This morning, as I sat across the breakfast table from my third wife, I cast my mind back to when we had first met. That day in 1992, I had assessed her worth as a transmitter of my genetic inheritance. Her hip/waist ratio was optimal for a primate of the subspecies homo sapiens, and she had passed the IQ test I had set her in the 89th percentile. She was of breeding age, of course, and so I had assessed her to be suitable as a co-genetic co-operative, or "wife" as the religious cultists demand I call her.
"I love you Richard", she had told me.
"You delusional, superstitious fool", I had replied. ""Love" is merely a psycho-chemical reaction, an evolutionary trick to pair-bond you to the person with whom you intend subconsciously to communicate your genetic inheritance. You don't "love" me any more than a lion "loves" zebras. You merely act instinctively to survive".
"Yes Richard", she replied demurely. "Indeed".
At which point the phone rang. It was my daughter from my second marriage, Juliet, asking me "how I was", and "had I received my birthday present".
"You idiot child", I had riposted. "Your emotional bond with me is merely an evolutionary tactic to increase the survival of your genes. Higher primates have evolved social kinship groups to maximise co-operation and ensure the survival of the group. This is redundant in the 20th Century and I would kindly ask you to stop troubling me like this".
"I love you daddy", she replied tearfully. "I love you and I always will".
I felt such an irrational outburst did not dignify a reply, so I put the phone down.
Psychologically, I was already in a troubled state, perturbed by the level of superstition and irrationality amongst my own kin. How religion has infested our society, I thought, indoctrinating young and old alike with such dangerous and backwards notions. It was in this state that I answered the doorbell.
A man in a uniform stood before me. "Hello", he said.
I immediately recognised the social protocol called "manners" that has evolved to minimise potential conflict between higher primates.
"Hello", I replied, after a moment's thought.
"I'm from the Salvation Army", he said. "I'm collecting money for the starving in Africa. Could you be so kind as to help?".
This was too much. I chastised him with a blow to the temple. As the superstitious fool lay dazed on the floor I contemplated rushing to the kitchen, grabbing a knife, and ridding the world of a dangerous religious maniac. But then I remembered the superstitious and irrational law against "murder", based on the religious "Sixth commandment", preventing this act of social improvement. Until the world was rid of such superstitious laws, all I could do was reason with him.
"Altruism", I explained, "Is merely another form of selfishness. There would be nothing "kind" about me "helping". I would simply be engaging in an intra-species reciprocal social contract in which I would expect similar assistance in a future time of need. If you had come to me asking me if I had wished to act in a selfish manner to ensure my genetic survival in a reciprocal contract, I might have given some money. But as it stands your superstitious babble infuriates me. Get out of my sight!".
With that, he limped away, another dangerous fool let loose on the world.
Until God and religion, and all its superstitious tenets and irrational legacy are forcibly eradicated from education, culture and society, human beings will never be free to live in a world in which science is the only and final authority. It baffles me that more people, observing my life, have not rallied with me behind the banner of reason. I pity the fools.
Sunday, 23 September 2007
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
25 comments:
While some of your other commentary flirts with bluster, your analysis of Dawkins is flawed, only in that the man himself recoils from the ramifications of his position. Were he to 'walk his talk' he'd be where you put him.
The man is an abject fraud. An assailant of straw men, whose theological importance is held in common only between himself and the most low brow amerikkkan nutjobs.
As a moral philosopher, he is the footstool of pygmies. As you point out, followed through, his preoccupation with 'reason' results in a 'new man' who is part autistic, part psychopathic (with no insult intended to anyone afflicted with either condition - after all, they had forced upon them what RD bizarelly aspires to).
Tits, the lot of them; dawkins, grayling, the fellow travellers. What impresses one most is that this soft handed collective, would be first to be mulched, were the darwinistic logic of their reason to be the underpinning of society.
How particularly risible that the efforts of philosophers such as the aforementioned ACG seek to square judea-christian morality (with a few allowances made for the liasons dangerouse of hampstead drawing rooms) with 'rational' scientism.
The only atheists of which i know, who had the balls to walk the walk, were the russian nihilists, and doestoevsky blootered them into touch 150 years ago.
dawkins strikes one as in many ways the archetypal religous nutter. which is apt; he is one - a rag bag of delusions, paradoxes and hypocrisy married to an unswerving conviction of righteousnous.
