Richard Dawkins

[Yithian]

Of course he bloody is.

Stating the damned obvious.

 

[ramonmercado]

Indeed, I'm a cultural catholic myself. I actually like cribs (just a Fortean interest, honestly). I was at a funeral mass with an ex (high) anglican friend last week and we both admired the decor of the church.

Off to do some carol singing now: Adeste Fidel Castro...

 

[rjmrjmrjm]

What next Mr Dawkins? The admission that you are a white human male?

 

[Anome]

Actually, I think this is an interesting reversal. Perhaps he's been "got at" by someone to tone down the message.

I bet it was that Stephen Fry with his niceness and reasonableness.

And I'm still annoyed that Dawkins is married to Lalla Ward. Don't think I've forgotten about that.

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

Actually, I think this is an interesting reversal. Perhaps he's been "got at" by someone to tone down the message.

...

I agree. Coming from someone who has previously stated something along the lines of religious beliefs being a form of intellectual bubonic plague (memes), admitting his Christian heritage is a big step.

He still comes across as curmudgeonly Scrooge-like, mind.

Still, if he slowly becomes a bit more reasonable and less fundamental in the extremity of his atheism, it can only help his case.

 

[jefflovestone]

Where can I put money on Dawkins having an Ickianesque epiphany in the next 5 years?

It will turn out that the Biblical Creationist are all wrong because he's right and he knows because he's the Son of God.

He is the One True Light to Lead the Brights; praise Him.

 

[ramonmercado]

Where can I put money on Dawkins having an Ickianesque epiphany in the next 5 years?

It will turn out that the Biblical Creationist are all wrong because he's right and he knows because he's the Son of God.

He is the One True Light to Lead the Brights; praise Him.

Blasphemer! Hes not the mere son, hes Odin, The Father. I'm his favoured son, Loki.

 

[skinny46]

He still comes across as curmudgeonly Scrooge-like, mind.

Still, if he slowly becomes a bit more reasonable and less fundamental in the extremity of his atheism, it can only help his case.

If you find Dawkins' atheism unreasonable and extreme, steer well clear of Christopher Hitchens. I usually respond to Dawkins these days by wishing he would give his ideological opponents a harder time, the big softy.

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

...

If you find Dawkins' atheism unreasonable and extreme, steer well clear of Christopher Hitchens. I usually respond to Dawkins these days by wishing he would give his ideological opponents a harder time, the big softy.

If you search hard enough, on the MB, I'm sure you'll find that I make reference to the semi-articulate sphincter, that is Christopher Hitchens, elswhere.

 

[ramonmercado]

Hitchens is a supporter of the Occupation of Iraq, Dawkins is in the Anti-War Camp.

Well heres an article from the New Statesman by Dawkins.

Happy Newton Day to you all!

Happy Newton Day!
Richard Dawkins

December 25th is a date to celebrate not because it is the disputed birthday of the "son of God" but because it is the actual birthday of one of the world's greatest men


O come, O come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel . . .


Advent, we learned at school, was a time of anticipation: of looking forward to the coming of the Messiah. But we boys knew better. Advent was looking forward to something a lot more interesting - Christmas. That great processional tune, played on the organ to announce the Advent hymn, still stirs my depths, fifty years on. It meant that Christmas, which was the main thing each boy had been looking forward to since his birthday, was really coming - and what bad luck on poor Jesus, having his birthday on Christmas Day.

The Advent hymn anticipated the excited sleeplessness of Christmas Eve, then the knobbly weight of the stocking, distended and crackling with promise of the "real" presents to come after breakfast or, in unlucky years, after church. That heraldic minor-key theme, on the trumpet stop, was a fanfare for Hamleys, for Meccano and Hornby Dublo, for overeating in a wasteland of coloured wrapping paper.

We knew little of the theology of Advent. "Emmanuel", we gathered, might be a rather daring misspelling, but it really was just another way of writing "Jesus". How else interpret the familiar words of Matthew (1:22-23)?


Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying/Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel . . .


We never wondered why God would go to such lengths simply to fulfil a prophecy. Nor, indeed, why God would go to the even greater lengths of sending his son into the world in order that he should be agonisingly punished for the sins that mankind might decide to commit at some time in the future (or for the past scrumping offence of one non-existent man, Adam) - surely one of the single nastiest ideas ever to occur to a human mind (Paul's, of course). We never wondered why God, if he wanted to forgive our sins, didn't just forgive them. Why did he have to scapegoat himself first? Where religion was concerned, we never wondered anything. That was the point about religion. You could ask questions about any other subject, but not religion.

