...Let's be clear.  It has nothing to do with anyone depicting him as an angry polemicist.  He is an angry polemicist.

That's simply false, and you are working off of the sound byte industry that has saddled him with that reputation.  He has made some fairly outrageous statements, but most of the time he is quite level-headed and reasonable.  This came out very clearly in the video.  So I'm recommending it as an antidote to the out-of-context crowd, which you are braying along with here.

I didn't watch the video, though I may.  I have a good idea why the conversation was more cordial, though.  McGrath is also a product of Oxford and so even Dawkins can't help but perceive him as more of an equal.  But what did Dawkins say about those who were attending Liberty University?  He told them to get out and go to a real college, if you'll recall.

Sorry, sntjohnny, but there is some truth in that rather undiplomatic advice.  He does really lose it around fundamentalists.  You are right that he and McGrath are Oxford peers, and that probably did play a role in the cordiality, although I've seen him like that before.  I have friends who travel in his circles, and they say that he is normally quite shy and self-effacing in person, and he came off that way in the video.  What I think triggered his polite behavior was that he took McGrath for a mainstream Christian, whom he has no trouble relating to.  McGrath, on the other hand, hit Dawkins with a lot of your favorite arguments, including a healthy dose of CS Lewis and the argument that Dawkins didn't understand the Christian concept of "faith".  Dawkins actually began the interview by conceding that he may have been wrong.  McGrath also laid into him at the very end about his anger towards Christians, and he tried to explain his feelings--why he sometimes makes those flip remarks.  I think that McGrath triggered some guilty feelings in him, and I've heard him apologize before for the tone of his public behavior.

I know that I don't have as many gray hairs as you, Cop, but in my experience debating the contempt and scorn almost always begins on one side:  the side of the 'Brights' who believe that any brave person, any intelligent person, any rational person, would not be 'dim' but bright like them.

When you earn those gray hairs, you might come to realize that your perception is more one-sided than the reality.  I think that you tend to put your thumb on the scale when weighing Christian behavior and demeanor.  I know that I do in weighing the behavior of atheists, and I am constantly struggling to maintain some balance in my thinking.

I will gladly grant exceptions.  Perhaps if more atheists saw their debating partners as intellectual equals as poor Dawkins had to admit in the presence of a fellow Oxfordian, more debates would be as cordial as the one you allege is in the video.

I've seen him debate with others, but the venue here also had an effect.  Both men were standing and facing each other.  You tend to get less flames and more politeness when you have facial expressions and gestures to set the tone of your statements.

In my experience thus far, I have been ridiculed personally in direct correspondence by Richard Carrier (before he was famous- I doubt he remembers me), Austin Cline (but even he had to concede I was correct and discretely corrected his web page), Dr. Magee (whom I caught in blatant plagiarism), Stathei, and more recently a certain Spencer who posted quite a bit on this forum.  These are just ones that are immediately springing to mind.

My recollection is that your behavior has not always as accurate or exemplary as it could have been, but email and debate forums tend to lend themselves to such behavior.  Person-to-person exchanges are usually more civil. 

In one example from the list above when I began to defend myself the culprit insisted that he really is a decent chap and he can prove it, after all he had such pleasant and respectful conversations with eminents such as Dembski and Swinburne.  In fact the truth is that they have more degrees than this fellow and he knew better, just like Dawkins treads much more lightly with those whose credentials he knows matches his own.

Omigosh.  Does this mean that you might actually treat what I have to say about language with a little more respect?   

"He does really lose it around fundamentalists."

I thought you just said that that's the sound byte industry talking? 

He tends to take their attacks on the theory of evolution too personally, but religious fundamentalists are the main detractors of his profession.  You get the same kind of behavior in my profession when people who actually know something about language have to deal with people who lack even the fundamentals.  You yourself go on at length about people who criticize Christianity without having expert knowledge of the subject.  I actually don't think Dawkins has ever acted less reasonably than you have even in his worst moments. 

But why is there so much attention paid to the man's personality?  What is the point of all the quote mining and distortions?  It is to poison the well.  If the man is arrogant and nasty, we can just dismiss him without doing the hard work of addressing his arguments.

