Posted on 12/24/2008 7:51:12 AM PST by Daffynition
Scientist and atheist Richard Dawkins has admitted he does celebrate Christmas - and enjoys singing traditional Christmas carols each festive season.
The writer and evolutionary biologist told singer Jarvis Cocker that he happily wishes everyone a Merry Christmas - and used to have a tree when his daughter was younger.
Dawkins, one of the most famous atheists in the world, was interviewed by Sheffield born Cocker when he stepped in as a Christmas guest editor on Radio Four's Today programme.
'I am perfectly happy on Christmas day to say Merry Christmas to everybody,' Dawkins said. 'I might sing Christmas carols - once I was privileged to be invited to Kings College, Cambridge, for their Christmas carols and loved it.
'I actually love most of the genuine Christmas carols. I can't bear Jingle Bells and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and you might think from that that I was religious, that I can't bear the ones that make no mention of religion. But I just think they are dreadful tunes and even more dreadful words. I like the traditional Christmas carols.'
Cocker, the former frontman for Britpop band Pulp, said he was also a fan of Christmas traditions.
'I am the same in a way,' he told Dawkins. 'I really like the kind of peripheral things about Christmas. I like the smell of tangerines and the smell of the tree and to pull crackers.'
Dawkins said his family had a typical Christmas celebration each year like so many others.
'We are not kill joys, we are not scrooges,' he said. 'We give each other presents and when my daughter was a bit younger we would have a tree. We don't now.
'We go to my sister's house for Christmas lunch which is a lovely big family occasion. Everybody thoroughly enjoys .....
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
In Dawkins case yes. Celebrating Christmas, singing "genuine" carols, and wishing people "Merry Christmas" is evidence of his blindness. I do not think that Dawkins is stupid or insane yet he sings songs of praise and joy to a God he "knows" does not exist and partakes in a birthday celebration of a savior he "knows" isn't real. And he doesn't see anything wrong with that. That is blindness. jw
“...For those who do not acknowledge a specific “supreme being”, there is absolutely no reason why they can’t feel love, nurture their children, and show reverence for life.” ~ GimpySadan
Note my tag line. Do you “get it”?
“..any argument for or against free will automatically presumes its existence, which in turn proves the reality of that which is free to choose, i.e., the soul. To say that free will does not exist is to void one’s argument at the outset, since one’s arguments can appeal to neither truth nor to that which may know it: as Poincaré commented, “no determinist argues deterministically,” so “all arguments against free will are so many proofs if it” (Jaki). ..
“If everything is subjective, then there can’t be free will either. This leads to an interesting speculation about the necessity of the world for God’s freedom. In other words, just like us, how could God be meaningfully free unless there are objects (or, in his case, subjects) to act upon? To put it another way, perhaps God’s freedom is ultimately given its highest expression in the existence of the human subject which can either deny or align itself with him. Thus, denial of God is the ironyclad proof of his existence. But you knew that already. ..
“Every free act transcends matter, which is why any form of materialism is anti-liberty, which is why the secular left, dipso shitso, is so dangerous. I’m very much looking forward to Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning, as I am certain that this theme will be explored, thus freeing me of the responsibility. That is, intrinsic to the project of leftism is the abolition of that which transcends matter, and therefore, the dehumanization of humans. This is why their assault on religion in general and the soul in particular is not “accidental” but absolutely essential to their goals. They must replace transcendence with immanence. Once that’s accomplished, then everything else falls into place. It’s like building the cage. Once the cage of immanence is complete, then man lives behind bars he can’t even see, bars as strong as steel and as high as the imagination. ..
Degrees and Chimes of Freedom Fleshing
http://onecosmos.blogspot.com/2007/12/degrees-of-human-freedom.html
Robert W.Godwin [Gagdad Bob] , Ph.D is a clinical psychologist whose interdisciplinary work has focused on the relationship between contemporary psychoanalysis, chaos theory, and quantum physics. bttt
You’re right, there’s nothing wrong with anything that brings lots of people together to celebrate, have fun and feel good.
Why, because he is capable of enjoying a holiday for a different reason?
Great, its a start, now get your breatheren in non faith to join you and your viewpoint might get a bit more respect.
What's wrong with a world view that is only moderately Athy?
You mean God creates people with a hole in their hearts even when He knows they will be born, raised and die a non-Chritian?
What is someone called that just doesn’t know if there is a supreme being or not?
No, Christmas was NOT celebrated pre-Christian Europe. By definition it can not CHRISTmas! Maybe some pagan holliday was, but it certainly wasn’t in honor of the One True God, and Lord’s entry into the world in human-bodily form (Birthday)!
No, Christmas was NOT celebrated pre-Christian Europe. By definition it can not CHRISTmas! Maybe some pagan holliday was, but it certainly wasn’t in honor of the One True God, and Lord’s entry into the world in human-bodily form (Birthday)!
Yes, do you think man only discovered God with the birth of Christ? Even the most primitive men born know God, they may not practice the christian faith, but not one, no matter how remote and removed from the Christian world is atheist.
Nope.
I am glad he enjoys Christmas, and would wish him Glad Tidings in a great season as well, however I hope and and with respect you as well eventually end up enjoying the true reason of this Holliday! Merry Christmas!!
