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Comment count is 49
Bort - 2010-09-04

God, that Richard Dawkins is such a smug conceited prick. [/parkerandstone]


WHO WANTS DESSERT - 2010-09-04

Hell yes, I love atheists who proselytize just as much the religious, this shit fucking owns! Surely insulting people while looking down at them and offhandedly dismissing their own ideologies is the best way to convert people! [/collegefreshman]


pastorofmuppets - 2010-09-04

Getting people to understand reality hardly counts as conversion.


baleen - 2010-09-04


Yes, when Richard Dawkins suggests that there are potentially starships filled with aliens that ignore us because we are like ants to their star traveling eyes, it's much harder to believe that there is an omnipotent entity in the universe that we are incapable of understanding that generally ignores us because we are ants and that we can't see because we never evolved the ability to see outside of our narrow little spectrum so even if it did exist we couldn't even see it so it's physically impossible to prove either way that we are merely alone or guided by something inexplicable.


pastorofmuppets - 2010-09-04

I'll assume you're talking about Expelled. Asked if there was any way at all that earth's life could have been designed, he replies: technically yes, but only by other living things.

But yeah, keep the juicy parts, add scary music... instant UFO-crazy. Nevermind that he's written multiple times about abiogenesis and autocatalytic reactions: http://tinyurl.com/2fg8q6d


IrishWhiskey - 2010-09-11

Yes, because suggesting that life may have arisen more than once somewhere in a nearly infinitely vast universe in a process consistent with past observations and the laws of nature is just as plausible as an all-powerful all-knowing being that can freely defy all laws of nature and causality and whose existence is speculated simply as an anthropomorphized answer to all questions we can't otherwise answer and is by definition immune from all forms of skeptical inquiry yet can leave evidence of its existence but chooses not to except possibly in the forms of whispering to people across the world contradictory and inconsistent accounts in the form of religion. [/mebeinggliblysarcasticoveracomplexissue]


takewithfood - 2010-09-04

boom shakalaka


jangbones - 2010-09-04

Why bother answering a biased question when you can humilate the asker's entire worldview? Well done, Mister Dawkins.


phalsebob - 2010-09-04

How else can you go about answering a question like this but to say that absolute morality is quite immoral?

I'm not saying that Dawkins isn't a prick.


jangbones - 2010-09-04

I admire Dawkins for answering the way he did. If you ask a fucking question like that you deserve to be humiliated.


zerobackup - 2010-09-04

Def Poetry Jam: UK Edition

Up next, a flannel-wearing white woman with dreadlocks reads her vagina poetry.


standard8mm - 2010-09-04

Richard Dawkins should go and preach it... To the third world.


pastorofmuppets - 2010-09-04

From the looks of it he already is. That's kind of the point, too.


memedumpster - 2010-09-04

Q : IF bullshit THEN more bullshit?

A : Bullshit.

I love Richard Dawkins now as much as I used to hate his guts.


Aoi - 2010-09-04

GODDAMN ATHEISTS, ALWAYS BEING SUCH ASSHOLES


Caminante Nocturno - 2010-09-04

Well, look at that.

He's right.


Mancakes - 2010-09-04

Mention this tendollar faggot in any grad-level biology setting and you'll get a room full of angry howler monkeys. The moron is an ethologist by trade.


Simian Pride - 2010-09-04

???


pastorofmuppets - 2010-09-04

SP: Dawkins' audience includes laypeople, so talking about him in front of scientists is kind of like pumping Don Henley at a CMJ festival. But you know what? End of the Innocence was a good song. And The Selfish Gene is a great book. Fuck the haters.


HarrietTubmanPI - 2010-09-04

Mancakes, you are an idiot.

There are better biologists than Dawkins, yes. But, Dawkins is fighting for the better biologists by giving the average person a better understanding of biology. I don't see you in the trenches being openly atheistic and going after irrational thinking.

The only biologists who would hate this sort of thing are the ones who probably also vote against their self interest or something.


Mancakes - 2010-09-04

You're talking about people who willingly go to a slave-driving school for seven years, performing possibly hopeless research for an iffy dissertation that may be soundly rejected and likely fail. And all that for nothing above 100,000 a year. These are precisely the people who vote against their self interests.

If it takes a screaming inflammatory pseudo-intellectual to champion these people, then the public is doomed.


HarrietTubmanPI - 2010-09-05

Mancakes,

I thought about taking my 'idiot' comment back, but when you said your reply the thought disappeared.

Without people like Dawkins, Biology will be spearheaded by people outside of the US (and possibly outside of the West). Without Dawkins championing reason over religion, religion would have a much stronger hold in society. You cannot have more biologists (which is what the world needs) if you have more creationists.


Simian Pride - 2010-09-05

Mancakes, you are an idiot.

Most biologist choose their field because they love it, despite the low pay and hard work. The notion that they are stupid because they wont switch to a more lucrative field simply to get better wages or lessen their workload is ludicrous.

To paraphrase Rishi: The Hmong treat retards like demigods, but I don't see you buying a ticket to Ho Chi Minh City so you can get pampered for the rest of your life.


Mancakes - 2010-09-05

1) Science needs more champion Sagans, not Limbaugh-esque Dawkins.
2) Biolgists are not stupid, but they are definitely not self-serving.

This little spat of vitriol hit the ad hominem stage instantly, I'm not going to watch it degrade to non sequitur.

I hope in the future I can make so many people so frustrated about a topic I care less about.


IrishWhiskey - 2010-09-11

You criticize people for something you do in that same statement (the second statement is a non-sequitur) and retreat into "You all care and I don't so I win". That's pretty much a textbook example of a comment fail.