"McGrath, on the other hand, hit Dawkins with a lot of your favorite arguments, including a healthy dose of CS Lewis and the argument that Dawkins didn't understand the Christian concept of "faith"."

That doesn't surprise me.  McGrath has a whole book denouncing Dawkins's views about Christianity as a delusion.  It's called The Dawkins Delusion.  I haven't read it, but read some reviews.  Maybe if McGrath says it you'll finally believe me when I say Dawkins doesn't know what he's talking about. 

Actually, you really ought to take the time to view the video.  It might give you a little different perspective on Dawkins.  He started out with a copy of McGrath's Dawkin's God in his hand and thanked him for the criticisms.  Dawkins gives some very good responses to those criticisms.  Obviously, both men can write books that will get rave reviews from critics.  My impression of McGrath is that he makes the same points that Christians make all the time, but he states those points more persuasively than his cohorts.  The same is true of Dawkins.  Dawkins is extremely eloquent, and that is really why he has achieved such notoriety.  He is good at making his case.  I was quite impressed with both men, as I watched the video.  It was a terrific exchange of point-counterpoint.

Oh, you ain't the only introspective fellow out there, my friend.    But you know what?  You can't deny my experiences.  My experiences are what happened.  I was there, you weren't.

Have I ever denied your experiences?  I might take issue with some of your interpretations of your experiences, but I certainly don't deny that you've had them.

"You sir, are an ignorant bigot."

Said in a letter to the editor, I suppose.

More quote mining.  The remark might not have been deserved, but we lack the context here to make that evaluation.  One could do the same thing with you--go back and extract angry comments that make you look bad outside of context.  Why do this?  Because you are trying to weaken his credibility in the eyes of those who might be otherwise persuaded by his arguments.

"My recollection is that your behavior has not always as accurate or exemplary as it could have been, but email and debate forums tend to lend themselves to such behavior.  Person-to-person exchanges are usually more civil. "

I'm not trying to say it has been.  But even you must acknowledge that your entire attitude changed towards me when you learned that I was a YECcer.  You have admitted on this forum that you actually thought I was thoughtful proponent of Christianity when that was sprung on you.   My recollection of your behavior isn't very flattering, either.  'Who started it' is not something that I remember anymore, but I think you are a perfect case in point of exactly what I'm contending regarding Dawkins vs. McGrath.  When I was a 'mainstreamer' in your mind you respected what I had to say.  When I became a 'fundamentalist' in your mind, that changed.

Yes, it did.  I think that you can make very reasonable, intelligent arguments, but some of the positions you argue for are utterly crazy.  I could not believe or accept that someone with your intelligence would think the universe no more than a few thousand years old, but I'm not here to go over that again.  I still fall back on Shermer's brilliant observation that smart people believe weird things because they are just very good at defending bad ideas.  Being smart and eloquent doesn't guarantee correctness, and so we must genuinely look at the arguments themselves.  And the argument cuts both ways, so we need to keep re-examining our own cherished conclusions.

In the video, for example, Dawkins raised the issue of the Problem of Evil by focusing on a natural event in which a hurricane destroys the lives of thousands, but a little girl survives.  He asked McGrath if he would want to say that God saved the one child but refused to intervene to save any others.  McGrath agreed that he would.  Dawkins genuinely felt (as do I) that Christian reasoning is totally inconsistent on this point.  Why not just say that God did not intervene but the girl was just lucky?  He could buy the premise that God might refrain from intervention for some nobler, higher purpose, but wouldn't God then be destroying that purpose by intervening on the child's behalf?  McGrath tried to justify his reasoning, but he genuinely seemed to stumble there.  It was really a classic exchange, and I enjoyed watching McGrath squirm (although you might not see him as stumbling or squirming).

Which is my point about you atheists looking down your noses at people of faith if you can get away with it.

You know very well that Christians do the same.  Which side does it more is hardly an issue worth debating.

You see in the Dawkins/McGrath video some sort of measure of what a debate between theists and atheists should look like.  Well, the only way you get that is with mutual respect.  One doesn't have to look hard (Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, Dennet, etc) to see the disdain dripping out of the atheistic community.   You go ahead and name one book by a Christian out there that is hostile as the books making waves out of the atheistic community.  Go ahead.

