[Peace-discuss] Re: Dawkins, "The God Delusion"

[C. G. Estabrook]

Mort--

The first objection to Dawkins is that for him religion and God are 
unitary categories, and that's simply not true.  The Abrahamic religions 
(Judaism, Christianity and Islam) all begin by *attacking* religion, as, 
e.g., the Romans clearly understood: Christians were prosecuted for 
disturbing the public order by *atheism* -- i.e., they did not believe 
in the gods.  And on this point of course the Roman authorities  were 
quite right.  The ancient Israelites thought that the first demand made 
upon them was the rejection of gods (e.g., Ex. 20:2 "I am Yahweh your 
liberator who brought you out of Egypt ... you shall have no gods...") 
Yahweh is not a god (the word is a form of "to be," with a sense of 
futurity) but rather the figure in the name of whom the Israelite 
rejection of oppressive civilization is carried out.  The Abrahamic 
religions thus begin in atheism and anarchism (as I argued in a piece 
for Counterpunch, "The Subversive Commandments" 
<http://www.counterpunch.org/estabrook03292005.html>).

I think the Catholic theologian who wrote the following was quite right:
"The important thing is not just to be religious, to worship something 
somehow.  the important thing is to find, or be found by, the right God 
and to reject and struggle against the others.  The worship of any other 
god is a form of slavery; to pay homage to the forces of nature, to the 
spirit of a particular place, to a nation or race or to anything that is 
too powerful for you to understand or control is to submit to slavery 
and degradation.  The [Hebrew bible] begins by saying to such gods 'I do 
not believe and I will not serve.'"

The second principal objection to Dawkins is that he poses a simplistic 
opposition between religion (essentially useless as a category) and 
science (which has more claim to be a unitary notion).  I will post 
separately an argument by the aforementioned McCabe that proving the 
existence of God is not opposed to -- but rather similar to -- proving 
the validity of science.

Regards, Carl

Morton K. Brussel wrote:
> Thanks Carl for your attentive and timely reference.
> 
> I write as aone of little metaphysical faith, but do have faith in 
> physics and related subjects. Dawkins has faith, and wonder also, but à 
> la Einstein, marveling nature (of which man is a part).
> 
> I've read Dawkins, and now read Eagleton, and I'll take Dawkins any day. 
> Eagleton rants, often meaninglessly or inscrutably (to me). What he says 
> of Dawkins' arguments are a travesty, often outlandish distortions. 
> Dawkins writes clearly. This guy is more a wordsmith. His discussion of 
> the meaning of god I find empty and unconvincing, perhaps what may be 
> called "mystery". Dawkins cuts to the bone, and this guy doesn't like 
> the fact that he ignores all the ratiocination that has constituted 
> learned theology. We have evolved a little and much of ancient reasoning 
> no longer serves well.  I agree that Dawkins is a little flip for my 
> tastes in trying to disprove the existence of something which has no 
> universally understood meaning. There are many gods…, and Dawkins does 
> discuss this phenomenon. He explicitly restricts himself to only those 
> gods which are said to materially affect the physical world and are 
> independent of the imaginations of man.  this irritates Egagleton, who 
> believes in God as mystery, or love, or…. Dawkins believes mystery will 
> gradually become unmystified as knowledge advances, as  a scientist should.
> 
> This fellow I think is truly worried that Dawkins   might have 
> convincing arguments (to the unwary?), and thus foams.  You should try 
> to read the book, as distasteful as that might be.… 
> 
> There was recently a "debate" in Time magazine about these issues 
> between Dawkins and another distinguished scientist, one who believes. 
> The latter said that one can't argue about god, since it is essentially 
> outside of nature, etc..  
> 
> No offense, and regards, Mort.
> 
> P.S. All Dawkins says about Constantine is that "Christianity too 
> [having mentioned the rise of Islam] was spread by the sword, wielded 
> first by Roman hands after the Emperor Constantine raised it from an 
> eccentric cult to official religion…." Wikipedia says of Constantine:
> 
> /Neither the Edict nor later Constantinian legislation outlawed 
> paganism. However,/
> 
> /"From //Pagan/ <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paganism>/ temples 
> Constantine had his statue removed. The repair of Pagan temples that had 
> decayed was forbidden. These funds were given to the favored Christian 
> //clergy/ <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clergy>/. Offensive forms of 
> worship, either Christian or Pagan, were suppressed. At the dedication 
> of Constantinople in 330 a ceremony half Pagan and half Christian was 
> performed, in the market place, the Cross of //Christ/ 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus>/ was placed over the head of the 
> Sun-God's chariot [with]... a singing of hymns."//[6]/ 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantine_I_and_Christianity#_note-5>
> 
> I'm not competent to say who more took the Western world towards 
> Christianity, Constantine or Theodocius. they both had a hand, but 
> Constantine was first. Maybe you know better. 
> 
> On Dec 9, 2006, at 8:07 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
>   ...
>> Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching
>> Terry Eagleton
>> The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins · Bantam, 406 pp, £20.00
>> ...