Dawkins and Religion - no comments

This is a bit of a cheat, really, as I haven't yet had time to type up the piece I scribbled down on the train home on Tuesday night, and this placeholder will have to do until then. I am determined to get it done though.

It is a bit contrary and, though not exactly inspired by Doubting Dawkins from the Demos Greenhouse, that article did appear at an opportune time, and is a good one. It also ties in with my earlier post on the atheist consensus, given that I probably feel uncomfortable being part of any consensus. One thing that did stick out from the documentary - which I'll mention now - was Dawkins' tying-together of Blair, Bush, and Sharon. All are labelled as 'believers', and this is no doubt true, but wasn't the real intention to imply a kind of cabal? A coalition against reason? Or was it just a rhetorical shot-in-the-arm for the intended audience of atheist liberal lefties? That's not necessarily a problem, but any temptation to redefine modern atheism as belonging to the centre/Left, being against Blair/New Labour, or in opposition to Iraq-style intervention, must surely be resisted.

My angle here, if you're wondering, is that atheism is far too sound to be spoilt by ridiculous arguments about believing in fairies that some atheists resort to, and to be compromised by attempts to 'reinvigorate' it by tying it into the political zeitgeist.

I should add that I only saw the first half of the documentary on Monday (I cannot miss University Challenge), and that there is another show, next week. Norm noticed Dawkins' failure to address "the question of whether religion meets any important human needs", and hopefully we'll see this next time.