I suppose it was inevitable that the author of The God Delusion would face charges of blasphemy, but one would never have guessed, in 2006, that they would come from his own side.
First, I should declare an interest. At the risk of being hyperbolic, I believe that Professor Richard Dawkins’s tweets are some of the greatest cultural monuments of the 21st Century. Combining a natural gift for surrealism with a blissful indifference to how people will react to him, they inspire both amusement and outrage — as strange and yet perfectly formed as diamonds falling from the Heavens.
“Saw a down-and-out in Seattle last night,” the great science writer told his followers once. “His sign said not ‘I need food’ or ‘I need a job’ but ‘I need a fat bitch’. What could this mean?” What indeed? The funniest aspect of this was the thought that a vagrant’s love of women on the curvier side had troubled an Oxford don all night.
“Good idea to beam erotic videos to theocracies?” Professor Dawkins asked on another occasion, “NOT violent, woman-hating porn but loving, gentle, woman-respecting eroticism.” It’s the “woman-respecting” that elevated this already mad proposal to the heights of genius, as if a male performer would be rattling off the names of women who had received Nobel Prizes mid-coitus.
Yet not everyone is a fan. The American Humanist Association has decided to withdraw its 1996 “Humanist of the Year” award to the ethologist. Dawkins, the AHA claim, “is no longer deserving of being honoured by the AHA”. His crime? A tweet which asked about the difference between “transracial” people like the infamous activist Rachel Dolezal and transgendered individuals.
Provocative? Of course. But did the tweet deserve such a pearl-clutching public disavowal? Not in the slightest. If anything, the most striking thing about the whole saga is the AHA’s own hysteria, which, somehow, is reminiscent of fundamentalist religion.
Dawkins, the AHA claim, implied that “the identities of transgender individuals are fraudulent”. But this is wrong. Professor Dawkins asked if identifying as X means one can be said to be X — which is surely a valid question. Even if the answer to it is “no”, that does not imply that one’s identity is deceptive in the sense of being dishonest. But apparently one’s innate sense of gender is sacred, disqualifying scepticism. Again, there are echoes of religious absolutism.
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SubscribeEven as a non-believer, Dawkins’ unbearably patronising attitude to people of faith almost makes one want to convert to Catholicism just to spite him and his supercilious posture
However it would be intriguing to hear what answer the AHA and other proponents of “transgenderism” would give to the question he posited. What in fact does differentiate a person who believes they are of another race to that of a person who believes they are another gender?
The obvious answer would be that as a matter of scientific fact, genetically Rachel Dolezal is not of black or African heritage. Her parents are both white and presumably of European heritage, the name Dolezal being particularly common in the Czech Republic. But the claimed identities of “transgender” people do not coincide with their genetics either.
The problem when discussing transgenderism is that we don’t know what we are discussing. Most times it seems that transgenderism is based on the idea of gender being distinct from biological sex. From what I understand, the idea is that a particular gender is comprised of the social and cultural differences particularly associated with biological males and females. Then again I have seen transgenderism discussed in terms of a person being born in the wrong body and the male brain and female brain. Sometimes it appears that gender and biological sex are conflated and that what is being asserted is that a transgender person is actually biologically a male or female even though genetically they are not. Given the climate of fear and persecution that advocates if “transgenderism” have created around discussing the subject, I don’t expect any clarity with be forthcoming any time soon.
Whichever concept of transgenderism one selects, there doesn’t appear to be any logical way to differentiate the legitimacy between someone claiming to be transgender and someone claiming to be transracial.
It could just as easily be contested that race like biological sex transcends genetics and that a person’s race could be based on their exhibiting the social and cultural traits associated with a particular race. If someone claims to have a black brain in their white body that has about the same scientific legitimacy as someone asserting they have a male of female brain in the wrong body.
The rapidity with which transgenderism went from an obscure fringe subject in which a tiny proportion of the population were identified as suffering from the condition of Gender Identity Dysphoria, to becoming one of the biggest cultural battlegrounds, is extraordinary. Even more extraordinary is how unscientific, postmodern esoteric thought on transgenderism seamlessly became the accepted, undeniable, truth within national governments, international organisations and institutions and culturally throughout the world, protected by the threat of social ostracization, the loss of their livelihood and criminal sanctions for those who dissent.
What should happen now is that the process that should have been gone through before governments and others accepted the assertions of transgender advocates and instituted policy and legislative changes, should be belatedly instituted . A clarifying of what specifically is meant in discussing transgenderism, having a public discussion where the merits of the scientific and other evidence by those advocating for fundamental changes to our society and laws are assessed, and then determining what if any action should taken. Unfortunately the atmosphere has been made so poisonous by “progressives” and politicians and others in positions of power are so craven, it seems we will have to endure this nonsense indefinitely.
I recommend this recent article which clarifies the issues as well as showing what a toxic environment has been created especially though not only in universities: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1467-9752.12549
Very interesting. Thank you.
If they had answers they wouldn’t need to rage at the questions.
“However it would be intriguing to hear what answer the AHA and other proponents of “transgenderism” would give to the question he posited.”
They cannot. That is why they resort to abuse instead.
Dawkins will ultimately become a raving mystic – all this protesting too loudly is merely his attempts to fight it off.
The talibanisation of aethism by the likes of Dawkins has been counterproductive. There is much to criticise in organised religions, as there is much to admire. The religious impulse has given us some of the most sublime art, architecture and literature. There is no Cathedral to aethism. The Sistine Chapel vs Tracey Emin’s knickers.
AHA and Dawkins share similar sense of intellectual and moral superiority. Serves both of them right.
You’re not wrong Vikram. I expect the moral superiority would certainly lead both of them to assert that religiously-inspired art, architecture and literature, far from being sublime, are all merely disgraceful and immoral wastes of human effort. If we all had their intellectual prowess, we thickoes might grasp this.
Very right Mr Redman. There is a profound difference between intelligence and wisdom, but you have to be wise to know that.
I suppose a person who was once married to the delightful Lalla Ward can’t be all bad , but I remember reading a letter he wrote ( he was strongly remain) and he came over as rather rude and patronizing. At that time he could do no wrong , but in terms of popularity-what goes up must come down.
Are not say the Baths of Diocletian, the Circus Maximus or even the Flavian Amphitheater, ‘Cathedrals to atheism?’ (or aethism as you have it).
