Dawkins - God Delusion....

[squidette]

Hi

I am half way through reading Richard Dawkins new book, The God Delusion, and loving it. I am finding myself laughing and smiling in that 'phew! someone else thinks the same thing!' kind of way that i had when reading Russell's Why i am not a Christian lectures.

I was wondering if anyone else has read it and what their thoughts were.

Hey UnquietDad, you don't need to tell ME what RD says in the book - I'm one of the few people on the thread who has read it

Bossykate, Quakers don't tend to be prescriptive or ask questions about what you believe, so you could definitely attend meetings without believing in God. If you wanted to become a full Friend you could manage it by defining God as broadly as you wanted, preferably using a metaphor involving the word 'light'.

(My mother attended Quaker Meeting for some years when I was growing up so I went along to Children's Meeting, where we cut out paper doves and made collages about peace and were otherwise indoctrinated in the evil sinister sort of way Richard Dawkins describes. I went a few times as an adult and it was all just as lovely as I remembered it.)

(still can't shake this ingrained belief that war is a Bad Thing though )

Not at all qualified- in the second year of my degree in the field but it's a far bigger frield than me. Not sure Rowan Williams is either, mind you, in that for example, a highly biased scientist would be considered untrustworthy and his works treated with great scepticism.

I enjoyed the article in The Times, the book is on my Christmas wishlist as I am ploughing through many compulsory reads as we speak (and have to plan a presentatioomn on Chan Buddhist Scripture tomorrow).
I did Psychology too last year, and although the article wasn't a jot scientific- I would phrase it as a highly developed pisstake, frankly- it was intriguing and yes, said a lot of the stuff I think. Not that I am lacking in spirituality you understand, I just haven't yet found any argument to convince me of some big omnipresent being. I'm more of the light / hope / love that dwells in us end of the spectrum.

Squidette, the Russell lecture.... do I take it that was a direct answer (or cause, I suppose?) to the Why I Am A Christian book? Have read that, was illuminating in terms of my Christianity module last year. Theology this year- not a science, more a very interesting lesson, imo, in how you can read anything into something if you want (although the Bible is extremely interesting and I do agree with many of the moral precepts on the New Test., ). It's a gret Book, but I don't take it any more literally than, say, the Dhammapada (another fab book with a great message).

Actually for readability I rate the Qur'an- a truly beautiful book. Can't believe that either, mind you.

"I'm more of the light / hope / love that dwells in us end of the spectrum."

Another recruit to the virtual MN Quaker meeting perhaps?

oooh oooh oooh

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(Kathy666 today, Pruni.)

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LOL- been trying to get up my nerve to go for ages actually (agoraphobic, but not as severe as some).

But yes, Quaker is it I guess.

on my Christmas list too, but I have read large chunks of it in Waterstones!! (sorry for the egg-sucking moment, kathy )

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Quaker meeting would work quite well on MN - we would just all sit in silence staring at our screens and thinking spiritual thoughts, then occasionally someone would post something and the rest of us would read it and not respond.

Then after an hour we would all shake hands virtually and go and make a cup of tea.

It sounds like Richard Dawkins is going to have a great Christmas - he will presumably be spending it staring at the Amazon sales ranking page for his book and rubbing his hands in glee.

Didn't know she was married to Tom Baker, Pruni. Didn't know she was that posh either.

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just want to add - what Dawkins is reacting against is not mainstream christianity but a very dangerous version of it predominately in the USA called 'end-time theology' which focuses on the second coming of Christ.

I am extremely concerned about the prevalance of end-time thinking in US politics and the ramifications in terms of foreign policy (unquestioningly pro-Israeli, war-happy etc), environmental responsibility (the world's about to end so why bother trying to solve the problems) and many other areas of politics affecting not just the US but many other countries as well.

That is why Dawkins feels it is so vital to speak out against this kind of belief - and I am 100% with him on this. End-time theology can be strung together using Bible verses but it is not biblical in the sense that it goes against the main sweep of what the Bible says (like prosperity theology, another prevalant and insidious belief that purports to be biblical but stinks in terms of what it does to people's thinking and mental health IMO).

