Why does Richard Dawkins sing Christmas carols?

But the question is why does he claim that moderate Christians empower murderous fundamentalists? Dawkins does provide the answer: the glorification of faith-based reasoning. Singing songs about religious icons or a fat man with a bag of holding who drives a flying squadron of northern ungulates (the lead one of which has a bioluminescent nose) does not lead to stating that faith-based reasoning is in some way 'good' - something to aspire to and a character trait to be celebrated.It is no more odd that an anti-theist might enjoy singing Christmas carols than it is that a anti-pagan enjoys playing a part in Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" or an anti-Christian can enjoy painting a representation of the last supper or an anti-supernaturalist carving a wizard out of stone.That is to say, it isn't remotely odd. Not in a month of Wotan's days. The popular art of our lives is definitely part of our lives, and indulging in folk-songs is one aspect of that. It doesn't matter if the songs are anti-war, pro-war, anti-christian or pro-christian.To a fundamentalist, denying any cultural heritage that does not align with their beliefs might not be odd - but once again this is another piece of evidence against the Dawkins-as-fundamentalist image some people are trying to erect.For what it's worth, I don't generally enjoy the Christian-centric carols, most of them are rubbish. I prefer things like Deck The Halls and Jingle Bells: much more fun; That said - I do like Joy to the World, but that is aesthetic rather than lyrically driven: I like the fact that it starts simply by playing the scale of C Major backwards.

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No - I don't believe a cosmic Jewish zombie can make me live forever if I eat his flesh and telepathically tell him that I accept him as my master, so he can then remove an evil force from my soul that is present in all of humanity because a dirt/rib woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree about 6,000 years ago just after the universe was created. Why should I?

Agreed. I don't. Nor does Dawkins. It's just that certain kinds of reasoning are far more prone to errors and thus increasing the probability and magnitude of fucking up. I'm talking about Christmas Carols and inherited culture. What's this got to do with that? What on earth are you talking about? What has Santa and singing lyrics with a Christian theme got to do with political theory? It looks like you are getting confused between this thread and Anti-theistic strawmen? or something.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

If I were to give you such a scientific study, we'd find ourselves at a quandary. My reasoning aspires towards a sort of empirical rationalism, and science is applied empirical rationalism. In effect we'd be using a method that assumes the reasoning to demonstrate that the reasoning is less error prone. Unless you have developed some kind of mind reading probe, I can't see how you managed to extract that information. It certainly doesn't seem to reflect anything I've read or heard from him. Nevertheless, this is about Richard Dawkins AND Christmas carols. Even if he did think all the world's ills are caused by religion, you still need to somehow tie that in with singing folk songs that originated from a religious background.

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Of course today's religious killings and persecutions are not motivated by theological disputes. IRA gunmen don't kill Protestants (or vice versa) over disagreements about transubstantiation. The motive is more likely to be tribal vengeance. It was one of 'them' killed one of 'us'. 'They' drove 'our' great grandfathers out of our ancestral lands. The grievances are economic and political, not religious, and the vendettas stretch back a long way.

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It is easy for religious faith, even if it is irrational in itself, to lead a sane and decent person, by rational, logical steps, to do terrible things. There is a logical path from religious faith to evil deeds. There is no logical path from atheism to evil deeds. Of course, many evil deeds are done by individuals who happen to be atheists. But it can never be rational to say that, because of my nonbelief in religion, it would be good to be cruel, to murder, to oppress women, or to perpetrate any of the evils on the Hitchens list.

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The following quotation from the Nobel prize winning physicist Steven Weinberg has become well known, but it is so devastatingly true that it is worth quoting again and again: "With or without [religion] you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, it takes religion."

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But why implore me to learn some political theory? Why was that on topic? It doesn't matter if Dawkins is 100% wrong in his political view or indeed if I am - the question is why does he sing Christmas carols given his views (political or otherwise)?

