Atheists of a vigorous stripe are sometimes known as Gnus, and Richard Dawkins is sometimes quoted as the archetype.
I say it is the other way round, and that the Dawk has modelled himself on the original Gnu – the one that advertised Typhoo tea in 1976. Here’s the real Gnu, advertising Typhoo:
And here is Richard Dawkins explaining the history of the world, two decades later, sounding suspiciously Gnu-like.
Earth History in C Major! brought to you by Funny Pictures
I wonder if next time there is a fundraiser for Non-Believers Giving Aid, Richard Dawkins might do a sponsored Gnu-song.
(Apologies for the slight initial glitch on the player display, but some joker at Channel 4 seems to have blocked Youtube from displaying anything other than the full length documentary in the UK, so I’ve used a non-Youtube version.)
Matt Wardman blogs at The Wardman Wire, on media, politics and technology, in addition to writing at the Raccoon Arms. Follow me on Twitter.
{ 42 comments }
And for those of a geeky/nerdy bent, GNU is a recursive acronym for GNU’s Not Unix!
PS. For the record, Gnu-atheist was coined here as far as I know:
http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2010/07/27/gnu-atheism/.
There is a point to this? I admire the stance Richard Dawkins has always taken on faith versus science.
Seems to me that Dawkins’ success has been down to:
a) Lumping all religions together to make them all look equally silly so his fans can have a jolly good laugh at other people.
b) Saying what seems plausible to many people, like Russell’s teapot, which on serious inspection are crackpot arguments.
c) Talking posh and giving the impression he knows what he is talking about.
d) Preaching against religion while being a fundamentalist himself and having a large number of followers like some sort of Messiah.
e) Largely ignoring the fact that most people, if not all people, have a spiritual element to their lives.
More on Dawkins’ delusions – http://www.realstreet.co.uk/category/richard-dawkins/
May I begin by saying, as a Libertarian I belive you to be free born and able to believe what you want and live as you wish on the sole proviso it does not impact on me. So, praise, pray, contemplate, read your holy books, don’t eat fish on friday or food at all during Ramadan. If you are female and freely choose to wear the burkha or a glass of wine or Jewish and won’t touch a cheeseburger, or Hindu and decline steak, all fine by me.
But accept, I may well laugh at you. I probably won’t do it openly, but I may read books that do. I tend to regard people of faith as crackpots. Sorry but there it is. If I am wrong and you are right, I am probably headed for a fiery eternity so surely this is punishment enough for (what for me) is a private chuckle.
Fundamentalism is the strict adherence to a theological teaching usually from quite ancient* text that believers regard as the revealed world of god ~ Fair. Is it also fair to say, that a fundamentalist religous person when confronted with a contrast between say
(a) geological or carbon dating evidence, the fossil record, the biological or physical impossibility of the ark story, the fact that there is no evidence of the Egyptians holding the Israelis as slaves en masse, nor any archaelogical evidence of the 40 year wandering around, nor any independent verficiation etc etc and
(b) the revealed word of God
simply attacks the ‘evidence’ since it cannot be true? Is this a fair summary?
Can anyone honestly claim that if a fossil of a chimpanzee showed up in the pre-cambrian rock and it was verified by carbon dating and geology, Dawkins would not immediately abandon evolution as it is currently taught? This I submit he is not a fundamantalist. Passionate yes, fundamentalist no, and to label him as such is simply projection of one’s own faults.
I do not understand, nor have I ever seen an adequate definition of what a ‘spiritual dimension’ means. Thus with the tooth fairy, I cannot accept it as a valid concept. As Ayn Rand said “A is A”
Can I conclude by saying, I am really not trying to mock anyone. One of my very dearest friends is a Christian, albeit one who wisely regards the bible as allegorical and metaphorical moral tales for an earlier more primitive time which still have relevance today, rather than literal truth. He lives his life according to the teachings of Jesus but does not ask me to do likewise. Similarly, most of Mrs SAoT’s extended family is Muslim although having seen real fundamentalism imposed on their home in Iran, are very tolerant of infidels like me. Indeed, Mrs SAoT has a real hard time accepting that we as a species evolved rather than were created (although she is now of the view I may have evolved from lower primates!!)