We'd have been intrigued if our scripture teachers had come clean and told us that Isaiah's Hebrew for "young woman" was accidentally mistranslated as "virgin" in the Greek Septuagint (an easy mistake to make: think of the English word "maiden"). To say that this little error was to have repercussions out of all proportion would be putting it mildly.

From it flowed the whole Virgin Mary myth, the kitsch "Our Lady" of Catholic grotto-idolatry, the sub-paedophile spectacle of young girls in virginal white First Communion dresses, the goddess status of not just Mary herself but a pantheon of local "manifestations". Pope John Paul II thought he was saved from assassination in 1981 not just by Our Lady but specifically by Our Lady of Fatima. As I have remarked elsewhere, presumably Our Lady of Lourdes, Our Lady of Guadalupe, Our Lady of Medjugorje, Our Lady of Akita, Our Lady of Zeitoun, Our Lady of Garabandal and Our Lady of Knock were busy on other errands at the time.

Our scripture teachers could have gone on to tell us that Isaiah's "Emmanuel" verse was really nothing to do with Jesus, but referred to a temporary problem in Jewish politics seven centuries earlier. The birth of a child called Emmanuel was a sign to King Ahaz of Judah, to encourage him in his little local dispute with the neighbouring kingdoms of Syria and Israel.

It is typical of the religious mind to force a gratuitous symbolic meaning where none was intended. Christian writers later saw Judah's oppression as a symbol for mankind's enslavement to death and "sin", and ended up unable to tell the difference, like people who send Christmas cards to the Archers. An even funnier example is the late Christian gloss on the "Song of Songs", a frankly erotic document headed, in Christian bibles, by hilariously euphemistic epigraphs such as "The mutual love of Christ and his church".

The desire to fulfil prophecies is where our most heart-warming Christmas stories come from. There is no actual evidence that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, let alone in a stable. But he must have been born in Bethlehem, because the prophet Micah (5:2) had earlier said:


But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou
be little among the thousands of Judah, yet
out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel . . .


So, Luke has Mary and Joseph starting in Nazareth, but forced to go to Bethlehem ("everyone into his own city") to pay a Roman tax (ancient historians rightly ridicule this tax story). Matthew, by contrast, has Joseph's family starting in Bethlehem, but moving to Nazareth after returning from the flight to Egypt. Matthew turns even Jesus's relatively undisputed con nection with Nazareth into a strained effort to fulfil yet another prophecy:


And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene. (Matthew 2:23)


Mark, the earliest Gospel, doesn't mention the birth of Jesus at all. John (7:41-42) has people saying that he couldn't really be the Christ, precisely because he was born in Nazareth not Bethlehem, and because he was not descended from David:



Others said, This is the Christ. But some said, Shall Christ come out of Galilee?
Hath not the scripture said, That Christ cometh of the seed of David, and out of the


To add to the confusion, Matthew and Luke, though theirs are the only Gospels claiming that Jesus had no earthly father, both trace Jesus's descent from David through Joseph, not Mary (albeit through very different intermediates from one another, and very different numbers of intermediates).

Most but not all scholars think, on balance, that a charismatic wandering preacher called Jesus (or Joshua) probably was executed during the Roman occupation, though all objective historians agree that the evidence is weak. Certainly, nobody takes seriously the legend that he was born in December. Late Christian tradition simply attached Jesus's birth to a long-established and convenient winter solstice festival.

Such seasonal opportunism continues to this day. In some states of the US, public display of cribs and similar Christian symbols is outlawed for fear of offending Jews and others (not atheists). Seasonal marketing appetites are satisfied nationwide by a super-ecumenical "Holiday Season", into which are commandeered the Jewish Hanukkah, Muslim Ramadan, and the gratuitously fabricated "Kwanzaa" (invented in 1966 so that African Americans could celebrate their very own winter solstice). Americans coyly wish each other "Happy Holiday Season" and spend vast amounts on "Holiday" presents. For all I know, they hang up a "Holiday stocking" and sing "Holiday carols" around the decorated "Holiday tree". A red-coated "Father Holiday" has not so far been sighted, but this is surely only a matter of time.

For better or worse, ours is historically a Christian culture, and children who grow up ignorant of biblical literature are diminished, unable to take literary allusions, actually impoverished. I am no lover of Christianity, and I loathe the annual orgy of waste and reckless reciprocal spending, but I must say I'd rather wish you "Happy Christmas" than "Happy Holiday Season".

