Happy Newton Day!

161 comments from readers

Gabriel
13 December 2007 at 15:51

No star, no stable, no winter's cold,

no child, no heaven, as was told?

O shepherds watching flocks by night,

hither Dawkins comes in sight,

but list... he'll soon be in the fold.

Iftikhar
13 December 2007 at 20:11

Salaam

25th December is also the birth day of the Founder of Pakistan Mohammad Ali Jinnah.

Peter RV
13 December 2007 at 20:30

Newton was a very mean person. He was a great scientist , not a great man.

elderchild
13 December 2007 at 21:01

"The Way of Truth is evil spoken of" because of pagan "catholicism" and her harlot pagan "christian" daughters ;-( Their "imag"ined "jesus christ" is not The Messiah! It was some five hundred years ago that they named one head of their three-headed pagan "god", "jesus", during a time that has been called the "reformation". Prior to that time there was no "j" sound in the english language.......period.......

Yet the "reformation" was an aptly named time! For it was a time when "catholicism" birthed her harlot "christian" daughters ;-( Her "christian" daughters are of her substance ;-( Her substance was merely "reformed" so that her "christian" daughters might appear a bit differently outwardly, yet inwardly they remained liken unto their pagan harlot mother ;-(

"christianity" is but the byproduct of the fornicative relationship pagan "catholicism" has always had with "the god of this world", he who is "the father of lies", he who is "the angel of light", "d"evil spirit that rules over this wicked world ;-(

All religious systems, muslin, jewish, buddhist, catholic, christian ,,etc,, are Anti-Messiah!

Religious systems of this world, all alike they are,

Their clones have fought, killed and died, both near and far ;-(

And then once a week, or multiple times a day they may pray,

Yet as hypocrites they begin each new day ;-(

Days that are filled with deceit and lies,

For in a "religious system" Truth can not abide ;-(

And so the fruit of death is born of religion's way,

Because life is but a pawn in the wicked game they play ;-(

Simply, Faith will not create a religious system!

The Messiah testified of a "wicked world", and of His disciples being "in, not of, this world".

John exhorted those who believed "to love not the world or it's things" for "the WHOLE world is under the control of the evil one"!

And James testified, "whoever is a friend of this world is the enemy of GOD(Father, Great Spirit, Creator,,)"!

And "the god of this world", "the father of lies", "d"evil, is the author of all religious systems and has his way with those who are "of this world" because they follow their own "vain "imag"inations" ;-( And so it is that mankind's "imag"ination is destroying and perverting Creation ;-( And Our Father has promised that HE "will destroy those who are destroying and perverting HIS Creation(earth, air, water, creatures, Truth, Love, Peace, .etc.)"!

May there be those who heed GOD's Call to "Come out of her, MY people"!

All who take heed unto The Only True GOD's Call will exit "the broadway to destruction" and they will follow The Messiah on "The Way to The Truth of The Life"! They no longer will have their portion with the "catholic/christian" LIE or any other religious system of this world.

The Messiah testified, "whoever lives and believes in Me(His Teachings and Life example) shall never die."

And then The Messiah questioned, "Do you believe this?" YES!

And you? Do you believe? Or do you believe in death?

While there is breath(spirit) there is hope!

For Miracles Do Happen! HalleluYAH!

Hope is that there would be those who "come out" of the "strong delusion" that is the religious systems of this wicked world. Hope is that there would be those who believe in and receive of The Life. Hope is that there would be those who would "experience The Messiah and The Power that raised Him from among the dead".

Hope is you will, or have experienced The Miracle that is "receiving a love of The Truth".

All who have "received a love of The Truth" will have:

Peace, in spite of the dis-ease(religion) that is of this wicked world....... francisco

taghioff.info
14 December 2007 at 07:38

Get over it Richard,

people believe all sorts of irrational nonsense, I am sure you have a set of delusions about yourself that you use to keep you happy, just ask your wife or one of your relatives.

It's not like Newton's vision of the world as a huge divine mechanical perfection was so secular anyway. Nor has it entirely stood the test of time.

And its pretty clear that the loss of public celebration in Europe, associated with secularization, is also linked to rising levels of mental illness.

So why poop the party?

EliezerYudkowsky
14 December 2007 at 07:57

Where I come from, Dawkins, we call it Newtonmas.

k0natus
14 December 2007 at 09:52

Erm...wasn't Newton born on January 4th? I mean I COULD be wrong but various sources would point out that this is a fact.

Tippman
14 December 2007 at 09:58

Thanks Richard, you have just given me great idea for Christmas Gift for the Mother in Law, £8.99, whats that in €.

PL
14 December 2007 at 11:10

Newton, himself a convinced Christian, would have had no trouble answering Dawkins' objections to his religion. They were the classic arguments for disbelief even in his day--- objections that were old and familiar even in Newton's day.

S3
14 December 2007 at 11:52

"surely one of the single nastiest ideas ever to occur to a human mind" - Richard, you are too modest, surely your own contribution, "the sub-paedophile spectacle of young girls in virginal white First Communion dresses" deserves to at least be considered for this award.

bobrussell1957
14 December 2007 at 12:15

Bravo Richard

David S.
14 December 2007 at 12:19

Newton's birth date depends on which calendar you use. He was born on Dec 25th 1642 according to the Julian calendar that was still in use by those crazy English at the time, but in 1752 (25 yrs after Newton's passing) they joined the rest of the Christian world under the Gregorian calendar and his birthday became Jan 4th 1643.

Either way we know for a fact that Newton existed and that he achieved "miracles" in mathematics, physics, optics, etc. (not so much in chemistry though, he was still in the thrall of alchemy - after all, he wasn't God...) And as I recall, though he went through the motions of belief he considered himself a heretic in private.

MLee
14 December 2007 at 12:47

As Alexander Pope put it:

Nature, and Nature's Laws lay hid in Night:

God said, Let Newton be! and all was Light...

JohnnyT
14 December 2007 at 12:56

I hope readers of this article will take the time to research Dr. Dawkins' facts and conclusions for themselves. I admire this man's forthrightness but not his hermeneutics.

His defense of the historical importance of Christianity in the UK is admirable, his experience as a child is so typical of all children at Christmas time, as is his belief now as an adult, more so than most would admit. Many American Christians are merely "cultural Christians" though they be in church every week.

Dr. Dawkins' thoughts on why God would do what Christians say He did and why he did it the way he did need to be carefully considered. As a Christian I often ponder these same things, yet I believe them. And while my suggesting that one go to the Bible to find the answers may be to some circular reasoning, it needs to be suggested nevertheless in light of Dr. Dawkins opinions.

elliott tepper
14 December 2007 at 14:06

Dear Sirs,

Newton is one of the greatest men of science, and though Dr. Dawkins is a clever man--Newton is a quantum leap beyond him in genius, ability and imagination. Newton also believed in Jesus, the virgin birth, the prophets, and God, the Creator of heaven and earth. Newton himself would have no doubts about whose birth event was preeminent.

Dawkins lives in a very small and dreary universe.

Elliott Tepper, Marid, Spain

Dan Kirklin
14 December 2007 at 14:13

Always fun to note the Happy/Merry difference between UK and US English. I'd bet not one in a hundred of us on this side of the Atlantic ever uses the word from January to November, but we trot it out for the season. Oh, well.

I think we could all, Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and even we atheists, benefit in this season from Leigh Hunt's poem "Abou Ben Adhem," which so far as I'm concerned, has a theme (and heaven help us, even a message) superior to that of the gospels and certainly more concisely expressed.

Sure, Newton was personally no treat, but his scientific achievement is definitely worth celebrating and in my opinion has on balance been worth a lot more to humanity than what institutional Christianity has done for us. So, what the hell: Happy Birthday, Sir Isaac, and Merry Christmas to all!

Ace2
14 December 2007 at 14:13

Newton was a horrible person, no matter how great his achievements; in another time and place he'd have been an Inquisitor. His treatment of other scientists and his rejection of any work that did not support his, his abuse of power at the Royal Society, his crypto-alchemism (is that a word?) his zeal to be a time serving public servant with a sinecure position, all these things make him a poor candidate for a birthday celebration. Of course, Calculus Day doesn't sound inviting, but wouldn't it be more honest to celebrate the ideas rather than the man, whether in Christ's or Newton's case? Or we could stop shopping around for the birthdays of humans to celebrate, and simply go back to the pagan festival of the solstice for inspiration. It does still herald the coming of spring and the light at the end of the cold wintry tunnel. Consumermas as it is misses the positive points of Christianity, no doubt celebrating Newton's birthday would end up missing the beauty of science. Let us create new abstract holidays that aren't tied to a specific date and can always be celebrated on a Monday or Friday, which is what we all secretly want anyway.

katherine_l
14 December 2007 at 14:19

Actually, as an American child in a very politically-correct town, our school was visited by a giant snowman who dispensed winter gifts in lieu of Father Christmas.

shoezee
14 December 2007 at 14:20

Not everyone raised in a religious, or even in a Christian, environment was told "No Questions Allowed" as Dr. Dawkins claims to have been told (subtly or overtly). Most Christians I know ask really good questions. And not a few such good questions receive good, interesting, plausible answers. Claiming that the religious never ask questions is a too-convenient way for Dr. Dawkins to sidestep having to deal with the answers some good questions receive.

But for all that, "Christmas" as celebrated in the West is a shoddy, materialistic sham having precious little to do with the Jesus who is the center of the Christian faith. That's a shame and something to lament. It is not, however, proof that there is no Jesus worth talking about once you peel back all the layers of holiday folderol.

One last note: I'm grateful to Isaac Newton and to all who had a hand in establishing science as we now know it. But had Newton not believed in a loving God who had placed us in a universe that was ordered enough so as to be knowable--and who had endowed humanity with the ability to investigate that same ordered universe--it's an open question whether we'd know Newton's name or have seen the rise of science in the West. Ironic, n'est ce pas?

-- Scott Hoezee, Grand Rapids, Michigan USA

jack nyc
14 December 2007 at 17:30

Dawkins' comments are an embarrassment to intelligence.

For myself I hope that god does not exist, because (insert divine pronoun here) has a lot to answer for, for the state of the world, if we ever catch up.

That said, the incomprehensible that Catholics believe, is no more bizarre than quantum physics, evolution by random error and permutation, or even that positive and negatively charged particles attract, or that, as per newton, bodies attract in proportion to mass and inversely to distance, by various exponentiating factors.

