Hey ozathiest re: “you can’t be moral without God”. I too have not found many evangelicals who’d disagree with this. I would, but I’m not sure if I’m evangelical (and don’t care much either).

Surely the point of the good samaritan story was that someone who didn’t know God was being moral, and the story of the sheep and the goats was that people who didn’t know God acted morally and those who did know God didn’t. Anyway – something you might like throw back at any evangelicals who hold the bible as their ultimate authority.

Also, a quote from Jim Wallis in 2006:

There are no more enthusiastic and self-confident pep talks from the White House now. There is only a totally failed strategy, an insurgency fueled by an occupation, and a civil war that has put young Americans in the crossfire of religious and political hatred. And there is only death, for Americans and for Iraqis. American deaths now number nearly 3,000, and the killing of Iraqis seems to get worse by the week. We must also deal with how American morality has been destroyed by this war; its collateral damage now includes our international standing and respect. And let’s be clear: according to The New York Times, a National Intelligence Estimate warned that the war in Iraq has increased, not lessened, the threat from terrorism. My children and yours are far less safe, not more, because of Iraq.

Most alarming to many of us was the way George Bush brought his faith into this war. The only thing worse than ignoring the facts is investing your ideological blindness with religious certainty. Religion is meant to provide deep reflection, not easy certainty. But George Bush’s religion didn’t lead to reflection, humility, or repentance in Iraq; only to the never-questioned resolve of a zealot. Not only did he ignore the deep concerns of former military leaders and foreign policy experts, this self-described man of faith consistently defied the strong opposition to the war in Iraq from so many religious leaders, at home and around the world. But while Bush’s religion didn’t cause him to change the course of his war in Iraq, the American people finally have. And now it is up to us, the Congress, and even the White House to stop the course…

I guess you, I, and Dawkins may come together around that.

The pronoun reference in the second of these sentences is ambiguous, but that’s okay: what I say here applies just as much to Bruce as it does to Dawkins.

Surely bigotry is a rather loaded word in this case, AV? Wallis’s lack of enthusiasm about atheism is not surprising, is it?

Wallis’s religious beliefs may explain his attitude to atheists and secularists (and while there is undoubtedly a large degree of overlap there, the two groups are not the same), but it doesn’t excuse it, nor does it mean he can’t be called on it.

Bruce:

Oh. And Clark, I don’t think that Arthur was making any literal statement about “No True Christian”. I think he was making an allusion to the Scotsman Fallacy (i.e. “No True Scotsman”).

Yep.

But I do want to reiterate something I said towards the end of my post, and which appears to have gone unnoticed: the Manifesto sounds promising as an indication of a desire within evangelical circles to shift away from the Right.

Re: Dawkins, I don’t have much to add to what Bruce has said already. He’s never been one to suffer fools gladly, nor is he prepared to accept the notion that claims made on the basis of religious dogma deserve special exemption from critical scrutiny, simply because they appeal to faith. Of the “Four Horsemen,” I’d say he’s certainly to the left of Hitchens and Harris–in 2003 he called the decision to go to war in Iraq a “victory for Bin Laden,” painting the war as an Islamophobic, Arab-phobic act of revenge for the 9/11 attacks:

This is worse than bizarre. It is pure racism and/or religious prejudice. Nobody has made even a faintly plausible case that Iraq had anything to do with the atrocity. It was Arabs that hit the World Trade Centre, right? So let’s go and kick Arab ass. Those 9/11 terrorists were Muslims, right? And Eye-raqis are Muslims, right? That does it. We’re gonna go in there and show them some hardware. Shock and awe? You bet.

The God Delusion is an important and valuable book, but I think it has tended to obscure the fact that Dawkins, as a scientist and a popular science writer, has a far more positive pro-science agenda which shines through in his “back catalogue” (though it is evident in the Preface to TGD also).

I’ve seen bits and piece (i.e. not much) of The Enemies of Reason if that’s what’s been on Compass (I don’t know – haven’t watched) and while some of what I’ve seen has been important (i.e. homeopathy taking research money away from genuine medicine in Unis) a lot of it is just a tad redundant.

Maybe someone else would get a bit more out of it, although I suspect that true believers aren’t going to be swayed by his approach and the generally unaware may not be educated by him. A bit like he needs to do a prior knowledge exercise with his class rather than assumed knowledge.

Perhaps boarding school has given him wrong ideas of what constitutes good teaching?

If you want to see bigoted though, I think Dawkins isn’t your man. Some of his allies that he has hooked up with I think have lead him astray in areas that by his own admission he isn’t particularly knowledgeable about (i.e. he defers to them uncritically at times when he shouldn’t).

I don’t think he appreciates the full diversity of Christendom, although he acknowledges that it’s there. I’ve seen him describe Islam as one great undifferentiated group. This probably has something to do with familiarity and knowledge (and a bit of over-confident assumption not in step with best practice Enlightenment skepticism).

In any case, Wallis is a leader of his Christians group, Dawkins isn’t the same to atheists. People have signed up with Wallis in an organised manner whereas the closest Dawkins comes is his institute which is more geared to deal with snake oil salesmen and isn’t an atheist organisation per se. As far as Dawkins and organised atheism, the closest is the scarlet letter campaign which to be honest he just facilitates and indirectly at most (other people decide what gets on the list, he just hosts the damn thing).

The two aren’t really comparable. Indeed, I can’t think of atheism having anything equating to Wallis at all. Herding cats and all that.

Also I have seen it all before and am not likely to need rescuing from most of the various phenomena he was apparently addressing…

Ditto. I’d rather see a different take or some new acts of shonkery given the treatment.

Dawkins currently has a ground swell of fans, especially from the US due to persecution of atheists, but I think eventually they are going to want to hear from someone else. I think the popularity has more to do with the audience than the specifics of the message and that Dawkins is oblivious to this.

The dead give away is when people repeat him or others with the same message, incorrectly. I’ve seen the rational response squad host discussion where they’ve mangled Dawkins et al, demonstrating that the message hasn’t sunk in. A bit like people who fake reading the month’s book at their local book club, instead reciting from reviews they’ve read or from word of mouth.

Dawkins is currently a very popular (as opposed to previously being just popular) author amongst atheists, he’s not an organised leader. Wallis is a genuine leader of Christians. The two aren’t comparable.

Bruce: Based on the quote Arthur cites, I’m personally not quite ready to claim bigotry, but this and other little points he’s made make me quite suspicious. I certainly wouldn’t be surprised if he was genuinely a bigot and I think given the reasonable suspicion, that atheists are entitled to press him for assurances before forming an alliance with him.

His progressive stance alone shouldn’t be what sways progressive atheist supporters. He has to demonstrate good will.

I do take your points, but would still say that “bigotry” is a loaded term; Wallis is up front an Evangelical Christian, and makes no apology for that, and the main target of his remarks is US Evangelical Christianity. At the same time, as I mention on my own allusion to all this, the Manifesto quite clearly says:

As an open declaration, An Evangelical Manifesto addresses not only Evangelicals and other Christians but other American citizens and people of all other faiths in America, including those who say they have no faith. It therefore stands as an example of how different faith communities may address each other in public life, without any compromise of their own faith but with a clear commitment to the common good of the societies in which we all live together.

I still regard this as a very positive movement, especially for the USA.

I do have a confession though: I didn’t watch Richard Dawkins taking his somewhat schoolmasterly sledgehammer to a series of gnats on Compass recently, because I find him, um, bigoted… Also I have seen it all before and am not likely to need rescuing from most of the various phenomena he was apparently addressing…