Monday, March 17, 2008
Gray Demolishes the God-Bothered Atheists
I am a little late in directing you to this article by John Gray. For some reason, John is persistently misunderstood by those who should be most inclined to agree with him. One recent American attack on him - I will not link to it - was so blind to the fact that the writer probably agreed with Gray that it seemed like a desperate act of self-wounding. In the case of this long Guardian article, his absolute demolition of the case of the militant atheists - Dawkins etc - should be read, in part, as a way of understanding the way his mind works. It's a wild ride inside the Gray head if you can just drop the attitude before you dive in.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
Another book about religion and I haven't finished the first one yet!
ReplyDeleteI know, Ian, it's so hard to keep up with the God thing. But this is just a long article by Gray, no more than a couple of weeks work.
ReplyDeleteOverall I agree with him, that religion in the west is becoming more visible and that those on the other side are becoming a little shrill. But he does not make clear that there is a very real difference between the what was going on as religion and to-day. That Religion in most areas is no longer seen as one and the same with the establishment. Where people were dependent for their very lives on attendance. And when that grip was broken, the entire left wing of the Church and most of the right, vanished. The real difference to-day, is that those who attend are doing so willingly and the days when a churchman/woman could dictate rather than guide are gone. And with that disapparence most of the subversive clout evaporated from the atheists.
ReplyDeleteI like this, "It is a funny sort of humanism that condemns an impulse that is peculiarly human."
ReplyDeleteAnd a Happy Saint Patrick's day to you and all.
ReplyDeleteAt a tangent - the most effective of Pullmans work is anti-clerical in reality which as Vince says is pretty dated as a thing that needs to be done...
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThe impression is that Gray stands back and shows how both sides go round and round in circles, gripped by deep and powerful currents they do not recognize. But since we are all human, and all here, I wonder if it is possible to step aside in this way. There are currents that tug on Gray. He gives us a human circus full of grotesque and downright unpleasant characters but perhaps this is no more a true portrait than anything else. Gray sees too much of the bad in us and not enough of the good.
ReplyDeleteStill, maybe it is possible to resign from the whole gig, in favour of a quiet and unassuming life. I love what Martin Rowson said in a recent edition of the Speccie: "As to heaven, I'm with the great English irrationalist and absenteeist musician Syd Barrett, who, days before he died in the summer of 2006, was asked by his sister what he thought about God and the afterlife. 'Do you know,' he's reported to have replied, 'it never occurred to me.'"
Yes, I read this one on Saturday. Broadly I agree with Gray, but I did notice that his introductory remarks (that Dawkins, Hitchens and Dennett are suddenly selling in record numbers) and his conclusion (that Dawkins, Hitchens and Dennett are being left behind by the zeitgeist) appear to be in direct contradiction with each other.
ReplyDeletemilitant atheists...?
ReplyDelete...something of an oxymoron, it seems to me!
Or as Bertrand Russell once said: no one would proclaim with fervour that 5 and 5 equals 10.
D.
If we cast a glance across human history, we see that humans have a tendency to engage in violence, murder, genocide and general war-like behaviour. These impulses, then, are also peculiarly human. Moral systems attempt to define the way that humans should behave, not the way they actually do behave, so one would expect a moral system to condemn certain impulses, even if they are peculiarly human.
ReplyDeleteWhilst Dennett does indeed foolishly predict the decline of religion, Gray seems to conflate prescription and prediction: many humanists do not predict the fall of religion, they merely prescribe it as a good thing.
But,
ReplyDelete''John Gray's Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia will be out in paperback in April (Penguin)''
I mean, I'm grateful to the church for removing several of the gospels - Paul's, Mary's and some other chap's I can't recall. But I don't know why they just didn't edit the whole thing smaller. Maybe I'll get the audio version for the car.
Bryan, I don't suppose you have read the comments underneath his piece, have you? It is now up to about 300 and producing enough vitriol to keep Haywards pickling onions for another century.
ReplyDeleteOh, and you'll love the fact that most of the commentators, whilst proving his point, preface it with something along the lines of: "this is a typical piece of religious fundamentalist..............." Beyond satire.
If religion died away all that would be left is a souless hedonistic shithole with people like Grayling stumped for anything to write about. On the bright side Peter Hitchens and Melanie Phillips would have less influence.
ReplyDeleteInteresting survey from Theos apparently showing that 57% of British people believe that Jesus was crucified and rose from the dead. 13% think he never existed and 26% are atheists.
ReplyDeleteIt is difficult to dispute Theos' comment that:
"The opinions of atheists are especially interesting."
- 7% of them think Jesus was the son of God.
(Another name for atheists is 'rationalist'.)
Pete B
Morality as Aphrodisiac - Morality has hardly made us better people; but it has certainly enriched our vices. J. Gray.
