Opinions on Richard Dawkins

[Comrade Jacob]

I know there are a lot of atheists on here but even among atheists he is controversial, some see him as a bit of a jerk while others see him as a good figure. I have some respect for the guy he has managed to credit the concept of communism in the 2nd edition of "The selfish gene" for example, but his ideas on that religion is the source of the problem attracts people to liberalism. What are your thoughts?

EDIT: After reading some of his tweets my mind has changed...he's a twit.

[Brutus]

I like him. The God Delusion got me where I am today.

[Red Banana]

Don't really know much about him as a person, I've heard him described as Islamaphobic but that might just be his New Atheism showing.

The God Delusion was a pretty good read though.

[helot]

I respect him as a biologist, he's done some amazing work in the past. However, i think he has a severe lack of understanding when it comes to religion and other things.

I suppose it's to be expected from a liberal and someone who refuses to use the scientific method when it comes to social phenomena.

[Sasha]

an utter asshole and an condescending prick wrapped up in a nice fat layer of bigotry and patriarchy, capital A Atheism is def my most hated religion, they really have no excuse...

[Lord Hargreaves]

an utter asshole and an condescending prick wrapped up in a nice fat layer of bigotry and patriarchy, capital A Atheism is def my most hated religion, they really have no excuse...

Have you read any of his books?

[DasFapital]

The God Delusion has done a decent job undermining conservative Christianity in the states I've noticed. For that I give him credit.

[Sasha]

have you read any of his books?

Nope, and I did read everything by Adolf Hitler so that says something... :D

(did read many of his articles and open-eds though)

[Richard Roth]

He really is an arsehole. He is just a medical snob who advocates athiesm without advocating an alternative. He's the type of person who probably doesn't tell his children about father Christmas and probably lectures children on the fact when they blow out candles their wishes aren't real.

We have freedom of worship in this country. People are drawn to faith, and they always will be.

[precarian]

an utter asshole and an condescending prick wrapped up in a nice fat layer of bigotry and patriarchy, capital A Atheism is def my most hated religion, they really have no excuse...

This ^^

He is self-righteous and thoroughly unoriginal. He has absolutely nothing to add to the "god argument."

The "new atheist" crowd are simply regurgitating arguments from the 19th century, in a highly simplistic form. It is pre-packaged nonsense, ripe for faux-radicals in our depoliticised age.

In any case, attacking religion in the modern west is akin to shooting fish in a barrel - the ultimate soft target. Atheism has been the orthodoxy here for decades. Nihilistic scientism and iconoclastic religion-bashing has become hegemonic partly because, of course, anyone who disagrees with this new creed pushed by Dawkins and the Salafi Atheists is automatically written off as an unenlightened yokel who believes in sky fairies...

Bigotry dressed up as enlightenment.

[jookyle]

People like Dawkins and Harris are awful. They use atheism as an excuse for imperialism. Not to mention Dawkins has personally and publicly come out in favor of eugenics calling in "positive eugenics" because it's on racially based.

[Lord Hargreaves]

Nope, and I did read everything by Adolf Hitler so that says something... :D

I'm not surprised (and I doubt you've ever read Mein Kampf either if I'm honest)


(did read many of his articles and open-eds though)

This is usually the thing. Dawkins says something as an aside, on the internet or to a twitter follower or at a Q&A you saw on Youtube or something, and people read this and feel it gives them enough information to dismiss him entirely. It's nonsense.

[Goblin]

Islamophobic, sexist, militant atheist douchebag. The guy is a god to these pseudo intellectual internet atheists. The more he shuts his obnoxious mouth, the better.

[Luís Henrique]

Have you read any of his books?

I have read two, The God Delusion, and The Selfish Gene. While my language wouldn't be as colourful as psycho's, I have to agree that Dawkins has absolutely no understanding of social phenomena. Ignorant and arrogant.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

I'm not surprised (and I doubt you've ever read Mein Kampf either if I'm honest)

I have read Mein Kampf, and if I can find the "second book" I will read it too (does anyone have a link?) It is awful, and, of course, much more awful than anything that Dawkins has ever written, or said, or thought.

But the existence of Twilight doesn't save Martin Tupper's "poetry".


This is usually the thing. Dawkins says something as an aside, on the internet or to a twitter follower or at a Q&A you saw on Youtube or something, and people read this and feel it gives them enough information to dismiss him entirely. It's nonsense.

Not the case with me. I read those books; the man is utterly ignorant of social science.

Luís Henrique

[Fourth Internationalist]

The whole militant atheism is one of the things that got me into leftism. So I have to give him some credit as an okay person.

[Lord Hargreaves]

This ^^

He is self-righteous and thoroughly unoriginal. He has absolutely nothing to add to the "god argument."

The "new atheist" crowd are simply regurgitating arguments from the 19th century, in a highly simplistic form. It is pre-packaged nonsense, ripe for faux-radicals in our depoliticised age.

You've missed the point entirely. The God Delusion was designed for a popular audience in order to spread certain ideas, which is why he frequents TV and has public meetings. That was actually his old job title at Oxford: "professor of public understanding". He isn't trying to revolutionize the academic discipline of philosophy of religion.


In any case, attacking religion in the modern west is akin to shooting fish in a barrel - the ultimate soft target. Atheism has been the orthodoxy here for decades.

I actually think this is just false. America is a religious society, where religion forms part of the fabric of public debate on many social issues. And even people who are not churchgoers may consider themselves to be lightly religious or "spiritual" or whatever, and not aware of the alternatives (humanism) available.


Nihilistic scientism and iconoclastic religion-bashing has become hegemonic partly because, of course, anyone who disagrees with this new creed pushed by Dawkins and the Salafi Atheists is automatically written off as an unenlightened yokel who believes in sky fairies...

Bigotry dressed up as enlightenment.

Religion bashing is now "hegemonic"? In what universe are you living in? What nonsense!

You seem to be confusing how trolls are treated by followers on Richard Dawkins facebook page, with how Richard Dawkins himself actually discusses religion in his published writing. In the latter case I simply don't recognise your portrayal of his attitude.

There is nothing intrinsically "bigoted" with dismissing religion entirely on the basis of a scientific, humanist perspective. You may think it is crass or un-nuanced or whatever, but that doesn't necessarily make it "bigotry"

[Lord Hargreaves]

Not the case with me. I read those books; the man is utterly ignorant of social science.

Luís Henrique

What in the world does social science have to do with anything?

Is this code for "he doesn't have the Marxist understanding of why religion persists"? True, but then who cares?

[d3crypt]

His book The God Delusion is pretty good. I think he is pretty cool. I seriously doubt he supports imperialism and eugenics. What is the source of that?

[Luís Henrique]

By the way, here are some past discussions on this Muggle:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?t=174643&highlight=dawkins
http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?t=81260&highlight=dawkins
http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?t=170558&highlight=dawkins
http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?t=178651&highlight=dawkins
http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?t=132454&highlight=dawkins
http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?t=161558&highlight=dawkins
http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?t=150045&highlight=dawkins
http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?t=174356&highlight=dawkins
http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?t=173039&highlight=dawkins
http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?t=147732&highlight=dawkins
http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?t=64709&highlight=dawkins
http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?t=163245&highlight=dawkins

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

What in the world does social science have to do with anything?

Let's see... he doesn't know one iota about sociology or history, but invents a whole sociological theory ("memetics") out of the blue?


Is this code for "he doesn't have the Marxist understanding of why religion persists"? True, but then who cares?

Nah, it is code for "he doesn't understand how society functions, and yet feels entitled to explain it to others - calling them ignorant in passing".

Luís Henrique

[Sasha]

@ Lord etc;
When your whole premise is "all religion is stupid" I would agree, sadly Dawkins premise seems to be "all religion is stupid but only if you are a Muslim you are an intrinsical babaric savage beyond any help or sympathy unless you are a women because then you should just know your place and everything will take its natural order.... P.s. I'm gods evolutions gift to humanity"

[Lord Hargreaves]

Let's see... he doesn't know one iota about sociology or history, but invents a whole sociological theory ("memetics") out of the blue?

I don't know much about meme theory, and I'm sure it can be strongly criticised, but I don't think proposing it as an idea for possible further research necessarily makes one ignorant of history. It certainly doesn't make one an "asshole" or a "bigot", "obnoxious" or even a budding Hitler fanboy



Nah, it is code for "he doesn't understand how society functions, and yet feels entitled to explain it to others - calling them ignorant in passing".

Luís Henrique

It is a long time since I read The God Delusion, but I don't remember him going into detail to thoroughly explicate "how society functions".

Presumably you need to have published a full sociological treatise explaining the entirety of human development before you are allowed to criticise Jerry Fallwell or creationism in schools...?

[Anarcho Jackson Jones]

He still spews the same social darwinist crap that Kropotkin long ago put to rest. Although since Kropotkin's theory of cooperation rather than competition has no beneficial use to bourgeois rule, people like Dawkins don't bother to mention it. The whole "New Atheist" movement in general is really irritating in so many ways, but especially their right-wing political stances.

[Zealot]

He's a good writer and scientist but he demonstrates a lack of understanding on some topics (but he is nowhere near as bad as Hitchens, Harris, and Co). In general, the New Atheist movement is crap. I'm more inclined to identify with "Atheism Plus (A+) (http://atheismplus.com/faq.php)", which is probably more open to Marxist ideas than the imperialist-apologist, bigoted New Atheism.

[Lord Hargreaves]

@ Lord etc;
When your whole premise is "all religion is stupid" I would agree, sadly Dawkins premise seems to be "all religion is stupid but only if you are a Muslim you are an intrinsical babaric savage beyond any help or sympathy unless you are a women because then you should just know your place and everything will take its natural order.... P.s. I'm gods evolutions gift to humanity"

There may be a misunderstanding here. I don't think Richard Dawkins is "one of us", but I am still capable of appreciating the guy all the same.

No, Richard Dawkins is not much of a critic of western imperialism, nor of Orientalist/racist western perceptions of the Islamic world. Perhaps he isn't even up to date on the latest feminist campaigns or particularly knowledgable about contemporary gender issues. He seems to hold many rather conventional, establishment, perhaps unreflective views on some political issues. But..... so what?

But you'd think, given the reaction he gets here, that he'd actually been convicted of kidnapping and eating children alive, or of burning down hospitals. When people talk about him they get utterly hysterical and I just don't see the justification for it

[precarian]

You've missed the point entirely. The God Delusion was designed for a popular audience in order to spread certain ideas, which is why he frequents TV and has public meetings. That was actually his old job title at Oxford: "professor of public understanding". He isn't trying to revolutionize the academic discipline of philosophy of religion.

I know. His other books are equally as dull and irrelevant as the God Delusion! Of course he isn't concerned with revolutionizing anything because he is utterly ignorant of philosophy - he actively revels in his rejection of the discipline. Anything which hasn't come out of the science lab is to be rejected out of hand. What a vulgar, uncouth and unintelligent way of looking at the world..



I actually think this is just false. America is a religious society, where religion forms part of the fabric of public debate on many social issues. And even people who are not churchgoers may consider themselves to be lightly religious or "spiritual" or whatever, and not aware of the alternatives (humanism) available.

...and what is wrong with being "lightly religious" or "spiritual?"

I wouldn't even class the bastardised cultism of American Evangelicals as evidence of a highly-religious society. Indeed, there are many more genuinely religious countries in Europe where - and I believe this is what you are insinuating - the religious views of the people do not automatically equate to a neanderthal socio-political outlook. George Orwell observed that, in the homes of Irish immigrants in Liverpool, it was common to see "the Daily Worker on the table and a crucifix on the wall." America is exceptional though - it is a nation which has fostered a thoroughly ignorant and philistine social culture.


Religion bashing is now "hegemonic"? In what universe are you living in? What nonsense!

You seem to be confusing how trolls are treated by followers on Richard Dawkins facebook page, with how Richard Dawkins himself actually discusses religion in his published writing. In the latter case I simply don't recognise your portrayal of his attitude.

There is nothing intrinsically "bigoted" with dismissing religion entirely on the basis of a scientific, humanist perspective. You may think it is crass or un-nuanced or whatever, but that doesn't necessarily make it "bigotry"

It is hegemonic - particularly amongst the faux-intelligentsia, representatives of the culture industry, cynical youth and metropolitan middle-class. Christianity has long since been torn down in the advanced capitalist world. To deny this is to deny reality.

I agree that dismissing religion from a scientific perspective is not "bigotry", however the zealotry of the New Atheists certainly comes very close!

[Sasha]

There may be a misunderstanding here. I don't think Richard Dawkins is "one of us", but I am still capable of appreciating the guy all the same.

No, Richard Dawkins is not much of a critic of western imperialism, nor of Orientalist/racist western perceptions of the Islamic world. Perhaps he isn't even up to date on the latest feminist campaigns or particularly knowledgable about contemporary gender issues. He seems to hold many rather conventional, establishment, perhaps unreflective views on some political issues. But..... so what?

But you'd think, given the reaction he gets here, that he'd actually been convicted of kidnapping and eating children alive, or of burning down hospitals. When people talk about him they get utterly hysterical and I just don't see the justification for it

He seems to think he is an authority on all those and all other subjects though... I know it sucks if your childhood hero's turn out to be assholes (i know, joey ramone and watty exploited shoked me deep) but yeah, it happens, apreciate what they meant for you but dont drag taking out the trash any longer than nescecary...

[Lord Hargreaves]

He seems to think he is an authority on all those and all other subjects though... I know it sucks if your childhood hero's turn out to be assholes (i know, joey ramone and watty exploited shoked me deep) but yeah, it happens, apreciate what they meant for you but dont drag taking out the trash any longer than nescecary...

Actually I was saying the opposite of this, that he doesn't tend to have strongly expressed views on those subjects. Hitchens yes, Dawkins not so much.

But when he does have an opinion, I don't see how he has ever claimed to be an "authority" on any of those things. He is just a prominent person in the public eye... who happens to have an opinion, like we all do

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

Actually I was saying the opposite of this, that he doesn't tend to have strongly expressed views on those subjects. Hitchens yes, Dawkins not so much.

But when he does have an opinion, I don't see how he has ever claimed to be an "authority" on any of those things. He is just a prominent person in the public eye... who happens to have an opinion, like we all do
why do you even care about the tosser?

[Lord Hargreaves]

why do you even care about the tosser?

I have an opinion on Richard Dawkins, and since this thread is entitled "Opinions on Richard Dawkins" this seems an appropriate time and place to express it.

[jookyle]

I would like to post this article as a more Marxist based argument on religion to that of Dawkins

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1909/may/13.htm

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

His books on topics that he is actually informed on (biology) are ok, but are generally hyped up beyond recognition by his partisans who don't actually read them anyways. His brand of atheism is repulsive and I believe, intentionally superficial for marketing reasons.

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

I will give the man credit for helping to bring atheism into mainstream discussion. His book "The God Delusion", while not perfect, makes a really good case for atheism itself.

But with that said, the man can be downright insufferable at times.

And smug. Oh my god but the man is so goddamn smug!

[Comrade Samuel]

I suppose I've never actually read any of his books or listened to any of his lectures but I've sure heard enough opinions on the fella to last me a lifetime.

I am however beginning to think that the left is unpleasable though; this trend of 'new atheism' is at least better than hardcore religious zealotry. I think it comes off as Islamophobic because it takes a slightly more hostile approach towards all religion, that's to say you're just looking at a single aspect of new atheist's beliefs without analyzing them as a whole in order to falsely claim that they are bigots.

I'm particularly interested in hearing an explanation of these claims that he is a patriarchal, imperialist and an advocate of militant Atheism (I'm serious about that last one, I think there would somehow be MORE public hatred for this guy if that was actually true.)

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

I suppose I've never actually read any of his books or listened to any of his lectures but I've sure heard enough opinions on the fella to last me a lifetime.

I am however beginning to think that the left is unpleasable though; this trend of 'new atheism' is at least better than hardcore religious zealotry. I think it comes off as Islamophobic because it takes a slightly more hostile approach towards all religion, that's to say you're just looking at a single aspect of new atheist's beliefs without analyzing them as a whole in order to falsely claim that they are bigots.

I'm particularly interested in hearing an explanation of these claims that he is a patriarchal, imperialist advocate of militant Atheism (I'm serious about that last one, I think there would somehow be MORE public hatred for this guy if that was actually true.)

Dawkins refers to himself as being 'culturally christian'. He does not meaningfully confront religion or the material effect it has had on our society in his critique. His material is nothing but a bunch of low-blows aimed at easy targets like foreigners and the intentionally mis-educated masses at the bottom of the economic food chain. He's done nothing to promote the institution of free-thinking or whatever the fuck, his books and his message result in nothing but inflated egos for whatever subculture white people in fedoras belong to.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

His book The God Delusion is pretty good. I think he is pretty cool. I seriously doubt he supports imperialism and eugenics. What is the source of that?

Well, for the first point, have you read his blog? There's been a fair amount of questionable things coming out of that place. Let us not forget that idiotic BRIGHTS shit, either...

And further on, the problem with him and the New Atheist arseholes, is their reductionism. To them, religion in the abstract is a problem, and they cannot, or are unwilling to, consider the history and inherent complexities of social world; and this reductionist thinking is also visible in Dawkin's biological theories. Science cannot be entirely divorced from ideology. Religion in the abstract, rather than the things that give rise to nonsense spirituality (and I disagree very much with any sort of religious rubbish and spiritual mumbo-jumbo) are seen by them as something to fight. But that is like fighting drug-addiction with the war on drugs - pointless.

[Rafiq]

There's nothing wrong with calling out religious bullshit when they attempt to vulgarize the sciences. However there is a reason why they are called "new" atheists: The abandonment of materialism, and the incorporation of bullshit postmodernism which results in a complete dismissal of a very old tradition of continental philosophy which then results in simplistic, and reductionist garbage. How valiant of them, to take up the banner of reason and couragesly declare that there isn't a god and that religions don't constitute as objective reality! Only they are some centuries too late. In this day and age, it would be ridiculous to suggest, within the field of science or any intellectual space, that religious bullshit is anything other than bullshit. That isn't the problem though. The problem is that today we have new forms of idealism, new forms of superstition, like ecology fetishes (that nature has universal legitimacy a la James Cameron's Avatar), new age bullshit. So called postmodern ideology has birthed all sorts of degenerate intellectual trends. But these are ideological tendencys which occupy the everyday lives of most people. I find, for example, the invincible, unquestionable and almost by default natural legitimacy most people give capitalism without knowing it, more disturbing than some crazy marginalized religious.

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

I have an opinion on Richard Dawkins, and since this thread is entitled "Opinions on Richard Dawkins" this seems an appropriate time and place to express it.
no but why do you care so much? your defenses seem to be mostly baseless, amounting to 'come on, he's not that bad' or 'you don't understand him'. what exactly about his work is it that you find so interesting? he borders on social darwinism and actively fuels the smug, arrogant online militant atheist pseudointellectuals that seem to spend most of their time on youtube arguing about the existence of god with equally dogmatic religious folk. richard dawkins is essentially an enemy to our struggle, and i say this as someone who has religious friends who are very much a part of our struggle.

other users made good points about his lack of sociological understanding - religion itself is a sociological issue and has a complex history, as well as a complex present, so it should be taken as such and analyzed objectively rather than taken superficially and slammed as it is by these new atheist types. why should we alienate religious members of our communities? the 999 club near me in deptford feeds homeless people and most of the volunteers are christians. a good friend of mine is a muslim and he organizes activities for youth in his poor area, as well as volunteering for other social concerns. what has richard dawkins ever done? should i shout down my friend because he is a muslim just because, well, he is a muslim?

i don't understand what exactly it is about richard dawkins that you find so appealing. he's a bourgeois intellectual and unapologetic about it. is it the hype? he's a cult figure i suppose, but we leftists should look at the content of ideology rather than the face that speaks it.

[Richard Roth]

New Athiests are classical liberals like John Stuart Mill and Locke.

It is easy to attack the religious.

Liberals like everything in neat boxes. The Church does not fit a neat box because it is a spontaneous, moral and an eccentric thing associated with the past and tradition. They don't like the Church because it is quirky, traditional, old fashioned and advocates community. None of these values appeal to the liberal upstart wannabe capitalist.

New Athiesm orthodoxy gives the false impression that "the left" are in power, or are "winning", and thus weakens opposition to neo-liberalism.

[Tim Redd]

I know there are a lot of atheists on here but even among atheists he is controversial, some see him as a bit of a jerk while others see him as a good figure. I have a lot of respect for the guy he has managed to credit the concept of communism in the 2nd edition of "The selfish gene" for example. What are your thoughts? Says many good things supporting atheism however he also makes sexist and anti diversity remarks.

[Flying Purple People Eater]

He's a total dickhead. His highlighting of bronze-age cult practice is comendable, but beyond that he has no social understanding of these cults, their affect and their spread.


He really is an arsehole. He is just a medical snob who advocates athiesm without advocating an alternative.

Alternative to what?

