Today is Richard Dawkins’s birthday, and he is, I guess, as “strident” as ever, or so PuffHo UK says:
Richard Dawkins turned 74 today — and still no thunderbolt from the Heavens. The renowned scientist and strident atheist has been ruffling the religious for decades, introducing millions around the world to the beauty of non-belief. To celebrate the atheist-in-chief’s special day, here are 10 times God got chinned…
And they append ten videos in which “God got chinned”, including appearances by Hitchens, Dawkins, Kate Smurthwaite, Sam Harris, and others. They’re worth watching, though you may have seen some of them before. The one with Hitchens on Fox News is new to me, and he was at his eloquent best.
My favorite Dawkins quote:
“In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference”
If we’re going with favorite quotes from Richard…I don’t think anybody will be able to top, “We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones.” The passage is one of the greatest celebrations of life and exhortations to make the most out of it while you can…in the history of humanity. All whilst being poignantly and painfully beautiful.
b&
Yes, I used this at my father’s funeral.
And I, too, at my sister’s.
“We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones.”
I personally find that passage to be the most overrated of Dawkins’ quotes. I just can’t make sense of it. But it is so well thought of that i keep wondering what i’m missing. So please help me out here. The fact that it baffles me and is so popular compared to many of his other–IMO–far superior passages, only adds to my negative opinion of it.
When i read it, i think: Who are the implied unlucky ones? What does it even mean to be unlucky to have not been born? And what about all the humans whose lives have been nothing but unlucky? Granted, you can’t love life if you haven’t been born, but other than that; the fact that i love life has nothing to do with the fact that i was born. And there’s also something about that passage that seems to be a little desperately pacifying.
Am i being too fastidious; captious; pedantic? If so, i think it partly has something to do with the fact that i hold Professor Dawkins to a higher standard of logical beauty.
Do you “get” the line, “better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all”?
If you do, that’s a good summation of what Richard is getting at.
If you don’t…I likely won’t be able to answer your challenge to your satisfaction.
b&
i’m not sure that’s a good summation of what he was getting at.
I can think of many examples where it may have been “better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” But i can, nevertheless, think of many others where a loss of love has led to a loss of life.
I can’t, however, think of examples of an unlucky unborn.
Of course a one-liner like that is much less than what he was going for, but it’s in the same spirit.
The unborn have no luck whatsoever — neither good luck nor bad. They have never loved at all, which is, as the saying goes, not as good as having loved and lost.
Those who commit suicide out of depression, of course, would typically argue that they wish they had never been born. And, for some, that may well not be unreasonable — that the burdens of their life are so miserable that mere existence is a curse, and never to have been born would have been preferable to the lives they lived.
…but, for most with such destructive and crippling depression…it is the depression itself that is to blame for the misery rather than the other circumstances of their lives. Such depression is, these days, often treatable and people so afflicted can live lives that actually are preferable to oblivion. Lives with love, even — regained love, for many, which is much better than love lost and never found again.
And damned few people spend their entire lives with severe depression, and the majority never experience it.
All that considered, I hardly think it’s worth criticizing Richard for failing to address every conceivable set of life circumstances — especially when his words are applicable not only to himself but, as is evidenced by the popularity of the passage, so many others.
b&
I don’t see it as criticism; just disagreement with what we regard as our favorite Dawkins sayings.
I’ve, too, always wondered, “lucky compare to what?”
I suppose, on the one hand, that the perspective can be the typical atheist one of, “I wasn’t bothered not being born for the first baker’s dozen billion years after the Big Bang, so I don’t anticipate being bothered by being dead for the next however many dozen billion years come after it.”
And, in that sense, there’s clearly no misfortune in not being born.
However, there’s no fortune in it, either.
We, the living…we do have fortune and misfortune. We have all the luck, good and bad — for who else could have any?
And so, we truly are fortunate, even if the others are neither fortunate nor misfortunate.
b&
That was poetic, Ben.
Perhaps if he’d just said, “…and that means we’re lucky.” Etc.
Perhaps. I’m not sure the poetry would have scanned the same….
b&
Yes, you’re right. Perhaps it’s just a matter of how it happens to strike one the first time one hears it–and most people first hear it as you do.
Heck, perhaps I might have too, under different conditions.
(And no, I can’t remember where or when I first heard it.)
I vaguely recall first encountering it from Richard himself reciting it, which could have made a difference. When I read it, I hear him speak in his own voice.
b&
Yes, I suspect that would make a difference!
“All that considered, I hardly think it’s worth criticizing Richard for failing to address every conceivable set of life circumstances — especially when his words are applicable not only to himself but, as is evidenced by the popularity of the passage, so many others.”
