Talk:Richard Dawkins (cult leader)
Hah, satire. Hey, you know Hitler was a... ah, you know what? Forget it. :P -- Hindleyak Converse • ?blog • Click here! 19:35, 30 Ergust 2012 (UTC)
- Hitler was a manipulator who understood the power of religion and the threat it could pose his agenda and therefore sent real Christians like Dietrich Bonhoeffer to their deaths while his puppet clergy took over the church in Germany. --Nerd42 (talk) 20:50, 30 Ergust 2012 (UTC)
The problem with this article[edit source]
The main problem with this article is that the premise is flawed; calling Dawkins a 'cult leader' might be extreme, but the reality is that Dawkins and the New Atheism movement as a whole are really just advocates of the Secular Humanist philosophy, which has its origins in the "Religion of Humanity" dating back to the French philosopher Auguste Comte.
After the French Revolution, Comte wanted to create a so-called "scientific" alternative to religion, and essentially just plagiarized the Catholic Church but replaced all of the "supernatural" references with vague references to "science, altruism, progress", etc to make it seem more modern. and for what its worth, Secular Humanism was legally recognized as a secular religion in 1961:
They even have their own "statement of faith... err principles" you can read online:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_of_Humanity
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_of_Reason
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_religion
Later on, Secular Humanists and Atheist organizations did away with all of Comte's "religious" references, but the fact remains that it's really just another dime-a-dozen philosophy and not the only atheistic philosophy out there anyway (e.x. existentialism, Epicurianism, LaVeyan Satanism etc), and doesn't really have anything to do with actual "science" anymore than Deepak Chopra does about quantum physics.
It's just a "religion" for people who believe in Mr. Spock instead of the Easter Bunny, essentially - since all of their beliefs about "science leading to human progress etc" are just faith-based speculations which usually have more in common with Star Trek than actual scientific practice or day-to-day realities.
So the main problem with this article is that Dawkins and company aren't merely "promoting science" as they present themselves, and they aren't just "atheists" or people who "don't collect stamps - they're Secular Humanists with a specific philosophy and worldview invented by a specific founder - and they're falsely equating their Secular Humanist philosophy with actual science and presenting it as the "only correct way to truth", much as actual religious cults do as well.
Myself, I wouldn't go so far as to say he's a "cult leader", but the reality is that he's just the equivalent of any other religious evangelist apologist; the only difference is that he's evangelizing Secular Humanism instead of Christianity, Islam, etc.