Richard Dawkins on Mitt Romney

"If the person you're contemplating voting for believes the garden of eden is Missouri, believes that native americans are the lost ten tribes of Israel, believes that Jesus visited North America, I mean these beliefs are barking mad. They contradict science."



It's a sad era in American politics, and in my opinion if Romney is elected it will just reflect how uneducated and how bad our education system has failed

It's a good thing the presidency has naught to do with science...

I am no fan of Mittens. Not by a long shot. I agree that it is a sad day for the American education system because they failed to indoctrinate another person to believe that there is no higher power than our government (apparently). I imagine they are indeed sad whenever one slips through their meaty grasp with some ability left to choose for themselves what they wish to believe and not blindly chug the kool aid shoved in their faces 8 hours a day.

Again. I am no cheerleader for Romney, but your OP makes it seem like anyone who believes in a deity is not educated. That is not the case IMO.

My daughter is in the 9th grade and I can tell you that the American education system has been failing long before Mittens was a tear in our eyes and it's not because they fail to make evolution stick with everyone. It goes a lot deeper than that.

That's like posting a video entitled "Josef Stalin on Barry Goldwater." Dawkins has a great depth of knowledge in one area, and it is the passion and support of his life, atheism. Unfortunately for the relevancy of Mr. Dawkins comments, there is no reason to believe that the religious, or non-religious beliefs of Mr. Romney will be placed into law.

That's a long way of saying it doesn't matter. I wonder if Obama would welcome a video from Mr. Dawkins claiming that Obama doesn't really have any religious beliefs that affect him in any way, therefore, Dawkins will support him in the campaign? Would that be a Democrat ad, or a Republican one?

Do you think, by the way, that Romney is uneducated? That he received a faulty education? Does Dawkins think so? An M.B.A. and a Law degree from Harvard?

I don't know, this one isn't persuading me of anything.

I'm no fan of Romney but his religious beliefs aren't any weirder than mainstream Christianity, or Buddhism, or Islam, or whatever. It's just weird to YOU because you weren't raised from birth to accept it as fact. Most religions are pretty damned "weird" if you can separate yourself from your indoctrination & look at them rationally.

Richard Dawkins would say the same thing about ANY candidate's religion, any religion. He doesn't believe in God at all, or any religions.

reply to post by Schkeptick


Yes I agree one could make the same argument about any religion. However there is something about Mormonism which seems more extreme... they are clearly like a level up on the hardcore religion scale. I just don't like them, maybe it's because they always seem to go around and annoy people with their insane beliefs. They came to my house once talking about end of the world doomsday theories related to 2012. And if I know one thing... it's that:
Romney + Mormonism + President = Hell.

reply to post by Kangaruex4Ewe


When there are such GOOD explinations for the origins of life and the universe... picking a magic sky daddy is idiotic. There are reasons beyond scientific curiosity that these "people" choose such superstitious nonsense, and that reason is fear.

So yes all religious people are morons. Soon enough we will all know it, and the suicide rate in america will rise by more than 1000%.

Originally posted by Wertdagf
reply to post by Kangaruex4Ewe

 

When there are such GOOD explinations for the origins of life and the universe... picking a magic sky daddy is idiotic. There are reasons beyond scientific curiosity that these "people" choose such superstitious nonsense, and that reason is fear.

So yes all religious people are morons. Soon enough we will all know it, and the suicide rate in america will rise by more than 1000%.

I like you Wertdagf and generally agree with you...but this is one topic we will always disagree on. I realize that you classify me as a moron for believing in God and there is not much I can do to change your opinion on that. Believing in God is no more silly than believing in aliens, bigfoot, etc. IMO. I dislike like the fact that you do think of me like that instead of taking my whole persona here into account. I don't bible thump, degrade others, or pass judgements on others simply because of my beliefs. You might be missing out on some pretty interesting folks IRL because of that snap judgement.

I know you don't care about what I said but I felt like I needed to put it out there anyway.

To the Christians here: Where was your God on 9-11? Or was it His day off, and Allah was working?

I realize the question may seem off-topic, but since a lot of Christians like to say the U.S. is a Christian nation, and our then President in 2001 said that bad Muslims were responsible for the attacks, this begs the question of exactly who was in charge, higher-powered-speaking. Personally, and I have a lot of evidence of this 'belief', a very supposedly 'Christian' President was responsible for the carnage, but I digress.

I can't help but wonder where Mitt Romney's holier-than-thou Mormonism was, since he was groomed from birth to be a Bishop in the Mormon church, back when he held that kid down and chopped off his hair, or when he was out impersonating a police officer and pulling people over. Such a fun felony! What a prankster!!

The OP is right; all religions are bat-# crazy fantasies invented by people with no clue about what lightning was, or what caused diseases, or even why washing your hands once a year might be a good idea...primitive people filled with superstitions about every aspect of life and death, and to whom a plow was an item of high technology, and until we learn to stop brainwashing little children with this dreck and start both thinking rationally and without constantly perpetuated lies, we'll never solve the looming problems we're up against.