If the current political climate were not so dominated by such religious beliefs, I doubt if Dawkns would feel the need to be so anti-religion.

I feel passionately about this because end-time theology is a distortion of christianity (which I love passionately) and it gives Christians a bad name. I can see why it appeals because it gives people easy answers and black-and-white goodies and baddies...but the reality of life is so much more complex than that, and being a CHristian is about being a servant (which is why these slick glamorous groups make me )

OKay, rant over!

Are you surprised to find a passionate christian agreeing with Dawkins? (I am!!! )

Pruni - is it a big house in North Oxford? Are they tidy?

Texasrose - that is really interesting. I am sure what you say is a huge part of his motivation, though it may also be that he would focus more on slagging off radical Islam (which he does a bit) if this stuff wasn't going on.
What is 'prosperity theology'? It sounds....wrong, somehow!

Prosperity theology says - God wants you to be rich! And happy! And healthy! All the time! Give your money to the church and you will get lots more money back! Give £10 and you will 'get' (somehow) £100!

It stinks (IMHO, altho there are lots of genuine christians who get sucked into this thinking - you can see why it's attractive).

It is utterly selfish (all baout what you can get out of christianity, not what you give) and it engenders a deep dissatisfaction as it always focusus on accumulating 'wealth' (what constitutes 'wealth' anyway? Middle-class people hankering after a bigger house?).

It is also awful (IMO) as you get African christians living on next to nothing giving all their money to build fancy air-con churches in the belief that they will get some heavenly windfall that will save them from starvation.

Itis also awful in that it condemns those who get sick (because in this theology there is no room for sickness) and says that if they have enough faith they will get better. So the flip side is that if they don't get better it's because they don't have enough faith, i.e it's their fault. As someone with a long term illness, I hate this implication.

There may be christians on MN who subscribe t this theology - if so I don't want to offend you personally but I really can't see any good in it at all. Like the end-time theology you can use verses of the Bible to justify it but it is so aganist the spirit of christianity (christ the suffering servant who never owned a thing and died an ignoble death).

And you'd be amazed how widespread this thinking is.

"Give your money to the church and you will get lots more money back! Give £10 and you will 'get' (somehow) £100! "

I'm speechless, Texasrose

Why doesn't this surprise me

I'm NOT Christian BUT I very much admire the way many christians live their lives, humble and helping others. yet behind every beautiful thing it seems there is some evil shite just trying to make a bit of cash.

ime christians are probably less likely than not to be humble, helpful etc, peachy. it's one of the reasons I'm a humanist.

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Certainly the scary end of religion is the US evangelical/Israeli interaction.
But Dawkins has been warning of the dangers of religion long before this was an issue to him, or the world in general.

As for the "broad sweep" of the Bible, I'm not sure I see one, but most Christian takes on it have "do this or else" as quite core, be it being smitten or spending eternity in hell, indded the "soft and gentle" view of Christianity is historically very a very recent spin on things.

Surprisingly enough Christian leaders discovered peace & love around the same time that we evolved separation of Church & state and took their toys away (the rack, ducking stools, red hot pokers et al).
That's why the US seems so scary, and no I don't find it a coincidence that the fool Blair is also a devout Christian.

Pruni - the 'end timers' believe that we are living in the 'last days' and that Christ's second coming (which is part of mainstream christian theology) is imminent.

There are various prophecies which the end timers beileve must be fulfilled before this second coming cam happen. For eg one of them is the re-building of Solomon's (Jewish) temple in Jerusalem, which is currently a mosque. You can imagine how fraught this is with tension; it's a political tinderbox.

Also the prophecy that the nation of Isael will be restored to its former lands (Gaza etc) - hence the USA's unquestioning pro-Israeli, anti-Palestinian stance, hence 9/11.

There are other issues too - the lack of concern about the enrironmant makes me as the belief that the earth is about to end makes people so apathetic.

You can say it's a load of rubbish and not take any notice. But the fact is that these beliefs have a direct and very damaging influence on US politics which the UK seems to have got embroiled in as well.

I think the fact that I am a committed christian makes me even more angry about these things.

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