It is a philosophical position, I've never denied that. I can strongly argue as to why it is less prone to error but while there is evidence that evidence based reasoning is superior (modern medicine as one gigantic bit of evidence), one cannot logically use evidence based reasoning to demonstrate evidence based reasoning is valid since it assumes that which it concludes.My mode of reasoning isn't pure empiricism so to be philosophically consistent I don't need to rely purely on empiricism. I can rely on empiricism and reasoning. If you want we me to justify my reasoning style empirical/reason based argument as to why faith-based reasoning is more prone to error I would be happy to see what I can do, in a thread that is more relevant. I don't. I included myself in the group 'humans' you posted earlier with regards to 'fuck-ups'. However, I fail to see how holding this philosophical position on the inferiority of faith-based reasoning precludes anyone from enjoying cultural traditions with a faith-based origin. You may support that with quotes at your leisure. Might I suggest the thread I started and recently linked to as a good starting point. You'll have to explain how the quotes I gave reflects the opinion that religion is the cause of all the world's ills since it seems to come under the 'everything you've heard him say on the subject' category. If you choose to not support your claims, that's not my problem. Almost true. Religion isn't the source, it is a hypothesized to be a contributory factor. The source is human nature. However, these are still empirical claims. Only if their personality flaws are encouraged and enflamed and justified by their religion or religious community. One day, someone will say what this agenda is, exactly. It isn't if it is true. But seriously, in your terms, the issue with religion isn't that it is mob behaviour, but that it encourages and celebrates mob behaviour and seeks to repeat it again and again, and to get more members into the mob etc etc. Agreed. Fortunately we are capable of overcoming to lesser or greater extents parts of 'who we are', and we should strive to do so wherever possible. Like criticizing organised mobs that grow and are tax exempt and that seem to have a specially uncriticizable status in society...because so much of society belongs to one mob or another. He's doing it because he enjoys it, he likes ritual and thinks it is a benign element of human nature. He enjoys communal activity because he is a social ape. I don't see how singing carols with your family glamorises the idea of religious activity - it doesn't glamourise it for me. It glamorises folk singing and familial communal gatherings. I'm sure it glamorises something else, though similar to Dawkins. Here he is taking 5 minutes to talk about it. It isn't a religous celebration to him though, it's a cultural one. It is a cultural ritual for him, not a religious one. So does Dawkins. I don't see him forcing his daughter to marry a rich family, or circumcising her, or slaying a goat or indeed getting on his hands and knees and facing Mecca 5 times a day. Obviously he doesn't disapprove of singing certain songs. Nor do I - except when the music is good. Usually I find myself surrounded by people singing awful songs in a dirge like manner, but I've sung Hare Krsna for hours. That's nice. If I like singing the song, I'll sing it. Evidently so would RD. I don't see engaging in cultural traditions as somehow endorsing the origins of those tradition, otherwise Christians would be endorsing paganism! I'm not sure how 'reason' and 'context matters' are mutually exclusive. Of course context matters. I'd probably refrain from singing 'Merry Fucking Christmas' at a church for example.I haven't over-glorified my thinking process at all, I have simply stated that evidence-based reasoning is prone to less errors than faith-based reasoning. That might be championing evidence-based reasoning but I fail to see it as over-glorifying it.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

You added it in edit after I had pressed 'reply', so it was not there at that time. I submitted my now edited message a few minutes after your reply.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

