Live webchat with Richard Dawkins, Wed 23 June, 10am-11am

[GeraldineMumsnet]

We're pleased to welcome Richard Dawkins for a webchat on Wednesday 23 June from 10am-11am. Richard is a celebrated evolutionary biologist and atheist, and author of the best-selling God Delusion.

He has presented programmes on Channel Four that range from enthusing about the Genius of Charles Darwin to arguing against religion in Root of All Evil?

His latest project is taking a long hard look at education and the role religion continues to play in it.

He wants to hear first-hand from Mumsnetters what faith and church schools are really like. How successful are they? Are they selection by another means? Are they divisive? And are they making hypocrites out of non-believing parents who go to church just to send their children to them?

If you can't make the discussion but want to contribute, please post your views here.

Thanks and hope you can join us.

[POFAKKEDDthechair]

thanks tiktok! Lol at St Richard

Yes GetOrf the Devil is at work in Capitalism, particularly in meatballs and chips for £1.25 and self-assembly furniture.

[TheCoalitionNeedsYou]

What is irrational about philosophy? Epistomology and Logic are the BASIS or rationality. Moral and Political philosophy are about working out how to live in the world, and are based on working this out in a rational way.

[SomeGuy]

tiktok, I don't see any shame in the church saying that it has moved on. Whether you are a universalist or an annihilationist, there's a consistent Christian belief that man cannot know the mind of God, and from that perspective the fact that the church in the past held theological perspectives now believed to be anathema is simply proof of that fallibility.

Modern scientists don't get attacked because Isaac Newton's knowledge of physics was faulty.

[tiktok]

SomeGuy - no shame at all, didn't mean that.

I was just drawing attention to the fact that while liturgy and prayers remain the same, it's convenient to say 'oh, you don't like that sorta stuff? Well, we've moved on from there'...and interesting that you are assuming it is progress (I think that's what 'moving on' implies), while still saying the mind of God is unknowable. Who's to say today's emphasis on love and inclusivity is any closer to the mind of God than the 'older' way of understanding atonement and forgiveness (which is, as I say, far from a dead duck)? In any case, you're not telling me, surely, that today's 'insights' are so very modern that they hold the crucifixion has nothing to do at all with forgiveness?

To me, all the perspectives are equally nonsensical seeing I don't believe there is a God to know or to be forgiven by!

[tiktok]

And please....I was not 'attacking' you.

[TheHeathenOfSuburbia]

Someguy, you can't quote Giles Fraser and say, 'this is what the CofE thinks'

I'm sure you must be aware that he is probably the most extreme liberal (is there such a thing?) in the entire CofE.

[tiktok]

Giles Fraser on a non-atonement reading of the crucifixion:

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/11/christianity-easter

Rather proving my point that atonement is very much a current Christian idea - he actually says 'much official Christianity holds on to the sacrificial reading of Christ's death'.

[stubbornhubby]

my hunch is that 95% of the people in any given church on a Sunday morning have never given a moment's thought the doctrine of atonement.

Indeed I would be surrpised if half of them could explain what it is.

my hunh is that for most people church is not about doctrine, but about community and allowing oneself to feel happily virtuous. (I think that's probably the case for most clergy as well)

[POFAKKEDDthechair]

Anthony Kenny, great modern philosopher interested in the philosophy of religion on why he is an agnostic here

?I think it was Descartes who made certainty the aim of philosophy. I don?t think in classical and medieval philosophy you get the emphasis on certainty. You get the emphasis on knowledge, but not the irrevocable certainty that Descartes wants. The topic of certainty does I think emerge in Medieval philosophy because of the religious context, because of faith being a state of mind which resembles knowledge in its irrevocability, the certainty of it. That doesn?t resemble knowledge because it doesn?t have the grounds on which knowledge rests, and so you get certainty coming in that way. But I think it was very much the crisis of faith of the Renaissance and Reformation ? [Richard] Popkin?s book on scepticism is very good about this ? that suddenly you have equal and opposite certainties on both sides of the Reformation divide; and then you get people like Descartes trying to produce, as it were, a non-sectarian certainty.''

[POFAKKEDDthechair]

And this:

?Spinoza, who is a philosopher I have a very great respect for, constantly speaks of deus sive natura ? god or nature ? and you can either take this as meaning that he took nature as a revelation of God, in which case he?s a kind of god-intoxicated man; or he thinks that all god can mean is nature, and then he?s just adopting a type of reverential attitude towards nature. But I think if you start from the nature end rather than the God end, the history of evolution is not very satisfactorily explained by the total absence of any kind of design ? not only evolutionary beings but the cosmological constants and so on. There seems to me to be a difficulty for people who want to say there?s nothing more than the material universe. And I also think in a kind of Spinozistic way that even just nature as it reveals itself in history is something that should provoke our awe and in a way gratitude. So, as it were, instead of starting from the God end and stripping off the clothes and showing that it?s just naked nature, one could start with nature and think that perhaps that deserves some of the reactions that people have made to God.

?More recently I have been saying that though I believe religions are not literally true, that they have a great poetic value and that philosophers have not really done enough about reflecting about poetic kinds of meaningfulness and how they fit into science on the one hand, and how one should live one?s life on the other.