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I voted he's a twit, because I think he's a twit, and much of the evidence points to him being a twit. Twit.

[Luís Henrique]

I don't know much about meme theory, and I'm sure it can be strongly criticised, but I don't think proposing it as an idea for possible further research necessarily makes one ignorant of history. It certainly doesn't make one an "asshole" or a "bigot", "obnoxious" or even a budding Hitler fanboy

Science has its protocols, and a scientist like Dawkins should know that. His proposed memetics is something like a, say, historian, proposing breakthroughs in evolutionary biology without having an actual understanding of evolutionary biology. It is not that it "makes" him ignorant of history; it is that only an ignorant in the field would propose such an idea.

Whether he is or is not a bigot is a different issue. From reading The God Delusion or The Selfish Gene, no, it is not fair to label him a bigot. It is his blogging activity, I guess, that brings such accusation. I don't follow him, so I am not exactly the person to weigh in such a discussion. From excerpts I have seen, yes, he says things that might lead to the conclusion that he is deeply prejudiced. But he is certainly a leading light in the field of saying things that, taken out of context, mean exactly the opposite of what he thinks, or of what he thinks he thinks.

His being obnoxious, on the other hand, is pretty established; no, it hasn't to do, directly, with his pseudoscience of "memetics"; it is just his arrogant behaviour, his know-it-all posture, that make him that (and, of course, the idea that he can come into a field in which he has absolutely no formal training, and revolutionise it by acritically imposing categories and methods from other fields, is part of this attitude).

I don't think that "asshole" is significant in such discussion; it is pretty much a subjective term for people one doesn't like. And I don't think he is a Hitler fanboy, by no stretch of imagination. On the contrary, I am pretty sure that he very much opposes Hitler's ideas and actions, if merely from a mainstream, not really thoroughly tought, standpoint.


It is a long time since I read The God Delusion, but I don't remember him going into detail to thoroughly explicate "how society functions".

Well. I think it is in The Selfish Gene that he expounds his pseudo-theory of memetics. I am not sure it qualifies as "thoroughly explicating how society functions", but one thing I will say, and mean: it is as pseudo-scientific as creationism or Lyssenkoism.


Presumably you need to have published a full sociological treatise explaining the entirety of human development before you are allowed to criticise Jerry Fallwell or creationism in schools...?

No; a first grader can criticise Jerry Fallwell, or creationism in schools. But if you are going to theorise about what brings Jerry Fallwell and his ilk into existence, you will need to have a better understanding of history and sociology of religion than Dawkins has. It doesn't require having published a full sociological treatise (I for instance am criticising Dawkins' ridiculous "memetics" without having written a full treatise on epistemology or methodology of science), but it requires that, in writing about Fallwell et caterva, you display some notion of what they are doing in this world, and why, without falling into to many contradictions and non-sequiturs. It is also a good idea, while lambasting Fallwell, to refrain from lecturing everbody else on a subject in which you have absolutely no expertise.

Perhaps I can be more clear by saying this:

Fallwell and other creationists are thoroughly wrong in their ideas about how life began, changed, and diversified. Anyone with a basic education in science (such as provided in elementary school) can easily point the absurd of their ideas.

Fallwell and other creationists are a social phenomenon in and of themselves, though, much more complicated to understand than the fact that they are wrong about "creation" vs "evolution". Understanding and explaining such social phenomenon requires other theoretical instruments, that a basic education in science doesn't provide. Indeed, that even a post-doctorate in evolutionary biology doesn't provide. It requires some nuanced knowledge about religion, history and sociology of religion and science, and history and sociology in general, that Dawkins doesn't possess (or hides very well when he writes).

The fact that he feigns a degree of knowledge about religion, history, and sociology that he doesn't have, makes him, not obnoxious, not a bigot, not an asshole, not a Hitler fanboy, not a "twit", but this: an impostor, a charlatan.

Luís Henrique

[Lord Hargreaves]

no but why do you care so much? your defenses seem to be mostly baseless, amounting to 'come on, he's not that bad' or 'you don't understand him'.

On the contrary, most of the attacks are without merit, based largely upon his supposed infractions on the internet (as if we were all shocked that craziness happens on the internet). He has been accused of lots of things in the above pages of this thread, but no one has quoted anything or linked to anything to substantiate any of it whatsoever


what exactly about his work is it that you find so interesting?

As I said in my first post to precarian, the thing that is Richard Dawkins is a mainstream popularizer of science. He has written one book on atheism.

Thus most of the criticisms of his work - he doesn't go in detail into academic philosophy of religion, that he doesn't have a fully worked out historical sociology, that his understanding of contemporary international relations vis a vis the Middle East might be off - is just missing the point, expecting the guy to meet a quite ridiculous burden.

I will declare an interest here, in that I find his popular science books enjoyable and credit them with playing a part in helping me to renounce religion. Evolution is the best critique of the need for God, in my opinion.

But other than that, no, his books have no influence on me as it comes to my politics. I'm just saying that the criticisms of him are unfair and plainly ridiculous.


he borders on social darwinism

Another silly, lazy criticism. Arguing that evolutionary themes may be useful in the understanding of human society is not "social darwinism", which is a quite specific political ideology as you must already be aware.

And I have no interest in policing the hallowed ground of social science from the pernicious influence of - *gasp* - natural science


and actively fuels the smug, arrogant online militant atheist pseudointellectuals that seem to spend most of their time on youtube arguing about the existence of god with equally dogmatic religious folk. richard dawkins is essentially an enemy to our struggle, and i say this as someone who has religious friends who are very much a part of our struggle.

There is nothing wrong at all with arguing about religion with believers, or with explaining why the traditional rationalist arguments for God's existence are nonsense.


other users made good points about his lack of sociological understanding - religion itself is a sociological issue and has a complex history, as well as a complex present, so it should be taken as such and analyzed objectively rather than taken superficially and slammed as it is by these new atheist types.

I touched on this above.

Even so... yes, the sociology of religion might explain why religious observance grows or ebbs over a time period, or it might help explain how a culture influences the way that religious texts are interpreted, or it might explain the purely functional role it has in maintaining a political order.

But it doesn't tell you whether or not a religion is true or defensible - that is, religion taken at face value, as it describes itself in its own terms: as a complete and viable intellectual system. Is this not important as well?


why should we alienate religious members of our communities?

It might alienate some religious people, but as an approach it actually works well with others.


the 999 club near me in deptford feeds homeless people and most of the volunteers are christians. a good friend of mine is a muslim and he organizes activities for youth in his poor area, as well as volunteering for other social concerns. what has richard dawkins ever done? should i shout down my friend because he is a muslim just because, well, he is a muslim?

The standardized Dawkinsesque response to all this would be: "but it doesn't prove religious claims are true!" Obviously it is true that religious people do good in the world.

[Richard Roth]

Alternative to what?

He is a classical liberal like John Stuart Mill or Locke. He is a man of reason and science who knows about capitalism but doesn't care about doing anything about it.

As someone on this thread pointed out, athiesm has been the mainstream orthodoxy in the West for a long time. His coffee table atheism is elitist and classically liberal.

Classical liberalism is not an alternative to capitalism and alienation. It is an even more commercial alternative to a conservative bourgeoisie and even more alienating. I have more respect for a Catholic priest who believes in a sky fairy but spends his time helping others and feeding the poor and doesn't go on and on about his faith the way New Athiest's do. That sounds like a reasonable thing to say to me but classical liberals are so constrained by reason and so proud and arrogant they cannot appreciate art and emotions, which is what religious philosophy is all about.

[Nakidana]

The "new atheist" crowd are simply regurgitating arguments from the 19th century, in a highly simplistic form. It is pre-packaged nonsense, ripe for faux-radicals in our depoliticised age.

So much this. The worst part is the attitude of the new atheist crowd. This shit was settled in the 19th century, yet these guys think they're all kinds of radical coming out with the same stuff a few centuries later. The thing is that they're not being clever, they're just being twits. As Luis said, a 1st grader can spout out these arguments against religion.


Whether he is or is not a bigot is a different issue. From reading The God Delusion or The Selfish Gene, no, it is not fair to label him a bigot. It is his blogging activity, I guess, that brings such accusation. I don't follow him, so I am not exactly the person to weigh in such a discussion. From excerpts I have seen, yes, he says things that might lead to the conclusion that he is deeply prejudiced. But he is certainly a leading light in the field of saying things that, taken out of context, mean exactly the opposite of what he thinks, or of what he thinks he thinks.

In my view he, like most New Atheists, is an Islamohobe, but to a lesser degree than say Sam Harris. To give a recent example; following his appearance on Al Jazeera's Head to Head with Mehdi Hassan (http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/general/2012/12/2012121791038231381.html), he tweeted (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/apr/22/richard-dawkins-islamophobic) what basically amounted to "Muslims can't be journalists". There was a pretty big backlash, Dawkins wavered and then backpedaled. In this sense he is different than Sam Harris. While Sam Harris is openly and unapologetically Islamophobic, Dawkins knows there are large segments of the population who're against Islamophobia, and so he tries to keep it under wraps. Unfortunately for him it seeps through every now and then.

Btw Glen Greenwald did a great piece (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/apr/03/sam-harris-muslim-animus) on the bigots.

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

@Lord Hargreaves (http://www.revleft.com/vb/member.php?u=17639) its the arrogance that people like dawkins use to get across their 'point' regarding religion. the shameful thing really is that he uses his status as a writer of popular science in order to engage in these militant atheist debates but as many of us have pointed out, dawkins doesn't posses the intellectual capacity to see religion as a social phenomenon, purely because this isn't his background - either that or he has a certain agenda when it comes to his atheism which raises him above the reality of material conditions. it is easy to 'argue' with religious people from a rational perspective and point out absurdities in the claims they make but its not noble and, contrary to what you seemed to suggest, usually isn't helpful. religions are structural institutions and they are systemic, dawkins' whole shtick avoids any kind of material analysis and treats religion as if it is autonomous, which it isn't and any decent analysis of religion has to view it in its social context and, in this event, religious people themselves are subjected to various structural, material conditions in which religion becomes a part of their life. how can it be in any way useful to patronize someone like that with your favourite dawkins quotes? i don't see the difference between someone doing that or a christian preacher trying to convert an atheist - this militant atheism is as dogmatic as many religions and equally alienating in many ways. therefore, dawkins and people like him end up annoying people from all kinds of backgrounds due to their simplistic, aggressive polemics towards people of faith. its not about proving god or disproving god, and most decent scientists wouldn't even bother themselves with such a pointless question. in fact, the correct scientific statement regarding this matter would be 'i don't believe that there is a god', given that it actually hasn't been scientifically proven either way, whether you like that or not. dawkins is an arrogant charlatan who lives off his name. i wouldn't be surprised if the whole thing was an act, just to reel in the green. i still don't understand why you are so serious about defending him. seems like you've fallen for his celebrity factor more than anything else.

as for the claims about dawkins being unfair, i suppose it depends on how you view militant atheism. many of us are critical of it due to a lack of material analysis and dawkins is a figurehead of the movement. there's nothing unfair or ridiculous about this if you are willing to accept that there are problems in this militant atheism phenomenon. as with this, dawkins himself has annoyed people due to his arrogance and smugness, which i would say goes with militant atheism and all of its dogmatic 'i'm right, you're wrong, shut up'
tenants.

edit: a good article on militant atheism http://www.salon.com/2013/03/25/militant_atheism_has_become_a_religion/

[Luís Henrique]

Dawkins wavered and then backpedaled.

Two of his most favourite activities, I would say.


In this sense he is different than Sam Harris. While Sam Harris is openly and unapologetically Islamophobic, Dawkins knows there are large segments of the population who're against Islamophobia, and so he tries to keep it under wraps. Unfortunately for him it seeps through every now and then.

I think this is a bit unfair. Dawkins seems to believe a few things but reject the logical consequences of such beliefs, or at least to be completely unprepared to support such consequences. Thence his necessity to backpedal. But he seems also unable to understand that his "seep throughs" are logically connected with this core beliefs, or at least to reject his core beliefs because of their logical, but undesired, consequences. Thence his compulsion to say things that will require backpedalling.

The difference seems to me that Harris is well aware of the consequences of his premises, and prepared to stand by them, no matter how obviously reactionary, bigoted, or unpopular they maybe. Harris likes the shock value of this, and understands it as basic to his popularity. Dawkins, typically, doesn't understand.

Luís Henrique

[Nakidana]

I think this is a bit unfair. Dawkins seems to believe a few things but reject the logical consequences of such beliefs, or at least to be completely unprepared to support such consequences. Thence his necessity to backpedal. But he seems also unable to understand that his "seep throughs" are logically connected with this core beliefs, or at least to reject his core beliefs because of their logical, but undesired, consequences. Thence his compulsion to say things that will require backpedalling.

The difference seems to me that Harris is well aware of the consequences of his premises, and prepared to stand by them, no matter how obviously reactionary, bigoted, or unpopular they maybe. Harris likes the shock value of this, and understands it as basic to his popularity. Dawkins, typically, doesn't understand.

Luís Henrique

It's getting complicated, but I think see where you're coming from. Maybe I'm giving Dawkins too much credit, I just thought he had the mental capacity to see what tweeting stuff like "Islam is the greatest force for evil in the world today" would lead to in term of consequences.

[Luís Henrique]

It's getting complicated, but I think see where you're coming from. Maybe I'm giving Dawkins too much credit, I just thought he had the mental capacity to see what tweeting stuff like "Islam is the greatest force for evil in the world today" would lead to in term of consequences.

Yup, he is a rather strange thing - an intelligent moron, or perhaps a stupid genius.

Luís Henrique

[argeiphontes]

Anything which hasn't come out of the science lab is to be rejected out of hand. What a vulgar, uncouth and unintelligent way of looking at the world..


I haven't read him but have heard interviews. I'd call his world-view scientiSTIC not scientific. Some such people even reject things that appear to be proven because they are not congruent with their mechanistic worldviews. (For example check out the small p's on the results page of the Global Consciousness Project. (I can't post the link yet, sorry.))


...feeds homeless people and most of the volunteers are christians. a good friend of mine is a muslim and he organizes activities for youth in his poor area, as well as volunteering for other social concerns.


They don't like the Church because it is quirky, traditional, old fashioned and advocates community. None of these values appeal to the liberal upstart wannabe capitalist.

Isn't the real Marx quote, that they don't want you to know when they misquote him, that "Religion is the opiate of the masses, but it is the heart of the heartless world?" It's important to have some humanizing influence in the face of dehumanizing capitalism I think. Also, there's Liberation Theology so even if one believes in a God, it can be a God that doesn't want you to be oppressed.

[Richard Roth]

Isn't the real Marx quote, that they don't want you to know when they misquote him, that "Religion is the opiate of the masses, but it is the heart of the heartless world?" It's important to have some humanizing influence in the face of dehumanizing capitalism I think. Also, there's Liberation Theology so even if one believes in a God, it can be a God that doesn't want you to be oppressed.


But in my opinion liberalism and religion are anti-thetical. If you separate the liberalism from Communism and replace it with religion you end up with fascism. Fascism was the religious right.

To be of the Left is to be secular. Christianity and Jesus teachings were libertarian, because everyone was libertarian back in those days. It doesn't matter if the world is composed so people exploit each other or whether the workers own the means of production because Christ preached non-violence and his message was a spiritual one.

The problem with Dawkins is that he has a problem with all of religion and people with faith in general when it is fundamentalist religion that is the problem. Liberals like everything to fit into neat boxes and he is a liberal perfectionist who cannot appreciate any nuance or mystery in life.

Classical liberals claim to stand for individualism, but they constrain individualism with their reason.

[Darius]

Lol, the way some people talk about Dawkins like he ruined their life or smth. Cheez, that man is only expressing publicly what most of the atheists wanted to say for ages, and all you theists suddenly dive in some kind of blind hysteria, just because it contradicts your status quo.

[Richard Roth]

Lol, the way some people talk about Dawkins like he ruined their life or smth. Cheez, that man is only expressing publicly what most of the atheists wanted to say for ages, and all you theists suddenly dive in some kind of blind hysteria, just because it contradicts your status quo.

Please tell me how classically liberal science and reason makes a difference to alienation, other than making things seem even more alienated? All it does is make the upper class even more proud because they think they are deserving of their riches because of some Darwinist survival of the fittest bullshit, instead of advocating guilt.

The attack on religious faith is part of the general post-modern and "end of history" trend of attacking ideology. Since 1989 classical liberalism has triumphed and the powerful corporations don't want politicians bogged down by ideology, so politicians in power all fighting over a "centre ground" appearing to have minor differences between the main parties but all basically being classical liberals. For example, modern conservatism and new labour are little different to classical liberalism.

[Decolonize The Left]

Lol, the way some people talk about Dawkins like he ruined their life or smth. Cheez, that man is only expressing publicly what most of the atheists wanted to say for ages, and all you theists suddenly dive in some kind of blind hysteria, just because it contradicts your status quo.

Many of the people in this thread critiquing Dawkins are atheists and anti-theists. Dawkins is worthless as a thinker because he:
a) doesn't offer anything new
b) reduces the level of debate
c) turns atheism into a commodity-culture. He makes it such that people wear bullshit "A" pins to "express" their atheism.

If anyone was truly interested in atheism they could begin with fundamental texts which make Dawkins look like SkyMall magazine. Begin with The Anti-Christ by Nietzsche to understand what a critique of Christianity actually looks like.

[Nakidana]

just because it contradicts your status quo.

Contradicting the status quo doesn't necessarily make you right you know.

[RedBen]

He's the type of person who probably doesn't tell his children about father Christmas
sounds like responsible parenting to me. it could just be easier to ask the kid what they want and try to do it for them no? i won't have a kid be some self entitled blind consumer by my design. speaking hypothetically here, i have no children. christmas... do i even have to start on christmas? it's not even a christian holiday. back on subject, i do not know the man's work but with some of the allegations of patriarchy and being religiously atheist, i'm not sure i'm going to read it any time soon.

[Ace High]

He may be a bit of an asshole, but he takes a defiant stance against Christian bigotry, so for that he gets an A+ in my book. I think maybe we SHOULD be assholes to those Christians throwing out hate speech constantly aimed at anyone who isn't a white straight Christian male! I know most Christians aren't like that, but I am absolutely sick of the influence that poison religion has in the USA. Sick of it, and I want it out. So I give support.

[adipocere]

I remember putting down The God Delusion half way through in complete disgust. It's been a long time now since I did read it, but even with my lowly degrees in Anthropology and Biology, I was a bit stunned that Dawkins could even be considered a respectable scientist with his head jammed that far up his ass.

The God Delusion was an example to me of the (faux)pedantic, patronizing ideas of an arrogant celebrity scientist who apparently does not understand the concept of a scientific paradigm or how obvious it is that his mind is wedged in a pretty narrow corner of "truth". He's also an asshole.

It is clear that he never bothered to actually study Anthropology before he christened himself an authority in the field, which is convenient when you try to blur the line between social science and hard science in order to support your own pet theories. I think this is a really important point that I am not making well here, but to use a bad metaphor; Dawkins entered an academic field by climbing through an open window on the top floor then proceed to claim the whole building without bothering to search all the rooms.

It was my opinion that only people with a poor understanding of science everything in general would find him credible on a topic like Atheism, and that people like him are more destructive then useful to society because they peddle half-thoughts to folks who unquestioningly point to "Science!" that they do not really understand because it services their confirmation bias over the contradictions of their forced religious upbringing.

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

Lol, the way some people talk about Dawkins like he ruined their life or smth. Cheez, that man is only expressing publicly what most of the atheists wanted to say for ages, and all you theists suddenly dive in some kind of blind hysteria, just because it contradicts your status quo.
i'm an atheist and find him to be tedious for reasons mentioned by many above

[Tim Redd]

It was my opinion that only people with a poor understanding of science everything in general would find him credible on a topic like Atheism, and that people like him are more destructive then useful to society because they peddle half-thoughts to folks who unquestioningly point to "Science!" that they do not really understand because it services their confirmation bias over the contradictions of their forced religious upbringing. I'm not a Dawkins fan but, huh?

[Richard Roth]

Richard Dawkins also has an irrational hatred of Catholics and seems less hateful towards protestants. This is because he thinks the Protestant work ethic was great and it fits with his narrow minded, Eurocentric right wing bigoted view that the growth of capitalism was great and white Europeans are superior to all other backward cultures.

The worst thing about liberals is that their use of reason gives them a faux-intellectual sense of "rightness" about their arguments. If it was a religious reactionary everyone would wince at the racist bastard but because its a classical liberal using "reason" his racism and hatred is supposedly taken more seriously by people.

[Paul Cockshott]

Don't really know much about him as a person, I've heard him described as Islamaphobic but that might just be his New Atheism showing.

The God Delusion was a pretty good read though.

You should read his biology to grapple with the ideas. The Extended Phenotype, and The Ancestor's Tale are great. Of course he is virulently hostile to Islam just as he is to Christianity, but he is no more Islamophobic than deophobic atheism as Lucretius long ago said, frees one from fear of the gods.

