I'll start on topic, then end (relatively) OT.
You mention your civil rights being infringed by fanatics. Isn’t freedom of speech a part of your civil rights? Doesn’t Dawkins have a right to say what he likes? Theists have shown nowhere near the complacency of atheists when attacking other worldviews in the public forum.
Freedom of speech is without question a part of my civil rights. I have not stated at any point that Dawkins has no RIGHT to say what he says. I am doing exactly what I do when I see theists making similar statements... which are filled with poor logic and evidence... I dispute them.
In this case Dawkins is more important to address as he is portraying himself as an atheist, as well as a scientist, discussing those issues. I am doing exactly what people at EvC have called on Xians to do, which is take self-professed leaders (or representatives) of their group to task.
Regardless of the fact that, like Dawkins, I am an atheist and a firm supporter of the scientific method, I disagree with his arguments. Just as it has been argued that linking theism and science results in poor theism and science, the same goes for the conflation/conjoining of atheism and science.
Anti-religion & atheistic views are perfectly entitled to make their case as forcefully as they can or like.
Again everyone is entitled to say what they want at any time. The question is when should they be challenged for what they are saying.
I have no real problem with how forcefully anyone says anything. However, "as accurately as they can or like" is something altogether different.
You claim that it is unfair for me to judge Dawkins without reading his book, and that would be fair as long as my criticisms were largely about his book. But my criticisms aren't about his book, and all of Dawkins's statements/behavior are not confined to that book.
Given that I don't have the book and am not likely to purchase/read it in the next day or so, why don't we deal with the next best thing? Straggler gave a link to a BBC interview of Dawkins about his book, and at that location there are several more clips from some programs Dawkins produced and/or took part in. I realize they are long clips, but they are absolutely free and will take less time to view than for me to read his book.
If there are discrepencies between how he is presented in the clips and how he presents himself (or his arguments) in the book, then it seems Dawkins has a very serious problem. In that case it would not be about poor reporting and paraphrasing by others as he clearly is in charge of some of those productions of himself.
I am criticizing the whole of a person's actions and arguments on "my behalf". Given that he does not confine himself to one book, I think everything else is as fair game as the book... and concentrating unduly on that book is itself an error.
NOTE: His clips are entertaining so I imagine you'd like to view them regardless of being subject to this debate. Intriguingly one is a debate with Haggard, the evangelist, who just thiw week got pegged for homosexuality and drug use. I found his statement to Dawkins to be accurate (Dawkins was acting horribly arrogant), given his own arrogance towards gays... ahhhh the justice.
If indoctrination of children & telling them that they are going to burn for all eternity isn’t harmful in your opinion, then neither is telling them that actually it is irrational, evidentially vacuous bullshit that was inflicted upon them without their consideration or consent.
You are right. Neither is harmful. I think Dawkins can raise his kids however he wants, including the line of garbage he trots out connecting atheism and science, or the evils of theism. The point is when he enters the public arena and suggests he is speaking as an atheist or scientist, or for that matter as a person who holds rationality above everything else (yet ironically discusses morality and goes on to judge others), then I am going to deliver the same strike to him that I would the theist.
To my mind he is making the same errors as Canadian Steve, Faith, or Buz when he discusses theism, and for the same reason. He feels threatened (which I can very well agree with) and so moves to the quickest possible response... irrational, emotional attacks based largely on stereotypes and unfounded conflations (regarding both sides).
RELATIVELY OT...
Many precedents have been set that override the rights of parents. Parents can’t sexually or physically abuse their children, despite them being their children. This is simply not an argument. If parents can’t physically or sexually abuse their kids, then why indoctrinate them with things that can potentially mentally harm them or remove their freedom of mental manoeuvre?
This is a fallacious argument in that it is circular. The State used to, and to some extent still does, regulate sexual behavior of adults. That does not make that practice correct, coinciding with a concept of human rights, nor create a proper definition of harm.
I am openly questioning the above practice (to a certain degree). When parents are simply negligent or purposefully injuring a child then they are not caring for a child and it makes sense that the State would have concerns related to human rights to step in. I disagree with the historically recent and growing practice of State micromanagement of families, allowing the majority to decide what is the proper or best way to raise a child.
Different cultures place emphases on different aspects of life and belief and try to reinforce them. They may also have some zany concepts of what constitutes reality. Making sure kids are not introduced or effected by such practices is NOT the duty of the State.
You give the example of Jehavoah's Witnesses. Contrary to popular thought I do not believe that the State has the right to step in to "protect" their children. It is their choice how members of their family will live and/or die. Though I will state that I understand how directly life-threatening situations do make it more likely/reasonable for a State to intervene.
Likewise I am not for forced or coerced ending of cultural practices such as circumcision (male or female), which while not directly life threatening could very well be life altering, and are certainly physically altering. They are part of forming a different perspective on life by members of those communities.
More to the point I see no reason to call/consider religious indoctrination harmful or abuse. You give the example of a girl told about hell and specifically that her friend will be going there. Yes, frightening imagery to be sure. Kids are exposed to all sorts of frightening imagery, posed as real or imaginary, for "educational" purposes all the time. This is done by atheists as well as theists.
If your example was of parents drilling into a girl daily that her only destination is hell, and describing all such tortures she wil endure, I might agree that that would be abuse. But in these cases theists generally have an alternative. They have simply (at worst) exaggerated the consequences for (what are to them) immoral practices. You forget to mention that these children are also usually given a very bright picture if they are moral. There is not just hell, there is a heaven.
One might be able to pull up an anecdote of a preacher receiving a letter from a woman who was traumatized as a child when her parents told her she would never see her best friend ever again, when she died. That she was dead and there was nothing more to her than a corpse... and our memories. But now she is less traumatized after the realization there is a heaven and they do have meaning beyond dust and she will meet her friend in blifful happiness ever after. The atheist parents could very well have scared their girl further by linking her friend's death to drugs, or even the randomness/unfairness of life, which could have lasting negative beliefs.
In the end both were introduced to an unpleasant situation, made worse by someone not very tactful, even if meaning well. Either kid, while perhaps troubled, are not being abused and not harmed, except by a very watered down definition which could easily effect anything and everything beyond raising kids in a padded cell in Disneyland. It really is a part of growing up.
That one is to reinforce a system of beliefs that is totally alien to your own, not to mention less rational (empirical) does not argue for its lesser validity as a culture/way of life. It is simply different.
And I will raise this last point regarding State protection of children from indoctrinal harm. If this is accepted as valid for gov't, then one revokes one's own right to deny such protections being applied to one's own family. Given that we are democracies then the majority will have a say, and if they are majority Xian, they are the ones that get to label your indoctrinations wrong, your children in need of protection from ignorant views of the world.
The fact that you and I might agree theirs is ignorance will make no difference if they have the gov't, and we have agreed that the gov't has a right to protect our children from our own ignorance as decided by the State.
In the end I want them making their own mistakes in their own homes. I reserve the right to make my own mistakes in my own home. Let the tragedy be local and personal rather than large scale at the hands of an impersonal State.
If I am right then my (and your) heirs should fare better than theirs. All throughout we will have much richer, diverse landscape, with more unique views which allow us to compare and contrast beliefs/practices regarding reality and morality. It may include ugliness, but I would prefer that to uniform sterility. In any case the concept of the State protecting children, and elevating society, by enforcing reason seems to me to be a Utopian vision.
holmes
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)
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