Sharpe's Opinion

Excellent piece, so expect congratulations from the likes of me & a backlash from the various brain-dead unthinkers. C’est la vie.

For those of us who interact with the state on a daily basis through the school system, this atheism vs religion thing still feels pretty vivid, and not in the slightest bit abstract. I haven’t seen Dawkins’ speech, but I’m really wary of this new ‘counterintuitive’ liberal discourse which says ‘it’s just about choice’. It’s really not.

Excellent post. I’m atheist but will frequently label myself agnostic to distance myself – possibly a little dishonest but it’s tiring having to explain my position.

As to the Pope’s comment, my perhaps too kind interpretation was that when the Pope referred to a Godless world he meant a world without love. I certainly don’t think his comment was anywhere near as bad as the oft-peddled religion is the root of all evil. But if you’r an atheist and you can lump all the ills of the world on to one section of society of which you’re no part…

“… it will be with a heavy heart that I press the ‘publish’ button and send my thoughts out to the wider world.”

You shouldn’t have worried. Excellent post.

As a Catholic I appreciate this post very much. It was alarming to see the hatred spewed out by Dawkins & co. I like to live & let live, & if anyone gets a good impression of my religion, it will be by the way I treat others. It seems to me that we’re not the ones on the run, that he & his supporters are really scared. He can only do his own cause terrible damage by this kind of venom.

I have to agree with much of this, I too, despite being an admirer of Dawkins’ work, can become rather jaded with his slightly odd descent into name-calling. I would only say this: Is it right to fight fire with fire? There are those of us athiests (rationalists?) who can let the Pope’s visit pass however much it might mean little to us but there are also those (and I myself have stepped in this territory) who like nothing more than a good set-to. Perhaps the blood and thunder of an old-testament preacher but from a mind like Dawkins is what is needed to open the debate even further. I merely pose the question.

I agree with much of this, and if I read you right there’s a plea in there for Dawkins and others to be a bit less doggedly sure of themselves.
But I think it goes beyond the current stance of the otherwise admirable Dawkins – it’s about a crisis of strategy for securlarism.
I don’t just want to stop discrimination against atheists, which I agree no longer happens to a very great degree here. I also want to live in a country which doesn’t give undue influence to religion, for a whole host of reasons. For a long time, secularists could stand politely back while religion made itself look silly and become increasingy irrelevant to most people’s lives.
More recently religion has been – or at least has appeared to be – rebounding somewhat. Although much of this is smoke and mirrors, it clearly has gained a media narrative and has some people worried. What should the response be?
Personally I don’t think that outright attack is best here. I’d prefer simply to calmly and assertively hold religion to the same standards as everyone else (don’t discriminate, use evidence in your arguments, use respectful language about people you disagree with, etc) and allow the more extreme elements to make themselves look unreasonable. At his best, Dawkins can do this, but he is also a human being like any of us, and we can all give in to the desire to go on the attack sometimes, even against our better judgement.

A nice, thoughtful piece. I share your regret.

I had to renounce my fervent (but not, I hope, spittle-flecked) thoughtful atheism for reluctant thoughtful Christianity some years ago. Just so you know where I’m coming from.

It scares me – quite frankly – how many people will, given a public platform, use it for hate-mongering. Protest, punditry, pulpits and politics provide the platform.

It’s not always easy to tell whether the shouty stirrers up of base emotions are being clever, stupid or cynical. Sometimes I wonder if they know themselves.

It’s always scary. And the only strong defence is laughter. They’re only scary when we stop seeing them as more silly than sinister.

Excellent post. I think the Pope’s own comments have been rather misrepresented by the media. He was hardly saying “atheists = Nazis OMGLOL!!!”, despite the best attempts of the Dawkins brigade to claim as much. (Sad to see Ben Goldacre jumping on that bandwagon.)

In fact, the “offending passage” merely said:

Even in our own lifetime, we can recall how Britain and her leaders stood against a Nazi tyranny that wished to eradicate God from society and denied our common humanity to many, especially the Jews, who were thought unfit to live. I also recall the regime’s attitude to Christian pastors and religious who spoke the truth in love, opposed the Nazis and paid for that opposition with their lives. As we reflect on the sobering lessons of the atheist extremism of the twentieth century, let us never forget how the exclusion of God, religion and virtue from public life leads ultimately to a truncated vision of man and of society and thus to a “reductive vision of the person and his destiny” (Caritas in Veritate, 29).

The Pope has written before about the idolatrous nature of 20th century totalitarianisms, and the fact that Nazism was not (unlike, say, Soviet Communism, or the Khmer Rouge) explicitly atheistic would not, in his view, make it any less “without God”, both ideologically and in many of its policies. As for Hitler being a Catholic – it’s a bit of a strange attack, coming as it does from someone who insists that we regard all infants as atheist, and only label people by their adult convictions. One may say many things about Hitler’s apparent belief in higher powers, providence, etc. but it’s pretty clear that he wasn’t a Christian, let alone RC.

In any case, regardless of what one makes of the Pope’s assessment, it’s certainly a lot more nuanced than the foaming-at-the-mouth effort Dawkins made. He may like to accuse “religionists” of propagating fear and loathing, but one only has to contrast the two speeches to see who’s the real demagogue. As someone whose agnosticism was informed by a diet of Hume and Russell (I’m now RC myself!), it saddens me to see the discourse so debased.

I have to agree.

I was on the march with The Spiderplant, but we left the rally when Dawkins was speaking. It was a vitriolic rant that wasn’t in keeping with a man of his obvious intelligence.

I think you may have misunderstood the point of Dawkins banging on about Hitler’s well known Catholicism. Obviously Dawkins was playing to the crowd, but what public speaker/performer doesn’t cater his act to his audience (you can be sure that were Dawkins addressing a crowd of scientists he would sound a lot different – and probably a lot more boring to most of us non-scientists, and most of those gathered in London.)

