Dawkins is an old bug bear but the thought that he may have done religion a big favour is quite new to me.
http://www.spc.rs/eng/dawkins_delusion
" So what are we to make of this shrill and petulant manifesto of atheist fundamentalism? Aware of the moral obligation of a critic of religion to deal with this phenomenon at its best and most persuasive, many atheists have been disturbed by Dawkins' crude stereotypes, vastly over-simplified binary oppositions ("science is good, religion is bad"), straw men, and seemingly pathological hostility towards religion. Might The God Delusion actually backfire, and end up persuading people that atheism is just as intolerant, doctrinaire and disagreeable as the worst that religion can offer? As the atheist philosopher Michael Ruse commented recently: "The God Delusion makes me embarrassed to be an atheist."
Dawkins seems to think that saying something more loudly and confidently, while ignoring or trivializing counter-evidence, will persuade the open-minded that religious belief is a type of delusion. For the gullible and credulous, it is the confidence with which something is said that persuades, rather than the evidence offered in its support. Dawkins' astonishingly superficial and inaccurate portrayal of Christianity will simply lead Christians to conclude that he does not know what he is talking about -- and that his atheism may therefore rest on a series of errors and misunderstandings. Ironically the ultimate achievement of The God Delusion for modern atheism may be to suggest that it is actually atheism itself may be a delusion about God. "
A counter point.
https://www.bethinking.org/atheism/new-a...alfunction
"There are a couple of key differences between Myers' version and mine. Unlike Myers I am not claiming that it is obvious the New Atheists' arguments are unsuccessful. It is necessary to understand their arguments properly and the objections to them before it becomes clear that this is the case. And since the New Atheism continues to find much support, those of us who think it is unsuccessful need to keep trying to show just where it goes wrong. Another difference is that Myers' view seems to presuppose that all versions of theism are obviously without any rational basis, whereas my focus is on the New Atheism rather than atheism in general."
What some new atheists say
https://thebaffler.com/latest/whats-the-...ew-atheism
"Case in point Richard Dawkins, the most prominent of those spokespeople, who got himself in trouble on Twitter a couple weeks ago while trying to advance some kind of argument about sexual assault and ordinal scales of badness. The actual point he was trying to make—something something, don’t you people understand syllogisms, something—is somewhat obscure, but the language he was using to make it was undeniably abhorrent.
The whole incident has evidently led a lot of other New Atheist activists to reconsider whether they want Dawkins as their public champion. As one of them recently told the Religion News Service: “Regretfully, I think Richard Dawkins has become a liability.”"
(This post was last modified: 2018-06-04, 04:16 PM by Brian.)
http://www.spc.rs/eng/dawkins_delusion
" So what are we to make of this shrill and petulant manifesto of atheist fundamentalism? Aware of the moral obligation of a critic of religion to deal with this phenomenon at its best and most persuasive, many atheists have been disturbed by Dawkins' crude stereotypes, vastly over-simplified binary oppositions ("science is good, religion is bad"), straw men, and seemingly pathological hostility towards religion. Might The God Delusion actually backfire, and end up persuading people that atheism is just as intolerant, doctrinaire and disagreeable as the worst that religion can offer? As the atheist philosopher Michael Ruse commented recently: "The God Delusion makes me embarrassed to be an atheist."
Dawkins seems to think that saying something more loudly and confidently, while ignoring or trivializing counter-evidence, will persuade the open-minded that religious belief is a type of delusion. For the gullible and credulous, it is the confidence with which something is said that persuades, rather than the evidence offered in its support. Dawkins' astonishingly superficial and inaccurate portrayal of Christianity will simply lead Christians to conclude that he does not know what he is talking about -- and that his atheism may therefore rest on a series of errors and misunderstandings. Ironically the ultimate achievement of The God Delusion for modern atheism may be to suggest that it is actually atheism itself may be a delusion about God. "
A counter point.
https://www.bethinking.org/atheism/new-a...alfunction
"There are a couple of key differences between Myers' version and mine. Unlike Myers I am not claiming that it is obvious the New Atheists' arguments are unsuccessful. It is necessary to understand their arguments properly and the objections to them before it becomes clear that this is the case. And since the New Atheism continues to find much support, those of us who think it is unsuccessful need to keep trying to show just where it goes wrong. Another difference is that Myers' view seems to presuppose that all versions of theism are obviously without any rational basis, whereas my focus is on the New Atheism rather than atheism in general."
What some new atheists say
https://thebaffler.com/latest/whats-the-...ew-atheism
"Case in point Richard Dawkins, the most prominent of those spokespeople, who got himself in trouble on Twitter a couple weeks ago while trying to advance some kind of argument about sexual assault and ordinal scales of badness. The actual point he was trying to make—something something, don’t you people understand syllogisms, something—is somewhat obscure, but the language he was using to make it was undeniably abhorrent.
The whole incident has evidently led a lot of other New Atheist activists to reconsider whether they want Dawkins as their public champion. As one of them recently told the Religion News Service: “Regretfully, I think Richard Dawkins has become a liability.”"
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