These are no more plausible than Divine Motivation, Aquinas' Primum Mobilum, dear professor.

The difference, as per LaPlace, talking to Napoleon, on causation, was that LaPlace offers natural causation,and, in God, is as misquoted "I have no need for that hypothesis"

Occam's Razor requires parsimony, and :God" is quite parsimonious, conceptually, even while utterly lacking the other aspect of science, predictability.

Dawkins is supposed to know all this.

Instead he argues with Catholic theology because the Catholic, and by extension, Christian gos, acts in ways incomprehensible even venal, petty, churlish, fragile, narcissistic, and oh horrors, irrationally and capriciously, with respect to Dawkins' view of The Good, the Bad, and The Ugly.

Dawkins offers no critique of the various other religious views, gloabbly, whose views do not depend on various Testamentary and Christological mysteries, epherma, mistransaltions, and ahistorical decontextualization.

Indeed, as a scientist he must know that non-empirical constructs, such as the Deity, is unknowable by empirical science, and thus, his only True Knowledge, is that he does not know, b

Benson
14 December 2007 at 17:42

we need to be a bit more circumspect over a matter like this. we need to consider whether 'science' is incompatible, nay impossible, with the holding of religious beliefs. also, we need to rememeber that a basic concern for the ways in which social issues are negotiated, ie an ethical imperative, is superior to either cold science or irrational religion. i would like to know dawkins's take on these matters considering the many instances wherein science and religion have historically been partners in the same project, and have existed side-by-side in the same social milieu and even in the same individual.

jack nyc
14 December 2007 at 17:50

Dawkins is an embarrassment to intelligence in this mean-spirited and petty superior piece, and a bad scientist as well.

As an aside, I hope that God does not exist because (insert Divine pronoun here), God has a lot to answer for when we finally meet up.

As Shaw said, he preferred Heaven for the weather and Hell for the company.

Dawkins' view is that the Catholic god, and by extension the Christian god, is capricious, petty, irrational, incomprehensible withholding, arbitrary, and his deification depends on mistranslations of historical text, ahistorical recontextualization, and a variety of other anathema.

Dawkins' own views surely include the incomprehensible nonsence of quantum physics, with time travel, faster than light particles, of the ineffable mysteries of why positive and negative ions attract reach other, why physical mass attracts other physical mass in some convoluted numerology of size of mass as a direct factor and distance between as an inverse factor, according to obscure variable exponentiation, and that biodiversity in its million-fold is all due to random chemical variations in DNA strands, thus randomness on earth but not in heaven.

None of Dawkins smarm or naivete disproves the existence of the Deity, only the angry disappointment of Dawkins' need for rationality and benevolence,as per Dawkins.

The Deity might even be as malevolent as Dawkins views yet still exist.

Dawkins is silent on other religions, with less activist deities and eschatologies, yet his criticism should just as well apply there, but he is selective, showing his own narrow bias, and ;agenda.'

Dawkins as presumptive scientist is deemed to know that a non-empircal construct like the Deity, is inaccessible to empirical determination, and so his proper scientific attitude is agnosticism, or 'unproven.'

Indeed, when LaPlace (allegedly, but misquoted) explained to Napoleon the mechanics of celestial movement, and Napoleon askes about the Source, LaPalce is misquoted as "I have no need for that hypothesis."

This is Aquinas' Primum Mobilum, First mover, proof by works. Naive Dawkins falls into this ancient debater's trap.

As a scientist, Dawkibs knows that the Gold Standard is Occam's Razor, or parsimony, meaning the fewest possible hypotheses.

GOD is a unitary hypothesis, Doctor Dawk!

The intermediary scientific hypotheses are a proliferation not far from non-western animism, the Spirit of the Angry (Happy) God, vs the Nature of Physical Mass...

God as hypothesis fails the predictability test, but then so do many of our partial theories of science.

= =

Beyond, Believers are as likely to live Good lives, socially and personally, as Bad lives, as per our usual liberal western rational values, and if the cost of such social virtue and personal strength and guidance, is an occasional fiction, held as firmly as we believe that gravity, um, just... IS..., well, Dawkins is an angry disappointed child, who saw that the Man Behind the Curtain, was just his own fevered delusional projection, and needs to leave the child behind, or at least inside.

Sorry, Doc, get over it, and deal with it!

aneaum
14 December 2007 at 18:24

Dawkins makes me ashamed to be an atheist.

Samantha Sosebee
14 December 2007 at 18:25

Just as an FYI, as an American, I've never once said "Happy Holiday Season," nor have I heard a human being of any nationality say that. Happy Holidays? Sure. And if you don't like it, Bill O'Reilly will be happy to commiserate with you. But don't invent something absurd to bolster your point -- all it does is suggest that your point may also be absurd.

j1ml0ng
14 December 2007 at 20:32

There are so many questions that science can never hope to answer that makes the existence of God not only plausible, but to the truly honest person, unavoidable. For example, the following is taken from "The Berean Call" newsletter for December 2007 (see www.thebereancall.org) ...

"We live in an incredibly complex universe on an earth teeming with life, all of which science has been studying and attempting to explain for centuries. We are told that no scientist believes in God anymore. Yet the brilliant men who laid the foundation for modern science (Bacon, Boyle, Dalton, Descarte, Faraday, Joule, Kelvin, Kepler, Maxwell, Mendel, Newton, Pascal, Pasteur, et al.) were theists, who saw the hand of God in His orderly creation making science possible. Newton, regarded as the most original and influential thinker in the history of science, "wrote and published more works on interpretation of the Bible than on mathematics and physics."1 Only lately have atheists aggressively taken the position of spokespersons for science.

"Even Stephen Hawking admitted, "It is difficult to discuss the beginning of the universe without mentioning the concept of God." "Fritz" Schaefer, director of the Center for Computational Quantum Chemistry, University of Georgia, third most quoted chemist today, has said:

"The significance and joy in my science comes in the...moments of discovering something new and saying to myself, "So that's how God did it!" My goal is to understand a little corner of God's plan.2

"A significant number of Christians are among top scientists and modern Nobel laureates. William D. Phillips, for example, winner of the 1997 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, "once quipped that so many of his colleagues were Christians that he couldn't walk across his church's fellowship hall without 'tripping over a dozen physicists....'" Professor Richard Bube of Stanford says, "There are [proportionately] as many atheistic truck drivers as atheistic scientists."3 But among Nobel laureates, the number who recognize the hand of God in the universe is very high.

"The atheist must explain everything without God, which science cannot do. Everything is made of energy, but science cannot tell us what energy is or how or why it came into existence. Stephen Hawking asks, "Why does the universe go to all the trouble of bothering to exist?" Why is a question that atheism cannot answer. Matter simply exists; it contains no explanation of why. The maker's purpose provides the meaning for anything that is made. Unless there is a Creator, the universe and all in it, including mankind, has no purpose or meaning. Atheists confess this fact.

"Today's most famous atheist, Richard Dawkins, boasts of the consequences of atheism: "There exists no objective basis on which to elevate one species above another. Chimp and human, lizard and fungus, we have all evolved over some three billion years by...natural selection."4 No evolutionist could argue with this repugnant statement.

"Francis Crick, co-discoverer of the structure of the DNA molecule, as an atheist and evolutionist, begins his best-known book with this statement: "The Astonishing Hypothesis is that 'You,' your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules."5 The average person would reject such nonsense. He knows that he is not just a bag of molecules but a thinking person, who carefully weighs choices, experiences joys, sorrows, hopes, fears, remorse, and regrets. Crick's atheism traps him in a net of meaninglessness.

"Attempting to describe the physical world, science provides names and categories but can't tell us what anything really is. Energy, electron, gravity, space, time, life, and death-what do they mean? What is life; what is its source? How is it imparted to lifeless matter-and why does it depart so quickly? As Nobel laureate Erwin Schrödinger said, "[Science] is ghastly silent about all...that really matters to us....It knows nothing of...good or bad, God and eternity....Whence came I and whither go I? That is the great unfathomable question....Science has no answer to it."6

"Atheism "explains" that the universe began with a sudden, almost infinite, burst of energy called the "Big Bang." But science can't tell us where this energy came from, why it got together and exploded at that particular moment-nor how out of a giant explosion the orderly arrangement, from molecules to galaxies, occurred.

"Furthermore, atheism faces dozens of "which came first, the chicken or the egg?" conundrums that stop evolution before it can even start. For example, DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) is what makes protein, yet DNA is itself made of protein. So, which came first: the DNA that makes protein or the protein out of which DNA is made?

"There is no life without DNA, but DNA itself has life. What came first, the DNA that is essential for life or the life that is essential for DNA? Living cells are made up of incredibly complex nano-chemical machinery, and some of this machinery synthesizes DNA. So, which came first, the DNA without which there could be no cell or the cell without which there could be no DNA?

"The problem of "origins" is one of the major questions for which science has no answer. The most amazing thing in the universe is life, but science neither knows from whence life comes nor what it is. There is no life without enzymes, although they themselves are not living things. And there are no enzymes without life because it takes life to produce them. Which came first-the enzymes without which there can be no life or the life without which there can be no enzymes? The enzymes that make the amino acid histidine contain histidine. Which came first-the histidine or the enzymes that manufacture it, which themselves contain histidine?

"Many different enzymes are required to translate the genetic information encoded on the DNA. Yet the enzymes are themselves encoded by DNA. Thus, the genetic code cannot be translated except by products of translation. This is a vicious circle that allows for only one conclusion: the molecules that encode the information and those that decode it existed simultaneously from the beginning. That fact cannot be explained by any gradual natural process.

"It requires an act of creation by God. Yet the major motive of Darwin (who knew nothing of DNA) was to prove that God was not needed to explain life and the universe.

"As noted, the incredible nano-chemical machinery in the cell is responsible for synthesizing DNA. But it is the DNA that carries the code that constructs and operates the cellular machinery. Which came first, the DNA that carries the information for producing each cell or the machinery in the cell produced by DNA, which must first make the DNA? Obviously, both had to exist simultaneously from the very beginning or neither would exist. That fact requires a creative act of God.

"The genetic code has vital editing machinery, which is itself encoded in the DNA. What came first, the machinery that edits DNA or the DNA that produces the editing machinery?