But the Hitler issue is *very* relevant, because in choosing to name Hitler in his speech, comparing athesists to Nazism, the pope again exposed how out of touch his church is. You don’t need to be an academic genius to know that Hitler was a Roman Catholic. You also don’t need to delve that deeply into the history books to uncover the shocking truth that the Catholic church supported Nazi Germany in their fight against Communism, gave shelter to prominent Nazi war criminals after the war, arranged safe passage out of Germany/Europe for said war criminals under Vatican issued Red Cross passports, and up until the 60s *still* preached to their supposed billion followers that the Jew was responsible for the death of their God. That’s twenty years after the holocaust and his church were still blaming the Jews for deicide!

That this man, this pope, can be welcomed into this country by our ‘elected’ leaders, and willfully change historical *fact* to suit his purpose of telling us that it’s the athesists that have caused the most harm this century is truly disgusting.

Nicely put.

I’ve never had a problem identifying as an atheist, even here in Catholic Ireland. I just wish people didn’t assume Dawkins was my pope.

I totally disagree with you. The bulk of Dawkins’ speech is about the crimes of the Catholic Church. Crimes that, were they alleged at any other organization, would be investigated and tried in a court of law. Yes, Dawkins is anti-religion. That’s well documented. But nothing he says in his speech is particularly hyperbolic. Seems to me his message is Catholics shouldn’t be free from prosecution for crimes BECAUSE they are a religion, and — I agree with Dawkins here — a pretty inhuman religion at that. The crime is not Dawkins’ tone, but the actions of people in authority in the Catholic Church and they absolutely should be decried in the public square for their conduct, by strident atheists and people of faith alike.

Did you read the entire speech? The one he gave at the protest had to be abridged because of time restraints. Do you still feel the same way after reading the unabridged version?

I feel the same. I am increasingly ashamed of wearing the badge of atheism. You express very well his ellision of the wrongfulness of many religious beliefs and institutions with the wrongfulness of religion; his conversion of the statement of a negative into a doctrine with its own touchstones of faith; and his increasingly tribalist hostility. I would add that his own grounds for trashing religion are a caricature of positivism and that there are many many possibilities of an atheism which has a more nuanced and appreciative ear for religious discourse.

I appreciate the openness of thought that has led to this article, and the articulation of that process of thought in the article. Honest self-awareness is something that I think we all – whether atheist or religious, and I am in the latter “camp” – need to engage in.

Two basic problems are “fundamentalism” (“my way or the highway” ) and tribalism. The latter, converting a philosophical or religious conviction into a label that assumes itself to be always right and sees others as always wrong is something we should all guard against.

That very humility, for instance – as opposed to arrogance – is certainly meant to be a Christian standard, but is not always practised by lay Christians or Christian leaders. So let’s defend the quality as eminently desirable, and appreciate it wherever we see it, rather than assume that anyone who claims the label “Christian” and belongs to the “tribe” will have it while others don’t!

Many of your questions are answered in The God Delusion, I think.

Here you’ve written something that I’ve been trying to phrase and write for some time now – Dawkins is often every bit as offensive and annoying as the religious fundamentalists he rails against, cleaving to atheism with a religious zealousness himself.
What is needed is not more pompous shouting, but an actual reasoned debate, where instead of simply displaying the worst aspects of religion and deriding them, it is considered as a whole. Dawkins seems sadly incapable of that, as he is too set in his ways to engage in such a debate.

Firstly, what’s wrong with Dawkins pointing out that the supposedly infallible pope was wrong when he said Hitler was an atheist?

I agree Dawkins is, and has been for some time, engaged on a PR campaign against religion.

But if you’ve actually read Dawkins, you’ll know that he’s pointed out that the only way to actually beat these religionists is to use the same tactics the religionists do, because religionist tactics work, and rational argument does not sway the masses the way rhetoric does.

If you rely on rational argument you will lose in the court of public opinion, and this is too important a battle to be squeamish over the tactics being used.

What’s wrong with being anti-faith anyway? Isn’t that basically the definition of atheism? There is no requirement for atheists (or anyone else) to be tolerant of idiot religionists like Ratzinger. I mean, can anyone but an idiot have expected to get away with spouting the sort of **** that Rattzinger did in his speech?

Ratzinger showed no respect for people’s intelligence or beliefs when he spoke, so why shouldn’t there be an angry reaction that such a fool is in such a position of power?

It’s a shame that people seem to be starting to feel like this, but I think it’s more an effect of the media’s portrayal of Dawkins et al than anything he’s done.

In England, at least (and I appreciate it’s more complex in Northern Ireland and parts of Scotland), you can be pretty much anything from Atheist to Catholic to Jedi and rarely does anyone bat an eyelid. So what’s Dawkins’ problem?

Really? Not to draw false equivalencies, because the degree is still different, but this sounds very similar to “Why are those gay people still protesting, they’ve got equal rights now and nobody bats an eyelid at them”. Look at Evan Davies’s secular manifesto on CiF to see all the ways religion still has undue power.

I don’t see many atheists, and certainly not Dawkins, waging a war against “all religious people” or treating them all as the enemy. The religious hierarchies campaigning for special rights, maybe. But mostly I just see people demanding their own right to not have to “respect” other people’s beliefs to the detriment of other people.

Great post!

I lost respect for Dawkins when he did an interview on Radio 2 with Jeremy Vine (that sentence could end there) that was more about the title of his TV show ‘The Root Of All Evil?’ more than the content.

It made me realise his strength was not in moving an argument on, but in holding ground.

And that’s how the first world war was fought.

For a philosophical retort to Dawkins read Mary Midgley’s new book. On September 20th she spoke on Start The Week and gave a talk at the RSA.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00tt49v

http://www.thersa.org/events/audio-and-past-events/2010/the-solitary-self

I agree with every word of this.

Dawkins’ penchant for grandstanding is making him the de facto public face of atheism, and it’s giving us a bad name.

