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Topic ClosedRichard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens
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Poll Question: Who is your preference?
Poll Choice Votes Poll Statistics
11 [73.33%]
4 [26.67%]
This topic is closed, no new votes accepted

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Equality 7-2521 View Drop Down
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Points: 15783 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 11 2016 at 12:02
I'm fine with that goal, but I think he does a poor job of it. I don't think his arrogance and disparaging of the humanities does science communication any good. And I don't think him acting like an expert and saying inane things in fields he has a less than cursory understanding of does similar harm.
"One had to be a Newton to notice that the moon is falling, when everyone sees that it doesn't fall. "
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Icarium View Drop Down
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Points: 34050 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 11 2016 at 12:25
Doesnt help that he is a load mouth and 2 meters tall, and trained wrestler from youth
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Icarium View Drop Down
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Points: 34050 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 11 2016 at 12:26
I reccomend the books of Kristen Gundersen, equality
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The T View Drop Down
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Points: 17493 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 11 2016 at 12:44
Originally posted by Equality 7-2521 Equality 7-2521 wrote:

I'm fine with that goal, but I think he does a poor job of it. I don't think his arrogance and disparaging of the humanities does science communication any good. And I don't think him acting like an expert and saying inane things in fields he has a less than cursory understanding of does similar harm.
Granted, he can be noisy at times, even annoying, and he wears horrible vests Tongue
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JJLehto View Drop Down
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Points: 34550 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 23 2016 at 11:32
I actually applauded Nye for his recent "controversial" actions simply because I will forever remember him as the absolute dork and lame ass from his PBS show when I was a kid, so was a bit shocking to see him tackling creationists and discussing religion. 



While on the topic of atheist scientists....a somewhat less discussed one:
Brian Greene. 

No idea how he is in lectures/interviews but in his docs and Ted talks he pretty much is all science and less religion bashing, and his one show on Quantum Mechanics actually got me seriously interested in the topic, enough so I wanted more info and ended up watching, (to the best I couldLOL) the MIT online Quantum Mechanics lectures. 
Very explanatory, simple but gets the message across perfectly fine. 

While I am not so sure how I feel about these theories....Greene also had some of the simplest/best layman explanations for String Theory and multiverse theories. 
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CosmicVibration View Drop Down
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Points: 1327 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 23 2016 at 12:42

Although I’m aware of who they are, I’ve heard very little of their material so no vote from me.

I remember watching Bill Maher one day as he stated that the Bible is written in metaphors and shouldn’t be taken literally.  This is exactly right!

It was only 2 minutes later into the show when he quoted something from the Bible, took it literally and went off on it.   WTF Bill?

I wonder if Mr. Dawkins and Mr. Hitchens realize that all great religious books are highly masked in cryptic writing using symbolisms, metaphors and the like. 

These 2 are as bad as the preachers that scream, cry and holler about matters of which they are totally ignorant about. 

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Logan View Drop Down
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Points: 32676 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 25 2016 at 23:22
They have both been aware of metaphor and symbolism in religious texts -- Hitchens died in 2011, by the way, and is probably not aware of anything now. Dawkins and Hitchens problem tended to be with the literalists as well as the religious doctrines, practices, and how they perceived it to interfere with rationality (Prof. Dawkins particular interest being science and Hitchens more cultural/social and poltical). Of course a great many people do take religious texts literally., and a great many, obviously, believe in an actual rather than a metaphorical God. ).



Edited by Logan - May 25 2016 at 23:35
Just a fanboy passin' through.
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