Atheists. Can you help me with this contradiction, please?

I apologize that you had to hear such contradictions from atheists. Being one myself, I can tell you that, in my opinion, Richard Dawkins is an arrogant prick. I don't think the fact that he said the first quote changes the fact that I disagree with it. You shouldn't use Yahoo Answers as a relevant means of garnering accurate opinions and information from people, however. It leads to miscommunications such as these.

Definition of the word barbarism is key here. My namesake. lol Rough language, not smooth and flowing. Ignorant in the eyes of other cultures. This opens up a whole new topic once again. Barbarian does not mean not civilized. It means different, strange to ones culture.

Ignorance calls such mentality as the bible holy. It is a record, real or fiction, of a hard hearted people. God was a handy excuse to maim, murder, destroy, be psychopaths.

Western culture is and has been based on this book, but that is changing and such changes take time. I don't see it as an anchor, more like a millstone hung around the neck.

Don't get lost in the details. It still is what it is.

That's not really fair. The first quote sounds like it was probably written by someone who's trying to make the point that atheists are lost without Jesus. When you tell us it was written by Dawkins, we automatically know that he couldn't have meant it that way, so obviously we're going to look at the quote differently.

You could do the exact same thing to religious people. You could post a quote saying "Evolution is a brilliant theory," and all the creationists would think that was utter nonsense, and then you tell them it was actually from Ben Stein in his anti-evolution movie, and they'd all start agreeing with it to a certain extent. "Well, he's not actually talking about the theory specifically; he was just saying that Darwin was an intelligent scientist who came up with a new idea to explain life, but that doesn't mean the evidence for evolution actually exists, blah blah blah..."

Sure.

Only one person (presumably an atheist - I don't actually know) answered both questions, and their answers don't actually contradict. They weren't the same answers, but they were answering different questions. Which is what one would expect.

The first question asked atheists if they agreed with the idea, the second asked atheists to speculate on why Dawkins said it. See? Not the same question.

Also, atheists are not a unified group, so "we" didn't "fall over ourselves" to do anything at all.

Does that help?

Incidentally, if I had seen either of the questions, I would have said what I say now - I recognized the quote as coming from Dawkins, and understand what he meant by it. I also disagree with it.

Amazing, huh?

There is no collective atheist philosophy. There is no group or common code. Atheists, as individuals, simply do not believe in one or more gods. You are bound to get diverse responses from a non-homogeneous population. I wonder why that might come as a surprise. Who is this 'you all' you refer to?

I've heard a little of what Richard Dawkins has said and agree with some of it. Then again, I could say the same about Homer Simpson.

I do not believe in gods and do not hold Richard Dawkins or anyone else up to be a god substitute. What he thinks is his problem. That you seem to be having trouble accepting different opinions from different people would seem to be your problem. Hope you find the reconciliation in your own mind as none is necessary for me.

Well....first off, we aren't a group. So one person is going to have one opinion, and another a different one. No big deal there. We don't have meetings to decide.

Second, I could take that quote a few different ways. So the context of it coming from an atheist is important. The Bible says a lot of barbaric things. And if the quote was referring to behavior (which is how I read it out of context), then I'd agree with the first. The Bible is no authority on what is barbaric.

However, Dawkins would have meant that you ought to be familiar with it as part of the learning process. That way I would agree with it. You ought to read it and see what it says.

Yeah and cos Fred Phelps says homosexuals should all die it means all xians agree.

I love logic... it's so cool.

Look, firstly you'd have to realise that Dicky is an upper-crust sorta guy with A grade education and therefore thinks everyone in UK is familiar with KJV bibel.

I too was brought up in a xian culture in Australia but it took me a few years to understand all this xian religion thingie cos... well, I was brought up by Dutch atheists.

Kid, the only thing ALL atheists share is that we don't do that groveling thing to invisible sky critters cos we don't think they exist... that is all.

Throw your line out out catch some fish.

~

I am an atheist, but I acknowledge that I am a product of a Christian culture, and appreciate that to condemn all art, literature, language or architecture with Christian influences would be folly without warrant.

I enjoy reading the KJV for its powerful imagery and poetic language. It is only as a moral code that I find it utterly repulsive!

Not at all.

This is the first time I've seen this question. You didn't give your quote any context at all - most people would have inferred that a religious person said those words, defending christianity.

So it isn't double standards - you've weighted your question

There's no contradiction. What we have here is a rather bad choice of words on the part of Richard Dawkins, and a rather deliberate, deceptive attempt to drop context on your part, the latter being the more grievous of the two.

Also, when addressing future questions toward "atheists," please take care to note that the only thing this abstraction has in common is a lack of belief in deities. Your sweeping conclusion is rather unjustified, especially given the above considerations.