I think this is an easy caricature, and unfair. It’s great that some people can laugh about the Pope comparing Atheists to Nazis, but millions of Catholics massively value this guy’s opinions. Lawmakers too – not so much in the UK, sure, but in much of the world. I don’t think it’s unreasonale to make a public defence when someone with such influence suggests you’re akin to Nazis.

The point of Dawkins’ detailing out Hitler’s catholicism clearly wasn’t ‘no, you’re a nazi’, it was that his insanity no more came from atheism than it did from Catholicism. It followed up on an earlier point from another speaker about Hitler’s racism and nationalism. To say it was petty name calling is totally missing the point.

The ‘enemy’ and the ‘them’ of the speech wasn’t catholics, but the Vatican and its band of people who actively lobby for policies which detrimentally affect the lives of millions. This is obvious from the entire context of the march. Sure, we can have endless debates about firebrands and diplomats and which is more effective and whether people get the message, but the claim that it’s outright insult and ‘hatred’ (I mean, come on) without intellectual rigour is ridiculous.

I don’t understand all this confusion about what Atheists were doing there. It’s a weird straw-man to claim they’re single-idea there’s-no-god automatons, when in fact many many Atheists are humanists, and were at the march to stand up for the massive human rights abuses encouraged by the current Pope – gay rights, women’s rights, condom use in Africa etc.. These aren’t the exclusive domain of religion, but religion contributes massively. In The God Delusion it’s clear that nobody thinks religion is at the heart of all problems, but there’s plenty that reducing religious influence could help with. When we have an education system moving towards segregating children by ‘their’ religion, and a homophobe given 4 days of non-stop fawning by our leaders and the media, I think it’s obvious there’s work to be done. That’s what Dawkins and his ‘mob of secular humanists’ (please) are campaigning against.

I actually was there, at the rally, with my Christian (of Protestant declination) wife. she had issues with the whole thing — mostly because of the crowd and not the speakers. she felt antagonised, as a woman of faith, even when trying to show support.

yes, Dawkins’ speech was not incredibly good; I came to expect better from a writer that has the amount of prizes that he has. was the speech a rant, the result of a direct attack to the atheist community by one religious figure that has said the same thing every time the heat from the scandals was becoming too high? yes, on both counts. was the speech an attack on religion, or on Catholics? no. it was, albeit not narrowly, aimed at the Catholic hierarchies, and it never resorted once to calling the Pope “a Nazi” — even if, from my vantage point in the crowd, it seemed that many made the “Hitler Youth = Nazist Party” assumption. so, if Dawkins avoided the Godwin’s Trap, a lot of angry people there fell straight into it. which, at most, means that the atheists don’t need better leaders to rally them: they need better people attending the rallies.

in a way, though, I think that the rally showed some degree of success in gathering atheists, and showing that: yes, we are here and we’re not always trying to be nice and cute in a non-threatening way to the religious masses — in the (misplaced) hope that if we demonstrate that they don’t have anything to fear from us, then they will leave us alone.

breaking news: they won’t. they haven’t, for millennia, and they won’t start now, when they feel that their role in shaping the world is dwindling. actually, it will make them redouble their efforts in finding scapegoats and enemies.

to respond to your later point: I might support the respect for people with faith, in any shape or form; but that respect stops to the actual religious figures like Ratzinger. because if it doesn’t stop there, where does it stop? how can we, as atheists (and yes, I use “atheist” because it is “threatening”, in a way that “secular humanist” or “bright” aren’t) just respect the Catholic Pope as “the office and not the man” when the office, in this case, is the man? the papacy has been shaped into its current form by many men that pursued links with dictators around the world; that have covered atrocities, when not directly sanctioned them; that have tried in any way possible to shape the public thing to further their own interests. and this is not even reserve to the hierarchies: entire sects, like Opus Dei or Communion and Liberation, are devoted (in all senses) to take over the levers of power in government, public health and economy. maybe not here in the UK, but definitely in other nations, like Italy, Spain and Ireland.

I’m sorry, but while I might respect (some) Catholics, I cannot muster the force to respect the office of the Pope, nor the man Joseph Ratzinger.

Thanks for honest post. On a broader note, I’d like to know if others like me, have noticed a disturbing emerging social trend of a general aggressiveness towards Christians, moderate or otherwise?

I am not talking about our ‘celebrity atheists’, but from people where they hardly know someone before they launch into them and tell them how it is. I have witnessed this behaviour more than once and makes me shudder.

I wonder if this really is the future that Dawkins wants, with its ugly intolerance and vitriolic approach to any view contra to his own. It does not sound like a secular liberal society I recognise and love. If it is, I suggest we are in deep doggy do do.

I keep thinking where has all this hatred come from? Ironically, it would suggest that humanity does, indeed, need some kind of saving.

Once again Atheists are being all being tarred with the same brush, same as those who do have faith in religion X Y Z… funny how Atheists apparently aren’t allowed to object to this like those of Religion X Y Z though.

Fact is the whole hatred thing is working both ways, whether people choose to see this or not. This leads me to question why there’s only objection such as this when it’s an Atheist who does this.

There’s the question of how rigorously Dawkins and his followers are applying their sense of the scientific to the world around them, isn’t there?

If one believes in science to the level that these groups purport to, then what religion is or isn’t, or does or does not do should become irrelevant or inconsequential on the plane of one’s beliefs, because as you suggest above, religion isn’t a natural force or pre-existing resource or element that we discovered as a species, it’s a symptom of our human existence, of all the different synapses we’ve got firing off that lead us to question reality rather than just accept it.

All religion is is a significant group of people all finding an answer to one of the pressing questions that they can live with, and sticking to it.

All of the evils that we attribute to religion are actually the ultimate result of what humans do when we get to the point where we’re done with asking ourselves questions, because we’re certain of the answers we’ve found, and start inflicting our certainties on others.

The reason that religions have a prouder track record of these atrocities is that they’ve been organised groups around absolutist ideals for longer. Big “A” Atheism as a going concern has only really been a worry for the last ten or so years, but if you started collecting data about crimes committed by people who happen to also be atheists, I’m sure there’d be enough “evidence” there to start describing patterns that the rest of us wouldn’t particularly want to be labelled with.

