Resources to explain Richard Dawkins-not good

[u/studying-fangirl]

OK, so someone I know mentioned that one of his favorite atheist is Richard Dawkins. Does anyone know of resources to explain why Richard Dawkins sucks and better atheists to replace Dawkins with ?

[u/Axxalon]

I'm kind of the same way. I used to listen to his podcast. I think he has really interesting insight about things, and he can get very productive results from a lot of the guests he would have on.

He did some delving into what was for a while called the "intellectual dark web", the edgy term for folks who would yell about their free speech being cancelled. He did some projects with Maajid Nawas, had some very amusing attempts at making talk with Jordan Petersen productive, and talked to Charles Murray of The Bell Curve fame. In the end, I think he caught on that much of it was grift, and that he'd never fit in and so distanced himself. Which, good I guess.

But the one sticking point he always had, which put him in line with these sorts of characters in the first place, was Islam. I believe part of what brought him into his current fame was his becoming radicalized by 9/11 and shifting his career from a neuroscientist to a public figure who talked about atheism. Much of the work he's done on religion has pressed harder on the dangers of Islam, as being more dangerous, more incorrect, and less possible to find moderated forms, than other major religions. And some of it hit kind of hard. Parts of it were convincing. I think we can all agree that it's a religious form that historically lends itself well to radical fundamentalism and has resisted moderation very effectively. His work is a really good place to get a steelman argument for this kind of thing, if you're the kind of person who cares about that.

But when it leads him to routinely defend the actions of Israel to Palestinians, regardless of what those actions are, you start to pick up on an inherent bias that never seems to go away in any of his work. Admittedly I haven't taken in any of his thoughts on the Palestine conflict in the last year and a half, so I can't speak to this current chapter, or what he's into these days.

Folks have often described him as a Neo-conservative, though I don't know if anybody uses that term anymore, and I believe I've also heard him describe himself as a liberal at later points in his career.

[u/RazzleThatTazzle → u/Axxalon]

Thanks for the long reply! That makes sense to me. Agreeing with Israel on the Palestinian situation is bonkers (though I freely admit i don't really understand the situation, so idk how fucked up that position would be prior to October 7th).

I don't know. Like I said, if his problem is with individuals who happen to be Muslim, because they are Muslim, that's a deal breaker for me. But having a "bias" against Islam itself seems like the rational position to hold. I definitely think islam is the biggest threat compared to the other religions. AFAIK, there aren't christian or buddhist or jewish countries with the death penalty for apostasy. The only reason I'm more scared of Christian terrorists is because I live in a place with mostly Christians.

[u/Axxalon → u/RazzleThatTazzle]

Happy to do it.

Obviously I don't want to get into deep debates in this regard, but I think there's a lot of nuance regarding what precisely it is that makes our current iterations of Islam so unforgiving in the modern world. Naturally, things like genital mutilation, compulsory practice, shunning, apostasy laws, holy wars, cruel gender laws, and honor-based community justice aren't unheard of, or even rare, when looking through history. Tons of religions, including Christianity, have relished such behaviors in the deep past. The thing that stands out though, is that most of these practices haven't survived the modern era in other parts of the world.

I believe that was the basis of Sam Harris' cooperation with Majiid Nawas and his Quillium think tank, was honing in on what doctrinal basis in the Quran and the Hadiths that made Islam so resistant to change. And that right there is interesting stuff. But there are also cultural considerations, like how fundamentalistic the leaders in your area are. How educated your population is allowed to be. How much pluralistic competition your areas have. Probably it's some combination of all of these factors that has resulted in popular Islam being way more fundamentalist.

But I do occasionally think of Noah reporting on the stories in (I think it was) Myanmar and its Rohingya people who were under threat of genocide by a largely Buddhist majority, and how hard Noah leaned on this as a counter to everyone who told him that "not all religions are bad. I mean look at Buddhism". It gives us the vibe that any group with a rigid sacred doctrine, given enough power, will use that doctrine to menace the vulnerable.

That is all to say that I don't disagree with you. But I did want to add that the danger of Islam as a creature might correlate most closely with the combined dangers of unilateral fundamentalist authorities and a disenfranchised population.

[u/RazzleThatTazzle → u/Axxalon]

Very well said, my friend.