He did the opposite. That's why he spoke specially about being 'culturally' Christian and said he was pleased that actual belief in Christianity has declined. You are talking about the man that wrote 'The God Delusion'. A book that specifically takes aim at Christianity for scathing criticism.
I think there is also a misleading sleight of hand in comparing Christian 'theocracies' with 'majority-Muslim societies'. The more accurate comparison would be to compare Christian theocracies with countries imposing Shariah. Of which none of them are peaceful.
In 2024, Islam is clearly a bigger problem by every objective measure. It shouldn't be controversial to point that out.
Using the phrase "cultural Christianity" is quite literally mixing the two up.
His attempt to argue that the Koran is harder on women than the Old and New testaments is an example. Both of them are very, very bad on women's rights.
The reasons that modern Britain, for example, treats women much better than the Bible tells them to, whereas in Saudi Arabia the contrast is not nearly so large between what they do and what the Koran tells them to do, is about culture. Not religion.
I think he's just trying to do 2 things at once with his narrative here -
1) Pointing out the common ground between atheists and theists who live together in the same culture and
2) Expressing his preference for Western culture, which happens to be majority-Christian.
Doing both at the same time without being very, very clear which aspects of culture you're talking about and not talking about is begging, absolutely BEGGING for an accusation of religious bigotry. He wasn't clear enough.
To put it a different way, he's worried about 6,000 new mosques because of the culture of origin of the people building and attending them. Not just the religion of origin. But he phrased his concern only in terms of religion. That implies that he thinks it's driven only by religion, but I don't think he intended to imply that.
First, I think of my views as “realism”, not “atheism” as in “imaginary creatures categorically don’t exist - gods, leprechauns and ghosts don’t exist”. The concept of not believing in a god is moot since I know the category is a fiction, like the X-Men or Astrology.
If culture is bonded with religion, then what culture does “atheism” derive from? The paradox is that atheism requiress Christianity or Islam to exist because it exists in opposition, so all atheism requires a religious culture as context. That’s the paradox - atheism is a religious belief - god doesn’t exist.
There is nothing inconsistent with Dawkins or anyone saying that they are atheist and prefer Christianity. An opposition religion is required.
For it to be bigoted, I think it would need to be on the basis of defending his preference by claiming features of Islam which are false, and prejudicial.
Europe is developing a "realist" culture which contains religion as a type of entertainment with history. To that degee cultural behaviors which don't suit a 'realist' world or entertainment, and parallel legal structure, those are a problem.
Cartoons, decollete, alcohol, and same-sex marriage are part of realist culture, neither christian nor Islamic. Sin, the soul, the sacred and profane are christian and Islamic. The religious culture which has the strongest fictions about sin, the soul, the sacred and profane will create the most struggle to fit in to the realist world.
Dawkings seems bound up in some degree of cultural relativism due to his biding to Christianity to speak to atheism.
I'm 71 and that made sense, thank you.
wonderful post
He's confusing culture with religion, he should know better.
Religion is used to justify and rationalize purely human motives, he knows this better than anyone.
There have been violent, repressive Christian theocracies and peaceful majority-Muslim societies.
Religion is a small part of culture.
He did the opposite. That's why he spoke specially about being 'culturally' Christian and said he was pleased that actual belief in Christianity has declined. You are talking about the man that wrote 'The God Delusion'. A book that specifically takes aim at Christianity for scathing criticism.
I think there is also a misleading sleight of hand in comparing Christian 'theocracies' with 'majority-Muslim societies'. The more accurate comparison would be to compare Christian theocracies with countries imposing Shariah. Of which none of them are peaceful.
In 2024, Islam is clearly a bigger problem by every objective measure. It shouldn't be controversial to point that out.
I don't believe Dawkins is confusing anything
Using the phrase "cultural Christianity" is quite literally mixing the two up.
His attempt to argue that the Koran is harder on women than the Old and New testaments is an example. Both of them are very, very bad on women's rights.
The reasons that modern Britain, for example, treats women much better than the Bible tells them to, whereas in Saudi Arabia the contrast is not nearly so large between what they do and what the Koran tells them to do, is about culture. Not religion.
I think he's just trying to do 2 things at once with his narrative here -
1) Pointing out the common ground between atheists and theists who live together in the same culture and
2) Expressing his preference for Western culture, which happens to be majority-Christian.
Doing both at the same time without being very, very clear which aspects of culture you're talking about and not talking about is begging, absolutely BEGGING for an accusation of religious bigotry. He wasn't clear enough.
To put it a different way, he's worried about 6,000 new mosques because of the culture of origin of the people building and attending them. Not just the religion of origin. But he phrased his concern only in terms of religion. That implies that he thinks it's driven only by religion, but I don't think he intended to imply that.
I completely disagree. You cannot draw a line of separation between culture and religion when many cultures are entirely informed by their religion.
Not all religious doctrines are the same. I think it's perfectly credible to objectively argue that Islamic doctrine is far worse for many reasons.
And he did mention specific aspects of the culture he means (churches, hymns etc).
Not sure how it can intelligently argued it's 'bigotry' to prefer one set of ideas over another
OK, your own opinion is that the culture IS about the religion. I've already made my argument against that.
But are you arguing that he is agreeing with you here? I don't know if you saw my last edit before your most recent response.
There seems to be a paradox.
First, I think of my views as “realism”, not “atheism” as in “imaginary creatures categorically don’t exist - gods, leprechauns and ghosts don’t exist”. The concept of not believing in a god is moot since I know the category is a fiction, like the X-Men or Astrology.
If culture is bonded with religion, then what culture does “atheism” derive from? The paradox is that atheism requiress Christianity or Islam to exist because it exists in opposition, so all atheism requires a religious culture as context. That’s the paradox - atheism is a religious belief - god doesn’t exist.
There is nothing inconsistent with Dawkins or anyone saying that they are atheist and prefer Christianity. An opposition religion is required.
For it to be bigoted, I think it would need to be on the basis of defending his preference by claiming features of Islam which are false, and prejudicial.
Europe is developing a "realist" culture which contains religion as a type of entertainment with history. To that degee cultural behaviors which don't suit a 'realist' world or entertainment, and parallel legal structure, those are a problem.
Cartoons, decollete, alcohol, and same-sex marriage are part of realist culture, neither christian nor Islamic. Sin, the soul, the sacred and profane are christian and Islamic. The religious culture which has the strongest fictions about sin, the soul, the sacred and profane will create the most struggle to fit in to the realist world.
Dawkings seems bound up in some degree of cultural relativism due to his biding to Christianity to speak to atheism.