Accountability and reflection are what make us behave ourselves. Without them, we’re basically animals. The more Dawkins, Goldacre et al allow these cults of personality to form around them, the more we’ll see atheists start to behave like every other religious schmuck.

You don’t have to look further than North Korea or China to see what people are capable of quite exclusive of any real belief in the divine.

And Scientology, with it’s nonsensical pseudo-scientific beliefs, is the cautionary tale and the exception that proves the rule, here… if it does nothing else, it tells us that humans don’t need a god to rally around – people who need certainty and absolute answers will find them in a science-fiction universe if they need it enough.

The unflinching belief that seems to bond so many people to Dawkins looks, from the outside, like just another symptom of that need in humans, and it wouldn’t be so worrying if it wasn’t for the total lack of self-awareness their denial of that need suggests.

I’m with you and Minchin on this, as it goes.

I’d just like to point out that atrocities have been committed by atheists (Mao, Stalin), and many atrocities attributed to religion are more to do with racial tribalism than God-told-me-to-do-it. The “religion is the root of all evil” spin is deprived of reality and facts, and the people spouting it should be smart enough to admit this.

I’m an atheist, by the way.

It’s not that atheists are inherently good. Good people do good things, for whatever reasons. Bad people to bad things, again, for whatever reasons.

But to get a good person to do bad things.

That’s hard.

But it is a lot easier if you have god on your side.

The Crusades. The Spanish Inquisition (no one ever expected that!). Suicide bombers.

Without religion, no one would ever say that these are good, appropriate, reasoned actions of a civilised race.

With religion?

Nothing more than a bunch of thugs spreading their lies and hatred, and in some cases themselves, over the rest of us.

Religion may not be the root of all evil. But it sure has been used as a great big hammer wielded by the deluded.

Incidentally, I’ve always seen the argument that children can get a better education in a religion run school as a failing on the part of the rest of us, rather than a discrimination against children in different religions.

It’s a straightforward free-market issue, isn’t it? If you suggest that a church-run school provides a better education, than you have to accept that there might be something about it being church-run that makes for it’s better education provision. To inhibit such a school’s right or ability to run itself that way would presumably have a knock-on effect on that education provision.

The evidence here would seem to be all of the state-run schools that people don’t want to send their kids to, rather than the other way around.

The source of all strife in this world has nothing whatsoever to do with God. It has everything to do with the pursuit of power and money. Religion was (and still is to some extent) a source of great power and wealth, and was (and still is) therefore exploited by the seekers of wealth and power. Even the paedophile priests are merely inadequate men out for power over other beings. Do you think they think of themselves as genuine Catholics? I can’t see how they could. They have just found an occupation which gives them access to trusting children. Which is why paedophilia is not the exclusive domain of the Catholic Church.

I wonder if old Dawkins would have been a leading light in some church hierarchy in an earlier age? I am tempted to feel that he would have.

Man.

Did anyone of you see our representatives in Government defending the secularism? Seriously, religious privilege (not religion itself) is a huge problem. Remember that many of the people the Pope talks to won’t know about Hitler or whether or not he was religious. We honestly can’t let basic stuff like that pass because though we may all know – not everyone does. Someone has to stand up and state the facts correctly.

Also 21st century secular/atheist rhetoric is so calm compared to 19th. Go read some Holyoake and then complain about vitriol in anything Dawkins says.

Interesting piece. I agree with everything you’ve said about Dawkins, I’ve thought the same thing about him for a while. I too read The Selfish Gene and loved it, but find it difficult to respect him when he spends so much time on a soapbox (literal or metaphorical) bashing other people’s lives.

I wanted to go on the Protest the Pope march – unfortunately I couldn’t, being holed up in bed with flu. I have no problem with people being religious, or Catholic, or anything. But I did have a problem with the Pope’s covering up of child abuse in the church. I don’t think that’s right, it really disturbed me and I don’t think enough has been done about it.

I also don’t think his visit should have been state-funded: why should my taxes pay for him to come to the country when I strongly believe he should be in jail?

Like I said, I have nothing against the vast majority of Catholics or any other religion, but I do have a *lot* against people who aid or engage in the abuse of children (or animals, or anything, really).

So, that’s my two cents – great article, thanks for sharing

I’ve had it with atheists who have had it with Dawkins!

Hi! I was at the protest and the rally. I stood about 30m in front of the speakers.
For the record – although I respect Dawkins I will have no problem in calling him out when he says or does silly things. But I don’t get my knickers in a twist and say “You were my hero! How could you?!” when I disagree with him.

To business:

“Disappointment at the way he failed utterly to use reason, or logic, or rationality in his speech, preferring instead emotive platitudes and fallacious diatribes. “ – I really would be interested to see you go through a transcript and give a detailed analysis of his speech picking out all the problems you have with it. I won’t say he wasn’t emotive – I don’t think you’d deny that the issues at hand were not emotive subjects.

“Dawkins’ brawling mob of ‘secular humanists’ or whatever it is they’re calling themselves now.” – Wow… You know humanism was around before Dawkins? And you know Secularism has existed for quite some time?
Also I wonder if you know what secular humanism involves. I doubt you could come up with a more inclusive and less discriminatory movement in the world today, or indeed ever. I’d be interested in hearing your opinions.

And it’s “they” is it? I wonder if you have considered that many people were on that rally NOT simply because it was being attended by Dawkins. To imply such a thing (which several passages in this article does) is really quite insulting to all the victims of abuse and those who were there to protest the covering up of that abuse, for one thing.
I think one of your main problems is with the ideas of labels.

“who gives a damn? Apparently Dawkins does.“ – You’re criticising Dawkins for putting the record straight on the Pope trying to re-write history? Really? You know a lot about this subject as do most people who are firm in their atheism. But the general public do not. Would the general public think the Pope would lie? No, he’s the Pope.

