1. The heretic

Comment #237515 by Greywizard on August 26, 2008 at 4:03 pm

It took a long time for that to prove true, yet thanks to those idealistic 19th-century students, everyone who comes to Rome to behold the splendor of the Vatican is also presented with a reminder of its bloody, repressive past.

2. Antony Flew reviews the Index of The God Delusion

Comment #214634 by Greywizard on July 20, 2008 at 5:55 pm

Quite aside from the rather sad, confused nature of Flew's response, Dawkins does provide a pretty good definition of Deism on page 38 of The God Delusion.

3. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #148694 by Greywizard on March 23, 2008 at 3:54 pm

Ben Stein has reached a low point in his career. He went from being a speech writer for a President, to being a second rate actor, to doing Clear Eye commercials, and finally a narrator for a Lord Privy Seal infested documentary.

Does he have a career now?! Only in America?!

4. Priest who committed suicide for rebirth cremated

Comment #103223 by Greywizard on December 24, 2007 at 2:20 pm

A couple of points.

First, it may have been this poor deluded man's choice, but the choice was to a large degree determined by his upbringing. It's easy for people to say that all you have to do is choose, but as Dawkins has pointed out time and time again, a lot of religion is perpetuated because children are 'got to' when they aren't old enough to make any choices, and religious indoctrination is very thorough and very deep. So, despite the element of choice, the man deserves our sympathy, and why sympathy should be thought of in a dismissive way by calling it Oprah-esque is quite beyond me. A little humanity would be welcome, even from those who don't believe -- especially from us, because all we've got going for us is our humanity.

Second, a point that no one seems to have addressed is that, according to the gospels, anyway, Jesus played the same trick. He got himself arrested on a capital charge and then said he'd rise again in three days (or be raised). Millions of people around the globe claim that he did.

5. God rest you merry atheist

Comment #102986 by Greywizard on December 24, 2007 at 5:43 am

I think Libby is right to have some reservations about the idea of cultural Christianity. The reason is simple. Liberal Christians are cultural Christians. This is something that Dawkins misses in his book. He takes it for granted that to be a Christian you have to believe literally all the doctrines of Christianity, but that is not the case, as the Christian atheism of the 1960s shows. Dawkins may think that this makes them simply atheists who haven't recognised the fact yet, but there is not reason for thinking that people who think of religion as a human creation are completely irrational, even though they use language that they do not intend to take literally.

The idea lies in what Tillich calls the 'broken myth'. Liberal religious believers acknowledge the brokenness of the myth, that is, they acknowledge that it can no longer be held to be true in any ojbective way, but go on to "live" the myth, in full acknowledgement of its brokenness. This means that they can sing the Christmas carols, just like Richard Dawkins, and with just as much or as little belief, too.

The more important question, though, is surely what the story they are singing about says. And, despite Dan Dennett's view that it is a lovely story, I think it can be shown to be very cruel, and not only because of Herod and the supposed massacre of little boys in Bethlehem,

First, the story demeans humanity. Since Jesus has to be born of a virgin in order to be sinless, it says of our sexuality that it is, in itself, sinful. And though the story may exalt Mary, it disparages women in general, since none of them will be virgin mothers.

Second, the story says that the only way to save humanity is to have a sinless man suffer terribly in our place. The baby Jesus is the Christ, remember, who suffers on the cross for our redemption.

Third, redemption is redemption from eternal and infinite suffering, the worst idea that we poor humans have ever had (as Cupitt would say), the idea of a damned soul that cannot die. What we all really deserve, according to the story of Christmas, is to suffer infinitely and forever.

And then we sing about it, and think that it's a lovely story. I think it is reasonable to hold that there are serious moral deficiencies in the story, and that, whatever the music, or whatever the nostalgia, we should learn to sing better songs.

6. Here Comes the Fourth Musketeer.

Comment #33618 by Greywizard on April 20, 2007 at 6:08 pm

William, I think the reason the word 'god' on the jacket is small is that god is not GREAT!

7. Richard Dawkins interviews the Bishop of Oxford

Comment #33420 by Greywizard on April 20, 2007 at 4:03 am

ImagineAZ said: 'If Bishop Harries spoke for Christians, there would be no major issues between Christianity and naturalists.'

I intensely disagree. The conversation may be very civil, indeed, but the gulf between Harries and Dawkins is huge. Dawkins is, in fact, being terrifically polite, when there are clearly many places where he wants to be much more forceful, especially on the subject of euthanasia or assisted death (and other places too, but let's concentrate on that). Harries' claim that he is concerned about this issue on purely philosophical grounds is misleading.

Harries claims to disapprove of the valuing of human autonomy over all other values. But why is this a concern? The fact that, when a person is in extremis, that person's assessment of his or her priorities is, in fact, to be preferred to absolute claims made by others of the value of his or her life, is not a valuing of autonomy over all other values. It is, in fact, claiming that autonomy does trump other values when pain and misery and imminent death and extreme disability are such as to make life a burden too great too bear (for the individual, whose judgement here is what counts). You can't get to the place where Bishop Harries is without the idea of the sacredness of life lurking in the background.

However, if we jump outside the video, one thing that really convinces me that Harries' speaking for Christians would not mean no major issue between Christianity and naturalism is this quote from his book "After the Evil: Christianity and Judaism in the Shadow of the Holocaust": 'I would argue that it is dangerous to think of history being a continuing source of revelation, if new revelation is meant. However, there can be no objection to thinking of history as drawing out the implications which lie latent in the New Testament.' (100) This is just plain obsucrantism, and a way of trumping every other source of knowledge. If it's true, it's in the New Testament. This is nonsense.

Also ridiculous is the discussion of miracles, and the strict ration of miracles to which God is limited in his dealings with us. Of course, the founding miracles of Christianity, particularly resurrection (and ascension, I assume, with so-called virgin birth rated rather lower in importance), are allowed, but others are restricted, perhaps, to a few specially holy people who – what shall we say? – "channel" divine powers of healing. This is not rational or reasonable. It is merely patching the holes in a leaking ship, trying to retain as much as his "reason" will allow, but leaving it open to others a tolerate a greater density of the miraculous. Who determines when the ration of miracles is rationally tolerable?

Harries is a religious "moderate" who, it needs to be said, makes religion plausible to reasonable people, and incidentally permits all the evils that are perpetrated in the name of religion.

8. Einstein & Faith

Comment #31455 by Greywizard on April 12, 2007 at 6:35 pm

In his recent book, "Against All Gods", AC Grayling argues that the name 'atheist' is, in fact, inappropriate for unbelievers in supernatural agency to use. It immediately puts the argument on the theist's turf. He recommends the title 'naturalist'. Einstein was certainly not a theist, and doubtfully a deist, from this evidence. But, whatever he was, he was a naturalist. And that should be enough.

9. Is God poison?

Comment #30913 by Greywizard on April 10, 2007 at 9:48 am

MartinSGill. Your response is exactly the same as mine, and I was going to write something very similar. It's a puzzling article. Bethune obviously has a good grasp of why atheists find religion problematic. But then comes the odd quirk that he just doesn't like atheists. But to point to their lack of wonder and their acerbity and trenchancy is entirely to miss the point. Wonder Dawkins has in plenty, and Harris still retains a curious attachment to spiritual experience. But if Bethune is right to characterise religion in the way that he does, surely a bit of trenchancy and acerbity are in order?

