The Intellectual Deficiencies of Richard Dawkins
I have remarked in the past on the seeming inability of otherwise intelligent atheists "to make basic intellectual distinctions that would help them understand what Christians believe, even if they cannot give consent to such belief." Sometimes, however, I think that I give too much credit to such atheists by assuming that they wish to understand. There are different kinds of inabilities, after all; not all can be chalked up to intellectual deficiencies.
Sometimes the inability to make intellectual distinctions consists of a lack of imagination—a particularly common problem among those who subscribe to a very limited, very modern view of reason that would have been alien not only to medieval Christians but to the greatest philosophical minds among the Greeks and Romans. And sometimes such inability is a defect of the will—a lack of desire to understand anything that might upset the apple cart of one's own beliefs (much less anything that might prevent one from scoring a rhetorical point against one's enemies).
These other inabilities seem to afflict Richard Dawkins, a man whose work in the role that genes have played in evolution proves that he is no intellectual slouch. As Britain's most prominent atheist, Dawkins has become increasingly shrill in recent years, to the point of simply dismissing as absurd certain religious beliefs that men more intelligent than he would have had no problem understanding, even if they did not believe them.
In a column on the Washington Post online entitled "Give us your misogynists and bigots," Dawkins illustrates my point. Ostensibly occasioned by Pope Benedict's recent overtures to disaffected Anglicans, Dawkins' attack on the Catholic Church shows him to be, as my friend Tom Piatak puts it, "a very pedestrian leftist in his thinking." When British journalist Damian Thompson, the blogs editor for the Telegraph Media Group and a prominent Catholic commentator whom Dawkins pretends never to have heard of, asked why Dawkins would bother to concern himself with what he should regard (at best) as internecine squabbling between two branches of a religion he despises, Dawkins confirmed Piatak's assessment. Rather than offer a rational explanation, he replied:
The claim that Anglican church affairs are none of my business will ring hollow to any British citizen, where 26 Bishops are, by law, unelected Members of the Upper House of Parliament.
Dawkins' reply is not simply astoundingly irrelevant; it is wrongheaded from his own atheistic standpoint. If large numbers of Anglican priests and laymen do convert, the political power of the Anglican Church in England will decrease—a development one would think that Dawkins would greet with unbridled joy. It's not as if we're going to see Catholic bishops in Parliament, after all.
Far more interesting to me than Dawkins' pedestrian leftism, however, is his dismissing of transubstantiation as "the dotty idea that a priest, by blessing bread and wine, can transform it literally into a cannibal feast." In this, he mirrors his American intellectual follower, P.Z. Myers, another pedestrian leftist who attempted last year to "falsify" Catholic belief in the Real Presence by desecrating a consecrated Host.
I will examine the obsession that Dawkins and Myers have with the doctrine of transubstantiation in more detail in a post tomorrow. Until then, however, I urge you to read and take seriously Dawkins' column on the Washington Post online. After all, we Catholics take seriously the injunction to "know thy enemy," and that requires us to treat their arguments with respect. Unlike Dawkins and Myers, we cannot simply retreat to the safety of our prejudices and call it "reason."
Dawkins is right. As a British citizen and a public intellectual he is perfectly within his rights to comment about the Anglican Church, who represent the state church of England, and who are bestowed with political and financial support from a democracy he upholds through his taxes.
He’s also right to highlight the unseemly bigotry which is at the root of the dispute in Anglicanism.
Oh, and he’s right to dismiss the ritual of transubstantiation as the superstitious hogwash it of course is.
So what have you got left to hammer Dawkins with? Fox News style accusations of “leftism”? Give us a break.
Thanks for taking Dawkins rant seriously. No where in the article does he offer any intellectual argument against Catholicism. His screed insults and demeans Christians because he cannot see, taste, feel, or hear God. Dawkins doesn’t know God so God doesn’t exist. What a sad, shrill little man. Hopefully, God allows Dawkins a road to Damascus moment.
I’m appalled at someone who quite obviously probably believes in Santa Claus saying that someone like Richard Dawkins has an intellectual deficiency. Most atheists have evolved intellectually beyond the need for the man in the sky as a reason for our existence, just as we out grew our Spiderman comics when we became adults. It is too late for people like Scott as his parents and the church got him young and brain washed him into backward beliefs and superstitions. Given the chance his children may become enlightened by science and true knowledge if he doesn’t brain wash them. It’s the year 2009 Scott time to read a book on science instead of just blindly following something that doesn’t exist, gives no proof of existence and only somebody dancing around a campfire could believe in. Let’s not even get in to the creepy people that run the Catholic religion.
