As for my thoughts on Dawkins and his works, I didn’t want to express an opinion one way or the other for a couple of reasons. First, at the time of this writing I simply didn’t have a solid opinion. While he seemed very interesting and his arguments, what little I knew of them, made sense, I had just heard of the man. However–and this is the second point–being unfamiliar with his work, to either advocate it or oppose it would have been completely ignorant on my part. To amplify this ignorance by expressing an uninformed opinion about the topic in a public forum, where others would perhaps be encountering this information for the first time, would have also been extremely irresponsible. The fact is that his arguments are, by any standard, well though out. Therefore, only the premises and assumptions he uses can be really argued for or against. It is there that my opinions begin, after the premises have been defined. Because I was not familiar enough to BOTH defend AND oppose his viewpoint, I didn’t feel that my opinion would be valid. Finally, the point of the post was to showcase the guy and his ideas, not to showcase my opinions. Therefore, my opinion on the matter, even had I more time to digest the information, was indeed inconsequential.

(If you care to know, my gut reaction then was to agree with the guy wholeheartedly. However, after much more reading and deeper thought, I find that I vehemently disagree with his materialistic view of the world. There he and I have a fundamental difference. However, I agree with him in his arguments that humans are generally good, and don’t necessarily need the fear of all almighty super-being threatening punishment in order to stay in line. I also agree that fundamentalist faith does far more damage than good.)

Don’t worry about sounding like a jerk. Did you? Yeah, a bit. But I understand and truly do appreciate where you’re coming from. Besides, comments like these tend to make my writing better. I’m sure we can both agree that this is a good thing. Take care, Moonright.

Your writing is pretty good but “I have since then began” is not good writing. It is just pretentious writing. Do agree? or do you think it is appropriate to write like that?

But more importantly, the fact of whether you agree with Dawkins or not is very consequential; otherwise his arguments were not well thought out. I don’t understand how you could miss this difference.?. Maybe you meant to say that his logic made sense and that his premises would in fact come to conclusion he states. But to say it is well though out and then dismiss whether you agree or not would say very little of your opinion. I hope I don’t sound like a jerk I am just trying to figure this out.

*sigh* where is the fun in that!?