"Again, the DNA molecule is made of protein; but it is the DNA by which alone protein is produced. DNA cannot function without at least 75 pre-existing proteins-but only DNA can produce these 75 proteins. The machinery to convert the DNA information into the protein is itself made of the protein it alone can produce. There is only one sensible answer to the classic question, "Which came first?" Obviously, God.

"The Law of Biogenesis, which Pasteur proved, states, "Life only comes from life." That ended the superstition of "spontaneous generation." The alleged Big Bang would have sterilized everything a trillion times over, making it impossible for any life to exist thereafter.

"How could life come out of death? Of Jesus Christ, one with the Father, who created everything, the Bible says, "In him was life" (Jn 1:4)."

These are not trivial matters - explaining the "why's" of science can lead to only one conclusion - the reality of God ... and more importantly, my owning up to my responsibilities before Him.

cut piece
14 December 2007 at 21:59

futile exercise in semantics

Jonathan A.
14 December 2007 at 22:08

If Mr Dawkins would concentrate a bit more on understanding the religious systems he attacks with his puerile "cleverness," he might at least earn my respect, if not my agreement. However, simply hashing out simplistic strawmen of religious belief in order to set fire to them is worthy of, at most, novice high school debaters, not a- how the mighty have fallen- Oxford professor...

mbartram
14 December 2007 at 22:08

You Dawkins bashers need to read his book, The God Delusion.

humanist
14 December 2007 at 22:28

A few questions for j1ml0ng:

1. What is your listing of scientists who believe in God meant to prove? Prior to Roger Bannister, there was a scientific consensus that it was impossible to run a sub-4 minute mile. Scientists are often wrong; isn’t the difference between scientists and theists that good scientists are expected to admit their mistakes and revise their view of the world accordingly? How often do you hear priests and pastors admitting that they got it wrong? Is this because they are infallible?

2. What is your “argument” about meaninglessness meant to prove? After much carrying on you end by saying “the average person would reject such nonsense. He knows that is not just a bag of molecules but a thinking person…” Do you think there is a scientist who disagrees with the notion that people think? Cannot thinking persons simply have no special cosmological significance while very much retaining the very great significance to themselves, their loved ones and neighbors, and everyone around them? We give ourselves meaning; why do you need more meaning?

3. How do you complain about science failing to “tell us what anything really is” while being satisfied with religion’s answer? What does religion tell us everything is? As a thinking person, are you really satisfied with whatever that answer is? Every fact cited in your note was discovered by the process of science. With only religion by your side, would you even know enough to know how much we don’t know?

4. You complain about “atheism” facing dozens of “which came first questions,” but how do you get by the even bigger questions that your religion faces? How do you reconcile a loving, omnipotent God with horrific natural disasters and the unlimited capacity of men to harm each other? The problem of ‘origins’ is one of the questions for which science has no answer? Yes, we all recognize that; so what? What is your answer? “God created it.” Who created God? “No one, he has existed forever.” If he can exist forever, or self-generate, why can’t the universe, or something else, or something within it? If it isn’t impossible for God, why is it impossible for anything else? [P.S. You may wish to check the science behind your enzyme argument. Complexity emerges from simplicity as a matter of course in nature.]

5. How do you reconcile these ideas: “Life only comes from life” and “How could life come out of death? Of Jesus Christ.” If there is one way for life to come out of something other than life, why not two? Or more?

6. You say you have responsibilities before God. Is one of them to follow the word of the Bible? And if so, which Bible is it that you follow? How did you pick that one and not the other ones? And how do you reconcile all the contradictions in it? How many of the completely clear rules and laws of Leviticus do you choose not to follow, and why? How do you like Bel and the Dragon? Do you keep it simple and just follow the Ten Commandments? Which ten do you follow – there are at least three sets – and which don’t you follow, if any? When Jesus said to abandon your whole family and just follow him, did you listen? When Jesus said to pluck out your offending eye and cut off your offending hand, did you listen? If not, why not? Dear sir or madam, most importantly, did you ask yourself these questions before writing what you wrote?

jonjermey
14 December 2007 at 22:40

Taghioff.info writes: "...people believe all sorts of irrational nonsense..."

Yes, but religious nonsense kills people. Every week dozens of people die and hundreds of babies are mutilated for religious reasons. See http://atheistwiki.wikispaces.com/Outrage+scoreboard, for instance, for a very short and recent list. Your kindly old God just can't seem to get out of the habit of killing people, and is unlikely to do so until we can get out of the habit of believeing in him.

"So why poop the party?"

People are dying -- that's why.

Norman Hanscombe
15 December 2007 at 03:45

Why do people bother worrying about Dawkin's frenetic criticisms of religion? He has good reason (in light of his belated realisation that the God Squads, be they Christian or not, had certain logical difficulties) to feel a desperate need to show he eventually understood the problem. Many of us might feel just as embarrassed as he appears to if we'd been as slow as Dawkins was to realise that, "It ain't necessarily so."

I guess late comers to beliefs of all kinds tend to become unduly excited by their "discoveries"? Then again, having been born in Australia in 1935, I may well have had an unfair advantage when it came to realising that although logically the Catholic kids where I lived, the W.A.S.Ps at my primary school, and the family's Jewish friends couldn't all be right, it was quite conceivable that they could all be wrong.

This made it much easier for me than it would have been for Dawkins, to head off for Infants school and watch religious beliefs as no more than an interested outsider. I think I enjoyed the compulsory scripture lessons we had right through to 6th Grade far more than my religious classmates; without feeling any of the peevishness I seem to detect in latter day converts.

Even if the Indifferent Agnosticism which became my "faith" were open to the accusation that it was a lazy option, it probably doesn't do too much harm; and it may even place one in a better position to warn against the obsessions of religious fanatics --- even those of the non-theistic variety?

Cybertiger
15 December 2007 at 08:26

I don’t think Richard Dawkins fully appreciates that G-d is an American, an intelligent designer and from Houston, Texas.

Cybertiger
15 December 2007 at 08:34

@jonjermey

“Yes, but religious nonsense kills people.”

I agree and I have faith that this is ultimately a good thing. There are simply too many people riding the planet and the planet will not survive unless there are fewer riders. Thus, religion and especially religious Americans, are in reality a force for good in the world.

ThomRutten
15 December 2007 at 10:02

Dear Cybertiger.

That's a fantastic attitude. Well done on that score. Bet you've got front row seats for the appocalypse eh? (I'm hoping sarcasm translates, but in case it doesn't, I'm being sarcastic...)

Could everyone (particularly the likes of j1mlOng) just calm the hell down? Who gives a rats arse what Mr. Dawkins thinks or feels about your fantasy world - if you and your cuddle-buddies are so fervent in your beliefs, you ought not to be swayed. Incidentally, you strike me as one who thinks (nay, believes!!) that the Earth is but a sprightly 3 - 6,000 years old... My heart goes out to you...

As for me, I reckon Montaigne hit the nail on the head: we all sit down to shit, and then we die. If you can't enjoy yourself in the interim (indeed, if you practically issue proscriptions against enjoyment - by which I don't mean debasing yourself to every perversion you can conjure, but simply being happy with your lot) then what's the bloody point? God or no God, you'll still rot in the ground like the rest of us. You'll just have wasted a few decades in self-imposed austerity and stiffly starched collars before this inevitability hits you like a damp, smelly sock.

moisiodax
15 December 2007 at 11:18

Dawkins' pathetic grasp of theology is almost as bad as intelligent designers' miserable grasp of science. Correspondingly, he has no understanding of theology's development and utility in the context of human evolution. For me this is worrying from a professional point of view: I almost cannot understand such a brilliant mind being dismissive of a hugely important part of human culture, instead of trying to put it in a larger anthropological context; being ultimately obsessed with the political implications of religion, rather than interpreting its deep cultural heritage and self-reflection on the condition of man and placing in a larger anthropological perspective. This won't resurrect God, but it could provide man with a better understanding of himself.

Douglas Chalmers
15 December 2007 at 13:17

"An apple fell on my head - thus, I am!" Crap - he should have tried sitting under a coconut tree, instead, uhh.....

J.
15 December 2007 at 13:19

Many of those that maintain that humans are the special creation of a supernatural entity called God, by whatever name, do not often or perhaps ever consider the cosmological context of the universe we have found ourselves in. Every concept and so-called philosophical "truth" we believe in is derived from one species living on an isolated planet situated in a larger cosmos that is nearly 14 billion years old and almost beyond our comprehension in the everyday dimensions of ordinary experience.

When viewed in this much broader context it seems ludicrous to assume that we have all "truth" wrapped up in the stories behind a 4000-year-old religious belief.

Further, in such enormous time space dimensions, it is extreme hubris and infantile narcissism to consider that just our species is the exclusive focus of attention by a God, if one exists. We are still under the chauvinistic delusion that we are the center of the universe as before Copernicus.

Even if the "why" questions remain elusive from science, I see no satisfactory answers coming from religion today any better than they did in the past. The answer that "God did it" is to me and others extremely unsatisfying. Like wise, a universal "purpose" is so subjective in this world that even religion cannot fathom it. The best we can hope for is consensual agreement about values that foster our mutual survival and well being all obtainable without religion.

The other thing that should be repugnant and illogical to the critical thinker and most scientifically literate persons is the silly idea that we are "fallen" creatures who have committed some original sin. Such thinking leads to self-fulfilling situations and demeans the remarkable intelligence and capacities of our species. The good that we are capable of is fully realizable without the necessity of any supernatural worship or the fear of punishment of a creator. I say these things as an agnostic who is willing to admit that I do not know if a creator or "first cause" exists. I find though that the traditional religious concepts that humans have come up with to explain God would to me be a gross insult and incongruous to a higher evolved being that would be capable of "designing" and creating the sophisticated, complex universe we live in.

It is past time that our species give up these immature and archaic traditional ideas of God. They are irrelevant and a hindrance to solving the urgent ecological and social problems that our species is facing with climate change and ecological destruction.

We have used these comforting stories to cope with the inevitable changes and distresses we face as humans. We have also used them to discriminate and harm our species and fellow species here. We have used them as a convenient excuse to deny responsibility for our actions.

Our childhood as a species is ending and we need to put such myths we have had about the universe and our place in it behind us if we are going to survive.

Cybertiger
15 December 2007 at 13:24

Dear Cybertiger.

