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

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Anyone who thinks he's strident has never heard of Hitchins.

Or Pat Condell for that matter.

Or me.

[fretmeister]

The fundis claim that anyone capable of stringing 3 words together in a coherant manner is strident.

I find RD to be rather gentle. I may of course be basing that on my day job experiences.

[Rum]

The fundis claim that anyone capable of stringing 3 words together in a coherant manner is strident.

I find RD to be rather gentle. I may of course be basing that on my day job experiences.

Sadly not very light on his feet. His arguments sometimes come over as laboured and heavy when he is in discussion with religious people.

Still one must be generous. He has done more to debunk religion than most of us - and gobloads more than me!

[Brian Peacock]

Well... I guess I'll tell you my take on it in July, when I'm back and have read it. I've heard so much, and often conflicting stuff that I guess I'll have to check for myself... guess that's why I sunk €15 into a book when I should have saved it for groceries or clothing.

and yes, my thread title was deliberately oversimple and provocative.

Those naughty Russian copyright infringers could have saved you your €15 with a free .pdf if you'd only searched. It's not like he needs the money now is it?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

He can be Monty, I'll be the Tommy.

[Svartalf]

Well... I guess I'll tell you my take on it in July, when I'm back and have read it. I've heard so much, and often conflicting stuff that I guess I'll have to check for myself... guess that's why I sunk €15 into a book when I should have saved it for groceries or clothing.

and yes, my thread title was deliberately oversimple and provocative.

Those naughty Russian copyright infringers could have saved you your €15 with a free .pdf if you'd only searched. It's not like he needs the money now is it?

Unless they get a samizdat seller near my home, I did need to plonk the cred... I don't own a machine apt to read pdfs or similar text documents that I can carry for travel.
and anyway, for book length stuff, I find paper irreplaceable, I can finish a paper book, I've never finished even a novella length thing onscreen.

Plus, I did not do it for him, I did it to support the shop.

[Brian Peacock]

Good man. I bought the book several times as gifts, and I donated to the Josh T property development fund, so I don't feel bad about having the pdf. I use it for easy reference but you're right, the book is a perfect, and in my view irreplaceable, piece of portable technology. And besides, you can't prop a wonky table or wedge a door open with a pdf.

[Hermit]

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?

TGD came out while he held the chair of the Simonyi Professorship For The Public Understanding Of Science, at Oxford University. The position was funded by a grant from Charles Simonyi, and the objective of the position was as follows...

The goal is for the public to appreciate the order and beauty of the abstract and natural worlds which is there, hidden, layer-upon-layer. To share the excitement and awe that scientists feel when confronting the greatest of riddles. To have empathy for the scientists who are humbled by the grandeur of it all.

(LINK)

TGD was very much in this spirit and far from being the Manual For God-haters it was subsequently claimed to be (from both camps) it simply and elegantly contrasted methodological naturalism with magical and super-natural thinking - the conclusion being that super-nature fails to account for, or inform us about, the natural, material world of our everyday existence in any meaningful way. Most of the book was a qualification of that view, and as such a large part of the text set out to meet the often peddled arguments, challenges, and charges of various brands of religious apologists.

I don't think anyone expected it to be a lightening rod for what are now called 'new atheists' but it certainly touched a nerve with many people and when it hit the top of the best-seller lists in Europe, and then the US, and stayed there, and then was reprinted in hardcover, and hit the 1 million sales mark, and then, extra-ordinarily, the 1 million sales mark in the US the religious lobby could not get up on their hind legs quickly enough to condemn both the book and the man who wrote it.

It was not the first book of its kind, but the ideas it collated were ripe for the time I think. He, and the other so-called 'Four Horsemen' coalesced and expressed what many people had been thinking, and even struggling with, privately. They had their positions as the Popes and Bishops of atheism thrust upon them to a great extent, and to their great credit they did not shirk that responsibility and, in true academic fashion, argued their points and met all challenges squarely and up front.

I got interested TGD in early 2007 after hearing Dawkins talking about it on the radio. What struck me about what he was saying was not only that he sounded so calm and reasonable, and communicated his view so succinctly - not strident, or aggressive at all - but just how blummin' rational his views and approach sounded. I joined the Dawkins forum in Spring 2007 and, as a few have mentioned, cannot imagine who I would be now without that formative experience - indeed, I wouldn't be typing this here if not for that man, and for that I am very grateful (even allowing for calamity of THE OUTRAGES).

He's not 'The Pope Of Atheism' of course, becasue atheism isn't a religion, its just a rational disbelief of theists (and similar) claims, assertions, obligations and insistences, and to a great extent he (among others) gave people the impetus to just stand up and say that for themselves.

Do we have a post of the thread medal? I'd vote for this one.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

[Thumpalumpacus]

I love Htichens. He wasn't strident. He was sarcastic. And I think that sarcasm, done well, approaches high art.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I love Htichens. He wasn't strident. He was sarcastic. And I think that sarcasm, done well, approaches high art.

The Hitchslap was lethal.

[mistermack]

I love Htichens. He wasn't strident. He was sarcastic. And I think that sarcasm, done well, approaches high art.

Brilliant !! How intelligent and perceptive of you !!