Not in the sense of being put up expressly to laud atheism, or as places where atheism as a way of life is served or practiced. They’re big secular public projects but so was the Thames Barrier.
You make them sound so mundane!
I must apologise for lapsing back into the language of the greatest people who have ever walked this planet, but they were raised to celebrate the concept of ‘Occ est Vivere’ or “that is too live”.
That hedonistic drive to enjoy the planet to the very best of your ability, in the rather short time allocated to one.
Thus Odeon,Amphitheater,Circus,Hippodrome, Theatre, Gymnasium, Palaestra and last but not least Thermae/Baths, were the places to worship the cult of fun, even excess, rather than the cult of guilt and fear.
“Dives in Omnia” as ‘they’ said!*
* ( and off course, the late Tom Sharpe)
“In his masterwork, Gibbon took as his starting point Rome at the height of its glory, in the second century A.D., when the Capitoline Hill was a symbol of the city’s eternal power and the Temple of Jupiter a stunning sight. Beneath the temple’s gold-plated roof, an immense gold-and-ivory statue of the king of the Roman gods presided over artworks from around the known world. But it was the spectacular view that hypnotized”. (from the Smithsonian magazine).
Romans built both for their Gods and for the glory of individuals.
Gibbon starts his magisterial work with the Emperor Trajan (98-117AD or 851-870 AUC).
By that time the Patrician class and many others had pretty much given up on the Gods.
They were ‘useful’ for social control but otherwise an anachronism.
Yes, the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill was a spectacular sight, as it was meant to be, but it was unusually large.
Most Temples were small, mainly because nobody put the Priest/Priestess went inside them, ‘services’ as such being held outside in the open air.
Good examples of these small Temples can be found all over the Empire, but particularly good specimens can be found in Nimes, Pula, Vienne, Rome itself, and numerous others in Tunisia and Algeria.
Off course a few monster Temples still existed at Ephesus and Baalbek for example but these were a rarity.
Building for the “glory of individuals “ as you put it became far more popular, as hundred of Civic buildings, far too numerous to mention, attest even to this day.
I’m not sure the gladiators who provided the entertainment in the Amphitheater would agree that it was a cult of ‘fun’.
Many volunteered, thus suspending their civil rights, for the elixir of the ‘roar of the crowd’.
The odds of survival and undying fame were quite good?
“Morituri te salutant” as they said.
I think though I would agree with Niobe, “Morituri te salutant” was the salute of the naumachia (naval battles) –
the fighters were not gladiators but were convicted criminals sentenced to death. Their intended fate was occidioni (massacre, or slaughter).
Naumachia were explicitly set as battles to the death, unlike gladiatorial battles. Gladiators were less likely to die due to their worth and training, but criminals were expendable.
If there was any volunteering I think it would be more in the way one “volunteers” in the army ;]
The naumachia called by Claudius celebrated the completion of a drainage work and agricultural land reclamation project at Italy’s largest inland lake, Lake Fucino. It involved 19,000 combatants and 100 ships meant to represent rivals Rhodes and Cecily.
According to Tacitus, the prisoners at this showcase refused to fight, forcing Claudius to send down his imperial guard to instigate some blood shedding.
iniquitous condemnations were used to generate criminals thus the 19,000 combatants (according to Friedländer)
When Domitian held a naumachia Dio reports “practically all the combatants and many of the spectators as well perished!”
Fun times indeed!
Having said that I have a deep love of the Romans – for all their cruelty they also knew beauty too. Even millennia later we still owe both they and the Greeks much.
You are correct. There is only one recorded use of that sentence and that was at a Naumchia staged by Claudius.*
However it is generally thought that it was widely used, if not reported, in the Arena.
Some would also have it that it was ‘salutamus’ rather than ‘salutant’.
Either way, what a splendid expression to start the proceedings don’t you think?
*Source: Mary Beard.
A totally amazing way to start indeed, they don’t make people like that anymore! I’m not sure I could face such a trial with so much equanimity, but I don’t think we are bred from childhood that way either… There is a value shift in society perhaps… we all value bravery, but our culture seems to expunge all existence of bravery…(all folk heroes and myths are not taught)
I had heard at some time that that particular oath was only made that one time. The 19,000 in a very brave attempt to sway the emperor claudius to leniency,… a last ditch effort at release from their fate.
It worked partially as he pardoned what few survivors were left.
I admired their audaciousness at standing against someone who obviously had control over every single life there… Refusing to fight. (even if later forced) It showed real courage.
But then maybe I heard wrong too… Perhaps it did become a rebellious salute in memory of others gone before. (I wonder how professional soldiers viewed such tourneys – using civilians as fodder… but maybe romans aren’t as sensitive to violence as we are now.)
But in any-case bravery and virtue indeed lives forever, even after all this time.
sorry I waffle 🙂
You cannot laud atheism, it is a negative, without god.
But you can admire and applaud Atheism as a viewpoint. Just as you can can admire logic and reasoning – It doesn’t mean you have belief in the religious sense or need a god to laud something.
The Romans had plenty of Gods., and they liked them worshipped. Diocletian was particularly keen on Romans worshiping the ‘right’ i.e. state sponsored Gods: hence the Diocletian persecution of Christianity.
Some of the people who built the monuments to which you refer had personal aspirations in that direction ( I believe it was Vespasian, the main builder of the Flavian Amphitheatre, who joked on his death bed that he was becoming a God – and he was correct, deified by the Senate soon after).
so no, not really.
I would have said the Romans had pretty much given up on the Gods by the time of Vespasian if not before.
However they did find them ‘useful’, hence their appeal to Diocletian who wished to ‘unite’ the population in times of considerable unrest.
Hit* er, Mao, and Stalin built huge cathedrals to Atheism, usually in the ‘Brutalism’ style of architecture.
Or they confiscated an existing church for propaganda purposes. Like the beautiful Jesuit church in Vilnius. It was a Catholic, an Orthodox and a Lutheran place of worship before it became an atheist museum. Now it is back with the Jesuits….for the time being.
Stalin also used the russian church to drum up support for wars and provide intel about citizens, like all good leaders he knew the value of religion, even if the party line was against it.
Joseph Stalin revived the Russian Orthodox Church to intensify patriotic support for the war effort and presented Russia as a defender of Christian civilization, because he saw the church had an ability to arouse the people in a way that the party could not and because he wanted western help
Putin also understands the value of religion. The new $100 million Russian church meant to honor Putin, Stalin and war, is an asset in his effort to boost Russian nationalism.
The Cathedral of the Russian Armed Forces had been built to mark 75 years since the Soviet victory in World War II.
An ornate mosaic depicting Russian President Vladimir Putin and other high-ranking officials was originally planned for the church in celebration of Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea.
That’s true of Putin too. The large Cathedral beside the river in Moscow looks hundreds of years old, but was actually built in the 1990s. Curiously it’s ‘guardians’ behave like it’s hundreds of years old. When we visited in 2013, our son we denied entry as he was wearing shorts & all the women had to wear ‘head coverings’.
Bit unfair to equate atheism to Emin – hopefully her work will be long forgotten except as a monument to what happens when you tell everyone can be a great artist and that you don’t need to have discipline to be good at it.
To be fair, Dawkins is very much a fan of religious art and the like. It is quite possible to admire the beauty of the Pyramids of Giza or Stone Henge without a sacrifice to Osiris or being a druid. The same applies to the greatest of works that have been created since.
Granted, no great works might have been created in the name of atheism – that would be odd as that’s asking for something to be created purposely from the absence of a belief. Like Brunel dedicating the SS Great Britain to him not being a vegetarian or Shakespeare writing his histories in the honour of not believing in ghosts (ok he may have, we don’t know).
Thank you for that. Art is possible with a secular impulse too, it is often not transcendent. I am not a person of faith, but I don’t feel the need to look down upon religious belief as stupidity or simple mindedness.
Stonehenge was an old ruin long before there were druids. The druids were further removed from Stonehenge than we are from the druids.
Dawkins will agree with you about the art, architecture, and literature. He is asking for evidence for the belief in God.
The problem for Atheism is that that Dawkins is an idiot.
His charting of a bus with the slogan “God probably does not exist stop worrying, enjoy yourself” and the suggestion that not only did we develop from Aliens, but the assertion that these Aliens would also be product of Evolution….
I like reading Dawkins. He is often a better advocate for Christianity than many Church leaders….
I have a number of clips of his interviews. They make a great discussion starters for Christians in small groups.
Cathedrals to atheism are modern particle accelerators at CERN, Fermi lab, etc. Scientists there look for clues as to how the universe actually came into being. They stress test the Standard Model of physics to look for its robustness. These scientists do not take for granted the creation myths proposed by religions. You could call these labs Functional Art Works of atheism! There is nothing equivalent to that in religion, where creation myths and holy pronouncements are tested for robustness.
I didn’t know the existence of physical laws precluded the existence of God. Also, you completely blow up the definition of art.
Ah, yes investigation into the Big Bang theory. First formulated by a priest. The supposed division between science and religion is largely something only the new atheists believe.
Atheism isn’t necessarily pro science either as the humanists that are referenced in that article attest.
The Big Bang was an attempt to find a first cause that God could be put behind.
It turns out it didnt need one
It still remains a theory though. There’s no more empirical evidence for the big bang theory than there is for the existence of God. To argue otherwise is foolish. In the final analysis all ideas about the origins of the universe are actually beliefs.
Science is hopeless when looking for god. They in CERN must justify their jobs, and salaries, so they keep looking further into the atom for a sign of the god particle. And governments pour tax payers cash into these deluded “scientists”. God help us!
Indeed. Science is the investigation of the material. Asking it to produce evidence for the existence of God is to ask it to do something it is incompetent to do.
The scientific method its self came from the scientist Priests on the Middle Ages. All science really came from the vast intellectualism of Roman Church with this universities, tens of thousands of priests educated to the university level, tens of thousands of monks hand copying the classics. Almost all the great founding scientists were Christian.
Science is not a product of the church and its teachings, but a product of science. (The church simply added funding and manpower thankfully I might add!! Of course we can be thankful of universities! But knowledge of science was not aided by religion otherwise)
Aristotle 384–322 BC (atheist) pioneered scientific method in ancient Greece many years before christianity was invented.
Hippocrates 460–375 BC(atheist),
Al-Hassan Ibn Al-Haytham 965 – 1040 (Atheist) Such as another leading pioneer in the scientific Method and The Father of Modern Optics.
Sir francis Bacon 1561–1626 one of the founders of modern science (accused of being a secret atheist) developed the Baconian method which replaced Aristotle’s work.
Galileo Galilei 1564–1642 (believed in god and science)
Sir Isaac Newton 1642–1726 (invoked God as a special physical cause to keep the planets in orbits, but didn’t believe in him as a personal god)
In though in those days it was unconscionable to not believe in god.
Science is indeed indebted to people from many different beliefs, religions and walks of life, who were willing to search for the truth, regardless of religion. (Even if there were universities funded by Christianity – of which I’m thankful, it was human questioning and inventiveness that got us where we are today)
I don’t think though its right to claim science as a sole product of the church though – even if it did create something that would later refute miracles and the supernatural – it moved past the church to become its own entity. Heralding the enlightenment – with its ability to question doctrine and ask for accountability and change.
Aristotle was not an atheist. It is his philosophy of the Unmoved Mover that underpins Thomism!
Neither was Hippocrates – he invokes Apollo in his Hippocratic oath.
Al-Hassan Ibn Al-Haytham was a Sunni Muslim
Newton was a heretical Christian (probably subscribed to a form of Arianism)
It’s Monotheism that appears to be required for science to emerge. The idea that there is one eternal intellect that arranges the universe according to its design and thereby provides a rational basis for its intelligibility.
Sounds like you’re asserting some intellectual and moral authority right there. Pots and kettles?
Are you saying that it is impossible to produce sublime art, architecture and literature as an atheist? The things you are talking about are actually nothing directly to do with the religion, but are simple things that humans do, religious or not. For every cathedral, I can quote another piece of architecture that is more sublime and the same with art and literature. In terms of literature, it would be difficult to place any religious text far up on any sublime scale and religious art has very little to no difference to portraits and painting not portraying a religious theme. The sublime you are seeing is in your own eyes, it’s not really there, like the gods.
Go on then. Name a few.
For every cathedral there are a million other also gorgeous works of art in other countries with other religions or no religion too… The ancient greek deities were human kings. There are religions where Gods are irrelevant, most notably Buddhism, Jainism, and Daoism.
All of those cultures achieved beauty without christianity and some without the need of religion or god
“It would be difficult to place any religious text far up on any sublime scale”? Really? That’s a massive sweeping statement.
