Oh no I'm not a nihilist, not even a an existential one. I think evolution has endowed us with certain traits, call them morals if you will, though its hard at times to see them. These traits, prohibit a nihilist view.

@Sir Michael

You sound like whiny backbending liberal. Religion has held human knowledge in the dark ages for far too long. Now that athiest are finally assembling and defending science we get pansies like yourself who think that religion holds merit. It does not, even after a thousand religions that have come and gone. People who want power always hijack religion and use it against credulous people, priest, mullahs, shamans etc.

"What of the majority of Christians who do not believe the Bible is to be taken literally"

Where are these majorities of anyreligion, this sounds like baseless assumptions. Ask any christian even if they have not read the bible if god or jesus are real they would most probably say yes. If not then they are not christian.

"Accusing Christians, Muslims, and whoever else of being somehow responsible for those among them who commit horrors is kind of like somehow holding you responsible for the actions of Stalin, the Cult of Atheism, Mao, Pol Pot, and others who have tried to violently put down religion"

Religious people kill in the name of their religion. I havent read any of those communists and socialists, killing in the name of evolution, cosmology ect. Those people you mentioned thought to replace religion with their own social dogma placing modern athiesm with militant social tests is ludicrous. I dont see athiest placing pictures of RD on walls and refering to him as the leader but commies and such make relics and worship their dead leaders.

your other arguments hold the same logic, defending religions for something that does not exist in religion, if such good knowledge exists in holy books we would not get the crusades, inquisitions, islamic terrorists, buddhist terrorists etc.

We have to guard our knowledge from religion and people like you, who seek to undermine science and give freedom to those who would if given the power, throw the world into the dark ages and history proves they would.

Judging by some of the comments this promises to be be a balanced and fair minded edition! I cannot abide fundamentalists - be they religious or atheist - they are all so tunnel minded and deeply boring. It is a shame that people with such fine minds can also be so closed minded.

Personally I used to be an atheist, but I had too many doubts. I'm off to say my prayers. See you after Christmas!

@Bob holmes, i would be happy to let them worship and believe what they like except for the fact that some of them are dangerous maniacs and they try and force their beliefs and politics on us all, from abortion to education, to marriage to history.Atheists need to come together and stand up to the ideology of these nutters.

@Ian

interesting

"Ah, sorry Sir Micheal, I'll take you to task on the evolutionary element of Christianity, thats nurture."

yes, but for humans to nurture is evolutionary. no?

"I agree that people can give themselves purpose, but not that LIFE is self has purpose or a pre ordained direction."

on that 2nd point; the pre-ordained direction is/are the Laws of Physics. yes, no?

@Bob Holmes

I'm a militant atheist. I ask only that religious people follow their beliefs in private and keep them out of our government, our legal system, our tax system and my children's education. If they do that, I have nothing to say to them. Until then, I reserve the right to criticise everything they say and everything they do. This is pretty much Dawkins's position too, if you bother to read what he actually says.

Christmas = Christ's mass.

Mass is the invention of totalitarianism, designed for the comfort of murderers.

Have a good day.

@Sir Michael
"I am a man who has gone to a Metallica concert and is disappointed that Barry Manilow is on stage."

Perhaps, but weren't you the least bit impressed with his new tattoos and that fetching eyebrow piercing? ;)

While governments continue to fund faith based schools to inculcate children with nonsense it will remain a political issue, so I don't really see your point. If it's prescient comment on the effects of the GFC they were after, Dawkins was clearly the wrong choice. But, I suspect, that was not what they wanted because you can open almost any daily to find the GFC's unpleasant carcass displayed, dissected and analysed ad nauseam.

While I am not against the study of religious texts in schools (in as far as they are an integral part of our literary traditions and history) I can't help feeling, in the current climate, it would be more useful for students to spend that time delving into the mysteries of Economics or the financial ramifications of ill-considered political policy.

In these uncertain days, especially for the print media, Dawkins is one of those increasingly rare breed of bankable commodities. I suspect this was the principal consideration when NS decided to engage him as guest editor - the bottom line. There is something perversely enticing about an atheist editing the Christmas issue .....

I live in Chicago and wish I was alb dot attain a copy of this Christmas edition. :-(
Hopefully I will find a copy somewhere in Chicago.

