October_30th's Journal: An interview with Richard Dawkins

A very interesting interview with Richard Dawkins.

TM: Could you address a couple of reactions that I see in the media, either to atheism, in general, or to you and your book? One, people ask why are atheists so angry?

RD: That's a very curious misperception. We get accused of being angry or of being intolerant, but, if you were to look at critiques of one political party by the other... when Democrats criticize Republicans, or Republicans criticize Democrats, nobody ever says, "You're being intolerant of Republicans, or angry." It's just normal, robust argument. People have gotten so used to the idea that religion must be immune to criticism that even a very mild and gentle criticism of religion comes across as angry and intolerant.

Personally, I don't see anything wrong with being an angry atheist.

I wondered the other day

[Mantorp]

When that moslem guy from MN took office in Congress he swore on a koran rather than the customary bible, while I'm pretty sure there are already quite a few atheists in Congress what would an out of the closet atheist swear on? I'd think a copy of the constitution or declaration of independence would be most appropriate for everyone.

Re:

[October_30th]

I've never understood why oaths require anything at all.

Re:

[grub]

Oaths on a bible have never made a politician honest. I give my word to people and keep it.

Jainism

[Mantorp]

having never heard of it I followed the link [wikipedia.org]

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jainism is crap..... that is all.

Me neither.

[grub]

Just today we were driving around town and I pointed out a nice big new church to Kim and grumbled about how it pisses me off that those cults get virtually everything tax free or with huge tax breaks.

It's a fucking joke that they sell whatever mythology they do and the taxpayers subsidize their lies.