(*I accept there are more modern ones like the latter day saints or the scientologists which are quite recent by comparison).
“Is this a fair summary?”
Not at all. It shows your complete lack of understanding. If you want to “laugh” you should direct it inwards to yourself. I’m not laughing at you because I despise wilful ignorance in others.
I suggest you read my link to Dawkins’ delusions.
I suggest YOU, Cowan, read Richard Dawkins book ‘The God Delusion’.
I did, without prior ‘prejudice or baggage’ of ‘Dawkins’. I found it to be very humane. He talks about the story in the Old Testament where the owner of the house willingly sacrifices his daughters to the sick mob (to protect his male guests). Another good point (or so I thought), is in relation to the Crucifxion; he asks that if God needed to forgive mankind, why didn’t He just forgive mankind? why the torture of His Son?
Compared to Richard Dawkins, you, Cowan, are the one with crackpot, spiteful, petty conclusions.
By the way, Cowan, it’s not big or clever deliberately using just someones’ surname is it?
Sir, I do not wish to insult you in anyway. If I have, I am sorry. With respect, you may brand me ignorant if you wish, but this is in no way wilful.
I maybe wrong, I maybe diametrically wrong, but if so, this is honest error not wilful self-delusion, I object to your charge.
I simply asked if some religious people ignore what seems to be prima facie evidence because it contradicts scripture.
If you deny this please explain why? If not, accept we honestly differ on the issue.
May I also ask why you are right and the other religions (I guess they would be Islam, Hinduism and Judaism, along with the thousands of defunct ones are clearly wrong?
Can I ask you to confine yourself to responses other religions could not cite (ie the bible. the Koram, the Talmud etc is the word of God because I really, really believe it)
Is this a fair summary?
In practice, yes. Though of course, they frequently wheel out that old canard that if there were evidence of the existence of God, there would be no need for faith, so of course there’s no evidence.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0123R6vjIoE
All cracking stuff, but gets onto the Bible and evolution after 2 minutes.
Richard Dawkins can seem irritatingly smug, to those whose beliefs he demolishes, I know.
But I’ve never known him to disagree with me. So I overlook that minor failing.
If there is some kind of a god, I consider that its behaviour requires serious criticism, not worship. But I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt and assume it doesn’t exist. I advise it to continue keeping a low profile.
Zaphod – you are incredibly primitive compared to the Creator, as am I, of course. You cannot say, “its (sic) behaviour requires serious criticism, not worship,” in any truth. You need to know about His plan and His love and you will understand.
@Stewart
No, I’m not.
Yes, I can.
No, I don’t.
If one starts with faith, then everything specified in that faith follows by definition, of course. You do. I don’t.
You don’t have anything but faith, to argue with. I’m impervious to it.
My complaint is this. Those with a faith which precribes rules, often try to impose their imaginary rules on others, including me. I’m not willing to tolerate that. So, like Dawkins, I’m on the offensive now.
No. I do not consent to your rules. By all means, observe them yourself, but don’t quote your god when trying to constrain MY life.
“You don’t have anything but faith, to argue with.”
I have a lot more than just faith. A lot more!
“I’m impervious to it.”
You put up barriers to block out the truth, like all other self-defined “atheists”.
The “rules” we live by (still) in the country are largely Judeo-Christian based – and that includes the rules by which Dawkins plays by. A Godless universe would not require us to live this way. If more people identified with atheism then humanity would implode. We can see how bad it is getting in the UK the more our traditions are undermined to accommodate other belief systems, incl. “atheism”.
Your life is constrained when you don’t follow God’s order. “The truth will set you free.”
You have “more than just faith”? Oh dear, Stewart, is your faith not sufficent? I rather think it’s supposed to be for you.
I’ve never needed to put up barriers to your nonsense. The brainwashing I received as a child was weak, and it faded with maturity. Without that programming, religion is just a very feeble myth.
“Self-defined “atheists”.” WTF is that supposed to mean?
The only useful Judeo-Christian rules are those which predate that philosophy. Your cult just absorbed them, and added some mysticism and arbitrary ritual.