Fortunately, this is not the only choice: 25 December is the birthday of one of the truly great men ever to walk the earth, Sir Isaac Newton. His achievements might justly be celebrated wherever his truths hold sway. And that means from one end of the universe to the other. Happy Newton Day!

Richard Dawkins, FRS is Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University. His most recent book is "The God Delusion" (Black Swan, £8.99)

http://www.newstatesman.com/200712130029

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

Hitchens is a supporter of the Occupation of Iraq, Dawkins is in the Anti-War Camp.

Well heres an article from the New Statesman by Dawkins.

Happy Newton Day to you all!

...

http://www.newstatesman.com/200712130029

Somehow, I suspect that such a devoutly religious person as Newton, would have deeply appalled by Dawkins' article and the very idea of the 25th December being celebrated as his birthday.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton's_religious_views]

 

[ramonmercado]

Ah, but he was the father of modern science (one of Bios was titled The Last Alchemist) and his religious beliefs were hardly orthodox. It was common in those days for scientists to also use their "poweres" for eligious purposes. John Napier the inventor of Logrithims also used his talents to calculate begats in the bible.

But these scientists accepted new findings and didnt let the bible teachings prevent them from expoloring further.

 

[rynner2]

Somehow, I suspect that such a devoutly religious person as Newton, would have deeply appalled by Dawkins' article and the very idea of the 25th December being celebrated as his birthday.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton's_religious_views]

He may have been religious by his own lights, but he was very far from the mainstream of his day. As Wiki says:

"Newton is generally thought to have been Arian, not holding to Trinitarianism.[8] He listed "worshipping Christ as God" in a list of "Idolatria" in his theological notebook.[12] In a minority view, T.C. Pfizenmaier argued that he held closer to the Eastern Orthodox view of the Trinity rather than the Western one held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans and Protestants.[13] In his final days Newton refused the sacrament of the Church of England."

Another source http://galileoandeinstein.physics.virgi ... ewton.html says

"He felt unable to accept the current beliefs of the Church of England, which was unfortunate because he was required as a Fellow of Trinity College to take holy orders. Happily, the Church of England was more flexible than Galileo had found the Catholic Church in these matters, and King Charles II issued a royal decree excusing Newton from the necessity of taking holy orders! Actually, to prevent this being a wide precedent, the decree specified that, in perpetuity, the Lucasian professor need not take holy orders. (The current Lucasian professor is Stephen Hawking.)"

 

[rynner2]

I usually respond to Dawkins these days by wishing he would give his ideological opponents a harder time, the big softy.

Dawkins to lecture in US Bible Belt
By Jonathan Brown
Published: 24 December 2007

Richard Dawkins, the scourge of pseudo-science, Christianity and homeopathy, is to step up his campaign for rational thinking with a series of high-profile lectures deep in the heart of the American Bible Belt.

The Oxford University professor travels to the US next year as part of his battle to promote evolutionary theory in the face of a backlash against the concept in the world's most-advanced industrial nation.

He is to address a series of 2,000-seater venues in the American heartlands. The tour will coincide with the publication of his best-seller The God Delusion in paperback in the US in January and act as a prelude to a series of global events to mark the bicentenary of Charles Darwin in 2009.

Professor Dawkins has charities in his own name on both sides of the Atlantic to promote reason and science. He has said that it is in the US, where 50 per cent of the population believes the universe is less than 10,000 years old, that the Enlightenment is most threatened.

However, he said he did not expect audiences to be too tough on his atheist beliefs and that many thanked him for speaking out. "The Bible Belt is a lot less monolithic than it portrays itself. I have a feeling that there is rather a large groundswell of people who agree with me," he said.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/ame ... 280444.ece

 

[stu neville]

...He has said that it is in the US, where 50 per cent of the population believes the universe is less than 10,000 years old, that the Enlightenment is most threatened.

50 per cent? I knew it was a large percentage, but an entire half of the US population?

Is this a generally accepted figure, or a spot of statistical massage by either the Indie or the good professor himself?

"The Bible Belt is a lot less monolithic than it portrays itself. I have a feeling that there is rather a large groundswell of people who agree with me," he said.

Well, for his sake, let's hope that he's not following in the footsteps of General John Sedgwick (of "They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist.." fame) which also happened thereabouts. Actually, I know it's an uncharitable thought, today of all days, but wouldn't it be a tad ironic if the old "Ghosts of Shiloh" got to him, complete with blazing crosses?

 

[rjmrjmrjm]

From it flowed the whole Virgin Mary myth, the kitsch "Our Lady" of Catholic grotto-idolatry, the sub-paedophile spectacle of young girls in virginal white First Communion dresses.

and

It is typical of the religious mind to force a gratuitous symbolic meaning where none was intended.