And oh by the way... 'not believing' in aliens is one thing. Negating the probability of intelligent life on any one of billions of planets just in the nearby galaxy seems to be a stretch.

reply to post by signalfire

Just to be sure I don't misunderstand your points, may I summarize them as briefly as possible? Feel free to correct me where I go wrong.

1.) Why doesn't God prevent death and suffering on Earth?

2.) Romney played pranks in his high school days and his first two years in college. Those pranks included violations of the law. (As every prank I can think of does.)

3.) All religions are false and harmful.

4.) You should believe in other intelligent life somewhere in the universe.

Did I pretty much get it? I might have missed some stuff, I'm getting a little fuzzy.

Originally posted by Schkeptick
I'm no fan of Romney but his religious beliefs aren't any weirder than mainstream Christianity, or Buddhism, or Islam, or whatever. It's just weird to YOU because you weren't raised from birth to accept it as fact. Most religions are pretty damned "weird" if you can separate yourself from your indoctrination & look at them rationally.

Richard Dawkins would say the same thing about ANY candidate's religion, any religion. He doesn't believe in God at all, or any religions.

I do not agree. He is the priest of the religon called science and is one of the people with enormous faith that cannot understand other peoples views.

But for me Dawkins is a hypocrite that refuse to really study spirituality and goes after cheap shots that he can disprove and include things he cannot disprove as dissproven.

He make the normal misstake that because an idea of a collection of ideas (superstition) can be disproven do not mean all are false. He is as caught up in duality as any religious man thinking his religion is the right view and everyone else is wrong. Richard Dawkins is like a scientific crusader against religions/spirit world. He does not seek true understanding or thruth, he pushes what his mind thinks reality should be like as dogmaticly as the Chatolic Church is doing now.

He say we should be open minded in one of his tv series and a few minutes later he calls the chakra system superstition. And this is something that people all over the world is experiancing. I do not say the chakra system works exacly like it is portraied. I say the information is close enought to how the body works be used practiclly. There is science needed to explain the effects of chakras dealing with for instance currents of energy/body expiancing ghost perceptions that have no physical or low physical explanation.

Now Einsten there was a mind that could really seek higher understanding in reality. I miss the seekers of thruth in science before science became more or less dogmatic.

Originally posted by Wertdagf
reply to post by Kangaruex4Ewe

 

When there are such GOOD explinations for the origins of life and the universe... picking a magic sky daddy is idiotic. There are reasons beyond scientific curiosity that these "people" choose such superstitious nonsense, and that reason is fear.

So yes all religious people are morons. Soon enough we will all know it, and the suicide rate in america will rise by more than 1000%.

I would say the opposite. I had a lot of fears before I found god/source/ONE. Now I do not anymore because I have an extreme perspective on what is going on. Play around with god/source/ONE with chakras first before you say god is not real. It is like an indian in the amazon telling a westerner that people cannot fly in airplanes because he have never seen one and experianced flying in one.

The problem with "magic sky daddy" is that it is hard not to belive in it when it keeps physicly touching the top of your head . I have my own symbiotic way of dealing with "magic sky daddy" and have my own views how everything fit together.

The bilbe is from my point not completly untrue. But very very missunderstood. . Buddism is easier to grasp from my point of view. But if you truely seek understanding/knowledge/thruth then you will find it regardless of religious/scientific preferance. Just because religons can be a bit of the real experiance and not 100% true do not make god false. I AM and so ARE YOU. You do not just know it yeet.

Magic is all around us. Just look at quantum jump that electrons keep doing or the slit experiment. Reality/God/ONE is truely wierd but a lot of fun.

reply to post by apushforenlightment


Alright, finally a more refined answer to a complex question.
To this I may add:

Why do we have to "believe" in anything? In absolute terms, we either "know" or we "don't know". By knowing I mean that a phenomenon is understood and can be reproduced, so basically it follows a scientific methodology (even if some people call it magick). If you can make an entity appear several times by using the same method, it become a valid method. Then if you don't understand what the entity is, that becomes a different problem to solve but you have proven that the phenomenon exists and manifests within our realm.
The issue with the gods of the Bible, Quran or Torah is that this methodology has not been followed. There is therefore no more proof for the existence of those outrageous egoistic entities than there is for fairies, ghosts or big foot. Until a valid methodology (even if it is not necessarily performed by scientists handling machinery in a lab) is brought forward that can show the existence of these gods even if only through some form of manifestation, they will just remain in the minds of those who "believe", just like santa or the easter bunny. A belief is a very weak link yet this has caused great grief on this planet.
for this reason, I would tend to have more respect for alchemists and esotericists since there is actually a methodology for what they do, even if the contacts and activities are far remove from "traditional" science. For instance, if one guy manages to contact some kind of interdimesional thing, he then tries to do it again, with other people around. And they keep doing it, and document it until they can understand what that was. A logical approach. Religions on the other hand will just tell you: take my word for it but don't you go talking to angels/demons/saints/gods on your own (islam in particular is very good at saying that).
Well, sorry but in the 21st century, in the same way as we shouldn't just believe politicians, we shouldn't just believe religions. Believing should in fact be replaced as "I chose to manifest" (free will). Every human being should do his own research and make up his/her own mind about reality, about what is and what isn't. It is about first hand experience of the "beyond" and no longer taking other people's word for it. A portion of humanity is mature enough for this to happen.