So, I am mystified. How does someone like Bethune look in the mirror and not see someone else?

10. Answers To the Atheists

Comment #30268 by Greywizard on April 7, 2007 at 11:17 am

Curious, Dionne takes Borg's and Crossan's idea of the passion as definitive. However, the real meaning of the word 'passion' in the case of Jesus' suffering and death has to do, not with Jesus' passion for justice or anything else, but with what he suffered, that is, what happened to him (passively). I cculd just about muster up the enthusiasm for following a martyr who died for something real, but someone who merely suffers for the sake of suffering?! Borg and Crossan can reinterpret as they like, but that is not Christianity, and it would be more honest of them to admit it. Here is a perfect examnple of the moderates being the gateway to religion for apparently reasonable people, who then very often take it from this moderate beginning to the extremes of fundamentalism and fanaticism. After all, once you given way to unreason, what is there to stop you going all the way.

11. John Paul Sainthood Nun 'Gentle, Simple'

Comment #28541 by Greywizard on March 29, 2007 at 4:49 pm

Thanks to Rtambree for this wonderfully succinct summary of some common religious claims:

'If you get cured, it's the Lord's grace.

If you don't get cured, the Lord works in mysterious ways.

If you get worse, the Lord is testing your faith.

If medical science makes you better, the Lord gave us reason and should be praised.

If you don't survive the illness, the Lord called you to Him.

If Charles Manson butchered your family, the Lord gave us free will.'

This is great, and worth repeating. Thanks.

In "The Demon-Haunted World" Carl Sagan pointed out that natural remissions of cancer occurred at a fairly fixed rate, and that the rate of remission of those with cancer going to Lourdes was much lower than average (possibly because Lourdes attracts those in extremis). Does anyone know what the remission rate is for people suffering from Parkinsons' Disease?

Perhaps the church could also explain how it could be known that prayers 'to' John Paul II brought about healing for the good sister, and not prayers to God or Jesus or Mary or some other saint. Surely, all prayers on her behalf were not addressed to a dead pope.

There is a funny passage in TGD, as I recall, where Dawkins pokes fun at the idea that John Paul II seemed to know that it was Our Lady of Fatima that deflected the bullet aimed at his heart, and not Our Lady of Guadalupe, or Our Lady of Medjugorje. Perhaps the best response to the kind of idiocy represented in this report is simple old-fashioned mockery.

12. Hell is real and eternal: Pope

Comment #28073 by Greywizard on March 27, 2007 at 8:22 pm

I think it is worthwhile quoting Don Cupitt about the Christian belief in hell.

"One begins to realize that at the very heart of traditional objective theism there is something utterly dreadful and horrible, the worst idea that we poor humans have ever had, a virus in the brain so soul-destroying and yet tenacious that one wonders how we will ever be able wholly to rid ourselves of it. .... At the core of monotheistic faith is an experience of black, all-consuming terror, the terror of a damned soul that knows it cannot die. And that is why we have been so frightened of breaking the rules, and so fascinated with the spiritual power wielded by those who adminster the rules." (The Old Creed and the New, pp. 11-12)

It is important, I think, to recognize how deeply embedded this idea is in Western thought, and how terribly infected so many of us are with this 'black, all-consuming terror.' It is not - trust me - easy to rid oneself of. Some of you are so fortunate not to have been so infected.

13. The many forms of fundamentalism

Comment #27717 by Greywizard on March 26, 2007 at 10:21 am

Corylus. Thanks for this paragraph in particular.

"So when these people talk about 'the enlightenment questioning itself' they are not questioning questioning. (If that makes sense!) What they are questioning is whether there is any point listening to the answers. They persist in questioning themselves though, because they do not know what else to do."

That hits the nail on the head, especially, "What they are questioning is whether there is any point listening to the answers."

Thanks. You rant very well.

Cheers.

14. The many forms of fundamentalism

Comment #27605 by Greywizard on March 25, 2007 at 3:14 pm

Corylus. Yes, a nice summary of postmodernism, but you don't ask the $64,000 question: Is there any such thing? I understand all that about rejecting absolutisms, and thinking that knowledge is relative, and all that. But we've seen this before. Protagoras was a good example of that, but he was scarcely a postmodernist.

Besides, Enlightenment rationalism was, at least in part, a rejection of absolutisms anyway. Science itself is a case in point, and Popper's point, though it may not have provided a final understanding of the meaning of scientific statements, was that all theories, in order to say anything, had to be falsifiable. If they didn't rule out anything, they didn't say anything either. That's a good logical point. But Popper, though he seemed to deny the possibility of scientific truth (because all scientific theories must be, in principle, falsifiable), was scarcely a postmodernist.

That's why I don't understand the idea in James Carroll's piece about the Enlightenment criticising itself. That's what Enlightenment is all about: critical knowledge! So, of course, on Enlightenment principles, we must always be awake to the possibility, in any given case, that we may be wrong. But to suppose that this critical principle is itself wrong is simply to give up the whole project of knowing (and criticism) itself. Some people think this makes sense. I don't think it does.

15. The many forms of fundamentalism

Comment #27507 by Greywizard on March 25, 2007 at 4:28 am

No argument, BaronOchs, 'the Enlightenment criticizing itself' has to do with postmodernism. Still don't see what it has to do with the Enlightenment criticizing itself.

16. The many forms of fundamentalism

Comment #27472 by Greywizard on March 24, 2007 at 6:59 pm

I might add that while I agree with the substance of Carroll's piece on fundamentalism - along with his identification of the Vatican as one of fundamentalism's sponsors - his remark about the Enlightenment project tacitly supports fundamentalists' scepticism regarding Enlightenment values - why shouldn't they, if the Enlightenment project is sceptical of itself? - when it is, in fact, largely, the increasing appeals to tradition and authority - in contrast to the open texture of rational argument and scientific method - by fundamentalists and their friends that constitutes the contemporary criticism of the Enlightenment project.

17. The many forms of fundamentalism

Comment #27469 by Greywizard on March 24, 2007 at 6:49 pm

"...all fundamentalisms, rejecting a secular claim to have replaced the sacred as chief source of meaning, are skeptical of Enlightenment values, even as the Enlightenment project has begun to criticize itself."

What does this mean? The Enlightenment project is not a person. It cannot criticize itself. Some people may have lost faith in the Enlightenment project, the project of bringing reason to bear on knowledge, morality, social order, political organization, etc. But in what possible sense is this the Enlightenment criticizing itself? This is the kind of careless thinking that the Enlightenment project sought to minimize.

18. The Dawkins Confusion: Naturalism ad absurdum

Comment #23729 by Greywizard on March 2, 2007 at 9:11 am

Plantinga's reductio of naturalism. In Plantinga's critique of Dawkins (et al.) there is an argument against the possibility of naturalism. According to this, the fact that human minds are the products of evolution indicates that, while adaptive, ideas or beliefs that evolved minds have can have no relation to truth. Therefore, there can be no evidence that naturalism is true. In fact, he goes much further when he says: 'It's as likely, given unguided evolution, that we live in a sort of dream world as that we actually know something about ourselves and our world.'