Oh dear.

 

[rynner2]

..and some more, from The Times:

Dawkins to preach atheism to US
Maurice Chittenden and Roger Waite

RICHARD DAWKINS, the British scientist who has become the high priest of atheism, is launching a crusade in America to win new recruits to the church of nonbelievers.

He is to embark on a lecture tour of 2,000-seater halls in the Bible Belt and the Midwest in the wake of the presidential primary season, which reaches its climax in early February.

Dawkins, whose book The God Delusion has sold 1.5m copies in the English language, has teamed up with Robin Wight, the man behind some of Britain’s most memorable advertising campaigns, to make it respectable to admit to being an atheist.

No presidential candidate could hope to survive in the polls in America if he or she admitted to doubts about the existence of God.

Wight, who was behind the slogan “The future’s bright, the future’s Orange”, is helping to rebrand atheists in a less negative light.

Wight, 63, chairman and co-founder of the WCRS advertising agency said: “We need a different name.” Alternatives that have been considered on Dawkins’ internet forum include “brights”, “fact fighters”, “realists” and “the faithless”. :hmm:

The American tour is being organised by a charitable foundation set up by Dawkins in the United States to push his agenda after a year-long struggle with the tax authorities. The campaign will go global in 2009 to mark the bicentenary of the birth of Charles Darwin and the 150th anniversary of his book, On the Origin of Species.

Dawkins, 66, the professor for public understanding of science at Oxford University, will release the paperback version of The God Delusion in the US early next year.

The scientist, who is married to his third wife, Lalla Ward, the actress who once played Dr Who’s sidekick Romana, expects a hostile reception in some places but claims there are as many atheists (20m) as any one religion in the US.

“They are not burning my books yet. It would be rather fun if they did,” he said last week.

Dawkins, who sometimes lectures in T-shirts bearing the slogan “Evolution � the greatest show on earth”, said: “America has a problem with evolution. There is an astonishing level of sheer ignorance fomented by religious prejudices.

“The Bible Belt is a lot less monolithic than it portrays itself. I have a feeling that there is rather a large groundswell of people who agree with me. I may be preaching to the choir but I think the choir is larger than many people realise.

“People thank me for speaking out. They are grateful that I articulate what they wish to say but can’t because they live there.”

He added: “We have the ‘Out’ campaign. We do see an analogy with gay rights. There are a lot of people in the closet in America.”

One convert is Dawkins’s daughter Juliet, who was sent by her mother to be, as Dawkins puts it, “indoctrinated” into the Catholic church. Friends of the family say she too is now an atheist.

Religious leaders in America dismissed Dawkins and his followers. The Rev David Cox, of the First Southern Methodist Church, Charleston, South Carolina said: “I would certainly like to protest. [Dawkins] is a tool of Satan, of the AntiChrist it sounds to me. All God-fearing people will be opposed to an atheist touring.” 8)

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/u ... 087486.ece

 

[rjmrjmrjm]

Wight, who was behind the slogan “The future’s bright, the future’s Orange”, is helping to rebrand atheists in a less negative light.

I thought the fundamental of athieism by definition was negative. There is NO[/b[ God. Pretty hard to make that positive.

I know, pedantic semantics but meh...

 

[rynner2]

Humanist is much the same as atheist, but sounds a bit friendlier!

(And it's a word already in use, so you don't need an expensive spin doctor to find you another word - unless some Humanist association has already copyrighted it!)

 

[rjmrjmrjm]

I agree Rynner up to a point but 'Humaist' is a dodgy term really as it can get confused with 'humanist'.

The first is intriniscally non-theistic.
The second is a generic catch-all term for anyone who supports humanist values.

Also Humanism tends to be concerned with the ethics of life and not with the theological/metaphisical debates about the existance of God. Dawkins, as much as he might like to call himself a Humanist is not one. He spends too much time thinking about WHY God doesn't exist. He is at most, a secular humanist.

 

[rynner2]

He is at most, a secular humanist.

Or he could be in the Militant Wing of the Humanist Association! 8)

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

But, he's not really a humanist. Anybody who believes that living organisms are merely mechanisms created by genes to facilitate their continued survival and propagation, is not a humanist. Dawkins is a mechanic, of the 'They built the body to fit the car' variety.

If only he was more of a humourist.

 

[rynner2]

If only he was more of a humourist.

Actually, I do think he is getting less strident (perhaps that spin doctor is doing some good after all!)

“They are not burning my books yet. It would be rather fun if they did,” he said last week.