I don’t know if you are attempting to prove the existence of god, but the art argument is the most specious. It is not a given religion that spurs on human creativity, but an innate force within us. Here for example is on of the fist human figures ever carved:
some 35,000 years ago and here is the last pietà by Buonarotti:
made 500 years ago by a devout Christian. How similar they are in spirit and human desire.
There is no doubt that the great architectural accomplishments of humanity, be they the Pyramids, the Pantheon, of Chartres were enabled by a collective, not an individual achievement, though the individual intellect and understanding was essential. However to equate this with some transitory religious belief is untenable.
Bravo!
“ It is not a given religion that spurs on human creativity, but an innate force within us”
It’s the need to explain that universal force that takes you to arguments for the existence of God. Christians answer that question by citing the imago dei. You haven’t answered it at all.
With respect, this is an irrelevant observation.
The AHA has not behaved as badly as the islamist crazies who threatened Rushdie. However, to criticize Dawkins’ work in this context makes as little sense as criticizing the literary merit of Satanic Verses. That is to say, the behavior of the censor – the AHA or the islamist crazies – is utterly wrong, no matter the merits of the work of their targets.
Vikram. That made me chuckle this morning. You hit the nail on the head.
If you ever have time, watch the four horseman on YouTube Vikram. All of them – Dawkins, Dennett, Harris and Hitchens – express their fondness and admiration for lots of religious inspired art, architecture and literature. They just happen to not believe in God.
So far all the posts are missing the point. Mr Dawkins is quite right in his comments about child abuse and transgender bullshit. Odd, really, that all these posts actually show support for the AHA and most are personal attacks on his character.
I think the problem, Stanley, is that his remarks stopped well short of the obvious critique that he should have gone on to make.
If he were to write a book called The Woke Delusion authoritatively debunking the nonsense about 200 genders and whatnot he’d enjoy more respect. As a respected biologist, he is perfectly placed to say that the key tenets of identity politics are profoundly false and harmful. Rachel Dolezal has clearly been made seriously mentally ill by identity politics. Even though he has no expertise from which to criticise Christianity, and plenty from which to criticise the lunacies and racism of the woke mob, he’s vocal in attacking the former but somehow can’t quite bring himself to attack the latter.
It depends on your point of view. I think Dawkin’s would say that there is no difference between Christianity and ‘the woke mob’.
One has a core set of beliefs that can’t be agreed upon by all, has no evidence to back it up other than peoples experiences and perceptions, and has evolved or morphed from an older set of ideas.
The other is just a fad
I’ll leave you to decide which is which.
If there’s no difference between Christianity and the woke mob, why doesn’t he say so and attack it with equal vigour?
Of course I might be wrong and he does see a difference.
The ‘woke mob’ is quite hard to attack as its shifting constantly and already discussed widely. Christianity on the other hand is generally taken as something that many of the advocates of simply can-not see for what it is.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that following Christian principles is necassarily a bad thing. But it is a social construct, not a truth
No argument there. What Dawkins has in common with Moses is that he’s trying to explain the universe using the best information to hand. Dawkins’ information is just more up to date.
I guess people running on an ideology can tend to act in a similar group think way when they think they are being virtuous…
Let’s hope the pitchforks don’t appear here as they do in Portland…
He’d enjoy more respect among certain people, you ought to say, because otherwise your claim is highly dubious.
Looks like somebody read the article before heading to the comments box on what he imagined the point was. Careful now.
The left hate Dawkins not because of his atheism, but because of his belief that genes are real, and that they create a world with two sexes. Claiming that evolution formed human beings as much as it formed other animals is now forbidden by “progressive” thinkers, lest it upset the blank-slate ideological applecart.
If Dawkins is right, and selfish genes inevitably produce different mating strategies in men and women, then the patriarchy is simply the logical consequence of evolutionary biology, not a plot by pale, stale males to oppress women by providing for them and their children, as feminists would have us believe.
But if that’s the case, feminism turns out to be a bizarre conspiracy theory, one that is undermined by basic biological understanding. And that revelation must never become widely disseminated, or the entire woke house of cards would collapse.
I love the hypocrisy of this. He actually brings up a very good point with the whole ‘transracial’ vs ‘transgender’ issue. Apparently all trans are equal, just some trans are more equal than others. As for me, it comes down to science. You can be black, white, half-black or half-white but you can’t be half male or half female just because you ‘feel’ like it just like you can’t be black because you feel like it. Your sex, unlike your race, is binary and determined by your chromosomes. In short, if you have a Y (chromosome), you’re a guy.
Thumbs up !
Very intelligent people can sometimes be arrogant because they know they are very intelligent, but Richard Dawkins is arrogant without really being intelligent enough to excuse it. He’s a sort of quite-bright-version of Dunning-Kruger Syndrome. Stupid people are so stupid they think they’re smart; likewise Dawkins is smart enough to know he’s smart, but not smart enough to know he’s not that smart.
There is something about him that just makes you want to burst his pomposity bubble. In the final link there is a very funny Twitter exchange with Dawkins. Someone asks him if he would please answer a question; Dawkins asks what’s the question; which turns out to be, for $20 would he touch poop. During one US election he was among a bunch of bien pensant leftoids who wrote personal letters to individual voters in a marginal state urging them de haut en bas to vote for whomever the Democrat bozo was. Dawkins got a reply: “Brush your teeth.”
The William Topaz McGonagall of Science
Hilarious.
Very intelligent people can sometimes be arrogant because they know they are very intelligent,
Hm, where do I see that every day? I even see cringeworthy people who use the medium of Latin to support their arguments.
I know what you mean. Bellendus prattus, all of them.
Bellendi pratti surely!!
Not necessarily. Could be 4th declension rather than 2nd.
I’ll have a Bellini !
Non-secateur, as any good gardener will tell you
Ita vero.
Well, bien pensant and de haut en bas are French, but sometimes it’s just a whole lot quicker to say something in Latin. I’m not sure there is a more concise way of saying mutatis mutandis or post hoc ergo propter hoc in English, for example.
Post hoc fallacy?
Still has Latin in it…
It’s more ‘’concise’, which was your question.
Three words instead of five? 14 letters as opposed to 21?
It had to be more concise in English. So thanks for playing, but you don’t win the car.
‘Doesn’t follow’. Where’s my car?
Can’t be used as a noun…
But ‘Post hoc fallacy’ doesn’t tell you in what way ‘post hoc’ is a fallacy, whereas the Latin does.