You thought that I thought differently or something? I'm not going to do so on this thread. The truth of the claims is irrelevant to this thread. We're here to discuss a man who holds these claims to be true and yet engages in behaviour associated with a religion. It doesn't matter. What might be interesting is to learn the reasons why they killed - which might difficult. No. Some atheists do not believe that religion is on the whole harmful so they didn't come to that conclusion at all. No, why on earth do you ask these questions? They seem irrelevant to anything that I am saying or the topic. Since when is it that anyone said that one cannot be atheist who engages in faith-based thinking? Of course you can become an atheist for the most inane of reasons, one can be an atheist who believes in fairies or homeopathy or domovoi. I wasn't talking about 'atheistic human thought'. I was talking about rational empiricism. You know, the idea that we can reason but that the reasoning should be confirmed by evidence - that we can use inductive, deductive and abductive reasonings if we do so in a certain way to be confident of certain conclusions - but also that we must remain aware that all of our knowledge is tentative.Sure - that doesn't involve god, but it isn't the mode of thought that is unique to atheists nor are all atheists wise followers of this mode of thought. Oh. One hell of an agenda. Actually that's YOUR agenda. No, wait, it's Ray's agenda. Actually I could say it of almost anybody and I'd have the same grounds as you do. He seeks to defame people, not because they disagree with him, but because he does not believe they should have the reputation they do. Take the bishop who blamed local floods on the acceptance of homosexuality. There is a man who shouldn't be looked up to, but he is. Where is the harm in trying to bring a bigot like that down as many notches as possible in social status? Create a thread, maybe I will. A great deal of existing religion, yes. Not all of it. If you'd read your Dawkins (obscure reference...sorry) you'd know that, surely. Who said anything about converts? Most religious people have never converted and yet there are billions of them today where there were only millions of them in the not too distant past. That really depends on what perspective we are attacking this from. For example, if we look at ourselves as purely machines for propagating DNA, then culture has warped that somewhat. We do do things that don't really make a great deal of sense as an action looked at purely for the propagation of DNA. Of course all society belogns to one mob or another, I was talking about the specific kinds of mob. Mob X (Type A mob) doesn't want to see Type A mobs criticized because they are part of Type A mob. Hopefully that makes the point a little clearer. No it doesn't change the fact that your ovaries want to rule your life - but that doesn't mean that cultural ideas of romance and propriety might mean you hold off having sex until a certain ritual has been completed. Thus, propagation of culture is at times opposed to propagation of genes. Sometimes culture actually wins. If culture=religion then Dawkins is religious. However, this just confuses the issue for no real gain in understanding elsewhere. No christmas is a time of year which contains many rituals forming an overarching collection of rituals. Are you suggesting that Dawkins engages in a ritual which he himself disapproves of? Which ritual is it that he disapproves of that he himself engages in? It isn't carol singing, he doesn't disapprove of that. He doesn't disapprove of saying 'bless you' when someone sneezes. So what ritual is it? Yes it is. Your personal preferences in this are simply that. OK. Change it to '...Christianity is endorsing Germanic polytheism under a Norse pantheon!' No I haven't. Actually the contrary. I have stated that I am a fuck up with a tendency towards erroneous reasoning. I know you cannot find the post where I said what you claim I said here so allow me to laugh in your face at your attempts to destroy that strawman. I'll be waiting over here in the trenches if you want to engage. Agreed. Well that depends what you mean by reasoning. But yes, I agree our reasoning is the same - however there may be some philosophical differences for how we start the reasoning and what to compare that reasoning with and how to deal with things if what we compare it with is inconsistent or incongruous with our reasoning. That seemed like a bit of a mouthful so I thought you'd know what I meant when I contrasted different bases of reasoning. Refusing anecdotal evidence is madness. It should be handled with appropriate care. If someone knocks on my door to tell me my house is on fire , I won't reject their claim but I will maintain skepticism in case I am becoming a victim of a confidence scam or burglary. I will seek out evidence myself and try and decide if my house is on fire. If so I'll evacuate.It all depends on the nature of the claim, the claimant, and what evidence can be accrued during what time period. I don't know what coincidental evidence is exactly. I don't see meaning in the fact that I sat next to a IT recruiter when I was thinking about changing jobs if that's what you mean - but it is certainly evidence of IT recruiters. Well you don't know that do you? You just think I can't demonstrate it. Take it up in a different thread. We can discuss faith-based reasoning in homeopathy or the age of the earth or contraception or disease control or whatever. Obviously the time of year might present time issues, but if you want to discuss it, I'll be around and about. I do have justification for saying it, I just don't think we are in anyway the right thread to discuss any of it. Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