That is not where my criticism is directed. And it has nothing to do with depression. It has to do with aesthetics.
Perhaps John Keats can encapsulate my criticism:
“Beauty is Truth, truth beauty”
That would imply that you think Richard’s essay strays afield from truth. In what manner…?
b&
Ben,
I am with CJ on this one.
I have no idea what Dawkins means by that. I would consider myself fortunate if I cease to be when I fall off my twig.
How can something that doesn’t exist be unlucky?
Unlucky humans — that is a different thing and we can talk about the possibilities of finding meaning in suffering as Viktor Frankl did.
But unlucky not to have existed?
What is?
Just trying to understand, not opining about your opinion on this. Do you really not understand what Richard means by this? Do you understand that he is speaking poetically, and not techinically?
Or is it that you understand that, but it is just so ridiculous that it doesn’t work for you aesthetically even though you know what he means?
There are plenty of other Dawkins quotes that are more pithy and short. But when read in its entirety I find this long passage to be exceptionally moving.
I find that the quote moves me like poetry can move me. It gives me fleeting thoughts and feelings about the happenstance of being alive and about how great it is to realize that right now, right this instant, i am alive. If a certain sperm cell turned left but not right, then “I” would not be here. That is a heady thought, and the quote helps me to contemplate that.
The most beautiful passage of poetry by Keats or by Kipling will seem silly if one thinks too deeply about them. Just let the thoughts flow through without dissecting them. One does not need to be rational all the time.
I think all he’s saying is that we who are still alive are lucky.
“It has not escaped my notice that Richard Dawkins has thrown light on the origin of man and his history. Crick and Darwin would be followers, three cheers to the great man!
I’ll drink to that.
What a nice birthday present, I was glad to see an Australian offering as well.
Many happy returns, Dr. Dawkins!
I am thankful for Mr. Dawkins contribution to reason and science in the public square. My only personal qualm with Mr. Dawkins is that he ridicules people of faith with a sense of arrogance. Why is it necessary for academics to ridicule people of faith?
Richard has never struck me as arrogant…but, as to the rest of your complaint…
…well, honestly, faith is ridiculous and shameful. It is the proposition that all con artists rely upon, that one should believe in something all out of proportion to the evidence supporting it or even — nay, especially — in light of contradictory evidence.
And the particulars of faith are beyond merely being ridiculous; they are childish and astonishing. The Bible opens with a story about an enchanted garden with talking animals and an angry wizard. It prominently features a talking plant (on fire!) that gives magic wand lessons to the reluctant hero. It ends with an utterly bizarre zombie snuff pr0n fantasy with the king of the undead getting his intestines fondled through a gaping chest wound by one of his thralls.
…and we are supposed to take all that in with a sincere air of solemnity? And have respect for those who think it all really happened, let alone has any significance for life in the modern world?
What would be arrogant would be for Richard to bite his tongue and pat the poor confused religious people on the head and encourage them to go right on with their delightful stories and play-time. What he instead does is treat them with the same respect he treats all his fellow academics and that he would expect them to treat him: he calls them on what he perceives as bullshit and challenges them to put up or shut up, academically, with evidence and reasoning.
Really, what other civilized option is there?
b&
Well said. Richard has never seemed arrogant or strident to me either.
However, it seems that no matter how politely one may wish to call a spade a spade, when it comes to religion, offense will ensue.
It is, of course, understandable, to a degree. The religious have to know that the emperor is naked and that they’re damned silly standing there praising his elaborate costume. It’s hardly surprising that they’re sensitive to being laughed at for their absurdity.
The limiting factor, of course…is the confusion over why they don’t just admit the bloody fool is naked, already, and shut up about his clothes….
b&
There is a sizable segment of atheists/skeptics/science friendly that have what appears to me to be an irrational strong dislike of Richard Dawkins. I see it regularly on display at other science oriented websites. Even on a site that strictly forbids pretty much everything but evidenced based discussion of mainstream science.
I have seen a lot of Richard Dawkins over the years. Though he may have exhibited some arrogance or disdain towards a religious person with no particular provocation, I have never seen it. But I grant it may have occurred, perhaps more than once even. But it must be fairly rare. In every case I have seen him display such it was well earned! Absent provocation that most people would deem worthy of some attitude in any context other than religion, Richard typically displays respect and compassion for the religious people he interacts with. That is what I have seen and read.
