Dawkins : "I'm a cultural Christian".

[mintogrubb.livejournal.com]

Professor Richard Dawkins has said the he is ' A Cultural Christian'.
In a news story on the BBC website, he declared that he has no wish to see Christmas cancelled, or see Britain lose any part of it's Christian heritage. This may come as a surprise to some, but his website tends to direct its venom towards the more negative aspects of religious belief.

These include the Catholic Church's stance on child molesting priests, it's opposition to contraception, and its condemnation of gay people. Yet Protestant believers come in for criticism too. It isn't simply a belief in Adam and Eve that Dawkins criticises, it's the Old Testament's account of Joshua's conquests, the concept of Hell and the moral standards taught in the O.T. that also provoke his ire.

Well, my take on it is as follows -
the Jews didn't really do the conquest of Canaan like the Bible says,in fact they didn't conquer Canaan at all - Joshua's campaign was largely a propaganda exercise done in a later period;
the concept of Hell as a place of eternal torment rests upon misinterpretation and misunderstanding of certain Biblical passages, as well as a certain amount of Hellenistic influence;
the sexism, racism and homophobia are all there in the Torah, but the Jews themselves got over a lot of it before Jesus came along and finished the job.

If we were to teach History in school and pay more attention to events in the Levant around the Bronze Age, it would do a lot to dispel the negative influence that religious mythology still has on society. We can dump all that stuff and still have a version of Christianity that is different from Atheism. And, yes, I would be happy to explain the specifics in the comments - if I get any:)

Comments

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Its impossible to "lose" their heritage.

Preserving our religions is as important as preserving our cave paintings.

I would take exception at the word "venom".

If we were to teach History in school and pay more attention to events in the Levant around the Bronze Age, it would do a lot to dispel the negative influence that religious mythology still has on society.

Indeed. "If English was good enough for Jesus Christ..."

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

Can anyone think of a more useless stance than "I don't want to see Christmas cancelled"?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I don't think looking at Jewish history shows very much change-over from sexism and homophobia, and the period of Sargon, King of Assyria pre-dates racism by a few thousand years.

The statements about there never having been an Exodus or Conquest do note that the Israelites *are* first mentioned historically in a military fashion and they were strong enough to make Assyria take notice.

Hell is owed less to Germanic than to Zoroastrian influence.

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

"If we were to teach History in school and pay more attention to events in the Levant around the Bronze Age, it would do a lot to dispel the negative influence that religious mythology still has on society."

No it wouldn't.

You would end up wasting a lot of class time on what is in the end a rather boring and difficult subject and in the end by the 2nd week of summer vacation 90% of students would have forgotten everything in the class. By the time they were 25 years old 90% of them will barely even remember taking classes in that subject and the majority who do won't remember many (if any) of the specifics correctly.

The fact is that this sort of information is just not relevant to the lives of the average school kid and as such they will just remember enough of it long enough to pass the test and then everything gets thrown out in the garbage and replaced with whatever is actually important to them.

[pastorlenny.livejournal.com]

The problem isn't the negative influence of religious mythology. It's crap theology. Like yours.

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

"still have a version of Christianity that is different from Atheism"

Something like Buddahism perhaps? Keep the teachings, but no divinity?

I love fake histories.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

I suspect that the Romans were given much of their legendary history by external agents. Much of what is doled out to school children in America about America is bowdlerized so that fewer of them will resist the draft and more will volunteer for military service.

Much of Jewish culture comes from its surroundings. Egypt supplied circumcision, Babylon supplied the Deluge, and Persia supplied heroism.

I disagree that Jews have gotten over sexism, racism, and homophobia.