Excellent! This will give us valuable data on whatever variety of mental health problems they were having. You must have missed my point. I wasn't actually claiming it was your agenda, I was providing examples of equally baseless accusations about secret agendas mixed with a call for evidence should happen to have any to back it up. I didn't say you did. You can claim that a society that holds virtuous the belief in something without evidence, you are providing a breeding ground for crazy and dangerous beliefs, if that is what you think is the case. I was referring to an individual who was being defamed because I was thinking about damaging reputation. Criticising what you see as a negative social practice is hardly defamation. I said I couldn't use evidence to show that evidence was a good way to come to decisions. I did say that I can use evidence and reasoning to demonstrate that faith-based reasoning is more prone to error. Not all doesn't mean not any. Individuals don't exist in vacuums, they exist in societies. It is possible that certain societal practices have certain non-obvious consequences which certain people might not want. Those certain people might try and argue their position to elicit a change in their society. A complete truism, which is why mobs that do what they essentially promote criticism (despite how much they do not like it directed at themselves) are something to be desired over mobs that have secured themselves a position of not getting criticized for fear of offending the mobs and being accused of defaming said mob. It confuses the issue not because of my poor little head that can't understand the point you were making, but because of common usage. As I said, Dawkins is religious by your definition, and by your definition Dawkins is not criticising religion he's not an anti-religionist but an anti-dogmaticsupernaturalist.I'm perfectly happy to continue discussing this as if Dawkins were a religious man - he himself has said that by certain definitions he is religious. No problem. Are you suggesting that Dawkins fails to understand that December is a time of year or that christmas is a collection of rituals? Where on earth did you get that bizarre idea from? Christmas is also a time of year, in as real a sense as 'December' is. And yes, it is also the collection of rituals I mentioned. Yeah, I love being disrespectful and dishonest. My trademark that. No, the difference is in what we consider disrespectful and dishonest. I don't think it is either disrespectful nor dishonest to sing songs in happiness and joy to celebrate family or a cultural heritage while someone else is singing those same songs for a different reason. Well it's all ancestor worship anyway, and there's nothing wrong with endorsing that is there? Dawkins and Christians are clearly endorsing the same thing and are both being equally honest about it when they sing their songs endorsing paganism and deck the halls and leave coal outside their door. Seems there has been a bit of a mixup. Let me draw this to your attention in a hope to clarify:

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My mode of reasoning isn't pure empiricism so to be philosophically consistent I don't need to rely purely on empiricism. I can rely on empiricism and reasoning. If you want we me to justify my reasoning style empirical/reason based argument as to why faith-based reasoning is more prone to error I would be happy to see what I can do, in a thread that is more relevant.

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Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

Even this off topic aside is getting off topic. Nobody mentioned any secret conspiracies. You made the claim that Dawkins has a certain hidden agenda, you did not provide any evidence of it. The same kind of claim could be made of just about anybody anytime anywhere. That's all. We're back to the beginning again I see. No - the problem is that endorsing faith-based reasoning creates fertile grounds for people to come do dangerous moral conclusions with less checks against reality demanded.If so many prevalent religious faiths, did not encourage faith-based moral reasoning there would be a much lesser problem - that is the claim. I said that I couldn't produce a scientific study that demonstrates that the scientific method is less prone to errors since that would be circular - that is to say the definition of error would be defined in terms of what science considers to be erroneous and that would be anything that diverged from the scientific method. Thus it is trivially true that science would show that other methods of reasoning are more prone to error. That is to say: a reasoning error in empirical reasoning is reasoning that does not cohere or correspond with evidence gained from the outside world.However, if you aren't going to worry about such things, I have offered to discuss the issue in another thread, time permitting, using reason and evidence.

Ah, the old 'it's so obvious a claim it requires no support' chestnut. As long as we are clear on that I think we can leave that avenue alone. Yes, I have to support my position, whereas you are allowed to get away with the 'its obvious' defence. Every time you have asked I do this I say the same thing. It involves a comment that it would be offtopic and the suggestion it is done in another thread. Do I need to repeat myself any more times? I am suggesting that you are demanding that I engage in circular logic which I point out is silly. Your demand is that I prove my philosophy using a methodology borne out from said philosophy is clearly ridiculous. Since I am refusing to engage in circular logic, it seems odd that you would state that I am engaging in circular logic.I am happy to present an argument for my case as to why empirical/rational reasoning produces less error than faith-based reasoning - in a thread appropriate for doing that. None of this is important to the topic of Dawkins singing Christmas carols.All that is important here is what Dawkins' position is (not its correctness) and whether this comes into significant conflict with singing Christmas carols (or generally regarding other religious rituals).

