Why does Richard Dawkins sing Christmas carols?

Well, if nothing else it did make for a great excuse to sing and celebrate. The other thing for those of us that live in the Northern Hemisphere is Christmas comes only a few days after the shortest day of the year. Birth celebrations, whether of a Jewboy that lived a couple thousand years ago, or of the new year just beginning, are always joyous times and this time of year can always use something to lighten the gloom. So whether you are celebrating Solstice, Christmas, Chanukah, lift up your voice and sing.Edited by jar, : appalin spallin

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Immigration has been a problem Since 1607!

I'm not sure how a Christian can even see religious significance in the birth. Please, elaborate...

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Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

Well, God created people, he expected them to be "good", whatever that means. Then omniscient God was shocked when they turned out to be not good, so infinitely just God damns them to hell for eternity. Except he decides to give a way out, so omnipotent God decided to be born on Dec. 25 so he could be crucified in March so that anyone who thinks that there is even a lick of sense in any of this can be saved.

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It has become fashionable on the left and in Western Europe to compare the Bush administration to the Nazis. The comparison is not without some superficial merit. In both cases the government is run by a small gang of snickering, stupid thugs whose vision of paradise is full of explosions and beautifully designed prisons. -- Matt Taibbi

quote:

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I'm not sure how a Christian can even see religious significance in the birth. Please, elaborate...

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I didn't say I saw any religious significance (whatever that means)in it. I said that eternal Gods incarnation would be a monumental thing in the history of the world (assuming true). Barring the beginning of time and the end of time there would be little else to compete with it in terms of monumentality (if that's the correct term). Except his leaving this world perhaps.Although his death and resurrection are apparently significant. Thuswise Easter as a significant event on the Christian calender too.

... I agree with you.I fail to see how any honest scientist could possibly believe in such unadulterated horseshit ... oops, I mean religion. But some do. How they manage such cognitive dissonance, I don't know.But stepping out of one's arena (biology into history/sociology) is ... tetchy.Witness James Watson. Or what of those all those gd engineers that see fit to proclaim evolution bankrupt based on their incisive scientific insight?That said, there is absolutely nothing wrong with a scientist being forthright about his atheism. I wish more would.And to characterize Dr. Dawkins as evangelical (as our beloved woomeister Lindalou has) simply because he has chosen to publish a book on atheism (THE NERVE) ... well ... that's really a bit much.But (and believe me it pains me a great deal to say this) I agree with H.Dawkins is not "being a scientist" when he writes of atheism (and by that I mean not-a-scientist-with-the-appropriate-training-that-we-are-talking-about).And I suspect that H is trying to somehow belittle Dawkins with his "not a scientist" bullshit.Quoth the H: "It is this misrepresentation by himself and others that support him, that irks me the most."What misrepresentation this numbskull is referring to, I haven't the foggiest.Perhaps he meant to suggest "I resent a scientist of Dr. Dawkins' stature taking advantage of said bully pulpit to declare his atheism is such a vulgar way."Keeping in mind, of course, that any profession of atheism is vulgar to those ... sorts.And that's just plain ignernt.Dr. Dawkins is a remarkable man and a brilliant scientist. Thank anything that is even remotely fn holy that Dr. Dawkins stepped up to the plate and knocked one out of the park.Folks that feel bereft without some "transcendent" mystery in their lives need to adopt a stray cat or something.

The following was the quote, by you, I was addressing... Perhaps I do not understand what you meant by misrepresented as a figure in modern science.He is usually addressed for his views on atheism, which is not part of modern science. I don't know anyone falsely attacking him as being in error as a scientist, which is the only meaning I can get from the above sentence.On the other hand, he is usually quick to tie his atheism into his role as scientist which I do not think is valid. He can be a fantastic scientist and a complete nutball with regard to his religious convictions. One has no bearing on the other.Yes, he's a scientist. Yes, scientists are allowed to promote atheism. No, atheism is NOT based in science. A lack of belief can be held without one bit of knowledge of science or its methods. Indeed it is theoretically possible that science could start delivering evidence which makes atheism less tenable. That is not a sociological claim, and he is not a sociologist. I certainly agree with your historian label, but this is not correct. And in this I would agree, but what does disputing creationism have to do with theism or atheism? And I don't mean that sarcastically, or in a nitpicky sense. I think that is a very real distinction. Atheism is not the natural conclusion of science. Where on earth did you get that? And while all supernatural possibilities are not beyond the reach of science, most such possibilities certainly are when they include claims which cannot be tested. That does not make them false, though one can of course question their utility.The point is that so far within science there is no NEED to include gods for an explanation. That is not the same thing as concluding there aren't, or weren't, any.You can be a scientist and promote atheism. It is simply incorrect to tie atheism to science as if the strength of science, or one's role in science, has anything to say about theism.By the way, when Dawkins is promoting atheism, he's being a philosopher. A metaphysician to be exact. Whoops!