Arthur, how is it that you know so much? That’s amazing!
I’m just amazed at how knowledgable these aethist people are!
Um… Meyers wasn’t trying to “falsify” the doctrine of transubstantiation. He was protesting the reports of death threats that a student received for not treating the eucharist with the respect Catholics felt it deserved. Something a bit more than an “intellectual distinction”…
You’d probably be even more amazed if you learned how to spell atheist Liz. More and more you will see atheists stand up and be counted and refuse to back away from crazy notions such as religion. No longer will we stand for people such as anti-abortionists trying to shove their religious beliefs on the rest of us. No longer will we stand by and watch an organization rife with child abuse tell us they are a moral authority in our society of some kind. This is just ludicrous. No we won’t back down from you people any longer. It’s not okay for the rest of to put up with your backward belief system.
Darkins and others like him, do not want to understand.
They are of the mindset, ‘don’t confuse me with the facts, I have already made up my mind’
They are as blind as those who do not see human life but outside the womb.
To try to reason with that mind, is a waste of time.
Scott, here’s a newsflash: atheists are not strange alien beings from another planet. Many of them were raised by religious parents. I myself grew up in an ultra-strict Catholic family. But I started having doubts at an early age, and for years I was tortured with guilt over my doubts. Finally I decided that all the stuff I was being taught just didn’t make sense and was in many ways morally repugnant. I’ve never looked back.
Also it might surprise you to learn that atheists are not consumed with hatred of a non-existent god. Rather, they are sick of their tax money being taken to support a superstition they don’t share, and being called evil and immoral simply because they don’t share that superstition. Thus Dawkins is perfectly right to draw attention to church-state entanglement in England.
Ray Ingles, you might want to read Myers’ own comments and the comments of his supporters, starting with the link on the words “to falsify” in my post above. The argument they made was that the lack of any physical manifestation (bleeding, for instance) from the Host or any “divine punishment” for the sacrilege proved it was just bread.
Ray, perhaps you might point out where I suggest that atheists are “strange alien beings from another planet.” Setting up straw men is not a way to develop a rational argument.
You might also note that I didn’t call Richard Dawkins evil or immoral.
And finally, you might take a closer look at what I actually said about Dawkins’ response to Damian Thompson. The question that Dawkins claimed to be addressing—the Pope’s “poaching” (his word) of Anglicans—really has nothing to do with “church-state entanglement in England.” Indeed, as I pointed out, if that’s really Dawkins’ concern, he should be cheering on anything, such as the Holy Father’s overtures to disaffected Anglicans, that might decrease Anglican power in British politics.
But that, I’m afraid, would be too logical.
It really is fascinating how quickly commenters such as Ron Peer descend into easily falsifiable ad hominem attacks. If only I’d ever read “a book on science” (quite specific there), I’d know better!
Sadly for Ron, I suspect that my knowledge of biology, chemistry, and physics is likely at least on par with his own. (My knowledge of other branches of science is somewhat more limited.) I even believe that the earth is older than 6,000 years, and that man’s physical nature may have evolved from lower life forms.
And no, I don’t believe in “the man in the sky,” because no one but such men as Ron Peer believe that that is what Catholics believe.
I do, however, believe in the God in Whom I and Ron Peer, whether he likes it or not, live and move and have our being. And I believe in such quaint notions as the fact that the life growing in my wife’s womb at the moment is not something lightly to be discarded, much less ripped limb from limb in the name of abandoning a “backward belief system.”
Your are spot on,Rosalee. There is no pitiful blind man as that one who covers his eyes not to see the light and shouts from the hill that the world is all darkness. He needs to be pitied and prayers from the normal human beings
Scott, you quote “one of Myers’ admirers” as saying that he did his “cracker abuse” to “[t]o show that it’s just a piece of bread”. And you state that this is “echoing Myers’ own comments”, but you don’t provide an actual quote of him saying so. He certainly doesn’t believe it’s anything more than a cracker, but that’s not why he did it.
As Meyers actually said, “Crazy Christian fanatics right here in our own country have been threatening to kill a young man over a cracker. This is insane.”. And, later, “Let’s not forget Webster Cook, who started this all by simply walking back to his seat with a cracker, and now faces censure and possible expulsion from his university… By the way, I didn’t want to single out just the cracker, so I nailed it to a few ripped-out pages from the Qur’an and The God Delusion. They are just paper. Nothing must be held sacred.”
