Open letter to Richard Dawkins

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Grahame
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Open letter to Richard Dawkins

Post by Grahame »

Our favourite UK sceptic, Richard Dawkins has been attracting some attention from the blogosphere.

I particularly liked this quote:
Einstein would have regarded you as a fanatical atheist whose intolerance is of the same kind as that of the religious fanatics to whom you are so opposed.
Couldn't have put it better myself... :wink:
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Re: Open letter to Richard Dawkins

Post by Ian Pegler »

Yet who is this guy? He's criticising Dawkins yet at the same time his personal website seems to indicate that he's basically on Richard's side, linking, as it does, to the BRIGHTS website (the term Bright is, as I understand it, another of Dawkins' neologisms) and he also quotes from Douglas Adams, who was a personal friend of Dawkins.

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Re: Open letter to Richard Dawkins

Post by Grahame »

He may have once been on Dawkin's side, but he definitely seems to have become somewhat disillusioned. Possibly he's a religious man, and Dawkin's comments in 'The God Delusion' have pissed him off? >See here.<
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Re: Open letter to Richard Dawkins

Post by Ian Pegler »

Grahame Gardner wrote:He may have once been on Dawkin's side, but he definitely seems to have become somewhat disillusioned. Possibly he's a religious man, and Dawkin's comments in 'The God Delusion' have pissed him off? >See here.<
Not really convinced. I think that maybe he just doesn't like his (Dawkins') style.

As an astronomer he would also have been influenced by Carl Sagan, very probably.

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Re: Open letter to Richard Dawkins

Post by Ian Pegler »

I just discovered his review of The Dawkins Delusion? by Alister McGrath and Joanna Collicutt McGrath.

He takes a "naturalistic world view" - i.e. the Bright (Atheist) position, but...
Though I hold a naturalistic world view, do not share the beliefs of any organized religion, and have been a long-time fan and admirer of Richard Dawkins’s science writing, I was surprised and disappointed with his book on atheism, The God Delusion. It is an ill-conceived and poorly researched polemic against religion, primarily Christianity, that does no credit to Richard Dawkins or atheism in general. Instead, the book showcases an accomplished science writer lowering himself to the level of a TV “shock-jock,” exhibiting the same lack of concern for accuracy, and the same simplistic, narrow-minded orientation.
It's worth reading the whole thing. Explains a lot.

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Re: Open letter to Richard Dawkins

Post by Dragon »

The fact is Mr Dawkins does believe in Religion - it just that it's called Science!!

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Re: Open letter to Richard Dawkins

Post by simonwheeler »

A leading figure in the Free Church of Scotland has criticised the organisers of a talk by controversial scientist Richard Dawkins.

Author and pastor David Robertson said.........most of the arguments (are)... "sixth form schoolboy variety".
Prior to a planned visit by Dawkins to Inverness
Messages posted on the forum section of the University of Oxford biologist's official website have welcomed his decision to come to the Highlands.

One message described the area as Scotland's Bible belt.
Don’t be so open-minded that your brains fall out. LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI

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Re: Open letter to Richard Dawkins

Post by Helen-Healing »

Einstein's take up for grabs.
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Re: Open letter to Richard Dawkins

Post by simonwheeler »

Don’t be so open-minded that your brains fall out. LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI

www.simongordonwheeler.co.uk

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Re: Open letter to Richard Dawkins

Post by simonwheeler »

Dawkins exactly fits the description of a pseudo-sceptic, defined by sociologist Marcello Truzzi back in 1987
This blog from a professional astrologer...
Dawkins obviously hasn't got the time to, you know, do anything as facile as study the subject. The full interview with the astrologer Neil Spencer that was used for that programme has found its way onto the web. It was cannibalised and edited: the purpose of the programme was not to shine light on astrology, but to bolster Dawkins argument that astrology is charlatanry.
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Re: Open letter to Richard Dawkins

Post by simonwheeler »

Professor Richard Dawkins sparked a Twitter backlash by claiming Muslims have been awarded fewer Nobel Prizes than Trinity College, Cambridge, adding: "They did great things in the Middle Ages, though".
From The Independent newspaper website
Don’t be so open-minded that your brains fall out. LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI

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