Essentially two arguments. One is that Brenna doesn't sing songs of worship when others are singing them in worship around her since she considers it disrespectful. That's fine and all, but it's just a question of etiquette.The second is that Dawkins socio-political comments are erroneous. I've tried to avoid discussing that in this thread since it isn't important to the topic.

Singing communal songs is not a religious ritual. Sometimes those songs have a religious background, some of them don't. It's just singing songs. I sing songs about the English civil war or World War I championing both sides, though I generally despise war. I sing songs about cheating on one's wife, though I have never cheated on any partner.I sing songs in a communal setting in a number of contexts. Sometimes they are simply folk songs that I sing with other folk singers to celebrate our British culture. Sometimes it is at the Proms. Unless you think me and the other lot of Britain that get together and sing:

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I will not cease from mental fight,

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nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,

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till we have built Jerusalem

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In England’s green and pleasant Land.

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are hypocritical if we actually don't want Jerusalem to come to Britain?Heck, just about every Englishman I know has stood up and communally sang "God save the Queen", yet I don't think he can.For someone to think that communal singing can only mean the passive endorsement of the source of the song, they must have had an empty life.There are plenty of rituals that Dawkins thinks are better when the religious element is excised - such as weddings and funerals. But our cultural heritage does owe itself to Christianity, paganism, war, slavery and naval superiority and I really can't see the problem in singing songs composed to celebrate those elements. Taking a dump or drinking Coke don't diminish the God meme either, but I bet he does them from time to time. Dawkins is a human first and foremost, and does human things like engaging in ritual. Dawkins doesn't think that religion has inspired no beauty. If you are going to understand a poignant metaphor or clever turn of phrase, one needs to understand the source material. There are lots phrases in the Bible that have made it into our collective lingo and into literature and art and music. To be ignorant of the Bible is to be ignorant of these allusions which in my opinion detracts somewhat from the art in question. There is a reason that moderates empower fundamentalists: they justify stupid reasoning processes -faith-based reasoning. Singing songs doesn't justify a reasoning style, and if you sing some songs and then publicly state that they are all songs about fictions I don't see that as empowering the moderates.The funny thing is that people criticize him for not having a firm grasp of theology, but by this reasoning surely if he spent a lot of time studying theology that would empower the moderates? Well no, not if he constantly said it was all an entertaining fiction.

No - I understand what you are saying, but my point is that Dawkins isn't criticizing moderates for endorsing religious practices or rituals. Dawkins has frequently said that rituals are probably a vital part of human life. It isn't the endorsement of religious-based practices he criticizes but the endorsement of faith-based reasoning. If all the world's religions were about singing songs about fictional heroes and role-models Dawkins wouldn't have really have much of a problem with it beyond an aesthetic one. I don't disagree, but that wasn't the spirit I was talking of. I was simply saying that celebrating our cultural heritage whether it is the culture that has Christian roots or war-related roots isn't an endorsement. Of course, I don't think he'd disagree that he is indeed a product of Western culture which includes some Christian elements. That is essentially what he meant when he said he was a cultural Christian - it was a reference to those he knows that call themselves Jews in the cultural sense but not in the religious one.I'm sure those Jews would also say they are a product of Western culture which includes some Christian elements but also includes the Jewish cultural elements. There are non-religious rituals he engages in. As I previously he doesn't consider singing Christmas carols any more dangerous than singing pagan Arias in moderation. It is the faith-based reasoning acceptance which he considers the danger. The more knowledge that I can get about the origins of Christian ritual the more I can appreciate Christian rituals. Maybe I'm alone in thinking that. Seeing a carving of a Green Man on a Christian church would normally go unnoticed by many people, but I can stop and appreciate something of the story behind why it is there.Also - imagine singing Jingle Bells without knowing the Santa story? You'd never really appreciate why a song about a man riding a sleigh through the snow elicited the emotions it did in generations past. You'd only get the part about the fun expressed in riding a sleigh, not the anticipation of the arrival of a magical gift bearer. Openly stating that you find it a beautiful and moving fiction is a far cry from endorsing a reasoning style - otherwise he'd have to reject all art (and science!) that came from someone who engaged in faith-based reasoning.But Dawkins openly states that the products of faith-based reasoning can be beautiful, and I can't see him denying that. I'm sure that some moderates will take that as confirmation that their reasoning processes are valid. People are like that though. Nonbelievers can come up with moving cultural pieces, and have done. There is no 'reliance' on Christian products. Many elements of the Christian celebration of Christmas come from pagan sources. I don't see why elements of the secular celebration of Christmas cannot come from Christian sources (including the name). Hehehe. Hehehe. Heh. Really? Seriously? Hehe. I think Dawkins would agree. He does the Christmas carols because they are a big part of the culture he belongs to that he enjoys in a nonreligious fashion. No doubt he sings Auld Lang Syne too. It is an amusing allusion to the reception they have received. The idea that a bunch of folks sat around discussing a social issue could be thought of as the harbingers of doom as some writers and preachers have warned is quite a wonderful juxtaposition. Remember that Dawkins doesn't reject allusions and metaphors taken from religious sources.

