Is Richard Dawkins leaning towards a belief in God?

Please help me with this article. I found this one today, and as you can clearly read, it's trying to paint Richard Dawkins as a supporter of religion and Christianity. Dawkins has been a huge inspiration for me regarding coming to terms with my own beliefs (or lack of), so this leaves me feeling confused and guarded. I don't normally believe everything that I come across, but this article left me with an unsettling feeling. I guess I'm looking for some reassurance here!

blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100273071/richard-dawkins-is-moving-towards-christ/

 

Looks to me a lot like it's someone misrepresenting things. I consider myself nonreligious and try to hold religions in fairly equal standing to one another, but I still attend some church services and a Christians discussion group. This in no way makes me believe in Christianity any more than anything else. I could justify this from a know-thy-foe perspective, but in truth, I want to understand some of the viewpoints of Christianity. I don't hold careless statements against Christianity or even individual Christians that I discuss with.

The other comments, I'm guessing are pulled from statements against Islam, but that's just my own guess. The statements sound a bit like the arguments against Islam based in cultural differences, through which Dawkins can be thought of as a Christian in some respect. The magnetic pull thing I also imagine is a bit of a misrepresentation (again, my own interpretation). I can imagine statements like the one in the text being used to justify a way less religious Christianity than the text seems to imply.

But again, this is just me making things up, it may very well be that there is some other explanation (or that Dawkins is actually a full blown Christian, which would have no further impact on my beliefs).

 

What Dawkins basically said was: “t’s quite nice to have the Archbishop of Canterbury as a kind of Dickens-style accessory to Royal weddings and such, but of course the guy is nothing but a clown in a pretty costume.” It was just a new form of insult. So rest assured: Dawkins is nowhere near to committing apostasy against his own crude beliefs (or lack thereof).
The reassuring done: I’ve got another article that may want to make you think whether you really want to take Dawkins as an inspiration for your views on religion. IMHO Eagleton is right. There are many good reasons to become an agnostic/atheist, but reading Dawkins’ unoriginal, willfully uninformed and intellectually dishonest dribble on the issue is not one of them:

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n20/terry-eagleton/lunging-flailing-mispunching

 

Boy, as soon as some atheists have a civil disagreement with Christianity, Christians get up in arms over it, pull out their hair, and "PERSECUTION!".

Ah well.

 

You are talking about me? Seems that I’m the only Christian in this thread so far and I don’t feel persecuted in the slightest.

 

No, I've seen several videos on things about Richard Dawkings and other reaction s to atheists by the general Christian community. I am speaking generally not specific.

There is a lot of bigotry against atheists from Christians in America, and every time they are criticized by atheists, they get really upset and think they're being persecuted when in truth they are. It's just atheists are exercising their constitutional rights.

I'm sorry, but there are a lot of Christians out there who are intolerant of constitutional rights.


Note: if somebody responds to my posts with something akin to "but it's actually the atheists who are the bigots here..." so on an so forth, I'll consider that just being argumentative and will not read it.

You have to remember, that Christians are the vast majority here in America, and really, there is no real persecution of them since they have the power in numbers, and if they had the mind to, they can come together as a cohesive group and outvote atheists on every single thing.

And the other problem is that ruling against a Christian is not real persecution. Many Christians don't seem to truly understand what real persecution and oppression is.

To those people, I can only suggest you go to places in the Middle East where Christians are routinely rounded up, imprisoned, tortured, and killed, just for their beliefs. Then they'd really understand what true persecution is. Maybe then they'd stop crying wolf when the law doesn't work in their favor.

 

I couldn't open your cited reference, but I'll believe that Dawkins has converted to Christianity right after I'm assured that the Pope has converted to Islam.

 

Dawkins is far from either being willfully uninformed or intellectually dishonest.

He is not all that original, just like any theist in defending his faith is not at all original.

 

As it turns out, it's just some guy who pieced together a Dawkins video to make it sound like he was turning into a Christian.

http://www.christianpost.com/news/r...sions-most-epic-i-am-second-video-ever-88696/

I personally consider this guy an arse, but what he also did was sin. He bore false witness and one of the ten commandments says "thou shalt not bear false witness".

 

Wasn't there something along the lines of "Thou shalt not kill" mixed in with all the instructions to murder anyone who didn't do things quite the way some people liked? Christians have left a VERY wide trail of dead bodies in their wake over the last 2000 years. I guess its like the Constitutional Conservatives who pretty much only like ONE of the items in the Bill of Rights and ONLY HALF of that one. It all seems quite hypocritical to me.

 

Just another good old-fashioned fit-up by the Telegraph.

 

Why not actually read Dawkins writings instead of wasting time on silly articles. This kind of slant about religious opinions of the most respected scientists was tried on Einstein as well but never really got anywhere.

 

I must remember that the next time I see one of those "blacks are terribly racist" rants..er..threads on here. It's basically the same thing. "Boo hoo, our religious, ethnic freedom is being denied. I'm so oppressed because I'm no longer allowed to burn the atheist witches/lynch the uppity blacks."

Your rights never include the right to deny other people theirs

 

No, he is not turning christian. The term secular christian could be translated "atheist christian". Many atheist feel that the best path to informed atheism is through christianity.

I have no idea if this is Dawkins position, but at least he understands that his framework for understanding theism is christianity.

 

they have more success when they wait until a non-believer dies to try and make it seem they choose God at the end

trying to make the claim when someone is still alive doesn't work so well

 

Sounds like something Andrew Breitbart or James O'Keefe would do.

Funny that a Christian would want to deliberately spread a LIE about somebody's "conversion"?

 

No. I don't think it's humorous.

You really can't have an open an honest debate with many Christians out there.

 

Thank you for the link! Don't get me wrong -- Dawkins isn't my inspiration regarding my religious views, but he is someone that I pay attention to. I actually prefer Sam Harris and Penn Jillette for my inspirations. In fact, I actually think that Dawkins is a horrible debater when it comes to God. I've seen him in action in interviews, and his arguments are weak and he gets so defensive. It's a turn-off. However, I've never seen Sam Harris backed into a corner by a priest; and he always comes out in the end with his grace and dignity still in tact.

 

Yeah, I did a little more research about the guy who wrote the article, and I'm slightly embarrassed that I questioned the credibility of the content. I should have known the author of the article garbled his words.

 

Well, not "funny" "ha-ha"...more ironic. To further their agenda, in defiance of their "superior morality"....they resort to deliberate falsehoods.

 

Not near as wide a trail as atheists have left the last 100 years. 'Christians' who did those things did so contrary to the teachings of Jesus, atheists who did so........wait, what beliefs of atheism prevent mass murder?

 

Logic and reason and intelligence.

There and good and people in all groups and it's faulty reasoning to say that they're all the same.

 

Like this?

"The state torturers in Soviet prisons understood this all too well. Richard Wurmbrand reports,

The cruelty of atheism is hard to believe when man has no faith in the reward of good or the punishment of evil. There is no reason to be human. There is no restraint from the depths of evil which is in man. The Communist torturers often said, 'There is no God, no hereafter, no punishment for evil. We can do what we wish.' I have heard one torturer even say, 'I thank God, in whom I don't believe, that I have lived to this hour when I can express all the evil in my heart.' He expressed it in unbelievable brutality and torture inflicted on prisoners."

If skeptics are going to constantly bring up the comparatively trivial number of people Christians killed, you are going to hear about atheist crimes. IMHO atheism isn't the sole reason for Stalin's excesses, but it is a necessary one. Bad things happen when you have a climate where there are no eternal moral standards, no future rewards and punishments, man is a cosmic accident with no more intrinsic worth than a dog, and man is the highest power. In such an environment, why not eliminate difficult people who don't go with the program? Essentially in such a view, might makes right.

 

By the way, Stalin was a Gregorian Orthodox Christian. As were many Communists even though they did what they could to outlaw religion in favor of the state.

And Hitler was Catholic.He made many references in his book that killing Jews was God's work.