"That's a fantastic attitude. Well done on that score. Bet you've got front row seats for the appocalypse eh? (I'm hoping sarcasm translates, but in case it doesn't, I'm being sarcastic...)"

Dear ThomRutten.

You may fancy yourself a master of sarcasm but I suspect you may be irony deficient.

PS. I do enjoy the religious circus ... and the performance of the 'four horseman of the apocalypse'.

alexhouse
15 December 2007 at 13:34

This has reminded me of a campaign I was considering starting. In 2012 the Olympics is coming to London and quite frankly I'm almost chewing my leg off in embarrasment about the opening ceremony already. I want to try and get the London Olympic Comittee to build it around Newton and the Enlightenment as a whole. I can see it now - astronomical projects, equations flying by, all that good stuff. Bearing in mind we can't really celebrate the one truly remarkable (in the literal sense) thing about Britain - the fact that we led the largest empire that there has ever been - I think the seeds of the relative eutopia we live in right now (I know, I know, but compare western society now with any other period in history and I think you'll have to admit I have a point) were in the Royal Society and it probably the one thing of which I can say I am proud of from a "patriotic" POV. Whether any of this is accurate is very much open for argument - but as a basis for an opening ceremony, I think it beats a bloody stupid jousting competition. We could throw in the Beatles too at a push. I'm sure there's some way we can connect the Enlightenment and them.

aaronbeach
15 December 2007 at 17:23

While infinitely interested in pondering questions along these lines, I have never found the courage to put my faith in my own theology, history, philosophy, or science - and for this I am impressed by your faith in yourself. I may be young, and maybe that's why I am not as bold in believing myself as you, but it has only been in the eyes of those I personally love that I have seen anything I can truly believe in. It is my experience, that only my love and accomplishments in helping others have conveyed an absolute truth that I could put my faith in as irrefutable. Apparently, I'm just not old enough or as smart as you to believe in my own theories over my own experience.

- Aaron Beach, a young ignorant American boy

ThomRutten
15 December 2007 at 19:40

Dear Cybertiger

Touche - I've eaten steak and a good helping of spinach, and now recognise your genius.

I've got my marshmellows ready for the final apocalyptic shitstorm too. Shall we meet at, say, 9?

elliott tepper
15 December 2007 at 19:52

Dear Sirs, again:

I never cease to be amazed by what atheists think Christians believe. Is it possible that our hearts and minds, dreams and imaginations are every wit as big as the modern secularist's.

Who knows? Perhaps there are other worlds, with other races? Perhaps there are other universes? Perhaps the Creator created the very processes of creation the secularists are just beginning to fathom? Most of the Christians I know can live with complex explanations and mystery while retaining their intellectual integrity and faith. Please do not put us in a fundamentalist box.

I think a little humility is called for on all sides. We will all find out soon just how right or wrong we are. A mortal human life span is very short. Everyone will be surprised.

For what it is worth, some of us know God through the Holy Spirit and we are doing our best to give every man the reason of the hope that is within us, without offense.

Godspeed to all my atheist friends.

Elliott Tepper

Cybertiger
15 December 2007 at 22:57

@ThomRutten

"I've got my marshmellows ready for the final apocalyptic shitstorm too."

Do ya mean the Holy Shitstorm? I'll bet ya looking forward in raptures to that circus performance ... what with rivers of blood ... the four riders of armageddon ... and nukes and all .... wow ... shock and awe ... wow ... me too ... see ya there ... apocalypse soon.

PS. I used to be agnostic but Dubya showed me the darkness of His enlightenment. Now I'm an intelligent design misunderestimator and devout atheist.

Peter Reeve
16 December 2007 at 00:43

"the sub-paedophile spectacle of young girls in virginal white First Communion dresses" is a most unfortunate phrase. What have we come to if little girls dressing up in pretty dresses becomes a "sub-paedophile spectacle"? By all means challenge the veracity and morality of Christian doctrine, but please keep it within the bounds of good taste.

nurple11
16 December 2007 at 00:59

Someone needs to make this into an unholidaycard (unholidaycards.com)

tonyobrien
16 December 2007 at 07:01

very "new Statesman"

Cybertiger
16 December 2007 at 12:28

@ThomRutten

"I've got my marshmellows ready for the final apocalyptic shitstorm ...."

I’ve always been intrigued by the extent to which the Americans have been prepared to underwrite the State of Israel.

Last weekend I bought a book in Foyles on the Charing Cross Road in London. By Gershom Gorenberg, it’s entitled ‘The End of Days – fundamentalism and the struggle for the Temple Mount’. The book shines a powerfully religious light on US financial support for Israel. However, I don’t believe all the garbage about The Rapture, Armageddon, the Second Coming, the final judgement and the ultimate fate of the Jews – but I realise that a lot of people believe in garbage – especially Americans – and they’re the dolts with nukes and a history of using them.

I don’t believe Jesus will return but I do believe there will be a lot of killing in the hope of bringing Him on. There are simply too many people riding this planet – and of course I believe that George Bush is a fine horseman (cowboy) of the apocalypse - and that the US is really a force for good in the world.

PS. Tom – you’ll need all the steak and spinach you can eat … to brave the storm … when shit happens.

humanist
16 December 2007 at 14:54

Dear Mr. Tepper,

You are right, not all Christians are fundamentalists. Yet if our characterization of Christian views tends to sound extreme, you must understand that this is how the most basic facts of the Christian worldview sound in our ears. There is no element of Christian cosmology or theology that is compatible with scientific and historical thinking. When Christians "soften" themselves as you have and begin talking about the "Holy Spirit" and spreading hope, you are, of course, abrogating everything that makes you a Christian as opposed to, say, a pagan, or simply a good and earnest person, like many of us non-religious people try to be. You give hope and decency a name and otherworldly character that they don't need. So please recognize that you either stand by the doctrines of your faith as professed by your holy books and prophetic leaders, or you do not. And if you do not, why not just abandon the cult name of "Christian" and re-join the rest of humanity? We are all trying to solve the same problems. More humility is indeed needed all around. My heroes have it; they never claimed to be gods. Have yours?

Duncan Crowe
16 December 2007 at 17:07

"Dawkins lives in a very small and dreary universe." - Come now, Oxford isn't /that/ bad.

"Actually, as an American child in a very politically-correct town, our school was visited by a giant snowman who dispensed winter gifts in lieu of Father Christmas." - Surely the weakness of that theory is the part of the story where the Giant Snowman climbs down the chimney to deliver presents: an accident is just waiting to happen.

""There exists no objective basis on which to elevate one species above another. Chimp and human, lizard and fungus, we have all evolved over some three billion years by...natural selection."4 No evolutionist could argue with this repugnant statement." - The context of this claim is Dawkins attempt to defend his position that the Great Apes should be given legal rights and not subjected to medical experimentation. If you consider this 'repugnant' it is your own problem. As far as 'evolutionists' being unable to distinguish between fungi and human beings, I believe you have confused the point. Evolutionary theory tell us that from the standpoint of the universe, there is no difference (the universe doesn't care about you). But from the standpoint of human beings, of course there is a difference: for very sound evolutionary reasons I as a human being care more about the activities of human beings than I do about fungus. (If we had predators, this might not be as simple. For example rabbits may well care more about what foxes are doing than about other rabbits, under certain circumstances.)

""Your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules."5 The average person would reject such nonsense." - Ah, yes. Now the trouble is that the general view taken within the fields of both neuroscience and philosophy of mind, is that the opinions of philosophers of mind and neuroscientists as to what is an isn't absurd when it comes to the intersection of mind and brain are better worth listening to than 'the average man' who has received no specialist training and has given the matter little more than a moment's thought. Funny that.

"So why poop the party?" - The good old Leo Strauss maneuver: Religion is good for society at large if the hoi polloi believe it, so who gives a damn if it's true. Conservative bilge. The reason to 'poop the party' if you're an atheist is because you believe you are correct in what you say. If you believe something is true, you have a social duty to report it. If I believed something which was false, and which had a major effect on the way I lived my life, I would rather people told me it was false than kept schtum because their patronizing cogitations had told them that I was better for not knowing the truth. A liberal says 'sods to what you think; tell me the truth and I'll decide for myself'. Shame on you, if you don't feel the same. Sapere aude.

"Correspondingly, he has no understanding of theology's development and utility in the context of human evolution." - I'm not entirely clear on what you mean by this, principally because you didn't tell us. If you mean 'Dawkins isn't familiar with the work of the likes of Dennett and Pascal Wegner' then you're out-and-out wrong. If you're talking about anti-realist justifications of religious language based on evolution, I don't think he's particularly interested in it mainly because the 'man on the street' takes the naive view that religious language is realist - that is, people actually mean what they say. In either case, you can hardly fault him for not discussing such things in an article of around 2000 words about the 'Christmas Story' and its ill foundations in the bible.

"Most of the Christians I know can live with complex explanations and mystery while retaining their intellectual integrity and faith." - Maybe, but such people in general become either theological liberals about almost every part of doctrine except the existence of the deity (which tends to be of a non-interventionist, emaciated sort) in which case they are so close to being a theologically educated atheist as needs little argument (they are not the types to fly planes into buildings or massacre Lebanese Muslims) or else they keep their orthodoxy very carefully compartmentalized and propped up merely by 'Faith' (a wildcard, it seems). I know a chaplain of this sort: he is perfectly able to have an intelligent discussion with you on abortion or capital punishment and doesn't believe in a dualistic soul but every so often will drop a bombshell; that be believes in angels, or satan or other such nonsense. The cleverer the person the more excuses they can find for believing in things they happen to have been told in their infancy. It takes strong intellectual courage to apply skeptical thinking to notions from which one derives comfort.

"I never cease to be amazed by what atheists think Christians believe." - Dawkins thinks that Christians believe a manifestation of the creator of the universe was born 2008 years ago on Christmas Day in a stable in Bethlehem to a virgin, in fulfillment of Jewish prophecy (amongst other things), because the vast majority of casually religious people in this country DO believe it. Yet there is hardly a single element of the 'Christmas Story' which holds water being as it is a hodge-podge from the various gospel writers which glosses over their numerous contradictions and ignores the fact that they themselves were consciously writing so as to justify the claim that the man who founded their cult was apt to be considered the Jewish messiah, long after he was crucified by the Romans. Dawkins is trying to draw the attention of readers of he New Statesman to these flaws in the story, and appears to be saying (as is a theme of his) 'Take a moment this Christmas to cast away this nonsense and consider instead the majesty of the universe in which we live; a much more deserving candidate for your reverence.'

