Oh, Richard *slaps forehead*

[dreamer_easy]

I dug up a Sunday Times (24/1/07) interview with Richard Dawkins re The God Delusion, from which I quote:

But if religion only amounts to coffee mornings and more upbeat passages from the New Testament, why the pressing need to turn its followers atheist? "I don't exactly want to turn people, I suppose." That's what you say you want to do in your book. "Well, I think they're missing something. The scientific world-view is so exciting, so breathtakingly enthralling when you think of what we now understand. Here we are sitting on a planet that may possibly be the only planet in the entire universe which has anything like life. We don't have it for long. What a shame to spend your few decades grizzling and grumbling about your lot when you could be revelling in the fact you exist at all." And religion is the barrier to such pleasures? "I think so, yes."

To a Neo-Pagan (or indeed a Zen Buddhist), whose religion is rooted in nature, this is the most bizarre nonsense - although frankly, I'm unsure that Dawkins realises there are religions other than the Abrahamic trio. More to the point, the idea that a scientific worldview is mutually exclusive with religious faith is also bunkum. According to National Geographic, a 1997 survey revealed that 40% of US scientists believe in a God who answers prayers. NG points out that an even larger proportion may believe in some kind of deity, and quotes physicist Brian Greene: "The universe is incredibly wondrous, incredibly beautiful, and it fills me with a sense that there is some underlying explanation that we have yet to fully understand," he said. "If someone wants to place the word God on those collections of words, it's OK with me."

Comments

[zombie-buddha.livejournal.com]

Why try to turn people athiest if religion is harmless?
Dawkins makes the point that soft religion, the coffee morning and love thy neighbour stuff, provides cover for extremism and ignorance. Being unable to critise harmless but irrational beliefs because of respect or tolerance is a slippery slope that leads to increasingly more harmful irrationality. I'm not entirely sure if I agree with that, since slippery slope arguments aren't the most solid of logical constructs, but I do tend to agree that even if religion were totally harmless, it would still be wrong and should be criticised on that basis.

Calling the universe God
When Dawkins talks about God, he's explicitly not referring to the Einsteinian non-anthropomorphic, non-sentient, natural and universal God.

What he argues against is irrationality. I guess this includes Neo-Paganism, to the degree in which Neo-Paganism includes magical thinking and irrationality, but Dawkins chiefly writes about the Abrahamic religions because they're the ones that are most dominant and harmful in the world today, and the ones his readers are likely to be most familiar with.

If you could elaborate on what your practise and belief of Neo-Paganism and Zen Buddhism entail, I could split it into stuff that the big D would rail against and what he'd have no problem with.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

It's also a false dichotomy that you can't respect and tolerate religion and criticise its follies and dangers. In fact, I myself do that all the time.

(I think Dawkins would find my own beliefs particularly irritating in their slipperiness.)

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

Dawkins' view of Christianity doesn't even deserve to be called a straw man -- that would make it sound too substantial.

Does the man know nothing about the history of science? And is he really so fatuous as to think that atheism fills people with wonder and awe at the beauty of the universe and gives them a deep inner sense of self-worth, whereas belief in a creator God and a grand Design does nothing but make people indifferent to nature and discontent with their lives? Pfft.

[qthewetsprocket.livejournal.com]

The scientific world-view is so exciting, so breathtakingly enthralling when you think of what we now understand.

prosthelytize much, does he, our mister dawkins? :) if he doesn't accept that atheism/scientism are 'religions' themselves, then he should look at his own statements a little closer.

What a shame to spend your few decades grizzling and grumbling about your lot when you could be revelling in the fact you exist at all.

...much the same point as most of the world's religions try to make, from what i understand - they just give the credit to a creator rather than 'fate' (except the buddhists, whose philosophies i really think mr dawkins should investigate sometime).

the more i hear about this man, the more i find it completely appropriate that romana married him. 'rassilon is dead! long live the vortex!' ;)

[rob-t-firefly.livejournal.com]

What a shame to spend your few decades grizzling and grumbling about your lot when you could be revelling in the fact you exist at all." And religion is the barrier to such pleasures? "I think so, yes."

Wow. Miss the point much, does he?

Speaking as a Neopagan, revelling in the beauty and marvel of the existence of myself and this world in which I'm living is quite a central concept of my spirituality.

a 1997 survey revealed that 40% of US scientists believe in a God who answers prayers.

I wonder if this survey was taken around the time when the scientists were still in suspense as to whether their funding would be renewed.

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

I'm past the point of seing any value in arguing against Dawkins, per se. The man's on a personal crusade; There's no way to stop him except by stepping aside and letting him run himself into a wall.

What worries me at this point is what's going on at Oxford, vis-a-vis his appointment to "the Charles Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science" (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Dawkins). There is so much that needs to be said and done about the public understanding of science in this decade, that Dawkins *isn't saying or doing*, because of his personal vendetta against "religion" - whatever he means by it this week. =:o{

[IS SAD]

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

"that Dawkins *isn't saying or doing*"

...Or at least, not effectively (i.e. no one's reporting it).

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

To be fair, Dawkins was appointed to the Chair in 1995; since then he has published at least three books which fulfil the position's aims, including 2004's The Ancestor's Tale. That said, it can't be denied that his abuse of religion is overshadowing his promotion of science.

[mrteufel.livejournal.com]

Dawkins is an utterly egotistical elitist. Only he understands the true world, and anyone who disagrees is at best 'misled'.

He truly has no idea, does he? I'm an atheist myself, but I come from the totally opposite direction to Dawkins: I feel that even if I don't believe, there must be some value to religion that makes it so popular that most of humanity does believe in something.

Whether it's something I don't need, or is something I'm missing out on - that is the big mystery for me.