And I'll point out it's the last step of the whole women's emancipation movement. First women wanted equal rights. Once that once achieved the (unstated) goal became to make men subservient, and perhaps eventually to make them useless altogether. If you think about it, nowadays a women doesn't need a man to support them, or protect them, and doesn't even need one in their life long-term to have kids. In short, the modern male has been reduced to the role many male insects have where their sole purpose is to fertilize the female, after which they die and/or are eaten by the female. Add to all this years of workplace affirmative action favoring females/minorities, and nowadays it's actually politically incorrect to be a white male. As you said, porn may by a subtle way of rebelling against all this.Santilli said:The portraying of women as now more then men, and, as has been pointed out in other threads, as BETTER then men, at such things as physical activities, strength, etc. is slowly emasculating men's sef-conception.
CougTek said:Wow. What kind of bandwidth is this? Must cost you a fortune.
Introduction
Richard Dawkins is Reader in Zoology in the University of Oxford. He has a deservedly high reputation in his field of ethology, and his book The Extended Phenotype has been described by one reviewer as 'a contender for the title of the most important contribution to evolutionary biology in the 1980s'. However, since this book is possibly one of Dawkins' less contentious works so far as the subject of this paper is concerned, it does not feature prominently here.
Dawkins has also made numerous television appearances, major ones including The Blind Watchmaker, BBC 2 Horizon, 19 January 1987 and the 1991 Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, Growing Up in the Universe, broadcast on BBC 2 in December 1991 and repeated one year later.
In addition to his Zoological studies, Dawkins has made frequent excursions into philosophy and theology in his popular writings, on television, in debates and in letters to the press. He has contributed to the science/religion debate by pointing out, along with others, weaknesses in the arguments of those Creationists who claim that evolution cannot account for the development of complex features like the eye. But he has also relentlessly advocated the conflict thesis.
I am grateful to the Editor for inviting me to reply to Michael Poole's interesting article. Authors' replies to criticism predictably rely upon the 'I have been misquoted ... misunderstood ... misinterpreted - - .' formula. Poole's collation of my ideas is so thorough, and his representation of them so fair, that I have almost no complaints along these lines. On the contrary, when I see my own views so comprehensively expounded by so fairminded a critic, I find myself agreeing with them as strongly as ever!
I am pleased that Richard Dawkins judges my critique of his views as fair. I shall endeavour to keep these additional remarks the same. However, I now wish to press home my points a little harder, for I see no way that my paper can encourage Dawkins to hold his views 'as strongly as ever', if he has taken the full force of the criticisms on board. I shall respond to his main points.
Denis Alexander said:A few years ago Channel 4 aired what is generally accepted to be a rather good three-part series on science and religion under the title Testing God. The series certainly wasn't perfect, but it was far, far superior in every respect to The Root of All Evil? A genuine attempt was made to grapple with opposing arguments, and a wide spectrum of views was represented. The relationship between science and religion was presented not within the simplistic conflict framework that Dawkins finds so endearing, but as a multi-textured relationship, full of subtleties and ambiguities. Since then, the science has been moving on rapidly. Who knows, maybe there is some ambitious producer out there who might yet generate an up-dated TV series that will tackle the fascinating contemporary interactions between science and faith not as a propaganda exercise, but with greater integrity as a rational and richly textured narrative that will both educate and entertain the viewer by the sheer intrinsic interest of its material.
Madeleine Bunting said:Let's be clear: it's absolutely right that religion should be subjected to a vigorous critique, but let's have one that doesn't waste time knocking down straw men. It's also right for religion to concede ground to science to explain natural processes; but at the same time, science has to concede that despite its huge advances it still cannot answer questions about the nature of the universe - such as whether we are freak chances of evolution in an indifferent cosmos (Dawkins does finally acknowledge this point in the programmes).
Dawkins seems to want to magic religion away. It's a silly delusion comparable to one of another great atheist humanist thinker, JS Mill. He wanted to magic away another inescapable part of human experience - sex; using not dissimilar arguments to Dawkins's, he pointed out the violence and suffering caused by sexual desire, and dreamt of a day when all human beings would no longer be infantilised by the need for sexual gratification, and an alternative way would be found to reproduce the human species. As true of Mill as it is of Dawkins: dream on.
Keith Ward said:Perhaps what Dawkins is doing is warning us of the pathologies of religion. Such pathologies exist, and they are to be eschewed. But virtually all the Christians I know do seek the good for its own sake, since God is precisely the Supreme Good. They affirm life and hold it precious because God creates and values life. They see in God a limitless, precarious and vulnerable love, in which they seek to participate. Whatever this is, it is not sucking up to a cruel sky-god.
So why can Professor Dawkins only see the bad in religion? Why is he incapable of making an objective, “scientific”, study of it, in all its diversity? Why is he unable to make distinctions between the many different forms of religious belief? I do not know the answer to these questions, but I do know this apostle of reason, when confronted with the word “faith”, suddenly becomes irrational, careless of truth, incapable of scholarly analysis. I really think it must be some sort of virus, and I wish my colleague a speedy recovery.
Will Rickards said:Actually it is hosted on dreamhost.
And even their lowest plan starts at 1TB or transfer (monthly average) and grows by 8GB every month.
Howell said:Watch the videos with a pillar of salt.
timwhit said:Anyone know anything about Dave Shea (the speaker)? What kind of reputation?
Mercutio said: