Posted on 11/13/2007 8:07:51 AM PST by NYer
Richard Dawkins has a bright idea: Atheists are the new gays. Is he joking? Not at all. The bestselling author of The God Delusion has been suggesting for two years now that atheists can follow the example of gays. This would put the atheists last in the line of liberation groups: first the civil rights movement, then the feminist movement, then the gay liberation movement, and now the cause of atheist liberation.
What makes Dawkins want atheists to be like gays? Dawkins explains that gays used to be called homosexual, but then they decided to pick a positive-sounding name like "gay." Suddenly the meaning of the term "gay" was entirely appropriated by homosexuals. Gays went from being defined by their enemies to defining themselves in a favorable way.
Dawkins cited this example in advocating that atheists call themselves "brights." After all, atheist is a somewhat negative term because it defines itself by what it is opposed to. "Bright" sounds so much happier and, more important, smarter. "Bright" kind of reflects the high opinion that atheists have of their own intellectual abilities. Even the stupidest village atheist gets to pat himself on the back and place himself in the tradition of science and philosophy by calling himself a "bright."
Dawkins and the philosopher Daniel Dennett have both written articles promoting the use of the term “bright.” Not all atheists have warmed to the term, but Dawkins and Dennett clearly envision themselves as far-looking strategists of the atheist cause. But how bright, really, are they?
Dawkins has also suggested that atheists, like gays, should come out of the closet. Well, what if they don't want to? I doubt that Dawkins would support "outing" atheists. But can an atheist "rights" group be far behind? Hate crimes laws to protect atheists? Affirmative action for unbelievers? An Atheist Annual Parade, complete with dancers and floats? Atheist History Month?
Honestly, I think the whole atheist-gay analogy is quite absurd. It seems strange for Dawkins to urge atheists to come out of the closet in the style of the all-American boy standing up on the dining table of his public high school and confessing that he is a homosexual? Dawkins, being British, doesn't seem to recognize that this would not win many popularity contests in America.
If Dawkins' public relations skills seem lacking in this area, they are positively abysmal when they come to building support for science. Remember that Dawkins is professor of the public understanding of science. He has a chair funded by the Microsoft multimillionaire Charles Simonyi. If I were that guy, I'd withdraw the support, not because I disagree with Dawkins, but because I think he is setting back the cause of science.
Basically Dawkins is saying if you are religious, then science is your enemy. Either you choose God or you choose science. No wonder that so many Americans say they are opposed to evolution. They believe that evolution is atheism masquerading as science, and Dawkins confirms their suspicions. Indeed Dawkins takes the same position as the most ignorant fundamentalist: you can have Darwin or you can have the Bible but you can't have both.
Dawkins is in some ways a terrible representative for atheism, which I'm glad about because a bad cause deserves a bad leader. He is also a terrible advocate for science, which I'm sad about because science deserves all the support it can get.
Having debated Christopher Hitchens, I’d like the opportunity to debate Dawkins. I think I can vindicate a rational and scientific argument for religion against his irrational and unscientific prejudice. When I wrote Dawkins to propose such a debate, however, Dawkins said that “upon reflection” he decided against it. He didn’t give a reason, and there is no reason.
In his writings on religion, Dawkins presents atheism as the side of reason and evidence, and religion as the side of “blind faith.” So what’s he afraid of? How can reason possibly lose in a contest with ignorance and superstition? I have written Dawkins back offering him the most favorable terms: a debate on a secular campus like Berkeley rather than a church, with atheist Michael Shermer as the moderator, and a donor ready and willing to pay both our fees.
So I hope Dawkins takes me up on my challenge to an intellectual joust. If you want to encourage him, write Dawkins and send the email to dineshjdsouza@aol.com. I’ll forward your thoughts to our wavering atheist knight. He may want to pattern atheism on the gay rights movement, but surely he doesn’t want the world to think that he’s a sissy.
