1. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, etc. were atheists, and they were terrible! Answer that!

Comment #81667 by wim_vandenberghe on October 25, 2007 at 2:35 am

As Atticus_of_Amber rightly points out, I think an antidogmatism approach is probably the best course to take in these cases. Here's my attempt:
"When opposing your religious views/truth claims, I choose to label myself an atheist, but this term doesn't say anything about who I am, it only defines me (in a negative sense) in relation to your beliefs. I am first and foremost a freethinker/critical thinker, a doubter, a humanist and a rationalist, things you can hardly accuse Stalin, Hitler, etc. of having been. These men set the same trap for themselves as religion, and that's dogmatic thinking, the non-tolerance of doubt. In religion doubt is seen as a weakness that has to be overcome, in totalitarian regimes doubt is usually a fatal weakness, but in my view doubt is a key strength that empowers human beings by disarming all dogma, be it religious or otherwise. Doubt is what science formalized in the concept of falsifiabiliy, doubt is what breaks religious dogma, doubt is what totalitarians fear the most, doubt is what pushes civilization forward."

2. The importance of doubt

Comment #66487 by wim_vandenberghe on August 30, 2007 at 5:50 am

1.
From the article: "It is not religion alone and of itself that leads to fundamentalism and its social consequences, but an insistence from any ideological source that only one set of convictions should prevail."

John Cornwell here implies that Richard Dawkins is guilty of the same dogmatism, i.e. that only his set of convictions should prevail. But Richard Dawkins's 'set of convictions' is exactly that no one set of convictions should prevail: doubt, skepticism, curiosity, falsifiability, etc. should be the norm. That is profoundly different from religion (or Stalin for that matter).

2.
From the article: "Dawkins claims, however, that religious believers deserve neither respect nor rights in any circumstances."

I think Richard Dawkins does not say this. I think what he says is that they deserve no more respect than anything or anyone else.

3. John Cornwell jumps from RD's theories about religious memes and the viral analogy to the race theories of the Nazi regime, which is so intellectually dishonest. The Nazi regime believed that certain people were the virus and should therefore be killed. All Richard Dawkins is saying is that certain obsolete ideas permeate society and history and that these ideas should be countered with better ideas.

4. Finally, and this is more of a general remark about how Richard Dawkins engages religious apologists, I think RD (and other prominent atheists) should concentrate more on epistomology and less on deontology when it comes to dicussing religion. The religious apologists have a harder time defending the truth aspects of their respective brands of religion and therefore (like Cornwell) try to steer the discussion toward deontology: the evil that people do in the name of religion AND other ideologies like Stalin's and Hitler's to "prove" that they're the same. (That's where I also think Steven Weinberg's comment about it taking religion for good people to do bad things is lacking. More precise would be to say that "It takes sufficient indoctrination for good people to do bad things".)
I think in future Richard Dawkins should make an effort to confront religious apologists with the truth claims their religions make and in how far they hold these beliefs or are guilty of cherry-picking their holy books. This would be much harder to defend than the arguments about the evils that religion causes. I recommend Julia Sweeney's approach.

It's the first time I've ever posted anything, so I hope I've been sufficiently clear in formulating myself. Do with it what you will.

WV