Should I start with passages from the Bible?  As I said, this issue is not really worth a debate.  People on both sides get angry and frustrated with each other, so it is easy to go on and on about lack of respect.  My honest view of this is that both sides are equally guilty, and to focus on this issue is to ignore the interesting ones.  Notice that I'm not agreeing with your point here.  I'm only saying that I have no interest in chasing you down that rabbit hole.

"You sir, are an ignorant bigot." 

Said by Dawkins to a debate partner, face to face, as he refused to shake his hand.  And why?  Because he could, that's why...

All one can infer from your repeated use of this mined quote is that Dawkins got angry in some context.  We don't know what, if anything provoked the remark.  He does not normally call people ignorant bigots and refuse to shake hands.  In fact, I have been told by people who know him that he comes off as abnormally shy in person.  So I'm guessing that there was some kind of provocation that led to the remark.  Or maybe he was just being a putz on that day, as all of us are on our off-days.

Anyway, I have no objections to watching the video.  I like to keep abreast of Dawkins.  More fodder for quote mining, you see. 

You could look at it that way.  Or you could just look at it as an opportunity to see him at his best.   

heh I was actually going to say that I'm sure Hitler had his good days, too.  Dawkins's characterization of religion and some teachings within Christianity as 'child abuse' raises the very obvious conclusion that you remove children from places where you think real child abuse is taking place.  Sure, it isn't a concentration camp, but it is certainly bordering on fascism, no matter the fact that he has yet to put his logic into action or advocate in that direction.

Good points, Endbringer.

Back to Cop:

I just didn't want to let this one pass without me bringing it home to the point I wanted to make:

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When I was a 'mainstreamer' in your mind you respected what I had to say.  When I became a 'fundamentalist' in your mind, that changed.

Yes, it did.  I think that you can make very reasonable, intelligent arguments, but some of the positions you argue for are utterly crazy.  I could not believe or accept that someone with your intelligence would think the universe no more than a few thousand years old, but I'm not here to go over that again.  I still fall back on Shermer's brilliant observation that smart people believe weird things because they are just very good at defending bad ideas.

You like to pepper conversations like this one with statements about how I have not always behaved.  At one point you said that if I were an atheist I would be just like Dawkins (hard to know what that means when in fact the man is actually very shy).  I would like to submit for your personal introspection the possibility that the change in your respect merely because I was *gasp* a YECcer was accompanied also by a change of behavior of your own.  Perhaps your 'fall back' was couched in increasingly elite, condescending, and insulting language?  Perhaps the ire you saw from me was self-defense?

Just something to think about.  I don't remember the whole sequence by any means well enough to document it.

As an interesting aside, I know that you find Sasquatch and Cimics to be pretty reasonable folk.  I bet you have no idea where they stand in regards to the question of evolution and creationism.   Will your respect for them dissipate if you learn that they are, in fact, Creationists?  Does the 'respect' for Christians by atheists extend only to 'mainliners' and only insofar as they are evolutionists or remain in the closet regarding their creationism?  I believe the answer to that is definitely YES, and I think this Dawkins/McGrath discussion is a perfect illustration.

For the record, I have no idea where either of those gentlemen stand, either.

heh I was actually going to say that I'm sure Hitler had his good days, too.  Dawkins's characterization of religion and some teachings within Christianity as 'child abuse' raises the very obvious conclusion that you remove children from places where you think real child abuse is taking place.  Sure, it isn't a concentration camp, but it is certainly bordering on fascism, no matter the fact that he has yet to put his logic into action or advocate in that direction.

Dawkins has always been very careful to qualify his 'child abuse' remarks in a way that distinguishes them from physical child abuse.  He was referring to the type that you find in the film Jesus Camp.  He also explained the context of his remark quite clearly in his debate with McGrath.  But this is exactly the problem.  You can easily take that label out of context and use to bash him unfairly over it.  He used the language to make a point in a debate--that children can be damaged by religious indoctrination.  This was nowhere made clearer than in the chilling documentary Jesus Camp.