ReplyDeleteI like that. I like John Gray. Almost instinctively. I agree with his point about there being progress in knowledge but very little, if any, in ethics. When people talk about progress they do tend to forget about this crucial aspect of the whole thing. Our faith in progress does seem to hinge on a belief, whether it is acknowledged or not, that we are somehow perfectible. Alas, I fear we are not only not perfectible, it is perfectly clear most of us don't care one way or the other. I find that more worrying, I think.
Militant atheists? The novelty has worn off now and they have become rather tiresome. That said, they haven't put me off atheism. I'm in it for the long haul.
'AC' Grayling is undermined by his hair, that, ' ' and that fact that he is named after a beautiful fish smelling of thyme.
ReplyDeleteToo refined and slippery for me.
- and if AC went DC he may get through to God instead of playing hide-and-seek with Him with clever-arsed logic!
ReplyDeleteEel man myself.
ReplyDeleteHe-he! I'll have last word wi miself if it kills me!
ReplyDeleteTrouble with Dawkins et al is that they seem to lack that imagination to be struck dumb by the sheer fact of existence. No matter what Dawkins says about bumble bees they seem to take the whole show for granted. I - don't - get - this. Evolution is not going to be an explanation and his comment that 'what cosmology needs is its Darwin' is phenomenally narrow-minded.
If you don't start from this position, this awestruck, on-your-knees, almost weepy flabbergastedness you're not even there! (Wittgenstein*)
They're prisoners without being able to see the prison, Truman without knowing the show.
*And in response to Witt's 'Why is there something rather than nothing?' Dawkins has come out with, 'Well why not?'. Fantastically limited!
A good Jewish blogging pal of mine once pegged this modern angry theism as a Christian heresy and I think Gray would agree. All their beloved tenets of the Enlightenment--progress, free will, conscience, human dignity and equality, naturalism and even scientific inquiry were built on Judeo-Christianity and would have been impossible without it, which is why they have never really taken hold elsewhere. Far from being a polar opposite of faith, at a day-to-day level the creed of Dawkins, Hitchens & co.is basically Christianity without the "Thou shalt not." But then, so is much modern Christianity.
ReplyDeleteA great piece that - no wonder the comenters are in a lather...
ReplyDelete"Trouble with Dawkins et al is that they seem to lack that imagination to be struck dumb by the sheer fact of existence."
ReplyDeleteI don't understand this snakepit. The trouble with Dawkins et al is that they don't take it all for granted. Rather than falling to their knees proclaiming undying love and respect for an ineffable idea they go and try to find out why. Dawkins is more awe struk with the majesty of life than any creationist. Here's a quote from Dawkins that goes someway to explaining that.
"We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die, because they are never going to be born. The number of people who could be here in my place outnumbers the sand grains of Sahara. If you think about all the different ways our genes could be permuted, you and I are quite grotesquely lucky to be here: the number of events that had to happen in order for you to exist, in order for me to exist. We are privileged to be alive and we should make the most of our time on this world."
Anon:
ReplyDelete"We are privileged to be alive and we should make the most of our time on this world."
If life is all accident and happenstance, surely this is just plain weird. Perhaps we should sacrifice a goat to common descent when our numbers come up in Vegas. This is dear old Aunty Richard telling us to count our blessings before heading off to work another day in the mines. I vote we pummel the little prig before heading out for a good piss-up with the birds.
I meant the greater existence, the whole shebang, not just the mere luck of mine.
ReplyDeleteLife need not be about finding out. My mum, grandma, dad, grandad did not waste their lives because they were not doing science.
Sorry Peter, you're accusing Dawkins of patronising the plebs so that they'll be happy with their lot. The Dawkins who says 'don't listen to the church think for yourself'.
ReplyDeleteSnakepit, so does he. Grays arguments in the article linked are fairly poor and some stem from a complete misunderstanding of this. Awe and wonder don't lead to the God did it answer. Blind following of ancient myths leads us there.
CW
I'm not having the last word on this one. I've noticed it's been happening too often in one guise or another.
ReplyDeleteYes, Gray's article was brilliant, and as others have noted, it is no wonder the usual suspects are wailing impotently. AC Grayling's riposte was positively infantile (I won't link to it). Still the comment thread does prove Gray's point.
ReplyDeleteAnon:
ReplyDeleteInto awe and wonder this week, are we? Among the many charms of the modern atheist is his insistence that, while faith is the direct and exclusive source of bad things like intolerance, bigotry, priggishness, know-nothingism and a host of pyschological disorders the enlightened secularist is spared, atheism is every bit as good at delivering the beneficient things like morality, brotherly love and now awe and wonder. Obviously a win-win philosophy all around. I'm just waiting for you folks to insist indignantly that you are every bit as reverent as the believers.
Ruined mi final flourish you 'av!
ReplyDelete