Is Richard Dawkins on the Way to Belief?
BY DR. WILLIAM ODDIE
On Easter Monday, the Telegraph published a Letter to the Editor from around 50 leading atheists, predictably including such names as Philip Pullman, Peter Tatchell, Polly Toynbee, Anthony Grayling, Evan Harris, and on and on: from my own point of view, a list of many of my least favorite bien pensant Lefties.
It began as follows:
Sir—We respect the Prime Minister’s right to his religious beliefs and the fact that they necessarily affect his own life as a politician. However, we object to his characterization of Britain as a “Christian country” and the negative consequences for politics and society that this engenders…. Britain is not a “Christian country.” Repeated surveys, polls and studies show that most of us as individuals are not Christian in our beliefs or our religious identities.
One name, however, among those listed beneath this absurd farrago was conspicuous by its absence: that of the most famous atheist of them all: Richard Dawkins. How come?
Well, a few days ago, we got the answer, in the form of a declaration (reported by theTelegraph under the headline “Richard Dawkins: I am a secular Christian”) made at the launch of the first volume of his memoirs, An Appetite For Wonder.
In response to an American Protestant minister in the audience who claimed that he no longer believed in miracles or that Jesus was resurrected, but still considered himself a Christian and preached the teachings of Christ, he made this reply: “I would describe myself as a secular Christian in the same sense as secular Jews have a feeling for nostalgia and ceremonies.” He then made the perceptive comment to the liberal Protestant who had questioned him: “But if you don’t have the supernatural, it’s not clear to me why you would call yourself a minister.” In other words, why you consider yourself a Christian at all.
Of his own atheism, Dawkins explained that he had an “Anglican upbringing” but chose atheism in his early teens after learning about Darwin’s theory of evolution.
This reminded me forcibly of my own early history: for I, too, in my early teens decided I was an atheist, and on joining the British Humanist Association at the age of 17, sent off for a small pile of books from its catalogue, including Bertrand Russell’sWhy I Am Not a Christian, and C. M. Beadnell’s A Picture Book of Evolution, which would, I was led to believe, explain to me why atheism was inevitable.
Well, here I am today, safely gathered in as a reliable Catholic bigot: partly because I realized that atheism didn’t work, and had brought disaster to every society in which it had become prevalent. What interests me is Professor Dawkins’s “nostalgia,” a word signifying a wistful affection for the past. That could mean (I hope it does) that he is searching, perhaps unconsciously, for lost Christian certainties.
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Of his own atheism, Dawkins explained that he had an “Anglican upbringing” but chose atheism in his early teens after learning about Darwin’s theory of evolution.
This reminded me forcibly of my own early history: for I, too, in my early teens decided I was an atheist, and on joining the British Humanist Association at the age of 17, sent off for a small pile of books from its catalogue, including Bertrand Russell’sWhy I Am Not a Christian, and C. M. Beadnell’s A Picture Book of Evolution, which would, I was led to believe, explain to me why atheism was inevitable.
Well, here I am today, safely gathered in as a reliable Catholic bigot: partly because I realized that atheism didn’t work, and had brought disaster to every society in which it had become prevalent. What interests me is Professor Dawkins’s “nostalgia,” a word signifying a wistful affection for the past. That could mean (I hope it does) that he is searching, perhaps unconsciously, for lost Christian certainties.
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