Is this more than just an assertion? Has Plantinga given reasons for coming to this conclusion? He certainly thinks he has. He thinks, for instance, that any idea of the reliability of our cognitive capacities can only be 'a naive hope'. Why? Well, because the most that we can say, apparently, is that our cognitive capacities are adaptive.

This is a very peculiar point of view. After all, 'adaptive' here simply means, responsive to something in the environment. If our cognitive capacities did not give a reasonably accurate "picture" of the environment, then they could hardly be adaptive in the relevant sense, because we need to know what's there, what dangers lurk in the environment, or what opportunities are to be found there, if the organism is going to be able to adapt to the environment and to survive within it. So, adaptiveness already points to at least some kind of accuracy in our cognitive capacities.

Plantinga refers to Dawkins' discussion of bats in "The Blind Watchmaker," and he comments: 'his account of bats and their ways in his earlier book The Blind Watchmaker is a brilliant and fascinating tour de force.' But that tour de force is all about how bats, using sonar, create an accurate model in their heads of their environment, being able to avoid trees and to sort their own signals out from those of other bats, being able to locate and catch insects on the wing, etc. etc. It is the accuracy of the modelling that makes this possible, that is, the reliability of bats' cognitive capacities.

I conclude that Plantinga's argument stumbles at the first fence.

19. Religion in Conflict: Are 'Evangelical Atheists' Too Outspoken?

Comment #23297 by Greywizard on February 27, 2007 at 4:49 pm

This is a great article, and says some things that needed saying, especially Kurtz's remarks about the bizarre response of religious people, whose propaganda is unending, complaining because a few books by atheists have made a small splash in a big sea.

One thing though. 650,000 people may have died in Iraq since the American-British invasion. How many of that number have died in 'sectarian' (note Kurtz's caveat) violence, or are the victims of deliberate attempts by Islamists to prevent the development of democratic institutions in Iraq? Kurtz makes it sound as though all those deaths are a direct result of the invasion, and that Britain and the United States are responsible for them all, but they are often, I suggest, the result of fascist violence. These guys don't need a free ride, and far from being impartial (viz., not being taken in by one side or the other) this violence, and the deaths resulting from it, needs to be condemned (whatever our judgements about the war itself). And it makes not an iota of difference whether the number is more than Saddam would have killed if he had remained in power. He was a brutal, fascist dictator, whose terrorizing of the Iraqi people was so complete that the killing had diminished to 'maintenance strength' (that is, just enough to keep the people under his thumb). Do we want to say that it would be better to have him back?

Having said all that, Paul Kurtz's article puts a lot of the reaction to Dawkins, Harris and Dennett in reasonable perspective. It would be worth a deeper study why the reaction has been so abusive and virulent.

20. The questions science cannot answer

Comment #21603 by Greywizard on February 10, 2007 at 5:00 am

This has got to be the article with the least content of practically anything that has been written about "The God Delusion." I don't know how McGrath gets away with it - that is, pretending to be a learned professor at a great university.

The really strange thing is that he thinks referring to the existence of believing scientists is an argument. I should have thought that, instead of an argument, this is a very odd phenomenon in need of explanation.

At least McGrath didn't bother, on this occasion, to include his own life story, in which, for two or three years during adolescence he was (or at least claims to have been) a Marxist atheist. But it does strike me that his own level of Christian belief scarcely gets beyond this adolescent level. Consider the question which he calls 'greater': What's life all about? Must there be anything which life is *all* about? Must there be one answer to this peculiarly empty question? Is this a question which is even patient of an answer? I suggest that, no, it isn't, and it's really a red herring to distract us from the fact that McGrath, for all his words - and he is beginning to bore us - has nothing really to say.

I agree fully with NotWithoutMyMonkey when he suggests that we give his new book a wide berth. If anyone, though, wants a good example of the quality (of lack of quality) of McGrath's mind, they should read "The Twilight of Atheism." It is so full of empty generalisations, falsifications and plain misunderstandings, that it is, in itself, a good argument against the God hypothesis. It convinced me that atheism is obviously the only intellectually respectable game in town.

21. Do stop behaving as if you are God, Professor Dawkins

Comment #20966 by Greywizard on February 7, 2007 at 6:13 am

What an incredibly shallow response to Dawkins! But this is only to be expected from someone who wrote "The Twilight of Atheism," which is such a poor piece of scholarship that it is amazing that someone actually printed the book.

Notice that McGrath doesn't give us any examples of the offences that he accuses Dawkins of, not one. It's assertion all the way. And one of the oddest things is that he still seems to think that 'you can't prove that god doesn't exist' is an argument!

The other aspect of McGrath's piece that should grate on anyone's sensitivity is the way he has of enlisting other people on his side without naming names or counting heads. He merely claims that 'The dogmatism of the work has attracted wide criticism from the secularist community. Many who might be expected to support Dawkins are trying to distance themselves from what they see as an embarrassment.' Michael Ruse is the only name mentioned, and Michael Ruse is a particularly glaring example of public ambiguity. After all, over the affair of Dennett's letter to the NYT, Ruse is in bed with Michael Dembski, a leading creationist.

Another point about the quote in the last paragraph. What does McGrath mean by 'the secularist community'? After all, Christians can be secularist too, since secularism is just the belief that political arrangements should leave out religious concerns. Secular democracies are polities in which religious belief may be freely chosen, but where such beliefs do not govern how we live together in political communities. McGrath might like to look the word up.

A last point. McGrath accuses Dawkins of dogmatic fundamentalism, but again he gives no evidence. He does say that he and Dawkins both share a commitment to evidence based reasoning. Could have fooled me!

22. The Bright Revolution

Comment #19062 by Greywizard on January 24, 2007 at 3:24 pm

I think it's obvious we're not going to agree on a name. Put three atheists together and there'll be at least four opinions! I don't know what the problem is with being thought a bit arrogant, though. I should have thought, other things being equal, that those who claim to know what God says and wants, are much more arrogant than those who suggest that they know a thing or two. But, as I say, I think the name is probably a lost cause. Too bad, it seems to me it might have had some mileage in it. Perhaps Mr. Mark is right. Time to think about more serious things.

23. The Bright Revolution

Comment #19015 by Greywizard on January 24, 2007 at 11:31 am

Well Mr. Mark. I disagree. Brights is a great word, and more atheists should adopt it. Simple reason. A-theism is a negative term. Bright is positive. On what level does it suck?

Brights are bright. They know a thing or two. And, being bright, they're not easily conned by supernaturalists and hawkers of other dull ideas. Atheism, on the other hand, is an accusation hurled at people who disagree with you. If you believe in a god, those who don't believe in it are atheists, no matter what they believe. Early Christians were said to be atheists. John A.T. Robinson, of 'Honest to God' fame, was called an atheist. Don Cupitt is often called one. And so was Paul Tillich. It's a term of abuse.

