[Peace-discuss] Fwd: Richard Dawkins Furious At Pope For TyingGodless To Nazis

Mon Sep 20 22:39:03 CDT 2010

While the statements under your number 2 may contain some truths,  I find that, for example, the statement, "...Christian pastors and religious who spoke the truth in love [and] opposed the Nazis ... paid for that opposition with their lives...", could also be said of many other persons who were neither Christian pastors nor religious persons (but who opposed the Nazis and paid for that opposition with their lives), so why focus on just the Christian pastors and religious persons in a way as to hold them up as special martyrs rather than saying many persons of good will and humanitarian beliefs opposed the Nazis and paid with their lives.

I also have some questions about the statement, "...the exclusion of God, religion and virtue from public life leads ultimately to a truncated vision of man and of society...", which you admit is debatable.  I fail to see the need to bring the notion of God or religion into the equation since one could argue that, regardless of the exclusion of God and religion or not, it is the existence some common civil moral code of ethics and humane good will between people - be they a religious based or secular based ethical system - that is necessary for a peaceful coexisting society to exist and the goals and aspirations of man and society to flourish and without it the vision will be truncated.

Apart from this, I will note that upon reading the Dawkins response I got the impression that he did not intend his comments to be read literally but rather to be read tongue-in-cheek in a manner to make ironic the Pope's statement and make it come off as being even more outrageous than it otherwise might have been seen as.  I do admit that I could very well be wrong and Dawkins did mean it to be read literally and seriously; but that was not the impression I came away with.  

From: C. G. Estabrook 
Sent: Monday, September 20, 2010 2:10 PM
To: Morton K. Brussel 
Cc: E.Wayne Johnson ; Peace-discuss 
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Fwd: Richard Dawkins Furious At Pope For TyingGodless To Nazis

Mort--

[1] I take it that you're volunteering for the panel "Ditchkins and the Pope (and God)" that I'm putting together for News from Neptune on UPTV (date TBA).

I envision four participants - I mean local participants (i.e., not Dawkins, Hitchens, Benedict, & God) - of which you and I are two, discussing the following four texts: 

--R. Dawkins, "The God Delusion";

--C. Hitchens, "God is Not Great";

--P. Benedict, "Caritas in veritate" (his economic manifesto - in English); and

--T. Eagleton (standing in for God), "Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate."

Perhaps you can suggest other discussants, or they may volunteer themselves. 

[2] Far from being “a despicable outrage,” the paragraph from the pope that "set off Dawkins" contains the following true statements:

"...a Nazi tyranny ... denied our common humanity to many, especially the Jews...; [and] 

"...Christian pastors and religious who spoke the truth in love [and] opposed the Nazis ... paid for that opposition with their lives..."

- and the following debatable one (true I think as the Marxists say "in the last instance"):

"...the exclusion of God, religion and virtue from public life leads ultimately to a truncated vision of man and of society..."

But that last after all was what he was trying to convince people of.  Let's discuss it. 

Regards, Carl

On 9/19/10 11:25 PM, Morton K. Brussel wrote:
> So what do you disagree with in Dawkins' reply? Arguments would be
> more useful than sneers. Perhaps you should read his book(s) and doff
> your parochial hat..
> 
> His remarks were both apt and appreciated...
> 
> 
> On Sep 19, 2010, at 9:44 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> 
>> If anyone took Dawkins seriously before this, I doubt they will
>> now.
>> 
>> For those who are still abject believers, I recommend Terry
>> Eagleton, "Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God
>> Debate" (Yale UP pbk, 2010).
>> 
>> If I thought anyone took Ditchkins seriously, I'd propose a
>> symposium or panel on the subject. I doubt I'd find many takers.
>> 
>> Actually, I'd be willing to host it on my UPTV program, News from
>> Neptune.
>> 
>> But I don't think anyone's interested enough for that.
>> 
>> ...
>>> 
>>> Richard Dawkins Furious At Pope For Tying Godless To Nazis
>>> 
>>> Posted in Liberaland by Alan • September 17, 2010,
>>> 
>>> Pope Benedict’s speech to Queen Elizabeth in England praised how 
>>> Britain fought “Nazi tyranny that wished to eradicate God from 
>>> society,” prompting one of the world’s best known atheists,
>>> Richard Dawkins, to proclaim it “a despicable outrage.” What set
>>> off Dawkins is this paragraph:
>>> 
>>> “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).”
>>> 
>>> Dawkins responds:
>>> 
>>> Even if Hitler had been an atheist, his political philosophy was
>>> not based upon atheism and had no connection with atheism. Hitler
>>> was arguably (and by his own account) a Roman Catholic. In any
>>> case he enjoyed the open support of many of the most senior
>>> catholic clergy in Germany and the less demonstrative support of
>>> Pope Pius XII. Even if Hitler had been an atheist (he certainly
>>> was not), the rank and file Germans who carried out the attempted
>>> extermination of the Jews were Christians, almost to a man:
>>> either Catholic or Lutheran, primed to their anti-Semitism by
>>> centuries of Catholic propaganda about ‘Christ-killers’ and by
>>> Martin Luther’s own seething hatred of the Jews. To mention
>>> Ratzinger’s membership of the Hitler Youth might be thought to be
>>> fighting dirty, but my feeling is that the gloves are off after
>>> this disgraceful paragraph by the pope.
>>> 
>>> Dawkins is urging a letter-writing campaign to British media in
>>> protest, adding:
>>> 
>>> I am incandescent with rage at the sycophantic BBC coverage, and
>>> the sight of British toadies bowing and scraping to this odious
>>> man. I thought he was bad before. This puts the lid on it.

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