The news that Richard Dawkins considers himself to be a cultural Christian is not in fact news. He’s been saying it for years. The biologist and author likes carols and churches and prefers mild Anglicanism to full-throated Islam. There’s no major contradiction here. It makes it a little strange that he has focused on the God question as if Wahhabis are even 0.1 per cent as liable to listen to him as mild Anglicans. But one can be an atheist who prefers one religion to another — much as vegetarians can prefer people eating free range chickens to factory farmed pigs.
There is nothing new here as far as Dawkins goes. I continue to be amazed at how much air time he gets. He is neither wise, nor particularly smart, nor anyone worth listening to on any subject. (I read and listened to him a lot before coming to this conclusion.) His choice of "cultural christianity" is just an extension of his nihilist worldview. He is simply choosing something he thinks is better based on a relative moral fantasy.
It is terribly sad. He knows he cannot, or should not, live with the logical conclusion of his worldview, and like most nihilists he chooses to whistle past the graveyard.
The problem with rejecting religious beliefs as implausible is that the people who do so are often left holding onto beliefs that are in turn rendered implausible by the absence of the religious frame of reference that made them plausible in the first place. In the absence of some idea of the transcendent that has some extra-linguistic reality these beliefs are reduced to no more than assertion and blind faith.
So, the idea that all humans by virtue of simply being human are of equal worth and are bearers of rights is implausible once the religious underpinning is removed. Likewise, the idea that the arc of history bends towards justice is wishful thinking in the absence of some transcendent other present in history.
I think - hope - that there is a sort of realization that we need some metaphysical framework within which to function as individuals and collectively. It may be too late if we have pulled the framework apart - but recognising the problem is at least a start. It seems we have moved on from the Enlightenment which was a sort of fusion of rationalism and religion or an uneasy compromise, to the triumph of the rational. The old compromise of agnostics living in a biblical landscape, worked where there were enough serious believers to push back if they went too far - that is no longer the case.
It’s kind of you to be decent to Dawkins. He’s a tragic figure more than a malicious one and the dunking on him was kicking an old man when he’s down
There’s no solution to his dilemma. The West has been wrestling with it for more than a century now, only somewhat slowed by the 20th century’s hegemon having been a bit behind the rest in losing its faith
I have not read Richard Dawkins (neither his pre nor post 'cultural Christian' phase) but he has long been associated in my mind with the strident "all would be so much better if we got rid of religion" atheist mantra. Which has, in its turn, always been associated in my mind with obtuseness about human nature - a failure to NOTICE. Because - love it or hate it - anyone who fails to notice that the religious impulse is, one way or another, hard-wired into the human condition is no perceptive kind of people watcher.
No one ever seems to ask what 'values' or 'beliefs' we would *like* to have. Is it so strange to think that we could put together a syncretic religion that has enough appeal to maintain cultural solidarity? Something like that created by Mani or Frank Herbert in 'Dune'.
Atheists presume that their own favorite 'foundational beliefs' are better than the 'foundational beliefs' of theists. But they're not. There are some things that we 'believe' because we cannot imagine it being any other way.
It is the “implausibility of belief” that makes faith necessary and attractive. God does impossible things. Watering down religion without faith is what kills belief.
I'm a believer, similarly to Dawkins. The bible and Christian ministry is of too much relevance to be complete nonsense. These teachings throughout the bible will give you a solid base for any life problem in life. But it's faith! Not evidence, Christians live by. Your right mainly it gives us hope and churches are full of those that have been saved at some point in their lives, by it (faith).
I still can't see what Richard Dawkins got wrong, despite having been told multiple times by lots of clever people that his arguments were sophomoric. As far as I can see, Dawkins' only crime was to take religious truth claims literally. Not much of a crime. And as Ben wrote here:
'The truth is that the Christian faith will be relevant in Europe and America...only if people believe that its claims are true — and not true in a watery metaphorical sense but actually true.'
And clearly they aren't actually true. Yes, religious belief may be adaptive or an expression of the shape of the human mind and heart, but so what? The shape of my mind and heart tells me that the universe revolves around me and that everything I'm unaware of doesn't exist. This might be a deeper, psychological truth but you'd have to be pretty stupid to want to defend protect such 'truth' from criticism and ridicule.
I think one of the things that Dawkins misses is the fact that the True, the Good, and the Beautiful are not separate. There are truths of the beautiful and good, of ethics and spirituality, and if you ignore that you are left with an irrational moralism.
Dawkins ironically has a clear strong sense of the beauty and goodness of truth, of science, of nature. He never seems to reflect for a moment that his own philosophy (such as it is) renders these purely subjective and irrational. Where then his dogged obsession with truth? He contradicts himself.
