Douglas Adams:Radical Atheist

[changingshades]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUfDWwWKXqQ

It cuts off at the end but still is quite entertaining

[The Hodag]

Bit of a shame it's a reading of a transcript, not a live interview, but the reading is perfectly good and the words themselves are excellent. Very sharp, very frank, and really, containing almost none of the pomposity that can sometimes crop up in strident atheists.

Adams rocked.

[Hate_Prime]

Bit of a shame it's a reading of a transcript, not a live interview, but the reading is perfectly good and the words themselves are excellent. Very sharp, very frank, and really, containing almost none of the pomposity that can sometimes crop up in strident atheists.

Adams rocked.

But he used words such as silly, childish, ignorant, irrational, arrogant, wrong, baloney, and feeble to describe belief in god. He mocked christianity. A lot of atheists do these things all the time. Why would Douglas Adams get a pass?

That said, the voice of the dude reading it is very, uh, hypnotic. I read that interview a long time ago. It certainly is entertaining. I agree with Adams almost a hundred percent.

[Dropkick]

Is that Simon Jones (who played Arthur Dent in both the radio and the TV shows) reading the transcript?

[The Hodag]

But he used words such as silly, childish, ignorant, irrational, arrogant, wrong, baloney, and feeble to describe belief in god.

Maybe it's the voice of the reader, but the vibe I got from Adams' comparison of religion to other endeavors was that he was using those words as factually as he could. That is, "ignorance" is used not as a pejorative, but as a neutral descriptor to mean lack of knowledge. And when he says "childish", again, he's simply using it factually - he believes that the devout accept religion as a child accepts what is told him. Since he goes on to explain his reasoning, rather than turn these descriptors into ad hominem attacks, I guess I just don't see his approach as condescending - just realistic, and based in the very scrutiny he champions in other walks of life.

[RickLM]

How can "childish" ever be "factual"? That's a total judgment call on his part. To say that intelligent Christians like Desmond Tutu, CS Lewis and many others are ignorant and silly is so ridiculous, but again is typical of atheists. After all, they seem to define themselves by what they don't believe, and that inevitably becomes an attack.

[mario]

How can "childish" ever be "factual"? That's a total judgment call on his part. To say that intelligent Christians like Desmond Tutu, CS Lewis and many others are ignorant and silly is so ridiculous, but again is typical of atheists. After all, they seem to define themselves by what they don't believe, and that inevitably becomes an attack.

But Christians -like any other religious people believing in an invisible, omniscient being- ARE willfully ignorant (in the way Dave explained it). And when you look at the pillars of their belief from a pure rational viewpoint, it is rather silly. Atheists can't believe unconditionally for no reason.
Because you're intelligent does not mean you can't be willfully ignorant.

[The Hodag]

How can "childish" ever be "factual"? That's a total judgment call on his part.

I think we could reach a consensus that an adult who believes in a boogie man living in his closet is being childish (and I'm not using this as a metaphor for religion - I'm just talking about the common illusion among kids that monsters are lurking in their bedroom). If his behavior exactly fits the definition of the word childish, wouldn't it be fair to say it's a fact that he's being childish? A fact, or as close as we can get to one before a philosophy 101 student starts talking about how we can never truly know anything?

To say that intelligent Christians like Desmond Tutu, CS Lewis and many others are ignorant and silly is so ridiculous...

He said nothing about those people, specifically. One might infer that he thinks their belief in religion is silly, but that's not the same as saying that they themselves - the whole of their lives - are silly. By the sound of it, though, yes, he would be baffled that such otherwise intelligent men subscribed to concepts that don't meet the scrutiny given every other aspect of our lives.

After all, they seem to define themselves by what they don't believe...

Really? I've found that most atheists define themselves by humanistic principles and a belief in objective truth.

[Hate_Prime]

How can "childish" ever be "factual"? That's a total judgment call on his part. To say that intelligent Christians like Desmond Tutu, CS Lewis and many others are ignorant and silly is so ridiculous, but again is typical of atheists. After all, they seem to define themselves by what they don't believe, and that inevitably becomes an attack.

Say you're an anime fan. I then mention that I think anime is shitty, stupid, and a complete waste of time. Will you take it as an attack on your taste in tv/movies, or an attack on every fiber of your being?

[Shane W]

Say you're an anime fan. I then mention that I think anime is shitty, stupid, and a complete waste of time. Will you take it as an attack on your taste in tv/movies, or an attack on every fiber of your being?

Bet we can prove Anime exists.