- cross-posted to:
- atheism@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- atheism@lemmy.ml
The atheist’s comments continue an irresponsible pattern of demonizing one religion while celebrating the one he grew up with
The atheist’s comments continue an irresponsible pattern of demonizing one religion while celebrating the one he grew up with
Oh well, a well-known figure in our community is an oddball. Really does not matter as he doesn’t have any authority to dictate the beliefs of atheists as would a Pastor or the Pope. One of the many perks of not having a hierarchy baked into your belief system. Nothing Dawkins says affects my beliefs beyond the simple matter of my opinion of the man.
His statements of Christianity being “fundamentally decent” has no effect on me considering it “fundamentally no better than Smallpox”, a view I hold toward religion in general.
In the same way that “regular Christians” and “regular Muslims” need to denounce their idiots and evil doers, athiests need to do the same. It doesn’t matter if the individual holds no real power. If a public figure associated with your movement does wrong, failure to denounce it leads others to associate the ideas with the entire movement.
There’s a reason people associate Mormonism with polygamy, Catholics with pedophilia, and Muslims and evangelicals with their own flavors of religious fascism.
Fair enough.
I’m distinctly and expressly opposed to the downplaying of the exceptional harm done by religious faith and Christianity especially. It isn’t “fundamentally decent”, if anything it’s fundamentally abhorrent and antithetical to human well-being. As stated in my original comment it is no better than Smallpox, and to expand on it I believe that it should face the same fate as Smallpox.
im not sure why dawkins said this, but it’s a drop in the bucket compared to the atheism advocacy work he’s done