Your concise version relies on knowing the full version…
Agreed, but to be concise was the objective.
Winning a bubble car wasn’t mentioned!
And moreover isn’t its own explanation, as the Latin phrase in question is.
Not to mention the odd phrase in French and refences to Dunning-Kruger syndrome.
Or as my mate used to say: ‘responde stulto iuxta stultitiam suam ne sibi sapiens esse videatur’.
….… indeed… the God Delusion by Dawkins was probably one of the worst books I have ever read. Criticism and thorough examination of big questions is good and necessary but you need to uphold respect for the human condition when you propose to examine the God question. It seems that Dawkins intelligence can only imagine that God means: an old man with a beard in heaven…. It makes me want to ask: do you play with your lego in the evening to create your little world Richard D?
“you need to uphold respect for the human condition when you propose to examine the God question”
I think that The God Delusion is very clear that there is no need to have respect for belief in that for which the believer has and can have no evidence. If that’s the human condition, I agree with Dawkins.
So you think that cosmos made itself of its own volition? You believe that matter just popped out of nothing of its own accord one day? Why? How could it do that? Science teaches us that things do not and cannot make themselves.
The science argument for the universe being capable of originating from timeless void is that timeless voids are unstable, so it’s likely rather than impossible.
Of course to believe this you need as much faith in scientism as the religious have in their God, for the same reason.
But, if God made matter, who made God?
No one made God, because if someone did then God wouldn’t be God. It’s this sort of bad argument that makes Dawkins so easy to pick apart, which is why he avoids debates with professional philosophers like William Lane Craig (see how silly WLC made Christopher Hitchens look).
Science actually teachs the opposite. Quantum mechanics is based on the empirical fact that particles pop into existence from underlying quantum fields all the time. The metaverse may be the ultimate free lunch, creating bubbles of spacetime from nothingness continuously.
OK, let’s say there was something super that created the cosmos nbillions of years ago … does that mean we have to pray and bow to it and put it on a pedestal ? And where does the soul come in and life after death. It’s all a figment of our arrogance, insecurity and ignorance.
It doesnt have volition. That’s the point.
Incidentally quantum mechanics features a nice little thing called quantum tunneling which implies that energetic events with an extremely low probability can and do occur, given enough time.
It’s one of the main restrictions we face in designing faster computers.
If the ‘belief’ is solely advanced as a belief, and doesn’t amount to an evidenced claim (since the ‘internal’ mechanism of belief is impossible to elucidate), I see no problem.
The problem with Dawkins is that he objects to other people believing things, as opposed to attempting to force them compusorily on others, which I agree would be ‘oppression’. But education about religion, even if the educator shrieks his belief fortissimo, means nothing. Simply because no-one is obliged to believe it. I used to ask people who railed about compulsory religious education in schools, in the Guardian comments page:
“If ‘indoctrination’ really exists, how come Britain, the majority of whose children have for well over a century been ‘religiously educated’, is full today of atheists?”
The often evident guilt feelings of some lapsed Catholics are usually ascribed to (pre-7) ‘indoctrination’, but it strikes me that their guilt is not as much betraying the religion, as their parents, teachers and friends.
Dawkins’s book is just a succession of straw men and the worst kind of dismissive materialist dogmatism.
Your comment implies that you didn’t actually read it. Or at least not with an open mind.
Well put. Dawkins is a brilliant writer, an excellent communicator of science, and no doubt a very competent researcher, but no more: he suffered a God Delusion of his own. I won’t round on him: The Selfish Gene is an amazingly good book and had a big influence on me when I read it at the time. I do wish he hadn’t over-extended himself.
The elegant fisking of his misunderstanding of St. Thomas Aquinas linked above is well worth a read. The kindest thing one can say about Dawkins’ misunderstanding of the Five Proofs is that he had not read them before he decided they were wrong.
Hmm read that article, and some of the supporting texts expecting something more substantial.
Far from refuting Dawkin’s points, they are just reductive semantic arguments about the meaning and understanding of God. It reminds me of the oft quoted lady and her turtles:
A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: “What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise.” The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, “What is the tortoise standing on?” “You’re very clever, young man, very clever”, said the old lady. “But it’s turtles all the way down!”
They are responding to criticisms for the proof of god by saying that the critic has merely not understood the nature of god. And that is because god is x, y or z. Using concepts of god to try and reprove the existence of god is reductive.
To take the point made in the article about the ‘concept of perfection’. In sum – things are on a scale of perfection – more to greater – there must be an end to that scale, therefore there must be a god.
This doesn’t add any value. Reductio ad absurdum if you will… 😉 (Sorry Chris W!)
Dawkins can be pompous and arrogant – the man should delete his Twitter for a start and focus on his science books – which he writes very well. But this was a weak attack.
I don’t think you’ve paraphrased St Thomas Aquinas correctly, which to be fair is a challenge because he is pretty deep and dense.
He does not – IIRC – use “concepts of god to try and reprove the existence of god”. He infers the existence of something he calls God from, for example, the universe proceeding from cause to effect yet being called into existence by something that uniquely needed no such prior cause itself.
Science rediscovered the same idea 700 years later in the Big Bang Theory, but calls it something else.
No indeed I did paraphrase a tad, though needed for brevity.
I guess that is where we agree to disagree on the inception of it all.
This is a bit of a red herring. The point (as has been made by many philosophers of religion) is that Dawkins hasn’t understood the arguments he seeks to refute. That does not make them true, just that his rebuttals are literally strawmen.
I’ agree you with on the Selfish Gene.. Great book well written. I’ve been a bit of a Dawkins fan since I read that many years ago.
However, the overarching idea behind his books is really genetic determinism via evolution. You can’t escape the pull of evolution as expressed by the genetic code that runs your life.
That idea is very much out of favour today…especially amongst the adherents of “woke”.
That is all about feeling and social conditioning rather than genetically predetermined actions and the long arc of evolution.
Surely someone as smart as Dawkins could see that… but maybe its a case of … “there are none so blind as those that will not see.”
Dawkins thought/thinks the progressives are his friends because they too are Atheists.
He really could be more wrong … their anti science, anti enlightenment creed is the exact opposite of the ideas in The Selfish Gene and all of the other science based books he has written.
You summed him up perfectly!
I say bright but dim, as are so many intellectuals and literati.
That is probably true, but surely it is reasonable for him to ask believers for evidence to support their belief.
