.. who thinks the good professor may have taken leave of his senses? Dawkins sets up kids’ camp to groom atheists. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I suppose if Richard Dawkins had any sense of humor, particularly in regard to himself, he would realize that, increasingly, he is making a public fool of himself.
I honestly don't see that it's any worse than Creationist Summer Camps which have been around for a number of years, apparently.
ReplyDeleteIf we teach kids that there is no god, then when they encounter god in life, they will have nothing to fall back upon. This does not mean that the quest will not begin, that doing the route of Christian rites, Hindu readings, Moslem practices, Shinto, and so forth, won't lead them to see that others have explored ways of coming to terms with the spiritual side of life--it means that they will have nothing to immediately fall back upon, that they would have been ripped off, raised as if they are not the spiritual beings they are. It's not a matter of ism, but of being human. And if they are to fall back upon atheistic teachings when they encounter their spiritual aspects, the shallowness of how their elders had interpreted all of life will become apparent. My hunch is that this type of narrowing or focusing will lead to cults, even anti-everything cults of people who mistrust everyone--because through constantly teaching scripture through how it gets misused or misplaced, such as with telepathy, they will subtract all the wisdom that has made it to us to us, the good efforts of all the mystics and scribes who devoted their lives to passing along what they knew.
ReplyDeleteRaising kids to be irrational adherents to Dawkins thought processes, not showing that there are many ways of looking at the meaning of human existence is cultish itself. It is not a matter of being rational and skeptical as is his selling point to get a new generation to buy his book, and come over to his camp, as it were. Rational and skeptical thinkers are not going to hold that arguments against the existence of unicorns and explanations of crop circles could have anything to do with being an atheist.
Yours,
Rus
I was wondering how long it would be before Dawkins or one of his followers started there own de facto cult. Looks like this is it. Assuming it's not just a media stunt, of course.
ReplyDeleteI wonder that Dawkins seems not to know that there was once a terrific open school called Summerhill, in which children were taught to be self-starters, and think for themselves. That's an idea that seems to have fallen out of favor—by everybody.
The thing with cults is, you have to be choosy. I always take a good look at a cult before joining. Usually it's better to create your own cult, build your following slowly and organically, and let it get rooted, before going too public. Before I drink the kool-aid I want to know what's in it. ;)
Hi Hedgie,
ReplyDeleteSet of fools B does not cancel out the foolishness manifest by Set of Fools A. Their respective foolishness merely coexists. I also can't figure much out from the link. Having written for years for the Inquirer's religion page, I am skeptical of most of what I read in the media about religion. For example, evangelicals are usually portrayed as Biblical literalists, which they are usually not. Biblical literaists are a very small subset of Christianity. I am myself, like Francis Collins, an evolutionary theist. And Collins knows as much about evolution as Richard Dawkins.
I have a friend who not only knew A.S. Neill, but who also spent some time at Summerhill. His view is that Summerhill worked because of Neill's extraordinary teaching skill. As for Dawkins, I find it interesting that, like the ID people, he seems to think that science is about arriving at some position with regard to God. I thought science was about finding out how nature works.
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