The misrepresentation that he is talking as a scientist when he is discussing atheism.yrs truley,
numbskullP.S.- I do believe he is a scientist. And I would like all manner of atheists (scientists or not) to be more open and free with their thoughts, and critical of BS they see. I don't like the way Dawkins approaches the subject, both for his donning the mantle of science when doing so, and for his unnecessary venom which I believe is counterproductive. I guess you could say I am more along the lines of Dennett, or perhaps Jonathon Miller (who has an excellent series on the history of atheism). But then again, I'm just a numbskull.

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h
"Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing." - Robert E. Howard

Brilliant? What did he do that was brilliant science?

In addition: In addition: All of this in addition, of course, to over 100 papers he has published in the past 30 years.I, myself, do research on ribozymes.And you?

I mentioned it earlier but I thought maybe I should go ahead and share a link to Jonathon Miller's Atheism: A Rough History of Disbelief. The link is to the first segment of many. It is a BBC series. Each segment is about 10min each, and there are six for each episode.I found it interesting and inspiring. Maybe other atheists or theists will get some enjoyment out of it.

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h
"Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing." - Robert E. Howard

Indeed it is, simply by default. But it is not vice versa. Science should be the way the US government is defined in the Establishment Clause -- neutral.At the same time, its unrealistic that people won't use science as a way to support or undermine a (dis)belief in God. People will continue to do that.Regardless, E doesn't = because God said so, and E doesn't = chaos got it right, again. It equals MC². Therein lies the neutrality. The greater "why" questions come after the fact, not before. Sociology, history, theology, etc, are not aspects of hard science. You can't glean those kinds of answers through a beaker. Those are philosophical questions. Dawkins has every right to have his philosophical notions. He just shouldn't call it a hard science when its a philosophical view point. Atheism is not the natural conclusion of science. Rather, science is the natural conclusion of atheism, as it is the weapon of choice that atheism has in its arsenal to undermine theology. There is a vast difference.

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“This life’s dim windows of the soul, distorts the heavens from pole to pole, and goads you to believe a lie, when you see with and not through the eye.” -William Blake

To me, christmas is a holiday when I can be with my family... and I have a rather large extended family. Since I'm a non-materialist in an economical sense, I don't really look forward to the presents, although I do look forward to seeing the faces of my nieces and nephews when they open my presents to them.If you are talking about religious deep meaning, there is none as far as I am concern. If you are talking about other type of deep meaning, christmas is a holiday when I can be with all my nieces and nephews all at once, and I love kids. Heck, half of them I had changed their diapers before. The oldest one is halfway to being 18 already. Man, do they grow fast.

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Owing to the deficiency of the English language, I have occasionally used the academic jargon generator to produce phrases that even I don't fully understand. The jargons are not meant to offend anyone or to insult anyone's intelligence!

I mean precisely what it says, I guess. Dawkins is a scientist, and more than any other scientist, his views and arguments are misrepresented. Absolutely. So? At that point, it would be whatever science delivered evidence of that would be based on science.But that's in your imaginary world. In the real world, the evidence science delivers confirms atheism. Hence, atheism is based on science. Nothing, it's just an example of the kinds of things he does as a scientist. From science, of course. The evidence of science naturally leads to atheism.Wherever did you get the idea otherwise? Sure, but God really isn't one of those claims. The God claim does include testable claims, they've been tested, and thus the God claim has been rejected because it's testable consequences lead to the opposite conclusion.You know, the way anything can be disconfirmed. Of course not, but reasonable people surely can see that there's enough evidence to take it further; science contradicts the existence of God. How could it not? Gosh, if it didn't, why would science be such a target for theists? Why would so many scientists be atheists?It's incoherent to act like there's no connection. How many people whose beliefs are determined by evidence have to arrive at a conclusion of atheism before you stop ignoring that? But it obviously does. The scientific evidence contradicts theism. How can it not? Nonsense, no more than anybody else who uses scientific evidence to disprove something. It's not philosophy, it's science. (Of course, I know that doesn't stop philosophers from trying to appropriate the work of others.)

Well, in the sense that Neil DeGrasse Tyson isn't being an astrophysicist when he writes his popular books about astrophysics - he's being a book writer, and not doing research according to the scientific method - I agree with you.But when Tyson goes to sleep, he's no less a scientist than he is when he's in the lab, even if he's doing something other than science. And the same is true of Dawkins. Tyson is a member of the scientific community - he's "in science" to use the terminology I used before - even if he's brushing his teeth and not doing science, and the same is true of Dawkins.Dawkins is no less a part of science for writing a book about atheism, even if the book itself doesn't constitute a scientific publication.

Does he, anywhere?See what I mean about how often he's misrepresented? Well, wait. Just now you said: And now you're saying that it is vice versa. You're a little confused on what's the conclusion of what, here.