[Paul Cockshott]

Let's see... he doesn't know one iota about sociology or history, but invents a whole sociological theory ("memetics") out of the blue?

The idea of the meme was one of only two original contributions to the mechanism by which ideology works that were made in the late 20th century. The invention was not 'out of the blue' but an application of the revolution in information theory that had occured in biology post 1950 to the field of ideology.

[Brotto Rühle]

Dick Dorkins is a huge asshat, bigot, and all around jerk.

[Paul Cockshott]

Richard Dawkins also has an irrational hatred of Catholics and seems less hateful towards protestants. This is because he thinks the Protestant work ethic was great and it fits with his narrow minded, Eurocentric right wing bigoted view that the growth of capitalism was great

Well in that case Dawkins has more in common with the marxist interpretation of history than you. It is a commonplace that protestantism was the ideological representation of the rising and progressive capitalist mode of production. Catholicism was, in the 16th and 17th century the ideology of feudal reaction.

[Darius]

A lot of you say that Dawkins is elitist etc, but in fact he is the one popularizing atheist ideas and he's making them more acessible to wide public, how is this elitist? Do every one now need to be theologian to discuss and denounce religion? Do we need to crawl through tons of worthless, petty clerical mumbo-jumbo just to declare that is obvious and proven by natural science? People like Dawkins and other atheists who are not afraid to express themselves are actually helping atheism to materialise and gain ground in this world of renewed religious fundamentalism. Nowadays socialists need not to be afraid of militant atheism, because more or less all of essential marxist thinkers, practitioners were rather radically opposed to religions.

You can blabber on about how it alienates this, or that, but it's not really relevant here. It's stupid to blame Dawkins, or others, for not acknowledging all marxian concepts, class war or smth, at least they do other beneficial things i.e. they fight against religious fundamentalism, motivate closet atheists to come out, pave the way for conciousness... As i see from some posts, they even help to find some people their way to socialism. Is this is so bad?

[Nakidana]

Of course he is virulently hostile to Islam just as he is to Christianity, but he is no more Islamophobic than deophobic atheism as Lucretius long ago said, frees one from fear of the gods.

No, this is blatantly wrong. Dawkins wrote that "Islam is the greatest force for evil today". Whether he realizes it or not, that is an Islamophobic statement.

Here's a pretty good piece (http://www.salon.com/2013/03/30/dawkins_harris_hitchens_new_atheists_flirt_with_is lamophobia/) on these asshats.

[Paul Cockshott]

That shows hostility to Islam which is justified, but the use of the term evil is a relic of religious language. He should have said that it was one of the most dangerous reactionary ideologies.

[Brotto Rühle]

That shows hostility to Islam which is justified, but the use of the term evil is a relic of religious language. He should have said that it was one of the most dangerous reactionary ideologies.

When was your last reading of the Koran?

[Nakidana]

That shows hostility to Islam which is justified, but the use of the term evil is a relic of religious language. He should have said that it was one of the most dangerous reactionary ideologies.

He should have said? He didn't, he wrote what he wrote, a phrase you could've taken straight of the EDL handbook.

The fact of the matter is that Islam is posited as something uniquely threatening compared to other religions, which it isn't. It stems from the paranoid fascists who go on and on about Islam taking over Europe and how Muslims need to be confronted both here and abroad. It is simply Islamophobic hogwash and the New Atheists have taken it on, que Sam Harris' lunatic statement: "we are not at war with terrorism. We are at war with Islam."

But reading your reply Mr. Cockshott, it seems to me that you yourself have taken a small sip of this filth. Care to explain to me why Islam in your opinion is "one of the most dangerous reactionary ideologies"?


Nowadays socialists need not to be afraid of militant atheism, because more or less all of essential marxist thinkers, practitioners were rather radically opposed to religions.

Are you kidding me? Militant atheists such as Harris and Hitchens have come out in support of the terrorism that our states carry out abroad. The imperialist religion that these guys rejoice in has killed over a million working class people and devastated whole countries. It has created more suffering in the last decade than the ragtag fundamentalist groups could ever dream of.

I am afraid of the new atheists, because their ideas inevitable leads to supporting the atrocities which have been carried out by our states.

[Richard Roth]

Well in that case Dawkins has more in common with the marxist interpretation of history than you. It is a commonplace that protestantism was the ideological representation of the rising and progressive capitalist mode of production. Catholicism was, in the 16th and 17th century the ideology of feudal reaction.

True and in that case I don't know why he is so unpopular in this thread. He is just like the radical left.

It just shows that when the bourgeoisie have so much in common with what was formerly seen as Bolshevism that Marxism does not have as much relevance as it used and has nothing to say about alienation in particular.

Unlike Marxism, situationism is even more pertinent today and situationists writings on alienation and the commodification of the left are very relevant whereas you've just highlighted here the classical liberals/ mainstrean globalist libertarians have a lot in common with Marxists and the radical left.

[synthesis]

Not sure if anyone is interested, but here's part of an essay I wrote on his theory of memetics, from maybe five or six years ago. The writing could have been better, but I think I got the point across.


“When you plant a fertile meme in my brain,” says Dawkins, “you literally parasitize my brain, turning it into a vehicle for the meme’s propagation in just the way that a virus may parasitize the genetic mechanism of a host cell.” Dawkins provides the example of the “God meme”: its enormous capacity for survival and self-replication lies in its psychological appeal, as a source of immutable justice, existential security, and divine authority.

The God of the New Testament replicated, mutated, and displaced the God of the Old Testament because the “all-loving, all-forgiving” New Testament narrative was a more potent vehicle for self-replication than the jealous Old Testament God; in memetics theory, this evolution paved the way for Christianity to become the dominant world religion of today. In attempting to deconstruct the concept of a narrative into its basic units, Dawkins constructs a narrative wherein the proliferation of a meme (or gene) is chiefly predicated upon its ability to self-replicate.

In reality, narratives have a penchant for painting a false picture of actuality, termed the “narrative fallacy” by the theorist Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Using the field of history as an example in his book The Black Swan, Taleb argues that “the more we try to turn history into anything other than an enumeration of accounts to be enjoyed with minimal theorizing, the more we get into trouble” in terms of accurately depicting reality. “History,” says Taleb, “is certainly not a place to theorize or derive general knowledge.” As evidence, he cites Herodotus, one of the first historians, who said that his purpose was to chronicle the wars between Ancient Greece and “barbarian” nations, “and, in particular, beyond everything else, to give a cause to their fighting one another” when, in fact, the cause of any one particular skirmish may not comply with his neatly constructed narrative.

According to Taleb, the potency of the narrative fallacy is predicated upon the existence of “silent evidence.” Taleb describes silent evidence as an optical illusion; when learning “history”, for example, the historian cannot reference the vast majority of occurrences which no one thought notable to record for future reference, as “history… is any succession of events seen with the effect of posterity” and therefore the collections of subjectively notable occurrences which academics call “history” can excessively skew our perception of any given time and place in the past.

...

However, Taleb does not dismiss the utility of narratives entirely. Returning to the field of history, Taleb asserts that despite the vast quantity of silent evidence which inevitably skews any conclusions that historians might attempt to infer from their studies, “history is useful for the thrill of knowing the past, and for the narrative… provided it remains a harmless narrative… We can get negative confirmation from history, which is invaluable, but we get plenty of illusions of knowledge along with it.” Ultimately, these “illusions of knowledge” represent the dark side of the narrative fallacy, when it ceases to be harmless.

Narrative fallacies are not bad because they are “wrong” or “lies”, but because they are “bullshit.” The narrative fallacy does not involve acceptance or rejection of “the truth,” but rather “bullshit” or a lack of regard for truth; bullshit utilizes truth when suitable and discards truth when it forms a hindrance to the construction and maintenance of appearances. Thus, when Herodotus discusses an event that complies with his narrative of historical processes, he need not lie about the cause; when he encounters an event that does not comply with his narrative, he might manipulate the evidence to fit his theory of causation. “By virtue of this,” argues Harry Frankfurt, “bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are.”

As a further example, Sigmund Freud once theorized that all dreams are a form of wish-fulfillment. In many cases, Freud would not have to “lie” to reconcile a dream with his narrative, as some dreams do fit into his schema. However, when faced with a patient’s dream which clearly did not represent an unfulfilled wish, Freud argued that the wish of the dream was solely to prove his theory wrong. Again, the issue is not whether the claim is right or wrong, but that it is bullshit – ostentation emerging victorious over truth.

...

With the theories of Taleb and Frankfurt in mind, the narrative fallacies of The Selfish Gene in general – and Dawkins’ theories of memetics in particular – become readily apparent. Dawkins describes a meme as a unit of cultural transmission, yet fails to adequately define what he means by “culture”; a meme is more aptly explained as a unit of semiotic replication. As Dawkins’ critics have noted, a meme cannot be a sign in and of itself, as all signs require an interpretant in order to acquire meaning. However, even the second definition is somewhat lacking, or at the very least creates a false impression of “a kind of misplaced agency, that both genes and memes - replicators - can be understood without considering their embeddedness in a dynamic system which imbues them with their function and informational content.” Dawkins commits the fallacy of silent evidence when he depicts replicators as dominant over the “dynamic system” in which they exist.

Dawkins’ particular brand of bullshit is not predicated upon lies but rather a desire to force the dynamics and unpredictability of reality into his particular narrative concerning the omnipotent replicator. “However studiously and conscientiously the bullshitter proceeds,” says Frankfurt, “it remains true that he is also trying to get away with something.”

Accordingly, Terrence Deacon argues that Dawkins’ theory of memetics “is not wrong, it just cuts corners that suggest that certain essential aspects of information processing in biological systems can be treated as merely derivative from the replicator concept. In fact, this inverts the reality.” Just as our genes are only patterns of DNA until they become information - on a context-dependent basis - memes are just “sign vehicles” until encountered by an interpretant.

Dawkins seems to acknowledge external factors influencing the fate of a replicator only when the factors are other replicators, thus distracting his audience from the context in which these replicators exist. Therefore, the idea that Christianity survived and thrived because the New Testament God was a more potent meme does not necessarily have to be wrong, but it does “cut corners” in that it ignores the context in which these memes existed, such as the shifting dynamics of the Roman Empire, the Crusades, and European colonialism.Above, I removed a bunch of shit for the purposes of this thread, mostly about Balzac and the relationship between modernism and post-modernism. The entire thing is here (http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=1039). Here's another essay, aimed somewhat at Dawkins but more cautioning against the kind of anti-theism that leads one to conclude that imperialism is acceptable if it leads to the destruction of theocratic states, e.g. Hitchens.

(The common theme of both, I would argue, is expounding upon his rejection of historical materialism in favor of strong bourgeois idealism.)


On Bourgeois Atheism

"Imagine, sang John Lennon, a world with no religion. Imagine no suicide bombers, no 9/11, no 7/7, no Crusades, no witch-hunts, no Gunpowder Plot, no Kashmir dispute, no Indo/Pakistan partition, no Israel/Palestine wars, no Serb/Croat/Muslim massacres, no Northern Ireland 'troubles'. Imagine no Taliban blowing up ancient statues, lashing women for showing an inch of skin, or publicly beheading blasphemers and apostates."

-Richard Dawkins

I believe this quote aptly illustrates the problems posed by the phenomenon of bourgeois atheism, which we must be careful to distance ourselves from as Marxists and materialists. Bourgeois atheism has thoroughly permeated the modern Leftist movement in advanced capitalist countries.

What bourgeois atheism proposes is that the evils perpetrated by religious historical actors can be solely reduced to religious origins without regard for materialist analysis; bourgeois atheism, in and of itself, is a product of the conflicts between the emerging bourgeois and the clerical institutions in the Enlightenment era.

Bourgeois atheism denies material conditions in its obsessive need to invalidate religion. Bourgeois atheists, for example, deny that the attack on the World Trade Center had a material basis in indirect Western imperialism in the region through support for Israel, various military dictatorships, and corrupt capitalist democracies.

Bourgeois atheists deny that the Crusades had a material basis in the desire of the European ruling class to seize land and eliminate trade rivals. They deny that the Israel-Palestine conflict has a basis in Zionist colonialism in the 19th century. They deny the role of British imperialism in the Irish troubles.

What bourgeois atheists propose is that these destructive events can be wholly eliminated through the abolition of religion, completely denying the role of conditions in engendering conflict.

As Marxists, we should know better. It's time to abandon the irrational, bourgeois obsession with assaulting religion at all levels that has become such an obstacle to facilitating progress in Western society, and replace it with legitimate materialist analysis."Anti-theism" is probably the word I was looking for, not "atheism." My apologies to anyone who has seen or read these before, as I published them as blog posts several years ago.

[Sasha]

Owen Jones (http://www.independent.co.uk/biography/owen-jones)
Friday 9 August 2013
Not in our name: Dawkins dresses up bigotry as non-belief - he cannot be left to represent atheists

His anti-Muslim tweet is only the latest in a catalogue of smears

http://www.independent.co.uk/incoming/article8061651.ece/ALTERNATES/w620/v2-Pg-7-dawking-reu.jpg

If anyone should be a fan of Richard Dawkins (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/news/richard-dawkins-sparks-twitter-backlash-over-muslim-jibe-8753837.html), it should be me. I've always been an atheist: well, I was a Jehovah's Witness for three hours when I was 8, but only because I had a crush on a believer, so I'm not sure that counts. Being raised by Godless heathens was undoubtedly the reason, but I just could never get my head around key religious tenets. Why had a deity created a vast universe, placed his flock on a tiny rock circling one of trillions of stars, hidden himself from view, and determined that those who opted not to devote themselves to him faced an eternity of damnation? How could he have granted free will when, omnipotent and perfect as he was, he would have known that I would be typing these words and you would be reading this column as he created the Universe? How could I subordinate myself to a superior being who, in the Old Testament, casually engaged in smiting and demanded that men who have sex with men should be executed?

These are all questions that the more patient Christian has time for – as the former university roommate of an evangelical, I should know – but my atheism has never been seriously challenged. When the journalist John Diamond lay dying of throat cancer, he was bombarded with letters urging him to repent and embrace religion. But Diamond responded that it wasn't simply he couldn't believe in God; he didn't want to either. That had a huge effect on me when I read it, and summed up how I felt.
My secularism is uncompromising, too. I think it is anachronistic that a largely irreligious country containing a range of minorities should be officially Christian, the Church still fused with the State. It is absurd that there are bishops in our unelected Second Chamber; we are the only country other than Iran where clerics automatically sit in the legislature. We live in a country where children are separated by the religious convictions of their parents, in so-called 'faith schools'. Religious worship is compulsory in schools. All of this has to go if we are to build a modern secular country.

Provoke
So given Richard Dawkins is the most famous champion of atheism living today, why do I find him so objectionable? His supporters – and they are a passionate bunch – claim that Dawkins takes on all religion indiscriminately. But this is simply not true. Earlier this year, Dawkins tweeted (https://twitter.com/RichardDawkins/status/307369895031603200): “Haven't read Koran so couldn't quote chapter & verse like I can for the Bible. But often say Islam greatest force for evil today.” In a recorded interview, he described Islam as “One of the great evils in the world.” Pretty clear then: he regards Islam as a particularly objectionable religion.
Indeed, Dawkins subsequently tweeted: “Of course you can have an opinion about Islam without having read Qur'an. You don't have to read Mein Kampf to have an opinion about Nazism.” He is an intelligent man, and he knows he is making as provocative a parallel as is possible.
Indeed, Europe's Muslim-baiting far-right make this point explicit: the Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders directly compares the Quran to Mein Kampf, calls for the book to be banned, to end all immigration from Muslim countries to be ended, and wants Muslim immigrants paid to leave the country. “Islam is the Trojan Horse in Europe,” he declares, warning it would mean “the end of European and Dutch civilisation as we know it.” He made a short film, Fitna, which portrays Muslims as inherently violent because of their religion. Here is a man who should be damned by all tolerant people. But Dawkins wrote: “Geert Wilders, if it should turn out that you are a racist or a gratuitous stirrer and provocateur I withdraw my respect, but on the strength of Fitna alone I salute you as a man of courage, who has the balls to stand up to a monstrous enemy.”
Dawkins has a habit of talking about Muslims in the most dismissive, generalising and pejorative fashion. “Who the hell do these Muslims think they are?” he once tweeted. Another of his tweets accused UCL of “cowardly capitulation to Muslims” because it “tried to segregate sexes” in a debate between Lawrence Krauss “and some Muslim or other.” There's a good test here: replace “Muslim” with “Jew” and tell me you're comfortable.
It goes on. Dawkins has described the burka as being like a “full bin-liner”, and spoken of his “visceral revulsion” when he sees it being worn. He has attacked Mehdi Hasan, one of the finest journalists in the country, who also happens to be a Muslim: “Mehdi Hasan admits to believing Muhamed [sic] flew to heaven on a winged horse. And New Statesman sees fit to print him as a serious journalist.” The logical conclusion of this – which Dawkins strongly denied – is that Muslims simply should not be hired as journalists.

Nobel
It is in this context that Dawkins' latest contribution is so inflammatory. “All the world's Muslims have fewer Nobel Prizes than Trinity College, Cambridge. They did great things in the Middle Ages, though.” When he was attacked for tweeting this, his defenders simply made the point it was a fact – how can a fact be bigoted? It is a completely obtuse and disingenuous defence. The point Dawkins was making is that this should reflect badly on Muslims: that, as a group, they had done nothing of worth since the 15th century. Nobel Prizes have disproportionately gone to the advanced, developed countries with lots of money for education and scientific research, which tend to be white and Christian. For example, not many Africans – whatever their religious beliefs – have won Nobel Prizes for this same reason.
Another defence goes along these lines: Muslims are not a race, so how is it possible to be racist against them? If someone was ranting “I hate Muslims” or “Muslims are scum”, is this really a defence that would be used? It is a poor argument for allowing or undermining the seriousness of bigotry against hundreds of millions of people.
In any case, it presumes that race actually exists, rather than being a social construct. Yes, there are different ethnicities, cultures and skin colours: but there is only once race, and that is the human race. There is more genetic variation within what are called “races” than between them. It was in the 19 century, to justify horrors such as slavery and colonialism, that pseudo-scientific theories of “race” became fashionable: for example, the size and shape of human skulls. The Irish were once considered a “race” by their English oppressors. We should simply stop talking about “races” altogether.
What is really meant is that while skin colour is not optional, religious conviction is. This is a claim I simply cannot subscribe to. It understates just how powerful and life-consuming beliefs can be – ironically, something that is simultaneously used as a criticism against religion by anti-theists. Personally, I cannot imagine being me without my atheism or my socialism. For those brought up all their lives in a religious environment, who are strongly emotionally welded to their beliefs, their faith is not something that can simply be switched off. It is beyond unrealistic to describe religious belief as a “choice” like, say, what clothes you should wear to a friend's party or whether to have a ham or chicken sandwich for lunch.

Suspicion
And then there is the broader context of rampant Islamophobia. Europe's far-right – including our own BNP and EDL – now almost exclusively focus on Muslims, and the alleged danger posed by them. Nick Griffin scapegoats Muslims for a range of social problems like rape and drugs, and labels Islam “wicked” and a “cancer”. Studies have shown that media coverage of Muslims is overwhelmingly negative: they generally appear as, for example, terrorists or extremists. The sort of Muslims I grew up with are rarely seen. Polls show nearly half of Britons think “there are too many Muslims”, and over a third believe Muslims pose a serious threat to democracy.
How can comments by the likes of Dawkins really be separated from a broader context where Muslims are feared, suspected and even hated? If we were to look back at literature from 1920s Britain, would we look at statements such as “Judaism is the greatest force for evil today” and divorce them from the atmosphere of then-rampant anti-Semitism?
I'm often asked why I don't take a stronger line against Islamism (http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/why-is-the-left-so-blinkered-to-islamic-extremism-8679265.html): that it is one of my blind spots. In truth, I think that issue is pretty much covered. The alleged threat posed by Islamic fundamentalism has been debated to death ever since several Saudi hijackers crashed planes into the Twin Towers over a decade ago. Polls show that support for political Islamism is tiny among Britain's Muslims, and they are as likely to support violence as the rest of us. Terrorism is being dealt with by the security services, and a few articles by me isn't really going to contribute very much. My fear, however, is all I would achieve is magnifying a marginal problem among a small religious minority, contributing to a climate where Muslims generally are portrayed as extremists and potential terrorists.
The idea of religion being the root cause of so many bad things is also something I struggle with. Religion can be used to justify anything: and, in practice, it has. There is Christian socialism: it was Harold Wilson who once claimed that Labour owed more to Methodism than to Marxism. Latin American “liberation theology” was a heady mix of Catholicism and Marxism. There have been Christian liberals; Christian Democrats and more hard-line Christian right-wingers. General Franco justified his right-wing crusade with Christianity. The point is religion ends up being a justification and rationalisation, rather than a motive. Anti-Western sentiment in the Middle East was once dominated by secular nationalism, like Egypt's General Nasser; now it is often expressed through Islamic fundamentalism.
As a non-believer, I want the atheist case to be made. I want religious belief to be scrutinised and challenged. I want Britain to be a genuinely secular nation, where religious belief is protected and defended as a private matter of conscience. But I feel prevented from doing so because atheism in public life has become so dominated by a particular breed that ends up dressing up bigotry as non-belief. It is a tragedy. And that is why it is so important that atheists distance themselves from those who undermine our position. Richard Dawkins can rant and rave about Muslims as much as he wants. But atheists: let's stop allowing him to do it in our name.

source: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/not-in-our-name-dawkins-dresses-up-bigotry-as-nonbelief--he-cannot-be-left-to-represent-atheists-8754183.html

[Tim Redd]

No, this is blatantly wrong. Dawkins wrote that "Islam is the greatest force for evil today". Whether he realizes it or not, that is an Islamophobic statement. It's off base to target Islam as the greatest force for evil when imperialism still rules globally.