1) Dawkins is a highly respected (in academia) and Phelps is a sh!tbird in just about everyone's book
2) Dawkins has a position of authority from which to pontificate and has written several books, Phelps hasn't
When I see atheists, or for that matter scientists, denouncing Dawkins for misrepresentation of facts w/ the same vehemence that Christians denounce Phelps I'll consider them birds of a feather.
"It not infrequently happens that something about the earth, about the sky, about other elements of this world, about the motion and rotation or even the magnitude and distances of the stars, about definite eclipses of the sun and moon, about the passage of years and seasons, about the nature of animals, of fruits, of stones, and of other such things, may be known with the greatest certainty by reasoning or by experience, even by one who is not a Christian. It is too disgraceful and ruinous, though, and greatly to be avoided, that he [the non-Christian] should hear a Christian speaking so idiotically on these matters, and as if in accord with Christian writings, that he might say that he could scarcely keep from laughing when he saw how totally in error they are. In view of this and in keeping it in mind constantly while dealing with the book of Genesis, I have, insofar as I was able, explained in detail and set forth for consideration the meanings of obscure passages, taking care not to affirm rashly some one meaning to the prejudice of another and perhaps better explanation."
St. Augustine, The Literal Interpretation of Genesis 1:19–20.
“Gay” is a positive term?? According to who? Probably like the word “retard” - was the euphemism back in the 30’s (replacing “idiot” I believe) but quickly picked up the perjorative meaning. The latest euphemistic smoke-screen from the homosexual movement is “same-sex.”
What is the definition of M is ?
I just can not remember how “Brother Dave Gardner” put it.
The Bible has been and continues to be confirmed by non ideologically driven science.
Creation ex nihilo, bacteriological based view of medicine, the vacuum of space, cataclysmic geology, the subatomic nature of matter, etc, etc, and etc. --- all are found in the Bible.
If Genesis is not literally true then you have no reason to trust that any of the Bible is literally true - including the resurrection.
If Genesis isn’t literally true then you have no basis for your faith.
(btw - nice to hear from you Claud.)
On the contrary, he has every bearing on this conversation precisely because he is prescientific. His thinking is not clouded by Darwin on this matter. So when he, for instance, postulated that some animals like flies could have been created not in actuality but potentially, to arise later, we have to step back and say whoa....why does he say that?
He believed Genesis was literally and fully true. But he was smart enough to know that his particular interpretation could well be wrong. We have to be extremely careful with this text and not read stuff into it that's not there.
I have a background in biology, and I also believe Scripture is infallible. But I am--quite frankly--very wary of anyone who claims they have this extraordinarily difficult text of Genesis 1 sewn down and buttoned up to the point where they can say--categorically and in the face of some scientific evidence--they know exactly how it happened.
The rabbis were much more careful than that. The Church Fathers were much more careful than that. We should be much more careful than that.
I fully believe that the literal truth of Genesis will be vindicated in the end. How it will be vindicated--that's something I can't presume to pontificate about. And when folks go around pretending like *their* view of the hexaemeron is THE way it happened, I gotta laugh at that.
Dawkins just has something wrong with him upstairs. Ignore him and he’ll go away.
There is a redundancy here.
99 % of the Gays I know or have seen spewing their hatred on tv are athesists.
That includes the gay priests and bishops in the E Church. First they are gay and second. their so called belief in God isn’t really one. It is just another way to advance their agenda.
And to say he's "highly respected" is not entirely accurate.
Really, there is no comparison in social status between the two.
So they are going to become the new victim group? Then they will be able to get in line ahead of the rest of us for jobs and college admissions. They will be able to wail and moan and get us put in jail for our thoughts.
Like everyone else, he argues from a position of inherent weakness: something a scientist is likely to see through because they tend to be acquainted with the full enormity of the parameters involved in the probability equation of existence.
I believe it was Wittgenstein who stated "Whereof one does not know, thereof one should remain silent."
Sound advice.
And the social status of the two isn't relavent. Frankly, I see Phelps in the news more than Dawkins.....sure it's because he's an asshole but, there it is. The point I was making was that they're both the worst of their breed and using them as being representative of their breed is disingenuous, at best.
