Dawkins cringe thread

[met]

With due respect and deference for our hosts and friends here, I honestly think/suspect that many Americans are willing to look the other way (about a lot of things) when it come to maintaining/reestablishing all the privileges of empire.

Catherine Keller, the witty and poetic process theologian, does a really good job in explicating American ambivalence towards 'empire' in her book, God and Power, btw......

[Jim B.]

I renounce and repudiate atheism. If you must call me anything, call me a secular humanist. All these new atheist guys are jackasses and idiots with the reasoning ability of a turnip. Look at sleazy neocon Sam Harris trying to milk a debate out of Chomsky:

http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the- ... -discourse

I think this guy's twitter stream sums it up best:

Interesting exchange, if you can call it that. What I took away from it was that Harris is not all that deep of a thinker (Alert the media!), that the issue of 'intention' is a little more complicated than he presents it. Chomsky's the real deal, imo. Harris comes across as what Saul Bellow referred to as a "fashion intellectual."

Here's a topic that you touched on that might deserve its own thread: You say you think of yourself as more a secular humanist than an ahteist. How do you understand that term? Do you think it's possible for theists, including Christians, to think of themselves as secualr humanists?

[Jim B.]

With due respect and deference for our hosts and friends here, I honestly think/suspect that many Americans are willing to look the other way (about a lot of things) when it come to maintaining/reestablishing all the privileges of empire.

Catherine Keller, the witty and poetic process theologian, does a really good job in explicating American ambivalence towards 'empire' in her book, God and Power, btw......

Hey, I resemble that remark! That attitude of privelege and exceptionalism granted granted directly from you know Who is on steroids here in Texas.

[Magritte]

With due respect and deference for our hosts and friends here, I honestly think/suspect that many Americans are willing to look the other way (about a lot of things) when it come to maintaining/reestablishing all the privileges of empire.

Catherine Keller, the witty and poetic process theologian, does a really good job in explicating American ambivalence towards 'empire' in her book, God and Power, btw......

Yeah, well, that's the human condition. People aren't trained to step outside themselves and their narrative. America is the good guys and anything you hold against them - well, how dare you, nobody's perfect but at least we think well of ourselves.

[Magritte]

Interesting exchange, if you can call it that. What I took away from it was that Harris is not all that deep of a thinker (Alert the media!), that the issue of 'intention' is a little more complicated than he presents it. Chomsky's the real deal, imo. Harris comes across as what Saul Bellow referred to as a "fashion intellectual."

Here's a topic that you touched on that might deserve its own thread: You say you think of yourself as more a secular humanist than an ahteist. How do you understand that term? Do you think it's possible for theists, including Christians, to think of themselves as secualr humanists?

Sure, I think we all need a sense of the irony Rorty talks about - that we need to learn how to hold our reflexive attitudes at arm's length and get some perspective. So of course theists can do this too, and find common ground with people of other faiths (or no faith) in our shared sense of human dignity and common good.

This is maybe what Dawkins was fumbling towards when he said that all good people are secular - but in his case I think it was as much a revelation of his bias as a simple unfortunate choice of words.

Anyways I really wouldn't like to be Harris today. He's getting knee jerk support from a lot of atheists but surely someone who does mindfulness meditation has enough self awareness to eventually realize that Chomsky put him in the sick burn ward.

[Jim B.]

Sure, I think we all need a sense of the irony Rorty talks about - that we need to learn how to hold our reflexive attitudes at arm's length and get some perspective. So of course theists can do this too, and find common ground with people of other faiths (or no faith) in our shared sense of human dignity and common good.

This is maybe what Dawkins was fumbling towards when he said that all good people are secular - but in his case I think it was as much a revelation of his bias as a simple unfortunate choice of words.

Anyways I really wouldn't like to be Harris today. He's getting knee jerk support from a lot of atheists but surely someone who does mindfulness meditation has enough self awareness to eventually realize that Chomsky put him in the sick burn ward.

I agree with you. Maybe 'provisional secularists' is a better term for theists who've internalized the values of a (more or less) free and open democratic society, or at least the ideal of one, even if we haven't gotten there yet. To live and function in a society like that, you just have to be willing to check certain kinds of beliefs at the door.

I wonder if Dawkins means by 'secular' something more like someone who's renounced religion entirely(?)

[Magritte]

I agree with you. Maybe 'provisional secularists' is a better term for theists who've internalized the values of a (more or less) free and open democratic society, or at least the ideal of one, even if we haven't gotten there yet. To live and function in a society like that, you just have to be willing to check certain kinds of beliefs at the door.

Case in point. Is it terribly imperialist and bigoted to ask them to knock that shit off? I mean, even setting aside the stupid violence of the act itself, the consequences of attacking that particular gathering, giving their enemies exactly the ammunition (pun slightly intended) that they were asking for...

I wonder if Dawkins means by 'secular' something more like someone who's renounced religion entirely(?)

I think in his ideal world, maybe...? Though he claims he's a "cultural Christian" himself. It's a good question. Are there forms of religion he sees as neutral or even mildly beneficial? I stopped paying serious attention to him when he stopped talking about science and went on an atheist crusade, so I dunno.

[Jim B.]

Is it terribly imperialist and bigoted to ask them to knock that shit off? I mean, even setting aside the stupid violence of the act itself, the consequences of attacking that particular gathering, giving their enemies exactly the ammunition (pun slightly intended) that they were asking for...

Right. Are we obligated to be tolerant of the violently intolerant? I think allowing for some kind of public space where we set aside our ideologies just for the sake of functioning alongside one another is part of the admission ticket to living in a secular and open society. But I don't believe in malicious provocation either, although that doesn't in any way justify the "drive by."

[KR Wordgazer]

I consider myself a Christian humanist who believes in separation of church and state. This makes me more or less a "secular humanist," though not an atheistic or agnostic one.

[Jim B.]

I consider myself a Christian humanist who believes in separation of church and state. This makes me more or less a "secular humanist," though not an atheistic or agnostic one.

Same here. Some Christians think that 'humanist' and "Christian' are mutually exclusive terms. Maybe they think that humanism means worship of humanity instead of God.