[Paul Cockshott]

But reading your reply Mr. Cockshott, it seems to me that you yourself have taken a small sip of this filth. Care to explain to me why Islam in your opinion is "one of the most dangerous reactionary ideologies"?

All religions are ideological state apparattuses. The question is what state and what social and economic forms are they ideological apparatuses for. The predominant states that Islam is currently an ideological support for are the Gulf monarchies which are landlord states with the most reactionary social organisation. The Gulf monarchies aggressively fund this ideological apparatus in pursuit of their social and political goals.
We see this most obviously in Syria today but the same process has been going on for years in Pakistan. In Pakistan of course it acts directly as a support for feudal and patriarchal social relation. In Turkey it plays a slightly different role, being the ideology of a section of the bourgeoisie which aims to re-establish Turkish imperialism. In all these cases it is the main force for militant political reaction playing a similar role to Catholicism in Spain in the 30s but being more dangerous because of the scale of the funding behind it.


I am afraid of the new atheists, because their ideas inevitable leads to supporting the atrocities which have been carried out by our states.

No it does not inevitably lead to support for imperialist agression. Dawkins opposed the Gulf War.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Dawkins is a bourgeois liberal, and an admirably straightforward bourgeois liberal at that - unlike other liberals, he has never felt the need to present himself as something else. So of course, his politics are awful. It should be kept in mind, though, that the politics of the people he debates are rarely better.

As for his popular-scientific work, it has its strengths and weaknesses - Dawkins tends to present his pet theories as Confirmed Scientific Fact (TM), and I think he never really acknowledges how much he owes to Maynard-Smith. His forays into other fields are... ah, they're bad. He is willing to believe anything that sounds Darwinian, including extremely vague notions like memetics.

So, obviously, there is much to criticise from a proletarian standpoint, including the role of the Clash of Civilisations narrative that Dawkins contantly pushes in the racist oppression of British Asians and so on. But the one thing that Dawkins should not be criticised for is his refusal to treat religion as inherently special, good, unassailable etc. Religion as it exists in the present society is a special instrument of the bourgeois dictatorship, and often a particularly oppressive one. Of course it needs to be analysed and attacked in a materialist manner, and in particular we should avoid the illusion, that Dawkins has fallen for, that "our religion" is a "lesser evil" whereas the religions of those foreign devils are the paramount evil of our age, but it still needs to be attacked. And the material impact of religion on proletarians, particularly on proletarian women and queer and trans people, needs to be recognised. The religious section of the proletariat needs to be educated, not tailed.

[CarolinianFire]

In all honesty, he is a complete douchebag. Though 95% of the time he is right, he can not make a statement without insulting or trying to call in to question the intelligence of someone who disagrees with him. That is no way to convince people of anything except that people from your "team" are condescending assholes. But, alas, I don't think he much cares if he convinces them of anything, he's just there to giggle at their perceived stupidity.

[Nakidana]

All religions are ideological state apparattuses.

I see, and Norse Paganism, Satanism and Wicca are the ideological apparatuses of which states exactly?


The question is what state and what social and economic forms are they ideological apparatuses for. The predominant states that Islam is currently an ideological support for are the Gulf monarchies which are landlord states with the most reactionary social organisation. The Gulf monarchies aggressively fund this ideological apparatus in pursuit of their social and political goals.

We see this most obviously in Syria today but the same process has been going on for years in Pakistan. In Pakistan of course it acts directly as a support for feudal and patriarchal social relation. In Turkey it plays a slightly different role, being the ideology of a section of the bourgeoisie which aims to re-establish Turkish imperialism. In all these cases it is the main force for militant political reaction playing a similar role to Catholicism in Spain in the 30s but being more dangerous because of the scale of the funding behind it.

The problem here is that you describe Islam as if it's some coherent movement that receives funding from all of these capitalist states. In reality there are thousands of groups around the world who all call themselves Islamic but have very different political goals.

Is it true that some states use Islam to justify their oppression and support Islamic groups who further their interests? Yes, but that's par for the course. In the US human rights and democracy are popular catchphrases, so the state uses those to justify their atrocities around the world.

The thing is, when you go out on the street with the Islamophobic rhetoric you've been spouting on this forum, claiming that Islam is one of the most evil/reactionary/whatever-you want-to-call-it ideologies in the world, you're stamping all Muslims with the evil label, regardless of their political stance. You're playing into the hands of the fascists, I'm just not sure if you're doing it intentionally or not.

I have my suspicions though, I recall you posting an article on Arab funding of mosques in the UK which had a nice filthy EDL tinge to it.


No it does not inevitably lead to support for imperialist agression. Dawkins opposed the Gulf War.

Well he didn't have a problem with bombing Afghanistan:


MK: I wanted to move on briefly to you views on Iraq. You weren’t opposed to the war in Afghanistan were you?
RD: Well I wasn’t because I felt that America needed to try to find those responsible and it did really appear as though Al-Qaeda was being actively encouraged by the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and it was promoting that kind of terrorism and promoting the most awful religious repression in its own country as well which is an additional factor.
MK: But in terms of Iraq, did you feel it was establishing a new military norm for the US?
RD: Well what I really objected to was the lying about the motives for going into Iraq. I mean lying about Weapons of Mass Destruction and really taking our eye off the ball of world terrorism since whatever else Saddam has done, he did not mastermind the 9/11 attacks and so the deliberate lies by Cheney and Bush and that gang who implied that he did – the timing of it. If there was a reason for going into Iraq that reason had been around for a long time before, why suddenly choose a time of hysteria immediately after 9/11? Obviously, because it was an act of political opportunism – catching the America mood – the tendency just to blame all Arabs because it was Arabs who did 9/11 and the Iraqis are Arabs aren’t they?

http://www.thecommentfactory.com/richard-dawkins-interview-on-religion-evolution-and-iraq-2777/

[Paul Cockshott]

The problem here is that you describe Islam as if it's some coherent movement that receives funding from all of these capitalist states. In reality there are thousands of groups around the world who all call themselves Islamic but have very different political goals

It is not coherent in that it has different sources of funding, and contesting states, but in Turkey the mosques are state funded, and in Saudi and Iran they are clearly part of the state apparatuses - of other states, but in all cases these are reactionary patriarchal and anti-working class.

If you can cite an instance of one political islamist movement that is progressive and pro working class, then go ahead. It will be the exception that proves the rule, against that one can cite many more that are reactionary.

If you go and look at Dawkins website it is full of condemnations of all religions, devotes somewhat more to attacking Christianity than any other one.

As to your tongue in cheek question about Wicca and Norse Paganism. Wicca never established itself as an effective religion, Norse Paganism on the other hand was an ideological apparatus of the early Norse kingdoms during the stage of transition from barbarism to feudalism. Once feudal relations were solidified it gave way to Christianity which was more appropriate to these social relations.

[synthesis]

If you can cite an instance of one political islamist movement that is progressive and pro working class, then go ahead. It will be the exception that proves the rule

"The exception that proves the rule" is a completely meaningless phrase.


#4. The Exception That Proves The Rule

What It's Supposed To Mean

Ignore that thing that disproves my theory; It only proves my theory!

Why I Hate It

Most of the entries on this list are here because they actually represent an idea or conviction that I find offensive, but this one is just stupid. The exception that proves the rule is an Alice-in-Wonderlandian leap in twisted logic, claiming that something that breaks a pattern merely reveals the existence of a pattern. Well, sure that might be true, if you don't understand...anything. Let's say I have some marbles arranged in what seems to be a pattern. Red, Black, Blue. Red, Black, Blue. Red, Black, GREEN. Some might say, "Well, I see a pattern establishing a rule: 'a blue marble will always follow red and black marbles. Oh, and that green one? Well, it's the exception that proves the rule." Thank you, Professor, but actually, it's the first six marbles that exhibit a pattern - not the green one. The green one is at best an aberration to be disregarded and, at worst, proof that there is no pattern. Meaning your rule is, um, what's the word? Wrong.

I have no proof, but this expression seems like it was written by some insufferable blowhard who's terrible in bed: "All the women who have sex with me experience multiple orgasms. Oh you didn't? You must be the exception that proves the rule." " I never experience erectile dysfunction. Oh, my penis is presently retracted like a scared turtle in midwinter? Must be the exception that proves the rule." "No, I never need to imagine a young Alec Baldwin in Hunt for Red October to achieve orgasm when I'm with a lady. Oh, I screamed out 'sink me with your torpedo, Jack Ryan,' during my climax? Hmm. Must be the exception that proves the rule."

from here (http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-popular-phrases-that-make-you-look-like-idiot/)

I'm not disagreeing with your point in and of itself, but the way you phrased that stinks of intellectual dishonesty.

[Teacher]

Islam is a reactionary ideology of course but I think Dawkins misdirects thoughtful young people into bad politics. Religion is not the root of the problem.

Don't many of these "New Atheist" types refer to Marxism as a religion?

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I see, and Norse Paganism, Satanism and Wicca are the ideological apparatuses of which states exactly?

As I recall it, Althusser, who introduced the term, never intended the ideological state apparatus to be identified with any particular bourgeois nation-state - i.e., there are no British or German ISA, though the German or British state might utilise different varieties of ISA.

In any case, these religions obviously function as part of the mechanism of bourgeois society in any area where their adherents live - much like "the brights", "Atheism plus" and whatever other nonsense the New Atheists have thought up to make themselves more like a religion. And, indeed, much like certain left groups.

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

It is not coherent in that it has different sources of funding, and contesting states, but in Turkey the mosques are state funded, and in Saudi and Iran they are clearly part of the state apparatuses - of other states, but in all cases these are reactionary patriarchal and anti-working class.

If you can cite an instance of one political islamist movement that is progressive and pro working class, then go ahead. It will be the exception that proves the rule, against that one can cite many more that are reactionary.

If you go and look at Dawkins website it is full of condemnations of all religions, devotes somewhat more to attacking Christianity than any other one.

As to your tongue in cheek question about Wicca and Norse Paganism. Wicca never established itself as an effective religion, Norse Paganism on the other hand was an ideological apparatus of the early Norse kingdoms during the stage of transition from barbarism to feudalism. Once feudal relations were solidified it gave way to Christianity which was more appropriate to these social relations.
the muslims in my area are the working class and they run the food-banks/soup kitchens. same as the christians. you're generalizing religious people and putting them into rigid categories. admittedly, religions are a part of the state apparatus in most societies but that doesn't suggest that some religious communities aren't socially conscious outside of their surrounding apparatus.

furthermore, attacking religious institutions themselves in effect ignores the fact that religion is structural and a part of the bourgeois system which we oppose first and foremost. religion, nowadays, is a symptom of broader social conditions and the initial social conditions are what need to be removed before religion, as a symptom, is attacked. it is not an autonomous phenomenon, neither is it cohesive in the types of people, communities and social functions that result from it.

[The Feral Underclass]

His recent comment about Muslim Nobel prize winners was absolutely ridiculous, Islamophobic and completely discredits what is otherwise, in my view, a decent outlook on religious belief.

The comments about militant atheism or anti-theism being themselves a religion is predicated on a misunderstanding of a) the word religion and b) the ideas of anti-theism. Trying to equate certain kinds of atheism with mystic, superstitious belief strikes me as simply an effort to be dismissive rather than engaging. It might serve a rhetorical function but it's not a particularly refined analysis

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

i think that particular criticism is metaphorical and regards the dogmatic nature of new atheim's cheerleaders, rather than a genuine comparison to the tenants of religions themselves

[The Feral Underclass]

i think that particular criticism is metaphorical and regards the dogmatic nature of new atheim's cheerleaders, rather than a genuine comparison to the tenants of religions themselves

Is it? I'm not so sure. I have seen this argument levelled against anti-theists often, as if militant belief equated to religious belief, which to me follows the same logic as those people like Dawkins who conflate Islam with Islamism.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

i think that particular criticism is metaphorical and regards the dogmatic nature of new atheim's cheerleaders, rather than a genuine comparison to the tenants of religions themselves

If anything, the so-called "New Atheists" (was there anything wrong with old atheists?) are not dogmatic enough, since most are strong agnostics in the manner of Hume or Huxley.

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

i'm talking about the likes of dawkins etc who are usually classed as 'militant' atheists but more formally as 'new' atheists. they certainly aren't agnostic which, to me, seems like the most scientific position anyway as the 'jury is out' so to speak - there is no proof either way and making assertions either way is dogmatic and unscientific, unless there is concrete evidence. the assumptions on each side of this mind-numbing debate are hypotheses, the god hypotheses which dawkins termed and the hypotheses that suggests that there is no god, which isn't actually scientific fact, even though it is more plausible, scientifically speaking. its all hypotheses though, which is the main point in this regard

and as for the other point, people have criticized these new atheists as being dogmatic in their assertions (which aren't actually scientifically-backed by true, hard evidence, if you look at it) in the same way that some religious folk are dogmatic in their own assertions. if you couple this notion with the preachy nature of both religious people and so-called militant atheists, you can see why the comparison is sometimes made, in relation to these dogmatic positions. it is only a metaphor though. quite a funny joke if you think about it, but not a solid statement.

furthermore, aside from these arguments, there is plenty of written evidence to suggest that dawkins' discourse is very much in line with the mainstream discourse of the ruling class, with regards to islam. he calls islam one of the greatest 'evils', can you not see the irony in a militant atheist using the term 'evil' to describe a religion?

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

i'm talking about the likes of dawkins etc who are usually classed as 'militant' atheists but more formally as 'new' atheists. they certainly aren't agnostic which, to me, seems like the most scientific position anyway as the 'jury is out' so to speak - there is no proof either way and making assertions either way is dogmatic and unscientific, unless there is concrete evidence. the assumptions on each side of this mind-numbing debate are hypotheses, the god hypotheses which dawkins termed and the hypotheses that suggests that there is no god, which isn't actually scientific fact, even though it is more plausible, scientifically speaking. its all hypotheses though, which is the main point in this regard

Dawkins considers himself an "agnostic atheist", as did Hitchens as I recall, and even Dennet, who really should know better. And no, the jury is not "still out there". Evidence for the existence of a deity is much less convincing than the evidence for the existence of phlogiston, and yet we know that phlogiston does not exist. No one is agnostic about phlogiston, oddly enough, so why should the deity of the Christians get a free pass?


furthermore, aside from these arguments, there is plenty of written evidence to suggest that dawkins' discourse is very much in line with the mainstream discourse of the ruling class, with regards to islam. he calls islam one of the greatest 'evils', can you not see the irony in a militant atheist using the term 'evil' to describe a religion?

His discourse about Christianity is also in line with the main current of bourgeois ideology, as his ridiculous statements about "cultural Christianity" attest.

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

Dawkins considers himself an "agnostic atheist", as did Hitchens as I recall, and even Dennet, who really should know better. And no, the jury is not "still out there". Evidence for the existence of a deity is much less convincing than the evidence for the existence of phlogiston, and yet we know that phlogiston does not exist. No one is agnostic about phlogiston, oddly enough, so why should the deity of the Christians get a free pass?



His discourse about Christianity is also in line with the main current of bourgeois ideology, as his ridiculous statements about "cultural Christianity" attest.
no disagreements here, in fact i think you've basically echoed what i've said.

the jury is out there though, in terms of the basic tenants of science. why else would a scientist call themselves an agnostic atheist?

'i don't believe that there is a god'.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

no disagreements here, in fact i think you've basically echoed what i've said.

the jury is out there though, in terms of the basic tenants of science. why else would a scientist call themselves an agnostic atheist?

Cultural pressure; the same reason people profess to be agnostic about some sort of afterlife but not about what happens to a glass after it falls and breaks. As for science, once again, we know, scientifically, that phlogiston does not exist, so we should say the same of the good lord God, whose existence is supported by even less evidence.

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

Cultural pressure; the same reason people profess to be agnostic about some sort of afterlife but not about what happens to a glass after it falls and breaks. As for science, once again, we know, scientifically, that phlogiston does not exist, so we should say the same of the good lord God, whose existence is supported by even less evidence.
you're not saying anything that legitimates the preachy new atheist crowd though. i'm not even arguing with you, my stance is that dawkins is a figurehead of a movement that is worthless in the advance of our struggle and is in line with the ruling liberal ideology. there is no need for his defense any more than there is a need to defend religion itslelf - the whole debate is useless and dawkins et al have capitalized off of it to the tune of £millions.

if you wanna criticize religion, do it from a marxist perspective and leave dawkins out of the equation. what dawkins' lefty fanboys/girls are doing when citing him on the question of religion amounts to the same as citing winston churchill when discussing anti-fascism.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

But as I said in my first post on this thread, I am not trying to defend Dawkins. He is a bourgeois liberal, and his atheism is limited by the bourgeois-liberal ideology to the extent of aping religious forms and cheering for "cultural" Christianity. It's just that criticising him for his opposition to religion - for the fact that he opposes religion, not the manner in which he opposes it, which is idealistic and moralistic - is a right-wing criticism. Is Dawkins mean to religion? He should be meaner.

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

i disagree. dawkins fails to see religion in its socio-historical and political context, therefore he has no worth in a materialistic analysis of religion. the only place i've seen him enthusiastically applied, when it comes to religion, was on the comments section on various youtube videos.

i wrote a huge reply but lost my internet connection. i suppose if i was to reduce my statement, i'd suggest viewing religion as a social phenomenon, which both results from and contributes to social conditions, in a dialectical fashion. dawkins opposes religion as discourse but fails to see it as a part of social relations and its resultant effect on social relations themselves. he places blame on religion itself rather than the objective conditions that create religion and allow it to function. its like blaming marx for what happened in the soviet union, as opposed to viewing the nature of the soviet union as resulting from objective, material conditions.

here is a question which creates a distinction between dawkins' anti-materialist polemics and the true nature of religion in its various social contexts: do you think that the attacks on 9/11 were a result of the discourse of islam or a result of various, complex socio-economic conditions on a global scale?

i've read the koran and the bible and, funnily enough, this never came up.

[Paul Cockshott]

"The exception that proves the rule" is a completely meaningless phrase.



I'm not disagreeing with your point in and of itself, but the way you phrased that stinks of intellectual dishonesty.
No, it has a precise meaning. You say that an exception proves a rule because its status as an exception proves that the rule applies in the majority of cases. The rule that I am citing is that "islamist political parties are conservative and anti-working class", I challenged Malangyar to come up with even one progressive, pro working class islamist party, saying that against that one could find far more that were reactionary.

One could say the same thing of course of christian political movements, they are overwhelmingly conservative and reactionary.

[Paul Cockshott]

the muslims in my area are the working class and they run the food-banks/soup kitchens. same as the christians. you're generalizing religious people and putting them into rigid categories. admittedly, religions are a part of the state apparatus in most societies but that doesn't suggest that some religious communities aren't socially conscious outside of their surrounding apparatus.

furthermore, attacking religious institutions themselves in effect ignores the fact that religion is structural and a part of the bourgeois system which we oppose first and foremost. religion, nowadays, is a symptom of broader social conditions and the initial social conditions are what need to be removed before religion, as a symptom, is attacked.
You are too vague when you say it is 'structural'. It is structural because it is part of the state superstructure. It is also a gross over simplification if you say it is just part of the 'bourgeois' social order. There are other interests than the bourgeois class interest at stake here: patriarchy and landlord class interests.

[Paul Cockshott]

i disagree. dawkins fails to see religion in its socio-historical and political context, therefore he has no worth in a materialistic analysis of religion.

He is not setting out mainly to carry out an analysis of the causes of religion but to propagandise against its ideas. This is both necessary and progressive. If you think his anti-religious propaganda is inadequate, can you give me a link to your own website where you do a better job of anti religious propaganda than him: hic rhodus hic saltus.

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

no i can't, because i view the struggle beyond the matter of religion which dawkins fails to do, hence why he isn't a friend of the revolutionary movement (not that he would even say that himself anyway). he views religion outside of the superstructure which you described, which is why he's useless in our regard.

you're a part of a weird cult, frankly.

[Teacher]

My worry is that young people who listen to people like Dawkins and Sam Harris are going to be drawn into the orbit of reactionary "libertarian" politics. This happens all the time. They are raving anti-Marxists.