To tie this string back into the topic:

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I am no memetic engineer, and I have very little idea how to increase the numbers of the super nice and spread their memes through the meme pool. The best I can offer is what I hope may be a catchy slogan. 'Atheists for Jesus' would grace a T-shirt. There is no strong reason to choose Jesus as icon, rather than some other role model from the ranks of the super nice such as Mahatma Gandhi (not the odiously self-righteous Mother Teresa, heavens no). I think we owe Jesus the honour of separating his genuinely original and radical ethics from the supernatural nonsense which he inevitably espoused as a man of his time. And perhaps the oxymoronic impact of 'Atheists for Jesus' might be just what is needed to kick start the meme of super niceness in a post-Christian society. If we play our cards right - could we lead society away from the nether regions of its Darwinian origins into kinder and more compassionate uplands of post-singularity enlightenment?

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I think a reborn Jesus would wear the T-shirt. It has become a commonplace that, were he to return today, he would be appalled at what is being done in his name, by Christians ranging from the Catholic Church to the fundamentalist Religious Right. Less obviously but still plausibly, in the light of modern scientific knowledge I think he would see through supernaturalist obscurantism. But of course, modesty would compel him to turn his T-shirt around: Jesus for Atheists. -- Richard Dawkins

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I'm not sure about what his counterarguments to the claim that "The Bible is the source of morality" have anything to do with singing Christmas carols or engaging in other rituals with pagan or Christian origins. Should he avoid Easter too, in case people get the wrong idea?Or perhaps he should say "Hey guys, look you're not total idiots. There are some things of value and I'm not so much of a curmudgeon that I can't see that. Look we agree on this and that but where we differ is on this critical point...". They can pick out what is unethical from what is ethical, that's largely Dawkins' point. That's why religious texts can be said not to be sources of morality, but an old tool used to justify moral positions. Dawkins on the other hand is decrying a culture where not only believing certain propositions without any evidence is considered virtuous, but that the stronger you believe the harder to believe things the more you should be looked up to. Well they might be silly, but they serve some purpose at least. It's not like he goes around saying "Hi, I'm a cultural Christian" all the time. He has other terms he prefers to use to describe himself which are more inline with what you are saying. In explanation as to why he engages in Christmas carols he explains that he has adopted some of the rituals that he has grown up with which have a Christian association.He raises the point that many people that engage in caroling don't believe any of the words behind what they sing anymore a soprano might believe she is imploring the gods of vengeance to hear her 'mother's vow'. No. His point on children is that adults shouldn't
a) indoctrinate them into one faith (rather: we should teach them about many faiths and teach them that many more exist, and allow the children to make up their own mind in their own time.)
b) label them as belonging to one faith before they can reasonably be said to have made any considered choice in the matter.Adults labelling themselves is an entirely different issue. So whatever Dawkins does he's going to end up, in some people's minds, endorsing the things he decries. Why not simply accept that is true, and try to minimize the confusion by using clear language to explain ones self? "Yes I do X, to me it is an entertaining fiction much like Wuthering Heights.". Maybe one day, "Away in a manger", might be a little like the possible origins of the Hokey Cokey (hoc enim est corpus meum ). So basically what you are saying is that passionate public criticism of a social issue and the championing of an alternative is the same as evangelism. If that is it, why the silly story about jealousy of priests and retaining the semblance of the church? You made it sound like the plot of a South Park double-episode. I