Best wishes,

Duncan.

Cybertiger
16 December 2007 at 21:21

@Mr. Tepper

"We will all find out soon just how right or wrong we are. A mortal human life span is very short. Everyone will be surprised."

I'm intrigued: how do you know that as an atheist I will be surprised? How can you be so certain of my surprise? Intriguing!

Simon K
16 December 2007 at 23:01

After having been spotted attending Mass in Oxford, it is lovely to think that Mr Dawkins is applying his mind to finding out about the Bible, albeit at a somewhat shallow level so far. God moves in mysterious ways...

giuseppe@brasilcentral.biz
16 December 2007 at 23:06

I apologize for my bad english.

I am a great admirer and supporter of dawkins ideas and approve the text of his article.

The final consideration on Newton is very witty.

But it had not to be reported in the title and subtitle.

Once again a single ironic sentence , in a serious and correct text, is chosen as title, changing the intention of the author, who was not to offend a tradition as Christmas, so dear to most Westerners.

giuseppe@brasilcentral.biz
16 December 2007 at 23:21

The final sentence on Newton was also manipulated and changed in the subtitle.

I would like to know if the subtitle autor is Dawkins, or the newspapers .

J.
16 December 2007 at 23:28

Simon,

Curiosity about a subject like religion to understand what drives many to find questionable sustenance in something that others like myself would find at most irrelevant,unproductive and illogical does not imply that any supernatural power is moving anything.

MassLawJim
17 December 2007 at 05:10

"Perception is reality;" I often hear. Too bad, as religion makes us quite miopic.

ThomRutten
17 December 2007 at 07:04

*the following has no specific direction*

Mr Cybertiger

There are far too many people in this world who have a virulent intolerance for mockery - for reasons I cannot fathom, they all tend to be religious. It doesn't matter what form the religion takes - Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Vegan - they cannot seem to abide people being comfortable simply believing in themselves and their own abilities as human beings, and having a gentle belly-laugh at their expense.

I know in my bones that these people (who demand immediate, terrestrial retribution for even the most mundane "infraction" - I'm thinking of a Sudanese teddy bear) will be responsible for the aforementioned shitstorm, and that it will happen, to a greater or lesser degree, while I am around to witness it. That doesn't make me happy. All I can say is that I will be firmly ensconsed [sic] in the verde bosom of the Coromandel peninsula, with a copper-pot distillery, a small library, a crop of 4 - 6 Sativas, and my wife and child (perhaps a goat too) to while away the days.

Let the so-called "meek" inherit the earth if they're so damned determined to do so. Let them pick over the bones and see what their God can do for first degree radiation poisoning. I just hope they dont know where the Coromandel is...

Benson
17 December 2007 at 11:04

i would like my question answered: is 'science' invariably incompatible, or even impossible, with the holding of religious beliefs? let us note the many historical instances in which science and religion have partnered on the same projects, noble and ignoble. let us also note that religions have been characterized as often by their capacity to undertake self-criticism, reinvention and re-interpretation as by their symbologization of their historical fallacies. what is more, certain metaphysical intimations bordering on superstition have served to excite the imagination of many able scientists, among them newton and einstein. and one further question: is science without its own presumptions, the ideological axioms and first principles by means of which its problematics are constructed and its conversation set rolling?

Cybertiger
17 December 2007 at 12:57

@Tom Rutten

“I know in my bones that these people (who demand immediate, terrestrial retribution for even the most mundane "infraction" - I'm thinking of a Sudanese teddy bear) will be responsible for the aforementioned shitstorm …”

Remember Abu Ghraib? Forgotten Guantanamo? I’m afraid that “revenge” and “humiliation” are the fractious American's stock in trade. Of course, it is inconceivable that the religious American will ever ‘turn the other cheek’ …

"*the following has no specific direction* "

LOL! You must think I’m a Muslim teddy bear with no sense and certainly no sense of direction. And what happened to the American moral compass? Was it lost in the apocalyptic shitstorm to come?

PS. Do you seriously consider that New Zealand will be outside the American collateral shitstorm zone?

J.
17 December 2007 at 13:06

Benson,

As long as religion insists that all phenomonem is caused by forces that are of a supernatural force, explainable as only by the power and for the unfathomable reasons of a mysterious and capricius God. then in my opinion that type of religion is obsolete and incompatiable with scientific knowledge and rational discourse, regardless if modern science and has it's obvious flaws and incomplete knowledge.

Religious knowledge is very incomplete and much more flawed in that it is just satisfied by ascribing everything that happens as an "act and will of God" and lives with that.

I find such acquiesance and complacency extremely unsatisfactory and at odds with the intelligence and capacities that humans have shown they are capable of. Moreover that type of acceptance has much fear and trembling built into it rather than courage,and love and awe of life as a whole.

If religion was just about promoting ways for humans to be better to each other and the earth than I would be all for religion. Instead it starts with the self-defeating idea that humans are corrupted, original sinners who are at the mercy of a capricious deity who despite being their creator and "loving" father has to pleaded to be spared from some future punishment. The illogical and contradictory traits that we have ascribed to this supernatural force are frankly silly and insulting to those of us that see something brighter, worthwhile and more positive for humans to be pursuing.

Where you might see religion as a light for humanity, many of us see that as it stands today and in the past as an obstruction,something pathological that leads us to complacency , destruction,darkness, fear and willful ignorance.

Humans are fully capable of being better than we are to each other and ourselves without relying on archaic religious worship and supernatural explanations to guide and "save" us..

Cybertiger
17 December 2007 at 13:38

Dear Tom Rutten

In my humble G-d fearing view, the taking of an ‘eye for an eye’ has blinded America.

“I know in my bones that these people [teddy boys in tea towels] will be responsible for the aforementioned shitstorm ….”

But good G-d ... we’re in deep shit … the blind American will be responsible for the storms of Apocalypse Now, Yesterday and Tomorrow … I can feel it in my water.

“Let them pick over the bones and see what their God can do for first degree radiation poisoning.”

I wonder what remedy ‘G-d the American’ has for first degree radiation poisoning. Is there a plan? Is ‘GWB' fast-tracking the NASA mission to occupy the planet Mars?

Benson
17 December 2007 at 17:26

J,

your intervention is very interesting. you assume i'm a religionist. well am so irreverent as to consider nothing sacrosanct. every question, whether scientific or religious is, for me, open to inquiry. what i know for sure is that not every religion characterizes their doctrines and theology in the manner you've reported. and not every religion has a bleak eschatology. people have been known to take a religion and make it reflect their own philisophical positions. i don't see religion as inherently evil, nor is science. but both are susceptible of all manner of ends. marx said religion was the heart in a heartless world in addition to its being the opium of the masses. what does dawkins say to that?

Benson
17 December 2007 at 17:31

and J,

i almost forgot, answer my commencing question if you can: is there any instance of an able scientist holding religious views? thanks for the effort.

Mr Fnortner
17 December 2007 at 17:48

To all of you who have just discovered the quote key, please get a pointy object and pry it off.

The Bible et al., and religions for that matter, are closed systems. Their beliefs and proofs are insulated from the outside world, and logic, evidence, reason, and argument from that outside world, no matter how sound and persuasive, matter not to those inside.

Furthermore, atheists have to prove nothing, have to support nothing, have to construct no theories or philosophies or cosmologies. Atheists only say, you have proved no god to me; all else is what it is.

Also, Dawkins may be a jerk, but his jerkiness has little to do with whether he is right or wrong.

writeon
17 December 2007 at 20:29

Perhaps God is a question mark? Maybe God is Science, Reason and Logic? Maybe he wants us to think for ourselves and reject 'Him' and 'superstition' in favour of logic and reason and science, which are all part of 'him'? Maybe his greatest gift to us, apart from our little planet, is conciousness and free will, and the ability to question his very existance? He's given us the gifts of thought, of curiosity, of intellectual freedom, the freedom to reject him and all he is, and all his works; and he isn't angry, he's glad and proud at how far we've come. He just smiles and nods, satisfied with his creation. He has created life out of nothing incapsulated in us. He even looks at Dawkins and feels a certain pride at how things have worked out. The tiny human brain with it's ability to question the infinite universe. The ? again.

For those who believe, I think we have to assume that 'God' is infinite, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and therefore, in essence - unknowable. What I'm attempting to say is, that God, whatever we mean by the term, is so 'not us and other than us' that the idea that we, tiny creatures that we are compared to God, can not possibly comprehend an entity so much more than we are. We can attempt to do it, but are doomed to failure. Surely God is an unsolvable and virtually incomprehensible paradox.

Clearly this is a very theoretical discussion, because if we believe in God as the creator of the universe, we are attempting to know and understand the infinite and time and space. Now, I don't know about the rest of you, I feel rather humble and rather small and insignificant when contemplating infinity and not to mention time and space. I mean it's all so complex, subtle and vast. I find time and space rather challanging concepts.

Maybe God is not so much Love, but an Idea, the idea, ideas. Perhaps the universe is poetry in motion and God is the rhyme, and perhaps the reason.

J.
17 December 2007 at 20:38

Mr.Fnortner,

Nothng is insulated from the outside world because nothing exists in isolation. We live and function in the physical world not in mental fantasy lands, no matter how persuasive and real those inner worlds may seem.

Atheists or agnostics are not trying to prove something for which we have no verifiable evidence to prove it exists.

It is true that we cannot prove God's non-existence but neither can the faithful prove God's existence by a objective and transferrable method.

But who must make the most effort, those who insist that this force exists and must come up with verifiable evidence or those who admit they have no evidence either way and just leave it at that.

I tried this time to leave off the quote keys, but words often have extra meaning that do not come through as is...hence the quotes to emphasize irony and multple meanings.

Benson,

I don't see religion or science as inherently evil,because I do not see evil as something of a invisble force operating in the world,(evil is one of the choices we make) but if I were to weigh their strengths and weaknesses, then I would say that religion, especially traditional and fundamentalist religion have the potential do more harm than good for the long term welfare of humanity and of the earth. One way is through apocalyptic fantasies that could start a world wide war. The other is more insiduous. It keep us in a state of perpetual self-absorbed adolescence, where we look for answers in supernatural places instead of using pragmatic real world practices to find answers and cooperation.