Perhaps we should do a better job as leftists of joining this conversation. Michael Parenti wrote a book during the "New Atheism" craze that was really good and criticized religion from a leftist perspective.

I kind of see both sides of this issue. There are some places in the world where fighting against religion is a prominent part of the struggle. This is obviously true in the Islamic world. It is also true in India where Hindu fascism is a very powerful threat to workers. But in the West we are reluctant sometimes to criticize religion because we don't want to reinforce the imperialist discourse about Muslims.

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

My worry is that young people who listen to people like Dawkins and Sam Harris are going to be drawn into the orbit of reactionary "libertarian" politics. This happens all the time. They are raving anti-Marxists.

Perhaps we should do a better job as leftists of joining this conversation. Michael Parenti wrote a book during the "New Atheism" craze that was really good and criticized religion from a leftist perspective.

I kind of see both sides of this issue. There are some places in the world where fighting against religion is a prominent part of the struggle. This is obviously true in the Islamic world. It is also true in India where Hindu fascism is a very powerful threat to workers. But in the West we are reluctant sometimes to criticize religion because we don't want to reinforce the imperialist discourse about Muslims.
i think i made the same point when i said that we could be critical of religion but should do it aside from the ideology of the likes of dawkins. marxism can lay out a perfectly good critique of religion which doesn't need to adhere to the liberalism of the 'new atheists'.

[Comrade #138672]

Not sure if this has been posted yet.

Richard Dawkins Branded "Racist" Over Anti-Muslim Remarks (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/170747#.UgZ7PeYW12M)

[Richard Roth]

It is only the religion, hierarchy and tradition that are reactionary. The Catholic Church and the Church as a whole does not represent Jesus's teachings. Jesus said in the New Testament to sell all your possessions and give them to the poor.

The Catholic Church has been used by powerful rulers to exploit the masses. It is only the miracle of consumer capitalism that has erased the masses thirst for "religion." People are not more enlightened because they are no longer religious. The biggest religion in the world is money. Dawkins is an evangelical classical liberal who advocates nihilism and alienation. And the religion of money is worse than the most fundamentalist, intolerant religion because commodification is death. It is a nihilist anti-philosophy.

[Paul Cockshott]

Ok Dinner Jacket, you admit that you are worse at anti-religious propaganda than Dawkins. Historically communists have carried out propaganda against religion, and have been able to do it better than bourgeois writers like Dawkins, but at the moment there is so little anti-religious propaganda by communists that materialist propaganda is only being carried out by scientists like Dawkins, magicians like Randi and materialist philosophers like Dennet. It is testimony to the lethargy and ideological indolence of the left that this is the case.

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

Ok Dinner Jacket, you admit that you are worse at anti-religious propaganda than Dawkins. Historically communists have carried out propaganda against religion, and have been able to do it better than bourgeois writers like Dawkins, but at the moment there is so little anti-religious propaganda by communists that materialist propaganda is only being carried out by scientists like Dawkins, magicians like Randi and materialist philosophers like Dennet. It is testimony to the lethargy and ideological indolence of the left that this is the case.
its because no one cares and that there are more pressing matters at hand, actually.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

i disagree. dawkins fails to see religion in its socio-historical and political context, therefore he has no worth in a materialistic analysis of religion.

I never claimed that his analysis of religion was cogent. In fact, I have called it rubbish, several times in this thread alone. That said, there is a difference between criticising Dawkins for attacking religion and doing a piss-poor job of it, and criticising Dawkins for attacking religion, period. The former constitutes left-wing criticism of Dawkins, the latter - right-wing criticism. Yet several members, and not just Graffic, have indulged in such right-wing, borderline-bogostroitel criticism in this thread.


i wrote a huge reply but lost my internet connection. i suppose if i was to reduce my statement, i'd suggest viewing religion as a social phenomenon, which both results from and contributes to social conditions, in a dialectical fashion. dawkins opposes religion as discourse but fails to see it as a part of social relations and its resultant effect on social relations themselves. he places blame on religion itself rather than the objective conditions that create religion and allow it to function. its like blaming marx for what happened in the soviet union, as opposed to viewing the nature of the soviet union as resulting from objective, material conditions.

here is a question which creates a distinction between dawkins' anti-materialist polemics and the true nature of religion in its various social contexts: do you think that the attacks on 9/11 were a result of the discourse of islam or a result of various, complex socio-economic conditions on a global scale?

i've read the koran and the bible and, funnily enough, this never came up.

Religion is not simply a kind of discourse, but also a definite organised body of men, with a definite relation to state power etc. etc. Reducing Christianity to the Bible is just as idealistic as Dawkins's analysis. And the point is not to assign "blame", which is a moralist notion, in any case, but to strike at all aspects of the bourgeois dictatorship, including religion.


But in the West we are reluctant sometimes to criticize religion because we don't want to reinforce the imperialist discourse about Muslims.

Honestly, I think part of the problem is that certain r-r-revolutionary parties in the imperialist metropole are actively trying to attract Muslim reactionaries without counterpoising anything resembling a communist programme to their religious convictions. And to refrain from criticising religion would be opportunist - did the RSDRP refrain from criticising religion because they fought against the oppression of Old Believers?

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

religion HAS discourse, and it is a part of the capitalistic superstructure, but we know it is a social phenomenon.

learn to read and stop talking bullshit.

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

i'll reduce it down again so you might be able to understand:

religion = structural, systemic.

dawkins = liberal, idealist.

religion should be viewed as such just as dawkins should be viewed as such.

dawkins is to the study of religion as winston churchill is to the study of fascism. should we listen to them merely because they tell us that these things are bad?

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

For the sixth or seventh time, I think Dawkins is fairly awful. But he should no more be attacked for opposing religion than Churchill should be attacked for opposing fascism.

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

no disagreement there.

[Paul Cockshott]

dawkins is to the study of religion as winston churchill is to the study of fascism. should we listen to them merely because they tell us that these things are bad?

It is not a matter of bloody study but of struggle. Winston Churchill was no mean author, but his stature comes from being a leader in the real struggle against fascism. Dawkins does not present himself as a student of religion but as struggler against it, it is on this role in ideological struggle that he has come to be known for.

[Nakidana]

Recent comments by Dawkins (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/08/richard-dawkins-tweets-islam-muslim-nobel?CMP=twt_gu) and the ongoing backlash really leaves no doubt as to the deluded Islamophobia coming form his mouth. Here is yet another article on this twit: http://www.loonwatch.com/2013/04/richard-dawkins-anti-islamanti-muslim-propaganda-exposed-the-facts/

Not only that but he has also previously revealed himself as a misogynist (http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/07/05/richard-dawkins-and-male-privilege/#.UgauKT9BoyQ) bastard (http://www.racialicious.com/2011/07/25/obligatory-richard-dawkins-post/).

The fact that people on here are actually defending this guy is sad, but also serves as a reminder to me that even the revolutionary left isn't immune to the Islamophobia currently permeating the West. Also a good example of the pathetic lengths to which people go, when their favorite celebrities come under attack.


It is not coherent in that it has different sources of funding, and contesting states, but in Turkey the mosques are state funded, and in Saudi and Iran they are clearly part of the state apparatuses - of other states, but in all cases these are reactionary patriarchal and anti-working class.

If you can cite an instance of one political islamist movement that is progressive and pro working class, then go ahead. It will be the exception that proves the rule, against that one can cite many more that are reactionary.

lol, good thing you covered yourself. If I don't provide an instance, you're right, if I do provide an instance, you're still right.

I'm sorry Cockshott, you don't get to make the rules. Islamic socialism and Islamic anarchism.


If you go and look at Dawkins website it is full of condemnations of all religions, devotes somewhat more to attacking Christianity than any other one.

As I've written before he has specifically singled out the religion of Islam as something particularly evil. Now I know you've got a hard on for this guy because he goes around insulting religious people like an obnoxious child, but that doesn't make what he's saying any less Islamophobic or wrong.


As to your tongue in cheek question about Wicca and Norse Paganism. Wicca never established itself as an effective religion, Norse Paganism on the other hand was an ideological apparatus of the early Norse kingdoms during the stage of transition from barbarism to feudalism. Once feudal relations were solidified it gave way to Christianity which was more appropriate to these social relations.



You said: "All religions are ideological state apparattuses.".
The three religions I gave as examples are not ideological state apparatuses.
You're wrong.



I also like how you glanced over the fact that Dawkins supported the bombing of Afghanistan. :lol:


its because no one cares and that there are more pressing matters at hand, actually.

Except for Cockshott...because Muslamic ray gunz are taking over, didn't you know (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PL1jDcAHkc8)!?!

[Luís Henrique]

'i don't believe that there is a god'.

I know that, in the very unlikely chance that there is a god, it is not the Abrahamic god. I am absolutely not agnostic about that.

How do I know that? Because it is self-contradictory in its own terms. Just like I am not agnostic about perpetuum mobiles - I don't need "empirical evidence" about them, or about the Abrahamic god.

But that is theology. In that field, I have little problem with Dawkins; he is right about god, although indeed somewhat wishy-washy. Where he is definitely wrong is not on god, but on religion. Oh, and probably on everything else that doesn't directly relate to biology, but that I can be agnostic about, and even think that empiric evidence is necessary.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Not only that but he has also previously revealed himself as a misogynist (http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/07/05/richard-dawkins-and-male-privilege/#.UgauKT9BoyQ)

Hm. The author of that article doesn't call him a "mysoginist bastard". He "is agnostic" about it:


I don’t know if it was sexism on Dawkins’ part or just plain obtuseness

I, on the other hand, am pretty sure that it is just plain obtuseness. Dawkins is just, eh, how may I put it, so 179 degrees, 59 minutes and 59 seconds.

Luís Henrique

[Tim Redd]

if you couple this notion with the preachy nature of both religious people and so-called militant atheistsYou seem "preachy" to me. How are you defining preachy?

[Tim Redd]

For the sixth or seventh time, I think Dawkins is fairly awful. But he should no more be attacked for opposing religion than Churchill should be attacked for opposing fascism.Churchill attacked German fascism so that British imperialist fascism could reign elsewhere but especially in the third world: India, Egypt, etc.

[Paul Cockshott]

I also like how you glanced over the fact that Dawkins supported the bombing of Afghanistan.
My point was that being a militant atheist did not necessarily lead to support for imperialist intervention - he opposed the gulf war. Nor does it guarantee that you will oppose such interventions : his support for the intervention in Afghanistan being a case in point. But exactly the same could be said of marxism. He was wrong, but there are a whole bunch of Marxists who made the same mistake over Libya, supporting the imperialist intervention there.

Wicca is not a religion, it lacks the permanent bodies of trained men/women and special buildings that a religion requires. I said that Norse paganism was a state apparattus of the early Norse kingdoms.

You are unable to produce any instances to refute the claim that the great majority of Islamic political parties are reactionary and conservative. I was not setting you an impossible challenge. If my assertion was false, it would be easy for you to cite several countries in which the majority of the islamic parties were progressive pro working class organisations. You can not do so. You are just acting as an appologist for islamic reaction here.

It is really a no brainer, it should be as obvious to any Marxist as the fact that catholicism has been an overwhelmingly reactionary political and social force since the French Revolution. Or the evangelicals a reactionary force in South America.

[Nakidana]

Hm. The author of that article doesn't call him a "mysoginist bastard". He "is agnostic" about it:



I, on the other hand, am pretty sure that it is just plain obtuseness. Dawkins is just, eh, how may I put it, so 179 degrees, 59 minutes and 59 seconds.

Luís Henrique

Yep, that's just what I call him after reading about the incident.


My point was that being a militant atheist did not necessarily lead to support for imperialist intervention - he opposed the gulf war. Nor does it guarantee that you will oppose such interventions : his support for the intervention in Afghanistan being a case in point. But exactly the same could be said of marxism. He was wrong, but there are a whole bunch of Marxists who made the same mistake over Libya, supporting the imperialist intervention there.

Well, Hitchens supported every imperialist intervention, Harris supports every imperialist intervention and Dawkins supports imperialist intervention in Afghanistan. The only reasons he didn't support intervention in Iraq seems to be that Saddam's regime was secular and also he didn't feel comfortable about the lies told (http://www.thecommentfactory.com/richard-dawkins-interview-on-religion-evolution-and-iraq-2777/) ("Well what I really objected to was the lying about the motives for going into Iraq"). This is a guy who thinks that (http://www.islamophobiawatch.co.uk/growth-of-islam-at-expense-of-christianity-would-be-poor-exchange-dawkins/) "It is possible to see Europe as a haven of civilisation, with the pincer movement of Islam on one side and the US on the other.". Anyone with half a brain knows what this kind of mindset leads to.

Anyway, you can worship Dawkins in your own little fantasy world all you want, numerous detailed articles have been posted in this thread outlining the militarism and Islamophobia pervading the militant atheism movement.


Wicca is not a religion

I'll just leaves this hanging, too stupid to respond to.


You are unable to produce any instances to refute the claim that the great majority of Islamic political parties are reactionary and conservative.

Yeah, keep moving the goalposts. First I had to provide an instance of progressive Islam (which I actually did in my former reply), now I have to provide evidence that the majority of Islamic groups are progressive. I'm not going to play your little game, nobody is arguing that Islamism is a leftist movement. What I'm saying is that followers of Islam have different political goals, so that some Muslims are neoliberal, others are leftist. Some are misogynist, others are feminist. Following a religion does not implicate you having a certain position in the class struggle.

But you, for some reason, cannot comprehend this fact. Maybe because you don't really know any Muslims. Maybe you should get out more and talk to some.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Churchill attacked German fascism so that British imperialist fascism could reign elsewhere but especially in the third world: India, Egypt, etc.

"Fascism" means a bit more than "regime I dislike".

[Flying Purple People Eater]

I agree with Luis and Semendyaev on Dawkins. We should be criticising for his historical ignorance and generalisation of the religious, not his actual opposition to religion.


"Fascism" means a bit more than "regime I dislike".

He's correct in a way. Churchill and the Tories didn't really have much of a problem with the fascist movements of post world-war Europe until they started to threaten British interest. There are numerous quotes where he defends the Falangists and Brownshirts as 'necessary movements to stem the flow of international communism'.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

He's correct in a way. Churchill and the Tories didn't really have much of a problem with the fascist movements of post world-war Europe until they started to threaten British interest. There are numerous quotes where he defends the Falangists and Brownshirts as 'necessary movements to stem the flow of international communism'.

That is true, of course, and my statement was a bit too much off the cuff, so to speak, but again, Churchill should be criticised for not opposing fascism seriously enough (not that he could, of course, being a representative of the interests of the British bourgeoisie), not for the fact that he opposed fascism (which, of course, no one on this thread has done, but people have made analogous claims about Dawkins and religion).

[Paul Cockshott]

First I had to provide an instance of progressive Islam (which I actually did in my former reply), now I have to provide evidence that the majority of Islamic groups are progressive.
Well you did not identify even one political party. My original point was that even had you done so it would have been an exception because the vast bulk of such parties are reactionary, a point you now conceed.


I'm not going to play your little game, nobody is arguing that Islamism is a leftist movement. What I'm saying is that followers of Islam have different political goals, so that some Muslims are neoliberal, others are leftist. Some are misogynist, others are feminist. Following a religion does not implicate you having a certain position in the class struggle

You are shifting the point of focus from the religious ideology to the individuals subjectified by it. Individuals are exposed to conflicting ideological pressures and attempt to resolve this. Some resolve it by abandoning one ideology for another, others resolve it by incremental changes but without completely abandoning the original ideology. The question is whether the religious ideology is

completely false
reactionary

The first is true of all religious ideologies. In the contemporary world so is the second.


Mansoor Hekmat: I realise that the interests of some require that they rescue Islam (as much as possible) from the wrath of those who have witnessed the indescribable atrocities of or been victimised by Islamists. I also realise that the extent of these atrocities and holocausts is such that even some Islamists themselves do not want to take responsibility for them. So it is natural that the debate on ‘true Islam’ vis-à-vis ‘practical Islam’ is broached over and over again. These justifications, however, are foolish from my point of view (that of a communist and atheist) and from the points of views of those of us who have seen or been the victims of Islam’s crimes. They are foolish for those of us who are living through a colossal social, political and intellectual struggle with this beast. The doctrinal and Koranic foundations of Islam, the development of Islam’s history, and the political identity and affiliation of Islam and Islamists in the battle between reaction and freedom in our era are too obvious to allow the debate on the various interpretations of Islam and the existence or likelihood of other interpretations to be taken seriously. Even if the debate were in the future and on other planets where the most basic rights and affections of humanity were not violated. In my opinion, it shows the utmost contempt for the science and social intelligence of our times if every excuse and justification that Islamists fling into society whilst retreating is scientifically analysed and dissected... In Islam, be it true or untrue, the individual has no rights or dignity. In Islam, the woman is a slave. In Islam, the child is on par with animals. In Islam, freethinking is a sin deserving of punishment. Music is corrupt. Sex without permission and religious certification, is the greatest of sins. This is the religion of death. In reality, all religions are such but most religions have been restrained by freethinking and freedom-loving humanity over hundreds of years. This one was never restrained or controlled. With every move, it brings abominations and misery.

Moreover, in my opinion, defending the existence of Islam under the guise of respect for people’s beliefs is hypocritical and lacks credence. There are various beliefs amongst people. The question is not about respecting people’s beliefs but about which are worthy of respect. In any case, no matter what anyone says, everyone is choosing beliefs that are to their liking. Those who reject a criticism of Islam under the guise of respecting people’s beliefs are only expressing their own political and moral preferences, full stop. They choose Islam as a belief worthy of respect and package their own beliefs as the ‘people’s beliefs’ only in order to provide ‘populist’ legitimisation for their own choices. I will not respect any superstition or the suppression of rights, even if all the people of the world do so. Of course I know it is the right of all to believe in whatever they want. But there is a fundamental difference between respecting the freedom of opinion of individuals and respecting the opinions they hold. We are not sitting in judgement of the world; we are players and participants in it. Each of us are party to this historical, worldwide struggle, which in my opinion, from the beginning of time until now has been over the freedom and equality of human beings. I will not respect the superstitions that I am fighting against and under the grip of which human beings are suffering.


N.I. Bukharin and E. Preobrazhensky: It is essential at the present time to wage with the utmost vigour the war against religious prejudices, for the church has now definitely become a counter-revolutionary organization, and endeavours to use its religious influence over the masses in order to marshal them for the political struggle against the dictatorship of the proletariat. The Orthodox faith which is defended by the priests aims at an alliance with the monarchy. This is why the Soviet Power finds it necessary to engage at this juncture in widespread anti-religious propaganda. Our aims can be secured by the delivery of special lectures, by the holding of debates, and by the publication of suitable literature; also by the general diffusion of scientific knowledge, which slowly but surely undermines the authority of religion. An excellent weapon in the fight with the church was used recently in many parts of the republic when the shrines were opened to show the 'incorruptible' relics. This served to prove to the wide masses of the people, and precisely to those in whom religious faith was strongest, the base trickery upon which religion in general, and the creed of the Russian Orthodox church in particular, are grounded.

[Nakidana]

Well you did not identify even one political party.

I gave you examples of Islamic socialism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_socialism) and Islamic Anarchism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_anarchism). Christianity also has such groupings. I'm not your servant, it's not my problem if you don't want to read up on it.


My original point was that even had you done so it would have been an exception because the vast bulk of such parties are reactionary, a point you now conceed.

No, your original point was that all religious groups were reactionary state apparatuses. Which they're not, e.g. the political groups mentioned above, wicca, satanism, norse paganism etc etc (last few are not state apparatuses, might be reactionary, but are completely irrelevant in politics today).

Now you say that the vast bulk of religious parties are reactionary. They might be, but doesn't detract from the fact that religions contain many political ideologies, and there are many religious people who're not reactionary ie that being religious does not implicate you having a certain position in the class struggle.


You are shifting the point of focus from the religious ideology to the individuals subjectified by it. Individuals are exposed to conflicting ideological pressures and attempt to resolve this. Some resolve it by abandoning one ideology for another, others resolve it by incremental changes but without completely abandoning the original ideology. The question is whether the religious ideology is

completely false
reactionary

The first is true of all religious ideologies. In the contemporary world so is the second.

That's because Islam is not some foreign singular entity that descends upon people and makes them reactionary. It's all about material conditions, a poor peasant in Afghanistan might believe Islam gives you the right to sell your daughter, while a middle class Muslim in the West believes the opposite.

[Paul Cockshott]

No, your original point was that all religious groups were reactionary state apparatuses. Which they're not, e.g. the political groups mentioned above, wicca, satanism, norse paganism etc etc (last few are not state apparatuses, might be reactionary, but are completely irrelevant in politics today).

Now you say that the vast bulk of religious parties are reactionary. They might be, but doesn't detract from the fact that religions contain many political ideologies, and there are many religious people who're not reactionary ie that being religious does not implicate you having a certain position in the class struggle.

