In the October 23 Washington Post, Dawkins takes on The Holy See and its attempt to snap up disaffected Anglicans.
Give Us Your Misogynists and Bigots
What major institution most deserves the title of greatest force for evil in the world? In a field of stiff competition, the Roman Catholic Church is surely up there among the leaders. The Anglican church has at least a few shreds of decency, traces of kindness and humanity with which Jesus himself might have connected, however tenuously: a generosity of spirit, of respect for women, and of Christ-like compassion for the less fortunate. The Anglican church does not cleave to the dotty idea that a priest, by blessing bread and wine, can transform it literally into a cannibal feast; nor to the nastier idea that possession of testicles is an essential qualification to perform the rite. It does not send its missionaries out to tell deliberate lies to AIDS-weakened Africans, about the alleged ineffectiveness of condoms in protecting against HIV. Whether one agrees with him or not, there is a saintly quality in the Archbishop of Canterbury, a benignity of countenance, a well-meaning sincerity. How does Pope Ratzinger measure up? The comparison is almost embarrassing. . .
. . . Archbishop Rowan Williams is too nice for his own good. Instead of meekly sharing that ignominious platform with the poachers, he should have issued a counter-challenge: “Send us your women, yearning to be priests, who could make a strong case for being the better-qualified fifty percent of humanity; send us your decent priests, sick of trying to defend the indefensible; send them all, in exchange for our woman-haters and gay-bashers.” Sounds like a good trade to me.
I have to hand it to the Post: this piece appeared in its On Faith column, run by Sally Quinn and John Meacham. And it answers my question of a few posts ago: “where is the religion editor who doesn’t feed intellectual pablum to her readers?”
Pardon my repetition, but this one’s even more applicable here:
“Of learned men, the clergy show the lowest development of professional ethics. Any pastor is free to cadge customers from the divines of rival sects, and to denounce the divines themselves as theological quacks.”
– H L Mencken, Minority Report (1956), quoted from Jonathon Green, The Cassell Dictionary of Cynical Quotations
Send me your female, your poor, your lavender masses yearning to preach . . .
As the Hitch would say: “Progress of a kind.”
Nothing new here. Theists acting without morality – same old same old.
Typical atheist hypocrites. The Catholic Church is fine with evolution, it demonstrates a willingness to live according to the evolutionary ethic “survival of the fittest” and the atheist evolutionists bash it.
If the Catholic Church is so mal-adapted and “evil” – an amazing value judgement in a world where there is no God – why is it so successful? If Rowan is so “good” (although how an evolutionist who believes in blind chance can qualify anything or anyone as “good” is beyond me), why is he so unsuccessful?
What is so evolutionarily “good” (there’s a materialist heresy for you) about homosexuality anyway? If other species with stronger males than females have specific rules of behaviour that favor one sex over the other, and they’ve survived, then what the heck is the problem with Catholics who have the balls to recognize the same dynamic plays out with human animals?
Are you upset about the hypocrisy? What the devil is hypocrisy to an evolutionist? Does it even have any meaning? I don’t see how it could. After all, if it exists, Dawkins is engaging in it. If it doesn’t, then why care?
Steve, are you familiar with the naturalistic fallacy?
And here’s me without my idiotic arguments bingo card. Could have won a fortune.
I think someone has spent too much time in church and not enough thinking for himself.
Why is that people who make arguments that homosexuality cannot be an evolved trait seem to be totally unaware of social insects that have infertile castes ?
As a general Dawkins fan I think he should have kept out of this one. Why should a prominent atheist comment on a political fight between a couple of Theist organisations. There is not one chance this will change a mind, as his evolution and general atheist writings can, all it can do is encourage more people not to listen to to what he says and give ammunition to the “all atheists can do is snear” brigade.
This attitude bewilders me. Neither Dawkins nor anyone else should feel obliged to act according to anyone in particular’s view of how they “should”.
Many atheists seem to think there ought to be some kind of party line (although I’ve never heard any two agree on what its principles should be) and we criticise prominent atheists if they don’t live up to these arbitrary prescriptions.
Personally, I loved the article, but even if I’d hated it, I hardly think I’d have criticised Dawkins for writing it. It’s an opinion piece. It reflects his opinion. His opinion may differ from mine.
There are lots of reasons to write articles and changing people’s minds probably comes pretty low down on the list. Articles also entertain (this one entertained me greatly), inform (for lots of people, this is the first they’ll have heard of the story), challenge (exactly *why* do so many people, religious and otherwise fall into conniptions when they read this kind of thing?) and so on.
As for sneering: could you really, in good conscience, observe the pathetic behaviour under discussion and *not* publically sneer at it? Covering up contempt to toe an imagined party line that emphasises just one of many aspects of the battle between atheists and the religious seems somewhat disingenuous.
Matt Penfold 27, 2009 at 8:41 am:
This is a good point, but it should be pointed out that gays are not usually infertile; many reproduce.
Additionally, it could be argued that Japanese Macaques are a more relevant example.