The truth has indeed set me free. I commend it to you.
Stop asking atheists to prove that there is no god. Or you prove there is no Flying Spaghetti Monster? Or no Bogeyman? A negative cannot be “proved”. I can’t help you there.
I just don’t need your god. The world is a wonderful phenomena without one. I see not a shred of a suggestion that one exists, apart from your delusion. And many others subscribe to a different god delusion, so don’t quote numbers of followers at me.
Believe what you want, but I don’t want your ugly rules. They only apply to you.
By the way, the possessive “its” (sic) does not have an apostrophe. You’ve learned something today, at least.
Yes – what is the purpose of this blog?
If solely to mock perhaps you may care to list the religions / beliefs you deem alright.
Wow. A lot of comments. I’ll come back on some of the others at the bottom.
To mock? No, if that was the idea I’d be writing The Dork not The Dawk.
10pm evening posts are more about something light in a slot we weren’t using. For RD, I’ve just liked the idea of Gnu/Gnu and the similar accent since I spotted it.
I think that RD has enough of a sense of humour that he might just do the sponsored thing should someone suggest it.
Having said that, I have no problem with anyone who does do mockery of RD (and I might another time), because that’s a stock in trade for RD himself, and for many of his supporters, and there’s no shortage of material.
Have commented a couple of times how Dawkins creates a religion rather than an atheism – and is intensely annoying and metaphysically ignorant into the bargain.
Of course Flanders & Swann had the definitive take on the Gnu:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqgPyqyh4X4
@Simon Cooke
I too, am intensely annoying and ignorant of your metaphysics.
So what?
What bearing does that have on truth and knowledge?
Throughout history you believers have threatened us with the consequences of not paying lip service to your fairy tale.
It’s a protection racket, and I’m not paying.
But you have plenty of others to prey on. Go ahead, but don’t expect any respect from me.
“Throughout history you believers have threatened us with the consequences of not paying lip service to your fairy tale.”
Absolutely spot on. Thank you.
Don’t be an ass. You don’t believe all actions and behaviours have to be held to account? Even i know that and I was raised Atheist. What an f’ing belief system. The ideology of the arrogant. Oh, man is so great..
Don’t make me puke, you puke.
(a) ‘Lumping all religions together’ – you’ve said it yourself. It’s because of the contradictory nature of mutually exclusive religions, its adherents all claiming to worship the one, true God, that makes theists look ‘equally silly’ and deserving of mockery.
(b) Russell’s Teapot describes why the burden of proof rests with those making scientifically unfalsifiable claims, particularly about religion. Ol’ Bertrand was spot on.
(c) Dawkins does indeed know what he’s talking about. Does one believe an Oxford Professor of Evolutionary Biology about human and animal evolution, or do you plump for the vacuous and false consolation of ‘God did it’? Dawkins ‘talking posh’? – oh dear, just desparate.
(d) He’s popular, not only for his interesting books on evolution, but because he spoke up about the BS promulgated by religions: unjustifiable demands to be respected, falsehoods taught to children about our origins, interference in public life, and its well-documented cruelties.
(e) What on earth does ‘spiritual’ even mean?
For religion to be true, all those working in the fields of biology, astrophysics, paleontology, geology, astronomy, botany, zoology, and genetics, etc., would have to be profoundly wrong. Now that would be delusional.
(a) “It’s because of the contradictory nature of mutually exclusive religions..”
If they are mutually exclusive they will be contradictory!
“…its adherents all claiming to worship the one, true God, that makes theists look ‘equally silly’ and deserving of mockery.”
Do they all claim to worship the same god? Jews and Christians worship the same God. Muslims claim to, but they don’t. Buddhism doesn’t have a god. It’s not as simple as you’d like it to be.
And you give away the unseemly arrogance of the “atheist” by declaring that billions of other people deserve to be mocked. Haven’t you heard of pride coming before destruction? The pride of the atheist – the pride that stops the truth from permeating through to his heart and soul – will be his spiritual death and eternal condemnation.
If you mock at that, you mock at your grim eternity. I’m not laughing.
(b) Russell’s Teapot is a very, very bad analogy. I can see how a simpleton could be fooled by it.