But he did. You know he did yet find it laughable – yes, Godwin’s law outside cyberspace. But if you say “Hitler was an atheist” to someone in the street, chances are you’ll get the response “Yeah… that kind of makes sense.” Do it. See what happens. I have a feeling that many people will make the link, even subconsciously, between “no god” and “mass murder” even though there isn’t one, because no one with *faith* could do such a thing, right?

The general public are ill informed, and it does no harm to correct fallacies. The pope is the ‘leader’ of ONE BILLION Catholics for fecksake. You think we should “rise above” those kinds of lies? No way.

“‘them’ as running scared from ‘us’” – Yes. The pope spoke of the ‘dangers of secularism’. Why do you think that might be? Why even mention secularism in the first place?

“I’ve had such brimming respect for him and others for so long” – This post seems to be more about your dismay at having your heroes crash and burn, in your eyes, than anything else.

I’d never consciously heard of Richard Dawkins until he wrote The God Delusion, yet I’ve been an atheist since birth (ok, ok, since I was old enough to understand anything about the world, say… 4 years old). Dawkins does not define my atheism, nor do others. They might give me examples of thinking and arguments that may make me think, but they do not decide for me what I believe. The idea, not the person, is the important thing.

For someone who is quite distressed that Dawkins used such “emotive” language, you apparently aren’t too worried about using such language yourself, even with such a heavy heart.

“Alarm at the crowd of protesters cheering his every sentence” – We didn’t. Again, emotive language on your part. I’m not saying you shouldn’t use it, but you happily criticise Dawkins for it. Did you watch the speech by Maryam Namazie? She was on the verge of tears for quite some time – Where’s the post criticising her for being emotive? Or was it because her reason was valid and, in your opinion, Dawkins’ wasn’t? Or have you not watched her speech?

“nevertheless, the crowd aren’t saying ‘now hang on a minute’, they’re going bonkers for it. Yeah! The Pope’s a Nazi! And a kiddy fiddler! Woo!” – No. Not at all. Do you realise how many people were in that crowd? We were not all cheering. And apart from one or two signs implying it, no-one was saying the Pope is a paedo. Mainly because we knew better. And yes there were some implications that the pope was a Nazi, but I have to wonder how many there would have been if he hadn’t have made that speech in Scotland.

But just because come people cheered when a prominent figure stood up against the Pope in such a public setting, does not mean that the crowd was mindless. Far from it. As a matter of fact my friends and I were rather uncomfortable when the speakers tried to get chants going, once or twice.

Interesting aside – neither myself nor the people I was with saw the word “paedophile” spelt incorrectly all day.

“has lost his way” – What way *should* he be going, exactly? What do *you* want him to write or talk about? He can write about biology, yes, but that doesn’t mean his opinion on all other subjects is invalid. Yes, he is not the man to turn to for the intricacies of scripture and people should not (and I hope do not) take his final word on the subject, but you will notice he does not claim to be an authority in such cases.
I myself am not an expert in the bible or the Koran, and yet I will happily dismiss both as utter nonsense as they attest to the existence of a deity (Sure there are some good ideas in there, but you can say that about pretty much any book can’t you?). But just because I think they’re **** doesn’t mean I think I know the things better than someone who has studied them for years.

“I’ve grown tired of Dawkins and his unholy crusade” – Exactly how much ‘standing up to religion and religious leaders who would have a say in how we live’ should be allowed, do you think? What are you ‘tired’ of? Why do you think that Dawkins is considered the authority on all things atheist/secularist? Don’t believe the **** in the media – I am often befuddled and annoyed when I am told that atheists are rallying around Dawkins all the time. You can’t herd cats.
What is “unholy” about it? Why do you use the word “crusade”?

As I have said for years… it’s just words. The actions of the pope and those like him have a physical effect on people. AIDS, child abuse, gay rights – these are not trivial. What did you see on Saturday that you disliked so much? Words.

“I don’t know what he’s out crusading for.” – Ignoring the word “crusade”, I can’t believe that you have never heard of the British Humanist Association or the National Secular Society. For someone to have such a strong opinion on the subject of the protest on Saturday, I would have thought you’d know which group organised it and why.

“broken Britain” – Oh I see. I didn’t realise you read the Daily Mail. No doubt you enjoyed the piece by Amanda Platell yesterday?

“rarely does anyone bat an eyelid” – How many Bishops sit in the House of Lords? How many would you be comfortable with? What would your opinion be if an official from another country came to the UK and spoke of “the dangers of Christians” or “Muslims”? Do you think it’s only far that other religions have unelected officials in government positions? Do you think they should have some degree of qualification to take up their post other than just believing in something for which there is no evidence and let that thing control their actions and thoughts?
Do you think it’s important for children to be taught everything, or have subjects delivered to them through a lens of faith?

“If Dawkins really believes that atrocities like the Crusades, the Salem witch trials, the Holocaust, the 9/11 attacks or the abuse of children by figures of trust and authority couldn’t possibly have happened without religion, where is his evidence for this? He does believe in the need for evidence, doesn’t he?” – Massive strawman. I have never heard him say that, and I doubt he ever would (but of course if you have proof of this then feel free to share it).
Have you ever heard him speak about a world that ‘ruled’ by “Dawinism”, ie a system built upon ‘survival of the fittest’ as it were? He is not so naive or unintelligent as to think that religion is the one and only cause of problems in the world. He is simply making the very true point that religion gives good people reasons to do very bad things, and yet it will not attest to this. At least not at the highest level, like the Pope – they have a vested interest not to say those things!

“not a beacon of light in an dangerous world of faith-based stupidity” – If atheism is not a religion (to you), why are you so heart-broken by the ‘beacon’ going out? You appear to have put Dawkins on a pedestal in your own mind and are somewhat distressed by his actions. That is your problem, not his. Why do I suddenly get the impression that you used to be a person of faith?