The only more strident analogue is with the disaffected middle class teenager - agog with discovery that some things in life are more complex than he had previously thought and simultaneously; convinced that a) this is some kind of revelation, and b) without any response but to reject that complexity in favour of a new simplicity.
the man would be dangerous if not for the effeteness that goes with his position. his spiritual ancestors were more horny handed, and thus slaughtered more people in decades, than christianity's darkest actors managed over centuries.
admired by the insecure and the unworldy; he is the prophet of the eternal undergraduate.
I think there's something slightly comical, even absurd about Dawkins. He reminds me of a self-important Graham Chapman or John Cleese character in the Pythons, crossed with Wodehouse's amateur dictator.
I know that Dawkins would never "walk the walk", that's the whole point of my piece. The consequences of following through the militant atheist position are too ghastly to contemplate, rudeness is the very least problematic one.
As you suggest, there's nothing remotely self-evident about Judaeo-Christian morality. To try to frame it in terms of rational scientism is flattering to God, but absurd.
They aren't the brightest*, these militant Atheists, it has to be said. I remember watching Daniel Dennett claim, through his stunt Socratic beard, that free will is something that must have evolved. Suggesting that he really, really, didn't understand the problem. But that's a story for another day.
* Though they do, ridiculously, call themselves "brights".
I don't like Dawkins and you may well be right about the implications of his ideas, but I don't see why that makes them wrong. There was some extremely cold and cruel behaviour by Catholic nuns and monks in Irish orphanages, to name just one place, so belief in a loving God doesn't necessarily produce loving behaviour. In fact, I can't reconcile a loving God with Hell.
in response to littlefluffyclouds; clearly adherence to religion doesn't preclude it's adherents from failing to live up to the moral benchmarks that it sets.
what it does do, however is set them. that we talk of right or wrong at all, is the product of religions and related value systems.
In Dawkins world there is no such thing as right and wrong - well at any rate, there wouldn't be if he was consistent. There would be merely 'useful' and 'not useful'.
the other thing about christianity is that less of it's adherents lose the plot, than with atheistic ideologies. the canard that religions causes most of the world's wars etc is simply ahistorical bunk, that owes much of it's ubiqiuity in the west to the comintern if i recall correctly.
even some of it's apparent darkest hours - the spanish inquisition for example - were where it was used an instrument of the state, for statist ends. seperation of church and state is as important for this reason, as it is for the more usually discussed influence in the other direction.
and post religious movements have been more violent from the get go. the jacobins got through several times more many victims in their inquistion - in less than a year - than the spanish crown managed over three centuries, and it's been the same ever since.
i think the likes of RD confuse for something more robust, the temporary sustainability of their world view, which depends utterly on being ensconsed in the most privileged society in history - one that has been forged by war, and could not exist otherwise.
in rougher times, everyone gets rougher. religion provides an anchor that partially mitigates that. without it, historically, things have went of the rails big time, even more than in the 'religious era'.
agree with you about hell though. i believe some modern theologians consider it not to be a fiery pit, but more of a seperation from god, that the individual has 'chosen'. but anyways up, a tricky one to get the head round.
regards
Sneering and derision of a man doesn't do much to change the fact that evolution is observed fact.
The theory of evolution is simply what we use to explain and predict.
It's heartening to see a bunch of people self righteously snipe and growl over something and someone they display a vast yawmning chasm of ignorance about.
Bravo gentlemen!
...Seriously, people, you actually think this is funny? Even accurate? This has got to be one of the world's flimsiest strawmen, ever.
Dawkins is a polite, humourous and emotional man, and the fact that you see him as acting in the bizzare manner you describe mearly highlights your true ignorence of anything the man has ever written.
How can you possibly expect to be taken seriously in an argument against him when you so very obviously haven't the first idea what he stands for, or even how he talks?
As for your "talk the talk and walk the walk" point, Dawkins has adressed this one any number of times. His beef, so to speak, is with the factual and undeniable nature of evolution by natural selection as a force in nature that shapes world around us. This in no way implies that he wishes to implement them in respect to social engineering- such ideas are sickening to him and all other right-thinking people, which i trust includes yourselves.