No my point is that religions are state ideological apprattuses. They are part of the superstructure whose function is to reproduce the class relations of the base.

Two of your examples are jokes : Wicca and Satanism, these never established themselves as religions. Norse Paganism was a religion and in its day a dominant form of ideology, with priests and special buildings etc.

I used the term subjectified, because it is the ideological state machine that constitutes human bodies as subjects
I see this time you provided a link to a wikepedia page on Islamic socialism. Apparently according to it a couple of islamic socialist parties existed about a century ago on the margins of the Russian revolution. After that all it can cite are three military dictators. My case is pretty much proven.

[Karlorax]

He does good work in general, but he tends to reduce complex questions like the Palestinian-Israeli and Catholic-Protestant issue in Ireland down to religion.

__________________

Currently reading, dare to join me? I am no Leading Light Communist, but I am studying their work for my MA thesis

Leading Light on Conspiracy Theory is Intelligent Design (http://llco.org/leading-light-on-conspiracy-theory-is-intelligent-design/)
Was Lin Biao guilty plotting a coup? Part 1 of 2 (draft) (http://llco.org/draft-was-lin-biao-guilty-plotting-a-coup-part-1-of-2/)
Revisiting Value and Exploitation (http://llco.org/revisiting-value-and-exploitation/)
What about the Gulag? Mao’s errors? Stalin’s? (http://llco.org/revolutionary-history-initial-summations/)

[Nakidana]

No my point is that religions are state ideological apprattuses. They are part of the superstructure whose function is to reproduce the class relations of the base.

Two of your examples are jokes : Wicca and Satanism, these never established themselves as religions. Norse Paganism was a religion and in its day a dominant form of ideology, with priests and special buildings etc.

You don't understand my point. The mere fact that they exist as religions today disprove your claim, because they're not state ideological apparatuses. These are just a few examples, there are thousands of religions around the world which are not state ideological apparatuses. Your claim is simply wrong.


I used the term subjectified, because it is the ideological state machine that constitutes human bodies as subjects

I don't see the relevance of this.


I see this time you provided a link to a wikepedia page on Islamic socialism. Apparently according to it a couple of islamic socialist parties existed about a century ago on the margins of the Russian revolution. After that all it can cite are three military dictators. My case is pretty much proven.

Good, you admit that Islamic socialist parties have in fact existed. There is also a whole list of Muslim socialists on that page and I also linked to Islamic anarchism which contains more organizations. Christianity also contains socialist groups. Thus your initial challenge to provide instances of progressive religious organizations has been met.

I have a feeling you'll go for the No true Scotsman fallacy now.

[Tim Redd]

"Fascism" means a bit more than "regime I dislike". Perhaps the circa Indian and Egyptian activists or their descendants who were tortured in British jails and whose groups faced censorship and outright banning will tell you about their "dislike" of the British regimes.

[synthesis]

I have a feeling you'll go for the No true Scotsman fallacy now.

I think he has resorted to it several times already already.

"Religions are all servants of reaction."

"What about X, Y and Z?"

"Those aren't religions because of some arbitrary definition of 'religion' I make up as I go along... but if I was being honest it's because they're not servants of reaction, which would contradict my argument."

The Scotsman and the goalposts and circular logic! Call it a hat trick.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Perhaps the circa Indian and Egyptian activists or their descendants who were tortured in British jails and whose groups faced censorship and outright banning will tell you about their "dislike" of the British regimes.

I realise that Britain was, and remains, an imperialist state, and everything that entails. That said, the British regime was not fascist - it was not a form of bourgeois bonapartism based on a mass reactionary movement. But of course the British Empire should have been opposed and overthrown.


I gave you examples of Islamic socialism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_socialism) and Islamic Anarchism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_anarchism). Christianity also has such groupings.

Anyone can use the word "socialism" - some people consider themselves Islamic or Christian "socialists", but in the past there have also been state "socialists", conservative "socialists", Prussian "socialists", national "socialists", and so on. It really takes chutzpah to support religious "socialism" after the events in Iran.


Two of your examples are jokes : Wicca and Satanism, these never established themselves as religions. Norse Paganism was a religion and in its day a dominant form of ideology, with priests and special buildings etc.

Neo-Paganism is also quite influential in modern far-right circles, and its more liberal form, along with Wiccanism, is connected to bourgeois liberalism. LaVeyan Satanism is more of a social club than a religion.

[Tim Redd]

I realise that Britain was, and remains, an imperialist state, and everything that entails. That said, the British regime was not fascist - it was not a form of bourgeois bonapartism based on a mass reactionary movement. But of course the British Empire should have been opposed and overthrown. The Brit empire was a racist, despotic hell on earth for most of the people in the less developed colonies it ruled circa wwII. That in itself makes Britain fascist for those people IMO. Further the Brit rulers seemed to have the support of a plurality if not the majority of the British people for their colonial policies, police actions and wars.

[hatzel]

The Brit empire was a racist, despotic hell on earth for most of the people in the less developed colonies it ruled circa wwII. That in itself makes Britain fascist for those people IMO.

That's not how words work, though. For something to be fascist, it has to be fascist. A racist, despotic hell on Earth is precisely that: a racist, despotic hell on Earth. There's the possibility for a racist, despotic hell on earth to be fascist, but there's also the possibility of it being a non-fascist racist, despotic hell on Earth. In fact there have been far more non-fascist racist, despotic hells on Earth than there have been fascist racist, despotic hells on Earth...

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

The Brit empire was a racist, despotic hell on earth for most of the people in the less developed colonies it ruled circa wwII. That in itself makes Britain fascist for those people IMO. Further the Brit rulers seemed to have the support of a plurality if not the majority of the British people for their colonial policies, police actions and wars.

Majority support, I think. But it is important to analyse the kind of support the British Empire received - it seems to me that it was mostly passive. There was no mass mobilisation by a reactionary movement to further the aims of the British government. That is what differentiates the usual form of imperialism from fascism, and that is what makes fascism particularly dangerous - its use of left forms of mass organisation and mobilisation for reactionary aims.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

As far as Dawkins is concerned ... I'd rather be on the picket lines of a strike or at an anti-war march or at a pro-immigrant rally with a religious leftist, whether they are motivated in part by their religion or not so as long as their solidarity is genuine, than on an anti-religion march with some arrogant petit bourgeois atheist who is more concerned about the word "God" being in the pledge than with the exploitation of labor, war, the plight of undocumented labor etc.

Perhaps he's a fine biologist but that doesn't make his view on religion politically useful, or even analytically useful (his arguments against religion tend to miss the point)

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

As far as Dawkins is concerned ... I'd rather be on the picket lines of a strike or at an anti-war march or at a pro-immigrant rally with a religious leftist, whether they are motivated in part by their religion or not so as long as their solidarity is genuine, than on an anti-religion march with some arrogant petit bourgeois atheist who is more concerned about the word "God" being in the pledge than with the exploitation of labor, war, the plight of undocumented labor etc.

As far as I can tell, no one on this thread thinks that communists should support Dawkins. That said, while sometimes a united front with religious people is necessary, whenever socialists, or "socialists", as the case may be, convince themselves that some form of religion is progressive, idiotic mistakes happen.

And given that more than half of the proletariat is composed of women, queer and trans people, agitation, propaganda and action against religion is very much relevant.

[Luís Henrique]

Perhaps the circa Indian and Egyptian activists or their descendants who were tortured in British jails and whose groups faced censorship and outright banning will tell you about their "dislike" of the British regimes.

We used to have a dictatorship here in Brazil, and while I was personally never tortured on its dungeons, I know people who have been. There is no necessity to speculate about my, or theirs, dislike for that pro-American regime.

But nevermind how much I or others dislike it, analysing it as "fascist" is a mistake, and will (or would) lead to mistaken political lines. There are other kinds of dictatorships, that need to be dealt differently.

Luís Henrique

[Nakidana]

Anyone can use the word "socialism" - some people consider themselves Islamic or Christian "socialists", but in the past there have also been state "socialists", conservative "socialists", Prussian "socialists", national "socialists", and so on. It really takes chutzpah to support religious "socialism" after the events in Iran.

Well again, we can have this No true Scotsman discussion the next 10 pages on, but there is no doubt in my mind that you can have a superstitious belief yet still be progressive. I've got quite a few leftist friends who do believe in God or something supernatural, yet are very active on the left.


And given that more than half of the proletariat is composed of women, queer and trans people, agitation, propaganda and action against religion is very much relevant.

Here's the thing though, when you go out and say that Islam is the greatest force for evil today, as Dawkins and Cockshott have done (Cockshott agreed with Dawkins, but thought he could've formulated it better, ie "Islam is one of the greatest reactionary forces today"), what is the logical conclusion? That we as communists, who of course want to combat the greatest reactionary force today, should stand outside our local mosques every Friday prayer denouncing Islam, propagandizing and stopping people from getting in? I bet the EDL would love that.

I'm sorry, it really is an Islamophobic viewpoint and there are much more important issues to tackle especially here in the West.

EDIT: Just to add on to that last point, of course if there is a legitimate concern e.g. teaching of ID in schools or anti-abortion violence (real issues in the US) those should be confronted. But there is no way I'm going to be protesting the creation of a new mosque or Islamic community center in my local area. I don't freaking care about it, religion is not on the rise and no amount of scaremongering is going to make me care. I care about the very real issue in my country that we're getting screwed by the rich because of capitalism and at the same time we've been involved in the killing of over a million people abroad.

[Paul Cockshott]

Just to add on to that last point, of course if there is a legitimate concern e.g. teaching of ID in schools or anti-abortion violence (real issues in the US) those should be confronted. But there is no way I'm going to be protesting the creation of a new mosque or Islamic community center in my local area. I don't freaking care about it, religion is not on the rise and no amount of scaremongering is going to make me care.

This is a narrow UK only view of things. Is the fight against Islamic oppression not a valid concern for communists in Iran or Turkey for example?

[Paul Cockshott]

You have to distinguish between cults which are small groups with heterodox ideas relative to the society in which they live and without the priesthood and facilities of religions, and extablished religions like Catholicism, Orthodox Christianity, The Church of England, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism. These are very different social institutions and have different effects and have a different relation to the state. The established religions are all state ideological apparattuses, cults are small private associations with no broader social impact. Once they grow in size they can transit to being established religions and become state ideological apparattuses - the paradigmatic example in modern times is Mormonism which went from being a cult to a religion with a close tie in to a state machine - which it actually constituted. Wicca and Satanism have never progressed beyond being cults. There was a tendancy by the early French materialists to identify established religions with cults but this was a propagandistic use of the term to deliberately belittle the Catholic church, which was a far more formidable enemy than a mere cult.

[Nakidana]

This is a narrow UK only view of things. Is the fight against Islamic oppression not a valid concern for communists in Iran or Turkey for example?


Just to add on to that last point, of course if there is a legitimate concern e.g. teaching of ID in schools or anti-abortion violence (real issues in the US) those should be confronted.

----------^

I don't live in the UK btw.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Well again, we can have this No true Scotsman discussion the next 10 pages on, but there is no doubt in my mind that you can have a superstitious belief yet still be progressive. I've got quite a few leftist friends who do believe in God or something supernatural, yet are very active on the left.

Well, belief in deities or "something supernatural" is hardly appropriate for a serious materialist. But more to the point, such belief is not in itself religion as the term is commonly used - obviously, there exist religions such as Theravada Buddhism that posit no deities, and arguably nothing supernatural in the usual European sense, and if someone becomes convinced that fairies are talking to them, that is not a religion. Indeed, someone can combine some vague leftism and religious notions, but you have yet to demonstrate that someone can follow a religion and be a consistent communist. I really am sick of sentiments like "well, X wants to kill, castrate or ostracise gay people, but he works in a soup kitchen, so he is our comrade". As if. Communism is an all or nothing proposition, you can't be forty percent communist, fifty percent pogromist and ten percent something else.


Here's the thing though, when you go out and say that Islam is the greatest force for evil today, as Dawkins and Cockshott have done (Cockshott agreed with Dawkins, but thought he could've formulated it better, ie "Islam is one of the greatest reactionary forces today"), what is the logical conclusion? That we as communists, who of course want to combat the greatest reactionary force today, should stand outside our local mosques every Friday prayer denouncing Islam, propagandizing and stopping people from getting in? I bet the EDL would love that.

Indeed they would, but any consistent communist opposition to religion in the US, for example, would attack Christianity just as much as Islam - if not more given the hegemonic position of Christianity in America, or in the UK, or in Croatia. I imagine the EDL would rather drown themselves in Tikka Masala than attack their God and their Country.

Conducting propaganda outside mosques or churches is probably tactically unsound, but anti-religious agitation and propaganda should be conducted in the workplace in order to free the proletariat from the dead weight of religion.


EDIT: Just to add on to that last point, of course if there is a legitimate concern e.g. teaching of ID in schools or anti-abortion violence (real issues in the US) those should be confronted. But there is no way I'm going to be protesting the creation of a new mosque or Islamic community center in my local area. I don't freaking care about it, religion is not on the rise and no amount of scaremongering is going to make me care. I care about the very real issue in my country that we're getting screwed by the rich because of capitalism and at the same time we've been involved in the killing of over a million people abroad.

And not only does religion sanction this killing, it obstructs any meaningful effort to fight it, and reinforces the special oppression that keeps the bourgeois family unit, one of the bases of capitalism, from falling apart in the face of changed material conditions. And why do you focus on Islam? Are there perhaps not enough Christian reactionaries? Religious reaction is very much alive and well, and, while it is merely an epiphenomenon of the present mode of production, it is an epiphenomenon that needs to be fought unless you're willing to turn your back on more than half of the proletariat in order to appease some wavering elements of the petite bourgeoisie and the middle strata in general.

[Tim Redd]

As far as I can tell, no one on this thread thinks that communists should support Dawkins.Risp and I support Dawkins insofar as he stands for atheism. Beyond that we oppose his frequent misogyny, racism and generalizations about Islam. I recall others in this thread with similar views.

[Tim Redd]

Majority support, I think. But it is important to analyse the kind of support the British Empire received - it seems to me that it was mostly passive. There was no mass mobilisation by a reactionary movement to further the aims of the British government. That is what differentiates the usual form of imperialism from fascism, and that is what makes fascism particularly dangerous - its use of left forms of mass organisation and mobilisation for reactionary aims. From my studies mass mobilization is not a keystone when defining fascism. Primarily it has to do with abrogation of what limited democratic rights formally existed, extreme persecution of left and other groups - minorities, foreign heritage, etc. - that are out of the mainstream, extreme oppression of the working class, etc. Mass mobilization of rightist masses in the face of the preceding is more of a contingent, or nonessential aspect.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

As far as I can tell, no one on this thread thinks that communists should support Dawkins. That said, while sometimes a united front with religious people is necessary, whenever socialists, or "socialists", as the case may be, convince themselves that some form of religion is progressive, idiotic mistakes happen.


Problems only emerge when people's metaphysical assumptions lead them to downplay or ignore some kind of material reality that has social significance, like believing that men and women are some essential kind with strongly distinguished roles.



And given that more than half of the proletariat is composed of women, queer and trans people, agitation, propaganda and action against religion is very much relevant.

Not every religious person is transphobic, misogynistic or homophobic. These three things exist among atheists and religious people, as does genuine tolerance.


Well, belief in deities or "something supernatural" is hardly appropriate for a serious materialist. But more to the point, such belief is not in itself religion as the term is commonly used - obviously, there exist religions such as Theravada Buddhism that posit no deities, and arguably nothing supernatural in the usual European sense, and if someone becomes convinced that fairies are talking to them, that is not a religion.

Not every religion sees a hard distinction between idealism and materialism. The significance of materialism has to do with providing a clear metaphysical basis for analyzing the world and justifying our analysis of the world more than denying idealism. You could have a great deal of respect for material reality and empirical knowledge gained from it while continuing to believe in God. This is why there have been so many great religious scientists. If a religious person can come up with a good biological theory based on evidence and reason, they can potentially do good class analysis too.


Indeed, someone can combine some vague leftism and religious notions, but you have yet to demonstrate that someone can follow a religion and be a consistent communist. I really am sick of sentiments like "well, X wants to kill, castrate or ostracise gay people, but he works in a soup kitchen, so he is our comrade". As if. Communism is an all or nothing proposition, you can't be forty percent communist, fifty percent pogromist and ten percent something else.

Most Communists are not "consistent communists" as many modern leftwingers would define it. Stalin banned homosexuality and abortion and most of the international Communist movement at the time didn't see this as a huge contradiction. In fact it was just a start of a long trend of banning homosexuality in the Eastern Block which didn't really change until after the wall fell and Castro came out to apologize for "past mistakes". Shared material conditions led to both Atheists and non-Atheists at the time to disapprove of homosexuality - in particular, that it went against their strongly held notions of masculinity. Those material conditions have changed, making it easier for the LGBT community and their straight allies to win over the religious and non religious alike. Yes it is true that religious people are more likely to be committed to an ideology which is reactionary but not all are, as people are religious for reasons that have more to do with dealing with suffering than who to hate. All that baggage comes from the institutions which use religion as a convenient ideological tool, not from people's desire to be religious as such.

For that matter, I've never run into an Atheist or a Communist with some kind of flawless political theory.


Indeed they would, but any consistent communist opposition to religion in the US, for example, would attack Christianity just as much as Islam - if not more given the hegemonic position of Christianity in America, or in the UK, or in Croatia. I imagine the EDL would rather drown themselves in Tikka Masala than attack their God and their Country.

Conducting propaganda outside mosques or churches is probably tactically unsound, but anti-religious agitation and propaganda should be conducted in the workplace in order to free the proletariat from the dead weight of religion.


I don't think Christianity is as dominant as it used to be in the UK. The EDLers are Christian in the same way that kids who played too much Red Alert are Communist - they don't know any theory but hey, the tanks with two guns look awesome, and that Soviet theme song is rockin'! I don't think half of them would know a bible if they were clobbered in the face with it by an Anglican priest.


You have to distinguish between cults which are small groups with heterodox ideas relative to the society in which they live and without the priesthood and facilities of religions, and extablished religions like Catholicism, Orthodox Christianity, The Church of England, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism. These are very different social institutions and have different effects and have a different relation to the state. The established religions are all state ideological apparattuses, cults are small private associations with no broader social impact. Once they grow in size they can transit to being established religions and become state ideological apparattuses - the paradigmatic example in modern times is Mormonism which went from being a cult to a religion with a close tie in to a state machine - which it actually constituted. Wicca and Satanism have never progressed beyond being cults. There was a tendancy by the early French materialists to identify established religions with cults but this was a propagandistic use of the term to deliberately belittle the Catholic church, which was a far more formidable enemy than a mere cult.


That's a unique taxonomy between religion and cult. I guess the Jews went around for ~1900 years as a cult between the sacking of the Temple and the creation of the State of Israel? Are Hindus in the USA cultists because Hindus lack state power?

[Rooiakker]

Just some white dude that thinks he's an intellectual because he doesn't believe in god. If he wasn't white and a dude no one would even know who he is.

[Paul Cockshott]

That's a unique taxonomy between religion and cult. I guess the Jews went around for ~1900 years as a cult between the sacking of the Temple and the creation of the State of Israel? Are Hindus in the USA cultists because Hindus lack state power?
Hindus lack state power in the USA but not in Hindustan. The situation is analogous to that of another state ideological apparattus Nationalism. Americans lack state power in China but Americans visiting China are still subjects partially constituted by that ideological nationalist apparattus of the US state. Similarly Hindus in other countries are constituted as subjects by the ideological state machinery of Hindustan. Judaism is a special case which beautifully demonstrates the character of religions as state machines. Its origin is transparently as an ideological apparattus of the old state of Isreal - a large part of the old testiment is blatant nationalist propaganda. That ideological machinery allowed the continuation of the ideology of this state and part of its legal superstructure after the citizens of the state were driven into exile when the Jewish revolt was crushed. The ideological apparattus continued to constitute the descendents of original Israeli citizens as a distinct nationality right down to the 20th century when the other key component state apparattus: an army, could be formed. The ideology now functions as a justification for the expansion of that state.

[Dr Doom]

Richard Dawkins : calm reflections on an idiot and a racist. (http://attemptsatliving.wordpress.com/2013/08/09/dawkins/)

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Hindus lack state power in the USA but not in Hindustan. The situation is analogous to that of another state ideological apparattus Nationalism. Americans lack state power in China but Americans visiting China are still subjects partially constituted by that ideological nationalist apparattus of the US state. Similarly Hindus in other countries are constituted as subjects by the ideological state machinery of Hindustan. Judaism is a special case which beautifully demonstrates the character of religions as state machines. Its origin is transparently as an ideological apparattus of the old state of Isreal - a large part of the old testiment is blatant nationalist propaganda. That ideological machinery allowed the continuation of the ideology of this state and part of its legal superstructure after the citizens of the state were driven into exile when the Jewish revolt was crushed. The ideological apparattus continued to constitute the descendents of original Israeli citizens as a distinct nationality right down to the 20th century when the other key component state apparattus: an army, could be formed. The ideology now functions as a justification for the expansion of that state.

