so I finally cracked open Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion"

[choof]

this is actually a really awful read

[_Zenith_]

rip chooftano

[lurker]

dude i'm so sorry

[V-Ormix]

is it at least 2 out of 5 jesuses

[qqwref]

"The God Delusion" anagrams to "Oh, Unedited Slog", "Holiest Dudgeon", and "Dongle Hideouts".

[Reincarnate]

[Cold Kitten]

Originally Posted by qqwref

"Dongle Hideouts".

no i'm pretty sure this is the actual title right???

[Kagome]

I am glad you shared this with us.

Thank you for this information.

[Arch0wl]

I realize it's cool now to act jaded by people who make or have made a big deal out of atheism, but he's not wrong in any meaningful about anything he wrote in the book, and it was a much more necessary thing to say when he wrote it.

Whether it's a good read is up to you I guess, but disillusionment with atheism/agnosticism as an identity or demographic of people on the internet doesn't make the positions he's opposing more reasonable, or his arguments less sound.

What he wrote *should be* a collection of obvious inferences from a comprehensive understanding of general science, but that was not at all the case when he wrote it, and it's probably not going to be the case for a long time even though people with inane metaphysical beliefs don't dogmatically express them in public like they used to.

[qqwref]

It's a good point. As much as the arguments in books like that may seem obvious and ever-present nowadays, someone did originally have to bring them to the general public, and cogently defend them in various speeches and interviews. I think there are significantly more atheists around now - at least in the US - than there were in 2006.

[Reincarnate]

Reminds me of http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...nfeldIsUnfunny

[choof]

Originally Posted by Arch0wl

I realize it's cool now to act jaded by people who make or have made a big deal out of atheism, but he's not wrong in any meaningful about anything he wrote in the book, and it was a much more necessary thing to say when he wrote it.

Whether it's a good read is up to you I guess, but disillusionment with atheism/agnosticism as an identity or demographic of people on the internet doesn't make the positions he's opposing more reasonable, or his arguments less sound.

What he wrote *should be* a collection of obvious inferences from a comprehensive understanding of general science, but that was not at all the case when he wrote it, and it's probably not going to be the case for a long time even though people with inane metaphysical beliefs don't dogmatically express them in public like they used to.

I wouldn't say I'm jaded; I agree with nearly everything he says in the book, but I don't agree with how it's presented
his writing style just comes off as high-and-mighty, it's almost as if he was in a perpetual state of offense when writing this book and he makes it a point to iterate over and over just how toxic religion/belief in a higher power is

I get that, yeah religion is pretty awful, yeah believing in a higher power is kinda dumb, but there's gotta be a way to portray that without a scathing attitude

[choof]

it's not an awful read, it's an insufferable read

[Reincarnate]

Originally Posted by choof

I get that, yeah religion is pretty awful, yeah believing in a higher power is kinda dumb, but there's gotta be a way to portray that without a scathing attitude

[choof]

yee

[gold stinger]

so does god exist, and if he doesn't, did he exist, I like a good religious argument

[choof]

implying any religious argument on the internet is a good one

[Charu]

Yeah

[Arch0wl]

Originally Posted by choof

I agree with nearly everything he says in the book, but I don't agree with how it's presented

his writing style just comes off as high-and-mighty, it's almost as if he was in a perpetual state of offense when writing this book and he makes it a point to iterate over and over just how toxic religion/belief in a higher power is

Telling people that they're wrong about some deeply held belief is a lot like trying to tell a guy he's in the friend zone.

If you are ambiguous in any way, or if you give any leeway for that person to latch on to some ray of hope for whatever end they're pursuing, they will.

Not only is right-wing media very good at doing that, they use this motivation to stretch the Overton Window. If you don't know what that is, it's when you take an extreme position knowing that an audience is going to look for the middle between your position and the position you're opposing. If I want an audience to concede something like "eating animals is bad" and you think "eating animals isn't bad" I can take the position of "eating animals is murder" and then a hopeful mediator will rush in and say "woah woah woah guys, I'm sure we can find some common ground here. I think we can all agree eating animals isn't the best thing, but it isn't murder..." and then I've convinced the audience to stretch their views implicitly and gotten what I wanted.

The God Delusion is written the way it was because Christianity in a 2nd-term Bush presidency was far less willing to reconcile disagreement than it is now. I mean, you were there, you remember. You can read his tone as "if you're going to look for an out every time my tone sounds forgiving, then let's be clear because nothing I'm saying is saving you from being wrong." Applying what Tyson called "a sensitivity to their state of mind" would have just enabled the same Overton shifts that happened before. Sometimes, you do need to completely and utterly reject all merits a person's argument purports to have, even if it comes off as rude or insensitive in doing so.