him by an Iranian cleric for publication of a novel The Satanic Verses. I was a teenager at the time and I remember it was a huge deal. Western governments, media, academics etc all supported Rushdie and denounced the fatwa. Rushdie's been in hiding since. The fatwa hasn't been lifted - it was renewed last year. If you weren't born then you won't understand but do go read about it.

Now think about today. Do you think any publisher would dare publish a book like The Satanic Verses? In 2005 those Mohammed cartoons were published by a Danish newspaper in an attempt to start debate about self censorship and free expression. Do you remember the uproar? And do you remember how many of those in various governments, media, academics etc said the newspaper shouldn't have done it? What happened between 1989 and 2005? A majority of media outlets refused to republish those cartoons, even on anniversaries. Those cartoonists had to go into hiding btw.

Since 2005 the erosion has been increasing inch by inch..off the top of my head I can recount: conservative speakers are disbarred from US college campuses because of "hate speech", and Muslims who advocate reform of Islam are flagged as extremists by the Southern Law Poverty Centre and criticized as Islamophobia by the progressive left. ( Majidd Nawaz is now suing the SPLC btw.) Canada has a blasphemy law in place against which Canadian Moslems objected to! UK police can arrest it's citizens for "hate speech". Zuckerberg made a deal with Merkel to censor FB posts in Germany about immigration. Australia has it's own punitive "hate speech" law.

Once upon a time censorship happened in places like China, which has been under communist rule since 1949. Now it's in the free West! We are losing our freedom. Inch by inch. Today you may think it's unimportant to your daily life. In 5 years time, however...

 

[essentialsaltes]

The core issue isn't what we think of Dawkins. It's the erosion of a major, vital value of modern western civilization - that free speech can no longer be guaranteed. Every incident of a public speaker bring deplatformed is us slipping a little bit further down that slippery slope to totalitarianism.

The US right to free speech prevents the government from censoring your speech. It doesn't mean that every citizen has a right to a platform on broadcast media.

 

[bhsmte]

So?


Here's my point... If this were truly the case, people wouldn't be so upset by what he says. They'd simply dismiss it as the incoherent rant they claim it really is. It's only because they know there's some truth to what he says and can't argue against it that they take any offense to it.

Nailed it! The defense mechanisms that come out full force from some Christians in regards to Dawkins, is interesting to observe.

 

[MrSpikey]

My comment has Nothing to do with the uncertainty principle

Please Study physics before comment on it.

I have, thanks for asking! I also did some English too, before commenting on anything.

Stop misleading.

I'm not. So let's see your argument...

Study instead: the background to Copenhagen interpretation , Bohr/ einsteins argument, and einsteins lament " I refuse to believe the moon does not exist till I look at it" but in the end he was forced to concede Copenhagen was right.

Copenhagen's view was that properties of physical systems are not definite until the are measured. Not, as you claimed, that they might not even exist at all!

It was Evidenced experimentally in the so called " bell experiments"

The Bell experiments investigating quantum entanglement between particles that definitely existed?

And since then,see all the other philosophical nonsense like multiverses used to try to rationalise away a death blow to the presumption of a deterministic objective causal universe.

Those things not related to quantum mechanics? OK.

One of britains leading quantum physicists has said it is sciences biggest scandal: that now ,the best part of a century on , science still has no consensus or answer to the fundamental philosophical nonsense and questions this begs.

It's a shame you didn't name this genius, or provide any links to his obviously profound thoughts.

That's the problem. Most people don't study physics deep enough to see the philosophical cracks in it

I can't help but notice you make claims like this without telling us your own deep physics credentials.

Looking forward to it, Mike!

 

[Ada Lovelace]

After reading Richard Dawkins' statement I do think the radio station had a knee-jerk response when confronted with tweets he'd written, and that they also handled rescinding the invitation in a very clumsy and ungracious way. From what I understand, rather than directly contacting him and seeking clarification and context about the objectionable statements he made, they sent out an email to ticket holders of the event announcing that his speech had been cancelled. Apparently (I could be mistaken) a planned attendee then forwarded the email to Dawkins; if this is the case it was wrong for him to have been notified in such a roundabout way.