Hinduism is a very diverse religion, and not all sects, ethical norms or communities lumped in with Hinduism receive state sanction. This would indicate that, according to your taxonomy, Hinduism is both a cult and a religion. In that respect whether "hinduism" as such ever received State support is questionable. Certain castes with particular religious practices dominated but other castes with different religious practices were marginalized. To make matters more complicated, what's known as Hinduism today largely developed under Muslim lords. Nor do I see particularly how Hindu immigrants to the US or UK can transport the state-sanctioned aspect of their spiritual ideologies over time and space considering the structure of the religion. Judaism too lacks a clear and universal genealogical link between all its sects and the ancient religion of Jerusalem's kings (this is reflected by the fact that most sects of judaism are not recognized in the same way by the State of Israel).

While the relationship between the State and religion is critical to understanding religious institutions, it isn't the essential feature which defines them as religion or distinguishes them from cults. While the Cult of Isis came out of the state sanctioned Pharaonic religion, afro-carribean religion was actually repressed by the state. There is not a very clear cut line between a cult and a religion except insofar as cult is often used as a pejorative term. If there is any distinction, I would say it is that cults are institutionally isolated from the rest of society and the religious institutions and are more hierarchical, but even those are not good distinctions.

[Paul Cockshott]

The point about the concept of a state ideological apparattus is that it describes a system whose function is to reproduce the social relations of the base. This may involve it being closely related to the political and military state machines - and many religious apparattuses are tightly tied into these - chaplains in the army, official funding for their staff and bulidings out of taxes etc, but it is not essential. The key feature is that they reproduce and maintain the class relations of the social formation. There can be little doubt that Hindu religion has acted to maintain the caste system in India, which is a particular form of exploitative social relationships.

[Luís Henrique]

Richard Dawkins : calm reflections on an idiot and a racist. (http://attemptsatliving.wordpress.com/2013/08/09/dawkins/)


All the world’s Muslims have fewer Nobel Prizes than Trinity College, Cambridge.

Someone please, please, please, tell me that this is not true, that he never wrote such arseholery, that this is a misattribution, that it was another person, some other guy who has the same name, that it was somehow taken out of context in a way that it seems to mean the opposite of what it was actually intended to mean, that it is an outright fabrication... please!

I knew he was a complete idiot, but this is completely beyond the pail, it makes calling him an idiot look as insult to idiots.

Luís Henrique

[Paul Cockshott]

No he did say it. I presume he meant it as evidence of the poor standard of science education in the Muslim countries. I dont know if it is true, whether there actually have been fewer Muslim nobelists than ones from Trinity.

[Ceallach_the_Witch]

I think his brand of pontificating, arrogant atheism is pretty grating, but what worries me is that he ill-advisedly and opportunistically voices support for far-right bastards (Geert Wilders, for example) simply because of their hard anti-islam stances - and he makes some pretty weak excuses for himself on this front, citing his opposition to censorship - which rather rings hollow when we're talking about a politician who, if he were to take power, would ban the koran.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

No he did say it. I presume he meant it as evidence of the poor standard of science education in the Muslim countries. I dont know if it is true, whether there actually have been fewer Muslim nobelists than ones from Trinity.

Dawkins is too intellectually arrogant to bother noticing that there were a bunch of major Muslim Arabian and Persian chemists, scientists and philosophers who lived well before the Nobel was ever created. The problem with Dawkins is not just what he says, but the fact that he's an obviously intelligent person who should know better.

[Luís Henrique]

No he did say it. I presume he meant it as evidence of the poor standard of science education in the Muslim countries. I dont know if it is true, whether there actually have been fewer Muslim nobelists than ones from Trinity.

It is true, of course. Trinity is a scientific institution in the Northwestern Europe, the centre of capitalist accumulation for centuries, the kind of institution that produces the kind of intellectual labour that eventually results in Nobel prizes. It is kind of saying that Boeing produces more planes than all supporters of Tottenham Hotspurs combined.

They have more Nobel prizes than China, India, Russia, Brazil, Italy, Black people, gay people, the whole African continent, Hindus, Buddhists, Bahai's, Mormons or, probably, atheists or women.

I suppose a crusade against China or Hinduism, or Africa or Italy, is now on order. They have less Nobel prizes than Trinity, they must be powerful forces for reaction and obscurantism. Good Grief. If Trinity hadn't repelled their rules against married professors, they might of now have more Nobel prizes than married people worldwide. Forced celibacy, that would make mankind really progress in leaps and bouts.

It is a shame that such guy is an atheist; I am embarrassed.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Dawkins is too intellectually arrogant to bother noticing that there were a bunch of major Muslim Arabian and Persian chemists, scientists and philosophers who lived well before the Nobel was ever created. The problem with Dawkins is not just what he says, but the fact that he's an obviously intelligent person who should know better.

I suppose he makes his calculations in Roman numerals. The Arabic ones, I fear, were not an important contribution to the intellectual history of mankind.

Luís Henrique

[Comrade Chernov]

He's the average white western male liberal who's unaware of his privilege, sexism, and racism.

[Luís Henrique]

He's the average white western male liberal who's unaware of his privilege, sexism, and racism.

He's more than unaware, he is clueless.

Luís Henrique

[Comrade Chernov]

That's the first time I can agree that Mr. Dawkins is clueless.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

From my studies mass mobilization is not a keystone when defining fascism. Primarily it has to do with abrogation of what limited democratic rights formally existed, extreme persecution of left and other groups - minorities, foreign heritage, etc. - that are out of the mainstream, extreme oppression of the working class, etc. Mass mobilization of rightist masses in the face of the preceding is more of a contingent, or nonessential aspect.

Here I must protest that these are quantitative distinctions - regime X persecutes leftists more than regime Y - whereas mass mobilisation is a qualitative difference. And it seems to be the case that fascism differs from more conservative forms of bourgeois bonapartism in a qualitative sense. And besides, it would follow from your definition that the regime of the Directory in France, for example, was fascist, as was the regime of the King of Naples in the aftermath of the defeat of the bourgeois revolution.


Problems only emerge when people's metaphysical assumptions lead them to downplay or ignore some kind of material reality that has social significance, like believing that men and women are some essential kind with strongly distinguished roles.

That's not what I was talking about, though - I was talking about the marked tendency of centrist and revisionist organisations to tail any sort of religious reactionary that has a mass following, particularly if the mass following is in another country. If you have eaten something particularly unpleasant, and need to induce vomiting, I recommend reading one of the numerous paeans the centrist Left wrote to Khomeini.


Not every religious person is transphobic, misogynistic or homophobic. These three things exist among atheists and religious people, as does genuine tolerance.

Perhaps. To be honest, I think "tolerance" is a thoroughly liberal category. Women, queer and trans* people shouldn't demand tolerance but liberation. In any case, it is equally true that not every member of the police is racist. Yet the police is a racist organisation - just as religion is misogynist, homophobic and transphobic (and in certain areas, ethnic-chauvinist and racist as well). People who are not misogynistic and yet continue to associate with a misogynistic institution apparently care very little about the liberation of women. And that, quite frankly, is incompatible with any sort of serious socialism.


Not every religion sees a hard distinction between idealism and materialism.

Perhaps not. But Marxism does.


The significance of materialism has to do with providing a clear metaphysical basis for analyzing the world and justifying our analysis of the world more than denying idealism. You could have a great deal of respect for material reality and empirical knowledge gained from it while continuing to believe in God. This is why there have been so many great religious scientists. If a religious person can come up with a good biological theory based on evidence and reason, they can potentially do good class analysis too.

Surely, then, you can cite examples of religious individuals doing "good class analysis". I doubt that they exist - not because religious individuals are somehow less intelligent, but because serious class analysis goes against everything religion stands for. Religion analyses the social world in a moralistic manner, Marxism in a scientific manner.


Most Communists are not "consistent communists" as many modern leftwingers would define it.

Quite so. I don't see how that is an argument against anything I have written; I don't think actual communists should tail "official" communism either.


Most Communists are not "consistent communists" as many modern leftwingers would define it. Stalin banned homosexuality and abortion and most of the international Communist movement at the time didn't see this as a huge contradiction. In fact it was just a start of a long trend of banning homosexuality in the Eastern Block which didn't really change until after the wall fell and Castro came out to apologize for "past mistakes". Shared material conditions led to both Atheists and non-Atheists at the time to disapprove of homosexuality - in particular, that it went against their strongly held notions of masculinity.

Homosexuality was legalised in most "Communist" states in the seventies. Democratic Germany was actually a much more pleasant place for homosexuals to live than the Bonn regime, legalising homosexuality earlier and fighting against discrimination. Nor was homophobia ubiquitous in the communist movement - even early Marxist leaders like Bebel opposed it. I don't imagine Lenin was personally comfortable with homosexuality, but he knew better than to legislate in such matters - since he rejected the sort of moralism, I might add, that "religious leftists" constantly try to introduce into politics.

Marxists-Leninists generally blame the criminalisation of homosexuality on the cultural backwardness of the Soviet Union. I think that is too clean an explanation, but it certainly contains an element of truth - after the Civil War, Russian society was particularly backward in a cultural sense. But that simply underscores the necessity of the struggle against religion, which is part of the cultural backwardness.

As for abortion, most independent communists protested the criminalisation of abortion.


Those material conditions have changed, making it easier for the LGBT community and their straight allies to win over the religious and non religious alike. Yes it is true that religious people are more likely to be committed to an ideology which is reactionary but not all are, as people are religious for reasons that have more to do with dealing with suffering than who to hate. All that baggage comes from the institutions which use religion as a convenient ideological tool, not from people's desire to be religious as such.

As an aside, I think the term "ally" presupposes a fragmented, bourgeois-liberal struggle for liberation, where queer people are a separate contingent, so to speak, instead of a single proletarian struggle that includes queer liberation as a logical consequence.

That said, the communist movement should address religion as it actually exists, not this sort of abstract, ahistorical "dealing with suffering". "Institutions which use religion as a ... tool" are religion.


I don't think Christianity is as dominant as it used to be in the UK.

Perhaps not. But it is still dominant, receiving lavish state funds, being protected from the laws and so on and so on.

[Pirx]

I am quite deep in evolutionary psychology (not just in the Tooby/Cosmides thing, which is partly quite speculative, but in a broader sense – a biological evolutionary approach to human behavior). So I think I have read most of Dawkin’s books. He is unquestionably an expert on the topic, a gifted writer and a brilliant didact.

Ideologically he can localized best as liberal. In the extended version of “Egoistic Gene” he outed himself as anti-Thatcher. And he is by no means racist or eugenic: In “The Ancestor’s Tale” he exposes with a certain sense of shock the racial extremism of H. G. Wells.

But the “God Delusion” is all wrong. And seen from an evolutionary perspective it is totally contradictory. Most evolutionary psychologists are convinced that the attraction to religious feelings and convictions is inborn and natural. Transculturally it is one of the real universals. This should also be a lesson to materialists and atheists. It is useless to fight religion with arguments and “science”. But each religious aggregation is a very worldly thing too. So the Left has to look who is friend and who is foe. Liberation theologians are natural allies, which shouldn’t be annoyed by flat atheistic rhetoric. On the other hand nobody should feel inhibited to speak out the truth: That the Dalai Lama and his cult is reactionary to the bones.

[Beeth]

A sexist could use Dawkins' argument and say: look, women haven't won as many prizes as men.

Besides, what's with his immature attitude about winning this, achieving that, comparing, competing, etc.? It is like schoolchildren who say to each other, 'I am taller than you, I am bigger than you,' and so on.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

He's a twit and he's absolutely horrid.

[zoot_allures]

Maybe he's a good biologist, but his more philosophical work absolutely sucks (although some of the problems with the latter do make me wonder about the former: for example the fact that he seems to have no idea how to properly construct arguments). He also often seems to be a bit of a prick in general.

[Teacher]

just watched this really agonizing interview between dawkins and a creationist. at one point he actually said some stuff that was anti-bush and anti-thatcher, i guess he is some kind of liberal? i always assume the atheist activist types are libertarians

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AS6rQtiEh8

[kashkin]

Dawkin is extremely Islamophobic. Certainly he isn't as blatantly pro-imperialism as Hitchens or Harris, but his writings give ground to them, and I have met atheists who use Dawkins as justification for imperialism.

Then there was all that stuff with Rebecca Watson

[human strike]

Dick Dorkins is a racist misogynist and needs to die in fire. His ideas have much more in common with Christianity than any genuine atheism.

[zoot_allures]

Dick Dorkins is a racist misogynist and needs to die in fire. His ideas have much more in common with Christianity than any genuine atheism.
Atheism has nothing to do with your attitude to other races, to women, etc. All there is to "genuine atheism" is simply the absence of belief in god(s). Dawkins is certainly an atheist.

[Art Vandelay]

Atheism has nothing to do with your attitude to other races, to women, etc. All there is to "genuine atheism" is simply the absence of belief in god(s). Dawkins is certainly an atheist.

It always makes me laugh how many people don't understand what the prefix 'a' infront of a word means. It represents a rejection of the word that follows it. Apolitical, is a rejection of politics, asexual is a lack of sexual attraction, atheism is merely the rejection of theism. The idea that its some sort of belief system on its own is false. The atheist community is not homogeneous.

[Luís Henrique]

It always makes me laugh how many people don't understand what the prefix 'a' infront of a word means. It represents a rejection of the word that follows it.

I laugh more at how people think they can understand the meaning of a word through its etymology. Of course, it is even funnier, precious even, when they do that while professing to be Wittgensteinians and telling everybody else to "look at how words are used", but that's the cherry on a pudding that is good enough by itself.


Apolitical, is a rejection of politics, asexual is a lack of sexual attraction,

And why wouldn't "apolitical" imply a lack of political desires, or "asexual" a rejection of sexuality? Because the A- prefix can mean different things in different contexts. "Apathetic" isn't the opposite of "pathetic", "agnostic" isn't the opposite of "gnostic"...


atheism is merely the rejection of theism.

... and of course "atheist" isn't the opposite of "theist"; many other anti-theist positions are possible, including agnosticism, pantheism, deism, and gnosticism. All of those are, in different senses, "reject theism", but none is "atheism".


The idea that its some sort of belief system on its own is false.

It is not a defined belief system in and of itself, of course, but it requires a core belief - that there is (are) no god(s). It is not the idea that god(s) cannot be known, that the idea of god makes no sense, that god(s) cannot be contacted, that god(s) didn't create the world, that god(s) do(es)n't love us, etc, etc, etc. It is the belief that there is no such thing as a god.


The atheist community is not homogeneous.

There is no such thing as an "atheist community", be it homogeneous or heterogeneous. But you can't deduct that from the etymology of the word "atheism".

Luís Henrique

[garrus]

Why is everyone judging Dawkins with communist criteria, when he is not even a communist, or even a political activist?

Everything he does, he does through a prism of either religion or science.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

The point about the concept of a state ideological apparattus is that it describes a system whose function is to reproduce the social relations of the base. This may involve it being closely related to the political and military state machines - and many religious apparattuses are tightly tied into these - chaplains in the army, official funding for their staff and bulidings out of taxes etc, but it is not essential. The key feature is that they reproduce and maintain the class relations of the social formation. There can be little doubt that Hindu religion has acted to maintain the caste system in India, which is a particular form of exploitative social relationships.

Well that's a little more nuanced than saying "religion is the state". The picture is much more complicated when talking about a religion like Judaism or Hinduism than, say, Catholicism. For one thing, your example of the Caste system in India is much too messy to attribute to the Hindu religion as is commonly done. On the contrary, it seems to be the other way around - castes with some kind of social or political power supported particular movements, cults or sects within the Hindu religion and denied it to others based on their own interest.

Interestingly, various non-Hindu religions adopted the caste system while a few sects of Hinduism rigorously opposed it.

IMO this is a very Eurocentric manner of viewing religion, where you have particular strong religious institutions which can be clearly associated with a particular political system in history (like the Anglican, Catholic, Orthodox and Lutheran churches, or the Sunni Caliphate and Twelver sect of Shiite Islam, etc)



That's not what I was talking about, though - I was talking about the marked tendency of centrist and revisionist organisations to tail any sort of religious reactionary that has a mass following, particularly if the mass following is in another country. If you have eaten something particularly unpleasant, and need to induce vomiting, I recommend reading one of the numerous paeans the centrist Left wrote to Khomeini.


Yeah I'm familiar with that problem.



Perhaps. To be honest, I think "tolerance" is a thoroughly liberal category. Women, queer and trans* people shouldn't demand tolerance but liberation. In any case, it is equally true that not every member of the police is racist. Yet the police is a racist organisation - just as religion is misogynist, homophobic and transphobic (and in certain areas, ethnic-chauvinist and racist as well). People who are not misogynistic and yet continue to associate with a misogynistic institution apparently care very little about the liberation of women. And that, quite frankly, is incompatible with any sort of serious socialism.
In essence I agree with you about tolerance, but that's not quite what I meant. I was describing what we have attained so far, which is tolerance. Obviously we need to move beyond tolerance, but it would be presumptuous of me to say what that would look like. I'm just trying to describe what has been attained so far, and that includes religious activists in the gay rights movement.

I don't think being religious is like being a policeman. Religion is not essentially misogynist, homophobic, transphobic etc, religion merely reflects the misogynist, homophobic and transphobic assumptions of society because it is itself often the idealization of social values.



Perhaps not. But Marxism does.
I don't think the Communist movement should be so ideologically dogmatic. Marx was a particular type of materialist, that doesn't mean that his metaphysics must be accepted as an absolute. After all, Marx was not founding a religion.



Surely, then, you can cite examples of religious individuals doing "good class analysis". I doubt that they exist - not because religious individuals are somehow less intelligent, but because serious class analysis goes against everything religion stands for. Religion analyses the social world in a moralistic manner, Marxism in a scientific manner.
It's a huge assumption that these are mutually exclusive categories. Biology used to have the same loaded religious assumptions but that didn't stop Christians from abandoning that and doing good science. I'm too lazy to go looking for examples in history but there's no reason for religion and class analysis to be mutually exclusive, anymore than being Christian and a good biologist.



Homosexuality was legalised in most "Communist" states in the seventies. Democratic Germany was actually a much more pleasant place for homosexuals to live than the Bonn regime, legalising homosexuality earlier and fighting against discrimination. Nor was homophobia ubiquitous in the communist movement - even early Marxist leaders like Bebel opposed it. I don't imagine Lenin was personally comfortable with homosexuality, but he knew better than to legislate in such matters - since he rejected the sort of moralism, I might add, that "religious leftists" constantly try to introduce into politics.My point is simply that secular leftists can make the same "moralistic" intellectual errors as a religious person. Bebel may have fought homophobic laws and the USSR under Lenin legalized it, but Stalin, Mao and pretty much every other major leader during the early cold war didn't oppose homophobia and, out of their own moralistic reasoning, falsely associated it with "bourgeois" attitudes. This has led to various degenerate Communists like those in the Russian party (which never really abandoned homophobic attitudes) to continue embracing homophobic attitudes, even when others like Castro have long apologized for the enforcement of anti-homosexual laws.

Homophobia has a materialist base, NOT a religious one, and should be opposed as a secular problem. Homophobia is caused by the ubiquity of heterosexual relations and the way in which those hetero relations are reified. Whether people see that reification as justified in their religion, their class interest, or whatever else is a different issue. On a social level, people's metaphysical beliefs are NOT the cause of homophobia, they are merely used as justification after the fact. This isn't to say that the religious ideologies themselves might hinder change, but they're certainly not the cause of the problem, and going after religion as such won't solve it.



Marxists-Leninists generally blame the criminalisation of homosexuality on the cultural backwardness of the Soviet Union. I think that is too clean an explanation, but it certainly contains an element of truth - after the Civil War, Russian society was particularly backward in a cultural sense. But that simply underscores the necessity of the struggle against religion, which is part of the cultural backwardness.

As for abortion, most independent communists protested the criminalisation of abortion.
I don't think the Soviet Union should be given more of a pass on the issue of homosexuality than "religion". Religious homophobia can be explained with the same means as you did in the USSR - "cultural backwardness". Less "culturally backward" religious people aren't homophobic (though the idea of "culturally backward" people is problematic in its own regard).



As an aside, I think the term "ally" presupposes a fragmented, bourgeois-liberal struggle for liberation, where queer people are a separate contingent, so to speak, instead of a single proletarian struggle that includes queer liberation as a logical consequence.

That said, the communist movement should address religion as it actually exists, not this sort of abstract, ahistorical "dealing with suffering". "Institutions which use religion as a ... tool" are religion.
Again, I agree with your analysis of the term "ally" and the fragmented nature of identity politics, but I am describing the nature of political change to date. To attain a socialist society, yes we need to move beyond "gays" and "straight allies of gays", but obviously we haven't attained a "socialist society" yet and a part of the political struggle of the past 20-30 years has been of this fragmented type. That said, part of my argument is also moving beyond the rhetoric of "secular/atheist" and "religious person", seeing as how the faithless and faithful (and everything in between) can have common class interests regardless of what their metaphysical beliefs or views on the after life might be.

