Below are a few of my favorite portions, but I definitely encourage you to read the whole thing.
On the religious connection to 9-11:
PLAYBOY: You blame 9/11 on belief in the afterlife.
DAWKINS: Yes. Normally when an aircraft is hijacked, there’s an assumption that the hijackers want to go on living. It changes the game if the hijackers look forward to death because it will get them into the best part of paradise.
PLAYBOY: You mean the part with the 72 virgins the Koran says await martyrs.
DAWKINS: Right. Young men who are too unattractive to get a woman in the real world go for the ones in paradise. But my point is these people really believe what they say they believe, whereas most Christians don’t. If you talk to dying Christians, they aren’t looking forward to it.
On death and despair:
PLAYBOY: What will happen when you die?
DAWKINS: Well, I shall either be buried or be cremated.
PLAYBOY: Funny. But without faith in an afterlife, in what do you take comfort in times of despair?
DAWKINS: Human love and companionship. But in more thoughtful, cerebral moments, I take—comfort is not quite the right word, but I draw strength from reflecting on what a privilege it is to be alive and what a privilege it is to have a brain that’s capable in its limited way of understanding why I exist and of reveling in the beauty of the world and the beauty of the products of evolution. The magnificence of the universe and the sense of smallness that gives us in space and in geologically deep time is humbling but in a strangely comforting way. It’s nice to feel you’re part of a hugely bigger picture.
On the idea of America as a Christian nation and the connection between morals and religion:
PLAYBOY: We hear constantly that America is a Christian nation and that the founding fathers were all Christians.
DAWKINS: They were deists. They didn’t believe in a personal god, or one who interferes in human affairs. And they were adamant that they did not want to found the United States as a Christian nation.
PLAYBOY: But you hear quite often that if you let atheists run things you end up with Hitler and Stalin.
DAWKINS: Hitler wasn’t an atheist; he was a Roman Catholic. But I don’t care what he was. There is no logical connection between atheism and doing bad things, nor good things for that matter. It’s a philosophical belief about the absence of a creative intelligence in the world. Anybody who thinks you need religion in order to be good is being good for the wrong reason. I’d rather be good for moral reasons. Morals were here before religion, and morals change rather rapidly in spite of religion. Even people who rely on the Bible use nonbiblical criteria. If your criteria are scriptural, you have no basis for choosing the verse that says turn the other cheek rather than the verse that says stone people to death. So you pick and choose without guidance from the Bible.
On the future of America, reason, and Sarah Palin:
PLAYBOY: Do you get discouraged by the continuing attacks on reason?
DAWKINS: No. I go on the internet quite a lot and read what young people are saying. I see a great upsurge of good sense, rationality, irreverence. America is split into halves. There’s the Sarah Palin know-nothing idiots on the one hand, and then there’s a huge number of intellectual, intelligent, educated people on the other. I find it hard to believe that the Stone Age types are going to win in the end. An awful lot of people who call themselves religious simply don’t know there’s any alternative. If you probe what they believe, it turns out to be pretty much the same—we all have a sense of wonder and reverence at the majesty of the universe.
"The Sarah Palin know-nothing idiots," oh I know them well.
Like I said the entire interview is well worth your time to read. Of course I am a big fan of Dawkins so my opinion may be considered somewhat prejudiced.
No peaceful or scenic or galactic wonder but instead thoughtful dialogue. OK for this nightowl. AlaskaSundog says "Thanks" .
ReplyDeleteLeaving aside for a moment Dawkins' reference to an "afterlife" it seems to me he blames 9/11 on a bunch of guys' inability to get laid- the "afterlife" in this case could just as well be some bar where they could get chicks.
ReplyDeleteYet, the notion of an "afterlife", which some (myself included) consider, in its most basic sense, to refer to life after us- as in there will be life for those still living, after I die- is, as Jung would argue, a deeply entrenched, variously described, archetype. Just as parents might use a child's faith in Santa or the Tooth Fairy to elicit desired behavior from that child, others use faith in an afterlife of paradise to elicit desired behavior from, in this case, terrorists. Who should be blamed? the believer, the faith-object itself, or the person who uses the believers faith?
Moving along, but using Dawkins' logic, was it not Hitler's (albeit horribly misunderstood) faith in Darwin's views that led to the pogroms on Jews and sterilization of the mentally incompetent- the desire to create a "master race"? For my part, I don't view the theory of evolution as causal in Hitler's policies any more than I blame the German language as causal for Nazi atrocities.
Theories, beliefs, and languages are, in a sense, tools- in some cases very powerful tools. Like knowledge of nuclear physics both great good and great ill can be created thereby. How we use them is up to us.
ps many people kill for money, should we then remove money from our culture?