“I’ve begun to see a figurehead of a new and somewhat sinister religion” – I’m trying not to turn this into an ad-hom argument, but you realise how much you’re sounding like a Poe? Actually for all I know, you could be. I’ve never read this blog before (if confused, look up Poe’s law).

“One which cares not at all about those genuinely positive things which have come from faith on a personal or global level.” – Have you read ANY Dawkins on the subject of religion other than The God Delusion (even if you have read that) or those few tomes you mention? His argument is with the crimes that religious institutions are guilty of, as well as often making the point that people do good things with and without religion, and that they should not have a privileged place in society ‘just because’. In general, Catholics are good people, and this is why so many of them reject the Pope’s ideas and opinions. BUT the Pope still says them and a significant number of people in the world DO follow what he thinks. That is not a good thing at all.

“One which is built on a foundation of hatred towards the members of all other religions, which is willing to persecute Catholics on the basis of atrocities they didn’t commit, and which sees all of this as a battle between ‘us’, the enlightened forces of good, and ‘them’, the irredeemably evil ones. The enemy.” – Again I get the impression you haven’t watched any of the other speeches from that day. Or if you have then you’ve ignored them. Watch Peter Tatchell’s speech and see what he says about Catholics. The POPE is the enemy –but that does not equate to violence. How many arrests were there on Saturday? None.

But if you’re going to criticise Dawkins, why not criticise all the other speakers? They were telling the crowd things they already knew, and already felt. Why do you not criticise the other speakers who mentioned “atheism”?

“I’m certain that it isn’t the atheism I grew up with.” – And for one who writes on the subject you appear to be ignorant as to what atheism is. If you think it’s sitting quietly and being told what to do, you’re wrong. If you think it’s standing up to people of religion when they say you’re ignorant, you’re wrong.
Pedant time: Atheism is the lack of belief in gods. That’s it. Nothing more. Now I’m sure you’re rolling your eyes, but it is an important distinction to make: You are having a grumble here about SECULARISTS. Yes, Dawkins mentioned atheists, but that’s because the Pope did. Secularism does not equate to atheism, though of course I imagine the majority of secularists are atheists, but that is because those with religion in general cannot see the problem of faith governing aspects of public life.

If you don’t like being associated with atheists, then unless you stop calling yourself one you have a problem. It’s what you are, and it’s what you (don’t) believe. As I recently had to explain to a friend – atheists are simply those who don’t believe in a god/s. Whether or not they act on it for whatever reason is another matter entirely. You’re putting too much store in the attributes that others place on the word “atheist”. Reclaim it. Also, if you don’t want to be aligned with secularists then don’t support their causes or protests. It’s simple. Don’t call yourself a secularist – I get the impression you aren’t a secularist anyway.

“From where I’m sitting, Dawkins already seems to have lead us to hate. I dearly hope that’s as far as his new crusaders go.” – Luckily for the majority of “his new crusaders” or “them” as you are actually saying (us and them… didn’t you say that was baaaad?), they are intelligent enough not to follow someone blindly. Just because someone is respected does not mean they are automatically a new ‘leader’.
It seems to applied that quality to Dawkins yourself.

It’s good to know that atheists and secularists are not all Richard Dawkins’ clones. Your article touches on some issues I’ve raised here: http://billynojob.wordpress.com/2010/09/19/secularism-faith-and-the-public-square/

Before the claims get trotted out again as if they were self-evidently true, let it be noted that neither with regard to his comments on the promotion of condoms in Africa nor with regard to his alleged role in a “cover-up” of abuse cases is the evidence as obviously against Benedict XVI as many protesters were insisting. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that many of the more absurd claims (genocide etc.) made on the first topic ignore basic psychology (why would people who reject Catholic teaching on the restriction of sex to a single, life-long partner suddenly become scrupulous about the prohibition of artificial contraception?), and on the second ignore what we know about Cardinal Ratzinger’s role in the Curia – which is that he was one of those pressing for action in several high-profile cases, only to find his efforts frustrated by the Cardinal Secretary of State. There were also the usual placards implying that priests are more likely to abuse children than others, another claim for which evidence is lacking.

This assumes, of course, that “evidence-based thinking” is something the New Atheists actually care about, rather than simply a slogan by which they mean to imply that those who disagree with them are fantasists and/or morons.

Richard Quadling – It’s the same book that mentions sky fairies, imaginary friends, pixies, and flying spaghetti monsters. Lots of sales, with main readership consisting of late adolescents who’ve only ever known Hume as a character in Lost.

I’ve been feeling like this for quite a while.

It seems to me that the religious/ireligeous axis and tolerant/intolerant axis are orthogonal to each other.

I’d love to comment but I didn’t see Dawkins’ speech and thus it wouldn’t be very rational of me to come to an opinion on it.

It seems hard to believe that Dawkins would ever make a “Hitler was a Catholic, therefore the Pope is a Nazi” argument. If that’s what he’s done then, yes, I would be just as disappointed.

Drat can’t edit

Atheist extremism is a phrase designed to marginalise atheism. This way the church can continue down the path they are currently on and claim moral authority

@Charlotte Gore
Speech in full here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_0kFU7IfPM

Whilst Dawkins did mention Hitler, it was to make a point about the Pope’s hypocrisy and Ratzinger’s own comments on aggressive secularism and the link between atheism and Nazi ideology.

Dawkins wasn’t just throwing insults – that absolutely wasn’t the point of his speech – or of any of the other speeches that were given that day.

Yay! The hardliner militants have arrived! These guys are always a boon to any conversation about a desire for a more rational approach to an issue.

You had me upto the Star Wars comment. I mean WTF?

No joking aside I was there, and don’t follow the Dawkins worship, and HATE skeptics/secularists who are arrogant in their non-faith. But I agreed with a lot of what Dawkins said on that podium.

Thing is as I see it you do need prominent figureheads – the war against atheism might be in Dawkins or whomever’s head but it’s also in Joe Ratzinger’s head too. It’s not totally fictional, and there is a disturbing move to rightwing and combinations of Church and State. The latter must be resisted.

