ROD LIDDLE: WORSE THAN I THOUGHT
I was busy with a loft issue last night, but I did manage to catch snippets of the Rod Liddle programme "The trouble with Atheism" on C4.
Alas, I should have paid more attention because after watching it I still don't know what the trouble with atheism is. I have some grasp now of the trouble with fascism, science, Darwin's theory, zealots and several other things Liddle tried to bind to atheism.
But as for atheism itself, I don't think he said a word about it. It was like me saying I was going to tell you what the trouble with apples was, and then going on about how bad oranges, boats and photographs are, trying to make apples out to be bad by proxy.
Bizarre. In fact, if I had been able to give it my full attention, I can tell you with all certainty that I would have given Rod Liddle such a damn good fisking today he wouldn't have been able to walk for a week.
As it is, I direct you to An Insomniac who makes a very good fisk of it indeed.
9 comments:
Thanks. I do my best.
You didn't miss much in Liddle's programme, except a great excuse to shout at the TV. I think his greatest achievement was to make even the most arrogant atheist look moderate in comparison.
(Liking the redesign, by the way)
I think it was a good job I was busy during the programme becasue believe me I was shouting at the telly enough as it was. And that grey hair doesn't suit him half as much as he thinks it does.
Thanks about the redesign! It's made some commentators bitter with envy, but what you gonna do?
Anyway, noticed with alarm tonight that you state on your blog you are taking a break from blogging to do real world stuff. Glad to see that lasted all of two hours...
There will be no more posts from me until after New Year. I'm allowing myself to post comments in the hope that weaning myself off will work better than going cold turkey (which would never work).
It's absolutely necessary - Christmas is just round the damn corner and I still have the bulk of my shopping to do. I doubt that my near and dear would appreciate a lack of presents, no matter how many times I hold Liddle up for scorn and ridicule.
Thankfully, Christmas is one of the few times when I have to put people before surfing the net.
Tip.
Don't buy presents for anyone for a long time and they eventually get the hint and stop buying them for you. If they don't get the hint then more fool them - you get stuff for nowt and they resent you.
Just how I like it.
Will,
Why does that not surprise me...?
Matt,
Did you really think he was arrogant? I thought he came across as remarkably stupid, eg. arguing a causal link between Darwin and concentration camps, and simplifying/essentialising evolution to such an ill-informed extent.
It was shit...
He was arrogant and stupid.
As of 7pm last night, I've finished me Christmas shopping. The ones who said "whatever" when asked what they wanted for christmas got crap presents. As punishment.
Will,
I might give that a try. :-)
He was arrogant and stupid.
Beautifully put.
His take on Darwin struck me as just bizarre. He seemed to believe that Darwinisn consisted solely of the idea of gradual evolution, and that anything which suggested otherwise overthrew it, and therefore proved all atheists wrong. Even five minutes on wikipedia would have shown him that both these ideas are sheer rubbish.
The whole Eugenics thing was just the familiar mistake of assuming that the non-religious use science as a moral guide. "If natural selection is true then you have to kill off the sick. You HAVE too. Science SAYS so!"
Idiot.
His comments at the end about not bothering to argue about religion because we can't be certain either way reminded me of why I'm so wary of calling myself an agnostic. Yes, there's no way of establishing one way or another the existence of a purely transcendental deity, but we can still look at it in terms of *likelihood*. We can also examine (and have done so - quite successfully) the various claims about the world found in religion.
The whole Eugenics thing was just the familiar mistake of assuming that the non-religious use science as a moral guide.
Agreed. He was trying to argue that Darwinism was about evolution towards superior organisms - rather than organisms more suited to their changing environment.
Darwinism isn't telelogical in a sense that organisms are moving towards a Hegelian perfection - and anyone else should be disposed of so as to hasten the utopia... That's religious thinking projected onto science.
Post a Comment