I really don't get how this Jesus guy comes into Christmas when Christmas day is Santa's birthday and the day he brings everyone who has been good lots of presents .. And everyone who has been naughty a lump of coal .. There really is no place for religion and Jesus at Christmas time . I for one am sick of hearing about the gay guy called Jesus and his 12 boyfriends

Jankaas, an evolved soul? Conscience I'll go with, as I see no evidence for it in plants or lower animal life forms. but a soul that enters the spiritual realm. I certainly applaud Millers stand on ID in classrooms, but to say the soul evolved by chance , is clearly the same as saying man created God.

@Militant atheist ftw

i think your post can be condensed to the following;

[because there is no evidence to underpin the supernatural ontology favoursed by Theists, you think is safe to conclude that the opposite, a natural ontology, is fact.]

you will need to provide evidence this is so. i believe both natural and supernatural ontologies to be speculative.

and no i do not mean providing examples of methodological naturalism, which clearly is the only protocol we can use for real science.

and in case you are uncertain, i am a non-theist. i just don't 'do' religion.

"First off, that someone is a biologist or scientist doesn't make them any more qualified to speak upon matters of religion."

and the problem with Dawkins is that he is able to sell the opposite. not the end of the world, but it is an issue that should be acknowledged by atheists. if Dawkins had to apply the same rigorous standards as he does for biological systems.....

did really like The Selfish Gene though. studying my O-levels at that time and it helped me enormously to 'get' genetics. i can say the opposite is true for the effect The God Delusion had on me.

wonder what Gould would make of all this? he was a good (r)antidote.
ttfn

I agree entirely Jankaas. The thing is I'd like more atheists to take this on board.

I think it would be superb for atheists and atheism if someone came out to and be a champion for atheists getting their due in the world. I actually think this would be good for religion too, as challenging religious belief might well make that belief more healthy. Not a Pope of atheism, or a leader, but someone who can speak with authority on matters of religion from the atheist view point so that the atheist constituency has its say.

The problem is that Dawkins just ain't this man, not by a long shot. He's a good popularizer of science, that is were his abilities both begin and end. His knowledge of history is as poor as a typical school leaver. His knowledge of religion is even worse. He doesn't really have any respect for viewpoints which he doesn't agree with (which instantly makes him a poor diplomat) and appears to have little to no self awareness of this.

That in itself isn't a problem. Nobody is perfect and the man is great in his field of popularizing science. The problem is that Dawkins is ironically dragging both religion and science into areas it has no business being. Seriously, the whole evolution vs god thing was a small number of schools in back-water areas of the USA wanting to put the label "Evolution is a theory" on the science text books. Can anyone at all posting on this site really say that they personally were told different at any educational facility?

It's the same again here and now with this faith school business. It is the choice of parents to send their kids to such schools, a choice Dawkins wants to see taken away from them. That's ok. I respect his choice to demand the removal of the choices of others, as much as I think that makes him a clown. What bugs me is two things. Firstly he is bringing those atheists among us with reasonable dispositions into disrepute. Secondly that he is, in his way, bringing religion into politics.

There is so much shit going on right now. The austerity in Europe in general and the UK in particular is the most destructive thing I've seen in my thirty odd years in this world. We need people talking about that, especially in publications like the New Statesman. In the modern era of corporate media there are precious few left-leaning media outlets.

Let me ask you, if you put religion out of your mind, would you rather see articles about the plight of the unemployed and sick in all of these cuts? Or an article about faith schools? In other words, do we need an article by the archbishop? Or an article by Dawkins? At this point in time we need the archbishop because, ironically, we don't need to hear about about religion at all.

It's crazy. What is worse is that the atheist movement, who pride themselves on being the most rational and most capable of this "critical thinking" thing, can't see the dreadful hypocisy of the situation.

If you don't like religion and don't think it should take politcal centre stage then the last person you want to give a megaphone to is Richard Dawkins. The New Statesman did just that. I am very disappointed.

the problem with Dawkins, Harris, Dennet, and the other militant atheists is summed up by Scott Atran;

(from Beyond Belief 2007)

"I find it fascinating that brilliant scientists and philosophers have no clue how to deal with the basic irrationality of human life and society other than to insist against all reason and evidence that things ought to be rational and evidence based. It makes me embarrassed to be a scientist and atheist."

this is an excellent point imho.