If you truley harbour ambitions to be a satirist, remember; a little research goes a long long way.
Morality doesn't necessarily stem from religion. There are many people in the world who are not religious at all, and yet don't go around hurting people if it suits them. I am not religious, but I do have morals.
It may be true that morals exist in society because of religion. It may also be true that morals exist in religion because of society. It may even be a bit of both. As society has changed, so has religion.
You only have to flip open to a chapter of the old testament to see that the morals in the bible have changed over time. The reason morals have changed over time is because society has become more complex.
The reason I am nice to people is because it makes it easier to live in society. This may seem like a selfish thing to do. But if the only reason you are nice to people is because God told you to and you won't get into heaven otherwise, then I ask you, are my reasons really that different, or worse?
Another reason is that I don't like to see people in pain, or upset. This follows the pattern of an instinct. Once again selfish. I want people to be happy so I can be happy.
It is my belief that even if the reasons are selfish, that is not necessarily inherently a bad thing.
I am a new member of the richarddawkins.net Community. I am so because I am interested in the argument and want to find out more about people's differing opinions.
I am not a militant atheist. I don't think I have it all figured out, and I certainly don't think Richard Dawkins has it all right. That is too much to ask of an individual.
What is not too much to ask of an individual is simply to consider possibilities other than what you might believe.
Also, individual people make mistakes. It is unnatural not to make mistakes. If Richard Dawkins learns from his mistakes that's all we can ask. It all aids in learning and understanding, which, hopefully, will make the world a better place.
you're all fucking idiots
I am aghast at the utter idiocy of this piece, and at some of the comments that people have left.
Dawkins may not be to some peoples tastes (he can appear shrill for instance), but to assume that his lack of faith would lead him to consider murder is laughable, if not offensive.
Indeed he is even on record as saying that while 'survival of the fittest' is the way to evolve species, it self evidently isn't the right way to run a society. In fact 'politically' Dawkins is more aligned with liberal, social democratic views. This means helping those who can't help themselves.
Reading a little further though it becomes clear that you're peddling the 'athiests are evil because they don't have the religious moral code' lie. Humans self evidently have a sense of what is morally right which transcends any particular religion. The fact that there is broad agreement on what is moral in all cultures, means that there was a moral sense even in proto-cultures, which pre-dates any current religious groups. It is therefore clear that religion piggy backs on the human morality, and not the other way around.
The idea that atheism means a complete lack of moral framework, or that it inherently leads to genocide is just plain stupid.
I guess you'll trot out the 'Hitler was an atheist' line. This is a lie. Hitler was raised a Catholic, and never disavowed his faith. The anti-semitic dogma in Germany was centuries old, for example, see the writings of Martin Luther about the Jews. And even if Hitler had been an atheist what about all the soldiers who were doing these awful things? Most of them would have identified themselves as Christians. They would have justified killing the Jews as 'Christ Killers'. In the whole of the War only one German soldier was ex-communicated by the Catholic church, and that wasn't because of the genocide, but because he married outside his faith!
The real reason that the 20th Century saw these awful crimes is not that atheism made it possible, or even probable, but that technology made it possible. If the tyrants of the past had had gas chambers to kill on mass, trains to transport people like cattle and mass communication in which to justify their actions then undoubtedly they would have done so.
Oh, a blog site for the hard of thinking. Nice one! Bwahahahhaha.
Difficult to believe that either the writer or the people posting comments above have actually read what Dawkins says. He regularly points out (and shouldn't have to) that understanding how nature behaves is not a moral prescription for how we SHOULD behave, either as individuals or as a society. Knowing that moonlight is made of photons, and love of chemicals and neuron-states, does not impede the enjoyment of either. It's not a difficult point.
"When people believe that they have absolute knowledge, with no test in reality, this is how they behave. This is what men do when they aspire to the knowledge of gods."
- Bronowski
The idea that things like love might have an evolutionary explanation doesn't rob them of anything at all.
Afterall, the argument is that we have evolved to *feel* love. That this has some evolutionary benefit doesn't mean that we feel it any less.
I'm a staunch evolutionist and I love my wife. The two are by no means incompatible as Dawkins himself would surely be the first to say.