 

[rynner2]

Humanism is a broad category of ethical philosophies that affirm the dignity and worth of all people, based on the ability to determine right and wrong by appeal to universal human qualities—particularly rationality.[1][2] It is a component of a variety of more specific philosophical systems and is incorporated into several religious schools of thought. Humanism entails a commitment to the search for truth and morality through human means in support of human interests. In focusing on the capacity for self-determination, Humanism rejects the validity of transcendental justifications, such as a dependence on belief without reason, the supernatural, or texts of allegedly divine origin. Humanists endorse universal morality based on the commonality of the human condition, suggesting that solutions to human social and cultural problems cannot be parochial. [3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanism

My bolds - not very far from Dawkins' position, methinks?

PM said

Anybody who believes that living organisms are merely mechanisms created by genes to facilitate their continued survival and propagation, is not a humanist.

Why not?

(And I think the word 'merely' is a reductionist move on your part: Dawkins is intelligent enough and educated enough to understand the interplay of morality and biology.)

 

[rjmrjmrjm]

from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanist_(life_stance)#Conflicting_beliefs

"Associated beliefs

Atheists, rationalists and agnostics are those thought to be supporters of Humanism, although may not always be due to various uncertainties and conflicting ideas present in their own, personal ideologies. However, they are occupied with a metaphysical issue, addressing questions of existence, while Humanism ignores such metaphysical matters and has its focus on ethics."

That is why I would not call Dawkins a Humanist. He keeps going on about WHY God doesn't exist. He's like a bloody atheologian.

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

...

Anybody who believes that living organisms are merely mechanisms created by genes to facilitate their continued survival and propagation, is not a humanist.

Why not?

(And I think the word 'merely' is a reductionist move on your part: Dawkins is intelligent enough and educated enough to understand the interplay of morality and biology.)

No. Anyone who believes, as Dawkins does, that all living things are merely vehicles designed to convey genes into the future as efficiently as possible, would know that all human culture, illusions of ethics and morality included, is nothing more than a viral information disease, with ambitions. Which is more, or less, Dawkins' own position. Not much about Humanity's "dignity," or "worth" there. Living things are just sophisticated biological machines, as far as Dawkins is concerned.

Nothing very Humanistic about that. So, please don't read things into Dawkins' philosophy that aren't really there. They're just frivolous memes. :no-no:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme

 

[rynner2]

So, please don't read things into Dawkins' philosophy that aren't really there. They're just frivolous memes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme

Frivolous? There you go again, using derogatory adjectives...

Dawkins understands very well that there is much more to human life than just genetics, which is why he coined the terms 'meme' and 'memetics' in the first place: they cover the cultural and social aspects of our lives that overlay our mere physical existence.

From the Wiki link above:

Richard Dawkins introduced the term after writing that evolution depended not on the particular chemical basis of genetics, but only on the existence of a self-replicating unit of transmission — in the case of biological evolution, the gene. For Dawkins, the meme exemplifies another self-replicating unit, and most importantly, one which he thought might prove useful in explaining human behavior and cultural evolution.

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

So, please don't read things into Dawkins' philosophy that aren't really there. They're just frivolous memes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme

Frivolous? There you go again, using derogatory adjectives...

Dawkins understands very well that there is much more to human life than just genetics, which is why he coined the terms 'meme' and 'memetics' in the first place: they cover the cultural and social aspects of our lives that overlay our mere physical existence.

From the Wiki link above:

Richard Dawkins introduced the term after writing that evolution depended not on the particular chemical basis of genetics, but only on the existence of a self-replicating unit of transmission — in the case of biological evolution, the gene. For Dawkins, the meme exemplifies another self-replicating unit, and most importantly, one which he thought might prove useful in explaining human behavior and cultural evolution.

Nothing in your argument, or that of Dawkins, suggests that there is anything intrinsic in Human Morality, or Reason, which makes those things important in themselves. As far as Genes and Memes are concerned, Raving Nonsense and Criminality could be equally useful in their continued propagation and often are.

That is the logic that sits at the heart of Dawkins' argument. It isn't pretty, it isn't humanistic, but it is scientific reductionism.

 

[ted_bloody_maul]

I'm not sure that Dawkins is really condoning the negative implications of memes by identifying them, though. I'm sure he would argue that we have sufficient free will that we can choose to reject such negative influences and within that choice lies the confirmation of humanism.

 

[escargot]

He's retiring:

The University of Oxford has advertised the Charles Simonyi Professorship in the Public Understanding of Science. I retire from the Chair in September 2008.

He doesn't understand the Dawkins rap though.