But if you want your ‘leaders’ to avoid all hyperbole, emotives and even a little grandstanding then you’re going to be very mistaken…it comes with the territory. From Michael Moore to Tatchell and Dawkins, we live in a media age that doesn’t give a **** about the grey liberal wishywashy areas. It wants a 10 second soundbite or you won’t even get on the news. Hence the Arrest the Pope – he wasn’t serious about that I think, but it grabbed headlines.

That’s the Celebrity is the Opiate of the People soundbite culture we live in, even Dawkins cannot change that…all you can do is play your political strategy.

But if the secularists and atheists and liberals want to recreate the internecine battles of the left, be my guest. Just don’t moan when the religious ‘Iron Lady’ comes along and kicks you in the teeth….unity people, unity.

Wow, “a r s e” gets asterisked! What a ****, over sensitive filter

I think it’s ironic that you single out Dawkins and use his speech *at a rally* as an excuse to denounce “secular humanists or whatever they’re calling themselves these days”…I was at the protest and the speeches by a variety of people represented all of our arguments against the pope’s visit very well. I didn’t agree with every word that was said but nor did I expect to. We cheered and booed because we’re human beings at a rally and feel passionately about what’s being said. It’s simply what happens when you are one of thousands who are marching for what is essentially a human rights cause (children’s rights, women’s rights and the rights of gay and lesbian people). You do an enormous disservice to all of these people by depicting us as a cheering and jeering “brawling mob”.

I was born and brought up in Ireland a Roman Catholic and have largely positive memories of my experience with the church, although I am now an atheist. Whilst I deeply respect the work of Dawkins I do not (and I believe most others do not) look to him as our leader as you suggest we do and you might have. Rather he is someone who has worked hard alongside others to, amongst other things, give me the vocabulary and confidence to express my views at home, at work, with friends or wherever. Yes, he is hard-line – but every movement has and needs hard-liners like Dawkins who have the courage and conviction to push the boundaries. He is an evolutionary biologist and atheist; I highly doubt he expects people to think exactly like him. Criticise him? Of course! Completely pan him and the “brawling mob” of which you were not a part? Well, that’s a bit ****.

Finally – a couple of links:
This article http://bit.ly/aXyyjv was written by @alomshaha a few weeks ago and it’s about how we atheists can sometimes be “dicks”. I, and a lot of other atheists, can see Alom’s point here where I think you’ve gone too far.

http://bit.ly/ab34S This demonstrates to me why the pope’s *state* visit might not appear “mostly harmless” to thousands of people who have been abused in Ireland and across the globe and to millions of others, including Catholics, who want justice. The protest was not against faith (I was there) but against the state welcoming a man who, amongst many other things, continues to keep the paper trail to child abusers under lock and key with impunity.

Ironically, You obviously have a lot of hate for Dawkins yourself so have you turned to the Dark side yet or not?

CathyBy,

Quite right. The situation is probably made worse by virtue of the fact that the RCC’s constituency in Africa is predominantly female, and one of the greatest driving forces of the spread of HIV/AIDS is male promiscuity and prostitute use.

That said, my impression is that statistics suggest that Catholics are at less risk of contracting HIV/AIDS than most other groups. There is also the fact that abstinence and fidelity focused approaches have proven very successful on the ground (the use of the ABC approach in Uganda, for instance), more successful than condom focused approaches. We obviously need both, and the Catholic Church’s condemnation of condom use is dangerous and irresponsible, but one doesn’t have to look far to find those on the condom approach side who are appalled at the idea that society should uphold anything that might look like moral norms for sexual behaviour such as monogamy and fidelity. The sad fact is that such (moral) opposition to abstinence and fidelity focused approaches can be no less – and probably much more – detrimental to the fight against HIV/AIDS on the ground. If the Pope and his Catholic moralizers are ‘enemies of humanity’, liberal amoralizers can be no less so (of course, labelling either party ‘enemies of humanity’ is ridiculous).

On your second point, I have been interested to see the number of people who seem to be ignorant about what the RCC actually teaches with regard to evolution, and just how different its stance is from those of American fundamentalists. Many New Atheists have tended to present a view of Christianity (and Islam, for that matter) in which views which are idiosyncrasies of particular denominations or smaller traditions are imputed to the whole. There are many of us who are deeply committed Christians, who nonetheless love Dawkins’ scientific work, are excited about evolution, have significant disagreements with the positions of such figures as the Pope on such subjects as condoms, support an open secular society, and yet find ourselves lumped in with nutcases and extremists that we have huge issues with. If Dawkins et al would tone down their rhetoric the many moderate and thoughtful people within the Church would find it a lot easier to make themselves heard. As it is, the ‘conversation’ has been hijacked by the trolls on both sides.

Very confused why my comments aren’t appearing – explanation anyone?

Oh and then charge me for the priviledge of an old coot telling me I’m not only responsible for Hitler and Communism, but as a gay man am devil’s child incarnate.

Grr. So excuse me when I don’t see his visit as at all harmless…

Nonsense. It’s not enough to sit by and live and let live. All athiests should actively work for the peaceful removal of religion from society rather than let another generation be lost to the stupidity of faith.

Thanks for this; I’ve noticed this unfortunate flavor of atheism myself. While I’m not an atheist, I don’t feel a connection to any particular faith system. Setting out to join an organization that does positive work in the community without a religious basis, I attended a meeting of my local Humanist group. But I was so turned off by their vitriol toward people of faith that I decided not to join.

I support doing good work for its own sake because it helps people. I cannot, however, support the sneering superiority I saw in this group. (We’ll permit you to worship your deity that doesn’t exist, even though we all know you’re stupid and wrong and not worth talking to. Gee, thanks!) If nothing else, it makes it impossible for them to work with other groups who hold differing spiritual opinions.

So far the closest place I’ve found to a home is the Unitarian Universalist church. They’re open to theists and non-theists alike, with an attitude of acceptance and working together. I hope that the non-theist movement is able to overcome this negative extremism, but in the meantime I’m working with the UUs.