However, I do believe it was the radio station's prerogative, and that the crux of their right (and that of any other individual or organization to rescind an invitation) is expressed in this statement they released:

While Mr. Dawkins has every right to express his views, KPFA has every right not to sponsor and profit from an event spreading them."

A right to free speech does not equate to entitlement of a platform to air that speech. A few years ago the Young Earth Creationist Ken Ham was disinvited from several homeschooling events he was scheduled to speak at after making 'unnecessary, ungodly, and mean-spirited' remarks against a fellow invited speaker, Peter Enns, a Harvard-educated Biblical scholar at the BioLogos Foundation (founded by NIH director Dr. Francis Collins), which emphasizes the compatibility of Christianity and science, and specifically of evolution. They were at liberty to invite and to disinvite Ham, as was the radio station in regards to Dawkins.

 

[Smidlee]

What you don't seem to grasp is that atheism is not genetic. It's not something you pass on to your children through their genes. It is a concept and philosophical position, and even if you killed every single atheist alive you'd still have people born in the future who simply aren't convinced that gods exist. Those would be called atheists.

The study includes those who converted to atheism in their figures. The study had nothing to do with genetics.
Are you trying to claim parents can only pass on their genes and nothing else?
No one as far as I know is claiming there a Christian gene, Buddhist gene, Muslim gene or atheist gene.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

What you don't seem to grasp is that atheism is not genetic. It's not something you pass on to your children through their genes. It is a concept and philosophical position, and even if you killed every single atheist alive you'd still have people born in the future who simply aren't convinced that gods exist. Those would be called atheists.

While you're right that religious philosophical positions (or non-religious positions) aren't inherited genes, there certainly is some data out there that would suggest that childhood indoctrination plays a huge role in the religious (or non-religious) choice an individual settles on in there adulthood.

A study was done a UMich (and I'll see if I can find a link and post it...I know I've posted it in a few threads in the past) that determined that roughly 88% of people (across the board), in their adulthood, end up in the religious institution their parents raised them in.
(and again, if I can find the study, I'll post it because they contain some more granular information at a religion & denomination level)
.............................................

...and it's pretty simple to understand why that's the case and why religion seems to be largely compartmentalized by location when you look at the entire globe.

While it's true that religion isn't an inherited gene, but a philosophical position, it's a position that's not nearly as open to the concepts of free choice and exploration/experimentation like picking one's favorite color, food, or type of car.

Parents often want to raise children in their own religion, and many aren't too receptive to the idea of their child embracing a religion other than their own. Try to imagine a 6 year old kid in a strict southern baptist home telling his parents that "I don't think I believe in Jesus, I want to worship Vishnu and become Hindu"...do you think that would be met with open arms?...or would the (more likely) outcome be some form of punishment or doubling down on the indoctrination?

By the time most people are in a position to freely choose their own religious preference, their formative years have all but passed and they've already been fully indoctrinated so it's not surprising that so few "stray from the flock" so to speak.

 

[essentialsaltes]

The study includes those who converted to atheism in their figures. The study had nothing to do with genetics.

Your claim was "Muslims, as of now, are the best at passing on their DNA (offspring) while atheist are the worst."

It certainly sounded like you were talking about genetics.

 

[Smidlee]

Your claim was "Muslims, as of now, are the best at passing on their DNA (offspring) while atheist are the worst."

It certainly sounded like you were talking about genetics.

Evolution is all about reproduction. It's doesn't have to be due to genetics. The fact is Islam is the fastest growing religion due to it's high birth rate. Evolution doesn't care what is truth or how women are treated,etc.

 

[essentialsaltes]

It's doesn't have to be due to genetics.

Then I guess Dawkins' book, The Selfish Gene, is irrelevant to whatever point you're trying to make.