There are all sorts of reasons not to adopt it the term atheism. Another term of respect and honour is humanist, but even theists sometimes count themselves as humanists. Erasmus, as is well known, was a Christian humanist. So, Bright isn't all that bad, and we're probably going to be around for awhile. Get used to it.

24. For the Bible told them so

Comment #18581 by Greywizard on January 21, 2007 at 6:51 pm

Just a brief response to Homo economicus. Why do such people want to? I think you have to understand the overwhelming power of childhood indoctrination. A Swiss theologian - I think he was Swiss - Franz Overbeck, said, at the end of a long career as a theologian: "I can honestly say that Christianity has cost me my life. To such an extent that, although I never possessed it and only became a theologian as a result of a 'misunderstanding', I have taken the whole of my life to get rid of it." My own experience has been similar. That is why I agree with Richard Dawkins so strongly when he speaks about the abuse of children who are indoctrinated with religious beliefs. The doctrine of hell is perhaps the most powerful tool in the armamentarium of the religious educator. It keeps you looking over your shoulder all your life, and even when you give up believing, there is still a tug of warning, every time you stray from the ways of the pious. So, the reason why people do such things is not so hard to understand. Nor is it hard to understand why so many gay and lesbian people despair of life, indelibly marked as they often are. The real problem is how we can prevent this kind of child abuse without draconian prohibitions and restrictions on freedom. Dawkins' consciousness raising seems to me the best way.

25. Homophobia, not injustice, is what really fires the faiths

Comment #17149 by Greywizard on January 11, 2007 at 9:06 am

I think Polly's article was spot on. So was AC Grayling's. The thing I particularly liked about Grayling's is his anger. I think it's high time that we got angry at the inappropriate intrustions of religion in the public sphere, as well as the hypocritical attitude of Christians (especially) who proclaim so loudly that love is the answer, while at the same time acting in such unloving and unlovely ways.

I am a bit disturbed by the notes from Joadist, who seems determined to make it impossible, on the basis of a bit of semantic pedantry, for gay or lesbian people to achieve justice. If his intention is to defend the indefensible Christians, Muslims and Jews who protest rights for homosexuals - and they seem to know who they are - then he should say so. If not, he should think a bit longer before making contributions to a serious discussion.

26. Dawkins Delusion (3rd article, Same Stupid Title)

Comment #15758 by Greywizard on January 2, 2007 at 3:24 pm

David A Robertson, just a few remarks on your earlier post. I'll quote you, and then comment.

'…the Bible teaches that God created ex nihilo.' This is not altogether correct. In Genesis 1 we are told that God's spirit moved over the face of the waters - or chaos (something seems already to have been there). In the second chapter, the second story of creation, it is clear that the earth already existed in a dry and lifeless form to which God brought order and life. The whole question of creatio ex nihilo is a fairly deep theological problem, and it raises others in its turn. But, almost certainly, the Bible itself does not teach this, although theologians later took this as an implication of the idea of God presumed by the Bible.

'… it's a useful analogy for atheistic materialists. Where did the matter come from for the Big Bang? Oh it was there. It's matter all the way back…..' Well, it might be, might it not? There's no contradiction in supposing matter all the way back, contracting to a singularity, and then exploding in a Big Bang, for eternity.

'I have never met anyone who thinks that God is a man with a white beard in the sky.' Actually, it is well known, in cognitive studies of religion, that people's ordinary, everyday, 'online' beliefs, and their theological understandings are very different. Most people use the concept of a finite god, with limited knowledge and capability, just like other persons they know, but when asked, many of them can also give you the more orthodox theological line as well.

'I believe in a personal God. But I do not think I have the right to either limit him or to claim that I understand him. However I do trust him – on the basis of the evidence he has provided.' Well, if you could point to evidence, we wouldn't be having this discussion, would we? It would all be nicely settled. (See later, the comment on revelation.)

There's a lot of ad hominem stuff in your post which I'll just ignore, but you should really watch it. I'm really surprised when I read on the Free Church of Scotland page that you're actually a moderator of discussions! This is extremely troubling.

'Is that the only way we can survive? Are you really saying that my having a bacon sandwich this morning is an argument against the existence of God? Has atheist apologetics really come down to this?' What a terribly shallow response to someone who wants to know how the pain and suffering of animals - they could be the ones we eat or animals in the wild - is consistent with the goodness of God. You really should be ashamed to speak in this flippant way about a subject of real depth and concern.

You quote Torbjörn Larsson - "As a scientist Dawkins knows that any theory is provisional and may be replaced by a better one. Why should he hold any idea to be firmer? That would be like... religion." And your answer is: 'Precisely. Which is why its use as a rhetorical device is actually dishonest.' In what sense is Dawkins using this (what exactly?) as a rhetorical device?

'Religion may be wrong in the area of design as regards biology that does not de facto mean it is wrong in seeing design in the universe. Dawkins extrapolates backwards from the theory of biological evolution to making it a universal theory which disproves God.' No, that's not what Dawkins does. What Dawkins does is to say that the examples of complex design that we know are the products of evolution over long periods. Design is the end product of an algorithmic process. There is some evidence that the solar system has 'evolved' in a similar way, from clouds of debris gradually taking form as planets and their satellites revolving around the sun, a more structured system developing out of a more chaotic soup of fragments of matter. His point is simply that assuming a designer is assuming something for which there is no evidence in our experience of how design has actually developed. It's a reasonable point of view, and it really puts the burden of proof on the theist to show why this is not the case. To my knowledge theists haven't really responded to this challenge. In order to respond, you really have to work at it.

'I have no problem with the idea that God used evolution to create.' You may have no problem but there is a problem there, since God is really an unnecessary hypothesis. What you are calling creation takes care of itself.

'You have the arrogance to assume that you[r] definition of faith (belief without evidence) is the one that we hold to.' And yet you would have quite a job producing the evidence, wouldn't you? You believe in God, you believe that God has revealed himself to us, you believe that God is the creator of all things, but you have no evidence. If your belief is not faith, it's at least a presupposition of faith, so it is not arrogance to ask you to produce the evidence upon which your beliefs rest. This is an example of how religious people squeak out of the issue again and again. But you do have beliefs, and those beliefs still demand evidence, so, call it faith or something else, an answer is still required.

'Revelation is part of the evidence that God gives. In fact without revelation we would not know him. Indeed I question whether we could know anything without revelation.' Wow! This really is offering up a hostage to fortune, because there is no way to tell when something is or is not an actual revelation from God, and not just a supposed one. How do you know when something is revealed? The Bible, the Koran, the Upanishads, the Granth Sahib - all of these are claimed as revelations. What shows that you've really got one? You're surely not going to claim that the moral perfection of the Bible is evidence enough. Or, how about conformity to what we know from other sources - like science and history? My guess is that, other than sheer assertion, you can point to nothing whatever which gives us a reason to suppose that the Bible is God's revelation.

'I hope you will all be enlightened!' This really is patronising. In fact, for someone who represents a church, your response here is most awfully arrogant and distasteful. Is this really what Christians are like?