haven't watched it yet (as you might anticipate, I've been wanting to for some time - I keep an eye on richarddawkins.net because there are a lot of interesting articles and videos that get posted there), the time of year is busy. I am still wading through the 16-20 hours or so of Beyond Belief 2007. As soon as I get time I will be watching them. And I have little time for most of them either. It's a matter of taste really; it is probably significant that I wasn't born in the 1940s, that I did not go to public school and that I am definitely not from a middle-class background. There is a difference between mental abuse and thought-crime. And it's not like Dawkins wants to criminalize the behaviour. Whenever I have seen him talk about this I've always seen him make it clear he wants to raise people's awareness of the situation. If we all went around saying "Oh look, there's Tommy aged six. He's a Marxist", we might find that odd or even creepy. He wants people to consider that this might be the way to think about the parallels with saying "There is Mohammad aged six. He's a Muslim". It might. Then again I think "The God Delusion" or "Why religion poisons everything" or "Christianity is a mind virus" are far worse, at least this shows that they have a sense of humour, and aren't dark and evil humourless bastards.At this point though, their goals aren't to convert the, shall we say, critically-ill sufferers of the 'mind virus'. Only to help raise the consciousness of those with mild variants of the virus. To get people talking about something that they might have otherwise talked about rarely if at all. Of course they do - and the wonderful thing is that such things are spoken about. Dawkins has often been asked if his no-holds barred approach to discussing this issue might be alienating moderate believers and might be doing harm to his goals rather than assisting them. He has conceded that he might be making a mistake in a political sense, but that he is aiming for the on-the-fencers not those that are entrenched and he has had some successes with some of those on the fence. His goal seems to be more about consciousness raising of issues, not in forging a post-religious utopia. And Sam Harris - perhaps because of his relative youth, is beginning to look into the long term. He is discussing strategy whereas Dawkins doesn't really have as much care for strategy, except in cases where the strategy seems to be wrong.Harris wants to opt for the covert individual person-to-person mocking of silly superstitions that people dress up in the gilded clothes of the emperor and call it religion.I think that the slap in the face that the past 18 months have been in the wake of the publishing of the unholy trinity, the triumvirate, the post-religionists, the horsemen of the apocalypse, the four evangelists, whatever has opened the topic up for public discussion allowing fertile grounds for those individuals to do some 'groundwork'. I think both tactics have merit, and listening to both sides of the debate on this issue - as well as those that think they are both wrong, is illuminating. This is why I'm watching Beyond Belief as a priority...30% of the people there at least have positions I disagree with.It's kind of odd though. On the one had you say that Dawkins should not engage in rituals with Christian origins, and on the other you say he needs to play the game tactically or with political savvy.So which role is it?a) The grumpy Oxford professor atheist curmudgeon that says "baa humbug" to everything - and even neglects to say 'Bless you' for fear people might think him endorsing religion.
b) The genial Oxford professor who accepts that ritual is important to humans, and who engages in some rituals he inherited from his culture which has a Christian history. "Hey guys, it's not that I'm against anything with the name Christ attached to it out of principle. It is only certain things that I take issue with such as..."Should he be the over-literal unpopular Git who alienates everyone by telling them that they shouldn't exclaim "God Alimghty!", when they stump their toe, or should he try and present the image of a passionate critic of a certain epistemology/moral-reasoning, with the moderate acceptance of essentially benign rituals?

But we do consider left-handedness and figure skating normal so choosing something non-taboo wouldn't really make any sense would it?