23rd September 2011
“There are very good grounds to believe there is no actual truth in the claims of religion. I rather liken it to a child with a dummy in its mouth. I do not think it a very dignified or respect-worthy posture for an adult to go around sucking a dummy for comfort.”
September 23rd, 2011 at 3:02
Apparently looses something in across the pond translation, ‘dummy in its mouth’?
September 23rd, 2011 at 6:57
dummy = pacifier
he means religion is kind of like a pacifier
for adults.
September 23rd, 2011 at 13:43
I could see this quote annoying religious folk. Aw, diddums!
September 23rd, 2011 at 13:52
While I have a great deal of respect for Richard Dawkins I would have to characterize this statement as a grosteque underestimation of a rare order: Surely he is trying to spare the fragile emotional state that religious people live witin.
Very good grounds? What? The grounds for believing there is no actual truth in the claims of religion are such that any amount of critical examination at all calls into question problems with religious claims from every conceivable angle. There is no consistent or reliable truths to any aspect of religious claim.
As for dummys, or as we call them in the U.S. Dum-Dum pops, that implies a certain infancy or child like tendency of the believer. Sure for the most part the believer is relatively harmless but is also prone to temper tantrums, which as the evening news is so anxious to report, happen more than believers are willing to admit.
Dum-Dum’s can be very dangerous.
September 23rd, 2011 at 16:29
SIN……
thank you for the correction about the dum-dums .
i was in the ball park !!!
anyway, i get the streaming netflix service, and one
of the programs they offer is a 7 part Bill Moyers
documentary called ” Faith & Reason “.
i have jumped thru the first 10 mins or so of each
episode…….and it looks good. will try to watch it
all in the next week. if you wanna take a look,
you can sign up for a free month of netflix.
___________________________________________
POST AT 1352
you’re right. the religio-dorks are capable of MASSIVE
temper tantrums ………………. they can even knock
down buildings……………………
September 23rd, 2011 at 16:59
Hey R j, I’m a NetFlix subscriber. The access to documentaries alone is worth the price of admission. I’ve watched many of the Bill Moyers interview, I’ll double check “Faith & Reason” and watch it again.
Both my main HDTV and Blu-Ray player have Internet access which is such a great thing. If I could replace my Comcast Internet with something other than Verizon I’d do that in a heartbeat. I’d prefer a very high speed data service, OTA brodcast, and Vonage for TV, Internet, and phone. Love Amazon video and YouTube too. Finally YouTube matters.
The television available over the Internet is such a refreshing option to the bland and boring crap on cable. I’d rather have a disease than HBO, Cinemax, and/or Showtime.
I love the Bill Moyers Joseph Campbell stuff. I just finsihed reading Hero with a Thousand Faces a few weeks back. Don’t know why I didn’t read it 20 years ago.
September 23rd, 2011 at 17:22
Yes, dum-dums can be quite dangerous, which is why they were outlawed under the first Geneva Convention (full metal jackets required). Of course, the .223 tumbler is completely legal, and just as dangerous.
As to the good grounds, he wasn’t talking about facts and figures, just the coffee that he had roasted and ground that morning. Richard was known to toss the grounds out into his garden, so when he went out back, he was literally standing on good grounds.
With the good Dr. Asimov, I too believe that the shortest distance between two puns is a straight line. Thanks for the setup, Mr. Smythe.
September 23rd, 2011 at 19:06
You were up to the task Jeff! Good show!