Now I can see your point fairly better. I do agree that Dawkins very often oversimplifies issues (though not to the point of ever stating ”either you are atheist or you support terrorism, religious intolerance, pedophilia, etc.”, although I see it was meant as a parody), but in general his record is slightly positive in my opinion.

I cannot rationally see Mr. Dawkin’s point; it seems to me just a handful of irrational comparisons, probably driven by his personal desire to identify some social institution with the root of all evil.

It seems to me that Dawkins’ point is mostly to voice a rallying cry for atheists to come out of the closet and to have a firm public stance so that religions stop being so overpriviledged over humanist and secularists views and institutions in the public space of many societies, not attacking respect individual rights of believers nevertheless.

By the way, Dawkins has personally stated that the notion of anything being the root of all evil is ridiculous.
(http://www.pointofinquiry.org/?p=36) The root of all evil?, which was the name of a documentary series Dawkins presented, was not his first choice and was imposed by Channel4, who produced the series.

Respecting others’ fundamental rights and individual freedoms while expressing opinions shouldn’t be seen as a ’surrender’ to a supposed “dogma of political correctness”.

Here we come to what I suppose that is the hardest point of all and perhaps our real point of contention. What is or should be the social consensus about what exactly is respect fundamental rights within the context of societies? What is actual lack of respect and what is no more lack of reverence. Reverence is a deeper feeling of respect that cannot be asked from anyone, in contrast to the basic level of respect, which one could call social level, which means respect for individual rights in society i.e. freedom of religion and of speech. It is possible in principle to pay no reverence at all to an institution without violating the inegotiable stance of respect for their followers’ rights, to stand exactly above the thin line between both.

All in all, it is easier to reach compromise on definitions than on concepts. And maybe my definition of social respect is actually flawed, if you can point me that.

The fact that someone just verbally criticizes religion means that one wants to actually erradicate religions and people’s liberties at any costs?

No.

All Dawkins has done has just been to emit opinions in a democratic society which are to be critized or supported in an equally democratic fashion.

As I said, I dislike the simplistic way in which Dawkins identifies religions – organized beliefs and rites strongly linked with societies, their culture and history – with:

- Delusions: the fact that some people use god/s or the divine to explain their world cannot rationally be compared with individual delusions of someone who sees an invisible dragon in his garage. That is simply to identify religious belief with a common mental illness.

- Terrorism: So for e.g. 9/11 attacks are (after Mr. Dawkins) the consequence of religion. Not people, not fundamentalism, not even Islam, but “religion”. What is next? If there were no religions, then terrorist acts would be the consequence of… political ideas? So we will then criticize political parties for “supporting” or “causing” terrorism? There is no individual responsibility? Just institutions, ideas, groups? Also, the KKK, past genocides, the Inquisición, pedophilia, etc… were they all consequence of religion, just because they were linked by people somehow with religion?

I cannot rationally see Mr. Dawkin’s point; it seems to me just a handful of irrational comparisons, probably driven by his personal desire to identify some social institution with the root of all evil. Just like some have seen (and still see) capitalism or communism, Judaism or Islam, democracy or monarchy, etc. as the root of all evil…

I don’t doubt that Mr. Dawkins is a great agnostic, scientist, and democratic person. I just doubt his public actions and statements comply with the necessary respect for others’ fundamental rights, and are often little less than antitheist hatred propaganda.

Your post seems like written by someone out of their comfort zone after getting to know people who so openly refuse to deal with religion with silk gloves

Maybe. That’s probably because I’m in a great “confort zone” surrounded by agnostic, theist (some religious) and atheist scientists, mainly physician colleagues, as well as family members and friends of all academic and scientific fields, and Mr. Dawkin’s public statements (like the latest one I read from him, “Religion is the justification to do horrible things“) just seem too irrational, too far from real life to me, too dangerous for the stability of our modern democratic society which praises respect for each other’s rights and freedoms.

It is quite lamentable that you, IndoEuropean, write a long post trying to paint Dawkins as the scourge of tolerance and liberty, instead of criticizing so many people, religious and non-religious, who are really anti-democratic and intolerant.

To criticize a person’s public statements (from Mr. Dawkins or anyone else) does mean neither to criticize his personal option (atheism or agnosticism) nor to support those religious and non-religious people who are anti-democratic and intolerant, and who Dawkins purportedly wants to erradicate.

I would prefer that, instead of inviting us all to become polarized in our positions (“either you are atheist or you support terrorism, religious intolerance, pedophilia, etc.”), some of us would be restrained and respectul of others’ rights; and that is especially important for those who use the flags of ’science’, ‘humanism’, ‘enlightenment’ and ‘rationalism’ when expressing their personal opinions.

Respecting others’ fundamental rights and individual freedoms while expressing opinions shouldn’t be seen as a ’surrender’ to a supposed “dogma of political correctness”.

Your post seems like written by someone out of their comfort zone after getting to know people who so openly refuse to deal with religion with silk gloves – but who would never act forcefully against them with boxe gloves either. But… Is Dawkins really a intolerant dogmatic? Dawkins has a convict democratic stance; he is an agnostic atheist, not a dogmatic atheist: he thinks that probably there are no gods, though he is open to empiric evidence for deities. It is not at all Dawkins’ ideal to swap religious off planet Earth. There is no reason to believe that he is, neither in a theoretical nor in a practical stance, anything like the public enema number one of the most basic human rights.

It is quite lamentable that you, IndoEuropean, write a long post trying to paint Dawkins as the scourge of tolerance and liberty, instead of criticizing so many people, religious and non-religious, who are really anti-democratic and intolerant. But that is a matter of opinion. Your liberty to criticize others is the liberty for others to criticize you, and Dawkins is someone who is conscious of that. By the way, from what I have ever read by Dawkins at RD.net, he has in no moment spoken against the liberty for anyone to criticize him; and that is not the way some of his oppositors have behaved, unfortunately.

Disagreements aside, my best wishes to the Europaiom initiative.