"
The best characterization is provided by the product of this religious education, the Jew himself. His life is only of this world, and his spirit is inwardly as alien to true Christianity as his nature two thousand years previous was to the great founder of the new doctrine. Of course, the latter made no secret of his attitude toward the Jewish people, and when necessary he even took the whip to drive from the temple of the Lord this adversary of all humanity, who then as always saw in religion nothing but an instrument for his business existence. In return, Christ was nailed to the cross, while our present-day party Christians debase themselves to begging for Jewish votes at elections and later try to arrange political swindles with atheistic Jewish parties-- and this against their own nation."


So your evil atheist country is no more than a lie.

They were religious and their religion was the state. Stalin and his brand of Communism were people who worshiped their own authoritarianism\ and believed their authority was sacrosanct.

 

USED to be an Orthodox Christian, like many atheists on this forum were raised in a culturally Christian home. From Wikipedia:

"Raised in the Georgian Orthodox faith, Stalin became an atheist. He followed the position that religion was an opiate that needed to be removed in order to construct the ideal communist society. His government promoted atheism through special atheistic education in schools, anti-religious propaganda, the anti-religious work of public institutions (Society of the Godless), discriminatory laws, and a terror campaign against religious believers. By the late 1930s, it had become dangerous to be publicly associated with religion.[97]

.....Continuous persecution in the 1930s resulted in its near-extinction as a public institution: by 1939, active parishes numbered in the low hundreds (down from 54,000 in 1917), many churches had been leveled, and tens of thousands of priests, monks and nuns were persecuted and killed. Over 100,000 were shot during the purges of 1937–1938.[98][99] During World War II, the Church was allowed a revival as a patriotic organization, and thousands of parishes were reactivated until a further round of suppression during Khrushchev's rule. The Russian Orthodox Church Synod's recognition of the Soviet government and of Stalin personally led to a schism with the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia.

Just days before Stalin's death, certain religious sects were outlawed and persecuted. Many religions popular in ethnic regions of the Soviet Union, including the Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Catholic Churches, Baptists, Islam, Buddhism, and Judaism underwent ordeals similar to that which the Orthodox churches in other parts of the country suffered: thousands of monks were persecuted, and hundreds of churches, synagogues, mosques, temples, sacred monuments, monasteries and other religious buildings were razed."

He made Christian noises early when he was trying to gain power, later the church was his biggest enemy, according to Albert Einstein. Only someone ignorant or less than truthful would not mention that. Here are a few quotes from Hitler that sound like you guys:

“We do not want any other god than Germany itself. It is essential to have fanatical faith and hope and love in and for Germany.”

“…the only way of getting rid of Christianity is to allow it to die little by little.”

“It’s Christianity that’s the liar. It’s in perpetual conflict with itself.”

“In the long run, National Socialism and religion will no longer be able to exist together”

“Kerrl, with the noblest of intentions, wanted to attempt a synthesis between National Socialism and Christianity. I don’t believe the thing’s possible, and I see the obstacle in Christianity itself.”

“As far as we are concerned, we’ve succeeded in chasing the Jews from our midst and excluding Christianity from our political life.”

“There is something very unhealthy about Christianity.”

“The reason why the ancient world was so pure, light and serene was that it knew nothing of the two great scourges: the pox and Christianity. Christianity is a prototype of Bolshevism: the mobilization by the Jew of the masses of slaves with the object of undermining society. Thus one understands that the healthy elements of the Roman world were proof against this doctrine.”

“When all is said, we have no reason to wish that the Italians and Spaniards should free themselves from the drug of Christianity. Let’s be the only people who are immunized against the disease.”

“Our epoch will certainly see the end of the disease of Christianity. It will last another hundred years, two hundred years perhaps. My regret will have been that I couldn’t, like whoever the prophet was, behold the promised land from afar. We are entering into a conception of the world that will be a sunny era, an era of tolerance.”

Either that or your skewed interpretation is a lie. Richard Wurmbrand would disagree with you.

Did you not read the Wiki quote? They were fully atheist. In what kind of fantasy land are atheists religious? You guys sing a different tune when Christians call atheism a religion. Truly men will give up their reason before they give up their rebellion against God.