Richard Dawkins & God Delusion

jack, i think the rise of radical islam and evangelical christianity is dangerous and I do think they threaten secularism, just as fascism threatened many bourgeois liberal values, however in order to resist fascism it is necessary to resist bourgeois society, seeing it as the Dr Jekyll it contains within itself.
radical islam and evangelical christianity are almost postmodern forms of fascism, they generally do not seek to challenge in a directly politcal manner on the terms of the old paradigm of class or nation but rather work in terms of "civil society", charities, schools and even hospitals, using the very networks and nodes of "liberalism" to assert themselves. Hence the creationists make their own schools under a liberal banner of "choice", "respect" and "human rights", and the islamists seek their own schools on the basis of "multiculturalism", "identity" and "difference".

It might have been on the Dawkin's program (or possible another one with Rod Liddle ), but it was quite funny listening to some kids talk about how they were taught creationism in one of these academies. "Now that is how the world was created, but if they ask on the exam you should put down some stuff about the big bang and evolution instead, otherwise we'll do badly in the league tables."

probably lol

I didn't mean either was worse. What i meant was that in the US for example, it is clear that the careers of secular liberal acadmic and politicians depend on the existence of creationist nutcases to point a finger at, and vice versa.

So while i might find your average creationist loony tune more objectionable on a personal level, regarding them as the greater of the two evils is a little flawed.

he wasn't talking to you, that was Jack's critique of religion

i'm sure revol will dig out zizek's point on the intertwined nature of tolerant secular liberalism and fundamentalist religion in a minute ... (good stuff)

Damn you're good sometimes 8)

ugh i just saw that, and wished i hadn't, bet he's well happy he's 'outselling the bible' ...

Yeah but a Marx got his sums abit wrong and in his typical whiggish manner imagined that unslaught of the commodity would lay bare all mysticism, and so the role of communism was merely to step in and to give back some soul to a soulless world.

The problem with this is that it overlooks how religion has adopted to the rule of commodities and how it is not merely a neutral sigh but rather a sigh that is co opted and twisted into a powerful means of social control.

I think it's interesting that we have loads of anarchists going on about anti fascism and stamping down on any sniff of it, depsite it not exactly having any chance of realising itself, yet you think radical islam isn't a concern, depsite the fact it actually has more influence and power than fascism.

Now it would clearly be fucking idiotic for a bunch of white anti fascists to go marching into a Bradford mosque and start kicking the fuck out of people, but at the same time we should extend our support to all those within the "muslim" (for lack of a better term) community who are resisting the zealots. They not represent much of a direct threat to the rest of society, but they do directly oppress women and homosexuals in their own "communities", not to mention the barriers they raise and how this undermines class unity or even the potential for class struggle as it is directed into sectarian identity politics.

WORD.

I didn't like him much either, but thank fuck someone that well regarded and l;iberal actually sees it as important to do this kind of thing rathter than the usual shitty 'tolerance' which is really idleness.

I was slagging him off a bit after watching the program for being a bit of a beardy type (you know the type) and my dad was just like - So?!

Obv. we'd all prefer someone without a fruity voice and liberal politics, but so.

How exactly do you aim to support those from pakistani and bangladeshi communities who are engaged against political islam? Not saying its a bad idea in theory, but like practically what does it amount to?
Given that a lot of the islamic clerics power is based on the notion that theyre under racial and cultural attack from perceived 'outsiders' and the current administration, how would you work around this to somehow directly confront islam.

I doubt it'll "out-sell" the bible haha. According to the Guiness Book of Records the Bible is the best selling book of all-time, probably cos it's non-copyright or someshit.

Actually there are significant moves by the religious right to plant this shite in the science curriculum here in NI and in England, something which would have found abhorrent when I was teaching science. Inteligent Design is essetially creationism modified to sound scientific to suit the religious right's attempts to further their agenda in schools.

http://www.truthinscience.co.uk - this group recently sent a pack to every school in England discussing ways of incorporating intelligent design into science lesson (despite it not being remotely scientific).

Rod Liddle's documentary "The New Fundamentalists" (there's a torrent for it somewhere), while a tad weak and emotive in his arguments, showed a number of independent christian schools in England teaching this shit to kids as a way of explaining the world. This opens the door for all sorts of warped interpretations of what science is. "WEll all theories are valid etc etc" - no they fucking aren't!!! Some things have lots of evidence to support them and help us understand our world and our condition, others have zero evidence in their support and explain fuck all.