Perhaps I was unclear, I prefaced the Darwinism as cause statement with "using Dawkins' logic"- a logical inference with which I disagree. I too suspect Hitler was motivated by, inter alia, more practical issues, like money and a cynicism prevalent in many politicians which allows them to "ride popular waves of discontent" to their often horrific conclusions, regardless of the politicians' actual beliefs.
DeleteI wonder how many Inquisitors in Europe were truly motivated by faith, or were material concerns more decisive inspirations.
Hit ler was not motivated by Darwinism.If anything,it was a reverse Darwinism.Rather than a belief that natural selection was evolving humans to a better race,he believed that the original form of Aryans was perfect,and must be kept pure.In fact,he was the ultimate embodiment of an Ayn Rand hero.He was able to motivate people with his speeches playing to the fears and beliefs of the people of his time.Sound familiar?His struggle with the fact his own bloodline was not pure helped push him over the edge mentally.All of that experimenting with Jewish mothers,infants,twins?Maybe he was really looking for a way to purify himself.Then of course encouraging the public to vilify a group of people as the cause of all of their problems(sound familiar?)helped make him their godlike leader,let the gov take their wealth to support his craziness,gave his people a reason to feel superior.When the cash was not enough,he added more to that list,Jews,Gays,artists, musicians,bankers,etc.If not for his defeat,by the time he was done the list would have included all but his inner circle.
Delete@anon10:48... you narrowed it down to the nutshell. Thanks.
DeleteMr. Dawkins just made me feel a little less alone in my sense that I'm good for the sake of morality, rather than how it is mandated through a rigid, arbitrary and capricious element that are lock-step in their cornering the market of what makes a person good.
ReplyDeleteSome of the best people I know are atheists.
DeleteSome of the worst people I know go to church every week.
As William James argued 100 years ago, it isn't WHY people do what they do (which is always a tricky issue to unravel ex post facto), but THAT they do what they do. If faith in God, or rejection of the notion leads one to help rather than hurt themselves and others then the faith or the rejection thereof are positive...and vice versa.
DeleteThe Ongees of Andaman Island share an animist religion which served them well when the Tsunami struck a few years back. Some diligent students of earth science were equally able to see the coming danger and act on their understanding. Measured by the effect in that event, both the myth and the science "worked".
Speaking of Palin, this headline is a winner:
ReplyDelete"Palin Reacts to Akin Flap With Bizarre Disconnected Rant"
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/40793_Palin_Reacts_to_Akin_Flap_With_Bizarre_Disconnected_Rant
Wowie-ka-ZOWie!
DeleteThat was a bizarre, incoherent rant.
I said a couple of years ago, right here at the IM, that Sarah is going to end up in a rubber room shouting at shadows and boy, howdy, she certainly seems to be careening off that cliff.
wow.
"Pink Unicorns" - RAtIO
ReplyDeleteThey don't know what they're saying.
They don't know where they're going.
Won't stop them dragging us along.
Why can't we all just follow?
Where to? Well no one quite knows.
So they just call it salvation.
I don't believe in gnomes,
not fairies or dragons.
There are a million things
I have no reason for believing in.
No more believe in gods,
than in pink unicorns.
There are a million things
I don't believe are there.
It is an institution
I don't want to be involved in.
It seeks to reach into our minds.
Inject a deadly toxin.
Stop us from freely thinking.
It's how religions are designed.
In my head, it is clear.
Consider what I like.
Breathe the fresh air.
There's not a lie or prayer in sight.
Cherish the universe
and marvel at it's simple elegance.
Or stay up thinking half the night.
I don't believe in gnomes,
not fairies or dragons.
There are a million things
I have no reason for believing in.
No more believe in gods,
than in pink unicorns.
There are a million things
I don't believe are there.
http://www.soundclick.com/player/single_player.cfm?songid=5632331&q=hi&newref=1
Good post, Gryphen. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteThe kids are alright. A majority of them, anyway. I have hope for their future, if they can just outlive the rape of the planet our generation of hateful, greedy, stupid people are inflicting upon mankind.
ReplyDelete@anon 7:28... you said it well and I thank you.
ReplyDeletethat was a good interview gryphen, thanks for posting.
ReplyDeleteGod bless Richard Dawkins!
ReplyDelete(couldnt resist...)
I really enjoyed the interview. Playboy asked all the right questions to allow this man's outlook on life come through. Reading it made me feel that someone understands how I feel.
ReplyDeleteThe anecdote about Julia Sweeney's mother reacting to her revelation that she's an atheist hit home -I can understand the not believing in God part, but an Atheist? IT sounds similar to my own mother.