Who is God?

Who really says "mea culpa" these days?!

Or any days at all really.

Mea culpa! But when did you last read any theology, Bags ? I've at least seen Dawkins perform.

Have you read any of his books, for instance? Somehow I doubt it, but correct me if I'm wrong.

Yes he does get angry about Muslims and Jews. Check out some of his TV series "The root of all evil". He didn't choose the title, by the way, and argued against it but the Beeb didn't listen. I suspect that you are basing your criticisms an a very small "knowledge of Dawkins" base, lily.

Having recently read his book 'The God Delusion' I found him to be reasoned, objective and methodical in the way he set out his views, and he didn't come across as angry in his writing. His framework to illustrate 6 categories of disbelief or atheism are interesting, and I think many more people would describe themselves as atheists if they were to consider his constructive points.

PS Good one, jane. If that's him being angry I don't think we've anything to worry about

He is jolly offensive to perfectly harmless Christians (doesn't wax as angry with Jews and Moslems - wonder why not? ) and quite dismissive of the whole lot of us. "Some of his best friends are Christians" ? Purrlease!

I think you may be wrong about him, lily. I happen to know that he has very religious friends in Oxford. It's what religion sometimes (often?) does to people that makes him angry. He doesn't have a problem with religious people who stay reasonable. It's the institutions and the effects they have that anger him. And should.

here he is, for those who haven't seen this before.
Richard Dawkins, I mean. Not God

Child abuse and any kind of exploitation of individuals are bad and it's reasonable to get angry when not enough is being done about them. People believing in something you don't believe in is not the same. If the belief leads to wicked actions, get angry about the actions by all means. Don't get angry just because you/he thinks other people are stupid, misguided, misled or whatever. And Dawkins does. He isn't just angry about bad things done in the name of religion (why just religion? Why not political ideology or profit or arrogance?). It's religion that really gets him going. And that suggests that it has considerable importance to him. He's an evangelist, burning with the fire of righteousness. Scary!

I know someone will mention Richard Dawkins as an angry atheist. He's angry because of abuses done in the name of religion. He is angry about wrongdoing in the name of religion. He is angry about injustices in the name of religion. All this ia an entirely different matter from being angry because someone doesn,t believe something you believe and wishes to live their life a different way.

You aren't, I suppose, sick of people who get angry about child abuse, or angry about the abuse of workers by power-wielding bosses? What's the difference?

And they don't give a damn what other people believe; what they're trying to do is prevent practices based on belief alone from being imposed on people who don't hold the beliefs. In other words, they are campaigning for fairness so that we can all live and let live.

"Furious, angry, atheists"

Who? Where? I've yet to come across one. All the obvious, well-known, outspoken atheists come into the category intelligent, rational beings who are trying to prevent abuses of their fellow human beings.

What about righteous indignation when people are not treated fairly? I can get pretty angry about abuses of human rights in the name of various religions.

It was done to get rid of the Christians from their community. Are there no depths beneath which hate-filled religious nutters won't sink?

I was also reading about a backlash against a British TV history of Islam. It was a well-researched academic work by respected historians, but received hundreds of complaints. It seems the complainers didn't want their important emotional and mythological issues confusing by historical facts.

I'm just sick of fundamentalists of all stripes, from the infamous Westborough Baptists, to Catholic intransigence against women's issues, to ultra orthodox Jews, to murderous hate-filled Muslims. I don't like furious angry atheists either.

Live and let live.

I think it's great that the Pakistani police have identified a muslim cleric as being reaponsible for planting the Quran (sp?) papers in the girl's bag, but I wonder what happens now. If they release her from (send her out from?) prison now, won't the extremists get her anyway.

Very worrying. Poor kid.

I enjoyed the essay,but then I have always enjoyed the finer points of English grammar. I remember setting a class the task of writing the sentence 'Mr. Jones slept in the House of Commons last night' and putting the word 'Only' in at least five different places to make sentences with completely different meanings.
I don't think it matters whether or not Burke is the author of the quote - it is almost true anyway.
Isn't pedantry fun?

Great start to the day nanadogs

nanadog

Nanadogsbody That was fun.

Can wait for the follow on essay when!!!!!

Blimey, that web page is like Pedants' Paradise Nanadogsbody!

Just for a laugh absent not sure if this will work as not posted links before.

tartarus.org/martin/essays/burkequote.html

Once a pedant… Although that quotation is often attributed to Edmund Burke (more usually as "It is necessary only for the good man to do nothing for evil to triumph") it doesn't appear in anything that he wrote.

However, evil sometimes triumphs in spite of the actions of many good persons.