Mr. Ingles,
Actually Myers wrote that he had been intending to desecrate the Eucharist for some time. The incident with the student in Florida was merely an excuse for his venting his hatred for Catholicism:
http://www.takimag.com/sniperstower/article/more_fun_with_atheists_part_two/
Scott, I wasn’t setting up a strawman – I was responding to your rather obvious (and dishonest) implication that the only reason an atheist could possibly have for attacking religion is unfamiliarity with it. I left religion, and specifically Catholicism, because I was all too familiar with it!
My point about church-state entanglement is valid. The unelected bishops in the House of Lords would continue to “lord it” over British subjects. I really don’t care whether we have unelected theocratic princelings wearing one kind of silly hat or another – both cases are unacceptable.
Ray, I didn’t suggest that “the only reason an atheist could possibly have for attacking religion is unfamiliarity with it.” I did say that there are those, and I would number Dawkins among them, who simply have no desire to attempt to understand it. One can be quite familiar with religion while having no desire to understand it.
As for your remarks about “unelected theocratic princelings wearing one kind of silly hat or another,” you still apparently haven’t actually read what I wrote. There’s no way on God’s green earth that Catholic bishops will be allowed into the House of Lords; thus any measure, including Pope Benedict’s overtures to disaffected Anglicans, that decreases the power of the Anglican Church in Britain will be a win for Dawkins and his ilk.
For that reason alone, if Dawkins were as rational as he believes himself to be, he should be ecstatic to see all the “misogynists and bigots” swim the Tiber.
Ray Ingles, the link in Tom Piatak’s comment contains the remark by Myers to which I was referring. You can find the original comment by Myers here.
For those who don’t want to click on the link, Myers wrote:
Hell, Scott you have hit upon a real contemporary issue of desire. I have never seen so much interest in the blog in recent months. People really do want to know what is wrong with Atheism and right about their own Tradition if anything. They want to know if the partial emptiness, unhappiness and hype of a life lived at the material and passionate level of the animals is all there is or if there is something more to the mystery. I am impressed with the responses, even the angry ones which are the manifestations of a quiet despair. Mr. Dawkins is being asked to lead a sociological reality in our declining culture by frequent requests for his opinions and he is responding in the only way he knows. His positions are ancient but wrapped in the new clothes of genetics and recent discovery. He has as much right to lecture the Church of England as the next guy, but he should shut up about the Holy Father and the faith of which he knows absolutely nothing. Either because in his own words “there is nothing there to know” or because he is willfully ignorant and therefore culpable as either a mad scientist of a fraud. Should we continue to study Greek and Latin or is French and English the current language of Science? How about the elderly? Should we continue to assist them in their last illness or let genetics take its course? He has become the new Ann Landers of British culture and if he is the only one willing to take the honest questions of the disillusioned people, I say good for him and shame on the Anglican leaders posing as teachers and defenders of the Faith.
Well Scott for a man who ends his column by saying it’s important to “know thy enemy” insinuating that atheists such as Dawkins are your enemy because they do not subscribe to your fantasies of religion then let us talk about descending in attacks. You my pious friend seem too have lobbed the first volley.
The “man in the sky”, “God”, “Thor” what ever you want to call it to me is fantasy or should I say ‘fanatacy’. When there is no proof of something other than just blindly following what you are told then it really is fanaticism. However I will give you credit for letting the world be older than 6 thousand years. This is progress for the church. It had become rather ridiculous for the church to insist it was only 6 thousand years old. After all how do we explain those nasty dinosaurs? You see Scott many of us have an understanding of your belief in religion having been brought up in a so called Christian society but cannot see any justification for it.
To a person like me who likes to see proof of things before I believe anything it boggles my mind how some can just blindly believe in a god. Some can even concoct proof of his\her existence by referring to the bible a book written by a man. A man also wrote the Spiderman comics but we do not find that to be proof of anyone real.
One other thing Scott, politically I’m a Conservative like no other. I take total offense when people try to confuse religion, politics and right or left leanings. To me this is a George Bush phenomenon which only hurts Conservatism. Leftism and atheism having no bearing on me because I’m more right than you could ever hope to be.
Ron Peer, perhaps you might take a break from typing just long enough to read what I wrote. Tom Piatak referred to Dawkins as a “pedestrian leftist” not because Dawkins is an atheist, but because Dawkins himself used his attack on the Catholic Church to advance rather pedestrian leftist political positions. If anyone tried “to confuse religion, politics and right or left leanings,” it was Dawkins. I applied Mr. Piatak’s phrase to P.Z. Myers because Myers follows Dawkins in his political leanings as well.
As for my use of the line, “Know thy enemy”: Tell me, Mr. Peer, should I regard a man who stated in the column in question that the Catholic Church is in “a field of stiff competition” for “the title of greatest force for evil in the world” as my friend?
