What false premise?
I know it may seem difficult to isolate a single false premise from the ridiculous mish mas of misquotes, misunderstandings and outright lies, that are contained in the article by Ms Phillips, and I am not sufficiently familiar with Dakin's works to identify them all, but someon has taken the trouble to deconstruct the rubbish put forward, and I will link to it here.
http://richarddawkins.net/articleComments,5267,Dawkins-preaches-to-the-deluded-a...It is from a regular on a forum on a Dawkins site, so we can assume the respondent is probably pretty familiar with Dawkins material, and certainly gives that impression from reading her post.
Here is the start of it, and if you find that interesting, and consider that it may answer your question of "what false premises?", then go to the link and read her whole post, it is worthwhile.
Quote:62. Comment #470009 by Jos Gibbons on March 17, 2010 at 8:18 am
Comment #469965 by God fearing Atheist
Well, 5 pages at any rate; I apologise for taking so long it ended up on the second page of posts. Here it is.
Dawkins preaches to the deluded against the divine
There are two types of people in the world: those who believe almost no religious claims, and those who believe no religious claims. The “deluded” in this case are apparently the latter. Much better, it would seem, to unfairly give credence to a tiny minority of religious claims, to one faith. But with no evidence as to which one, the most common criterion for the choice is the faith of a person’s parents. Is that really the not–deluded option of the two?
2500 hardcore believers in the absence of religion
All the people present are aware religion exists, and not all of them wish to see it eradicated, and nor do all of their speakers. So what claim is MP making about them? Presumably, she is claiming their lack of a belief in a god or gods is a hardcore belief ... which is like saying that not believing in any superstitions is superstitious.
[they gave] a hero's welcome to the high priest of belief in unbelief, Richard Dawkins.
1. Hero or priest? A similar distinction made by Steven Weinberg is that of heroes vs. prophets. He argued science has only the former, since, no matter how well a given scientist had done in their area of expertise, no–one would ever argue for their side in a controversy by referring back to said individual’s opinions; for example, Einstein was once the world’s greatest expert on gravity; but, within under half a century of his death, progress had led to any graduate of general relativity knowing more about gravity than Einstein did. It is unheard of for scientists to argue, on any of the current gravity controversies, “Einstein said X, so X” (and on many such issues Einstein did offer an opinion). Clearly, it is sensible to respect and revere an individual’s achievements, experience and expertise, but secondarily to the evidence. Now, where does this leave RD? The man backs up what he says with some arguments, and offers counterarguments to arguments for claims to the contrary of his own, and replies to critics with arguments. He has, over the course of decades, become respected for his skills in this forum without being appointed to a high position in an autocracy. This is why he is not a priest, but instead merely a hero. 2. “Belief in unbelief” might indicate the intended elimination of belief, or it may simply indicate a desire to see equality for those who lack belief. RD and his ilk usually focus their efforts on the latter, laudable civil rights issue, and they still get ticked off by bigots.
the Australian media ... uncritically lapped up everything he said.
Most of the reports by the Australian media have been the sorts of pieces whose job it is only to say what was said, not to analyse it ... and yet some such pieces still have. The next most common response has been radio interviews of RD, in which he was asked probing questions. The third most common has been attacks with the Australian media upon him such as this, and they have shown no evidence of critical thinking skills – and this piece is no exception.
he referred to the Pope as a Nazi, which managed to combine defamation of the pontiff with implicit Holocaust denial.
1. Why is it that, if you criticise the past or present commitments of anyone else that’s OK, but if you do it to a pope it’s horrid “defamation”? 2. That isn’t Holocaust denial, is it? 3. Just for readers’ information, this was a past pope who really was a Nazi and whom the present one wishes to canonise, rather than the present pope, whose link to the Nazis is far more tenuous, and RD acknowledges that well. I make this point not to correct a somewhat irrelevant error by MP, but to observe that, not only is Benedict XVI praising Pius XII despite his Nazism, but he also recently unapologetically appointed to a senior Vatican position a Holocaust denier.
Family First senator Steve Fielding may feel he got off lightly when Dawkins described him merely as more stupid than an earthworm.
1. This was no public statement. We all use hyperbole in private conversations. 2. He’s a creationist; furthermore, he considers the question of the age of the Earth more worthy of personal opinion than of the scientific evidence. Are you really trying to defend him?
lol, I love that our very own Fielding gets a jab, what a ninny
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