I don’t quite understand how atheists/skeptics/science friendly people can look at the same Richard Dawkins I have seen and then come to such negative opinions about him. It seems irrational to me and I am sure that if the context were something other than religion the majority of these people would not be motivated to be so negative about him. It seems it must have something to do with religion, even though these people self proclaim to be skeptical, or at least neutral, about religion. They still accord religion a special status. And you can’t talk sense to them on the subject of Richard Dawkins. Their dislike often appears to be much like a believers commitment to their religion.
Well said. I don’t get why anyone who has read or listened to any Dawkins could dislike him, and perhaps it’s most charitable to assume they are affected by neurological deficits in language comprehension.
Which ‘people’ of faith are you thinking of.
Faith itself and many tenets of faith need to be examined and criticized.
Faith and people of faith provide a broad base for a continuing hierarchy of irrational belief, where at the pointy end of the hierarchy we find continuing examples of obscene extreme behavior.
And remember that there is a distinction between criticizing beliefs and criticizing those who hold them.
Dawkins isn’t arrogant at all; he simply expresses his views bluntly. From what I’ve seen of his public presentations, he’s exceedingly polite in person.
Some religious spokespeople accuse Dawkins of arrogance in an effort to discredit him to their followers, because they cannot meet his arguments on their terms. Many of these same spokespeople will then turn around and assert that Dawkins and other nonbelievers are engaged in The Devil’s work and are doomed to spend eternity in hell.
So I ask you, which of the two — Dawkins or his opponents — is actually guilty of arrogance and ridicule?
With no sarcasm intended, I really do think that part of the “he’s so arrogant” trope is because he has an educated English accent. No more than that. Arrogance is perceived more by tone and inflection not by words. I would bet that people with the same accent as Richard Dawkins, talking about business or sports get (to a lesser degree) at least unspoken thoughts directed at them in a similar vein. And I would also bet that people with his same accent and level of education are less likely to find him arrogant, than people with southern US accents and lesser education.(are those last 6 words a redundancy?)
Or, as I like to put it…people liked Carl Sagan because he sounded like he had just smoked a bowl of pot. People hate Richard because he sounds like he’s just drunk a pot of tea.
Me?
I love ’em both, and think they’re two of the greatest poets in all of human history. Cosmos, in particular, is, hands down, the greatest epic poem of our time. Elsewhere in this thread I’ve addressed Richard’s poetry….
b&
That made me LOL.
Spot on.
And Dawkins sounds entirely approachable to me.
A bit of topic but the original cosmos pioneered a lot of computer graphics techniques.
The quality and novelty of those graphics helped make it the epic poem it was
I remember being mesmerized by a lot of it.
One of the ‘simpler’ ones in particular where they modeled the interactions of many bodies, like galaxies colliding and showing the gravitational impact on them.
It’s been a few years since I last watched it…but you’re absolutely right. Those special effects might not seem so special — and, indeed, dated and even corny — today…but they were mind-blowing when first aired. And on TV, too — not in a theatre!
b&
I agree completely, but I must point out that there are many atheists, skeptics and science oriented people that have an irrational strong dislike of Dawkins as well. And many of them preach it just like the religious spokespeople you mention.
I have not cataloged his writing and talks, but as a general rule he ridicules religion and other areas of delusion while trying not to ridicule the people who are religious. He may come close to ridiculing the religious by saying that their beliefs are ignorant and ridiculous, however. I can see how that would sting. But he very often says that the religious are not stupid.
Maybe he has slipped in this policy at times, but that would be unplanned.
Hi again. I just went to a post two or three down. Right here, which provides another example of why sometimes people of faith need to be criticized.
George Zimmerman says his shooting of Trayvon Martin was gods plan.
Would you not agree?
I’m afraid you’re probably still being influenced by religion, which has been very successful in societies across the globe at convincing people it deserves special deference or respect that other secular ideas, like political allegiances, don’t.
It’s astonishing and infuriating how that adjective, “strident,” continues to adhere to the great man’s name and reputation. Nothing about his writing, his teaching, or his public speaking approaches stridor. He is firm, reasoned, articulate, and precise in his language, just as he is courteous, calm, undaunted, and sometimes amused in his public attitude. The “strident atheist” epithet is nothing but a careless and deliberate smear.
From a couple of his books on biology and his life, I can safely add that he has a softhearted side too.
If he is strident then why is that word not appended to all religious leaders?
When the J.W.s came to my door this morning,their church is about 4minutes from my house grrr.So they come often i should of said to look at Richard Dawkins like i have many times and listen or look and listen on Youtube .I’ll do that next time they come.
As an experiment…print out his “we are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones” bit. Have it handy by the door.
Next time they come, tell them you have a bit of inspirational material you’d like to read to them to get their reaction to. Read it…and then hit them with who wrote it.