You can’t have it both ways. Richard Dawkins doesn’t want to; I’m sure he’d have no trouble describing those of us that he regards as “lunatics” for our faith as his enemies. Why do you insist that I shouldn’t describe him as he would describe me?
LOL Scott it looks like you have painted yourself in a corner on describing people as an enemy for those that do not believe as you do. It appears as I am also your enemy for “descending into attacks” as you say by proposing your belief system to not be real. I’m not your enemy Scott but I’m not going to back down from your outrages claims of the existence of a god.
How can you expect anything more than “pedestrian leftism” (although I still object to the leftism use) by a man such as Dawkins. Why would an atheist give anything more than a drive by ruling on something such as religion. We were brought up in religion we know all about it. We cannot give credence to someone’s belief or wanting to believe in something without proof or fact. Let me use the comic book analogy again. If a person believes in Batman and he so wants me to also believe in it how could I possibly give his subject matter any more than 5 minutes of my attention unless I actually saw Batman myself. Ah then there would be proof and a reason to continue the dialog or maybe even believe myself. It is the very same for your religion. Nobody has seen God, we have no proof so don’t expect me to believe in your comic book. I’m not your enemy as you see it but I’m also not going to back down and let you preach fantasy. Throughout man’s history religion has created many problems as it still does today and this is where the term evil in religion comes from.
If I came to you and said that I see unicorns dancing in the backyard of my house would you give me the benefit of the doubt or view me as a lunatic? I think Dawkins is just doing the same thing with religion. I agree with him.
Ron Peer, you’re still not bothering to read what I or Mr. Piatak wrote. It’s not that Dawkins gives a “drive by ruling” on religion that makes him a “pedestrian leftist”; it’s, well, his pedestrian leftist views on sex roles, homosexuality, etc., that make him a pedestrian leftist. And it’s those views (which, if you are as right-wing as you claim to be, you should find yourself in disagreement with) that Dawkins imports into his attack on the Catholic Church.
“Nobody has seen God”—except, of course, for those who did. You may wish to claim that Christ did not walk the earth, but at that point the burden of proof falls to you to prove false the testimony of those who did indeed know Him in the flesh.
Christianity is an incarnational religion. It is not Judaism; it is not Islam. It is separated from the other two great monotheisms by the very specific claim that God not only exists but entered physically into His Creation.
And no, He wasn’t a dancing unicorn.
Mr. Peer – you grow tiresome. Dr. Richard Lewontin, the Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology at Harvard University, put it like this: “It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door” (Richard Lewontin, “Billions and Billions of Demons,” New York Review of Books, January 9, 1997, p. 28).
You were not born with knowledge that unravels 2000 years of faith. You are just Ron Peer, another atheist. We will not convince you and you certainly cannot convince us. We just disagree. Despite that, we Christians love you and pray for your soul.
I have been wondering why atheist call themselves free thinkers when they refuse to consider the possibility of the existence of God. What about the miracles like the time Padre Pio helped a blind girl with no pupils to see?
The thing that these pitiful, miserable atheists will never understand is that God exists whether they like it or not. Too bad for them. Wha wha!
“Nobody has seen God”—except, of course, for those who did. You may wish to claim that Christ did not walk the earth, but at that point the burden of proof falls to you to prove false the testimony of those who did indeed know Him in the flesh.
Scott, I always thought the burden of proof fell on the one making the positive claim; that the testimony that something is the case requires the support of evidence. If, after the case has been made, someone says, “nope, I don’t believe it,” than it’s typically not expected that that person will have to prove why he or she hasn’t been persuaded.
Of course, in order for a burden of proof to be met (no matter who has to meet it), both side have to agree beforehand what type and certainty of evidence constitutes proof. I don’t think that either the science side or the faith side has ever been willing to accept what the other side has to offer as nearly enough to be persuasive.
It seems it’s always been the case that there are thinkers on both sides subtle and sophisticated enough to dig as deep into the science or theology as humanly possible and still not persuade the other side, because there’s always someone on the other side able to counter the argument so made from within. What’s weird to me is how easy it can be for someone to slip from sophisticated thinker to shrill scold–Dawkins certainly seems to me to be constantly doing that, and I only mention him since this particular post and thread was originally about him.
The scolds on both sides seem to get most vocal when the discussion turns to public policy matters. Religion and public policy have been intertwined until a relatively recent moment in history. Except for naked power grabs, there have been no serious challenges to religious underpinnings of public policy in, I’ll venture, most human cultures for most of human history. In the last couple of hundred years or so, efforts to dis-entwine public policy from religion have–it seems–been increasingly successful.
