Mighty men

Atheist Richard Dawkins says we in the 21st Century are the luckiest of all because, “Whatever your profession, whether a stock broker or bus driver or surfing instructor, you’re not a whole person unless you read enough science and look at science documentaries to understand why you exist in the first place.”

I guess that would mean if you don’t have cable (with the History Channel and Discovery as part of your package) you’re really caveman-level sub-par!

Dawkins is on today’s Science page cover of the New York Times. He says he much prefers to give public lectures in Alabama and Georgia (over places like San Francisco and New York) because the “religious unbelievers” come out of the woodwork by the thousands and give him raving applause. He says all they need is a little “heave.”

Mind you, this is the same guy who touted the possiblitity that life on Earth could be the result of advanced alien engineering, saying in a 2008 interview, "It could be that at some earlier time, somewhere in the universe, a civilization evolved, probably by some kind of Darwinian means, probably to a very high level of technology, and designed a form of life that they seeded onto perhaps this planet. Now, um, now that is a possibility, and an intriguing possibility. And I suppose it's possible that you might find evidence for that if you look at the details of biochemistry, molecular biology, you might find a signature of some sort of designer."

I'm guessing Dawkins has never examined the science behind Genesis 6:4: "There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown."

*****

Here are some of the excerpts from the NYT’s glowing profile, meant for us to admire the "brilliant" Briton they've deemed “arguably the world’s most influential evolutionary biologist”:

"Impatience With Religion

"Aren’t the theologian’s questions — Why are we here? Is there something larger than us? Why do we die? — central to the human project?
Professor Dawkins shakes his head before the question is out. His impatience with religion is palpable, almost wriggling alive inside him. Belief in the supernatural strikes him as incurious, which is perhaps the worst insult he can imagine.

“Religion teaches you to be satisfied with nonanswers,” he says. “It’s a sort of crime against childhood.”

"And please spare him talk of spiritualism, as if that were the only way to
meditate on the wonder of the universe. “If you look up at the Milky Way through the eyes of Carl Sagan, you get a feeling in your chest of something greater than yourself,” he says. “And it is. But it’s not supernatural.”

"Put that charge to Professor Dawkins and he more or less pleads guilty. To suggest he study theology seems akin to suggesting he study fairies. Nor is he convinced that the ecumenical Anglican, the moderate imam, the Catholic priest with the well-developed sense of irony, is religion’s truest representative.

“I’ve had perfectly wonderful conversations with Anglican bishops, and I rather suspect if you asked in a candid moment, they’d say they don’t believe in the virgin birth,” he says. “But for every one of them, four others would tell a child she’ll rot in hell for doubting.”

"That, he says, explains why he is writing a book for children. He wants to raise questions — Why is there a sun? What is an earthquake? What about rainbows? — and provide clever, rational answers. He has toyed with opening his own state-sponsored school, though under the British system he would have to come up with matching money.

"But it would not be a school for atheists. The idea horrifies him. A child should skip down an idiosyncratic intellectual path. “I am almost pathologically afraid of indoctrinating children,” he says. “It would be a ‘Think for Yourself Academy.’ ”

Human Gods

"After two hours of conversation, Professor Dawkins walks far afield. He talks of the possibility that we might co-evolve with computers, a silicon destiny. And he’s intrigued by the playful, even soul-stirring writings of Freeman Dyson, the theoretical physicist.

"In one essay, Professor Dyson casts millions of speculative years into the future. Our galaxy is dying and humans have evolved into something like bolts of superpowerful intelligent and moral energy.
Doesn’t that description sound an awful lot like God?

“Certainly,” Professor Dawkins replies. “It’s highly plausible that in the universe there are God-like creatures.”

"He raises his hand, just in case a reader thinks he’s gone around a religious bend. “It’s very important to understand that these Gods came into being by an explicable scientific progression of incremental evolution.”

"Could they be immortal? The professor shrugs.

“Probably not.” He smiles and adds, “But I wouldn’t want to be too dogmatic about that.”