@Wigdetas

Well said sir/madam

Sharpe. You really insulted alot of people in your opinion piece here. May God forgive you.

I understand your general point but you seem to be deliberately confused about the obvious and finding stupidity where you want it.

“Hitler was a Catholic. …It’s still utterly fallacious; still pathetically stupid, still pretty much playground debating”

I’ll grant this might be characterized as playground debating, but how is it ‘utterly fallacious and pathetically stupid’? Dawkins pointed out that if baptism records are the only means of determining Catholicism then Hitler is a Catholic – can you explain how you fail to see the logic or rationality in this? Or why is it stupid and fallacious? Assuming the underlying fact of baptism is correct, surely this is reason and logic, pure and simple. Please explain how I’m wrong (without resorting to emotional side-issues).

“but is Dawkins really so certain, so absolutely sure, that religion itself is the very root of these problems?”

Please tell us where you get the idea that Dawkins believes that religion is the root of these problems. Dawkins explicitly points out many times (including in the God Delusion) that religion is not the root issue.

“One which is built on a foundation of hatred towards the members of all other religions”

This is getting rather silly. You don’t think what the Catholic church is doing in the world right now needs people to stand up and cry foul? You don’t think people should stand up and voice their disapproval when someone spreads lies about the effectiveness of condoms?

Why should people standing up and complaining be necessarily accused of hatred and persecution.
Please tell us how we should protest then? And surely we should?

You may not like Dawkins but he is the only one who can explain evolution to the Creationists, even if they are too stupid to believe what he says.

It’s fairly obvious that the person who wrote this blog is a Catholic. It must be hard for Catholics to be serious about the religion that their parents brainwashed them into as children. How do you allow your child to be an altar boy or even be near some of these criminal priests?

The Vatican and all it portrays is now considered one of the most corrupt form of religion today. I hope the last Priest to leave for
jail will turn off the lights.

@Lucy Christie

Without getting into a moral debate about abortion, it’s perfectly possible to see why your argument is flawed. An estimated 1 in 3 women have an abortion at some point in their lives. A proportion of the population that large is far more significant than the few million Catholics. Additionally, abortion is a medical procedure. While those that pay taxes towards it may not ever want or need one (or in the case of men – couldn’t have one if they wanted to), they will have medical procedures of comparable or even greater costs in their lifetime. The funding probably balances out pretty well – the women that have abortions on your tax contributions now may well pay for you to have life saving surgery later in life through their tax money.

There is no such trade off with the pope’s visit – no other religious leaders or secularist campaigners are being invited on tax funded visits to the UK. It is very clearly bias towards one group.

And what I’m trying to explain to you is, it’s not just about approving or disapproving. It’s about balance. Everyone pays into the NHS and everyone benefits – it means that women are having a procedure you don’t agree with, but you’re also paying into your future health care (and so are they). So while not everyone will approve of some procedures (I don’t like seeing the NHS funding IVF or breast augmentation for ‘psychological reasons’ – those things are luxuries), and most people will not need every treatment on offer, everyone gets something out of the pot that we pay into.
The massive difference with the pope’s visit is that this is NOT a pot that we’re all paying into. This isn’t a case where secularists/Muslims/Jews/whoever else pays for the Catholics to have their religious experience, and then we get something along the same lines later. There is no religious organization with as much power as the Catholic church, and no other religious leader would ever be invited on a state visit, paid for by the tax payer. It’s giving an unfair advantage to a very small proportion of the population – that is religious discrimination.
The other difference is that abortions, while well within the reach of the government, can be cripplingly expensive to ordinary women. In contrast, the Vatican is obscenely rich. The Pope could have easily afforded to pay his own way, but chose instead to take money from a country still clawing its way out of a recession.

Krystal: Life’s not fair.

Matt: Sigh.

Great post. Been feeling like this myself for a long time. I especially liked what you said about not knowing what Dawkins et. al. are for. It seems to me that these prominent pundits who define themselves as atheists are defining themselves primarily in opposition. It’s not a positive statement at all.

@Krystal. If 1 in 3 women have an abortion then 1 in 3 ish women are a bit stupid and need to take a bit more responsibility for their body.
The Pill and other contraceptive devices mean that unwanted pregnancies should, by now, be rare not commonplace. In addition the abortion rate is highest in the ages 18-24 so mostly not married, have these women not heard of HIV? Safe sex?
185,400 operations carried out, 82% funded by the NHS – that means that we paid for 152,028 operations in one year. Now if those operations cost £450 each (a very low estimate of cost) then we are paying at least £68.5 million per year mostly for something that the person being treated could have prevented for free!
In fact the situation is worse because although there are enough abortions for 1 in 3 women to have had one only 1 in 4ish ever have one so there are repeat aborters who are obviously even more reckless.
The biggest estimate I have seen for the Pope’s visit was £20m. He is the Head of State of the Vatican (there are plenty of other heads of state of stupid countries that come here). There are 861,000 RCs in England alone so that is about £23 per English Catholic.
I reckon the stupid RCs cost us almost nothing compared to the stupid women, and the Pope doesn’t turn up every year does he? And unless I am much mistaken not one person in the audience will catch HIV by having the Pope visit or some other disease and inflict yet more cost on the taxpayer by their stupid and reckless action.
Atheism shouldn’t be a knee jerk reaction to things we dislike!

@Phil Saunders
To say that women have abortions because they are “a bit stupid” is, to put it mildly, naive, and certainly insulting. Do you believe that the men have no responsiblities?
Also, I don’t see why you compare the cost of The Pope’s visit to the cost of abortions. What is the point of your comparison? Perhaps you believe that one outcome of the visit will be a reduction in the number of abortions, which is doubtful to say the least.
I also wonder which countries you consider to be “stupid”.

Excellent article. This all needed saying. Like the poster above, I usually refer to myself as agnostic, in an attempt to distance myself from the increasingly shrill utterances of someone I used to admire and respect flor his clear thinking and rationality.