Did anyone here (from the UK that is, sorry you other foreigns! ) see Richard Dawkins programme debunking horoscopes, astrology,'psychics' and dowsers?
If you didn't see it , you can search on youtube to view it in parts.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onqBdqOQkWU

So anyone believers in such things? Any Cynics? Come on now people, but lets remember to try and keep it civil...just kidding,go wild!

I don't believe in astrology but I don't see any problems with it.

Reason's for wimps. Real men act on whims.

hah Profound!
Its that time again, time for real men, real men with a capital M.Oh yeah!

Yes how profound, a pity it's bollocks really

I don't believe in that stuff but I do enjoy reading my horoscope, generally because the ones in the morning paper tend to be pretty uplifting. Might be rubbish but it's always nice to be told something positive even if it's not true


I don't like Dawkins. Especially when he did "Root of All Evil". South Park said it best with "being an atheist isn't enough, you have to be a dick to everybody who doesn't agree with you".

( I'm also a huuuugggee south park fan)

Fair enough, i do think he comes across as a bit more focussed and less angry/less of a dick in the Enemies of reason than he did in the Root of evil, where he got really angry while the fundamentalists just seemed really calm

I don't like his theory of all religion being horrible and evil. There is a human need for religion that many people still have in this day and age because science can't answer every question and I doubt it ever will. Even though I'm not religious, and try to look at everything on a logical basis, I still do feel the pull of religion.

I'm not a believer in astrology, though. Admittedly, I do read my horoscope, but I don't believe it. If horoscopes were true I would have met the love of my life at least twelve times by now.

The main problem I have with Dawkins is the idea that believing or spending time on irrational things makes people irrational in other areas of live as well. (Bust me, Dawkins, if I'm misconstruing your ideas here...)

There is a lot of 'evil' in religion and the paranormal, intented and unintented, but I agree with Hearty Queeny here that people will always have a need for a sense of the beyond. As far as I'm concerned science answers a lot of important questions to the best of its ability - but the feeling we put into existence is something that can't be explained.

Besides, as I've said so many times before, religion is more than just a belief system, it's a web of different cultural and social elements too, which can also have their attraction, good or bad, on people.

I agree with many of the things Dawkins says but I don't like his whole "I'm right & everyone else is an idiot" attitude. As a scientist, he should open his mind a little.

Well, he is right.

The most anoying thing about Santa Claus worshippers, Christians and other religious people, is that they demand respect, respect from the sheer fact that they are utter imbecils who believe in ghosts, virgin births and the abillity to walk on water, and if YOU find it laughable, they burn embassies, threathen with violence and oppression, and still they say that YOU have no respect.

As I said in another discussion somewhere else on this forum a long time ago. Intolerance is not a good way to fight intolerance.

Tolerance of intolerence IS intolerance.

I don't like atheists. The main thing they do is offending religious people and call them stupid and narrow.

...and generalize.

That's a way to see it too. It depends on the situation though.

That's my thing...I don't care what side of the argument you're on, if you start veering down that road I stop listening to you...

Richard Dawkins doesn't display that attitude in my eyes. He is incredibly polite and respectful during his discussions with his interviewees; it is they in return who, it seemed to me, came across as stubborn, rude, intolerant and unreasonable. Religion itself is one-sided; Dawkins is putting forth the counter argument. Religion is based on the irrational and the supernatural and demands "faith"; as a scientist Dawkins seeks the rational and scientific and demands "evidence".
I don't see what people's problem is with him. If someone's belief system so weak and insubstantial that it cannot stand up to the scrutiny and gentle argument of one man then that really says it all.

What? You're saying that "as a scientist" Richard Dawkins should "open his mind a little"? Eh? To what? To the supernatural, superstitious, irrational, illogical and preposterous? To something with no basis in evidence or reason? That is not his job "as a scientist"!! In fact, as a scientist that's as far from his responsibilities as could be.
What on earth are you thinking?

Johnson: you are cold, dead meat.