Where does this secularization leave religion? Like any institution, it beefs up its assertions of validity. Those on the secularist side with a particular anti-religion stance beef up their assertions, and an unending arms race runs rampant. The sides can never back down even if some individuals tire of the bickering, and not even if some individuals change their minds.
SM
“When British journalist Damian Thompson, the blogs editor for the Telegraph Media Group and a prominent Catholic commentator whom Dawkins pretends never to have heard of, asked why Dawkins would bother to concern himself with what he should regard (at best) as internecine squabbling between two branches of a religion he despises,”
Well, it was probably because he was specificly asked about it by the interviewer. Damian Thomson (and you) seems to ignore this in order to try and make the point that Dawkins puts his nose where it doesn’t belong.
Here is the link.
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/richard_dawkins/2009/10/give_us_your_misogynists_and_bigots.html
Mr. Tubble, I not only quoted from the column and cited the source; I gave a link—indeed, the very one that you now seem to regard as a trump card.
The question is not how Dawkins’ answer came about; the question is why Dawkins bothered to concern himself with this at all. I’ve been interviewed by the media many times myself, and I’ve never felt obliged to answer every question that is asked simply because it was asked.
If Jon Meacham and Sally Quinn were to call me and ask me a question about the “selfish gene” theory of evolution, I’d simply pass. Dawkins could have done the same.
He did not, and that’s the point. Obviously, he wished to answer this question, and the reason why he wished to do so (which is what Thompson asked) is therefore much more interesting than the boring mechanical how.
SM, my friend, thank you for a typically thoughtful comment. And thank you for drawing my attention to the fact that the lines you quoted seem to make a broader argument (that Christ is God) than the one I intended to make (that Christ walked the earth).
The truth implied in the first sentence—that Christ is God—I simply accept as fact, and I’m not attempting in this discussion to convince Ron Peer or anyone else of that truth. In the second sentence (”You may wish to claim . . . “), I did not intend to make a claim for Christ’s divinity but for His historicity. I was anticipating Mr. Peer’s next argument (usually a mistake, and therefore an action I usually try to avoid, and probably should have in this case). I thought that he might try to claim that Christ did not exist, even as an historical figure, since such claims are all too common among a certain type of atheist today.
With that clarification, I will defend what I wrote. In strict argumentation, of course, the burden of proof falls on the one making the positive claim; but it is also true that some negative claims are so contrary to reality that we commonly switch the burden of proof to the one making that claim.
Thus, if I were to say that there once was a man named Ora William Richert who was my grandfather, and if his existence, name, and relationship to me were attested by even a relatively small number—say, a few dozen—of witnesses, we would consider the man who comes along and denies it perverse at best. He is making the negative claim, but very few people would expect the burden of proof to return to me, because the preponderance of evidence is already enough to establish my claim as fact.
This is the situation in which those who today would deny that Christ once walked the earth are in. The claim that His entire life was a fabrication is very late, historically speaking (a product of the modern world, in fact); until recent centuries, the testimony of those who knew Him was almost universally accepted in its historical details (if not in its theological claims).
Now, if I were to make the further claim that my grandfather had the ability to turn water into wine, the burden of proof would return to me. In this case, however, I did not intend to make the broader claim (Christ is God), but the narrower one (Christ walked the earth), though I see now how my choice of language misled.
To go a step further, it may well surprise some readers (though I suspect that, after all these years, you still know me well enough that it won’t surprise you) to find out that I’m not particularly concerned with proving to nonbelievers that there is a God, that He exists in triune form, or that the Second Person of the Trinity became man. I take seriously the Christian belief that faith is a gift. Theological argumentation can prepare the soil of the soul for that gift, and it’s indispensable for understanding one’s faith after receiving that gift, but I am not one of those who believes that the nonbeliever can be argued into faith.
That is why, in this piece, in the followup piece I’m writing at the moment, and in my earlier pieces on Heather Mac Donald’s puzzlement at the Catholic use of statues and P.Z. Myers’ desecration of the Eucharist, I have not tried to convince Dawkins, Mac Donald, Myers, or their followers of the truth of Christianity, but simply to explain why a reasonable person should be able to understand certain claims of the Christian Faith, even if he is unable or unwilling to give assent to them.
Scott, I don’t think you’re reading Meyer’s correctly, even in the quote you produce. As he says, “It’s how we wake people up — by showing that their beliefs are powerless.”
By that he means secular power. Muslims forbid drawing pictures of Mohammed, and that’s all well and good – if you’re a Muslim. But people who aren’t Muslim are under no obligation to refrain from drawing cartoons of Mohammed. Most of the time, out of politeness and lack of interest, non-Muslims wouldn’t bother. But when death threats come up, it becomes important to confront that.