I'm naturally inclined to be gentle with Dawkins, but then I remember a dreadful story I heard about a devout young Christian man who read Dawkins et alia, then walked into the woods and shot himself because he'd lost his faith. One doesn't wish to hang such things on Dawkins per se, but it does cast a grim shadow over the gleefulness/glibness with which he set out to knock down Chesterton's fence.
There is nothing new here as far as Dawkins goes. I continue to be amazed at how much air time he gets. He is neither wise, nor particularly smart, nor anyone worth listening to on any subject. (I read and listened to him a lot before coming to this conclusion.) His choice of "cultural christianity" is just an extension of his nihilist worldview. He is simply choosing something he thinks is better based on a relative moral fantasy.
It is terribly sad. He knows he cannot, or should not, live with the logical conclusion of his worldview, and like most nihilists he chooses to whistle past the graveyard.
The problem with rejecting religious beliefs as implausible is that the people who do so are often left holding onto beliefs that are in turn rendered implausible by the absence of the religious frame of reference that made them plausible in the first place. In the absence of some idea of the transcendent that has some extra-linguistic reality these beliefs are reduced to no more than assertion and blind faith.
So, the idea that all humans by virtue of simply being human are of equal worth and are bearers of rights is implausible once the religious underpinning is removed. Likewise, the idea that the arc of history bends towards justice is wishful thinking in the absence of some transcendent other present in history.
I think - hope - that there is a sort of realization that we need some metaphysical framework within which to function as individuals and collectively. It may be too late if we have pulled the framework apart - but recognising the problem is at least a start. It seems we have moved on from the Enlightenment which was a sort of fusion of rationalism and religion or an uneasy compromise, to the triumph of the rational. The old compromise of agnostics living in a biblical landscape, worked where there were enough serious believers to push back if they went too far - that is no longer the case.
It’s kind of you to be decent to Dawkins. He’s a tragic figure more than a malicious one and the dunking on him was kicking an old man when he’s down
There’s no solution to his dilemma. The West has been wrestling with it for more than a century now, only somewhat slowed by the 20th century’s hegemon having been a bit behind the rest in losing its faith
I have not read Richard Dawkins (neither his pre nor post 'cultural Christian' phase) but he has long been associated in my mind with the strident "all would be so much better if we got rid of religion" atheist mantra. Which has, in its turn, always been associated in my mind with obtuseness about human nature - a failure to NOTICE. Because - love it or hate it - anyone who fails to notice that the religious impulse is, one way or another, hard-wired into the human condition is no perceptive kind of people watcher.
No one ever seems to ask what 'values' or 'beliefs' we would *like* to have. Is it so strange to think that we could put together a syncretic religion that has enough appeal to maintain cultural solidarity? Something like that created by Mani or Frank Herbert in 'Dune'.
Atheists presume that their own favorite 'foundational beliefs' are better than the 'foundational beliefs' of theists. But they're not. There are some things that we 'believe' because we cannot imagine it being any other way.
It is the “implausibility of belief” that makes faith necessary and attractive. God does impossible things. Watering down religion without faith is what kills belief.
I'm a believer, similarly to Dawkins. The bible and Christian ministry is of too much relevance to be complete nonsense. These teachings throughout the bible will give you a solid base for any life problem in life. But it's faith! Not evidence, Christians live by. Your right mainly it gives us hope and churches are full of those that have been saved at some point in their lives, by it (faith).
I still can't see what Richard Dawkins got wrong, despite having been told multiple times by lots of clever people that his arguments were sophomoric. As far as I can see, Dawkins' only crime was to take religious truth claims literally. Not much of a crime. And as Ben wrote here:
'The truth is that the Christian faith will be relevant in Europe and America...only if people believe that its claims are true — and not true in a watery metaphorical sense but actually true.'
And clearly they aren't actually true. Yes, religious belief may be adaptive or an expression of the shape of the human mind and heart, but so what? The shape of my mind and heart tells me that the universe revolves around me and that everything I'm unaware of doesn't exist. This might be a deeper, psychological truth but you'd have to be pretty stupid to want to defend protect such 'truth' from criticism and ridicule.
I think one of the things that Dawkins misses is the fact that the True, the Good, and the Beautiful are not separate. There are truths of the beautiful and good, of ethics and spirituality, and if you ignore that you are left with an irrational moralism.
Dawkins ironically has a clear strong sense of the beauty and goodness of truth, of science, of nature. He never seems to reflect for a moment that his own philosophy (such as it is) renders these purely subjective and irrational. Where then his dogged obsession with truth? He contradicts himself.
I'm naturally inclined to be gentle with Dawkins, but then I remember a dreadful story I heard about a devout young Christian man who read Dawkins et alia, then walked into the woods and shot himself because he'd lost his faith. One doesn't wish to hang such things on Dawkins per se, but it does cast a grim shadow over the gleefulness/glibness with which he set out to knock down Chesterton's fence.