27. Not Yet The Majority But No Longer Silent

Comment #15462 by Greywizard on December 31, 2006 at 2:22 pm

I think the term 'Bright' is just fine. As with 'Gay' it might sound a bit arrogant - 'You're not the only happy people around. Give me a break!' - but it captures something of the atheist experience. After all, atheists have to depend a bit more on reason and intelligence in order to make their points. There's no soft option for them. For the religious, all you have to do is speak about faith, or one's experience of God, or whatever, and everyone gives you the respect you expect, just like that. So, why not 'Bright'? It means that some sort of grounding is needed and expected. You've got to be bright to be Bright! Sentimentality isn't enough.

28. The problem with secularism

Comment #14562 by Greywizard on December 23, 2006 at 8:37 am

This is perhaps the worst yet. It's hard to make sense of it. Certainly, as philosophy (which it seems to claim to be) its nonsense. As theology it's even worse. Where do these guys come from?

Take a few of the points they make.

1. 'Long before religious fundamentalism, secular humanists reduced all objective codes to subjective assertion by making man the measure of all things and erasing God from nature.' Exactly what does this mean? Where are the objective codes they speak of? And does not naturalistic ethics go a considerable distance in developing reasonably objective conceptions of human flourishing, and therefore of moral value?

2. 'Thus religious fundamentalism constitutes an absence of religion that only true religion can correct.' What is 'true religion'? How is it distinguished from fundamentalism on the one hand, or liberal religion on the other?

3. 'Although the cultured despisers of religion are once again making strident appeal to secular values and unmediated reason, they do not realize that the religious absolutism they denounce is but a variant of their own fundamentalism returned in a different guise.' Is this so? See 2, but also, what basis is there for accepting this ex cathedra pronouncement?

4. 'This atheist apprehension is well founded, as the latest developments in biology, physics and philosophy all open the door to a revivified theology and a religious metaphysics.' This is one of the most ridiculous statements made in the piece. What latest developments in biology, physics and philosophy? I know of none that would encourage a return to theology.

5. 'Rather, life displays certain inherency, such that the beings that come about are a product of their own integral insistence.' What on earth does this mean? And where do the authors get this idea of 'integral insistence'?

6. 'Indeed, evolution is no more arbitrary than God is deterministic.' This is a nonsense sentence. Evolution is clearly not arbitrary, and in what theology is God said to be deterministic?

7. 'The trouble is that this supposition [the multiverse hypothesis] sounds more bizarre than religion.' I'm not a physicist, but I'm not clear that it was introduced for the reasons the authors suggest. And what is so bizarre about it?

8. 'So religion finds itself in the strange position of defending the real world against those who would make us merely virtual phenomena.' This is truly bizarre! Where does this idea that the universe is a virtual simulation run by another universe come from?

9. 'Philosophically, if one wants to defend the idea of objective moral truths, it appears ineluctably to require some sort of engagement with theology.' I should have thought that this is last thing that would be demanded by contemporary philosophy.

10. 'Thus we are witnessing a real intellectual return to religion that cannot be reduced to the spread of fanaticism.' Where on earth does this idea come from? Waht evidence is there that there is a real intellectual return to religion? They certainly don't count their short article as an example of something intellectual, do they?

11. Sadly we are coming into a post-secular world, but this is not obviously a good thing, given the kinds of controls that religions have exercised over human freedom in the past. This is something that everyone, including religious people, should be very concerned about. Secularism is the one best hope for sanity in religion, whateve sanity is achievable.

What I can't understand is why, after writing this sort of drivel, the authors consider Dawkins barely literate. Their article does not even achieve the status of literacy, it is full of so many no sequiturs and unsubstantiated ramblings. The International Herald Tribune is clearly less credible than I thought, and I never thought it particularly credible.

29. Book a Day

Comment #11749 by Greywizard on December 7, 2006 at 4:07 am

'Screed' is an overlong piece of writing (or speech) which is overly dull. I think the writer did not know what it meant.

I think the most important point is this one: 'By our look-the-other-way Canadian standards, his enthusiasm for confrontation can seem needlessly alienating, but it's not like the old Abrahamic religions with their re-energized dogmas are shying away from political controversy themselves. Dawkins's damning arguments should make any thinking person see reason.' This is something that most reviewers seem to miss, that Dawkins' book is a comparatively mild response to the kinds of things that religious people have been saying for some time, and have simply had the field all to themselves.

A good assessment from John Allemang. Much better than the first go round from the Globe.

30. Doubters do it from the pulpit

Comment #9805 by Greywizard on November 26, 2006 at 4:19 am

Fraser says: 'Quite the reverse: it's a form of Christian agnosticism that refuses a clear and settled account of God. The Trinity is a theological vaccination against reification.'

I'm not sure he could make out his case historically. From the start, the doctrine of the Trinity tried to say something about the internal structure of God, and when theologians said, for example, that Father, Son and Holy Spirit were ways in which God appeared to us, they were dismissed as modalists (heretics).

31. Dawkins's version of the deity does not exist

Comment #8537 by Greywizard on November 21, 2006 at 3:08 pm

Hi johnc. You're quite right - not necessarily about the inability to deliver a theory of consciousness (and I won't talk about reductionism here, as though there is something that is being reduced in a monistic account) that identifies mind and brain states, but that this would take us away from the topic at hand. (I do think, for what it's worth, that emergence takes you part of the way down Quentin's path to 'the 'ot place.')

And I agree - obviously, because I said it myself as well - that Quentin is asking science to leave its provisionality (and falisifiability - and, yes, in that sense, humility) behind and adopt a view from nowhere, which would subvert the whole project of science. Odd that he should wish to defeat the whole scientific project in order to protect an old idea of how reality is ordered. I guess he thinks that he's got science in a catch-22, but that's not the way it works: science will just refuse to play that particular game - and there is no obvious reason, despite Quentin's belief to the contrary, why it should.

When you stop to think about it, this is clearly why Dawkins is reluctant to debate with theologians, since theologians presuppose a point of view which is subversive of scientific method.

32. Dawkins's version of the deity does not exist

Comment #8400 by Greywizard on November 21, 2006 at 6:03 am

Hi johnc. Thanks for the clarification. I don't think relying on Heisenberg (whether solely or in part) helps much at all, although I take your point about lack of consensus (but see below).

One thing that does trouble me, though, is the idea of consciousness as ontologically emergent. This sounds a lot like Bergson, for whom life was ontologically emergent. I think, more and more, consciousness studies point in the direction of an identification between brain and mind states. The dualism you suggest still ends up with problems of correlation between mind and brain, an unnecessary and inelegant multiplication of entities.

You are of course right about the 'outdated metaphysical premises' of theism. About the need for humility - other than the self-correcting mechanisms of scientific humility - I am not so clear. Besides, there is, I think, a growing consensus within the mind science community about the nature of consciousness and brain states, and even taking the disagreements that there are at face value, we are still left with something so different from religious ideas of infused souls/minds and their view from nowhere, that the latter simply no longer fit with what we do know (as I think you agree).

Does this make sense, or am I trying to whistle something that can't be said?

