Re: Dawkins on Channel 4 tonight

From: Derek Gatherer (d.gatherer@vir.gla.ac.uk)
Date: Mon 16 Jan 2006 - 16:27:22 GMT

  • Next message: Richard Brodie: "RE: Dawkins on Channel 4 tonight"

    At 16:04 16/01/2006, Kate wrote:

    >This is true of the meme of "faith" as defined by Dawkins: faith as
    >belief-without-evidence. But no serious Christian writer would
    >accept this definition. I don't know where he's got it from. It is
    >one of the straw men he's so keen on fighting (see Derek's point
    >about his reluctance to engage with McGrath).

    I think it's fairly obvious where he got it from - those scary people he was interviewing last week, and others of their ilk. It really boils down to what constitutes a "serious [enter school of thought] writer". I agree entirely that the tele-evangelists don't constitute anything serious in an academic sense. But Dawkins would probably say anybody who has conference calls (so the guy claims) with GW Bush has to be taken seriously. Debating the finer points of Barth or Tillich and how they might relate to a Popperian conception of knowledge is all good stuff, but let's wake up and smell the coffee: evolution is about to be removed from the curriculum if the tele-man and his friends have their way (and I dare say Tillich and Barth are also a little further down his list for removal too....). Of course, this is not a with-us-or-against-us scenario, or at least it shouldn't be. Perhaps Dawkins does tend to tar (and even feather) all from the same brush, but if the liberal theologians were to be more publicly visible in their opposition to the bibiolators (it is heresy after all, all CAMP - ie Catholic, Anglican, Mainstream Protestant - churches agree on that don't they?), then it would be more difficult for Dawkins to allege that "you're all the same".

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