Dawkins and Harris Respond to Kristof
If God is omniscient and omnipotent, you can’t help wondering why she doesn’t pull out a thunderbolt and strike down Richard Dawkins.
…begins Nicholas Kristof in his A Modest Proposal for a Truce on Religion in the op-ed section of the New York Times yesterday. Today, Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris both responded with their own letters to the Editor:
in Response to Nicholas Kristof’s “A Modest Proposal for a Truce on Religion”
To the Editor:
Contrary to Mr. Kristof’s opinion, it isn’t “intolerant” or “fundamentalist” to point out that there is no good reason to believe that one of our books was dictated by an omniscient deity.
Half of the American population believes that the universe is 6,000 years old. They are wrong about this. Declaring them so is not “irreligious intolerance.” It is intellectual honesty.
Given the astounding number of galaxies and potential worlds arrayed overhead, the complexities of life on earth and the advances in our ethical discourse over the last 2,000 years, the world’s religions offer a view of reality that is now so utterly impoverished as to scarcely constitute a view of reality at all.
This is a fact that can be argued for from a dozen sides, as Richard Dawkins and I have recently done in our books. Calling our efforts “mean” overlooks our genuine concern for the future of civilization.
And it’s not much of a counterargument either.
Sam Harris
New York, Dec. 3, 2006To the Editor:
Nicholas D. Kristof is one of many commentators to find the tone of the newly resurgent atheism “obnoxious” or “mean.”
Ubiquitous as they are, such epithets are not borne out by an objective reading of the works he cites: Sam Harris’s “Letter to a Christian Nation,” my own “God Delusion” and www.whydoesgodhateamputees.com (I had not been aware of this splendid Web site; thank you, Mr. Kristof).
I have scanned all three atheist sources carefully for polemic, and my honest judgment is that they are gentle by the standards of normal political commentary, say, or the standards of theater and arts critics.
Mr. Kristof has simply become acclimatized to the convention that you can criticize anything else but you mustn’t criticize religion. Ears calibrated to this norm will hear gentle criticism of religion as intemperate, and robust criticism as obnoxious. Without wishing to offend, I want “The God Delusion” to raise our consciousness of this weird double standard.
How did religion acquire its extraordinary immunity against normal levels of criticism?
Richard Dawkins
Oxford, England, Dec. 4, 2006
December 5th, 2006 at 10:05 pm
Hum…I was looking at these very responses today. Mr. Dawkins, and Mr. Harris are quite adept at giving strong and solid responses to the inane chatter and white noise produced by the seething masses. I find Dawkins in particular to be quite an inspiration. His final question: How did religion acquire its extraordinary immunity against normal levels of criticism? is a question I myself pondered over much of the day after reading this letter.
I began to think about the dynamics surrounding religion in general, its structure, and how deeply ingrained religion is in those that are so mired in it. Religion…(please refer to Wikipedia’s first few lines under the heading “Religion”). That offered a bit of insight in itself. It’s something defined as being “more socially defined than that of personal convictions”. Whoa!!! I always thought personal convictions were the paramount underlying deciding factor in every decision a person makes. Somehow, religion has become something even more definitive in a person’s decision making process than personal convictions. (Peer Pressure comes to mind.)
Structure…every religion, whatever flavor you choose to taste of, seems to be constructed of a very intricate overwhelming architecture of awe inspiring, and or fear inciting mythologies. But then I guess we all held some super hero of some kind in our hearts and minds as small children, until the reality of life showed us that our heroes were only fantasy created in an effort to express an inspiring or fearful concept. Why is it that this fantasy is so different? I think perhaps the third part of my thought process may lend an answer to that.
Deeply ingrained…very, in fact so deeply ingrained that I remember growing up and being taught that to shun God was to be damned to Hell (Fear, a great motivator!) Within those same teachings, I was told that all I had to do, was believe in Jesus Christ as my savior and live my life in accordance with his word, and I was guaranteed a place at his table in the kingdom of God when I died (Inspiration, an ideal and a goal.) I struggled most of my young life against the feeling that something was simply amiss in this “religious” precept. But, more honestly, I feel it was the fear that kept me chained to the lie the longest. Once I saw it for what it was, it no longer had any power over my decisions in the matter. I feel this is probably true for a great many people.
Sorry for the long-winded response, but this post really was a bit of a surprise since I had been reading it earlier today, and I was glad of the chance to share a bit of my thoughts on the matter.