33. Dawkins's version of the deity does not exist

Comment #8379 by Greywizard on November 21, 2006 at 4:32 am

johnc. You seem to suggest, in your notes to Quentin, that Heisenberg uncertainty provides space enough for free will. Is it so clear how uncertainty at mircoscopic (quantum) levels plays out at the macroscopic level? But more than that, even supposing that it is, how does that help us with questions of free will? After all, if uncertainty does play itself out at the level of midsized objects, this doesn't mean that anything has free will, only that at some point their behaviour is stochastic, that is, it jumps out (so far as we are concerned - things may, at an even deeper level, be strictly determined) of the causal loop by becoming random. But that's surely not what we mean by free will. The religious presupposition is that each person, as a free agent, acts, like God, as a prime mover unmoved. This is asking for too much, imagining that we can in fact always act independently of the causal context (and in competition with the Second Law of Thermodynamics). The free will worth having has nothing to do with indeterminism, but with the ability to process information within the causal context and act voluntarily with respect to it. Of course, within this context is our moral faculty (see Marc Hauser, "Moral Minds"), which is 'hard-wired' by Darwinian selection.

Recall that, for Quentin, free will and rationality cannot arise from the material. Presumably it has to be 'infused' from without. As he says in his latest post: 'Now he [johnc] could have done so [that is, stated something he believed to be true] either because his view was causally determined, or as a result of chance, or because he had the necessary freedom to arrive at a judgment. In the first two cases he cannot meaningfully claim truth for his proposition So his statement either falls or is its own evidence for the freedom of his will.' Adverting to indeterminism won't help here at all. Inderminism doesn't clear a space for freedom, only for randomness. However, Dennett's and Flanagan's and other theories of consciousness do help, since for these theories consciousness/mind (viz., the brain as an information processing organ) is the outcome of Darwinian selection which, after much trial and error, has achieved the amazing ability to model the world (to a great degree) objectively.

But notice that we never achieve this without frequent lapses into mindless responses to the (internal as well as external) causal context. Reason is always mixed with emotion, self-delusion, and error. That's why scientific methodology (a fairly recent arrival on the scene) is such a unique step forward in achieving both objectivity and freedom. Scientific methodology is a sorting process by which true statements are progressively filtered from hypotheses (always acknowledging that even so filtered they may in the end turn out to be false).

Quentin's free will demands too much: absolute objectivity, absolute truth, absolute control. For this you need a god. For the abilities that we have, all we need is to be human.

34. Dawkins's version of the deity does not exist

Comment #7786 by Greywizard on November 19, 2006 at 11:32 am

Mr. Bédoyère,

It's good to see that you are reading along. Two points in response to what you wrote by way of explanation.

First of all, despite your remarks regarding transcendence, Christians still make an essential reference to anthropomorphic conceptions, in speaking of the Trinity, for example. Father, Son and Holy Spirit are not intelligible apart from familiarity with human life. The whole idea, expressed in the Nicene Creed, that the son is begotten, not made, depends essentially on acquaintance with sexual reproduction and birth. So, God needs to be more (or less - take your pick!) than transcendent. However, as soon as you do resort to ideas of immanence you open yourself up to some of the considerations that Dawkins brings to bear in his book. Transcendence, in other words, though necessary, is not sufficient to account for the Christian idea of God. And that, indeed, is not at all surprising, since if you were left with mere transcendence, you would be reduced to silence, as apophatic theology has always claimed we should be. That's the first point.

The second point has to do with free will, and Cartesian free will at that. The assumption underlying your challenge is that free will so understood is a coherent concept. This is brought into question by contemporary mind science, for which mind and brain are identified, with the mind/brain as an information processing organ. As minds/brains we are capable of voluntary action, accountability, and everything else that needs to be preserved by the intention behind the idea of free will, but the idea of free will, as something completely outside the causal loop of the material world, is simply incoherent. Descates had a serious problem accounting for the parallelism between minds and bodily actions. He hypothesised a connexion through the pineal gland. Others have thought in terms of a mind/body compatibilism, two trains of thought/action running in parallel. But those who insist on inserting a spiritual entity into the midst of a material world have, I suggest, even more difficulty than a materialist conception in which minds and brains and mind and brain states are identical. The latter preserves all that we want to preserve of the idea of free will, of our authorial ownership of our thoughts and actions, at the same time that we allow for the causal context in which selves are placed. The spiritual answer is not nearly so consistent. I suggest you do a bit of research in the whole area of mind science. I think you are in for a surprise.

35. Dawkins's version of the deity does not exist

Comment #7759 by Greywizard on November 19, 2006 at 9:47 am

arif. Your comments demonstrate Prof. Dawkins' point. Religion - in your case Islam - is intolerant and intrinsically violent. It is a form of mental bondage. One cannot free one's mind with a Bible, with the Qu'ran or with any other so-called holy writing. The problem with writings like Quentin de la Bedoyere's is that they only apparently sound rational, but the big stick is there in background. I don't like your rather abusive remarks. I think that probably goes for others on this list.

36. Dawkins's version of the deity does not exist

Comment #7700 by Greywizard on November 19, 2006 at 4:56 am

It's a bit hard to know where to go with this review. It gives so much away, and reserves only a few small places where faith makes any difference. And even there it fails to convince. For instance: take de la Bédoyère's interpretation of Dawkin's ethics. He says: 'by claiming that moral sense is merely an outcome of evolution, he reduces it to a biological instinct on par with other evolved instincts.' But nowhere does Dawkins say that our moral sense is *merely* the outcome of evolution. What he does claim is that evolution provides a "jumpstart" for our undersanding of morality. What we do with what has been provided by way of evolution, though clearly dependent to this extent on evolution, can be culturally developed in all sorts of complex ways. There is no sense in which our morality is *merely* the outcome of evolutionary processes. This is ridiculous. The next point has to do with the idea of the freedom of the will. This, says the writer, 'requires at least a theory of how freedom of will might emerge from material causes.' But first it needs an understanding of what freedom of the will is. Is it, as the philosophical tradition has assumed, that each person is in some sense a prime mover unmoved? That is, does nothing at all determine our decisions? Then we must make decisions outside of the whole realm of reasons altogether, which makes an incoherence of the idea of freedom. There is nothing inconsistent between believing that the human will is to a large extent constrained - by reasons, past experiences, the immediate social context, etc. - and yet that what we do is volunatry. Indeed, as Owen Flanagan points out, there is reason to believe that the whole free will dilemma is poorly conceptualised. The third point has to do with the transcendence of God. The God that Dawkins describes, screams the headline, does not exist - but the real God, the one who transcends the universe altogether, does. How reasonable is that? Either the real God gives some immanent evidence of his/her/its existence, or there is no reason to suppose his/her/its existence at all. De la Bédoyère's claims that, inevitably, we must use anthropomorphic language, and yet that that language is systematically misleading. Does this make sense? No, it doesn't. Either the evidence really exists immanently, or it doesn't exist at all. Dawkins has given good reason to believe that there is no immanent evidence for the existence of anything transcendent. Neither moral life, nor free will, nor anything else about our world points to a transcendent being. Of course, the defender of religion can always say: But you haven't captured what I mean by God. But then that means that the defender doesn't really know what he means!