An example is public officials in the US have used prayer meetings to pray for rain rather than face the situation that it our overuse that is the problem not the whims of a capricious deity to make it rain somewhere. How logical is that coming from those who we expect to be our leaders?

Science also can be misused for great harm,but I see more hope in the possibilities it can achieve and the advantages of seeking rational discourse and pragmatic actions than I can in the continued polarization that religion causes even among believers. Science and rationality can promote what is common among us instead of seperating us as religion does.

As I have said previously, if religion just stayed with doing good works then it would be something to commend, but instead religions compete against each other in procaliming they alone have the truth. The other flaw is that they continue to believe that the universe revolves around the affairs of humans on this one small planet. I think that perspective keeps us from seeing beyond our illusions about ourselves. This does not mean we are not important and do not derserve the utmost respect, but that a real sense of humility would be to recognize we may be one of billions of other species in a universe literally populated by billions of other galaxies.

As for as your commencing question about a scientist holding religious views it is possible and Francis Collins is one example. Even he though has his black/white explanations about his beliefs and how atheists(like he once was) are just being arrogant in their disbelief. I find that even though he fully believes in evolution etc., he still feels that his brand of religious belief superceeds all others. If a scientist is to be truly open to revison of ideas when new information comes forth, than I feel that should apply equally to overriding philosophical/religious beliefs because as I have said above the greater cosmos we live in is too large and unknown by personal experience to claim we know the "absolute truth" and it is only in one religion or philosophy.

I would imagine there are other scientists who have religious views and function daily with contradictions to belief that come up from science but manage to do ok because they do not let religious belief stand in the way of reason and the facts that they discover.

Sorry, about perceiving you as a religious questioner.

J.
17 December 2007 at 21:02

Mr Fnortner,

I may have misinterpreted your comments as being from a religious defender. If I did my apologies.

writeon
17 December 2007 at 21:20

Well, as it's Juletide, when the pagans celibrated the beginning of the return of the Sun and Light, now worshipping the Sun as the creator of all things on Earth, that sounds like an idea that might just catch on!

Well, where was I, yes, it's Juletide and the Juletide logs are burning in my fireplace and it's cold and dark outside, and I'm really glad and grateful for the warmth and light from the logs. One can't help thinking there might be more to the symbolism than meets the eye?

I must admit that I wrote my other post before I actually read Dawkin's piece. Having read it I must say, it's not really all that good is it? From reading the comments I imagined it must be reall clever and almost profound, golly was I wrong about that! Anyway my curiosity was aroused, so I decided to read it through. If there's such a thing as vulgar atheism then Dawkins is guilty of it in my opinion. Isn't Dawkins confusing 'God' with religion here? Are they one and the same thing? I think not.

Religion is the creation of man, not God. Religion is our human attempt to understand and imagine the fundamentally non-understandable. Christianity is what's contained in the words in the Bible. God, however, is the Universe, not the same thing at all.

Whilst it's easy to ridicule Christmas and most religions, at least there's an attempt to understand and even rationalize the infinite. I'm not sure Dawkins is up to the task, though I'm sure he'd disagree.

But whilst Christmas is an easy target and by extention most religions are too, personally I'd be slightly wary about taking on the concept of God. Dawkins seems to think of God as an old man with a long white beard sitting on a cloud. I believe this might be a little too simplistic an image to encompass the concept of God, which is a good deal more subtle and complex than Dawkins lets on.

Whilst religion has it's problems, it's not as if science and our systems of knowledge are problem free. Seen over a longer historical perspective it's extraordinary the ridiculous things and ideas people have believed to be true. But they were doing their best given the state of their knowledge at the time. Brillian and highly intelligent people, the intellectual elite, have believed in witchcraft, astrology, alchemy... and on and on. Orthodoxy and dogma, certainty and truth, would appear to be relative and historically determined rather than universal. Given this perspective it isn't beyond the realms of the possible that much if not most of what we believe or perceive or think we understand about 'reality' will be proven to be just plain wrong and probably amusing conceits in two or three hundred years time. It's perfectly possible that we may eventually 'prove' that God does in fact exist, and that God has been patiently waiting for us to catch up with him and smiling wryly at our stumbling efforts.

GideonPolya
18 December 2007 at 06:51

Excellent article by one of my scientific and humnaitarian heroes, Richard Dawkins.

Simply consult UNICEF on the Web and you will discover that on Christmas Day 2007 an estimated 608,000/365 = 1,670 under-5 year old infants will die in countries currently violently occupied by "Christian" Bush-ite US or its surrogates - about 90% avoidably and due to egregious Occupier war crimes in gross violation of the Geneva Convention (for details and documentation see '"US Terror & Occupation. War crimes & huge infant deaths" on the ethical Canadian MWC News).

From UNICEF 2005 data one can calculate that “Year 2005 under-5 infant deaths” / “year 2005 population” is 370,000 / 29.9 million (Occupied Afghanistan); 122,000 / 28.8 million (Occupied Iraq); 82,000 / 8.2 million (Occupied Somalia); 31,000 / 8.5 million (Occupied Haiti); and 3,000 / 3.7 million (Occupied Palestinian Territory) – as compared to 1,500 / 20.2 million (Occupi-er Australia) and 800 / 6.4 million (Occupi-er Israel).

“Year 2005 annual under-5 infant death rate” (i.e. as a percentage: deaths for every 100 under-5 year old infants in 2005 in a particular country) was 6.7% (Occupied Afghanistan); 2.8% (Occupied Iraq); 5.5% (Occupied Somalia); 2.7% (Occupied Haiti); and 0.47% (Occupied Palestinian Territory) – as compared to 0.12% (Occupi-er Australia) and 0.12% (Occupi-er Israel).

"Christian" UK, US, Canada and Australia have forgotten not just the Holy Biblical "thou shalt not kill" but also the UNIVERSAL "thou shalt not kill CHILDREN".

I certainly do not wish a "Happy Christmas" to the lying, racist, holocaust-committing, holocaust-ignoring, holocaust-denying, child-kiling war criminals of the Anglo-Celtic Murdochracies.

And faced with this daily, UN-REPORTED carnage, with no let up on Christmas Day, as an anti-racist, humanitarian Humanist I must heartily endorse Professor Richard Dawkins' "Happy Newton Day!" for all decent humanity.

elliott tepper
18 December 2007 at 08:19

Dear Humanist and Cybertiger and all:

When rightly interpreted, I know of none of the central Christian tenets and themes in its cosmological overview which are incompatible with 'science'. Of course, I am assuming that the idea of 'spirit' and the possibility of a God are not rejected outright before the debate begins. Because if they are immediately left out of the theater of discussion, the whole exercise it is a bit unfair and weighted in favor of the materialist point of view.

I must smile at the suggestion that I drop my 'Christian' identification and 'rejoin' the rest of the human race. According to the Oxford University's 'World Christian Encyclopedia', the 'Economist' and other reliable sources more than one out three members of the human race call themselves Christians. When one adds Muslims, Hindus and other deists we find only 2% of the human race considering themselves atheists and 12% 'non-religious', which is a rapidly declining minority. The secular-humanist in Europe can be forgiven a certain sense of triumphalism because of his recent gains in Europe. Without a doubt, Europe has departed from its Christian past and faith. However, Europe is a very small part of the world and getting smaller. In rounded terms: Christianity as a whole is constant. Islam is growing at the rate of world population growth. Though the Catholic Church and the liberal Protestant Church are in decline, the 700 million 'Evangelicals' in the world are growing at 7% per year, or two and one half times the population growth. In the last 50 years more than 100 million Chinese have become Christians and the growth of the Chinese church is off the charts. We hear of many Chinese intellectuals and scientists coming to faith. Very shortly China will have the largest active Christian Church in the world. Amazing. The secular humanist camp is a bit more beleaguered in fortress Europe and its enclaves in American academia than it realizes.

The Judeo-Christianity spirit has almost always fostered inquiry and been the friend of natural knowledge and science, save in a few unfortunate historic relapses. One cannot say that of recent atheistic systems or most other world religions.

I must point out that demographics has not been kind to Europe. Islam in two generations will dominate Europe, and its domination will carry with it a spirit that will not encourage the kind of debate we are enjoying at this present moment. My secular humanists friends may well rue the day they wished good riddance to Christian Europe. They may miss their Christian 'foes' when they confront their new Sharia masters.

To answer Cybertiger's personal question: 'How do you know that as an atheist I will be surprised? And why am I so certain?' In 1971 as a student at Harvard, I, as a non-religious Jew who believed practically nothing, had a near death experience which changed my life. In a moment I had an encounter with death, a vision of heaven and hell (which I did not believe in), and then to my great surprise, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the person of Jesus Christ. Though intellectual discussions are interesting and fascinating, the real presence of God and the mystic foretaste of Eternity I know today lend an undeniable actuality that mere debate cannot provide. Can you imagine a universe that is both natural and supernatural at the same time? That is not beyond your powers.

If Cybertiger is right, he will just cease to exist and this discussion is meaningless. If I am right, then we will both have a long time to continue meditating on the theme in different states of being.

With good will, Elliott

J.
18 December 2007 at 12:00

Elliot,

The growing religious fundamentalist mindset in the US is not something to be looking forward as a favorable situation. This retreat from reality and science will not bring us into a bright new world, but is inculcating new generations of people who rather than take responsibility for our actions, would rather believe in comforting supenatural fairy tales. A convenient excuse to not grow up, figuaratively speaking.

A wave of mediocrity and stifling ignorance is becoming almost the norm in the US thanks to our prevalent mindless consumerism,entertainment choices and the non-critcial thinking that envelopes religion, especially the evangelical type that relies mostly on overly emotional,temporal experiences to substitute for reasonable thinking and empirical knowledge.

While I will not deny the so-called conversion experience you say you had which seemed be real to you, it is only a subjective non-transferrable, non-verifiable and non-repeatable experience that cannot be utilized by all of humanity to make wise choices and rational decisions in how to live on this planet. We cannot use these subjective experiences to exist and function in a physical world that demands physical actions.

The fundamentalist religions unfortuanately growing in the US and other places will do nothing to foster the quest for real knowledge through science. Already in this country and elsewhere religious zealots are trying to suffocate and censor anything of science that these religious believers object to.