And as I mentioned earlier, the DUP's David Simpson made a House of Commons approach relating to what he deems child abuse by schools that do not allow evangelical parents to take thier kids out of lessons teaching evolution. jesus fuck! "MY pooor wee kids are being taught that god didn't create the world and we're just the product of modification with descent. Now I have to de-programme them so they know God did create us all and we don't share a common ancestry with those damn momkeys"

Now Cantdo, say what you want about bourgeois rationalists, but that does not stop the fact that this stuff is absolute bollocks and is NOT science.

It's interesting that Dawkins is called a liberal - akin to the average whining labourite – amongst the libcom posts , ten years ago the primitivists at Green Anarchist were calling him 'right wing' (mainly because he was a scientist - and hence a representative of the great Satan) and yet I might argue that his essay 'Good and Bad Reasons for Believing' can be used as a good introduction to libertarian thought. It's a letter to his daughter that he wrote when she was ten, it works well for all aspects of life, not just religion.
Read it here...
[/url]http://www.fortunecity.com/emachines/e11/86/dawkins2.html [url=http://]
...and see for yourselves.

yeah that was cool, kinda sappy but sweet. I remmeber me and Revol chatting bout it before

And can be sold en masse by crazy ass volunteer christians yeah for sure the bible is the biggest selling book of all time thats bleeding obvious. But on the amazon list dawkins is no doubt convinced he is god.

Actually there are significant moves by the religious right to plant this shite in the science curriculum here in NI and in England, something which would have found abhorrent when I was teaching science. Inteligent Design is essetially creationism modified to sound scientific to suit the religious right's attempts to further their agenda in schools.

I'm sure it may be different in NI obviously, but talking about England the fact is most people regard religious ideas and leaders with the same contempt usually reserved for politicians.
The chances of fundamentalist christianity making a big come back over here are fucking zero as far as i'm concerned.

Yeah i know you always get some weird ass religious group prosletysing in school, and i do agree they shouldn't be allowed in schools, but that should be an issue confronted by parents and teachers. Plus its a bit steep to say its the spearhead of some sort of massive growth of fundamentalist christianity in england, i think thats overestimating how powerful this handful of mentalists are and also is somehwat patronising (a fault dawkins and most secular liberals are pretty much constantly guilty of) to everyone else.

Of course its bollocks and unscientific, so is crazy ass hippy shite like astral projection, but thats not a threat to liberal capitalism either.

The main threat it poses is the way reactions to 'Islam' give the UK political elite excuses for supporting segregation. Plus the way the christian and muslim charity/voluntery sectors are being used as vehicles for privatisation and outsourcing of services.

Religion in the UK isn't a threat on it's own, as a powerful set of institutions, but in the way its increased significance is being used by UK politicy makers, where their interests overlap with clerics' interests.

I don't see hippies petitioning to have astral projection or dowsing taugh in science lessons or sending packs to every single school in england, or setting up hundreds of independent school across the UK, or getting airtime in parliament....

There are Christian groups that give free copies of the bible away, using their own money to fund it. The Gideons came into my school (years back) and handed out free bibles to everyone. I think most kids just threw them in the bin. (That was before recycling was popular. ) Plus there are those adverts for free DVDs of bible stories they show at odd times on certain TV channels, and there were groups giving away free tickets to non-believers for that Mel Gibson movie. "Mad Max" I think it was called!

I'm surprised no one has mentioned that mental abstinence movement yet. Mildly annoying in the US and UK*, but the US appears to be insisting that AIDS charities and whatnot in places like Africa teach it instead of stuff about condoms. And the abstinence groups spread all sorts of rubbish about condoms spreading HIV. In fact the US government have been refusing money to groups handing out free condoms, IIRC. The Catholic church are up to it as well, but no surprise there.

EDIT: * I take that bit back. I forgot about the Bush admin opposing vaccinations for the human papillomavirus, which kills something like 5000 women a year in the US, in favour of abstinence.