37. The rise of the 'New Atheists'

Comment #5597 by Greywizard on November 10, 2006 at 3:39 am

Simon Hooper bases his argument largely on Eric Kaufman's article (Breeding for God) in this month's Prospect Magazine. It's significant (and slightly dishonest) that he does not mention Alan Wolfe's shorter piece in response to Kaufman, which calls a number of Kaufman's conclusions into question.

I wonder whether today's apparent resurgence of religion is a return of religiosity, or is it (as I suspect) religion's dying breaths? It is clear that todays fundamentalisms are very different from the religions from which they derive. It is a very different thing trying to believe so strenuously in the face of so many alternative possibilities, and believing where religion is the only living option. Indeed, one might question whether belief in the contemporary context can ever be 'true belief'.

38. The Dawkins Delusion (Different Article, Same Stupid Title)

Comment #5460 by Greywizard on November 9, 2006 at 3:03 pm

Anyone who has read anything by McGrath will know that this is his MO. He does not represent his opponents fairly. He is not honest in the way that he deals with his subject matters. He is biased, agenda driven and inaccurate. Read "The Twilight of Atheism" if you are in any doubt. He is simply not to be taken seriously. I'm not even sure he takes himself seriously. Surely, no one who really cares can be as shoddy in scholarship as Professor McGrath. He convinced me, all by himself, that atheism must be true.

39. Christian Author Warns Of Growing Atheist Backlash

Comment #4468 by Greywizard on November 4, 2006 at 3:58 am

Roger,

You said: "We've come to the conclusion that the issue isn't about religion but is political. The fundamentalists in the UK are trying to appropriate public funding through schools to pursue their agenda without the public knowing. It goes well beyond science as anyone who has looked at the lobbying of the Christian Institute knows.

At its extreme it involves people who want to turn the UK into a theocracy. Just look at the Discovery Institute and its largest backer if you have any doubts."

I should have thought, other things being equal, that trying to 'turn the UK into a theocracy' just *is* religious (as well as being, of course, political). Don't forget, please, that the church once wielded incredible amounts of temporal power. This loss is still keenly felt, and many conservative Christians look enviously at Muslim lands, where religion retains much of its traditional centrality in temporal affairs.

40. Dawkins' delusion is that science can determine the existence of God

Comment #4466 by Greywizard on November 4, 2006 at 3:49 am

It's a bit ironic to hear Alister McGrath speaking of Dawkins' 'subjective loathing.' Anyone who has read McGrath's "The Twilight of Atheism" will see the irony, because that book is full to the brim with special pleading, half truths, misrepresentations, over-simplifications of complex historical events, and misunderstandings of atheism -- all fueling one of the most intense personal hatreds that I have ever experienced in a writer.

41. God Loves My New Lexus

Comment #4179 by Greywizard on November 2, 2006 at 3:04 pm

Hey guys! Lighten up! You don't need to be serious all the time!

This is good stuff! Funny, to the point, wonderfully sarcastic, and makes Dawkins' point. Theology is....?!

Read Hume's Dialogues. Perhaps this world is just something created by a bored god, or an amateur, or by a god who just threw it together and then forgot about it. The Lexus as the acme of creation! Great!

42. Dawkins v God - stop the fight

Comment #4028 by Greywizard on November 2, 2006 at 5:03 am

Kamm's argument -- if that is what it is -- is incredibly simplistic. He seems to suggest that Dawkins does not understand the principle of the separation of church and state. Of course, the problem clearly is that this principle is being infringed regularly in countries where such separation is amongst the founding principles. The religious are, more and more, dictating national agendas in the US and Britain, at least. John Gray ends his review of Michael Burleigh's "Scared Causes" with these words:

"Burleigh gets one thing right. Religion - especially of the monotheistic variety that demands universal acceptance - is back. If ever politics was secular, it is so no longer. Presidents whose view of the world is formed from apocalyptic myths are in charge in Iran and the US, and seem ready to act on the belief that salvation comes to humankind by way of Armageddon. The social science that assumed religion must eventually yield to science is obsolete. If you want to understand the beliefs that are shaping global politics, read the Book of Revelation."

Incredibly, Oliver Kamm doesn't seem to have noticed.

43. The God Conundrum

Comment #3663 by Greywizard on October 31, 2006 at 4:13 am

Thanks to Jonathan for the quote from Paine's "The Age of Reason."

This response, by Sean Carroll, is really brilliant, a sustained philosophical-scientific assessment of a piece of academic frippery thrown off (by Eagleton) in a fit sophisticated self-satisfaction. The really important part of Carroll's response has to do with the analysis of Aristotle's ideas of motion and cause and effect and how these have been overturned by contemporary physics.

I suppose, having read this, that this is perhaps where Dawkins falls short. Dawkins understands Darwinism, but does not really understand modern physics and cosmology, which include important dimensions of his argument. Perhaps what we need now from Dawkins is a response to religion which not only delves a bit deeper into contemporary science, but also raises the temperature of the discussion of religious belief as understood by its more 'sophisticated' practitioners.

Carroll acknowledges that Dawkins takes "aim at a rather unsophisticated form of belief." The general point here is that it appears to leave more sophisticated forms of belief standing. Theologians will simply say: 'This doesn't apply to us. Our beliefs are not simplistic in this way.' If moderate theology continues make the world safe for fundamentalism, as Dawkins claims, then at some point he (or someone who supports this argument) will have to show how and why this is true, and how and why this is no firm basis for religious beliefs. It's fine to say that there is no foundation there. We need a clear explanation of why this is so, why even 'sophisticated' religion is foundationless.

44. I don't believe in Richard Dawkins

Comment #3343 by Greywizard on October 27, 2006 at 3:02 pm

Mike Torr,

Children may be resilient, but indoctrination happens. I grew up in a mission school in India. I feel now, and have felt for a long time now, that I was abused as a child. The indoctrination led me, in the end, to the priesthood, and, only after many years, have I been able to grow beyond those early years of abuse. Perhaps I'm not as resilient as some, but breaking the hold of beliefs that inform most of a child's waking hours, is not easy, and it's not fair that anyone should be placed in such a situation. A pox on Malik's ideas of parenting!

45. I don't believe in Richard Dawkins

Comment #3342 by Greywizard on October 27, 2006 at 2:55 pm

I think that Kenan Malik probably puts his finger on the weakest part of The God Delusion, having to do with the reasons why people today become religious or attach themselves to religious causes.

Nevertheless, if there were no religions, it would be hard to make the commonest, most obvious kinds of distinction between people. In India, for instance, how would people distinguish one community from another, if there were no Muslims, Hindus, etc? It is naive of Malik to suppose that religion plays no part in Northern Ireland or Ceylon, or in so many other places where religion is the prescribed way of locating the joints between communities.

But the weakest part of Malik's review is the idea that Dawkins is plain wrong about the power of religion to indoctrinate young minds.

"Parents indoctrinate their children with all manner of odious beliefs." Malik writes, "That is the nature of parenting. And the nature of growing up is that young people decide for themselves, often rejecting the views of their parents." This has got to be one of stupidest things that anyone ever wrote.

