My Response to Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

Dear Shmuley,

I did not say you think like Hitler, or hold the same opinions as Hitler, or do terrible things to people like Hitler. Obviously and most emphatically you don't. I said you shriek like Hitler. That is the only point of resemblance, and it is true. You shriek and yell and rant like Hitler. Not all the time, of course. You also tell very good jokes, and tell them brilliantly. You deservedly get lots of laughs, as a good comedian should. But throughout your speeches you periodically rise to climaxes of shrieking rant, and that is just like Hitler. Incidentally, Dinesh D'Souza yells and shrieks in just the same way. I suppose it impresses some people, although it is hard to believe.

Anybody who has something sensible or worthwhile to say should be able to say it calmly and soberly, relying on the words themselves to convey his meaning, without resorting to yelling. Hitler had nothing but nonsense to say. He spoke nonsense about race, nonsense about history, nonsense about Jews. If one speaks nonsense in a calm and sober voice nobody listens, so Hitler yelled his nonsense at the top of his voice and, unfortunately, people listened -- stupid, ignorant people. You have sensible things to say about sex and love, and you have no need to yell when you are talking sense. Unfortunately, when you turn to the subject of evolution, you don't know what you are talking about, so you yell and shriek to make up for it. Maybe yelling and shrieking works with an ignorant audience. It apparently worked for Hitler, but that is not a happy precedent. You should know better. Go and read some books about evolution, learn something about biology, and you'll then find that you can talk about it in a calm and civilised voice. You'll find that you won't need to yell and shriek like a madman, and you'll be all the more persuasive for it.

Just a piece of friendly advice

All good wishes
Richard

Previously:
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach: My Response to Richard Dawkins Comparing Me to Hitler

Comments

[iluvsam]

The good Rabbi is not even in the same sport, let alone the same league, as Richard Dawkins.
He should know his own limitations.

[Dave24]

Evolution works. Precisely because it works, the manmade idea called "God" becomes moot. Our ancestors invented the philosophical notion of the supernatural, and used literary narratives to sculpt and then preserve those myths as alleged truth. All scripture is culturally born and bounded, passed on, as Dawkins would say, like a mental virus.

We are born on an active planet that doesn't care about life or non-life. So rather than deal with this reality head on, we created a fictional supervisor to watch over us in order to feel better about our dire circumstance, as beautiful as it may be.

The rabbi (as is the case with all other clergymen) thinks that quoting verse and quoting people who were at times insightful somehow supports his argument, when in fact doing so is a tool used in leiu of one.

God is an idea. It's just an idea. And anyone who pretends to *know* otherwise is lying, and should not be trusted.

Professor Dawkins, thank you for your candor and continued fight against irrationality and the explicit dangers of all religion.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

[LeoMarvin]

1. Evolution says nothing one way or the other about the existence of God.

2. God either exists or not. If not, then God is, as your say, only an idea. But if God does exist, then God is obviously more than just an idea.

[waxwings]

this post needs side-by-side comparison videos.

[LeoMarvin]

HuffPost's Pick

Professor Dawkins,

You deny accusing Rabbi Boteach of thinking or behaving like Hitler. You say "the only point of resemblance" is that he "shriek[s] like Hitler." That lovely comparison alone breaches the norms of civility, but you go further and do, in fact, essentially accuse him of thinking and, in at least one respect, acting like Hitler.

You say Hitler raised his voice to enthrall "stupid, ignorant people" with his "nonsense" about race, history and Jews. You then claim Rabbi Boteach does the same thing to compensate for his ignorance about evolution. You add that in so doing he may persuade some "ignorant audience[s]" like Hitler did.

You accused a Rabbi of browbeating ignorant audiences with lies about evolution, the way Hitler did about Jews, and you're standing by that comment? That's anything but an innocuous observation about speaking tones. Do you really not see what's wrong with accusing a Rabbi who disagrees with you about evolution of lying like Hitler, however mistaken you think he is?

Reductio ad hitlerum is rejected in civil debate for good reason. To say the least, it's beneath you. As a great admirer of your work I'm dismayed you somehow stumbled into it, but I'm even more shocked you're digging the hole deeper by trying to justify it.

[hapkidokid]

Hear, hear.

[CraigR]

“You deny accusing Rabbi Boteach of thinking or behaving like Hitler.”
Wrong. Dawkins did not accuse Boteach of thinking like Hitler, but did say (and did not deny) that Boteach behaved like Hitler in that he “shrieked” like Hitler, which is a form of “behavior.”
“You say "the only point of resemblance" is that he "shriek[s] like Hitler." That lovely comparison alone breaches the norms of civility…”
“Lovely comparison?” Your words, not Dawkins. The comparison that Dawkins draws, that of the “shriekiness” of the two, breaches no “norms of civilty,” and addresses the bizarre manner in which they speak.
“but you go further and do, in fact, essentially accuse him of thinking and, in at least one respect, acting like Hitler.”
Dawkins did not accuse Boteach of thinking like Hitler, but reiterated his claim of acting like Hitler…with the shriekiness.
“You say Hitler raised his voice to enthrall ‘stupid, ignorant people’ with his ‘nonsense’ about race, history and Jews. You then claim Rabbi Boteach does the same thing to compensate for his ignorance about evolution.
Unbelievable…Yes, Boteach ACTS ( but doesn’t THINK) like Hitler…with the ranting, and the raving, and the shriekiness…oy veh!
“You accused a Rabbi of browbeating ignorant audiences with lies about evolution, the way Hitler did about Jews, and you're standing by that comment?”
Of course Dawkins is…because the behavioral manner in which they both delivered their message is very similar. Undeniable. To anyone who knows what the word "behavior" means.

[themodestagnostic]

--You say Hitler raised his voice to enthrall "stupid, ignorant people" with his "nonsense" about race, history and Jews. You then claim Rabbi Boteach does the same thing to compensate for his ignorance about evolution. You add that in so doing he may persuade some "ignorant audience[s]" like Hitler did.--

Thanks for that contribution Captian Obvious.

Anyone remotely familiar with Boteach, and evolution or related disciplines can see that the Rabbi is either clueless, or pandering to the idiot religious class. The kindest observation one can make about your post, is that your own ignorance of the evolution precludes you from seeing with a scam artist Boteach is.

[LeoMarvin]

Interesting comment. I express my disappointment that Professor Dawkins (a man whose work I admire) uncharacteristically resorted to some discourteous name-calling, and your response is to name-call and insult me and another HuffPost blogger. Let me be frank. I'm capable of saying things in the heat of argument that I later regret. And I don't appreciate being insulted, so right now I'd enjoy nothing more than to give you a piece of my mind in unfriendly terms. But I won't, even though that will leave me with an itch I can't scratch, and it will give you an unearned advantage in a public argument.

Why? Trust me, it's not because I'm a saint or in any way above it all. I'm anything but. It's because our standards of civility don't make exceptions for "He asked for it." And when civility breaks down, debating and arguing become fighting, and word wars don't stay limited as such forever. Most important, as corrosive as incivility is, that's how indispensable courtesy is to the flow of ideas free societies rely on.

As someone who seems to identify with the intellectual movement evolution stands for, do you really need someone to explain that to you? And do you really think Professor Dawkins would want to be defended this way?

[StarBerrySat]

What a brilliant response.
Rabbi Shmuley... you're out of your league.

[hapkidokid]

If you mean "bush" league, you are right.