Richard Dawkins has something of a reputation for provoking the religious community, but it seems he may have underestimated the atheistic fervour of his own fanbase. Amidst a tsunami of vulgar and vitriolic comments, the 85,000-strong forum on his official website RichardDawkins.net had to be shut down this week.
The implosion appears to have been provoked by an announcement on the website that discussion threads and responses would in future be tightly moderated to help curb irrelevant discussions, frivolous gossip and abuse.
However, the announcement itself created such an explosion of ire that the planned 30-day switch-over period had to be scrapped and the discussion forum locked down immediately. Some members are complaining that their profiles have been wiped out and others have lost access to files and messages that they uploaded onto the website. Not willing to be silenced, many of the former Dawkins fans are continuing to vent their feelings on atheist forums elsewhere on the net.
....
Dawkins himself is less than sympathetic. In a personal message posted today entitled Outrage, he lets rip at the members of his website:
Imagine that you, as a greatly liked and respected person, found yourself overnight subjected to personal vilification on an unprecedented scale, from anonymous commenters on a website. Suppose [...] that somebody on website expressed a “sudden urge to ram a fistful of nails” down your throat. Also to “trip you up and kick you in the guts.” And imagine seeing your face described, again by an anonymous poster, as “a slack jawed turd in the mouth mug if ever I saw one".
(You will also have to imagine the uncensored version of this extract)
I think I need a priest! Now! Does ROTFLMAO count as schadenfreude? Ah, 'fraid so. Them atheists sure have a way with words. Will I also need to confess that I don't greatly like and respect Dawkins? The reason that I don't like and respect him is because he pontificates on religion, despite displaying rather obvious ignorance of matters religious. It would be the same as if I pontificated on matters scientific and told scientists that they were living in fantasy land.
See also Rmj's post at Adventus titled Schadenfreude For Lent.
On the other hand, Dawkins' pontifications are no more ignorant than those of many self-proclaimed "Christians".
ReplyDeletewv = interpi
(even more irrational than the most famous irrational number)
True, Paul (A.). Certain Christians display enough ignorance to keep Dawkins supplied with ammunition.
ReplyDeleteAh, yes. The famous irrational number. Let's not go there. :-)
No need of a priest Grandmere. Or, maybe we both need one!!
ReplyDeleteThere, Joel absolved us both! No problem!
Paul (A.) needs a priest more than any of us. I'm just saying.
ReplyDeleteDawkins embarrasses me with his humility.
ReplyDeleteIgnorant?! Not at all! He knew exactly what he was doing, just like Marat and Robespierre, and finds, like them, that believing you are more civilized and intelligent than your opponents doesn't mean your fanbase is. It's the Reign of Terror in small clothes.
ReplyDeleteOT - Mimi, James told me about an . . . interesting website, codeorgan.com. You type in an URL and it converts the site to music. Mine sounds like the opening to an '80's scifi/adventure series.
ReplyDeleteIt would be the same as if I pontificated on matters scientific and told scientists that they were living in fantasy land.
ReplyDeleteWhich, frankly, lots of radical religionists do regularly. Not the sensible believers like you, Mimi, but the right wing nuts that basically created their opposite in Dawkins and hitchens.
Dawkins is an ass, I agree, but really....the provocation has been pretty enormous, atheistically speaking.
I mean, lets face it. These people say that their religious belief should trump my civil rights, let alone educational values (e.g., evolution) and politics.
w/c "querons"
But Dawkins will take on the most extreme positions of Christianity and then destroy them as if that proved anything. If only he could engage intelligently with the intelligent spectrum of faith.
ReplyDeleteSomeone pointed out recently that he and his lot aren't actually atheists but anti-theists. I liked that distinction.
I would respect Dawkins more if he didn't focus, as Erika says, only on the views of the most extreme amongst Christians. In my opinion, he knows what sells; he's great at self-promotion and taking on the extremists fires up his troops. Except that now Dawkins sees that some of his followers are no more intelligent than the Christians he ridicules as stupid and credulous.
ReplyDeleteIT, my favorite atheist, don't even think of putting yourself in the same class as Dawkins. Anyone who proclaims about HIMSELF that he is a "greatly liked and respected person" is about as humble as Peter Akinola, and I suspect that his self-regard blinds his judgment.
Mark, I'll check out your website.
Sauce for geese and ganders comes to mind, but if I were to suggest that someone would say, Why do you keep bringing sex into it! ;-)
ReplyDeleteSeriously, though, spot on comments here -- in particular the unleashing of irrational atheism (atheism is no more rational than theism, after all, since neither side can be proved nor disproved -- and when the form is really anti-theism, that's in some ways even less responsible.
Having just finished Plato's Parmenides, I'm in a right mood to take on absolutists and idealists of all sorts!
I['ve made the distinction between atheist and anti-theist many times.
ReplyDeleteDawkins gives the rest of us a bad name.
Tobias, sex, sex, sex. Do you ever think about anything else? I'll wager you thought of cocks and hens, too!
ReplyDeleteWhy not suggest a debate between you and Dawkins? I'd love to see you two contending, especially now that you're fired up from reading Parmenides and Dawkins seems to have been taken down a notch or two by those he thought of as his loyalistas. On the other hand, some might say that you'd have an unfair advantage.
IT, yours is a wonderful statement of the difference between atheist and anti-theist. May I have permission to quote your full post here on WB with, of course, attribution and a link?
ReplyDeleteOf course, Mimi, I'd be honored.
ReplyDeleteSince it's about a very specific past event (PZ Myers desecrating a Catholic host) you may feel free to edit as you need.
I must say that my reaction is that Dawkins brought it on himself. There's very little difference between the fanatical religious right and the fanatical atheistic groupies who vent their bizarre and vituperative messages on whatever fora are available.
ReplyDeleteAmelia, I agree. Two sides of the same coin.
ReplyDelete