Dawkins: I'm a cultural Christian

[Rrose Selavy]

Perhaps then he's hoping for a Christmas TV Special of "The God Delusion"....
-

Scientist Richard Dawkins, an atheist known worldwide for arguing against the existence of God, has described himself as a "cultural Christian".

He told the BBC's Have Your Say that he did not want to "purge" the UK of its Christian heritage.
The comments came after Tory MP Mark Pritchard accused "politically correct" people of undermining Christmas. Professor Dawkins, author of the God Delusion, added that he liked "singing Carols along with everybody else".
This is historically a Christian country. I'm a cultural Christian in the same way many of my friends call themselves cultural Jews or cultural Muslims.

"So, yes, I like singing Carols along with everybody else. I'm not one of those who wants to purge our society of our Christian history. "If there's any threat these sorts of things, I think you will find it comes from rival religions and not from atheists

-
More here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7136682.stm

 

[NeilC]

Sounds fair enough to me. I kind of feel the same.

I get annoyed when I read stories about traditions tied up with Xtianity (like Christmas etc) are under threat because of "offence" to other religions.

 

[Wildy]

Sounds fair. Even when you consider that Christmas has meanings beyond a religious sense. Like presents, or food, or Jesus' valiant sacrifice in Iraq to save Santa from the Iraqi interrogators.

 

[H3LL]

The "cultural Christian" bit is what I find most nauseating.

The constant low-level background noise of Christianity passes unnoticed by many and IMHO is only thrown into sharp relief when one has lived away from it and returned.

Not until then is its pervasive, mad dribblings an annoyance akin to water-torture.

I will not be truly happy until all religions are consigned to the realm of interesting, latter-day irrelevance or curiosity for study or entertainment, that ancient Norse/Greek/Roman mythologies share.

.

 

[NeilC]

The "cultural Christian" bit is what I find most nauseating.

The low-level background noise of Christianity passes unnoticed by many and IMHO is only thrown into sharp relief when one has lived away from it and returned.

Not until then is its pervasive, mad dribblings an annoyance akin to water-torture.

I will not be truly happy until all religions are consigned to the realm of interesting, latter-day irrelevance or curiosity for study or entertainment, that Norse/Greek/Roman mythologies share.

.

In the meantime, would you be happy to see Christian traditions pushed aside whilst those of other religions expand?

 

[H3LL]

In the meantime, would you be happy to see Christian traditions pushed aside whilst those of other religions expand?

I did say all religions.

And by Christian traditions I expect that you mean Victorian Christian Values as opposed to the slaves, stonings and killing of your own children traditions...or as Jesus calls them..."Laws"?

.

 

[NeilC]

I didn't mention values. I mentioned traditions - xmas, easter etc.

 

[JoeEllison]

The less religion stuffed down my throat the better. I'm a Cultural Atheist.

 

[NeilC]

Really? So you don't celebrate christmas? Do you go as far as saying "happy winterval"?

I'm going to my son's first nativity play on Wed and very much looking forward to it, as are his friends' parents, one of whom is a sikh.

 

[Fnord]

Dawkins' attempt at pandering is as transparent as was the "Compassionate Conservatism" of a few years back.

Until he publicly proclaims Jesus the Christ as his own, personal Lord and Saviour, then he is no Christian of any kind.

 

[NeilC]

Since he defined Cultural Christian in such a way to include himself then he is indeed a Cultural Christian.

 

[Beerina]

"Happy Winter Solstice, or whatever holiday your inaccurate, ancient, tribal cosmology has overlain this natural event."

 

[H3LL]

I didn't mention values. I mentioned traditions - xmas, easter etc.

I know...I did.

As most of those "Christian traditions" as practised today owe more to the Victorians than to anything biblical.

 

[Darat]

If other religions have as good holydays* as Christmas I really, really want them to become mainstream.


*Excuse to senselessly consume food and anything else to excess, an excuse to just be extra nice to anyone, two days public holidays and so on. A good summer one would be appreciated.

 

[patrick767]

I don't think he's pandering. His remark sounds very accurate and could describe a great many of us.

 

[NeilC]

I know...I did.

As most of those "Christian traditions" as practised today owe more to the Victorians than to anything biblical.

Yes you conflated them when you said "And by Christian traditions I expect that you mean Victorian Christian Values". Which I didn't. Of course Christianity in it's ever changing form has had a major role to play in the UK in which I find myself today and it's culture and values and so I have to recognise that too.

Personally I don't really care where traditions like Christmas came from. I enjoy some of them and wouldn't want to see them go anytime soon.

 

[ImaginalDisc]

Dawkins' attempt at pandering is as transparent as was the "Compassionate Conservatism" of a few years back.

Until he publicly proclaims Jesus the Christ as his own, personal Lord and Saviour, then he is no Christian of any kind.

Maybe he read the Bible.

. . .But when you pray, go to your inner room, close the door and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father, who sees in secret, will repay you.”

Matthew 6.6

 

[rob_hebert]

I could consider myself "culturally Roman Catholic" in that I was raised RC and my grandparents still remain so, and I think that it can be a useful description for a number of reasons. Not the least of which is that it's easier to highlight the absurdity of a point of view when you have been raised with it ("Justin, you're culturally Jewish--who the hell are the Maccabees?").

Like H3LL, I too would love it if all religions passed into the irrelevance we associate with Norse and Greek mythology, but I have the sneaking suspicion most of humanity would latch on to something else (i.e., faith-based belief systems based on interaction with aliens, as in Scientology). Either way, one thing I like about some of the holidays that Christians consider "Christian" is that they are so obviously pagan in origin that they are religiously toothless. I recognize that most people (myself included) need certain rituals around which to order their lives, times when they have excuses to visit family and eat fatty food, maybe exchange presents; and Christmas works for me because everyone I know gets December 25th off.

I also understand the fear that many Christians feel over the secularization of "their" holidays when people say X-mas, Rabbit Day, or Turkey Day. I think this fear is well-founded; whenever I hear someone say that "Season's Greetings" isn't secularizing the Christmas season, I say bull****, that's why I use the phrase "Season's Greetings." Maybe in fifty years, X-mas will be as X-ian as Halloween (in fact, I think many of them boycott Halloween). That would be kind of nice. I'll take people dressed up as sexy santa's over crucifixes and mangers any day of the year.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

My wife makes all us atheists look like dithering romantics, but she sings religious music in two choruses for the holidays (not just Christian music). It's fun, it's beautiful, and it's really quite easy to enjoy even though the corner of my mouth may be upturned in a slight smirk when contemplating the deep meaning of the music. There are still strong feelings from my childhood, a kind of melancholy hope that it all could be true, a pleasure in seeing people brought together for the love of music rather than political or economic reasons, memories of people I have loved for whom religious ideas were important, and even fond feelings for our philosophical arguments here.

I don't believe in a god, or even that the idea is particularly coherent. It's a simple lack of belief. But the cultural trappings do me no harm.

~~ Paul

 

[dogjones]

I did say all religions.

And by Christian traditions I expect that you mean Victorian Christian Values as opposed to the slaves, stonings and killing of your own children traditions...or as Jesus calls them..."Laws"?

.

Please advise where in the bible Jesus advocates stoning, slavery, killing of children etc? This will help me greatly in an ongoing debate I'm having with a friend of mine who's flirting with Xtianity.