Steve, Mark,
Mark said:
>From my readings of Dawkins, who I find entertaining in his dismissiveness of
>that which he does not comprehend, he is not open to change or challenge. I
>know, not very becoming of that noble profession of Scientist... If you have
>data to the contrary, I am most interested to read it. It would certainl
>improve my opinion of this guy.
Steve said:
What is it about religion that Dawkins does not understand?
What would you say to someone who says that you dismiss witchcraft without
really understanding it?
For Dawkins, being an expert on theology is something like being an expert in
Dungeons and Dragons. Can you explain the difference?
Matt:
I think Mark's right that Dawkins isn't "open to change or challenge," but
Steve's right, too: what are we talking about here? Do most of us _really_
understand Nazism, or do we basically get on fine dismissing it? Understanding
the nuances of the difference of these kinds of differences of dismissal
(yikes, that's a convoluted thought), is a step to understanding Dawkins and
what we should care about in him.
I find Dawkins' screeds on religion boring, and useless for my purposes. But
Steve's right: from his perspective, "being an expert on theology is something
like being an expert in Dungeons and Dragons"--except that these D&D players
will kill you occasionally for not playing by the rules. The trouble I have
with Dawkins is that, after distilling him down to that short thought, there
isn't a lot left in him. It's basically a repetition of that thought. Which
is fine for what it is, I guess, except he exacerbates already hot situations
and can make good dialogue disappear.
But take Daniel Dennett's recent book on religion, Breaking the Spell. Dennett
has a shit-ton of interesting things to say about religion. But man, you read
that preface of his where he says he wrote his book out of a desire to reach
out and really understand religious believers, and you just gotta' go,
"Oooo--you didn't. Sorry." Dennett has tin ear. He's a lot more useful in
thinking about religion than Dawkins, but I don't think Dennett understands it
either. The trouble, I think, is that Dawkins and Dennett want to _only_
understand religion from the outside, from the third-person perspective, but if
you don't reach for the first-person perspective of a true believer, than your
attempt at rapprochement is going to fall flat. Dawkins isn't trying to reach
a rapprochement--he's an explicit idealogue. When Dennett fails, it is only in
what he thought he was doing. He was not lending as much aid to good dialogue
as he apparently thought he was.
Both Mark and Steve are right about the parity in "man-madeness" of God,
Quality, and reality generally. The only thing someone like Dawkins woud add
(and this is not what Dawkins would say) is that we cannot simply abstract away
from history and forget how good-meaning Christians can be manipulated by
power-mad assholes like Pat Robertson. The difference between D&D and
Christianity is that no one is able to convince D&D players to go out and kill
people who don't play D&D. But some people have built their careers on
toggling that switch in Christians, still today.
Matt
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