Hooker - 2010-09-04

I don't understand the people that are sarcastically mocking the people that complain about Dawkins being condescending. You think he's not in this clip?


Xenocide - 2010-09-04

It's the standard sitcom protesting-too-much-gag, occurring now in real life!

SITCOM VARIANT:

"Hi, Dave."

"NO, I DIDN'T JUST RUN OVER YOUR CAT, WHATEVER WOULD GIVE YOU THAT IMPRESSION."

(studio audience laughs)

POETV VARIANT:

"Hey, look, it's Richard Dawkins."

"NO, I'M NOT EMBARRASSED THAT HE'S A TOTAL PRICK WHO MAKES US LOOK BAD EVEN WHEN HE'S RIGHT, WHATEVER WOULD GIVE YOU THAT IMPRESSION."

(studio audience laughs)


poorwill - 2010-09-04

"You think he's not in this clip?"

Not really, considering how retarded the question was.


Bort - 2010-09-04

There are a million ways Dawkins could have been more snide, condescending, and assholish in his answer. Instead he was polite in his appeal to the value of progress, and I don't think it was possible for him to be any less confrontational in his response.

Hell, he even side-stepped the actual question (a variant of "if atheists don't have faith in anything then why do they think the sun will rise in the morning?") so that he could give an answer that didn't make the questioner look stupid. What a dick.


Hooker - 2010-09-04

You're right, Bort. He could have been even worse. He could have taken his penis out and flapped it about. By not flapping his penis about, he's actually raising the level of discourse from some hypothetically worse one. He should be applauded!


Caminante Nocturno - 2010-09-04

Religious people complain about Dawkins being rude, condescending, etc. because he does not patronize their beliefs. For some strange reason, a lot of people feel obligated to agree with them.


CharlesSmith - 2010-09-04

What would you have had him do Hooker? What is the nice way of answering that stupid loaded question? What is the non-arrogant way of explaining that basing morality on ancient fairy tales is not the most logic method of determining right and wrong?

Oh shit now I'm being condescending so you better point that out rather than answer my question.


FeeFiFoFoTheFifeFifeBrown - 2010-09-04

How dare this jerkoff not be even a little meek and apologetic about his unpopular beliefs! This makes me mad!


Hooker - 2010-09-05

I'm not taking any position on how he should have responded here. I'm just saying that the people that are implying that he's not being condescending or in some other way putting the questioner on the defensive are being dishonest.


Bort - 2010-12-29

"... or in some other way putting the questioner on the defensive". Way to qualify your original criticism, so now, whether or not Dawkins is being condescending, you win!

And since when is "putting the questioner on the defensive" out of bounds? Feel free to answer that question with a question.


Innocent Bystander - 2010-09-04

Not to take any sides in anything, but he really doesn't have to say a whole lot to get some applause.


Udderdude - 2010-09-04

I think that says more about the usual state of moral discourse than anything else.


Riskbreaker - 2010-09-04

If you go around asking bullshit like this, what kind of answer do you expect to get? "Yes sir you're right, atheists are amoral creatures with no sense of logic, reason, and we eat babies in the morning. BLARGH!"


Hay Belly - 2010-09-04

I don't know why anyone entertains this question as it assumes facts not in evidence. Are there any studies that say anyone who doesn't believe in a god is immoral? Where does this come from? Is everyone in jail an athiest? Every murderer? Every pedophile? It's a stupid question as it has no basis in fact.




Squidmojo - 2010-09-04

I don't get why people are reacting so harshly. His point seems pretty valid. Morality *has* evolved over time. And he backs it up with examples.


pastorofmuppets - 2010-09-04

He asked the equivalent of how you can have a government without divine right of kings. The answer (reason) was correct. Pointing out that we've been doing that for the last 150 years, that it's working so far, and that it's dishonest for everyone to attribute those moral advances to their respective religions is just part of that Dawkins panache. Its what you're paying for at the door.

Is it condescending? I dunno. Maybe just bad-tempered. But you cannot expect a guy who's been getting hate mail for 35 years for daring to describe (some) human behavior through the lens of biology to have patience for intellectual laziness. He gets these questions as soon as he walks out the door, and though the responses are probably canned, from the look on his face, the disappointment isn't.


twinkieafternoon - 2010-09-04

Must be hard walking out the door going to work everyday.

Really, the only answer for him is suicide.


And Then Explosions - 2010-09-04

Any irritation I might feasibly have over Dawkins and his "condescending" answer is far overwhelmed by my anger that atheists still have to answer these ridiculous "how can an atheist be moral" questions in the first place.

Following up a question like that, Dawkins is positively soothing.


Robin Kestrel - 2010-09-04

"Leaving out all the horrible bits." Nicely put.


StanleyPain - 2010-09-04

Fuck the haters, Dawkins is awesome. I think thousands and thousands and thousands of years of the world being dominated by primitives who live their lives based around camp-fire spooky tales and wishful thinking is enough time that their "beliefs" have been coddled and patted on the head and been made nice with.

It's time we fucking grew up and if Dawkins' "attitude" bothers you, well then shut up and don't ever complain when religious zealots and bigots fuck your country up and you suddenly realize that maybe blind, unreasoned tolerance of anything spiritual wasn't such a hot idea.


mudl - 2010-09-05

What a charmer.


Nyms Lives! - 2010-09-05

Dawkins should have clutched his chest, screamed "Your clever question has slain me!", melted into a puddle and used the last burbling breath to declare Jesus Christ is Lord and Master.

Anything else just proves how rude and condescending he is.


oswaldtheluckyrabbit - 2010-09-10

it's okay to condescend to stupid questions


Rape Van Winkle - 2010-11-26

What's the masculine way of saying he made my heart flutter?


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