Richard Dawkins: Insightful secular strategist or an insincere book peddler?

Is Richard Dawkins an insightful secular strategist or merely an insincere book peddler?

Global atheism and global agnosticism  are both shrinking in terms of their number of adherents and their worldwide market share.

We provide a host of evidence for these matters from academia, survey data, leading web traffic tracking companies and other sources of information (see our post: Down with evolutionary belief! Down with atheism! Hurray for the Question Evolution! Campaign!).

If Dawkins is a poor strategist, this would further complicate things for those who oppose Christianity and creationism.

Recently, we posted some strong evidence pointing to Dawkins being an inconsistent and disingenuous book marketer.

We encourage you to read our posts:

Is Richard Dawkins a flip-flopper?

Why does Richard Dawkins have such a high belief in the possibility of fairies being at the bottom of the garden?

Richard Dawkins and the Rabbi Boteach debate

Richard Dawkins: a bumbler, strategist or a book peddler?

Setting aside Dawkins' endorsement of the Brights Movement which was a total disaster and his previously cited inconsistent and muddled thinking, is there evidence that he is a disaster when it comes to strategic thinking?  We know that the evolutionist Adolf Hitler was no strategist and tactician and he constantly irritated his generals. Does Dawkins possess the same cognitive deficit?  Many times intense anger can cloud a person's judgement and the abrasive Dawkins certainly hates Christianity.

Let us compare the master strategist and general Sun Tzu, whose work The Art of War is still studied by generals and strategic thinkers today, with the behavior of Richard Dawkins.

Richard Dawkins vs. Sun Tzu

The famous Chinese general Sun Tzu wrote that when you are smaller in number, attack the weakest points of the enemy.

"To be certain to take what you attack, attack where the enemy cannot defend." - Sun Tzu

"To achieve an advance that cannot be hampered, rush to his weak points." - Sun Tzu

So what is the current "strategic" plan of Richard Dawkins? He prominently features a "Ten point vision of a secular America" on his main website. The United States is a country that is the capital of creationism and where atheists are held in low esteem by a very large segment of the population.

American atheist Sam Harris said about the label of atheist: "It's right next to child molester as a designation." A study conducted by the University of British Columbia involving Americans and Canadians indicated that atheists are among the least trusted groups in North America.

The evidence is mounting that Richard Dawkins is not an astute strategist for agnosticism, atheism and evolutionism. But let's dig deeper.

Did Richard Daawkins' God Delusion significantly advance atheism or agnosticism?

New Atheism is a new form of militant atheism which started in the period between 2004 and 2007. The New Atheism movement has not had much of an impact in terms of gaining new adherents to atheism. In a March 10, 2008 USA Today article Stephen Prothero wrote:

Numbers lie, but they also tell tales untrustworthy and otherwise. So the key question stirring around the much discussed U.S Religious Landscape Survey released in late February by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life is what tale does it state about the state of the union.

For some, the story of this survey, based on interviews in multiple languages with more than 35,000 adults, is the strength of American Religion.

Not too long ago, I wrote that American atheism was going the way of the freak show. As books by Christopher Hitchens and other "new atheists" climbed the best seller lists, I caught a lot of flak for that prophecy. But atheist make up only 1.6% of respondents to this survey....

Vox Day argues that the main thing the book the God Delusion accomplished was further damaging Dawkins reputation as the book was sloppily researched and badly argued.

Why is America a focus of Dawkins' efforts?

Of course, given his past flops, one can certainly believe that Dawkins' focus is the result of ineptness. I strongly suspect, given the evidence above, that he is focusing on America due to hopes of greater book sales as the New York Times and other liberal media outlets will help Dawkins hawk more books. Expanding atheism in Eastern Europe, which was impoverished by atheistic communism, is not going to yield significant book sales for Dawkins.

Furthermore, the refusal to Richard Dawkins to debate the Christian William Lane Craig provides ample additional evidence of the insincerity of Dawkins. Oxford atheist Daniel Came wrote to Dawkins: "The absence of a debate with the foremost apologist for Christian theism is a glaring omission on your CV and is of course apt to be interpreted as cowardice on your part."



Other resources

Question Evolution! Campaign

15 questions for evolutionists

Responses to the 15 Questions: part 1 - Questions 1-3

Responses to the 15 Questions: part 2 - Questions 4–8

Responses to the 15 Questions: part 2 - Questions 9-15

Refuting evolution


Photo credits,Statue:

Description	English: Enchoen in Yurihama, Tottori prefecture, Japan 日本語: 燕趙園, 鳥取県湯梨浜町
Date	27 September 2008
Source	663highland
Author	663highland

License:  This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Source of picture: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Enchoen27n3200.jpg