Your good will closing seems insincere to me when you smuggly imply that those of us who do not believe as you do will end up in some different states of being (i.e. hell)for eternity.

Your type of delusional certitude is vey dangerous to the long welfare of life on this planet. It may take a different form than the fanaticism of the Islamic world, but evangelical Christianity is part of a the same self made delusions and willful ignorance that will do very little to solve the urgent physical ecological and social problems we have caused and must try to resolve if we are to survive.

A smug, complacent self-absorbed,narcissistic emotional indulgence in merely supernatural, wishful thinking nonsense will not save us.

Cybertiger
18 December 2007 at 12:56

“In 1971 as a student at Harvard, I, as a non-religious Jew who believed practically nothing, had a near death experience which changed my life.”

Could I ask Elliott what it was that brought him close to death … and what it was that brought him back from the edge … with remembered visions of heaven, hell and Jesus?

Mr Fnortner
18 December 2007 at 15:43

My dear J:

No defender of religion here; just one who observers that religionists live in their own world. We on the outside waste our breath in any effort to infuse reason into it.

Second, atheists, as some of us are, say nothing more than, "You have proven no god." (Note the rare and judicious use of quotes.) We take up no crusade (forgive me) to prove else.

Carry on. And thanks for doubling back and asking.

J.
18 December 2007 at 16:36

Mr Fnortner,

Thanks for your reply and with Elliot's comment above concerning religious statistics, it appears that reason in our era is in serious danger of being overwhelmed by magical thinking. We once again are choosing to live with comforting illlusions instead of discovering and appreciating reality.

I hope I am not around for their cherished self-created, apocalyse that they so anticipate and pray for. The deluded bring upon themselves their own reward and the rest of us will suffer with them.

elliott tepper
19 December 2007 at 00:25

Dear J and Cybertiger and all,

Please forgive me if there was any sense of 'smugness' inferred. It was not intended. I am sure you are every bit as good a man as I am and sincere in your beliefs. We just differ and are talking about our differences. Our talking is a sign of civility and one of the gifts of high civilization. Of course, the final sorting out of reality will be of great consequence for both of us. We cannot pretend otherwise.

This Christian mindset you belittle and see descending on the US is actually descending more upon the nations than America. While the Christian revelation is flowing to the nations, parts of America and most of Europe are drifting from true Christianity. Would to God that America and Europe might become a truly Christian civilizations. We are just as sadden as you are by the carnality and hypocrisy of some of what passes for orthodox Christianity. What we want is to see a Church that reflects the life of Christ, not some religious parody, whether corrupted by consumerism, or superstition, or narcissism. Leaving the blemishes of modern Christianity aside, is there any thing in the life of Christ you find offensive or in the lives of those who would truly emulate him?

Thank you for recognizing that my conversion experience might be real for me. But I think you are wrong when you say that it is 'non-transferrable, non-verifiable, and non-repeatable'. The very existence of the Church refutes those claims. The Church Universal began with one God-man imparting faith and revelation and his 'Life' to twelve men and then to 120 and then to thousands, and then to millions and millions across languages, cultures, centuries and Ages, in the face of severe persecution and natural death--and there is one common thread running through it all: Something universal was transferred, verified, and repeated in each individual life and in each generation. They shared the same essential experience of the Spirit of the Resurrection in their hearts. Their degrees of experience and their abilities of articulation differed greatly, but the seed was the same and is still the same. I have enjoyed sharing and receiving the mystery of Christ all over the world. Psychology has studied mass delusions. They do occur. But there is no explanation for the existence of the Church. Delusion on such a scale in such a diverse body of humanity is simply not possible. Read the 'City of God' by Augustine of Hippo, or CS Lewis' apologetic works. They were both brilliant thinking skeptics who worked through the possibilities of mass deception and the self-delusion of wish fulfillment. My conversion was dramatic, but it has been repeated a thousand million times over the centuries by others.

How can you say that Christianity cannot be used to 'make wise choices and rational decisions' in a world that 'demands physical action'? Christians know that 'true religion' is to feed the hungry, care for the sick and weak, and to share your goods and your coat with those who have none. Anything less is vain and not Christianity. Christians know that they are stewards of the planet and must give account. We must care for it and those who live on it. Are you suggesting that Christians do not care about the ecology of the planet? We may not worship nature, but we respect nature and want to pass on an earth to our children that is a balanced and well tended garden.

Are you suggesting that Christians have shirked from the 'demands of physical actions' and retreated into a 'super-spiritual' existence? I must point out that Christians gave the world the modern hospital and orphanages. Christianity was driving force behind the abolition of slavery in Britain and America. It was the Church was began universal education. It was the Church which first exalted and honored women and children in society, etc. It is a modern verifiable fact that Christians and Jews are much more generous than secular humanists. Not only do they out give by multiples their secular humanist counterparts, but Christian giving even exceeds humanist giving towards exclusively secular charities. Did you know that the Christian Church provides more medical care on the continent of Africa than all the African governments combined--and for free. If you need a well dug in Africa today, you have a better chance of getting it dug by a Christian agency than by a secular government or a secular NGO. True Christians are required to act boldly and unselfishly in this present life, if I read the life of Christ correctly. Millions of missionaries and lay Christians have laid down their lives as proof that they were men and women of 'physical action' .

Words are very cheap. And I know that our lives are small change in the light of such abundant generosity and heroism in the Church universal. But about thirty years ago my wife and I left our secular professions and at no small sacrifice tried to live out Christ's example as Christian missionaries. Check out It is the ministry we founded to help the most needy people in the world. Over 100,000 have come to live in our homes--for free, over the years. There was a time when half our community was HIV positive. The first two generations of the people we helped have all died of AIDS. Less die now thanks to science. We have clinics and use science for the glory of God to save lives. We also believe in the mystery of Agape love. We see no conflict between God and faith and reason and science--between a Kingdom without end and a well tended garden on this present earth.

Come and visit us in Madrid or wherever a Betel community is in the world. Come and see.

Sincerely yours, Elliott

PS In answer to Cybertiger's question: 'What was it that brought me close to death and what brought me back with remembered visions..?'

I was living in a Hippie commune in Cambridge as a graduate student at Harvard, along with other Harvard, Radcliff, MIT and Boston University students. We were quite sincere in our search for reality and a new way. We were a mixture of new-agers and secular free thinkers. There were drugs in our community and lots of deep thought. We had a number of scientists and philosophers in our commune. One day I was alone and took a walk along the Charles River. I had not taken any drugs. It was a very cold winter day. The river was frozen over. As I walked along the river bank thinking, I suddenly heard the audible voice of God say, 'give me your heart'. I was caught up in a vision and lifted out of my body and saw the foothills and the beginning of Heaven and the pathway towards the New Jerusalem. The voice again asked me for my life. I knew in an instant that everything I had been searching for was in the God of Love, but then I said, unexplainably, 'Yes, Lord. But not today, tomorrow. There are still things I want to do'. I was brought down from that height of revelation to the edge of the Charles River and the earth was opened to me. I saw a great inclined plane descending into an abyss. It was a vision of Hell and I did not believe in Hell. The slope was filled with tormented souls, and demons and devils. It was a place of parasitic terror and selfishness where every creature was devouring the other--the exact opposite of what I had seen in heaven. It was a place of utter separation from God. The inclined plane descended into a great lake of fire and I was slipping down the plane. I turned around and tried to walk up and out. But I could only get to the edge of the vision, just on the edge of life. I began to cry out for mercy as I walked down the streets of Boston. In desperation, not knowing how to surrender my life to God and thinking that I had lost light and life and joy and that celestial love and reality I had just experienced forever I threw myself through a plate glass window of an abandoned storefront and was cut very severely on my shoulder, back and arm. I was losing blood. Two young men jumped through the window and saved me from the broken glass. The police came and took me to the Alston hospital. On the emergency room table in those few moments before the doctor entered I thought I was dying. I was weak from loss of blood. I cried out again for mercy and then Jesus entered the emergency room and filled it with light. I was brought up a nominal Jew. I did not believe in Jesus. I had no sympathy towards Jesus, but he was there in front of me. And I knew he was the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He asked me what I was dying for. Then he told me he wanted me to live and to have many children. He touched me and I was born again right there on that stainless steel table. The doctor entered and sewed me up and I have never looked back since.

I have been asked how much of that was drug hallucination. I was not taking drugs. I have had hallucinations. That was a prophetic revelation. There are many examples in the Bible and many testimonies of like visions throughout the ages in the Church. General Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, had a similar vision. The proof that it was not drug induced or fanatical or ocultish is that my life radically changed. I never took drugs again. Now, after 36 years I find myself in the mainstream of Christianity. I am a Presbyterian (Charismatic) and I serve in one of the largest and oldest Christian missions. I have a wife and three sons. They are all Christians. They all hold multiple degrees from a number of universities in math, the sciences, economics, and theology. One graduated with highest honors and distinction in mathematics and taught university mathematics. One was a West Point Captain and is presently the University student pastor at St. Aldates at Oxford. One a Rhodes Scholar and a businessman and writer. All three have Oxford University degrees.

We believe that Jesus Christ is the Lord of all of life. We look forward to exploring and serving in this present universe in all its beauty and wonder. We also look forward to a new world without end.

With all my heart I ask God's richest blessing on you all. Elliott

elliott tepper
19 December 2007 at 00:42

Dear all,

Our web page for Betel International is betel.org

Yours, Elliott

J.
19 December 2007 at 11:40

Elliot,

Thank you for your passionate and I do believe sincerely held explanations of your faith.

I highly commend your physical actions of mercy and compassion toward others. Those are noble and necessary actions that are something which should be pursued by all of us.

What I and others object to is the assertion that you and other Christians (or Muslims) continue to proclaim that your particular belief system has the one an only truth and it is the only way any of us can be "saved" (Forgive me for the quotations)

My reservations come from the knowledge I have derived from cosmology, science and reasoning based on what I can see through empirical methods and reaonable theory based on mathematic possibilities. I am not a scientist but deeply appreciate the methods and advances it has brought us when used ethically and appropiately.

I was once a born-again believer also as a young man in the 1970's. But over time I realzed that saying that "God did it" expalins absolutely zero. I felt those years I was in sort of a exclusionary inner world of denial. I felt if I and my fellow believers were in possession of the truth and everybody else was doomed unless they believed as I did in my particular brand of fundamentalist Christianity. That is why I say religious belief seperates us.

