Richard Dawkins claims that athiests are of a 'higher consciousness' to God believers...?

Question

...what do you think?

Answer 1

I don't really like Richard Dawkins. He's very arrogant.

I don't think he's really accomplishing anything by going around saying "Look at me! I'm so smart because I'm an athiest"
All it does is make the rest of us look bad

Answer 2

I used to hate Dawkins for the same reasons everyone else who answered here has. Then paganism got real smarmy and moronic and I was fed up. I saw solace in Dawkins, felt foolish to think he was arrogant, and accepted him as a flash of reason. I was pagan for 14 years, and for all I knew, there was a place known as 'summerland' where it was basically the Wiccan afterlife. I really had no theory of my own regarding a creation, or an afterlife. When I had enough of the nonsense and the unanswered questions filling my head with curiosity, and no faith/belief system to back it up explanation wise, especially the go-nowhere New Age junk that tries to mix quantum physics with non-corporeal spirit sh!t- I just stripped myself of all belief of anything organised and dogmatic. I see allegory for what it is, not what people name it. As for a higher consciousness, I tend to not talk about things that are not all-the-way understood by human means. I just let things happen and write stuff down as a subjective view. Like Einstein, I like to fall into that between waking and sleeping state often. It is in this state people say the mind is filterless.

Kaboodle, to comapre eternity with your so-assumed opposite which includes the 'temporal', you are assuming that time is linear? Time is not linear. Time is eternal and forever fluctuating. Yes, the earth will die someday, but you cannot destroy something that cannot be destroyed.

OR perhaps you meant 'temporary'? Same root word, different meaning.

Answer 3

That is an interesting point, which I'm tempted to agree with.

Imagine growing up being forced to wear red-tinted sunglasses all day, because everybody around you tells you you need them to see correctly. Then, later in life, you decide to remove them. What do you find? You can't see right! The world all looks wrong!

Is this because those people were right? Of course not. All those years of wearing the glasses have damaged your eyes, so you can't see properly even if you take them off. In fact, you've got to the point where you actually do need the glasses! They have reduced your ability to see correctly, perhaps permanently, and now, ironically, you can only make sense of the world with them on.

Perhaps religion works like that? After a childhood (even a lifetime) of being brainwashed, you may find it difficult to see and interpret the world clearly, even after the brainwashing stops, because you have developed a brain hard-wired for irrational thought.

Looking at it like that, atheists could perhaps be considered to be of a 'higher level of consciousness', while religious individuals have a kind of disability, as the former have a properly developed sense of logic and reasoning, while the latter were never allowed to developed one.

I'm certainly going to give this some more thought!

Answer 4

Amongst top phiosophers and theorists, the religious and non-religious appear to be of fairly equal intelligence (and insanity).

In the general population, though, athiests tend to be a bit more analytical and erudite (if somewhat more cynical).

I think claiming a higher level of consciousness is akin to claiming an evolutionary difference, which is probably overgilding the lilly, somewhat.

Answer 5

Yeah, that sounds like the kind of annoyingly-pompous but unfortunately-probably-true thing that Dawkins is liable to say now and again.

However, I doubt he has to deal with the kind of wannabe teenage atheist you get on this site, the kind that just thinks that anything older than about 1980 is stupid and pointless and that therefore all those centuries of amazing religion-inspired music and art can be dismissed as a waste of time. Those people don't annoy me as much as sanctimonious religious hypocrites - but sometimes it's a close-run thing.

Answer 6

Higher intellect maybe in some instances. And a greater degree of self-reliance and personal responsibility, perhaps. But I don't think I'd use the term "higher consciousness". It has connotations that take away from the point he's trying to make.

Answer 7

Impeyan: I think you meant "twit," lol. I can't believe they don't blank out the word "****." My mother would have grounded me for weeks as a kid if I ever said that in public.

Anyway, I think Richard Dawkins is a self-righteous piece of crap. It would be accurate, however, to say that his consciousness is higher up his [insert three-letter word here] than your average person. He's one hell of a good writer, though.

That being said, I think that atheists generally are more logical than theists. Of course, Dawkins assumes that "high consciousness" deals strictly with logic, and not other important factors of consciousness, like IQ, EQ, compassion, creativity, etc. Overall consciousness would probably be equal between theists and atheists, although the concentration of this consciousness might be focused in different areas.

Answer 8

What would Richard Dawkins know about a "higher consciousness" to anything? Conscience is a sense of right and wrong with an urge to do right. Totality of one's thoughts and feelings, awareness. Repentance will get him a little higher consciousness. Repentance begins with a change of thought concerning sin.

2 Peter 2:12
"But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption"

Richard Dawkins must change his ways because his knees will bow to Jesus Christ.

Answer 9

it seems that most atheists claim to think more about stuff while theists tend to take it all in stride, claiming it as faith. Everyone should think and try to reason out their own believes but Dawkins is obviously more trained in anti-apologetics arguments.
The problem with Christians is that most of them dont know why they believe what they believe. So atheists can easily discredit them

Answer 10

I don't agree with everything Richard Dawkins says.
Only about 99% of it.

I'm not sure what 'consciousness' means in this context. I think (er... know) that atheists have a truer understanding of the world around them.

Answer 11

Dawkins writes in seriousness what the atheists of Bertrand Russell's day would have thought foolish.
.