Death threats were allegedly issued against the student. That’s what sparked Meyers’ ire, so far as I’ve been able to determine.
As to the quote where he’s supposed to have said on his blog that he’d been planning something like that for months… there’s no link, and Google can’t find those words on his site. I’d be very interested to see those words in their original context, if you can find them…
Ray Ingles, I think that you’re importing your reading into Myers’ comment. There’s no particular reason in his statement to assume that he means political power.
As for Myers’ comment that “I’ve been intending something along these lines for a few months now. This was actually a good opportunity for something that is already written,” you can find the original here.
Scott, I’m afraid I don’t understand what “pedestrian leftism” means. But I do understand that you would probably be the first person to vilify a belief system such as Scientology. What sort of “intellectual defiencies” do Scientologists have (and, for the record, I think Scientologists are as nutty as they come)? No, you one of those souls who thinks we have to prove to you that God doesn’t exist, instead of the other way around — an flawed argument that has extended into American politics. Saddam Hussein was threatened to “prove” he had no weapons of mass destruction (as if you can prove a negative), and now some on the fringes claim Obama must “prove” he wasn’t born in Kenya! Does disputing this line of thinking make me a “pedestrian leftist”?
Erich S., I’ll simply suggest what I have suggested to the others: Read what I wrote and what Mr. Piatak wrote when he used the phrase “pedestrian leftist.” That part has nothing to do with Dawkins’ atheism, but with the political views that he imported into his attack on the Catholic Church.
You don’t need to prove to me that God doesn’t exist; I’ll be perfectly happy, in fact, if you spend your intellectual energies in some other pursuit.
And as for me proving to you that God exists, please read the penultimate and final paragraphs of my comment #30 above.
By the way, if believing that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction (not to mention believing that the war in Iraq was both unjust and not in the American interest) is “pedestrian leftism,” then I would be a pedestrian leftist, too.
Scott,
Well, we’ve found some common ground;)
In my haste, I failed to come to my point on Scientology. Most folks of a religious persuasion are intolerant of Scientology, especially in Europe. But my point is that Scientology’s beliefs are really no “crazier” than any other religion’s beliefs.
Dawkins is very much “in your face” with his atheism. But this is a very new paradigm in our society, which still regards atheists below Muslims and homosexuals! Dawkins sees the inherent violence in religious belief — traits which have been apart of all religions (with the exception of maybe Buddhism) and decries this. In this way, he’s really saying no more than John Lennon, who believed (and probably rightly so) that a world without religious belief would be a more peaceful one.
I’m not sure you’d agree, but if you don’t, then I’d have to ask you, what’s the purpose of having a religion when all it does it cause strife? As a student of Dawkins, I feel this is the main thrust of his argument — a righteous indignation and a geniune love of humanity.
Gee, Erich S., I never thought of it that way! All this time, I thought that I was actually happy, when all that my religion was bringing into my life was strife! Not to mention all the literature and music and art inspired by Christianity, and the schools (universities were, of course, Christian institutions originally) and hospitals (ditto)—all just sources of strife and inherently violent!
Thanks for helping me see the light. Once I abandon everything that is a product of Christian civilization, I’ll finally be a happy man.
Scott look at some of your believers such as Rick speaking aboout “demons and praying for my soul”. This is the lunatic fringe of which atheists speak of. Even your finding Richard Dawkins to be your enemy is counter to the teachings of your god. This is where Dawkins point comes home fully and begins to make you no different than your jihadist brothers of another faith. If we don’t believe then we are the enemy. Sorry no I am another person challenging your belief system which I find seriously flawed. Certainly not an enemy. An enemy has to harm me physically or personally for me to give them that title. Certainly your faith and religion is strong enough to withstand some investigation.
So far the only proof of anything is once again the only answer anyone religious ever has and that is faith. Someone claims to have seen god. As I said someone may also have claimed to have seen dancing unicorns. I find both claims absurd and lacking the slightest proof. Just as your claim of Jesus ascending to heaven. Why because someone claims that this happened 2000 years ago? To my knowledge no one has actally ever really proved that Jesus existed either although I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt that someone named Jesus did exist but that’s where I end it.
The Greeks at one time believed that Zeus and all the other gods lived on Mount Olympus. I’m quite sure they believed this as strongly as you believe Jesus is looking down on us from Heaven. Man moved on and said “that Mount Olympus thing how foolish”. The very same thing is happening to Christianity now. More and more the we are looking at it and saying “how foolish”. After all is this not why the Catholics are trying to bring Anglicans into the fold but to bolster the dwindling ranks of the faithful?