Originally posted by charles1952
reply to post by signalfire

 

Just to be sure I don't misunderstand your points, may I summarize them as briefly as possible? Feel free to correct me where I go wrong.

1.) Why doesn't God prevent death and suffering on Earth?

2.) Romney played pranks in his high school days and his first two years in college. Those pranks included violations of the law. (As every prank I can think of does.)

3.) All religions are false and harmful.

4.) You should believe in other intelligent life somewhere in the universe.

Did I pretty much get it? I might have missed some stuff, I'm getting a little fuzzy.

Thanks for the questions, I'll presume you weren't being sarcastic.

1: Yes, but specifically why, in this 'Christian' nation, acts attributed to a group of Allah-believers could be allowed to proceed unimpeded. I happen to believe (heh) that 9-11 was a US and/or Israeli govt job but that is neither here nor there for this discussion.

2. I can think of plenty of pranks that are not outright felonies. I remember several from my college days; one in which a very large pumpkin was placed over the tallest building spire on campus. Another in which a dorm room was lined with plastic and the room filled with jello... you get the idea. There's pranks that can become legend on campus but they are not necessarily harmful to anyone, or illegal. What Mitt Romney did was well into felony range, and impersonating an officer could not only get you a lot of time in jail, it would get you investigated for any missing persons and unsolved murder and rape crimes... that he would even begin to think that what he did was okay, and chuckle when asked about it, is terrifying.

3. I think all religions have proved their damaging aspects to society, yes.

4. I don't think we should 'believe' in intelligent life elsewhere; only that the odds overwhelmingly favor it. It would be far less likely that we are the only planet with intelligent life, than that the local galaxy is teeming with life, some of it highly advanced and also by virtue of the odds, far more advanced than we are. We've only had a few years of technology, depending on how you define the term; metallurgy, electronics, ? What about a civilization that's had hundreds of thousands of years of uninterrupted technological advancements and managed to not self-destruct? Hint: they would seem as gods or magical to us..., as Arthur C. Clarke pointed out.

reply to post by signalfire

Dear signalfire,

I really appreciate your reply. I can see, looking back on it, that I might not have written as smoothly as I meant to. I didn't intend sarcasm, I was just trying to make things simple for me.

. . . why, in this 'Christian' nation, acts attributed to a group of Allah-believers could be allowed to proceed unimpeded.

I think I see four possibilities in your first question. 1) God should prevent bad things from happening to his followers if the acts come from non-believers, 2) God should prevent bad things from happening to anyone if the acts come from non-believers, 3) God should prevent bad things from happening to anyone, and 4) How the heck are we supposed to be telling God what He should be doing?

Besides, the US can't be a Christian nation, it wasn't set up to be one. It is a nation with some Christians in it, and they can vote, but a nation governed by Christians enforcing Christian laws? Nah.

We don't know which things are really bad, some may be just, some merciful, some preventive. Some times, as in wars, decisions are made by men, the orders are followed by men, and men die as a result. To what purpose? To remind us that there is evil in the world to be guarded against, and even fought against? There are worse things than losing your life. Perhaps, and I'm simply guessing because I can't possibly know, that was the case with 9/11.

2. I can think of plenty of pranks that are not outright felonies.

You're quite right and I agree. The reason we're a little different is that you're using "felonies," and I'm using "illegal." The pranks I remember at least, involved trespass and minor damage to property. But I'll agree with you. I just don't see that it has any particular significance to this race, or even to Romney as an adult.

3. I think all religions have proved their damaging aspects to society, yes.

I would be astonished beyond words, I would claim it to be the mightiest miracle of God, if this wasn't true. You're talking about millions and millions of individuals over centuries. No group in this world of sadness and evil could claim to not have damaging aspects. What impossibly high standards you set! Every country, every system of political or economic thought, everything would stand condemned because people are flawed, they have weakness inside them. But that condemns the people, not the religions. I don't think that you want, at least in this thread, to compare various religions.

4. I don't think we should 'believe' in intelligent life elsewhere; only that the odds overwhelmingly favor it. It would be far less likely that we are the only planet with intelligent life, than that the local galaxy is teeming with life, some of it highly advanced and also by virtue of the odds, far more advanced than we are.

As strange as it may seem, the existence of other life either leaves me unconcerned, or frightened. Unconcerned, because it's existence or non-existence has no meaning for my thoughts and beliefs, or how I live my life. Frightened, because if we do find any, what are the odds that mankind will destroy, enslave, or corrupt them? If we find any, my advice would be to run back home and leave them alone on their own path.

With respect,
Charles1952

reply to post by muse7


Richard would say the same about any theist.

So, it's kind of a moot point. Then again, I have no problem with religion, as long as you don't start using it as an excuse to make laws, censor my speech....or you know, generally attempt to convert others.

~Tenth