As I often do, I picked a book off the shelf the other day to keep me company through a lonely lunch. It had been a while, so I revisited The God Delusion and picked a random chapter.
I’d forgotten how FUN a book it can be in places! I give you a bit of pp. 34-35:
Jefferson heaped ridicule on the doctrine that, as he put it, ‘There are three Gods’, in his critique of Calvinism. But it is especially the Roman Catholic branch of Christianity that pushes its recurrent flirtation with polytheism towards runaway inflation. The Trinity is (are?) joined by Mary, ‘Queen of Heaven’, a goddess in all but name, who surely runs God himself a close second as a target of prayers. The pantheon is further swollen by an army of saints, whose intercessory power makes them, if not demigods, well worth approaching on their own specialist subjects. The Catholic Community Forum helpfully lists 5,120 saints, together with their areas of expertise, which include abdominal pains, abuse victims, anorexia, arms dealers, blacksmiths, broken bones, bomb technicians and bowel disorders, to venture no further than the Bs. And we mustn’t forget the four Choirs of Angelic Hosts, arrayed in nine orders: Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones, Dominions, Virtues, Powers, Principalities, Archangels (heads of all hosts), and just plain old Angels, including our closest friends, the ever-watchful Guardian Angels. What impresses me about Catholic mythology is partly its tasteless kitsch but mostly the airy nonchalance with which these people make up the details as they go along. It is just shamelessly invented.
Richard Dawkins (2006), The God Delusion
When Dawkins booms from the stage to “Ridicule them!”, as he famously did at the Reason Rally – I’m sure this is what he meant. Just to look at the claims of religion, repeat them publicly, and call bullshit on it.
We don’t have much choice – doing it with a straight face would just make it too hard!
Bravo Prof. Dawkins.
13 comments
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Kees
November 15, 2012 at 3:27 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
In my opinion, your videos on contradictions in the Bible, Abraham and especially Noahs Ark is some of the best and most accessible content out there that ridicules religious claims.
Yellow Thursday
November 15, 2012 at 4:00 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Growing up Catholic, I remember being told that I could pray to Mary or the other saints, but it wasn’t really Mary answering my prayers. She was merely relaying the prayers to God, who would answer them. (Or at least respond. I never explicitly got told that “sometimes the answer is no,” but it was effectively the same.)
N. Nescio
November 15, 2012 at 4:26 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Even as a small child I thought there was something amiss with being taught that when asking a personal favor of a four-omnis Creator deity, it would be more effective to ask its mom to ask it for me.
Steve R
November 15, 2012 at 6:48 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Mariolatry was a shrewd maneuver to make the Church palatable to women, who might otherwise be repelled by its relentless misogyny. Without the support of mothers, the whole thing might have dried up and blown away in three generations.
Jim B
November 16, 2012 at 2:25 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
I was raised Catholic, but I never really believed. Even when I was young my attitude was more of, “Can this really be true?”
In addition to attending weekly mass, we sometimes had to go for various optional mid-week evening masses, including one for “the blessing of the throats.” When I was about 15, I ask my parents if we were going to stop and buy a carton of cigarettes directly after mass, as we had done the year before.
I just just intending to be cheeky, but I got ice silence in reply and was told to stay home.
nohellbelowus
November 16, 2012 at 3:58 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Even though I was raised a Catholic, and attended various forms of religious services, off and on, until the year 2003, I can’t remember anyone ever “ridiculing” my beliefs in the style of Richard Dawkins. For that matter, I don’t remember anyone ever making fun of my faith, during that entire 40-year span.
I wonder how I would have responded? I simply cannot say, because it is nearly impossible to put myself back in those silly shoes.
I bring this up because most Christians I encounter now (including my own parents), always claim to be deeply “offended” by this type of religious ridicule. They act hurt, and go silent, and I end up feeling like the bad guy.
Perhaps others have had similar experiences. I don’t think this phenomenon can be blithely dismissed, however (and I’m not saying your post suggested such a thing).
It just sucks, full stop.
Balstrome
November 16, 2012 at 10:03 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
I wonder how many people actually understand the reasons behind the ridicule that Prof Dawkins suggests. When we put out that someone has a piece of loo paper suck to their shoe, it is not to make fun of them, even if it does look funny. It is to help them, to make them think that maybe they should do something about the situation.
If that person can come up for a valid and rational reason to keep the piece of loo paper on their shoe, then it is us that than needs to rethink our position on this issue. But as of now, none of us has been convinced that wearing loo paper on shoes is a rational reasonable thing to do, so that is why we continue to point out the problems with such behaviour. And of course have a snigger while doing it, we are evil little things after all.
craigrheinheimer
November 16, 2012 at 2:15 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
@#7 Balstrome
It’s easy to walk around with paper stuck on your shoe if everyone else is doing the same.
nora
November 16, 2012 at 3:18 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Looking back, a little ridicule would have been helpful to me. I started having doubts about the Catholic faith when I was 11 but quickly learned to keep my doubts to myself. It took another five years to realize that Catholicism, like all other religions, was made up. And I kept that realization to myself. Almost everyone I knew was Catholic and as far as I could tell, everyone I knew believed in a god.
(starts old lady rant)
These doubting kids today don’t know how lucky they are with the interwebs and the tweets and the facebooking…..
(drifts off to try to remember why she got on the computer)
Rodney Nelson
November 16, 2012 at 7:47 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
I’ve never understood why Christians claim to be monotheists. Judaism is monotheistic but after Christianity broke away and especially after it became the state religion of Rome, then monotheism went the way of not eating pork and wearing earlocks. There’s two male gods, father and son, an asexual spirit who does nothing in particular, Catholics have Mary as Queen Goddess, Satan acts in a godlike manner, plus there’s all the angels and saints. Christianity has almost as many gods and demigods as Hinduism.
Brigadista
November 17, 2012 at 11:13 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
The pantheon of family, saints and general hangers-on is just another example of the christian attempt to woo people from other sects that predated their own. The appropriation of winter and summer solstice celebrations, fertility rites in the spring and harvest celebrations in the autumn was all just a marketing exercise. Hey look, you can come and join our gang and not lose any of your old excuses to kill animals/have a party/paint magic pictures on your wall, etc.
baal
November 20, 2012 at 9:29 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
History class level political theory has gatekeepers getting elevated to higher status now and again. The king, you see, is very busy and too important to deal with you. You, however, can get in to see the prince or the master of the gate. They aren’t as far above you and don’t have as many weighty and really important things to do. The prince, if suitably motivated, talk to the king or order stuff in his own right. So over time as this happens more and more, the king becomes well respected but not directly responsible for anything. The ‘prince’ is now functionally the king. The syncreative Hinduism and Buddhism show prince elevation as well. Shocking that the gods display human style political evolution.
モンクレール メンズダウンジャケットMAYAマヤ シャイニー迷彩柄
December 9, 2012 at 1:10 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
oooooooooooooooooo oh how badly i wanna tear off your head with my hand ooooooooooo i wanna slap you so bad!!! dnt say nothing about slaves cause rite now if you come to any black persons and say that your getting a fcking beat down and ooooooooooooooooooooo i want you to say that and dont run dont talk? about oh ok im gonna bring my gun cause they are gonna grab u by your skinny neck throw u on the ground and beat u so dnt think your better we are all the same