You obviously have not read much of Dawkins. Start with The Selfish Gene.
I’ve read The God Delusion and The Blind Watchmaker, and that felt like plenty. He’s a good writer and communicator but presents few original ideas of his own. He mostly articulates other people’s thinking, including as rebuttals to propositions he has not correctly understood.
if you haven’t read The Selfish Gene you won’t understand why he was considered a brilliant Geneticist.
Probably true – in what I have read he is basically arguing against religion, for which his background does not equip him well.
How do you know you don’t suffer from Dunning-Kruger Syndrome?
I have no evidence to support this, but I have a strong suspicion that everyone who resorts to this internet discussion cliche actually suffers from the syndrome.
Whatever you may think about Richard Dawkins he is highly intelligent. Not sure what the twitter exchange is about other than an anti English slur.
The Extended Phenotype is still one of my favourite books, but let’s not forget Dawkins’ Brexit Derangement phase. ‘Avowed Darwinian Wins Darwin Award’ wiould be a better headline.
Is this invitation to consider more deeply the incredible sophistication of a spider’s web really worthy of being mocked? And with the honey thing, I don’t see why it’s ridiculous to posit that the absurd encroachments on our liberties in the name of safety is a victory for the likes of Bin Laden.
The author has adopted the same smug, cynical tone as the rest of the twitterati and the cancel brigade – “isn’t he so stupid and aren’t we so clever and knowing.”
Ive always found Dawkins to be repellantly smug and hectoring. Similarly with jk Rowling. i enjoy it hugely when former “allies” turn on people who love lecturing others on which opinions they’re allowed to hold. As more worthies are censored by the SJW nutters, we’ll hopefully see some commonsense return to public life.
The funny thing for me about JKR is that she is one of those unfortunate women who, as they age, looks more and more like they used to be men. Delicious irony really.
I think that’s a bit unfair, because there is merely something in Dawkins’ appearance and voice that conveys that impression, without it necessarily being true. Likewise, Jordan Peterson’s strange voice – rasping but quite shrill – can create an impression about his personality that’s not necessarily accurate.
‘Stonking ignorance’ of philosophical arguments is mentioned. I do not understand why Dawkins has never understood that religion and science seek to answer totally different questions that preclude competition between the two. (Neither do I understand why he is so angry that people should believe in God but that is not addressed in the article>)
It is interesting that his literal, simple mind has got him into trouble with his former supporters.
A trans racial person is someone who wishes to play the role of victim in order to achieve sympathy and status in this strange age of white guilt and self flagellation. It is a role play fantasy in which the trans racial person is both a victim in her role as black or mixed race and someone who feels such strong abhorrence of the idea of her innate racism as a white person she is driven into adopting this fantasy existence, which then becomes a viscous cycle of guilt.
A transgender man, a person who was born male, I mean, who has become female, is a person who finds auto erotic fulfilment in his sense of himself as a woman.
A transgender woman, a girl who becomes a boy is a disturbed young person who resents the less savoury aspects of female biology, is frightened of the idea of penetrative intercourse, doesn’t want to become curved and fat and grow breasts, is probably a lesbian but doesn’t like the idea of being with another woman as a woman.
The way society reacts to and worries about those three groups of people is not simply based on the question of whether people should be able to claim that they are whatever they say they are, regardless of biological truth. The literal, scientific truth is obvious to everyone observing these three confused groups.
There is little sympathy for trans racial people because they are seeking sympathy and attention and stirring division and people want to save their sympathy for ‘real’ victims, not waste their energy beating themselves up about someone else’s complex personality disorder.If division is to be stirred then self flagellation must be frenzied by stories of real and severe abuse. Lefty whitey can’t get off over the black and white minstrel show.
Are they not all just people made mentally ill by identity politics?
Suppose you were required to believe, and to live and speak as though you believe, that you live at the South Pole but also on the equator. How long would it take you to crack up?
That’s what’s happening here.
Why do you suppose there is a different reasoning behind transmen and transwomen?
(Also I think you have them the wrong way round – a transgender man is someone born as a biological female but identifies as a man. I think. I’ll be honest I’m never sure which way round it is)
What kind of atheist are you, Christian, Muslim or Jewish?
I’ve always been mystified by the intellectual accolades heaped upon those who ask obvious questions; perhaps being merely well spoken is enough, the profundity of what is being spoken a bit less. The professional atheist cadre, certainly, is not unintelligent, but to me are mostly perfomative. A painter paints a picture, and you can buy it. Richard Dawkins came to a conclusion, and you can adopt that.
Why the atheists turned on Dawkins
Simple he is not an atheist. I read the God Delusion and if this is the best that the self-appointed champion of atheism can do it is compelling evidence for the existence of God.
Lots of people here criticizing Dawkins for his apparent smugness, arrogance and the failings of his arguments about religion. Let’s stipulate that all these arguments and observations are sound, correct and true (I express no personal opinion on that here). None of that matters.
The question at hand is, was the Humanists’ action towards him justifiable? Surely the answer is an unequivocal “no.”
The American Humanist Association has shown itself to be an unthinking bunch of twits (perhaps that ‘i’ should be an ‘a’?) and members should consider publicly abandoning the organization.
All this has done has proved that the religious impulse is hard-wired into many human beings. Looks to me like the AHA has simply demonstrated (as if we needed another example) – that tribalism that doesn’t include a supernatural deity is no less dangerous than the sort that does. I am an atheist and I recoil from the AHA’s descent into Salem-like behaviour, maybe a pertinent point is that many American humanists and atheists used to be religious until they were ‘set free’ – I guess they never really rid themselves of that mindset after all. Dawkins is a scientist and as such values truth and evidence over wishful thinking or dogmatism. The question he raised was perfectly valid and the fact the AHA have reacted as they have shows (as Hitchens once put it) the termites have dined well. Dawkins has exposed THEM not the other way around.
“The first major schism in the atheist movement”. There is no schism in the atheist movement. Are you saying some atheists have sa different version of there are no gods or that religions are just fiction based on pillars of sand? Every other thing you are talking about is absolutely nothing to do with if you are an atheist or not.
The militant atheists are no more than the opposite side of the coin, no different than the fundamentalist zealots who are just as convinced of their world view. Maybe that’s why the two sides so vigorously hate one another. Subconsciously, they recognize the similarities.
Dawkins is a Peter Simple character who provides innocent amusement to those who do not take him seriously.