I am not sure whether your post comes from malice or ignorance. Since you seem to be religious and I am an optimist person, I hope you wouldn't "lie for Jesus", so I will assume you don't actually know Richard Dawkins.
Dawkins explains in detail where moral and ethics really come from in Chapters 6 and 7 of "The God delusion".
Dawkins is a sensible, loving person. His "Lament for Douglas" is one of the most moving and honest texts I have ever read. He has also wrote other eulogies and specially caring is "A Prayer for My Daughter". Some of these texts are available in "A Devil's Chaplain".
If you don't wish to buy the books, and they are not available in your local library (are there public/free libraries in U.S.? In my library you can ask them to get books they don't have yet.), you can easily find the books in torrent sites or Emule, download them and print them.
that was awsome!! i laughed so hard... a total pain in the ass...
of course dawkins wouldn't behave like that... maybe hitchens...
ps: atheist myself
You obviously haven't read anything Dawkins has written or you wouldn't be making such absurd statements about him. The 12th chapter of the revised 'The Selfish Gene' makes clear Dawkins position on altruism and goodness among humans.
Please read and comprehend before posting malicious nonsense in the future.
It seems to me that the piece on Dawkins is just terribly inpolite and quite boring. I think that it is on par of shouting "Dawking is an idot" and think because of this to have made a point.
Very sad.
Maybe you should spend less time reading the bible and more time reading the people and ideas you're trying to belittle - all of it has gone right over your head.
Evolution is a fact regardless of how you feel about it, and Darwin's theory of natural selection is an evolutionary theory, not a social one. The only people I've heard talking about social Darwinism are the creationist nutjobs who like to confuse it with valid science for their own benefit (or sad self-deception).
Your hyperbole of what the world might be like if science were taken to a fundamental extreme is cringing and childish in its petulance, but fiction none the less; One needs only to open a newspaper to see the antithetic religious hyperbole in action, killing real human beings all over the world.
You twat
I see. You have somehow equated the understanding of the evolutionary origins and physiological causes of emotions and other behaviour with the goal of ridding oneself from all traces of them. I don't see what one could possibly have to do with the other...
Unless of course, you are ridiculing the man's take on religion through an incredible and illogical attempt at reductio ad absurdum. It failed miserably, by the way. Crashed and burned, because this is not what he espouses, nor is this its ultimate ramification. If you had any clue you would know that Dawkins loves and supports human emotion and altruistic behaviour for the sake of altruistic behaviour (as opposed to altruistic behaviour for the sake of gaining +points with the Man Upstairs)
The entirety of his book, Unweaving the Rainbow, depicts an attitude the perfect opposite of his portrayal here. It does not diminish our amazement and appreciation of the thing to know a little bit about how it works or where it came from.
You don't think particle physicists gaze out at the world in despair with the knowledge that it is mostly empty space, do you? Or that chemists disregard human life as "a load of chemical reactions wrapped in phospholipid bilayer"?
And yet somehow you have come to the conclusion that an evolutionary biologist and an atheist sees the world as an amoral collection of bipedal lifeforms looking for nothing except the next meal and the next shag, and feels the need to deride anyone who dares to act on or display any other natural instinct.
Clap. Clap.
Quite right, anti-Creationists and enemies of Intelligent Design ! The blogger has uttered a blasphemy against the New Prophet Dawkins ! Let the unbelievers be excoriated most fearsomely in the Blog Comments !
Get a life, you tedious, tedious creatures ! You remind me of an old pop group with the gorgeous name 'Christians In Search Of Filth'. You and your replies made me think instantly of them.
Yeah, get a life.
Get a life? The blogger has made extremely misrepresenting statements about a person whose books he has obviously never read. He's getting called out on it. And furthermore, making atheists out to have prophets as if it was some sort of religion is just dishonest and absurd. Get out your dictionary and find that 'religion' is not synonymous with 'worldview'; get a life while you're at it.
It really is sad to stoop to this level. Just plain sad. You can't present any evidence for your point of view, so you resort to a character assassination of a brilliant, and all around good and decent, human being.
Classic Christianity.
Much of the rhetoric used here reads like fascist propaganda: It strives to invoke dread.
I find it a good guideline to be skeptical when people try to invoke strong emotion to make a point.
Post a Comment