WaPo asks Richard Dawkins the wrong question...

[onager]

Q. Family Radio evangelist Harold Camping believes that he has calculated the exact date of the rapture: May 21, 2011. While many are laughing at the suggestion, Camping’s followers are taking him seriously, bringing his message of impending doom to billboards and public spaces around the country. What does your tradition teach about the end of the world? How does end time theology impact real world behavior?

A. Why is a serious newspaper like the Washington Post giving space to a raving loon? I suppose the answer must be that, unlike the average loon, this one has managed to raise enough money to launch a radio station and pay for billboards. I don’t know where he gets the money, but it would be no surprise to discover that it is contributed by gullible followers – gullible enough, we may guess, to go along with him when he will inevitably explain, on May 22nd, that there must have been some error in the calculation, the rapture is postponed to...and please send more money to pay for updated billboards.

So, the question becomes, why are there so many well-heeled, gullible idiots out there? Why is it that an idea can be as nuts as you like and still con enough backers to finance its advertising to acquire yet more backers...until eventually a national newspaper notices and makes it into a silly season filler?

Lots more here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-faith/post/science-explains-the-end-of-the-world/2011/05/10/AFaLvBiG_blog.html

[GodlessBiker]

1. You go, Richard!

[lunasun]

2. yell it like it is

[BillyJack]

3. The Washington Post has a LOT more gullible followers than the "end of the world" people.

"Serious" newspaper??? No, not anymore....not for the last many years.

[1monster]

4. Well, if he is using the Bible as his raw material to come to his conclusion, then

I know for sure that he is wrong.

How?

Because the Bible says no man knows when....

These guys don't even know that basic facts about their own religion.

[struggle4progress]

5. While I agree "extinction is likely to be self-inflicted," I will have to disagree with Mr Dawkins'

view that we should regard this as "a parochial little affair" and humble ourselves in the knowledge that our demise will be "unnoticed in the universe at large"

Humility, rightly practiced, can often be a good, but I am not convinced that the indifference, of vast interstellar gas clouds or billions of other galaxies, should lead us to regard our own extinction as a triviality, nor do I think "science" imposes this view upon us. Mr Dawkins would, I suspect, find it strange if (say) anyone responded to reports that living babies were being tossed into crematoria, by blathering about the indifference of the universe, or so responded to reports that religious fanatics were denying insulin to a diabetic child. So I am perplexed that his response to our potential destruction of ourselves with the whole rest of the planet is -- to babble grandly about how indifferent the universe is. The universe is, indeed, astounding and awe-inspiring, and it seems quite possible to me that the universe does not give a flyin fugg whether we do ourselves in, or not, but frankly I can't see much reason to consider the universe's opinion, or lack thereof, in this matter

[AmericaIsGreat]

6. I think the hyperbole is strictly to contrast the religious view

that we are the most important thing in the universe. If you hear Dawkins talk about biology it's obvious he's genuinely enamored with living things, so I think he'd agree that on some, real level the loss of various life, intelligent or otherwise, would be a net negative. And, no, I don't think he'd respond to babies being killed by talking about the indifference to the universe. I'm really not even sure how that ties in or why you'd say that.

[Ninjaneer]

7. Way to miss the point.

"While I agree "extinction is likely to be self-inflicted," I will have to disagree with Mr Dawkins' view that we should regard this as "a parochial little affair"...not convinced that the indifference, of vast interstellar gas clouds or billions of other galaxies, should lead us to regard our own extinction as a triviality..."

He never says we "should" regard it as a "parochial little affair" nor a "triviality", he states that it will be a parochial little affair. As in with respect to the universe and its scope, our abscence will be trivial.

"Mr Dawkins would, I suspect, find it strange if (say) anyone responded to reports that living babies were being tossed into crematoria, by blathering about the indifference of the universe, or so responded to reports that religious fanatics were denying insulin to a diabetic child."

Wtf are you even talking about here?

Extinction - inevitable, out of our control to stop
Burning babies - not inevitable, within our control to stop
Denial of medicine - not inevitable, within our control to stop

False comparisons much?

"So I am perplexed that his response to our potential destruction of ourselves with the whole rest of the planet is -- to babble grandly about how indifferent the universe is."

Interesting choice of words (and very telling). I suppose when one has been exposed to the grandeur and elegance of religious texts, hearing mere mortals with PhDs talk sounds like "babbling". :sarcasm:

Either your reading comprehension needs work or you need to take off your atheist hating glasses when reading Dawkins.

[Ninjaneer]

8. I used to pray for god to deliver us from stupid,

apparently god was listening and sent Mr. Dawkins. :evilgrin:

[trotsky]

9. "Why is it that an idea can be as nuts as you like...

...and still con enough backers to finance its advertising to acquire yet more backers...until eventually a national newspaper notices and makes it into a silly season filler?"

Many of us believe that religion itself - even the liberal forms of it - is the answer to this question. Conditioning people to accept the unsupported, or even the absurd, and even portray this as being a VIRTUE, is what programs a lot of minds to not be able to reject all the garbage out there.

[Renew Deal]

10. That's what I've wondered. Where is the money coming from?

I think it's coming from the swindled flock.

[cleanhippie]

11. Oh great, Dawkins is out being a "militant atheist" again. Why can't he keep his views to himself?

:sarcasm:

[kath]

12. Note that this column (or blog, or whatever) is by the eminent opinion leader, Sally Quinn.

"On Faith: A Conversation on Religion and Politics with Sally Quinn"

Absolutely brilliant response by Dawkins.