<http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/10/20/features/IDLEDE21.php>
A passionate atheist's case against religion
By Jim Holt The New York Times
Richard Dawkins, who holds the interesting title of "Charles Simonyi professor of the public understanding of science" at Oxford University, is a master of scientific exposition and synthesis. When it comes to his own specialty, evolutionary biology, there is none better. But the purpose of this book, his latest of many, is not to explain science. It is rather, as he tells us, "to raise consciousness," which is quite another thing.
The nub of Dawkins's consciousness- raising message is that to be an atheist is a "brave and splendid" aspiration. Belief in God is not only a delusion, he argues, but a "pernicious" one. On a scale of 1 to 7, where 1 is certitude that God exists and 7 is certitude that God does not exist, Dawkins rates himself a 6: "I cannot know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there."
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Uh oh.
I fear this post will arouse Ravi's counter-scientism gene into action.
In related news...
Jonathan Miller's "A Brief History of Disbelief" is available for on-line viewing.
BBC Four Page about the series -
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/features/atheism.shtml>
Information Clearinghouse On-line Vid Link -
<http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13868.htm>
And in other, still related news...
I think it would be interesting for non-believing list-members to share their stories of how they came to outright reject, or, as is the case with me, simply (without sturm und drang and snarky, anti-belief super irony) find no place for, religious belief.
.d.
In all probability the airplane is banked and is turning, although your sensations make you feel it is in straight and level flight. Don’t act according to your sensations. Check and cross check your instruments.â€
– Pilot’s Information File, 1944 ...................... http://monroelab.net/blog/