You like to pepper conversations like this one with statements about how I have not always behaved.  At one point you said that if I were an atheist I would be just like Dawkins (hard to know what that means when in fact the man is actually very shy).  I would like to submit for your personal introspection the possibility that the change in your respect merely because I was *gasp* a YECcer was accompanied also by a change of behavior of your own.  Perhaps your 'fall back' was couched in increasingly elite, condescending, and insulting language?  Perhaps the ire you saw from me was self-defense?

Sorry for all of those occasions where I have come off that way and for losing my temper from time to time.  I think that we have both felt frustration with each other.  I have to keep reminding myself that people on the other side of my keyboard are just as human as I am.  I could easily say that I was just reciprocating your own arrogance, condescension, and insults.  To some extent, that would be true.  Verbal violence is just as cyclical as physical violence, and it invites mutual retaliation that makes both of us look bad.

Just something to think about.  I don't remember the whole sequence by any means well enough to document it.

OK, but I think that we would perceive who was at fault for what differently.  It is probably true that you and I will say things that sound insulting in the future.  We both need to try not to let that derail the discussion.

As an interesting aside, I know that you find Sasquatch and Cimics to be pretty reasonable folk.  I bet you have no idea where they stand in regards to the question of evolution and creationism.   Will your respect for them dissipate if you learn that they are, in fact, Creationists?  Does the 'respect' for Christians by atheists extend only to 'mainliners' and only insofar as they are evolutionists or remain in the closet regarding their creationism?  I believe the answer to that is definitely YES, and I think this Dawkins/McGrath discussion is a perfect illustration.

Reminder:  you have not looked at the Dawkins/McGrath video.  So you don't really have a basis for using my point here as a "perfect illustration" of anything at all.  As for cimics, he has already taken me to task for assuming that you and he shared creationist views.  Believe it or not, I have some respect for you, but I have to admit that YECism strikes as as a totally absurd and untenable position in the era of modern science.  We've already covered that ground.  Just because I think lesser of you for that, that does not mean that I don't think highly of you. 

For the record, I have no idea where either of those gentlemen stand, either.

I was sure that cimics told me that he and you had had some spats over these issues.

I don't think that Dawkins is any worse than you, me, sntjohnny, or McGrath in that department.  We all get angry and lash out at people from time to time. 

No arguement from me there.

I've seen Dawkins reflect on some of the things he has said, and he has expressed regret.  I find that rather refreshing.   The reason that people make such a point of his behavior is not that he gets angry.  Everyone gets angry and makes comments that can be used against them out of context.  The point is that character attacks poison the well.

Not when one's character is directly reflected from one's own belief system. Especially so, when Dawkins has made it his moral obligation to remove opposing religious belief systems. And it's the fact that that such comments are in context that is at issue. The claim of "quote mining" is one that I'm beginning to learn comes very easily. However such a claim is only legitimate when actual "digging" is involved. When there is consistentcy it becomes an established record.

You only show one video where he is behaved, and that in the context that McGrath is intellectually Dawkin's equal and both men are face to face, to try to exonerate Dawkin's character. Such a scenerio has no impact on me. How he treats his "lessers" is. You can easily denounce millions of people in a disrespectful manner from a book, letter, or interview, but changing your tune when you're in a stadium full of those people is nothing impressive. If there is one thing Xbox Live has taught me is that you can see a person's truer colors when one has a degree of anonymity.

I'm always reminded of the Academy Award-winning film Schindler's List when this kinda thing comes up. Great movie. One I find to give a very accurate picture about human beings in that it presents both sides of us. The character Goeth is accurately portrayed as a very cruel Nazi commandant that thinks nothing of killing people on a whim. We see such acts and there is often the temptation to say something like "He's sick." or such. Except he was not "sick". He was simply as fallen as any of us are.

EB, I find this argument truly amazing.  That man was a psychopath by any definition of the word.  He took pleasure in random murder.  To compare his damaged mind to that of an ordinary person is absurd.

