How long has RD been "the pope" of atheism.

[Svartalf]

OK, so I registered with the Dawkins forums in 2009, and the friend who enticed me there had been inviting me for like a year or two. Since I entered the world of militant atheists and their detractors, any number of things were made clear, among them that RD was Big Cheese among rationalists, and that the God Delusion was a classic textbook on every reason why religions are wrong.

So I buy myself a copy this afternoon, and I look it over, even if I don't intend reading it seriously until I spend my netless week in Athens late in June. First thing I notice is the in memoriam dedication to Douglas Adams, who died as recently as 2001.... so I check the copyright and learn that the book was first published in 2006. This raises some questions.

"Was RD well known as a religion basher before this came out, or did he rise to meteoric fame on the back of that book ?" (regardless of what fame he may otherwise have enjoyed as an evolutionary biologist and inventor of the concept of selfish gene) is the main one. Basically, I wonder if that book was the ladder he used to get himself a place in the sun among god bashers, or was it the crowning Jewel that clonfirmed a primacy he had long enjoyed among rationalist thinkers. In the former case, I wonder how he could become the go to guy, and the almost inevitable guru on the subject in so little time.

Thoughts?

[Robert_S]

I remember watching a video of him speaking, taking a swipe at religion back in the mid '90s.

[Bella Fortuna]

I knew about RD because my ex-husband had a copy of The Selfish Gene for years... never thought twice about him until TGD came out, and I was intrigued. For awhile he didn't have a site, just his Oxford website that was nothing much and amateurish. Then one time I searched for him and found RD.net and joined immediately... didn't post for months after though! Yet it did help crystallise my thoughts about atheism.

[Ayaan]

Back in the very late 1990's, I remember reading opinion pieces about religion he wrote in a freethinker magazine.

I learned about his website from someone at skeptics.com. I almost didn't join. How different would my life have been?

[Thumpalumpacus]

I read Selfish Gene and Blind Watchmaker in the early 90s, and he does a good job of explaining that stuff. Reading those books certainly helped my understanding of evolutionary principles.

I'll skip on him, or any other, "Pope of Atheism". Dawkins, in particular, puts me off with his "religion is child abuse" stuff, which, while it can be true, isn't necessarily so. He doesn't strike me as terribly nuanced; he's too didactic for my tastes.

[Ayaan]

He can be a bit strident, but it takes all kinds I suppose.

[Bella Fortuna]

He doesn't bother me in that respect. Don't know why, as I can see where it might be bothersome to others.

[Hermit]

Thoughts?

Pope? Guru?

Why go all tabloid on Dawkins? Isn't it enough to think of him as a well known author of a widely read polemic against theism?

[Tero]

Selfish gene is better. At least for getting to sleep. But Ancestor's Tale is even better.

[Thumpalumpacus]

He doesn't bother me in that respect. Don't know why, as I can see where it might be bothersome to others.

Well, you are bloodcurdlingly atheist. I was told the other day, on another forum, that I was "very Christian in outlook". I had to spend a couple of hours with a rasp file, sharpening my horns.

[Rum]

It was TGD which propelled him to international attention, but he was very well known for his earlier books, though not so much because of his atheism.

Ironically TGD on second reading and dipping into it more recently is pretty weak in lots of ways in my view. One can't over-estimate its impact and probably the large numbers of people who have become skeptics as a result of it, but really he should have kept to evolutionary biology for my money.

[Animavore]

Dawkins has never been the "pope" of atheism. That's just a slur used by religious people who want to say, 'You have religion too. You have your own Pope abd high-priests'... etc. It's basically trollish behaviour.

I don't even think much of TGD. It's watered down Bertrand Russell. I don't use it as any type of bible. Some of his books are great but he's just one of many great authors on the topic. I don't feel a need to hoist him on a petard. The same could be said for any author of science books. As well, for me, any musician, actor, writer, poet, composer or political leader. Hero worship to me is just as alien as god worship. They may even be the same thing.

No. I have no popes, gurus or spiritual leaders. I'm not a member of any activist group. I'm just a non-believer playing out my life minding my own business as much as possible or acceptable.

[Hermit]

I don't feel a need to hoist him on a petard.

Just as well.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Dawkins has never been the "pope" of atheism. That's just a slur used by religious people who want to say, 'You have religion too. You have your own Pope abd high-priests'... etc. It's basically trollish behaviour.

[Svartalf]

Thoughts?

Pope? Guru?

Why go all tabloid on Dawkins? Isn't it enough to think of him as a well known author of a widely read polemic against theism?

Because
a) that's a rep he has, among his detractors and the lay persons who aren't versed in the who's who of rationalists
I got the definite impression that he was generally more famous than Hitchens, to name but one.

b) because the question I was asking does better if done with as little subtlety as possible, I was interested in a y/n kind of answer, or a simple black or white picture rather than a detailed grayscale one.