Add to Blessed Augustine’s insistence on the non-literal character of the narrative in Genesis, St. Gregory of Nyssa’s description of the first two chapters as “doctrine in the guise of a narrative”. Medieval Jewish commenators, notably Maimonides, also, without any impetus from a supposed contradiction with modern science, similarly discounted literal readings of anything beyond “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
Even St. Basil the Great, whose Hexameron is aduced as a patristic support for a literal reading of Genesis says “it matters not whether you say day or aeon, the thought is the same.”
Biblical literalism hardly has the support of the consensus patrium, and seems to me to be as much a rationalistic phenomenon as the materialism it so often quarrels with.
Very well said. St. Basil’s nine homilies on the hexaemeron is a great read for anyone interested in this subject. But I didn’t know about Gregory of Nyssa...do you have a citation handy? I definitely want to check that out!
Genesis 1 was so challenging to the Fathers and the Jewish rabbis because of the curious language and seeming contradictions right in the text. There’s light, evening, morning, and days—yet the sun appears only in day 4. The first day is actually not “the first day” but “one day”—and like you said, ancient commentators—with no help from modern science—sometimes saw these days as literal 24-hour periods and sometimes saw them as “days of the Lord” of a thousand years.
But like you said, lots of people are into rationalism—everything cut and dry in a nice neat package. People are uncomfortable with mystery anymore!
I don’t have a citation from, say, the Patralogia Grecae, but I think St. Gregory’s comment comes somewhere in his Commentary on Genesis.
I know of it from Alexander Kalomiros’ “The Six Dawns”, a commentary on Genesis by the noted Greek lay theologian, which simultaneously argues that a patristic reading of Genesis is actually in accord with modern scientific theories, evolution included, but sets a bound on how in accord, at the person of Adam, who is read in light of the Second Adam, Christ, with an absolute insistence on the literalness of the breathing of the Spirit into Adam.
It’s available online—a Google or Yahoo search for the title and author will turn it up.
Jesus said a corrupt tree brings forth evil fruit. I challenge you to go back and take a careful look at Darwin and his associates and followers and track down the pure evil with which they were associated. You will find them to be the movers behind abortion, feminism, environmentalism, communism/nihilism/Nazism, eugenics, and a host of other things worth cursing.
“Genesis 1 was so challenging to the Fathers and the Jewish rabbis because of the curious language and seeming contradictions right in the text. There’s light, evening, morning, and days—yet the sun appears only in day 4.”
With out getting into a tit-for-tat exegesis, archeology has revealed that many, if not most, of the contemporaries of the book of Genesis practiced some form of Sun worship. God revealing that he created the sun not on the first day, but some time subsequent, was a direct blow to that worship system. Anyway, the sun is not necessary for the presence of light in the early universe. I think you know what I refer to.
And if there was any doubt as to the authors intentions, he repeatedly states, “and the evening and the morning were the “X” day”. It's as if he says "and the first twenty four hours...".
Please remember that Jesus said: "I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it."
“Biblical literalism hardly has the support of the consensus patrium,”
You seem to have an incorrect definition of Biblical literalism. Biblical literalism makes allowences for the poetic, the allegorical & metaphorical nature of Scripture - when it is clear from the context that such are required.
But what do you think of the major miracles of the Bible - the flood, Jonah, Jesus’ walking on water and the resurrection?
Are they nonliteral?
First of all, I am well aware of the nefarious uses Darwinism has been put to. But you might as well blame Christian communal living in the first century for Communism. The abuse of the thing does not take away the use.
The fact is, that even if Darwin’s model was wrong—one still has to explain what the heck those bones are doing in the ground. What are they, and why are they there? And how come they are not the same animals as what we have today? A very practical problem that.
Bottom line: I know you feel confident about your interpretation of the Genesis text. But that reading of the text is not a unanimous one in the history of Christianity—and for people to insist on it is to fly in the face of the best scholars who have looked at this question. Definitely read Augustine or Basil and you may rethink it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.