Like many of his type, his narrow focus upon abstractions when discussing human behaviours, such as the need for faith or belief systems, whether deist or atheist, means he is tone deaf to the actualities of a part of what it is to be human.
One aspect that is notable in many humanists is their lack of humanity when it comes to understanding and respecting those who seek comfort, pleasure, or enlightenment in non-rational behaviours and beliefs, and which manifests in them seeking to reduce the complexity of human life to mere mechanics and mathematical equations.
It is not Dawkins atheism that makes him ridiculous – his position is one that is perfectly valid and, indeed, has in terms of empiricism and scientific explanation a high propensity to accuracy – but his inability to comprehend what value faith and belief can bring not just to individual experience but also to a community, a failure which thereby diminishes his capacity to fully engage in the ineffable nature of shared humanity.
I don’t think that’s fair. Murder is also something that humans have done since time immemorial, it is an essential part of the human condition in that sense, but it is not inhumane to disrespect murderers.
Dawkins’ point – in my opinion – is that these non-rational beliefs are simply delusions and that seeking comfort in a delusion is not particularly admirable and stops people seeing reality for what it is.
Second, these non-rational beliefs do not fall from the sky: they are promoted by people who range from being deluded themselves to being shysters and conmen. The religious authorities exploit people’s need for comfort.
Third, these non-rational beliefs can sometimes be an imposition on people who don’t share them. Let’s not forget that “new atheism” really got going in response to efforts to teach creationism in schools, and in science classes to boot. In addition, many believers seem to think that it is not possible to be a good person without their non-rational belief, which is both patently wrong and insulting.
You are quite welcome to believe any old nonsense you choose. But your freedom to believe in fairytales ends when it comes to setting educational standards or public policy. Secularism protects not only atheists from believers, but believers from each other.
I don’t think his failure is that complex. He doesn’t understand the philosophical basis of even his own empiricism, which is neither so straightforward or rational as he imagines.So no wonder he doesn’t understand the rational arguments for other ways of thinking.
“They care more about social justice than whether or not God exists”Wrong. They don’t not care about social justice; they just use the term.
It was bound to happen: orthodox humanism has split into schismatic camps arguing their little points of difference with all the ferocity of early Christian heretics who pored over the Scriptures and writings of the Church fathers to find fault, illogicality and new theories to fit a priori beliefs pulled from thin air.
Humanism has no absolute truths, no absolute right or wrong, no logic that cannot be overturned using alternative beliefs plucked from the emotional needs of people searching for meaning and recognition.
So so sad, to find Dawkins, ever seeking truth, to be criticised for asking questions that can no longer be answered truthfully because they offend a section of society that has its own fantasy versions of what it considers must be accepted as today’s truth. Tomorrow what was true today will be unacceptible, a weasel word condemning without reason anyone brave enough to espouse yesterday’s truth. Everyone knows in their hearts that the new truth is untrue, but dare not say so, because infantile narcissists will take offence. Instead of justifying themselves, they simply insult the intelligence of everyone by cancelling critics just like the Inquisition required heretics to be silenced.
Atheism, humanism, socialism, communism, marxism, even liberalism, are all founded on wishful thinking that mankind is the arbiter of how human beings should live together. God alone set immoveable goalposts and without Him, they can be shifted in whatever direction suits certain people from time to time. Rational argument is unfashionable, facts are no longer reality, words mean whatever people want them to mean… madness and blindness has hit the educational and political elites. Against such things, the ancient Greeks knew that the gods could not solve.
I’ve been observing that the absence of a true religion from one’s life, tends to create the adoption of an ersatz religion. Atheists like Dawkins may have seen religion as a problem to be eliminated. This misses the point that religion was (is) a solution for bringing meaning to life.
In the absence of the promise of an everlasting life filled with purpose, I see some individuals turn to uncompromising political activism to fill their religion shaped hole in their lives.
I think Dawkins followed this same patter too. In his case, his uncompromising political activism was for ridding the world of religion (the cause of all problems for him) which to him would’ve trumped any other concerns others may have had.
This works until the adherents of this “Reason religion” come in contact and then conflict with adherents of a differently shaped ersatz religion. For them, their chosen focus of political activism will also trump everything else. And I think that sets the scene for today’s clash, and I don’t see a swift end to it.
Interesting to see that Dawkins has spent his life fighting Catholicism, which has given up the fight against evolution years ago, and apparently ignored the rising tide of anti science on the left. Of course he largely ignored American evangelicals at least relative to his attacks on Catholicism.
It’s a slightly different era but ideas of blank slatism were around at the time.
Catholicism as an institution never had much of a problem with evolution, although some individual Catholics obviously did. The Church did not “give up the fight” because it was never really involved in it. It DID fight against social Darwinism, but that’s quite a different thing. Dawkins’s issues with Catholicism were always more to do with the fact that, in the philosophical and argumentative sense, in the matter of apologetics, the Catholics were always the Guards Brigade of Christianity, although the Church has been burying its guns in this regard since Vatican II.
the difference between gender and race – from Richard Dawkin’s scientific perspective at least – is that gender can be scientifically proven, but race cannot
Maybe we should pay more attention to ‘epistemology’ – how we justify our beliefs and opinions. In ‘Hierarchy Theory’ by Alh & Allen, scientists are called naive realist, and science is more about finding sociably acceptable answers to questions – not the truth. Science does not explain the significance of things or what should happen. Our ‘moral values’ are independent of the material world, and science has nothing to do with them. Science is a potent tool. The new atheists have lost interest in the material world as they believe they have mastery of it. They do not distinguish between what is actually real in the material world and what they want to believe is real because of their values.
I was a very active participant and moderator/administrator on various religious and atheism discussion boards back in the ‘heyday’ of online atheist/religious discussions, and I remember (not fondly) the PZ Myers ‘Atheism +’ debacle and the rift it so obviously caused in online communities.
The issue with A+ was that it sought to label atheists as something they are not. Atheists don’t have a ‘belief’ system in a god or gods (which is not to say they don’t believe in all sorts of weird and crazy things), but A+ sought to codify beliefs on areas such as progressiveness and political ideologies, which, believe it or not, was actually anathema to most atheists I knew at the time (especially conservative atheists, including me, of which there were/are many). Indeed it created a ‘schism’ (the irony is not lost on me) on many discussion boards at the time about what it was the discussions were seeking to achieve, and ultimately Myers’ movement alienated the majority.