(c) Just because Dawkins is an Oxford Professor doesn’t mean he’s right. If he was absolutely sure he is right then he would be 100% atheist, but he’s not. I was saying people are more likely to believe him because he sounds posh. A well-spoken criminal is more likely to gain a person’s trust than someone who sounds like Arthur Mullard.
(d) You’re doing Dawkins’ trick of confusing religions in one sweeping accusation. That’s not good enough.
(e) “What on earth does ‘spiritual’ even mean?”
Oh boy! Even Dawkins has a rudimentary understanding of it.
“For religion to be true…”
Which religion?
Many scientists question the Theory of Evolution. There isn’t a shred of evidence that the TofE is true – it is ALL conjecture. It takes FAITH to believe it – usually BLIND FAITH. These days, very few people have the opportunity to be given a CHOICE of what to believe.
The modern sciences are based on Uniformitarianism, which is a philosophy saying that the processes we see happening on earth today were always at work and so the earth must be millions and billions of years old.
This is NOT a scientific basis, yet it is what modern “knowledge” is founded upon.
Dawkin’s and atheist arguments seem to go like:
- We have no evidence for a God. Therefore God does not exist.
- The bible/Quran says X, which has been disproven, therefore if we disprove this then that disproves God.
…about as dumb as the fundamentalist Christians if you ask me. Dawkin’s answer is the universe just “happened” because he cannot find a shred if evidence to support an intention in creation or point to it all.
Atheists are so arroant to believe that this species, after splitting the atom just over 50 years ago (thats a hair on the piano key) , have all the arguments and evidence for God collected, the purpose of life and existence all figured out when we may have at least another 5 million years of discovery ahead of us.
Sciretists were told to quit Physics at the turn of the century becuase “pretty much everything has been discovered now”, and then they looked at quanta and thought “what the fuck is this then?!” Bizzare goings on at the smallest level, unpredictable, impossible even?
IMO Dawkin’s and his crowd will find out pretty soon that this universe did not “just get here”, and they might have opened their minds just a fraction of an inch to see what might be possible, instead of defining the impossible and attaching old religeons to any form of speculation of creation.
For the record I am not religious, just have an open mind…..
“just have an open mind….”
No you haven’t.
Is that an evidence or a faith based assertion?
dj,
the evidence is abundant in your earlier comment. Like mine, your mind is not fully open. Otherwise it could not have any opinion.
You state that “Atheists … believe that this species … have all the arguments and evidence for God collected, the purpose of life and existence all figured out.”
I’m an atheist. I don’t believe any such thing. I know of no atheist who does believe any such thing. Only religious people hold that opinion.
Checkmate.
The scientific answer to the creation of the universe is ‘we don’t know’. We will look at the evidence and put together a series of hypotheses. The one that best seems to fit the facts as we currently know them may well be the most popular, but we currently are in a position where we can’t prove any of them, so our ultimate position is that we don’t know for certain. What we do know is we’ve found no evidence of a god.
By comparison, the religious approach to creation is to go ‘we don’t know how it was created, you don’t know it was created, therefore we know it was created by some all powerful being we’ve just assumed into existence on the basis of nothing more than our own ignorance”.
Dawkins practices a perversion of science.
The amino soup theory has never been replicated in a lab.
No transitional fossils have ever been found. Indeed many of the ‘species’ claimed to be such, are nothing more than a few fragments and a lot of imagination passed off as whole skeletons.
When pressed on the subject (by Ben Stein) of who, if not God, created man, Dawkins replies with a straight face ‘probably aliens’.
Dawkins dismisses the idea of a creator yet has no more evidence of what he believes than the loony theists he holds in such contempt.
Kitler,
The “amino soup theory”, as you call it, would need an experiment lasting about 1000,000,000 years to replicate. I don’t think the results are in yet.
Everytime a transitional fossil is found, you ask for another one in between. Have you seen the recent reptile/birds from China? (Put your fingers in your ears, and say, “La la la, I’m not listening.”)
Look, we don’t care what you believe. Life is too short to pander to your desperate wilful ignorance. Have you proved that Santa Claus doesn’t exist? No? Then by your principles you are obliged to believe that he does? (Oops, maybe you do? Sorry.)
