comelately
Wild Horses
Yeah of course. But I assume that this is related to one of those surveys that demonstrates that Christians tend to know less about the actual important bits of their religion than atheists. The example of the order of the gospels is an unfortunate one I'd say.
Well the man on the Clapham omnibus is scarcely more likely to end up like Eagleton is he?
This depends on a misunderstanding (or at least a difference in application) of the word "fact". I take it to be a true state of the world, I think you are using the definition of a fact as a provably true statement. There either is or isn't a God - one of those things is the true state of the universe, one isn't (and one of them is therefore, I'd say, the fact of the matter). However this will probably never be definitively proven one way or another. The definition of a fact as a provably true statement says that there is thus no fact of the matter on this kind of question - and I have no problem with that, it's just that it stops too early. Call what I'm talking about fact* perhaps, I don't think you would deny that God either does or doesn't exist - maybe you would, Eagleton kind of does I guess.
You said that the left-wing critique of Dawkins stems from the idea that he is pushing people towards a darker place, I'm asking why on earth they think that.
OK, let me put it this way. Eagleton is an old leftie, you said that Dawkins' arguments are likely going to force people to think like Eagleton. Why should the left have a problem with this?
Not sure I understand this. I'm saying that Dawkins thinks that religion is a lie. I happen to think he's pretty much right and he's trying to expose this lie. Are you saying that because he's doing this in a capitalist society it will lead to more capitalism and so he shouldn't do it?
Forget Eagleton, he's not relevant here - that's my mistake. He's another ageing academic who has lived a life in academia.
I find your definition of fact as true state of the world to be as empty as the definition of God as 'the mysterious'. They are both reliant on existential demands that cannot be satisfied. Thus I find the idea of it being a fact that God exists or does not exist to be slightly odd.
To repeat, religious institutions emphasise oneness and altruism in a way that market-based solutions to those same problems cannot and do not. The market emphasises existential freedom in the face of all evidence and common sense. Dawkins has no way of making the problems that religion addresses go away. Obviously he thinks the cure is worse than the disease, but the choice is not between the cure and the disease - it's between cures and a left-wing critique is to suggest that this will ultimately lead to bigger problems. Some Marxists might see that as a good thing, so I'm not sure I would suggest that Dawkins should or shouldn't do what he is doing. Should Tesco have the unemployed do 'work experience' at their supermarkets? Some Marxists might suggest that they are bravely showing the true face of capitalism.
Nonetheless, what I suppose I am saying is that capitalist reduction of altruism to self-referentialism changes the way that altruism manifests itself and that this reduces the possibility of genuine long-term restructuring of society in a way that protects the long-term future of what we would broadly judge to be liberal freedoms.
I am not suggesting that this critique is problem free. But being 'against lies' is not as sustainable a moral position as it initially might seem.