I agree that Dawkins was certainly over-run by some of his interviewees.
However, his mindset (and certainly mine as well) is that these people are otherwise normal people who are completely deluded by their beliefs.
In the fact of such overwhelming sense of righteousness on the part of the religious persons, Dawkins arguments can seem to fall flat.
In almost all cases, I agreed with Dawkins, and I found most of his interviewees responses deeply unsatisfying.
Ted Haggard's claims seemed very slick, but deeply wrong. He said the Bible doesn't contradict itself, but i'm sure i've read that it does. Of course, I shall need proof of this before I am happy!
All in all, I think Dawkins has some very valid points about religion.
I've never been religious myself, and have always found the progress of science very impressive, and most of all, I find the attitude of science to be very noble - i.e. have a hypothesis, test, re-test, disprove. Some scientists can hold very strong views on how they think the Universe works, but the beauty of science is that those views can be shattered in the face of newer, more accurate evidence.
(Scientist Fred Hoyle's brilliance with studying the Sun, then failure by supporting the Steady-State theory, which was demolished by the Big Bang proves a point)
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coop148811
17 years ago
Well, Dawkins strikes me as a very polite, almost timid man, and he's having to deal with a lot of people who, no matter how successfully he presents an argument, he knows will never give any thought to anything he has to say. I can't even imagine the frustration involved in such a position. The ironic thing to me is that he really doesn't seem as arrogant as his religious counterparts, and yet he is so often labeled that way.
It is a rather disturbing figure, in any sense, that 53% of the American public, with as much as we know about the age of the earth and evolutionary processes over the last several million years, still believe the literal interpretation of Genesis which states the earth as being somewhere between 6,000 and 10,000 years old. I can imagine Dawkins feels very much that he is arguing with people who, for lack of a better way of putting it, are still wanting to say the earth just might be flat.
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Aiwaz69
17 years ago
At times though, Richard Dawkins seems to come out as intolerant of anyone who holds beliefs he doesn't like, which is all beliefs and ideas except atheism. It seems to come out in his debates with others, and he does seem to choose easy targets. It also doesn't help him debating when at times he seems to get angry.
Loving Jesus allows me to hate you...
I bless you in the name of the Father, Son, and Yog-Sothoth!
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tom-1674
9 years ago
Scientist Fred Hoyle's brilliance with studying the Sun, then failure by supporting the Steady-State theory, which was demolished by the Big Bang proves a point
Despite the propaganda, the Big Bang Theory does have many holes in it, not least of which is the fact that there are stellar phenomena which the theory cannot explain.
Physicists since the days of Einstein have IMO been overly reliant on their formulas to explain the universe. They gloss over the fact that formulas are useless when the input is inaccurate. Garbage in, garbage out.
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