Richard Dawkins - The God Delusion

[Dameon]

No it’s definitely very normal and cool to talk about the advantages of breeding people like racehorses. You know, because it ‘works’.

He didn't talk about the advantages of it, he literally only said that it works. Maybe read the tweet in question. If you can find anywhere that Dawkins actually says we should do eugenics, I'd love to see it. I'll do you one better and show you his follow-up tweets.

For those determined to miss the point, I deplore the idea of a eugenic policy. I simply said deploring it doesn’t mean it wouldn’t work. Just as we breed cows to yield more milk, we could breed humans to run faster or jump higher. But heaven forbid that we should do it.

A eugenic policy would be bad. I’m combating the illogical step from “X would be bad” to “So X is impossible”. It would work in the same sense as it works for cows. Let’s fight it on moral grounds. Deny obvious scientific facts & we lose – or at best derail – the argument.

Oh yeah, totally the Hitler you're determined to view him as. Do your research rather than throwing out blind accusations based on rumors.

Sure you can have those positive things without religion, but why have a problem with people who do have them together? What’s even the point of attacking that besides being edgy? It’s a culture, a way of relating to people and world through practices and stories, and some find it beneficial even if some don’t. Again I think it’s easy to miss to miss if most of your idea of what you’re against is shaped by analyzing stuff like JW, Mormons, Evangelicals salafi/wahhabis etc

I don't have a problem with people who quietly practice their own spirituality together harmlessly. You'll find the vast majority of atheists have no problem with that. You don't see atheists out protesting Jewish cultural centers, do you? I can still be against the concept of religion in general while tolerating peoples' right to practice their religions.

 

[Dameon]

second slavery was practiced all around the region then and in some countries the rights of servants, slaves wives etc were a lot worse than what the Torah specifies.

Ah yes, the old argument that slavery was moral because "everybody was doing it."

Then in Judaism at least there’s thousands of years of rabbinic interpretation aiming to soften the harsh and violent laws. Or again all the seeming racism about canaanites, it’s hard to dispute now that the Israelites were at least partly canaanites who had left the cities for the mountains. If you look carefully it’s cities that they don’t like, with their wealthy elites and violent oppression. There is zero archaeological evidence for the wars of Joshua when the burning of many cities would have left traces obvious to scientists even today.

So let me see if I've got this straight...you're telling me that the bible is a pack of lies written by men, changeable by men, and up to the interpretation of men? If only I had realized that earlier.

 

[void gaze]

Lmao where did I say anything remotely positive about slavery? Seriously I know I wrote a lot but where? Either read all the way through or don’t go spitting out straw man arguments based on your own misconceptions. What I said was you’re talking about a very complicated book that is thousands of years old and you are reading it as a completely one dimensional text the way fundamentalists do. The Torah also says that runaway slaves are to be protected and adopted into the tribe and not returned to their masters. See? Complex and contradictory and addressing a totally different situation that hasn’t existed for millennia. It’s not even really one book it’s a bunch of very ancient texts collaged together and I think it’s fascinating. Some parts are inspiring and moving to me and others are appalling. The idea that you have to either accept or reject it all as a single unit is literally exactly how fundamentalists of both faiths view it. I’m not one, obviously. I’m sorry you think it’s just a pack of lies. I guess we need to denounce all literature and mythology then. All a bunch of fkn lies!!!! DANG but you’re edgy.

And I’m not afraid of you protesting Judaism, dude, although your admiration for Dawkins and his wretched philosophy is disconcerting. I’m just trying to show you there are other ways to look at the subject than your prophet of atheist fundamentalism has taught you. I’ve hated that guy since he came out with his book about how humans are just meat robots piloted by genes. That’s not science, it’s just a disgusting and depressing philosophy. The idea that life is just genes making copies isn’t even very good science and that’s his great discovery he’s known for. It basically ignores ecology and sociology altogether for one. Anyway there are about a thousand replies on that thread explaining why eugenics is bad science as well as bad politics. You can go read them it’s still up. I don’t think you’ve explained why it’s necessary to debate the merits of eugenics at all in this day and age. Neither did he... No one made him tweet that. It’s a weird fucking thing to say. At a time when fascism is back on the agenda? This is what I’m saying. Scientism has you treating the world like an amoral collection of facts. “Lol y u triggered I’m just saying. Eugenics could make people better!!” Nope. Not having it.