Why is indoctination with odious beliefs the nature of parenting? If it is, then we need to have a better way of bringing up children. No doubt, it is true, we will never escape the tendency of parents to "fuck up" their children, as Larkin said. ("They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do.") But, surely, both Humphrey and Dawkins are right, that this should not be so and need not be so to the extent that it is. And filling kids' heads with all sorts of unfounded beliefs is something that can be avoided. There is no reason why we should not see infant baptism (in the Christian tradition) or similar rites of passage, as offences against the autonomy of the person. And no school, whether so-called 'faith' schools (why not leftest schools and rightest schools as well, or Labour schools, Tory schools, and schools for all the gradations in between?), or any other school, should be allowed to further the interests of specific religious groups. If Malik is serious, then he should see the point right away. If children are going to choose when they grow up, why not give them the tools to make reasonable choices when they do?

46. Sermons and straw men

Comment #3166 by Greywizard on October 26, 2006 at 3:46 am

Or, correcting my own style. I think Comment #3141 by Jonathan Dore is not only insightful, but crucial. The rise of religious fanaticisms, even at the heart of liberal Christian traditions (see 'A Loss of Faith', by Michael Hampson -- http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,,1923244,00.html) is cause for enormous concern. Reviewers addressing Dawkins book seem to think that this whole debate is being carried out in a benign and polite way, when the issue is becoming one of global concern and indeed strife. This urgency is reflected in Dawkins' style and approach. It should not be considered a flaw.

47. Sermons and straw men

Comment #3165 by Greywizard on October 26, 2006 at 3:44 am

I think Comment #3141 by Jonathan Dore is not only insightful, but crucial. The rise of religious fanaticisms, even at the heart of liberal Christian traditions (see 'A Loss of Faith', by Michael Hampson -- http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,,1923244,00.html) is cause for enormous concern. Reviewers address Dawkins book thinks that this whole debate is being carried out in a benign and polite way, when the issue is becoming one of global concern and indeed strife. This urgency is reflected in Dawkins' style and approach. It should not be considered a flaw.

48. Dawkins the dogmatist

Comment #2691 by Greywizard on October 22, 2006 at 7:01 pm

mayhelena

Now, your note is something that I can relate to. I became an atheist by being a priest for 30 years and watching too much suffering and pain. The problem of evil is a poison pill for theism. As Dawkins asks in one of the essays in "The Devil's Chaplain," 'Is there no catastrophe terrible enough to shake the faith of people ... in God's goodness and power? No glimmering realization that he might not be there at all: that we might just be on our own, needing to cope with the real world like grown-ups?' Quite.

But that doesn't mean that I can say -- and it's not just trying to save something from the wreckage of a working life -- that what religion trys to do is either pointless or unnecessary. I think that's what Brown means about religion's being natural. I don't know about natural. That's a loaded word, philosophically. But it does fulfil a purpose in human life and community. Perhaps that can be done in a more self-consciously atheistic way, but I think it probably needs to be done. Winston King's definition might have something in it, for religion is certainly the ordering of life around some kind of basic experiences, whether we call them depth experiences, or limit experiences (Jaspers), or what. A possibly useful book here (I haven't read it yet) is "Secular Wholeness" by David Cortesi. And then there is "Spirituality for the Skeptic: The Thoughtful Love of Life" by Robert C. Solomon. So, atheists are thinking about the gap left upon the disappearance of god.

Anyway, I have a feeling that Dawkins really hasn't investigated or studied or critiqued this whole dimension of human experience, and it deserves a place in any book about the god delusion.

Finally, thanks for your note. It's helpful. I missed it when I was writing a note in response to non-plussed. You must have pressed the 'submit' button while I was writing, and I missed it until just now.

49. Dawkins the dogmatist

Comment #2678 by Greywizard on October 22, 2006 at 3:19 pm

non_plussed

Thanks for the response. First off, I'm not sure that Dawkins does excuse moderate religion of blame in the first chapter. He, like you, wonders why moderates should retain religious language if -- and this is the implication -- they're not really religious. As the man says: "Pantheism is sexed-up atheism. Deism is watered-down theism." (18) What Dawkins does in the first chapter is to say that, in the sense in which Einstein was religious, he is too; he just wishes Einstein had not muddied the intellectual waters by using the word 'god' for what he believed about the universe. That presumably would give him a clear shot at dismissing religion in toto, which is what he wants to do.

Fair enough. But there are those who, like Don Cupitt, for instance, or Lloyd Geering, who have wanted to say -- though Cupitt himself may be moving away from that position -- that religion as a human creation is what the great religious traditions were really all about in the first place, and the supernatural was all, after all is said and done, a metaphysical muddle. And these people want to rescue religious language, practice and community -- as a peculiarly valuable form of life -- from the God-botherers who have hijacked the tradition, and are well on the way towards destroying it.

This is something that can be expressed clearly and without equivocation, so that there need be no question of someone saying that such language gives them a license to go on believing in the supernatural (whether beings or locations or what-have-you).

That said, I agree entirely with Dawkins when he objects so strenuously to religion claiming a right to a kind of super-respect just because it is religion. Grayling has a rather good article about this in a recent Comment-is-free column in the Guardian (http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/ac_grayling/2006/10/acgrayling.html). However, I think it would be fair to say that Dawkins really should, if he wants to dismiss forms of non-supernatural religion, actually engage with the ideas involved. Just saying 'That's not religion, so far as I'm concerned,' is like saying of all modern art or music, 'That's not art or music, so far as I'm concerned.' And the just response to that is: So what?

Having said all that, I still think that what Dawkins is doing is important. I do think, however, that it would sometimes be more effective if he could manage as much cool about his subject in 'The God Delusion' as he does in 'The Selfish Gene' or 'The Blind Watchmaker' or 'River Out of Eden'. That's partly, I think, what leads Brown to call Dawkins a dogmatist. I think he's wrong, but Dawkins' occasionally ex cathedra style gives that impression.

50. Dawkins the dogmatist

Comment #2650 by Greywizard on October 22, 2006 at 11:45 am

non_plussed

It is true that Dawkins shows respect for some forms of religion, religious expression or spirituality. And it is also true that his book is directed against forms of religious believing which are incredibly dangerous. However, Dawkins also holds that religious moderates are pernicious in another way, because they hold the door open for fundamentalists. Whether this is so or not, I'm not sure. Certainly, religious moderates, like Bishop Spong, who continue to regard the Bible with awed respect, are, I think, guilty, because that awed respect is a hangover from the old days of taking the 'sacred writings' as the very words of a god, and encourages or licenses others to take them so.

But there are more radical theories of religion, which do not include exaggerated respect for supposed divine writings, and treat everything, including religion itself, and the gods, as human creations. There is no room, however, for such religion in Dawkins' philosophy. He may be right, but I think it is only fair to point out that, by the same token, he may be wrong, and that religion as human imaginative creation may still be an important dimension of being human. May, not must. The denial of this, without argument, is, as Andrew Brown says, dogmatic, or, at least, not as fully reasoned as it might be.