I think it is important about the religious aspect of many of the outsourcing groups because it represents an ideological shift, an embrace of relativist bullshit, whereby any ideology or belief is as valid as any other. It's this bullshit that ties itself completely to the neo liberal third way, the demand for a secular education is thus denounced as old hat ideology whilst the government hands schools over to reactionary fuckwits teaching things from the dark ages, and if you raise an issue with this your a racist (well okay you can slag off christianity but not the muslims).

For someone so opposed to postmodernist bullshit, you seem to be overlooking it's solidification within government policy.

Christianity is no threat to the current bourgeois status quo, its completely irrelevant and only has any serious community strength among immigrants, largely because religion was strong where they came from eg nigerians.
Nobody in england actually gives a fuck what the archbishop of canterbury says for example? He's the senior religious figure, and he's generally regarded as an embarassment.

I'm sorry i just refuse to buy the idea that fundamentalist christianity is ever going to be big in england, and arrogant liberals like dawkins are only out to push their own careers when they claim its big over here.

As for getting airtime in parliament, that ranks the random religious issue up their with key vital debates of the day...like er foxhunting.

and FUKD & BOMBD got 'cake' parliamentary time

(one for the chris morris fans)

Well it is and always has been a part of the status quo (in the UK, with occasional exceptions). It just happens to be not very powerful at this time -- though support may be growing. Religion is not the problem, it is used, like nationalism, as a way of controlling people (and often by the state).

He's also not a evangelical fundamentalist Christian. You should see how those nutters hang on to every word of their preachers.

The current shift towards outsourcing of services and selection in schools wouldn't have so much weight behind it if not for the presence of the religious institutions.

The Blairite boosting of Catholic and Islamic schools is part of the pushing of 'choice' - choose a religious shcool, choose a technical school. It's all about horizontal selection, where everyones jsut a specialist in excellence. And if you don't like that - well, there's plenty of other places to go!

So increased segregation and class stratification are smuggled in as part of the liberal ideas of equality.

Jack the issue isn't about this or that particular faith but rather it's the dovetailing of neo liberalism and the "non ideology" ideology. Were once secular universal education was seen as a fundamental demand, we now see the state move away from this to outsourcing schools to whoever and wherever. What matters isn't the ideology per se but rather the fact this neo liberal third way acts as the meta ideology that gives some cogency to the others. Hence christian fundie schools and islamic schools can all sit together (apparently), and they will even continue with some secular ones.

The threat isn't therefore primarily the pious pricks who will indoctrinate our kids, but rather silent preaching of neo liberalism, that christian, muslim, jewish and secular schools are all equal. That ideas, theories and beliefs are only to be judged in relation to how well they sit within a neo liberal framework, that there is no place for saying "Your ideas are irrational shit and you won't be allowed to preach them to impressionable kids", this can be seen in that bullshit bill that makes slagging off a religion a form of hate speech.

This is the relativist shit, and it represents the final logic of the commodity, all things are exchangeable, all equal in exchange value. The simple fact is that secular schools are qualitively different to single faith schools, because they atleast seek to embody (in theory) a kind of universalism, they atleast refuse to accept the logic of segregation, and even if this is only on an abstract level eg we know they can fall into segregation aswell, it is still different than accepting segregation as the rule rather than the exception.

I think it has to be done on both to be honest Jack, they both dovetail. The religious element needs to be criticised because to overlook it is to buy into the neo liberal notion that "ideology is dead" and that all that matters is the functioning of the economy, and the economic element needs to be criticised because without it you miss it's driving force.

i said it was a fundamental demand ie of socialists, not that the state ever fully embraced it, though there was substantial moves towards this (better to think in terms of trends than totals on this ie there can be no doubting that there was a definite push towards secular education in the 50's and 60's which has now evaporated largely)

I don't support christian or jewish schools, infact I'm thinking mostly of Northern Ireland, and my point isn't that Islamic schools should be opposed in particular but rather the whole idea of faith schools needs taken on, in principle and also because of what these represent ie a fundamental shift away from a declared universalism (no matter how corrupt and one sided) to the active embrace of particularism.

The issue isn't whether or not secular education was ever fully achieved but rather what does us tell us when a "labour" party actively embraces faith based education, rather than leaving it as a dirty lil secret?

This is mostly an issue in the US, where secularism is under attack by various religious groups.

In the UK things are different. State schools are, apparantly, supposed to force kids to pray to a Christian god, though most don't bother (or at least in Wales they don't!):

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/4552382.stm