http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxFf0RYC9ZA

Dawkins didn't say anything of substance. Maher's panel made Dawkins look like an idiot.

Just my thoughts on the video.

Its a sad day that I have to agree with stu.

This was probably a bad post by me. I just figured people here would want to see it regardless of content. I hope you were at least entertained.

Richard Dawkins has the personality and demeanor to make an avowed atheist find God.

yeah dawkins has to be the dumbest person ever involved in religious debate regardless of which side your on.

unless its an act, which i still see as a decent possibility.

Not all religious people who blow up buildings in the name of religion do it for religious reasons (or indirectly do it for non-religious reasons). Buuut, I think quite a few of them do it for religious reasons.

One might compare religion in the hands of terrorists to the kerosene in the hands of a pyromaniac. But let's be honest...it doesn't say on the Kerosene bottle that god tends to immolate people who oppose him.

All of their arguments seemed good.

He barely got to talk anyway.

I really wish he'd stick to biological subjects, there are people both more capable and more entertaining. Also, he should lose the combover and go bald gracefully. He's starting to look like an old woman (and he already sounds enough like one).

meh, that guy has to be a level

this show sucked and so does Maher. Dawkins goes around trying to promote/talk about his new book and all the hosts ever do is talk about religion or his old book TGD. don't know why he wastes his time.

I love Dawkins' bemused expression upon being labeled a 'fascist' by O'Reilly:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mk9cXJ1MljI

my fists just clenched up and i dont know why

I swear I saw Mrs. Doubtfire.

Richard Dawkins is as dogmatic, stubborn and stupid as the very people he chastised in his books. He makes me sick sick sick and I wish he weren't the voice of atheism that everyone knows. The kerosene analogy seems most fitting.

Yes people are blowing up **** with kerosene, but Richard Dawkins would seem to have us ban kerosene...

The sad part is, the person I agreed with the most...was Janine Gurafalol
FML
and f that show

Who has ever blown up **** because of kerosene?

who hasn't

Merely stating that Dawkins overemphasizes the causal link btwn religion and terrorism...

Do you really not see the difference?

Blowing up **** with kerosene is not at all the same as blowing up **** because of kerosene.

Dawkins isn't arguing in favor of outlawing stacks of wood because Christians spent a millenium burning heretics on top of them.

No, he does not, nor do Harris, et al.

Go ahead and list every instance of terrorism that you know of that is not related to religion and I will gladly supply 10 that are. We'll see who runs out of cut-and-pastes first...

I think you are confusing the causal link as well sir. I'm not saying that an underlying religion isn't present at a great number of terrorist attacks, but that it is not the underlying cause of such attacks. It is much more plausible to me that dire straits, revenge, and devaluation of life are at the root of terrorism. Where I'm from, we have some pretty insane religions (backwoods pentacostals et al), but you don't see them blowing up the infidels or suicide bombing etc. They go home to their three course meals, and cable television. Furthermore, if we are going to blame religion for terrorism, we must look at the raw numbers. Do you know how many muslims there are in the world? Do you know what percent are involved in terrorist attacks? The point is, it seems much more likely that followers of religious extremes, do so because their day to day life is more extreme. Do you get what I am saying at all? Changing minds in this forum is hard, and I'm open to changing mine...but I honestly would like to hear your argument on this.

This will surely be a longer response than you were hoping for, but here goes...

Assuming that by "dire straits" you mean dire socio-economic straits, then I’d have to question why most of the leaders of Islamic terrorist factions are well-educated and wealthy men. They aren’t the ignorant cave-dwellers that Western media would have us believe them to be; many are doctors and professors and physicists, and many of the leaders of Hamas, al Qaeda, etc have at least a basic college education. And many are also from wealthy families, so I don’t buy the socio-economic angle. Surely there are poor, angry young men that are exploited by those in charge, but socio-economics can't explain the whole picture from the top down.

I do agree with you about the “revenge” and “devaluation of human life” aspects of terrorism. But those are explicitly encouraged in The Qur’an and Hadith. Infidels are less than human and any offense from them is to be avenged. The Muslim literature is quite clear on this.