We exist in an almost incomprehensibly large universe which we hardly have any personal experience of. Everything we have discovered, learned and assumed is fact is derived from the minds of the human species which for the present is basically isolated to one small planet. From our limited perspective we have presumed that we know absolutely what the the truth is and it is wrapped up in this religion or another or philosophy. Our real perspective of a greater universe is only beginning to be revealed by our extra-planetary excursions.

One of the things I appreciate about science is the admission that all knowledge is approximate and provisional and is subject to change as new information comes forward.

Religion though will not allow that uncertainity and possibility of revison. That is why many of us who are secular find it dangerous and myopic and self-absorbed.

Just because millions have come to believe in a certain religious orthodoxy, does not validate that ontology as real. All those conversions are independent subjective experiences that cannot be verified through objective methods as with most of science. They are elusively non-transferrable because they frrever remain as personal visions in your mind, not as something in common that can be repeated by me or anyone else as a precise duplication through experimentation.

You can not take words in the Bible and set up an experiment that will prove the exact beliefs you have everytime and therefore they are not tranferrable to others in a verifiable way.

AsI said I do not condemn your efforts to be humane, decent, civil, loving and perform good works. That is obviously not a act of self-absorption. It is your adamant claim of certitude which can and has lead to much harm in the past. This is the blinders I feel many of the faith have on.

This great harm can also come from the secular world.

In both cases it is the unwillingnes to consider what we know could be wrong or needs to be revised.

Humility and spirituality to me is realizing and deeply appreciating that we are part of amazingly interconnected continum of life regardless of how it origianted. The richness and diveristy of life as it is, is enough for me. I no longer need to embelish it with a supernatural underpinning. Maybe one day we will know how it came about. Maybe we will find that there is a first power who is behind it all. Just don't limit it to the idea that it is as we envision it today by our traditional religious concepts and deceits.

We all fall short of perfection but persisting to believe that we at one time were created perfect and then sinned, incurring a deity's eternal wrath does not make any sense in the physical universe, explainable through evolution, phyics and chemistry. To me the whole premise insults our capabilities and the creator if one exists. It's a non-productive way, non-rational, non-scientific and highly disrepectful way to see our species and it's integral part of life.

Benson
19 December 2007 at 15:03

J,

i have never been a believer in doctrines as such. i try to understand them and to raise sceptical queries about them. i often ask myself: what does the balance sheet of past and contemporary history say about such and such a credo? my training is in anthropology, and maybe that explains how i view these matters. if there is a research strategy i am ready to endorse, it is what i call generative cultural materialism. and it simply means that given a set of finite conditions in the techno-environmental system, any human society S has the potential to evolve an infinite variety of culture-ways in response to the material conditions environing its existence. simply put, a scientific order can be perfectly juxtaposed to a religious order, and indeed both are often mixed together in every society in the world. iran has islam and nuclear science. the united states has bushism, clintonism, christian fundamentalism and nuclear science. nigeria, my own country, has a plethora of religions and (at least at the moment) little or no science. but in substantive terms, these three countries are, as far as i'm concerned, very dangerous places to live in. i can't choose among them. i am happy to notice a soupcon of moderation in your partisanship of the scientific ideology. but please realize that religion can be a thing of value too if infused with an appropriate ethical preoccupation. history's gallery is rich with exemplars who have not only tinkered with their faiths, reinvented and reinterpreted them, but have indeed taken religion into that realm of objective practice, i mean the political sphere, where one's positions and the effects of one's beliefs are accorded demonstration as open as a scientific experiment. do you know the story of gandhi? do you know of the dalai lama? what about martin luther king jnr? and then please reflect awhile on the role of the nazi scientists in accomplishing hitler's dream of the thousand-year reich. the question, for me, is not whether a person is a religionist or a scientist. the question is what kind of religion or science are you championing?

J.
19 December 2007 at 21:19

Benson,

I agree that it is in the details of what is being offered and utilized. My experience in the US is that lately much of the ascendent religion is tending toward fundamentalism and evangelism which in my opinion, does not engender moderation but either stifling conformism to orthodoxy, denial of reality and science or extremism.

As I have repeated too often perhaps, it is not religion's emphasis on good works and an individuals search for inner values that disturbs me but it's insistence that a certain religion alone is the arbiter and revealer of absolute truth.

There may be an objection then.Does that mean science is the sole arbiter of truth? No, but science and reason, to me at least offer an empirical objective way to approach truths (plural), not the truth (singular) from a pragmatic,...in common to all of us..., standpoint. Philosophy and the consensual search for values that promote the general welfare are part of the mix also.

If something that scientists have labored and researched for centuries and have established very credible evidence for is censored because of the religious sensibilities of a certain faith, then I and many others are right to be alarmed and defensive because personal matters of faith, outside of ethics perhaps,should not be a part of the decision processes of empirical science since personal faith is not something normally used as part of the scientific method. I am sorry if that seems bigoted or exclusionary, but the scientific method has worked because it asks for duplicatible objective evidence as proof. Religious faith and creationist/ID views cannot deliver that.

I would not promote a type of science that did not take into consideration our humanity, the health of the earth or be willing to close a eye to ethical considerations in the name of advancing science just for it's own sake.

I know there are issues concerning stem cells etc., cloning etc. that are controversial in this regard,but not completely unbridgeable by opposing parties. My main concerns with science being censored is with the teaching of evolution, and the concepts of deep time.

It also concerns me that this resurgence of religious fervor in the world can be another way that we avoid paying attention to the reality and real threat to the ecological health of this planet. For the next few centuries perhaps, most humans will call this place our only home. Instead of spending time and energy pursuing religious worship in something that cannot be verified, to me it is more incumbent upon humans to understand and appreciate the real world of biology and ecology that has made this planet habitable for us.

I think in many ways it is our supposed superiority, our willfull ignorance, our callousness and because of religious myths that we try to seperate and reject or ignore our inextricable connections to the ecology of the earth. Because of this self-created seperation we often do such a poor job of protecting it and instead are still in an undeclared war with nature rather than accepting that we have to be wise stewards of it for our own long term prospects.

There is very little untouched wild nature left in the world. that which is left will have to be conserved,managed,nurtured and restored. Humans cannot exist comfortably as we have become used to or perhaps at all, unless the natural processes of the earth continue to be robust,diverse and self-renewing.... It is that simple.

Sharif
20 December 2007 at 09:08

It is interesting to read so many comments, whenever somebody talks of religion. Obviously there are many having doubts on Jesus and God. Lucky you can express yourselves openly. Where I grew up, not toeing the line on God and the prophet could get me big trouble, to start with that i am an infidel and ending in for blasphemy. Even today, even a letter to the editor can not only harm you but the offices of the paper printing it, get burned and the editors liable to get death sentence. O you think i am talking of middle age? No, I am referring to 21st century. Which country, you might ask. The answer is not one I can from, but many others where Muslims are a majority. I agree with Dawkins, religion is madness; it encourages people to hate each other and eventually kill those who think differently. That is until you follow blindly like Taliban did. Anybody not praying being beaten up, any woman walking alone without Hijab, brought to justice. I am glad that I am here in the west. But I have to be careful also. Somebody might make a short process. Remember Van Gogh in Amsterdam?

writeon
20 December 2007 at 16:04

Sharlone,

My father had much the same set of problems when he was growing up. If one got on the wrong side of the local priest life could get rather difficult.

I know a surprising number of priest, both male and female, and a nicer, politically and socially aware group of people would be hard to find. But then they sort of support the idea of a 'rebel Jesus' and liberation theology.

What appears to be happening in many Muslim countries is tha religion and nationalist/liberation/anti-colonialist politics and seemingly joining forces in a powerful and potentially explosive coctail.

writeon
20 December 2007 at 16:12

Sharlone,

I don't agree that all religion is madness. That's a bit extreme I think. I know loads of seriously religious people and their not mad, they just think differently, they have a different way of describing the world, and most of them are followers of Jesus, who it'll be remembered didn't exactly get on all that well with the religious establishment!

The Taliban didn't just appear out of nowhere. They were a creature of the Pakistani intelligence service who supported them with money and weapons and used them to turn Afghanistan into a potential ally and protectorate.

angrywelshman
20 December 2007 at 16:12

At best religion provides us with a moral framework, at worst it absolves us of moral responsibility.

Cybertiger
20 December 2007 at 16:54

Kenny Richey has spent 20 years on death row Ohio. He has had 13 execution dates set and on one occasion came within an hour of execution. He flies back to Scotland today. The American justice system behaves with casual, vengeful brutality. Kenny Richey’s case is a metaphor for what Christian America has become – and it’s truly, madly, deeply frightening.

writeon
21 December 2007 at 08:37

Rowan Williams - the archbishop of Canterbury - leader of the Anglican church - he seems to be one of the most thoughtful and decent national figures in the UK. He's a Christian, and one could hardly call him mad, or deluded. I think Dawkins grossly oversimplifies the role of religion in society. For thousands of years religion hasn't only been an expression of 'religious' beliefs, but has also functioned as the main platform for the expressing ones political attitudes about the nature of the society one wished to live in.

Sharif
21 December 2007 at 09:22

Wrieon: you say taliban were a product of Pakistani intelligence. This statement is only partly true; USA wanted some zealots to fight the Soviet Union and needed fanatics. They supplied the money and infrastructure. You should see the film 'Charlie Wilson's war', only recently released. I read that today in Pakistan killed people praying in a mosque. Supports my argument. Keep away from religion, it makes you mad and unreasonable

J.
21 December 2007 at 11:49

writeon.

The problem with religion is not that it could not be a part of the platform for the expressing reasonable poilitical attitudes about the nature of the society one wishes to live in; it often asserts that it is the ONLY platform and if one is to be part of the legitimate culture, one has be a believer in a certain religious othodoxy. Advocating good intentions and good works are one thing; proclaiming the presumptous idea of inerrant truth is another.

Our deliberations for the society we wish to live in does not mean it automatically has to be predicated on non-verifiable supernatural beliefs.

Civilized human culture has been around long enough and has enough common experience to know what we need to function in society that respects sound values and our basic human rights. Various unreconciable religions that proclaim that only they have the truth do not give us a practical way to find common ground.

Cybertiger
21 December 2007 at 12:14

“The American justice system behaves with casual, vengeful brutality.”

Kenny Richey will not now be home for Christmas.