Dawkins's comments re: tsunami disaster

valis said:
I love science but religion has an important role in the daily life of many.
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I think that there's no question in anyone's mind that religion does a lot of good to a lot of people. The only question is how good they invest the financial resources they get through donations and/or taxes.
 
Patricio Elicer said:
I think that there's no question in anyone's mind that religion does a lot of good to a lot of people.
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Quite the opposite.

They dull peoples ability to make informed decisions.
They take away valuable time.
They preach love and practice hate.
Many are organisations only interested in money and power.
They start wars or are used to justify same.
They give false comfort through myth.
They encourage inaction.
They are resistant and often antagonistic to change.
History is ignored, hidden or changed to suit their purposes.
Assistance is often only given to those "in the club" or prepared to join.
They promote agendas that are damaging to whole nations and millions of people.
They keep people from working together to understand and actually solve problems.
They ask people to put a god before humanity.
Psychological harm of making people feel sinful.
They get people "on their knees" when they should be "on their feet".
They are directly responsible for uncounted deaths, torture and murders.

I find it hard to make any of the above accusations to the Red Cross or Red Crescent.

On balance, the good that is done by religion (and I would argue that it is good people, not the religion) is far outweighed by the bad.
 
H3LL, several on your list would apply to science as well.

Oops.


On balance, the good that is done by religion (and I would argue that it is good people, not the religion) is far outweighed by the bad.
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Of course! If religion does bad, it is due to religion. If religion does good, it is due to the people! If science does good, it is due to science. But if science does bad, it is due to the people! This way, science never loses, and religion always does.
 
jzs said:
H3LL, several on your list would apply to science as well.
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Possibly, but not all. Maybe you could point out which ones you think apply to science for us.

Also I was commenting on religious organisations and non-religious organisations such as the Red Cross and Red Crescent, not comparing science with religion.

Oops! :p
 
H3LL said:
Possibly, but not all. Maybe you could point out which ones you think apply to science for us.
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T'ai Chi does not accept questions. It is beneath him:

...people will keep throwing "tester" questions my way, no matter how many questions I answer correctly, as they've shown. An additional annoying thing, is that, as you have demonstrated well here, is that they tend to not ask, but rather demand me to answer questions. I have little patience for primadonnas.
Source
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So, there!

You primadonna!
 
I'll predict that the contributions from religious groups ("churches, mosques and synagogues") will be more than the contributions from the atheist groups.
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It's so typical, God kills hundreds of thousands and let's the believers pay in an effort to pick up the pieces. A really clever God would figure out how to create massive distruction and make the atheists pay for it.....
 
jzs said:
Of course! If religion does bad, it is due to religion. If religion does good, it is due to the people! If science does good, it is due to science. But if science does bad, it is due to the people! This way, science never loses, and religion always does.
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Good people do good things and bad people do bad things. There are some examples of religious belief causing bad people to change and do good things, but far more of bad people using their religion as an excuse to do bad things.

By far the worst thing about religious belief, however, is that it can actually cause good people to do bad things. Good people who sincerely believed they were doing what God wanted them to do have committed some of the worst atrocities in history. That is why mankind as a whole would be better off without religious belief.
 
Pixel42 said:
Good people do good things and bad people do bad things. There are some examples of religious belief causing bad people to change and do good things, but far more of bad people using their religion as an excuse to do bad things.

By far the worst thing about religious belief, however, is that it can actually cause good people to do bad things. Good people who sincerely believed they were doing what God wanted them to do have committed some of the worst atrocities in history. That is why mankind as a whole would be better off without religious belief.
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Of course you don't mention misuses of science. Thus proving my point.
 
jzs said:
Of course you don't mention misuses of science. Thus proving my point.
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When did science last lead good people to burn other people alive? Or fly planes into buildings? Or start wars with people who believe in a slightly different kind of science?

Science can be misused to, for example, provide people who choose to go to war with better weapons, but atrocities have never been committed by good - or even bad - people in the name of it.
 
The United States government is an atheist organization. They've pledged 350 million dollars and counting.

Since the intent of your prediction seems to be that acting in the name of god makes one more generous, then you should explain why a government that, by law, is apart from any religion would give so much.
 
EGarrett said:
The United States government is an atheist organization. They've pledged 350 million dollars and counting.
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Or is it a religious one since it is lead by Bush?

Nope, there will be no weaseling on the definitions. An atheist orgranization is one that declares themself to be one (American Atheists, for example).


Since the intent of your prediction seems to be that acting in the name of god makes one more generous, then you should explain why a government that, by law, is apart from any religion would give so much.
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That isn't the intent of my prediction. My prediction is based on my obviously subjective observations from the past.
 
Pixel42 said:
When did science last lead good people to burn other people alive?
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I take it you missed the whole inventing bombs thing.


Or fly planes into buildings?
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Now here is my point exactly. You say religion did that. Now why didn't people do that?


Science can be misused to, for example, provide people who choose to go to war with better weapons, but atrocities have never been committed by good - or even bad - people in the name of it.
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Atom bomb... Tuskegee...
 
jzs said:
Nope, there will be no weaseling on the definitions. An atheist orgranization is one that declares themself to be one (American Atheists, for example).
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That is a truly stupid statement. People are something, because they declare that they are? Sylvia Browne is a skeptic? Gary Schwartz is doing science, because he so declares?

jzs said:
That isn't the intent of my prediction. My prediction is based on my obviously subjective observations from the past.
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So far, your prediction seems to fail. The list of organizations I've seen are largely non-religious.

I am, as always, open to contrary evidence. So, let's see that list of yours, along with how much money has been donated.
 
jzs said:
Tuskegee?
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Look, instead of these tiny jabs at science, why don't you open a thread where you explain in extenso when and why you think science is such a bad thing.

Or simply do it here?

Hm?
 
jzs said:
Or is it a religious one since it is lead by Bush?

Nope, there will be no weaseling on the definitions. An atheist orgranization is one that declares themself to be one (American Atheists, for example).

That isn't the intent of my prediction. My prediction is based on my obviously subjective observations from the past. [/B]
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I'm not.

Atheism isn't an organized belief system like Catholicism or Judaism. You said yourself that atheists share only a lack of belief in god.

You don't declare yourself an atheist, you only declare that you don't take part in religion.

The U.S. government, by it's own law and it's own pronouncement, will not respect any establishment of religion.

It is, in fact, the very first article of the Bill of Rights.

Furthermore, the Chinese government, being communist, is actively atheist, and makes efforts to stamp out religion in their country. They've pledged about 60 million and counting.

Your churches, so far, have about 400 million dollars to pledge to keep up...
 
I think it's called a False Dilemma

This is the error of portraying one choice (tax breaks for religious organizations) as necessarily excluding another (setting up the early warning system), even though there is no necessary connection.
It's like saying that until poverty has been alleviated, there should be no exploration of Space.


Also, I agree with Rolfe. At a time of crisis such as this, everyone should be pulling together to do as much as they can. Point scoring is distasteful in the extreme. Why do countries have to tick off other countries for not donating as much as they have? Why do the non-religious/religious have to tick off the religious/non-religious about how much they have donated compared to themselves?

Dawkins contribution showed an extreme lack of taste.
Let's just leave it at that and move on.

BillyJoe
 
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