Right. I’m not saying that all religious people are terrorists; I’m saying that almost all terrorists are religious. No one could overstate this connection.

How are we defining terrorism? Is it terrorism when a young girl’s genitals are mutilated? Is it terrorism when a Muslim girl is stoned to death for kissing a non-Muslim boy? Is it terrorism when a husband is allowed to beat his wife and oppress her under the guise of religion? If you agree, as I do, that these certainly are terrorist acts, then when we combine these atrocities with the more explosive ones, the percentage of Muslims involved in terrorist attacks is frightening.

I am also of the opinion that moderates who do not speak out against the atrocities committed in the name of their religion are also "involved in terrorism". Silence is tacit approval and non-condemnation is indirect involvement.

There were millions of Muslims dancing in the streets around the world after 9/11. Millions more Muslims were silent. Only a tiny percentage actively spoke out against it. Contrast that with millions of Muslims who felt compelled to express their outrage over a Danish political cartoon – embassies were burned and people were murdered. Those were terrorist acts.

I do get what you’re saying, I just don't agree with it, at least not fully. There are plenty of places in the world where day-to-day life is every bit as "extreme" as it is for a Muslim in the Middle East or Africa or Indonesia, and the people just don't react the same way.

Consider Tibet and Burma, where poverty and education levels are at least as bad as anywhere in the Muslim world, and the people are forced to live under brutal, oppressive dictatorships (The Chinese in Tibet and the military junta in Burma/Myanmar). What do the young, oppressed, poverty-stricken, uneducated people in Tibet and Burma do to take revenge against their oppressors? Nothing.

Why not? These people have every bit as much right to be pissed off as any Muslim anywhere in the world. Why do they not react with violence? Because of what the people in Tibet and Burma believe: that violence is never okay. That is a belief that comes directly from their religion (Buddhism) every bit as much as the belief that violence is not only okay but is to be celebrated when directed at an infidel comes from Islam.

Of course there is a connection between religion and terrorism. I can think of only two things that would motivate a person to murderous terrorism -- religious beliefs and psychosis. I admit there is some overlap there.

That most modern Christians will readily denounce the rhetoric of Leviticus and Deuteronomy that commands them to murder gays and infidels gives me hope that modern Muslims will soon come to similar conclusions about the nastier parts of the Qur'an and Hadith. But we are not there yet. In the meantime, when millions of people yell out "Butcher those who insult Islam!", I think we need to quit asking each other "What socio-economic disadvantages and lack of education must have driven them to this point?" and start taking them at their word.

Well, I agree with you completely that religion is used by the societal elites to get the plebs to do what they want. But it is much easier to convince someone to blow themselves up if they believe they will be eternally rewarded for it.

Religion and power go hand in hand, which is one great reason why I do not trust it.

Contstantine adopted Christianity as the officail religion of the Roman Empire to get their help in defeating his enemies.

Martin Luther cleverly allied himself with the German princes giving them the argument that if you control people's souls, you control them.

And the main reason why people become fundamentalist is because they are indoctrinated as such. It is passed on from generation to generation.

Barbaric acts such as female circumcision should not be included in the genre of terrorism. Far be it from us to label cultural practices with such a word, when people in your beloved state are still put to death etc etc. You make some good points and some bad ones. The burma and tibet stuff....really? No uprisings?? No suicide bombings, no terrorism? Try again sir, just came back from China and Lhasa is closed off to tourism for just such reasons. Furthermore, the reason we call what Osama Bin Laden et al do terrorism is because it is done against the established order. It is how the "oppressed" minority can wage war on an established well-armed majority. The key word being oppressed! It isn't because they are fanatical that they do what they do, it's because they feel (whether its true or not) that they are being wronged, which may very well drive someone to a fanatical religion.

Am I saying religion has nothing to do with it? No. I'm merely stating that taking away the religious aspect doesn't solve anything as Dawkins claims it would. People will find reasons to drive truck full of C4 into buildings, God or no God, virgins in heaven or no virgins. I don't support the delusion, but I don't denounce a custom I don't fully understand (as you do).