The social basis of religion is alleviating the suffering of the material world according to Marx. That's not an ahistorical, abstract definition of religion. This is evidenced by the increase in religious fervor during a natural disaster, war, severe social repression etc (and incidentally made the rise of Khomeini you mentioned earlier possible)



Perhaps not. But it is still dominant, receiving lavish state funds, being protected from the laws and so on and so on.The Anglican church receives state funds more out of inertia than a real serious commitment of the government to religion.


I laugh more at how people think they can understand the meaning of a word through its etymology. Of course, it is even funnier, precious even, when they do that while professing to be Wittgensteinians and telling everybody else to "look at how words are used", but that's the cherry on a pudding that is good enough by itself.

I think 9mm is correct here however. It's a wholly abstract term, much like "theism"


... and of course "atheist" isn't the opposite of "theist"; many other anti-theist positions are possible, including agnosticism, pantheism, deism, and gnosticism. All of those are, in different senses, "reject theism", but none is "atheism".Is "pantheism" really a rejection of "theism" in the traditional sense? It's a rejection of traditional monotheism sure, but it seems to me to be a form of theism by definition. One thing which is interesting is the way in which missionaries would use the pantheistic term for God held by an animistic society to help convert these people to the Christian or Islamic faiths, or to some sect of Hinduism or Buddhism

[Luís Henrique]

Is "pantheism" really a rejection of "theism" in the traditional sense? It's a rejection of traditional monotheism sure, but it seems to me to be a form of theism by definition. One thing which is interesting is the way in which missionaries would use the pantheistic term for God held by an animistic society to help convert these people to the Christian or Islamic faiths, or to some sect of Hinduism or Buddhism

Theism is not merely a belief in god; among other things, theism is a belief in a personal god; pantheism rejects this aspect of the theist god. So yes, pantheism is a rejection of theism.

Atheism is the rejection not only of the theist god, but also of the deist, pantheist, etc. god. And so, it is not the opposite of theism. The word has been historically assembled as (a+theo)+ism - the "ism" of those who have no "theo"; not as a+(theo+ism), in opposition to theism.

Luís Henrique

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Yeah I'm familiar with that problem.

And the centrists got away with it, recognising the reactionary nature of the Khomeini regime with ten, twenty years' delay, if then. And they're doing it again. Today, of course, they don't support Khomeini, they support Ahmadinejad. They don't support Solidarność, they support loopy religious "dissidents" in Belarus. The names have changed - the shitty politics has stayed the same. And behind the shitty politics is an idiotic, moralistic and paternalist conception of socialism that finds a kindred soul in every lunatic in a frock who makes noises against capitalism - never mind the fact that they usually complain about the progressive aspects of the bourgeois society!


In essence I agree with you about tolerance, but that's not quite what I meant. I was describing what we have attained so far, which is tolerance. Obviously we need to move beyond tolerance, but it would be presumptuous of me to say what that would look like. I'm just trying to describe what has been attained so far, and that includes religious activists in the gay rights movement.

There are also members of the bourgeoisie in the workers' movement - therefore, in perfect analogy with your implicit argument, the bourgeoisie is not hostile to the workers' movement. And that is simply not the case. As materialist, we need to pay attention to the aggregate effect of social structures - the aggregate effect of religion is overwhelmingly negative to LGBT people. And how would it be "presumptuous" to say what lies beyond tolerance? We know that the liberation of LGBT people is the only possible outcome - that, or barbarism, as the case might be.


I don't think being religious is like being a policeman. Religion is not essentially misogynist, homophobic, transphobic etc, religion merely reflects the misogynist, homophobic and transphobic assumptions of society because it is itself often the idealization of social values.

What does it mean for something to be "essentially" this or that? Religion is religion as it exists, and religion is misogynist, homophobic and transphobic by virtue of its role in society - what does it mean that it is not "essentially" misogynist, for example, and how will that essence help a woman in Saudi Arabia, or, indeed, in Italy or the UK?


I don't think the Communist movement should be so ideologically dogmatic. Marx was a particular type of materialist, that doesn't mean that his metaphysics must be accepted as an absolute. After all, Marx was not founding a religion.

And therefore, we do not accept Marxist doctrine on faith. And we recognise that Marx was wrong on a number of issues. That said, the Marxist method is a powerful tool for analysing society in a scientific manner, and dialectical materialism is the only possible basis for that method - unless one wishes to be an eclectic. And eclecticism always ends badly. So why should we dispense with materialism in order to accommodate the religious?


It's a huge assumption that these are mutually exclusive categories. Biology used to have the same loaded religious assumptions but that didn't stop Christians from abandoning that and doing good science. I'm too lazy to go looking for examples in history but there's no reason for religion and class analysis to be mutually exclusive, anymore than being Christian and a good biologist.

Biology had certain religious assumptions - and it did not become a serious science until it dispensed with them. Of course the human capacity to hold contradictory notions in one head is nearly limitless, but what of it? In their practical work, these biologists behaved as if Christianity was not the case. And when biology became a political subject, they retreated into orthogenesis and other idealist, pseudoscientific theories. The class struggle is always a political issue.

And, with due respect, it really isn't my job to find the examples you need - as I said, off the cuff I can't remember a single religious person making serious contributions to class analysis. There have, of course, been religious persons in the workers' movement, like Muste and Weitling, but their contribution has been decidedly negative.


My point is simply that secular leftists can make the same "moralistic" intellectual errors as a religious person. Bebel may have fought homophobic laws and the USSR under Lenin legalized it, but Stalin, Mao and pretty much every other major leader during the early cold war didn't oppose homophobia and, out of their own moralistic reasoning, falsely associated it with "bourgeois" attitudes. This has led to various degenerate Communists like those in the Russian party (which never really abandoned homophobic attitudes) to continue embracing homophobic attitudes, even when others like Castro have long apologized for the enforcement of anti-homosexual laws.

Oh, Castro is an old bureaucrat who was once popular and is feeling his popularity fade as the Cuba craze is nearly over. I would very much be surprised if anything he has said on the subject has been sincere - particularly since his apology mostly consisted of trying to prove he didn't actually do anything, it was all the fault of those other people.

And I really don't see how any of this is relevant. If the irreligious can be homophobic, that does not let the religious, who are homophobic or supportive of homophobic institutions by default, off the hook. Yes, there is a lot of idiocy in atheist circles, and a lot of that needs to be excluded from the ranks of communist militants. But how does that excuse religion?

And you do realise that the KPRF caught the religion bug in the nineties? They combine nostalgia for some imagined Stalinist empire with a religious chauvinism worthy of a Solzhenitsyn.


Homophobia has a materialist base, NOT a religious one, and should be opposed as a secular problem. Homophobia is caused by the ubiquity of heterosexual relations and the way in which those hetero relations are reified. Whether people see that reification as justified in their religion, their class interest, or whatever else is a different issue. On a social level, people's metaphysical beliefs are NOT the cause of homophobia, they are merely used as justification after the fact. This isn't to say that the religious ideologies themselves might hinder change, but they're certainly not the cause of the problem, and going after religion as such won't solve it.

First of all, I think your explanation of homophobia is completely off. It really isn't materialist, since it relies on the ideological notion of "reification". And it doesn't explain the actual development of homophobic and homophilic notions - certainly different-sex relations have been ubiquitous for most of history (and would probably be ubiquitous after queer liberation). Nor does it connect homophobia to the mode of production - to the necessity of the bourgeois family unit, whose maintenance, it seems to me, requires homophobia as a superstructural feature.

And, yes, religious and ideological homophobia is part of the superstructure and is not the ultimate cause of homophobic violence. But it is a cause. Queer people are killed due to religious and similar homophobic impulses; denying the importance of fighting superstructural homophobia until the economic base can be addressed is stupid abstentionism that can only drive the proletariat away.


I don't think the Soviet Union should be given more of a pass on the issue of homosexuality than "religion". Religious homophobia can be explained with the same means as you did in the USSR - "cultural backwardness". Less "culturally backward" religious people aren't homophobic (though the idea of "culturally backward" people is problematic in its own regard).

Did I give the Soviet Union a pass? I specifically noted that the usual anti-rev argument doesn't really hold up, and in fact I think the antirevisionists have never seriously come to terms with that. You can still find homophobic arguments in antirevisionist organs. But my intention was not to strike a factional blow at the antirevs (we Trotskyists also have our fair share of homophobic scum), but to point out the connection between religious influence and social conservatism even in formally atheist states. "Social backwardness" is, I think, actually a useful term. Obviously there are differences between, say, Albania and the former Democratic Germany. But if it is to make sense, it needs to apply to societies in toto.

The "cultural backwardness within religious organisations" explanation of religious homophobia (or misogyny or... I'm making a fairly general point here) doesn't really work since religions are organically backward - they can't but be backward, given their ideological basis and social role.


Again, I agree with your analysis of the term "ally" and the fragmented nature of identity politics, but I am describing the nature of political change to date. To attain a socialist society, yes we need to move beyond "gays" and "straight allies of gays", but obviously we haven't attained a "socialist society" yet and a part of the political struggle of the past 20-30 years has been of this fragmented type. That said, part of my argument is also moving beyond the rhetoric of "secular/atheist" and "religious person", seeing as how the faithless and faithful (and everything in between) can have common class interests regardless of what their metaphysical beliefs or views on the after life might be.

And the class interest of the proletariat includes both destroying religion as part of the apparatus of the bourgeois dictatorship, and promoting a mercilessly scientific and materialist outlook, since that alone can serve the actual material interests of the proletariat.


The social basis of religion is alleviating the suffering of the material world according to Marx. That's not an ahistorical, abstract definition of religion. This is evidenced by the increase in religious fervor during a natural disaster, war, severe social repression etc (and incidentally made the rise of Khomeini you mentioned earlier possible)

The rise of Khomeini was made possible by the failure of communist leadership. And why do people stretch out one semi-Hegelian paragraph of Marx's writing into a full theory of religion? In fact, that paragraph considers the question purely abstractly - it doesn't pose the question of the class character of the clergy, the role of religion in the maintenance of the bourgeois society, the role of official indoctrination in the propagation of religion etc.

I mean, some people probably do turn to religion to "alleviate the suffering of the material world". That doesn't make religion harmless. A bottle of lithium would have much less social externalities.


The Anglican church receives state funds more out of inertia than a real serious commitment of the government to religion.

And the Church being explicitly excluded from legislation about hate speech is also due to inertia? Come on.

[Philo]

His biology I'm not qualified to pronounce a verdict on, but as I understand it the two main controversies he has contributed (significantly) to are

1) The levels and units of selection debates and
2) The role of natural selection in evolution as opposed to other forces like genetic drift, environmental contingency, structural constraints, etc.

And that even if he is wrong, his work here is very important and can't simply be ignored.

His politics, however, are cream-of-the-establishment crop, and his philosophy is horrible. The God Delusion's central argument about improbability is neither valid nor sound, as the philosopher Colin Howson (who is otherwise extremely sympathetic to Dawkins' position, moreso than I!) has pointed out.[1]

[1]Howson, C. 2011. Objecting to God. Cambridge University Press. Howson is a philosopher at the University of Toronto who works mainly on formal epistemology and the foundations of probability, and is most famous for co-authoring a book with Peter Urbach called Scientific Reasoning: The Bayesian Approach, which outlines and argues for a very influential view to which I am not at all sympathetic but is extremely popular in certain reactionary circles.

[Huey Prashker]

I think it is obvious Dawkins has little understanding of how culture influences people's decision-making and how politics functions, likely due to his understandable incompetence there; until recently, he was a scientist only but now, because of the direction he chose to take with his position. The benefactor of his professorship at Harvard wanted the position to be used to promote science actively, and so, since Dawkins sees as the main opposition to science religion, that's what he does. However, I think he often outsteps his boundaries of expertise which is a serious mistake for a a public figure than I can like to make.

[Paul Cockshott]

Here is a defence of Dawkins that addresses many of the points raised here
http://www.salon.com/2013/08/24/richard_dawkins_is_not_an_islamophobe/

[Paul Cockshott]

The rise of Khomeini was made possible by the failure of communist leadership. And why do people stretch out one semi-Hegelian paragraph of Marx's writing into a full theory of religion? In fact, that paragraph considers the question purely abstractly - it doesn't pose the question of the class character of the clergy, the role of religion in the maintenance of the bourgeois society, the role of official indoctrination in the propagation of religion etc.

I mean, some people probably do turn to religion to "alleviate the suffering of the material world". That doesn't make religion harmless. A bottle of lithium would have much less social externalities.

Good points

[TaylorS]

Apart from the New Atheist BS, I consider the "Selfish Gene" paradigm he popularized to be factually incorrect garbage influence by bourgeois ideology. Stephen J. Gould took "Gene-Selectionism" to the cleaners in his massive tome The Structure Of Evolutionary Theory, arguing that natural selection operated on many levels, from genes to organisms to social groups. The late Ernst Mayr also criticized Gene-Selectionism a few times and defended the old orthodoxy he helped establish that natural selection only occurs at the organism level.

IMO it is no coincidence that Gene-Selectionism gained a following in parallel with the rise of Neo-Liberalism. Ditto with the Evolutionary Psychology garbage. "My genes made me do it" is the new way of defending bourgeois dogmas about human nature.

[TaylorS]

Someone please, please, please, tell me that this is not true, that he never wrote such arseholery, that this is a misattribution, that it was another person, some other guy who has the same name, that it was somehow taken out of context in a way that it seems to mean the opposite of what it was actually intended to mean, that it is an outright fabrication... please!

I knew he was a complete idiot, but this is completely beyond the pail, it makes calling him an idiot look as insult to idiots.

Luís HenriqueEspecially insane because one of the giants of late 20th Century physics, Abdus Salam, was a Pakistani Muslim.

[Paul Cockshott]

IMO it is no coincidence that Gene-Selectionism gained a following in parallel with the rise of Neo-Liberalism.
Probably more significant for the life sciences was that it coincided with the rise of anti-biotic resistance in bacteria and particularly the discovery of transferable drug resistance, which can only be explained in terms of gene-selection.

[GerrardWinstanley]

He strangely lacks the kind of dispassionate demeanour you'd expect from a scientist. I absolutely love Private Eye's numerous parodies of him so it's probably safe to say I'm not a fan. But I don't like his arch left-wing nemesis Terry Eagleton much either.

[Sasha]

If anyone needed anymore arguments to shun the disgusting bastard, he is totally down with some "mild" sexual abuse of kids; http://slog.thestranger.com/blogs/slog/mobile/2013/09/10/richard-dawkins-is-cool-with-mild-pedophilia

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Not really. The relevant paragraphs in the interview read:

«He says he’s pleased how things have changed on the harassment front in the past 40 years. But on other occasions when that shifting moral zeitgeist rears its head – as boys, including him, are molested or beaten at his various boarding schools, for instance – he fails to be outraged. One master at his public school, Oundle, he writes, “was prone to fall in love with the prettier boys. He never, as far as we knew, went any further than to put an arm around them in class and make suggestive remarks, but nowadays that would probably be enough to land him in terrible trouble with the police – and tabloid-inflamed vigilantes.”Is he guilty of rationalising bad stuff just because it’s past? “I am very conscious that you can’t condemn people of an earlier era by the standards of ours. Just as we don’t look back at the 18th and 19th centuries and condemn people for racism in the same way as we would condemn a modern person for racism, I look back a few decades to my childhood and see things like caning, like mild paedophilia, and can’t find it in me to condemn it by the same standards as I or anyone would today.”
The mention of paedophilia inevitably brings us to the recent run of arrests of old white men accused of child sex abuse, starting with Jimmy Savile. Has the moral zeitgeist been shifting at their expense? “I think we should acknowledge it. That’s one point… But the other point is that because the most notorious cases of paedophilia involve rape and even murder, and because we attach the label ‘paedophilia’ to the same things when they’re just mild touching up, we must beware of lumping all paedophiles into the same bracket.”
So is there a risk of a metaphorical lynching of well-known people as soon as they’re accused? “I think there is a risk of that.”
What about the child sex abuse scandals that have led to anguished soul-searching and multibillion-dollar payouts in various outposts of Christianity? “Same thing,” he says. “Although I’m no friend of the Church, I think they have become victims of our shifting standards and we do need to apply the conventions of the good historian in dealing with cases which are many decades old.”
In the book, Dawkins mentions one occasion when a teacher put a hand down his trousers at a prep school in Salisbury, and four others at Oundle, when he “had to fend off nocturnal visits to my bed from senior boys much larger and stronger than I was”. The Oundle incidents don’t seem to have bothered him. The prep school one did, but he still can’t bring himself to condemn it, partly because the kind of comparison his adult mind deploys is with the mass murders carried out by Genghis Khan in the 12th century. “Without condoning what was done, at least try to put on the goggles of the period and see it through those eyes,” he says. “I find it much harder to put on those goggles where we’re talking about the monstrous cruelty that went on in past times. It’s hard to think of that and to forgive using modern standards in the same way as it might be for the schoolmaster who touched me up but didn’t actually do me any physical violence.”»


(source (http://www.richarddawkins.net/news_articles/2013/9/7/the-world-according-to-richard-dawkins-the-times#))


Partly, he is talking about his own emotions, which are perfectly irrelevant for political debate, and partly he is assuming a very extreme form of liberal relativism, applied to the past instead of "other cultures".

[Nakidana]

He strangely lacks the kind of dispassionate demeanour you'd expect from a scientist. I absolutely love Private Eye's numerous parodies of him so it's probably safe to say I'm not a fan. But I don't like his arch left-wing nemesis Terry Eagleton much either.

Oh man, would love to read those parodies. All I could find was this:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BRQ9YngCcAAs2y0.jpg:large

:laugh:

[Watermelon Man]

I respect Dawkins as a scientist, and I think that he is a generally good science communicator (i.e. writing general/popular science for laymen). You can debate his ideas, but it seems fairly clear to me that he was/is a talented writer.

But, his grounding in philosophy of religion and his basic knowledge of theology is really not up to scratch for the kind of arch-atheist leader he has styled himself to be. The God Delusion reads like a collection of first-year undergraduate essays. Really, a more useful book would be an edited collection of these same arguments from their original authors. That is, a first-year undergraduate philosophy of religion textbook. His grasp of basic cultural concepts is also, apparently, a bit flimsy.

If Dawkins wants to go on providing an 'antidote' to religion, I think his best bet would be to simply continue on, like he was, as a writer of popular science. His writings on religion itself just don't cut it. I'm all for promoting science and rational thought, but focusing on their opposites and negative referents is counter-productive and will make people think you're just out to pick a fight rather than do anything positive.

There is also the odd matter of his obsession with saying stupid things on Twitter and in the media as though he has somehow earned the right to do so because legions of 15-year old atheists believe he is a rational thinker.

IMHO and all that.

[Sudsy]

I'm an atheist, so I like to hear Richard Dawkins speak on god and religion on purely scientific grounds, but he is conceited. He has dedicated so much into religious debates that it seems he has nothing else to blame modern days issues on. For example, I saw somewhere he was discussing the motive for the perpetrators of 911, and he completely dismissed the whole issue as purely religion. His logic worked like this: They killed because thousands because of Islam: end of story. In an educated dialectical understanding of the issue, we would see that the root cause of this violence goes far beyond religion. I believe religion in this case is only an amplifier of radicalization that is rooted in other deep causes. This arrogance bothered me.

[Ultra-Imperialist]

He is generally correct.

[Wek Goan]

I'm an atheist and I used to be a big fan of him. But now I think he and the other so-called new atheists are actually doing more evil than good. They often miss the point when they accuse religion of being the cause of violence in many modern conflicts. Religion is only a consequence, it's the economy, stupid! What drives people to religious fundamentalism is lack of jobs and hope, bad education, rising prices of food...

Dawkins & co. are actually distracting intelligent people from the real problem. I think the plutocrats that rule the world are pretty fond of them.

--- Sorry if my grammar is a bit off, English is not my native language.

[Creative Destruction]

he's done some important work, but he and the other professional atheists are fucking obnoxious.

[Watermelon Man]

Dawkins & co. are actually distracting intelligent people from the real problem. I think the plutocrats that rule the world are pretty fond of them.

I wonder, though, if these people were ever that intelligent in the first place if they uncritically latch on to every one of Dawkins' utterances. It's a kind of fundamentalism for people who think they're clever, I suppose.

And +1 on religion as a result of economic conditions. Cultural hegemony and all that.

[argeiphontes]

And +1 on religion as a result of economic conditions.

What are the economic conditions that result in shamanism, animism, and other Natural Religions, and how would those conditions create those religions?

+1 to the rest of your post, though, Dawkins is an idiot that has a very simplistic understanding of religion, if he's not being disingenuous to sell books and appear on TV by taking advantage of scientistic sentiments.