That you find it amazing is no surprise. That you attribute such behavior to a "damaged mind" is of no surprise either. Such beliefs are common when one buys into the whole "Man is a machine" way of thinking. Such people think of such acts as the product of a machine gone out of skew and malfunctioned instead of a moral individual who commited immoral acts of his own free will.

What I find amazing is that if you have debated against Christianity for such a long time, how have you not come across such an arguement? The fact that Man is a fallen creature in need of God's redemption provided threw his Son Jesus Christ is one of the core beliefs of Christianity. Either you only go into arguements over detailish issues, or no one's hit you with an example profound enough to get your attention.

Everyone does things that are immoral or anti-social from time to time, but you have to have completely lost all sense of morality to equate random, mass killings with normal human behavior.

Not really. I can go into how abortion is a mass genocide against millions of innocent human beings (even science is in 100% agreement that a human being starts at conception) and that's become acceptable, normal, and encouraged by today's society. Women who have an abortion or in no way thought of as having "damaged minds". Nothing's broken in them and they're all fairly normal from a fairly normal society. It's simply 'buisness as usual' as said by Harry Yonick, a former Nazi judge, powerfully portrayed by Burt Lancaster in the film "Judgement in Nuremberg", on trial for the perversion of justice during the Third Reich.

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When reading stories of this era, you'll discover that Nazis were very ordinary people in many ways. Some were intelligent, some were not. Some were educated, some were not. Some loved Bach and Mozart, others didn't. Many had families, and much of the time they were tender toward their wives and children. Many were religious and others weren't. They were from a reasonably normal cross-section of humanity. And not one single thing excuses these normal people from the incredible evil they did. The two do not relate.

It is also true that Ted Bundy behaved in what appeared to be normal fashion when he wasn't murdering his victims.  He helped people.  He charmed them.  He passed the time of day.  But he was not a normal person.  He was psychologically damaged in a way that the vast majority of us are not.  That ordinary people can be turned into monsters does not mean that ordinary people are monsters any more than they are saints, because they can be turned into great humanitarians.

No, he was simply a fallen human being who simply lived out more thoroughly the deviation we all share equally. Ted Bundy and the Nazis were not acting in any way outside the nature of man in that something from outside caused them to be "sick" or "damaged". That is why Ted Bundy or the Nazis put on trial were not "repaired" or "reset". They were punished like any normal person would be for his immoral behavior.

Now I agree with you that not everyone is going to be a Hitler, or a Ted Bundy. I call Schindler's list a great movie, even going so far to say a Christian movie, because it shows us for what we are: that human beings have both extrinsic cruelty and evil and intrinsic dignity and nobility. As I said there's not a doubt in my mind Dawkins has both. However, I will hold that ordinary people may not be a Hitler or a Bundy, but we are far far closer to being them then we are to being a Jesus Christ. And that's why we need Him.

I have to confess that I don't know what your point is here.  You admit that Dawkins is no worse than the rest of us.  His behavior is no more excusable than your behavior or mine, but it is no less excusable either.  So why all the attention to his character?

Firstly, because you seem to bring it up as to what a swell guy he is:

BTW, I recommended the video for precisely this reason--to give people an opportunity to see the other side of Dawkins, the one that isn't constantly fed to us by his critics and his detractors.  When my British friends--staunch atheists--sat down to a dinner with him, they were actually surprised by his personality.  They expected an aggressive person, but they got someone who was actually quite shy and self-effacing.  Now, if they had begun to proselytize creationism to him, they might have seen a different side of him.   

Yeah, a staunch atheist being friendly with staunch atheists. There's a shocker. One wonder's if you don't find calling to attention his character is waranted, why then are you doing it?

Secondly, because my behavior and yours is no more or less excusable. Christians are often called on their behavior when argueing and witnessing. We are often accused of "acting holier than thou", "self-righteous", etc and they should be held accountable for their behavior. I'm not discriminating against anyone in this standard. When people act agaisnt immorality they should do so in a moral way. As Paul said we are not to return evil for evil. You must show respect and dignity for all human beings, not just those who have enough degrees to match your own or share the same views. This especially applies to Christians who understand that we are all made in God's image no matter who they are or what they've done.