Well, ok, technically you are right. CHRISTmas wasn’t celebrated, but other winter holidays were and they just happen to coincide with CHRISTmas.
That’s an Agnostic is the unsure if a God exists and those who may believe in something, but not sure what it is.
Atheism is, nope no god, just this, nothing more.
Well then they aren’t the same. Ramadan takes place around this time too, and Kwanzaa, but I would never dream of celebrating them, EVER!
While I can't answer for Dawkins, I'm certainly not faking it.
Most materialists / atheists / strong agonistic mentalities are faking it. The proof? Few of them have the courage of their stated “convictions”
“....When you have successfully demystified the world, your soul is officially dead.
That assumes that such a thing as a "soul" exists.
....I’m trying to think of an example that even a materialist with a blunted sensibility might understand.
Since you're being so careful not to be condescending, I'll play along.
For many people who have successfully demystified the world, the only time they are able to unwittingly appreciate the sacred is when they are directly confronted with it in its most vivid form: death, the birth of a child, marriage, etc.
Imagine being so spiritually insensate that you had the courage of your convictions and successfully drained the world of its sacred dimension. Upon the death of a loved one, you would simply put them in the garbage. After all, it’s just a sack of meat.
Incorrect. The ways we treat the body of the deceased are meant to respect the wishes of the dearly departed, and the sensibilities of the living. Personally, I favor cremation (more efficient) and would dispose of the ashes in a sanitary fashion. I certainly wouldn't keep them in an urn.
The birth of a child would be no different than termites hatching in your backyard.
Incorrect. I'm a specieist, and therefore value humans more than any other animal.
Marriage wouldn’t exist, because there would be no recognition of the sacred dimension of male and female sexuality.
Incorrect. There are a host of reasons to recognize the institution of marriage that do not involve anything spiritual. The fact that a civil ceremony carries the full weight of law should be evidence of that.
Euthanasia would not just be legal, but mandatory, on grounds of common sense
Incorrect. Mandatory euthanasia is murder, and atheists do not by definition support murder.
— as would the abortion of youth in Asia — as in China.
Incorrect. The fact that one does not believe in the supernatural does not by definition cause one to support mandatory abortion.
Believe it or not, there are people who more or less experience the world this way.
I don't believe it. Please give me an example of people who support mandatory abortions and mandatory euthanasia and treating the birth of children no differently than that of termites and want to eliminate the institution of marriage and throw the bodies of their loved ones into the garbage when they die.
But we do not call them “enlightened” or more in touch with reality than the rest of us. Rather, we call them schizoid or autistic. ..” ~ Gagdad Bob
A better term would be "nonexistent".
“wooooo... very interesting reading.” ~ JWinNC
More here:
Life Amidst the Postmodern Ruins
http://onecosmos.blogspot.com/2007/11/life-amidst-postmodern-ruins.html
“... I was very impressed with how Chesterton, although writing in 1907, had already diagnosed the pathologies of the left. In fact, his ideas mirror exactly what Polanyi wrote some 50 years later about the “moral inversion” of the left, i.e., the dangerous combination of radical skepticism and an unhinged, ruthless moral perfectionism unbound from tradition.
Chesteron writes of the socialist that although he may have a “large and generous heart,” it is “not a heart in the right place.” And only a human being can have a heart dangerously set in the wrong location. It generally occurs “when a religious scheme is shattered” as a result of their intense skepticism. When this happens, “it is not merely the vices that are let loose.” Rather, “the virtues are let loose also; and the virtues wander more wildly, and the virtues do more terrible damage.” Just because someone has a moral code, it hardly means that they are moral.
I have written a number of posts on the dynamics of this pathological process, which I thought that Polanyi had been the first to recognize. But Chesterton also writes of how “the modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone.”
Most every destructive policy put into place by the left can be traced to some Christian virtue gone mad i.e., feed the hungry, so steal from “the rich” and call it “giving,” or defending abortion on the basis of the sanctity of “liberty,” or encouraging every manner of deviancy under the guise of “tolerance.” [snip - continue reading at above link]
<>
Belief in Disbelief, or Inside the Postmodern Skeptic Tank
http://onecosmos.blogspot.com/2007/11/belief-in-disbelief-or-inside.html
“[T]he new rebel is a skeptic, and will not entirely trust anything.... And the fact that he doubts everything really gets in the way when he wants to denounce anything. For denunciation implies a moral doctrine of some kind; and the modern revolutionist doubts not only the institution he denounces, but the doctrine by which he denounces it.... In his book on politics he attacks men for trampling on morality; in his book on ethics he attacks morality for trampling on men. ~ G.K. Chesterton [snip - continue reading at above link]
People celebrated Christmas (by another name) long before Jesus walked the Earth. It is pretty arrogant to say that Jesus owns Christmas.
For example, Yule, the holiest feast of the Teutonic year, was celebrated for thousands of years by the people of North Western Europe (long before the birth of Jesus).
Yule begins December 21st and lasts for twelve days until the 1st of January. The first night of Yule, “Mother Night”, is hallowed to the Teutonic goddess Freyja. Each of the twelve nights represents one of the twelve months of the year.
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