Ron Peer, you might be a little more convincing if you got your facts straight. It’s hardly rational to refer to a steadily increasing worldwide Catholic population (and an increasing worldwide population of Catholic priests) as “the dwindling ranks of the faithful.”
Ah, but I suppose that because you didn’t count them, but someone else did, all of those Catholics are merely “dancing unicorns.”
Scott the population of the world is increasing do it on a per capita basis. I read the other day that the UK is at 45% of the population not believing in Christianity. In the Scandinavian countries something like 80% do not believe. The numbers of non-believers in North America are also increasing steadily.
Now in some of the backward third world countries you may be gaining in members on a per capita basis but superstition always does breed very well in non educated areas of the world. That’s the facts Scott.
Oh and I forgot one other thing as to your suggestion that as a Conservative leaning person that I should also object to Dawkins views on homosexuality. Let me just say that if you were to weed all of the homosexuals out of the Catholic Church you would be down half the population of the Priesthood and maybe minus a Pope.
Having said that I also have no problem with homosexuality. I do not view it as a choice in a person’s life but more of a biological make up. You see as a straight person I don’t find any member of my sex as appealing to me sexually. So I don’t see how I could ever make that choice to become homosexual. Therefore it must be biological without a person being able to be something they cannot be. To be right leaning and to condemn homosexuality is once again a trait of the “religious” right which I want no part of.
Scott,
I don’t think it’s even worth entertaining this “Rick Peer” anymore. Why is he here anyway? This is a place to learn about Catholism and all that he’s doing is trying to prove his point about why he doesn’t believe. Maybe he should open his mind instead of quoting fiction that’s being spread by other non-believers. I won’t bother addressing him directly but I would like to thank you Scott for everything that you do here. Your blog and forum are very informative and I have learned a lot from you. Actually, maybe I will address you directly. Rick instead of wasting your time here why don’t you go out and get yourself a Catechism, shut off your computer and do some reading. Maybe you will learn something new about Catholism that will help you to be less jaded.
Well Laura the only reason I’m here is through a google news search on Richard Dawkins brought me here. I saw a little Dawkins bashing going on so I thought I might strike back. I’m quite sure you’ve heard of the phrase “religions that live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.”
I guess I struck a nerve that didn’t agree with you and for that I do not apologize.
Mr. Peer, your original remark referred to the “dwindling ranks of the faithful.” “Ranks” are not something measured on a per capita basis, but on sheer numbers. Now that you realize you were wrong, you’ve changed your claim.
Once again, though, you might do your homework before letting your fingers do the talking. Even a quick visit to Wikipedia would have shown you that the Catholic population has increased on a per capita basis:
Mr Peer, There’s really no reason to apologize but I do wonder why you felt the need to “strike back” when you could respectfully ask any question and receive an honest reply without having to resort to bringing up “dancing unicorns”!
It appears to be a wasted effort on Scott’s part to take the time to explain anything to you when you are so adamantly trying to prove him wrong.
No, I never heard it phrased that way. You are misquoting {wrong once again Mr Peer} Geoffrey Chaucer. He said People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, not religions.
Since you are unable to get your facts straight about anything I believe it is a waste of time to bother reading another word you write. As I suggested last night, why don’t you do some reading and gather some facts? Then when you post again hopefully you won’t appear to be so dumb.
To Ron Peer:
You are correct that it is eminently possible to be an atheistic conservative. Indeed, I cannot understand why there are any atheists who are NOT conservative (I mean in a general secular sense; I don’t define conservatism as some narrow opposition to abortion or gays, as unfortunately many Christians in the US seem to). Of course, as a rightist, I cannot understand why there are any normal (white, heterosexual, taxpaying) citizens anywhere in the West who are NOT conservatives …
[I also am in complete agreement with you wrt the biologically deterministic basis of one's sexual orientation. One does not choose to have a same-sex orientation, or a non-same-sex one. One's orientation just is. That does not in itself excuse the practice of homosexuality, unless one believes, as I do not, that one has an individual right to sexual activity which supersedes any countervailing communal or national interests or standards. After all, pedophiles are undoubtedly genetically cursed as well, but child molestation is a choice, which conservatives believe should be severely punished.]
I think that for any true conservative there should be a presumption at least of respect towards Christianity, and especially its oldest form, Catholicism. The Catholic Church is as responsible as any other institution for the civilization we call the West – and the preservation of the people, culture and historic institutions of the nations comprising the West is the sumum bonum for all true conservatives (not more, um, pedestrian concerns, like jobs growth, tax or crime rates, abortion policy, even foreign policy). I do not think your overly dismissive hostility to the Christian faith is compatible with this ultimate conserving mission.
