son of Michael Behe, the Catholic biochemist who coined the term "Irreducible Complexity". I turned away from my family's Catholic faith two years ago and am now an outspoken atheist. AMA. 1.At seventeen, I was something of a little thinker, and I liked questioning everything and looking at issues from different sides. I had never applied that to religion, so I eventually decided to dive right in and listen to the opposing side. I had the utmost confidence in my faith, and I was a very devout Catholic. The first book I read against religion was Dawkins' "The God Delusion". While I didn't (and still don't) agree with everything he said, I tried to empty my mind of assumptions and reformed opinions as much as possible. I read through the whole book in two days, and the result was quite shocking to me. It was like taking off rose-colored glasses for the first time. I realized how questionable religion might sound to some who had not grown up around it. And that was the foundation of my change- it took quite a while to accept, I'd say about six months, but the more I read, the more I realized that religion's claims were simply unfounded.
maybe, maybe not. its sad what religion does to the mind. here we have a father not allowing siblings to talk to each other because one is a freethinker. the really interesting thing is that behe calls himself a scientist. scientists should not fear opposing opinions: "It's simply because I am required to while I live there. I really don't like going, in the same way that a Christian would not like attending a gathering each week where someone talks about how religion is bullshit. I'm nineteen, turning twenty on the thirtieth of this month... the day of the Stewart/Colbert rally, which I plan on attending My two little brothers and my eighteen-year-old sister are 'questioning' religion, which is why my parents are attempting to keep them away from me at all costs." "Yes... my father has instituted a rule where I am "quarantined" (his word) to the basement, where I must reside separately from the rest of my family. I am supposed to realize that I'm "like a separate family" (his words again). Every time my little brothers come down to grab something and try to speak to me, my mom or dad is at the top of the steps calling them back up within seconds, and I feel like shit. Not to be dramatic, but it does suck."
*shrug* Is the absence of religion any happier? For example, maybe with a little religious tolerance, or transcendant vision, you could let this topic go. Alternatively, maybe with a little more atheistic logic you would realize you have a better shot at winning a joust with a windmill, (after all, you might hit a vane) than you do changing peoples' minds about religion.
does intellectual honesty and the search for answers have any value to you? Alternatively if people are deluded but happy are they better off than people who are informed?
Its funny that you resort to citing an confused kid who did really understand that Dawkins admits there could be a designer. 06-28-10 05:50 PM I quoted this a while ago for some of the atheists here... it is very traumatic to their weltanschanunngs - so I do not like to injure them too often --but , I thought it was time to post it again.... "Richard Dawkins- The Person Clinton Richard Dawkins, probably the most renowned atheist alive today, currently serves as the Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science, University of Oxford, and Professorial Fellow of New College. Dawkins received his M.A. and D.Sc. degrees from Oxford University and has since been awarded five honorary doctoral degrees. Quite the rhetorician himself, Dr. Dawkins at least attempts to summarize his keys arguments for logical consideration. Richard Dawkins - The God Delusion On pages 157 and 158 of The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins encapsulates the central argument of his book in six points. The following comes directly from Dawkinsâ book, except that I chose to shorten a few of the points here for the sake of brevity.1 1. One of the greatest challenges to the human intellect, over the centuries, has been to explain how the complex, improbable appearance of design in the universe arises. 2. The natural temptation is to attribute the appearance of design to actual design itself. In the case of a man-made artifact such as a watch, the designer really was an intelligent engineer. It is tempting to apply the same logic to an eye or a wing, a spider or a person. 3. The temptation is a false one, because the designer hypothesis immediately raises the larger problem of who designed the designer. The whole problem we started out with was the problem of explaining statistical improbability. It is obviously no solution to postulate something even more improbable. 4. Darwinian evolution by natural selection offers the greatest, most powerful explanatory scope so far discovered in the biological sciences. Darwin and his successors have shown how living creatures, with their spectacular statistical improbability and appearance of design, have evolved by slow, gradual degrees from simple beginnings. We can now safely say that the illusion of design in living creatures is just that -- an illusion. 5. We donât yet have an equivalent well-grounded, explanatory model for physics. Some kind of multiverse theory could in principle do for physics the same explanatory work as Darwinism does for biology. This kind of explanation is superficially less satisfying than the biological version of Darwinism, because it makes heavier demands on luck. But the anthropic principle entitles us to postulate far more luck than our limited human intuition is comfortable with. 6. We should not give up the hope of a well-grounded explanatory model arising in physics, something as powerful as Darwinism is for biology. But even in the absence of a strongly satisfying model to match the biological one, the relatively weak models we have at present are, when abetted by the anthropic principle, self-evidently better than the self-defeating God hypothesis of an intelligent designer. 7. If the argument of this chapter (book) is accepted, the factual premise of religion -- the God hypothesis â is untenable. God almost certainly does not exist. This is the main conclusion of the book so far." http://www.allaboutscience.org/richard-dawkins.htm"
<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/9M_ZF8r5e7w?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/9M_ZF8r5e7w?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object> Here Dawkins admits higher intelligence could have designed us.
dawkins isnt important in this story. what is important is this. even a guy like behe cant trick his own kids into believing bs when he has no basis in fact behind his beliefs. education is a more powerful force than superstition if people are allowed to freely use it.