Non-Random Replicator

What content would you like to see here? Any suggestions? I’m willing to take some as long as they remain within the scope of this blog.

Hey, I’m Luke. I’m the writer of this nascent blog. I’m currently 20 years old, and my life’s in limbo. I am a very strong atheist who has no patience with ridiculous superstition or unevolved moral concepts. I am an ex-Christian. Although I’m pretty vocal about my beliefs, I don’t have a problem with moderate Christians as individuals. I respect their right to practise whatever religion they wish. However, I am strongly opposed to organised religion in and of itself for various reasons. I appreciate the world for what it is, rather than what people would like it to be.

I am a fan of many different free-thinking people, such as Richard Dawkins, Bertrand Russell, Daniel Dennett and Friedrich Nietzsche. I try to read a lot of freethought-related books and websites, and I might have a recommendation list soon!

Here is my recounting of my Dawkins adventure. Ya-hoo.
Preparations
I left town at around five-thirty to get to the BART station on time for the talk. It was a pretty smooth ride; nothing happened or anything like that. Whilst I was on it, I sort of just glanced at the train timetable and read a bit of one of the Dawkins books I took with me, A Devil’s Chaplain. After about twenty minutes or so, I arrived in San Francisco. I ended up walking about three miles to the Palace of Fine Arts. Some parts of it weren’t that bad, but other parts were a bit annoying because of the inclines and such things. I didn’t see any shady-looking characters until later, though. There were people trying to ask me for spare change, though. I don’t understand why the hell they wanted me out of all the other people walking around. It must be because of the fact that I was wearing a blazer (albeit over casual clothing) and I was carrying a laptop case. (Although I didn’t take my computer; I was NOT lugging it that far, although I have before.) When I got to the second-to-last street, I found a bunch of other people who were headed in the same direction as me, but they didn’t quite know where they were going, so I helped them out a bit. We discussed Dawkins’s work a bit as well. They figured I was going too, because I had my notebook out. Have notebook, will travel. But anyway, I got there in time by the skin of my teeth. I got there ten minutes or so before Dawkins showed up.

Talkin’ with Dawkins

During the time before he showed up, I wrote a bit of a blurb in the notebook saying how excited I was, and reminiscing about how I’d started becoming interested in Dawkins’s work earlier this year. I didn’t realise how much of a fan of his I’d be until about this February or so, so it was about concurrent with the beginning of Intelligent Artifice. After that, the guy Dawkins was about to be talking to, Roy Eisenhardt, came in to tell us a bit about Dawkins and what he was going to talk about. He also called out some dumbasses who had their CELL PHONES on. *sigh* What IS it with people with their CELL PHONES on at a time like that? He went on for a bit until Dawkins showed up. (Dawkins looks slightly different to the way he does in my icon. He looks a bit older now. The picture of him in this icon was taken a few years ago.) Some people (me included) were going w00w00! when he showed up.

This is going to be the longest bit of my adventure. I took a whole bunch of notes when Dawkins actually started to talk. He first started talking about the (non)existence of God, and the importance of working out for ourselves our beliefs instead of having them spoon-fed to them by parents or clergy or what-have-you. He also talked about ‘Einsteinian religion’ which is basically just a reverence for the universe. He was emphasising that it was rather unfortunate that he used the word ‘God’ to indicate that, rather than something else a bit less charged. After that, he explained the difference between deism and theism, and how he’s against both. I liked what he said about theism: it’s about a personal god who looks after your affairs, listens to your prayers, forgives your sins, cares about your sex life…I think he put it pretty succinctly with that! Dawkins said that he himself was against both theists and deists, but that ‘[Dawkins is] more against the theist because he’s less harmless’. *grin* He goes on to discuss evolution and the folly of creationism, one of his most salient topics. Regarding creationism, he said in essence that coming up with a god that is difficult to explain to explain an improbable universe is to provide no explanation at all. He mentioned the fact that evolution is non-random selection, and that well-honed natural selection over the millennia gives an illusion of design. After this point, the conversation between Dawkins and Eisenhardt veered away from religion specifically and towards evolution in general. Dawkins started to describe ways of finding common ancestors and some of the surprising relationships between animals (hippos and whales are actually closer cousins than to other animals in their branch on the tree of life).

After this, Dawkins goes back to the religion topic. He talks about efforts by scientists like Stephen Jay Gould and Kenneth Miller to say that religion and science do not overlap, and Dawkins was generally saying that it was a bullshit idea, especially because Christians will say things like that, but things like miracles, virgin births and other things interfere with the laws of physics and biology, and so they’re scientific issues as well. He also touched a bit on memes, as well as the improbability of life. At the end, people asked him questions from the audience. I did not ask anything. (Besides, I didn’t want anyone hearing my pre-testosterone voice that loud. Ugh. I don’t like the way my voice sounds at times. Sometimes I do, but sometimes I don’t. I’d like my voice better if it were on someone else. My voice is not deep enough and I am self-conscious about that.) But yeah, the audience’s questions were awesome. After that, it was time for the book-signing. I wasn’t that far back in line, either. I pulled out my copy of The Blind Watchmaker to get him to sign that. He noticed that I’d probably been reading that book a lot. Seriously, my copy of The Blind Watchmaker has helped me get through many forced church sessions and boring times outside. Only right that that’s the one that’s going to be autographed. He seemed really cordial and congenial to the audience and such…and that’s what I was expecting from the man. So yeah, I got what I expected from Dawkins, and I am pleased with his handling of the situation. He doesn’t seem like the BIG TIME SUPER DELUXE IN YO’ FACE asshole that people probably imagine him to be. He seemed really pleasant, so I don’t get it. I think it’s just his opinions. He doesn’t come off as macho, either. When he was on the stage, sitting down, I noticed that he did not assume dominance positions or seem to be lording the discussion over. He didn’t interrupt the audience members, and he didn’t seem to be gloating about his achievements. He comes across as being very modest and mild-mannered as well. I just think that a few things stir him up, like creationists and fundies.