I don't see any inherent problem with belief or unbelief. I see science and religion in the same quest for meaning; a search for a truth that is higher than ourselves. Some of us search for it by going to Mecca, practicing yoga, or researching subatomic particles. The instruments, practices and institutions we create and use to find our truth are irrelevant it is what we do with that truth that is important. All human institutions suffer from the same human flaws be they religious, political or otherwise. In order to solve human problems believers and nonbelievers must unite, our problems are too great not to address them together!

"First off, that someone is a biologist or scientist doesn't make them any more qualified to speak upon matters of religion. The domain of natural science is natural science, not metaphysics."

The origin of the physical universe is not a metaphysical question. The origin of species is not a metaphysical question. Neither is human procreation, or any other social interaction.

Religion makes claims at odds with science, and religion makes claims at odds with common decency. You pretend that you can strip religion of its truth claims and its proscriptions of morality, and whatever is left is "metaphysics".

That's not the argument we're having, not least of all because there is no sense in arguing over something as intellectually feeble as religious metaphysics.

Ian sounds like a regular cyber pseudo intellectual with his "fail big time" rhetoric. Just the form of beta that a self publicist Celeb from the church of Katie Price like Dawkins needs.

Just wanted to say, if somebody wants the other side of the argument, it's not the Torah, Quran or Bible... it's much more than that. Then again, if you believe Dawkins, you get your rhetoric from the shallow ends of intellectualism and debate.

Fraziel, a "militant atheist" is simply someone who attempts to aggressively convert religious people to atheism by scorn, belittlement, and ad hominem. The term could also be used to describe someone who is prejudicial against religious people holding office in certain jobs or positions on the basis that they were, in fact, religious.

As for Dawkins not having followers, erm, look at the internet page in front of you now. Try to use some of that evidence that the Dawkinsphere seems to delight in invoking and just compare the devotion some people have to the man to the devotion that some Catholics have towards that idiot in the Vatican.

Religion should be a personal matter. Of course a persons choices, views, and events will be informed by a persons religion. That isn't a bad thing. Trying to extinguish the views of those who think differently to you (and please don't weasel words here) is crossing a line I don't think any reasonable person will cross.

@Militant atheist ftw

(i'll only deal with the 4th point as it's mine)

"This is where the difference is then, he takes scientific realisim as true."

i don't think even he would say that, rather, he takes scientific realism (i prefer methodological naturalism) as the best option for figuring stuff out. and i agree 100% with him there. the only other option is pure madness (i.e. the supernatural).

"So what if he makes some ontological stances he is still a huge proponent of methodological naturalism."

aha, great question. seriously, could not have highlighted the issue better. the "so what" element is exactly what Dawkins focusses on with theists. he repeatedly brings up the ontology of theists when they try and hijack it to explain reality.

(now there's a can of worms, the word 'reality'. try and describe and evidence that. you will always end up proclaiming a natural ontology)

"Any religion is always vying for its ontology to be the truest based on its own evidence or lack of."

i know, but whatever category error is being made here by theists, does not by default prove the natural ontological stance.

"Blah blah...new atheists *nasty*...blah blah... French Revolution **nasty**...blah blah...other side of the argument...blah blah blah"

Yawn - we've already had thousands of years of the other side of the argument: incessant war, the Crusades, genocide in the Americas and elsewhere - enough already.

Who Really Believes Jesus Existed Anyways?
http://www.squidoo.com/who-really-believes-jesus-existed

Sam got to agree, and what if the metaphysical is only biological, brain chemicals just like the concept of love. God had such a flood of brain chemicals he sacrificed his own son doesn't have the same ring. Powerful drugs Adrenaline,Dopamine and Serotonin

Yuck. Sounds like the pits. Liberal atheists don't do it for me. I'll never forget the sheepish grin Alan Ryan gave me when he crossed UCU picket lines in 2006.

@Sir M

"Religion should be a personal matter. Of course a persons choices, views, and events will be informed by a persons religion. That isn't a bad thing. Trying to extinguish the views of those who think differently to you (and please don't weasel words here) is crossing a line I don't think any reasonable person will cross."

spot on.

as long as we vociferously defend the secular stance we must take on all public policy, the religious can do what they want. i don't mind their lecturing others, trying to convert them, attempting to have items placed on the agenda. as long as they accept the exact same level of scrutiny we demand from any other approach.

imho religion should occupy the same position as astrology, homeopathy, etc