I dare say it’ll rather unsettle them to have their image of Mr. Strident Firebreathing Servant of Satan himself so upended.
Likely won’t do anything to bring them to their senses, of course, but that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy some fundie head assplosions!
b&
Incidentally, if you don’t have the book, the passage is available online here:
http://old.richarddawkins.net/articles/91-to-live-at-all-is-miracle-enough
b&
A while ago we had a recording here of Richard reciting some of his hate mail. It was hilarious. One went something like:
‘F*ck you, you f*ckity f*cker’, and it was especially lovely with his accent. I would like to have that recording as an app on my phone to use on occasion.
Merry Christmas.
b&
This is me right now: 😂 I wonder how he read that without cracking up. Maybe it took more than one try.
Well, he does smile a bit at times. He’s done enough presenting for Auntie Beeb that he may well have the chops to pull it off in a single take.
…plus, even if it’s the first time he read them aloud with the camera rolling, it’s obvious that he’s read them multiple times before — at least once when he first received it (or that it was forwarded to him by whoever filters his mail), and then again when he culled the lot to pick the best. Probably quite a few readings for each, in fact — which would have given him the mental time to prepare how he would act them out.
b&
Maybe he should collect them all and publish them as a book. That would be funny, all those crackpots putting money in his pocket (or he could donate the profits to charity?).
Happy birthday Professor Dawkins! And many more!
Haaaappy, Happy Birthday today, Dr Dawkins.
And thank you so for your The Magic of Reality: How We Know What’s Really True.
I gift with it as many kiddos as I know to at least be old enough to carefully turn its pages and look at its pictures, let alone, to begin reading there your words !
Blue
ps And, especially, THANK YOU for coming last November (2014) to central Iowa / to Iowa State University — and hereat gently coaching in us the furtherance of our enlightenment ! I loved it !
“To celebrate the atheist-in-chief’s special day…”
Happy Birthday to our Patron Sa…er, Sage!
teehee…
Making him just two years older than the Glimmer Twins — Mick & Keith turn 72 this year (and the Stones are rumored to be launching a new tour at the end of this month). Maybe Sir Mick can invite The Devil’s Chaplain to join them onstage this summer during “Sympathy for the Devil”; that might épater the religious bourgeoisie a bit.
All hail our atheist overlord! 🙂
Richard Dawkins is an inspiration to so many I do not know who has the words to properly cover it. Christopher Hitchens could say it better than any of us so I’ll just imagine what he would say.
Continue to have many more birthdays and we will continue to listen and read because there is no other choice.
74? That is incredibly strident.
(I approve)
Richard Dawkins atheism hasn’t been much of a factor in my atheism.
But I am forever grateful for the books on evolution.
Before I read the Selfish Gene I thought I knew what evolution was. I didn’t really.
The Selfish Gene took my understanding of how it really worked right down to fully explicable level. Further refined by his other books.
There really is a fine grained explanation of evolution that provides complete answers to the questions about the life around us.
If more people had a deep understanding of evolution more people would be satisfied with the answer, and not come out with things like “why are there still monkeys?” (this is a very crude example, even more sophisticated understandings can be incomplete)
Finally, on the second clip shown, where the catholic lady was defending the churches stance on homosexuality. She claimed, that it is the immutable teaching of the church that we are male and female.
This, like so much else, is factually wrong.
There are people who are hermaphrodites.
I think too that the physiological and psychological variations along the spectrum is still being explored.
She’s also factually worng on the claim that the teaching of the Church is immutable. It’s not hard finding Bible texts giving high praise to sexless eunuchs, for example…and, as for “immutable”? Seriously? From the same Church that not only invented Purgatory but disinvented it, too? The same Church that persecuted Galileo and just now, centuries late, issued an half-assed apology for the way they handled the matter?
That “immutable” Church?
Jay-zeus, lady. Get a freakin’ clue!
b&
As I like to say, indeed.
That interview on Wretched Radio with Hitchens was a humdinger, it had me laughing with delight. The religious interviewer was obviously full of how his loaded questions were going to hit Hitchens, he (the interviewer) just seemed to be totally ignorant of how meaningless and pointless they seem to an atheist. Trying to lecture Hitchens on the Ten Commandments – really.
(The link from PuffHo only links to the first 2/3 of the interview, but Youtube has a further link to the whole thing. Oh what the hell, here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fG2ffBV4VbE
Dr, Dawkins now qualifies as another PCC… Professor Chief Curmudgeon. 🙂
I wonder who would not appear slightly terse in their demeanor if they had been taking on religion for the past 30 to 40 years? To think this can be done year after year with a smile on your face and nothing but laughs — are you kidding. Give it a try.