I agree with analyses that show the A+ movement as the progenitor to the ultra-liberal ‘woke’ organisations we see now. If you go back and look at Myers’ board (Pharyngula – Free thought blogs) you can see the beginnings of the almost totalitarian viewpoints that proponents of A+ view the world and how they dealt with detractors. I was banned at one point from the discussions for voicing concern that trying to ascribe a set of beliefs on people who are unified only in their lack of belief in a deity (or deities) was folly.
Dawkins, from memory, was never fond of the movement either. However I also wanted to echo the sentiments of other Atheists above in saying that the patronisation of theists was always something I found self-defeating and pointless (a critique rightly levelled at Dawkins et al.). ‘Live and let live’ so long as no harm becomes of it. I never cared for anyone’s personal beliefs, and I suspect the majority of atheists don’t either.
Dawkins knows nothing of secular philosophy or history, let alone theology.
What is there to know? Theology takes a conclusion and then tries to justify it with conditions.
Scientific practice takes a series of conditions and draws a conclusion.
One is intellectual masturbation and the other is responsible for almost everything you own, know and have.
Shades of Eric Kaufmann in there. Especially the notion on religious instincts and the social justice/radical progressive mindset – engaged in the sacralisation of groups determined by arbitrary characteristics.
However, “Fewer people believe in God now..’ for me really does hinge on how ‘God’ is defined. For it may encompass such notions as “idealised concepts” IMO.
The God Delusion came out 15 years ago, when the world was in religious turmoil (it still is). Pompeo-like fundamentalist Christians held sway in the US. Religious insanity swept Arab countries. Israeli oppression was declaimed the voice of Judaism. Dawkins was a much needed voice at the time to uncloak the depravity of allowing religion such dominance in geo-political confrontation: all three Abrahamic religions killing and oppressing to see who could get to God’s paradise first with most blood on their hands.
State religion, be it Christianity, Judaism, or Islam has never caused anything but suffering on a massive scale, but the politicians and the powerful love to exploit the delusions of grandeur and self importance religious identity provides.
Such is Dawkins’ knowledge, insight, intellect, that I can forgive him some quirks in his personality. He is a provocateur.
For those who are interested in a more even handed insight into the delusion, sorry, a discussion, of religion, I recommend John Romer’s Testament https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cG2ffXb8dJ4 As an archeologist he looks for the evidence and he finds it, although many believers will not like it.
To understand the origins of Christianity as it emerged as a Jewish sect, the historical evidence for the existence of Jesus and to gain an insight into gospels and the letters of Paul, no one is as thorough as Richard Carrier https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=richard+carrier. Richard Carrier is an unusual fellow in that he is not part of the establishment. His manner is casual and friendly. He does not seek to confront, but to seek, to inquire and to discover what we can glean from the past. Neither Romer, nor Carrier has the crustiness of Dawkins, their paths wind through the intricacies of historical and archaeological evidence, and they allow the reader to come to a personal decision without coercion or disrespect.
Richard Carrier has scant respect for history, he is often completely incorrect factually. It is not just his manner that is casual, this word would accurately describe his attitude to historical inquiry and analysis.
I cannot judge the veracity of any historical facts, of which there seem to be precious few, but I’d love to have an example. He is rare in the theological world in that he is an atheist, which may be the attitude you object to. He certainly questions the orthodoxy, which I find refreshing.
I just want to make a small point about cosmological arguments, since their discussions seems to appear frequently in much of the discussion below.
There are quite a few cosmological arguments. Most of them take the form “if x exists, and has a cause, then it must have been caused by (x-1) and if (x-1) exists then it must have been caused by (x-2) and so on ad infinitum, but it cannot be that such a series continues ad-infinitum because if so we would never reach the end. Therefore there must be a first cause”.
It is wrong to think that this means a series in time. The only argument (I am aware of) that requires a temporal series is the Kalam Cosmological Argument. The others, such as those put forward by Plato/Aristotle/Aquinas/Liebniz et al think of a series of causes that uphold existence right now. By analogy, you are probably sitting/standing on a floor, the floor is being held up by foundations, the foundations are being held up by the earth and so on. They make the same argument about existence itself – there is no reason why you should not simply disappear unless somewhere at the bottom of reality there is something that upholds reality. And the conclusion (by way of several other arguments) is that this must be something that fits the description of the Abrahamic god.
I’m not defending these arguments, but unless one wants to repeat Dawkins’ mistake then it’s best to only apply the “what came before God?” rebuttal to those arguments that attract it.
I’ve always found it fascinating how offensive the so called sheep of the flock have found Dawkins.
It’s almost as if you had no idea atheists could read your own books or listen to the arguments the religious had amongst yourselves. Even the God bus was a direct rebuttal to Bible proclamations all over London transport at the time.
It was inevitable that Dawkins would fall afoul of the only people more thin skinned than the religious people he used to rilen
… indeed… the God Delusion by Dawkins was probably one of the worst books I have ever read. Criticism and thorough examination of big questions is good and necessary but you need to uphold respect for the human condition when you propose to examine the God question. It seems that Dawkins intelligence can only imagine that God means: an old man with a beard in heaven…. It makes me want to ask: do you play with your lego in the evening to create your little world Richard D?
Richard Dawkins always reminds me of the scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz. The wizard gives him a piece of paper with a diploma stamp on it, and all of a sudden, he thinks he’s clever. If you watch the movie, I love the fact that the first theorem from his newly birthed brain is wrong. I suppose it’s small of me to take any schadenfreude in this, but you know what? I’m going to anyway.
Richard Dawkins always reminds me of the scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz. The wizard gives him a piece of paper with a diploma stamp on it, and all of a sudden, he thinks he’s clever. If you watch the movie, I love the fact that the first theorem from his newly birthed brain is wrong. I suppose it’s small of me to take any schadenfreude in this, but you know what? I’m going to anyway.
I thought it was now taken for granted that rearing children in religion is far more abusive than other – eg sexual – forms of abuse.
Why is supernatural gibberish so constant a feature of this website ??
Lots of things are taken for granted now, and lots of other things have been taken for granted in the past. That doesn’t make any of them correct, of course.
Gibberish would refer to things that are incoherent. Such things have no truth value. Surely atheists hold that religious beliefs are meaningful but false?
No. We tend to be logical positivists: “propositions which cannot ever even theoretically be tested are simply meaningless” (A J Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic)