We have within us all the capacity to hurt and harm and to help and heal. What choices do we make?
When Dawkins says that teaching faith is wrong, we said:
Rational argument may lack compassion and morality / define indoctrination vs helpful teaching & nurturing / neither do a lot of Christians believe in God who 'keeps us safe from harm' / what is life without hope? / I'm a Christian and I don't believe in preaching fear & hellfire to children. But I do believe in telling them about a God that loves them and wants them to love all people / or we believe in the Bible as it is intended - the story of the people of God and their relationship - not literal history - why was he able to become an athiest after growing up in the church - but things other children will just believe 'nonsense'. That's an insult to me & my intelligence & faith / I've never seen a single instance of religion originating evil rather than religion being used to justify pre-existing greed & lust for power / any religion that is not faith affirming misses the mark / people believe in what they want to believe in / he hasn't looked at the full spectrum of faith and so has not made a complete or fair argument /if he was brought up Christian what happened to make him so angry? / yes, we do believe in the mystery of God - and that is what is so beautiful about it
When Dawkins pits reason against faith, we disagreed in these ways:
religion doesn't pretend to have all the answers / several well-structured studies have concluded that stronger mental health occurs when people feel that they are part of something bigger that is worthwhile / faith goes beyond the rational, without being contrary to rationality, viz. 'irrational' / even if religion was the root of all evil - doesn't that mean that God is evil or that God doesn't exist / not all people of faith are non-thinkers or illogical thinkers / we are intelligent people and we believe / it is true that unthinking faith is not very helpful in the long term / religion can no more be contained in one basket than can science. religion contains questions & mystery, as does science / the variety of beliefs within even one church disproves Dawkins' view that believers are all the same / rationalism taken to its logical conclusion denies the existence of the human spirit, our humanity & human compassion / what's rational about quantum mechanics? / he's a fundamentalist opposed to fundamentalism
When Dawkins pits reason against faith, we agreed thus:
if faith really is unthinking, then it can indeed result in evil / it is true that unthinking faith is not very helpful in the long term / Euler (a mathematician) found reason to support his faith when he discovered an equation he considered too perfect to be anything other than Divine / righteous faith - righteous unfaith?
We also agreed to a point that faith can divide:
faith does breed intolerance to some things such as poverty and war and other injustices / yes - the fundamentalist end of religion is dangerous / fundamentalism generates intolerance, fundamentalism grows churches, because you can hand over your thinking to someone else!
However, we also think that faith doesn't have to be divisive:
people of faith are just as scared of fundamentalism as people not of faith / just because someone follows a religion doesn't make them good - what an assumption!! / pushing beliefs onto other people doesn't belong to people of faith / i don't believe there are 'good' and 'evil' people, there is the potential for both in us all / intolerance is a wide-spread human trait with or without faith: scientists are not immune / there cannot be a successful, fully literal believer because the Bible is self-contradictory / intolerance occurs when we strive for absolute certainty / St Francis of Assisi? Fr Damien? Mother Teresa? / he is taking all the bad examples of people in religion. there have been so many good religious people and he is only observing about 10% of the religions out there / good people do evil in the name of religion only when religion is subverted by evil people to serve their secular cause /
and to summarise:
It strikes me how dogmatic Dawkins is / we generally object to Richard Dawkins' generalisations. he makes statements which do not include all believers!
to Dawkins' assertion that religion is the root of all evil, we respond with the statement that faith is the root of all hope.
We also considered writings at these sites:
http://www.journeyonline.com.au/showArticle.php?articleId=977 - Peter Harrison's response to The God Delusion
http://www.journeyonline.com.au/showArticle.php?articleId=993 - reflecting on a seminar analysing The God Delusion
