Dawkins
I am so confused about how people see Richard Dawkins.

Everyone thinks he's this rude, aggressive atheist who acts all condescending and haughty when he talks to believers. It's such a common stock opinion that, unthinkingly, I sometimes use his name as a shorthand for rude, aggressive hectoring of religion - even though I've never actually seen anything to back this up.

Could someone please give me a youtube link where Dawkins is actually acting like this? I think I've seen all the TV shows and I read a few of his books.

I just don't see it. Sure, he can barely conceal his contempt when people wilfully fail to understand basic scientific concepts, and I've seen him get really frustrated when he's debating someone who simply refuses to engage with a logical argument - but that's not really the same thing.

Maybe I'm wrong and I've just missed something, but he always seems pretty friendly to me, considering the point he's trying to argue.
(leviticus no longer likes the cut of your gib on, Thu 1 Sep 2011, 16:01, 3 replies)

Well he's just a bit too fucking happy about it.
There are no Gods, heaven / hell, afterlife, soul, human spirit, Ghosts and or spirits of the forest.

We are just bits of sentient meat falling through space on a tiny spec of nothing. All of human everything no more than a particle in a cell of an amoeba in space. Nothing more nothing less. Trapped by distance from everything else.

Nothing to be so fucking smug about.
(waxdart hello., Thu 1 Sep 2011, 16:18, closed)

For me it comes more from the tone of The God Delusion
it seems to drip from every word he writes.


But yeah, I did fall into the trap of just using him as short hand for a certain type of atheist for the purposes of making my point, it may be slightly unfair.
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Thu 1 Sep 2011, 16:33, closed)

My problem is that he's trying to form a faction of athiests, which doesn't make any sense
Athiests aren't really a group of people...or at least not until someone decides that religious types are "the enemy" and need rallying against.

I'm happy to just let religion die out, and remove all diplomatic immunity associated with religious officials.
( Extinct Jesus Dossier "...I think it counteracts Hitler's magic...", Tue 6 Sep 2011, 14:29, closed)