So religion is the problem, and 9.11 showed this? Let me ask this question. What if Dawkins had written the following:
“Allah
of the Qur'an is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction:
jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a
vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic,
racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential,
megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”
Would he be alive today?
Very good point. "Religion" is such a broad, amorphous term that it's difficult to make any meaningful statement using it, without a pageful of footnotes, caveats, and exceptions. After all "religion" includes Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Mormonism... well, you get the point.* What can truly be said about Christianity cannot necessarily, and maybe even only rarely, be said of another religion.
ReplyDeleteSo whenever you hear Dawkins (or anyone else) saying something even remotely like "The problem with religion is..", it's time to check the readings on your BS meter.
* This is one reason why I despise the term "theist" - what the heck does that actually mean? Call me a Christian, or a Catholic, or even a Catholic Christian, but please, please do not call me a "theist"!
Jezu ufam tobie!
Or what if Dawkins said "certainty in one's belief", which is equally applicable and more accurate in that it is broad enough to incorporate the innumerable non-religious beliefs that have caused untold misery throughout history...but oh wait, we should only talk about RELIGIOUS beliefs, as though AL Qaida has more in common with my Bible study than it does radical Communism.
ReplyDeleteOr what if Dawkins said "certainty in one's belief", which is equally applicable and more accurate in that it is broad enough to incorporate the innumerable non-religious beliefs that have caused untold misery throughout history...but oh wait, we should only talk about RELIGIOUS beliefs, as though AL Qaida has more in common with my Bible study than it does radical Communism.
ReplyDeleteOne of the best comments on this subject can be found in, of all places, the 1968 movie The Lion in Winter:
ReplyDeletePrince John (Nigel Terry): A knife! He's got a knife!
Eleanor of Aquitaine (Katherine Hepburn): Of course he has a knife, he always has a knife, we all have knives! It's 1183 and we're barbarians! How clear we make it. Oh, my piglets, we are the origins of war: not history's forces, nor the times, nor justice, nor the lack of it, nor causes, nor religions, nor ideas, nor kinds of government, nor any other thing. We are the killers. We breed wars. We carry it like syphilis inside. Dead bodies rot in field and stream because the living ones are rotten. For the love of God, can't we love one another just a little - that's how peace begins. We have so much to love each other for. We have such possibilities, my children. We could change the world.
I remember that film when it came out
ReplyDelete"* This is one reason why I despise the term "theist" - what the heck does that actually mean? Call me a Christian, or a Catholic, or even a Catholic Christian, but please, please do not call me a "theist"!"
ReplyDeleteIsn't it just the most amazing thing? When one allows oneself to recover from the vapors and attend to what that [insert denigration of choice here] Ilíon has actually said, one keeps discovering that one agrees with him.
"So religion is the problem, and 9.11 showed this? Let me ask this question. What if Dawkins had written the following:
ReplyDelete“Allah of the Qur'an is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”
Would he be alive today?"
It's rather a toss-up as to who would have gotten to him first, isn't it? Moslems or leftists?
"This is one reason why I despise the term "theist" - what the heck does that actually mean?" Intellectual dishonesty even among "Christians". Theism is simply the belief in the existence of a god or gods, or creator. There have been and are many theists who don't subscribe to any particular religion. The well know skeptic Martin Gardner was one, not to mention former atheist (before he passed away) Antony Flew.
ReplyDelete"one keeps discovering that one agrees with him." Not always, thank God (and I do mean God, as I am a theist).
ReplyDelete