1. Do stop behaving as if you are God, Professor Dawkins

Comment #26063 by jgrice02 on March 16, 2007 at 11:47 am

To be dogmatic is to maintain a position or opinion without any willingness to change or recognize another position. To be dogmatic is to be adamantly set in one's ways, so much so that one is willing to defile and abash another position. To be dogmatic is to maintain a position with such vigor that one cannot even recognize the dogmatism. And every atheist who says one must have empirical evidence in order to have knowledge is taking a dogmatic approach to epistemology. That is where Dawkins is being dogmatic. And make no mistake, he is extremely dogmatic – on par with preachers in the church.

You are not a "freethinker" if you say, "I am open to any new knowledge so long as we arrive at that knowledge through empirical evidence." No, that is not freethinking at all. That is putting a steel cage around our epistemic faculties. It is also making a huge assumption which violates the premise of empiricism. I can see how scientists would struggle with this concept but any philosopher should recognize the hypocrisy of dogmatic epistemology. And anyone who argues that empirical evidence is necessary for knowledge, without exception, to the point that anyone who disagrees is labeled intellectual garbage, is manifesting a dogmatic worldview.

Read these posts and show me one freethinker. Show me someone who doesn't assume (ironically enough, without any proof) that empirical evidence is necessary for knowledge. The very first post was a request for the empirical "evidence" for God. Oh that the atheist would see... this is McGrath's point! Instead, the atheist walks around with a redundancy about them: "Where is the evidence?" the atheist demands, "I want proof! I want evidence! I will not believe ANYTHING without empirical evidence." And it is this militant demand for empirical evidence that exemplifies the height of atheistic dogmatism.

The irony is that atheists are so dogmatic that they cannot even recognize their dogmatism. They don't like the sound of "dogmatic" so they get all offended, when all the while they are blinded by their own worldview and guilty of the very thing they pass judgment on. I'm not saying theists are any less dogmatic, but at least some of them can be honest with themselves and admit their dogmatism. Sheesh…