If you must be an atheist, you should be a wearily resigned one, like your own (you’re British, I take it?) Somerset Maugham (one of the better homosexuals in history, incidentally).
Finally, you are hostile to Christianity, and a pugnacious atheist. Are you equally vitriolic and confrontational towards Islam, a religion which, even by atheist standards, is: vastly more intellectually (not to mention culturally and scientifically) sterile than Christianity, as well as utterly psychologically hostile to and incongruent with the mentality of historic Western Man, and far more of a literal physical threat to traditional British values, liberties, and even personal safety?
I hope you’re not picking a fight with Christians because they are gentle and restrained (ditto for Dawkins: how aggressive is he towards the savage Muslim immigrants your treasonous Labour government has allowed by the millions onto precious English soil over the past dozen years?).
Scott give your head a shake. We are talking about the Catholics poaching Anglicans which quite frankly I could careless about because Anglican, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim or Scientologist you’re all nuts, but we are mainly talking about the UK or North America. In these countries including Europe the ranks of believers are dropping on a per Capita basis. So much so that many churches have had to close locations. I did say that the church still continues to prey on the third world countries where people are less educated. However education doesn’t stop people from having some very strange beliefs does it.
What I’m saying is that in the geographic locations of the world where people are better educated the number of believers in religion is dwindling. This will continue to happen as people like Richard Dawkins and other prominent people finally stand up and say we’ve had enough of your idiocy. It’s okay for non-believers to come out of the closet. It’s time we did away with things like tax breaks for religions. It’s time when some religious nut wants to teach creationism in schools to tell them where to go and how to get there. It’s time we say no to someone wanting to wear their burka in a voting booth that we say no. In other words it’s time that people put religion on trial instead of the trials it has put everyone else through to keep itself alive.
BTW Laura you have a make believe friend that you talk to and believe in. Who’s the dumb one?
It’s amusing to me that some of you people profess to be such believers but it must be a fragile belief if it cannot stand criticism. LOL I get a kick out of how riled up you get when someone questions the authority of something so flawed.
Mr. Peer, Laura is right: There really is no way to have a rational discussion with you. Every time you are proved wrong on a point of fact, you change your claim, and then act as if that’s what you were saying all along. So first, you say, without any qualification whatsoever, that the “ranks of Catholicism are dwindling.” When I point out that that’s not true, you say, “Well, of course, I didn’t mean absolute numbers; I meant on a per capita basis.” When I point out that that is wrong, you now say, “Only a moron could think that I meant what said. Of course I meant that the ranks of Catholics are dwindling in those places where they are dwindling, and not in those places where they aren’t.”
Such method of argumentation is not that of a rational person. Yet you have the gall to attack myself and other believers for our supposed “irrationality.”
Someone here says: “Also it might surprise you to learn that atheists are not consumed with hatred of a non-existent god. Rather, they are sick of their tax money being taken to support a superstition they don’t share, and being called evil and immoral simply because they don’t share that superstition”.
With all my respect… My oh, so hard earned money also goes to taxes that “support superstitions” I don’t share… yet, I pay them and don’t insult anyone. Many of my tax dollars go to support Public School Education even though my children don’t attend these schools. Yet, I don’t insult anyone that believes in Public School Education and attends these schools. Just because you don’t believe in God doesn’t mean he doesn’t exist. But you would be required to be open minded to understand that concept!! Just because I don’t Speak Russian doesn’t mean the Russian Language doesn’t exist. Again, you would need to be open minded to understand.
So Mr. Peer: Are you equally hostile towards Islam?
These comments are truly sad. I pray for those that
don’t believe. To live a life of no God is to live
as life in hell. I recently had a divine encounter
and it was truly beautiful. Like many Amnericans my
husband lost his job and I was upset and walked my
daily walk asking God is I am living my life right
show me a bird. As I walked about 30 min. there were
no birds which is most unusual. The folliwng night
I had a dream of a bird and 2 eggs colored, I was
happy I felt that this was Easter and Jesus was
telling me I was living my life right. The next
day when I was walking I saw a man who looked like
he was from Israel and he was making bird sounds
and there were hearts and symbols coming from the
sounds. I told this man which I thought was a man
at the time that his bird calls were really nice.
This man evaporated and appeared to the left of me
by a tree and said , “I am a bird”. I was in awe
and I said “Oh” and walked on. within the next two
days I was feeling euphoric and I looked at the picture I have of Jesus over my bed and realized
the man was what I thought and that Jesus had appeared to me. So I pray for those that do not
believe you are in real danger. Peace and God bless
America as it used to be.