Dawkins Down Under

Interesting to see Dawkins is making waves in Australia. I've just been reading Gould on the Nazi, an essay called "The Most Unkindest Cut of All", in which he shows quite clearly that the Nazi eugenics movement from Mein Kampf onwards to the fateful Wannsee Conference (brilliantly depicted by Branagh in the film "Conspiracy") was dominated by a reading of evolutionary theory, and had in its central statements, no religious motivation (that was Himmler, not Heydrich), but a scientific one throughout, perverting Darwinism.

Incidentally, Gould was taken to task by a reader when his essay appeared in "Natural History" for the bad grammar in the title. An unwise move for anyone to take on such a widely read scholar! It was, as Gould pointed out, a quotation directly from Shakespear's Julius Caesar!

---

http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/despite-what-the-scholars-say-god-isnt-dead-yet/2007/05/20/1179601236487.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
Despite what the scholars say, God isn't dead yet

Rachael Kohn
May 21, 2007

A scene from The Root of All Evil?, a two-part television series on religion by Richard Dawkins, shows Dawkins accusing the evangelical pastor the Reverend Ted Haggard of running worship sessions in the way the Nazis ran their rallies.

To the scientist Dawkins, a room full of people waving their hands and singing "Praise Jesus" is evil because it is irrational. By definition, believers obedient to a God which cannot be proved to exist, and whose dictums are based on mythical stories that have no basis in fact, are as dangerous as the Brownshirts.

Comparisons such as this one between a scientific inquiring mind and groups of believers who act collectively are popular at the moment. Especially since some of the collective actions have been taken by Islamic terrorists who have used their religion to justify lethal attacks on civilians.

The cool, rational commentators on the news and the reasoned academics who have penned their socioeconomic and psychological analyses of the global situation seem a world away from the suicide bombers who are convinced their acts of destruction will offer personal redemption while fulfilling the will of Allah.

There is no arguing with the fact that terrorism is the arch example of religious zealotry at its most lethal, but what Dawkins failed to acknowledge in his encounter with Haggard is that the Nazi program of eugenics and extermination was not dictated by an unseen god.

The shrieking little man with his arm outstretched in a Nazi salute was all too human. His plan was not the result of a literalist reading of ancient scriptures or the mad blueprint of a religious revelation, but a methodical scheme calculated to have maximum effect, implemented by a tiered network of bullies from the SS down to the terrorised populace.

But there is more in this that should put the scientist masquerading as a moral philosopher on guard. Nazism's propaganda was written with the help of a legion of scholars from the hard and soft sciences, from anthropologists, philologists, psychologists and economists to biologists, zoologists and doctors.

In short, academics of all description willingly devoted their rational, scientific and disciplined minds to support the Nazi cause of domination and extermination of undesirables, most notably Jews but also Gypsies and gays. It is one of the sorriest periods of scientific history, which many academics tried to forget until historians such as Michael Burleigh (Sacred Causes, 2006) provided detailed studies of their complicity.

The Nazi example is not unique but was repeated elsewhere, such as in Stalinist Eastern Europe and Mao's China. It is no doubt occurring in Iran, where dissidence is virtually impossible. The point is not the political ideology, but the readiness of "rational" scientific types to help mad regimes to deliver untold suffering to millions.

The trouble with the present flight from religion to the welcoming embrace of atheistic scientists and philosophers is that they offer precious little more than a new conviction that religion is the cause of evil in the world. In other words, these scientists deliver a message akin to that of the fire-and-brimstone preachers who bellowed about the dangers of sin, only they warn from their secular pulpits of the dangers of religion.

The latest proponent of this view is Michel Onfray, whose book The Atheist Manifesto reads like a comic-book guide to religion on the skids. Religion is a litany of horrors, from superstitious beliefs to organised oppression, while believers are compelled by infantilism, hallucination and a fear of death, Onfray says.

Apart from the Marxist prejudice that runs through his critique, his caricatures make it hard to imagine that religious organisations could provide the network of socially responsible services to the public that they do or produce the armies of volunteers who lend a hand to the needy. In short, Onfray does not accept the sociological truth that religion has not only accommodated the laws and ethos of a democratic state but in a pervasive way supports it. Nor does his swan song for religion take into account the fact that religion, in its many forms, some of them thriving outside the church, provide personal support for millions of people who find meaning and comfort in the love of God or the divine embrace.

Whatever language is used, it is this poetic dimension of the spiritual life that Dawkins, Onfray and friends have no ear to hear or eye to see. If Germany in 1933 had been invaded by people in prayer singing "Praise Jesus" instead of Nazis in jackboots it would not have presided over the worst mass killing in history.

Rachael Kohn's latest book is Curious Obsessions in the History of Science and Spirituality (ABC Books).