I believe that Richard Dawkins exists. I can’t prove it, but it’s a very plausible theory. I know that I exist, (but you can’t be sure of that).
I work with what I find plausible. I cannot have proof. Neither can you. “God” is a flimsy crutch for those who are frightened by nature. A placebo.
Science gets results, because it learns from its mistakes. Religion can never learn anything, by definition.
Oh FFS don’t be wilfully ignorant
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_transitional_fossils
Why is tiktaalik not an obvious transition?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiktaalik
Did you know of Tiktaalik before posting ~ honestly? Cyclobatis? Apthoroblattina ? Ventastega? Triadobatrachus? Purgatorius?
Whether from gullibility, the need to conform to the majority, or ignorance of scientific methodology, the fastest growing new world religion is Warmism. Based almost entirely on distortions and misinterpretations of sparse data, this new creed has the potential to kill (starve) millions through economic destruction, as governments around the world sign up to utterly pointless CO2 reduction programmes. Our Father Al Gore must be very proud of his bastard son.
Well put. As the postings by ‘Cowan’ show, you cannot use reason when talking to ‘believers’.
Leaving aside the vicious arguments about the exact interpretations of Holy texts, for a moment, one thing that all the major religions have in common is a moral framework. The basic tenets of that moral framework seem to me to be the basic foundation of decent civilisations. When it’s forgotten, we end with events like the riots of last week. There’s much loose and uninformed talk about the political benefits of anarchy – we saw a glimpse of anarchy during those riots – we saw what happens when the moral foundation is absent. Is that really the direction in which we want to go?
For me, therefore, people like Dawkins are dangerously wrong – they destroy the foundations of a moral framework without building a solid alternative.
So when England was a Christian state we lived in happy and peaceful times where everyone lived a moral life? And its not just the Abrahamic religions which have had issues; many members of the Khmer Rouge were raised as Buddhists for example.
The moral alternative already exists, its called the law. And the human rights act is as moralistic as it gets. As is the law regarding theft, murder etc.
At issue at the moment, is the laws for under 18′s actually promote immoral behavior.
You can’t really frame the Law, be it common law or the laws of natural justice, unless you have a moral foundation on which to build. All the enduring civilisations have been built on a faith of some description; I can’t think of an enduring civilisation that has survived without a Faith of some sort, or at the very least, without spirituality of some sort.
I don’t suggest that blind adherence to all the various manifestations and pronouncements of Christianity has been perfect down the centuries, but the basic foundation of the Ten Commandments has been a good starting-point to build a civilisation on. I’m not totally convinced that without some sort of faith, they could have emerged from abstract thought.
Granted. Religion and a fear of eternal damnation is good for keeping the plebs in order. Doesn’t mean it’s true.
I have to be careful of upsetting people, or causing them to just dismiss my point of view as being tedious. One can get banned for being tedious.
The easiest way I have found to address my point of view is: Can order occur spontaneously in randomness?
Just because some enemies-of-truth/idiots have played around with concepts does not mean they become automatically despicable.
By order I of course do mean all and any order. Such as gravity. Or Higgs bosun, or whatever.
Until one can logically bridge the gap between randomness and order, any definitive statement about anything is a manifestation of faith, not logic.
Flanders and Swann, “The Gnu Song”?
If Epicurus’s teachings had been more popular than that of Plato’s the world would perhaps have been mostly atheist and more advanced today than it is. Still more than 2,000 years later humans are still mostly getting things wrong but are still around but as usual suffering for the mistakes.
@Stewart Cowan. You say “If more people identified with atheism then humanity would implode. We can see how bad it is getting in the UK the more our traditions are undermined to accommodate other belief systems, incl. “atheism”.”
We would a godless society implode? Does believing in a god have to be a prerequisite to being good. Many people who aren’t religious are good.
“Many people who aren’t religious are good”
Yep, I have never raped, nor abused, nor killed nor stolen and it’s not for the fear of God’s non-existent, ominpotent CCTV. And I might object to being watched anyway were I truly, apparently “created” free.