?The atheist conclusion, at least as expounded by most vociferous atheists in our day, is that there isn?t anything left to explain once science has done its best, and that doesn?t seem to be right.?

[tiktok]

stubbornhubby - you might be right, but it will depend on what sort of education they have had (Roman Catholics, for instance, will have had to learn something for confirmation, and possibly Anglicans - not sure, perhaps someone can say?). I can believe they don't think about it much day to day.

But given the church does take it upon itself to promote an understanding of Christianity (even if it does not do it very well) and would like the rest of us non-believing hoards to join in, too, explaining the meaning of the crucifixion is part of that job.

[wearescientists]

stubborn - TOTALLY agree. I went to church for a number of years, and I also agree with the 95% being there for 'other' reasons - mostly for a sense of community, and feeling like its a 'good' thing to do. I had a good discussion with a friend about how clubbing is also threatening religon. People go there dressed up in their best clothes, socialise, have a drink. But it also instils boundaries (limits talking due to loud music, rituals of dancing - like processions?). Massive, impressive clubs are built - like the old cathedrals? The DJ presides over the people etc..

POF - Love you! you are such a militant, strident faithist good luck to you xx

[wearescientists]

As for the doctrine, I mostly blocked out all the lectures and sermons. But when I listened and thought, it did develop my principles, and my ideas about what constitutes living a good life, and my ideas about religion (one of these principles is, religion is stupid. oops for them!)

[POFAKKEDDthechair]

LOL at militant faithist. Not bad for an agnostic

I guess I must be lucky. Have been exposed not so much to the 'happily virtuous' christians and clergy but more to the inquisitive, open minded, fairly self-aware and self-critical ones. And many who have great crises of faith throughout their lives. Agnosticism is a state of mind for many chrristians I think - at least for periods of time.

[SomeGuy]

I didn't say you were attacking me.

Re Giles Fraser, extreme liberal or not, he is a senior figure, not some minor vicar. And Rowan Williams' theology is cut from much the same cloth anyway.

[wearescientists]

"great crises of faith throughout their lives"
Yes this is when they realise father christmas doesnt exist. But they so like all their friends at church, what are they going to do? ->
"agnosticism is a state of mind for many christians"

[tiktok]

Sorry, SomeGuy - when you said 'modern day scientists aren't attacked 'cos of Isaac Newton getting some stuff wrong' I thought you meant, by analogy, that modern day theists are being attacked (by implication, by me) because their ignorant predecessors got some stuff wrong.

I am aware of the liberal CoE interpretation of atonement. But Giles Fraser appears to agree with me that his is not the mainstream view, and that much of today's Christianity adheres to the 'died for our sins' explanation.

But as I say, it's all equally unbelievable to me! The 'Jesus died to share in the world's suffering' message is, to me, just making it sound a bit less nasty to ears that want to hear how lovely God is, really.

[POFAKKEDDthechair]

Yes that's right, christstians only go to church to keep up with the joneses.

[SomeGuy]

It is the view of the Church of England Doctrine Commission. You don't get much more official than that.

[tiktok]

So why is Giles Fraser moaning about it, then? Why is he wringing his hands and saying much of Christianity is agin this interpretation?

[SomeGuy]

No doubt it's a widely held view, that doesn't necessarily make it a valid one. 86% of Americans believe in 'God', and 56% of Britons (plus 27% for 'don't knows', 'others', 'I believe in a higher power', and so on). Are they right, because their views are widely held?

You can't use the argument from popularity, unless you want to take it to its logical conclusion.

[tiktok]

SomeGuy - you know that's not what I mean!

I explained the doctrines of atonement and forgiveness. A few people posted saying 'rubbish! Today's enlightened Christians don't believe all that codswallop any more!'

I replied - don't they? I contended that this rubbish is still a part of mainstream Christian thinking and eventually linked to Giles Fraser who bemoaned this very same fact, wringing his hands and wishing (praying?) that everyone thought like he did.

I'm not using any argument about popularity - I'm not a believer, I think it's all a load of toss, sorry. I am saying, basically, that no matter that some liberal CofE'ers and even non-dogmatic RCs think the crucifixion is God-suffering-with-us, there are plenty of other Christians who don't think that way - who think you can only be forgiven if you buy the whole Christian shebang, and believe in Christ's divnity, and who think that Jesus died on the cross 'for' the sins of humankind.

It's no good you coming on here and saying to me, 'nooooooooo - you've got it wrong! Christianity does not mean that - look, Rowan Williams and the Doctrinal Commission have said it doesn't mean that!' Because to many Christians, it does mean precisely that (and some of the loopier ones would damn you to hell for suggesting otherwise).

Clearly, Giles Fraser is worried about them, and thinks there are too many of them.

[SomeGuy]

And I think the BNP member in the next road is a twat. That doesn't mean my whole town is a write-off though.

[tiktok]

[tiktok]

Just don't tell me no one believes the doctrine of atonement any more, and I'll stop saying 'everyone who lives in SomeGuy's town is a racist'.