1. Good News: Both our Foundations are now Officially Recognized as Charities

Comment #70295 by Cregaune on September 14, 2007 at 7:00 pm

Gawd! (sorry). This really has the opportunity to put the cat among the pigeons! It's great to see that the RDF has managed to get charity status but, I'm sorry, this post is destined to turn into a rant.

I know I'm in danger of ruffling quite a few feathers here but there's nothing I can think of that's more likely to get my goat than the subject of charities. Depending on your perspective politically/economically, you may share my view that charities have a dubious role to play in any healthy society. The whole charity industry plays on emotions rather than practicality. If, and it's a big 'if', you agree that the purpose of a charity should be to alleviate human suffering, then one has to wonder why charities who specialise in sending children on holidays should necessarily attract more contributions than ones who specialise in helping people get off drugs or ...erm...um....help people to cast off the yoke of religion.

If there's a genuine need for extra monetary support for deprived children or furry animals, and that support justifies tax dollars/pounds, then let the government of the day contribute taxpayers' money directly to those causes rather than subsidising the hugely inefficient charity industry.

In the UK (as elsewhere) we have a charity industry that plays to the heart strings. We have mainstream TV shows (e.g. as I speak, 'Celebrity' Who Wants to be a Millionaire and Big Brother etc. etc.) where nine times out of ten the 'celebrity'-nominated charity involves children or cute furry animals.

I wish RDF nothing but success in the medium term, but wouldn't it be marvellous for those of us who despise the charity industry, if someone were to be wheeled out next week on 'Celebrity Who Wants to be a Millionaire' declaring their nominated charity to be the Richard Dawkins Foundation? The BBC/ITV switchboard would light up with complaints and then maybe the whole question of tax-exempt status for charities, in general, might raise its handsome head.

I live in hope!

2. 'Root of All Evil? The Uncut Interviews' Released on DVD

Comment #67945 by Cregaune on September 5, 2007 at 10:02 am

Which is better for the public good........that this kind of material is put into the public domain or that the RDF lines its coffers?

Also, "...ALL proceeds go to the RDF" would seem to indicate that Channel 4 (and/or the production company) is getting no revenue from this DVD. If they were prepared to release the footage free gratis then I don't think it's too much to ask that RD releases it in the same spirit.

Every day under the 'news' section we get lots of links to YouTube video that's been released into the public domain (e.g. the recent interview of Christopher Hitchens on CSPAN). I find it at least interesting that RD doesn't seem to share the same ideals.

I know I'm in danger of qualifying as a 'troll' here but I genuinely think there's a point to answer.

3. 'Root of All Evil? The Uncut Interviews' Released on DVD

Comment #67916 by Cregaune on September 5, 2007 at 6:45 am

I'm sure Mr Dawkins has got more than a few pennies to rub together without having to stoop to the flogging of second rate DVDs? I've already paid him his royalty fees when I handed over my money for The God Delusion and I'm sure he got paid handsomely by Channel 4 for the original series of the 'Root of All Evil'. How much of that was donated to the foundation?

So, can you please send me a link to download this DVD without charge?

Thanks a lot.

4. Only secular schools will overcome sectarianism

Comment #65871 by Cregaune on August 27, 2007 at 7:46 am

[quote]No, it is the other way around! Do you really think that it would be possible to reliably pass mere political views from parent to child for more than 400 years?[/quote]

Yes, if those political views are underpinned by discrimination and fundamental irreconcilable differences in political outlook held by two sets of people living in close proximity to each other.

I grew up in the Rep. of Ireland. I left when I was twenty two. Back then I could empathise with the feeling of 'Irishness' that existed all around me. It was a feeling that was made of the same stuff as the parochial pride that motivated rivalry between individual counties in sporting fixtures. It had very little to do with Catholicism.

In the Sixties there were very tangible, non-religiously based reasons why Nationalists in Northern Ireland (and consequently, those in the Republic) felt resentment against the Unionist majority. There was widespread discrimination against Nationalists (making up the majority of the working class and living in certain defined areas). That they were Catholics was merely incidental. Simply becoming an atheist (or even converting to Protestantism) didn't make any difference. You were still considered part of the 'other' and the 'other' had nothing to do with religion.

Of course if you asked the average working-class Protestant or Catholic in Northern Ireland if they thought that their religion defined their political views, they would say 'yes'. That erroneous analysis was significantly eroded by better standards of education over a number of decades.

If you asked the same question of working-class (Catholic) people in the Republic the answer would have been 'no'. In the neighbourhood I grew up in, in the Republic, there were quite a number of Protestant families. They sent their children to local schools and there was no animosity whatsoever from the majority Catholic population. Having said that, those same people had very set views when it came to the politics of Northern Ireland. Those views were rationalised in terms of the desire to make Ireland one country 'again' and , prior to the Nineties, a hatred of the discrimination against Nationalists in Northern Ireland.

5. Only secular schools will overcome sectarianism

Comment #65849 by Cregaune on August 27, 2007 at 5:34 am

[quote]The impact on that country's psyche is destined to be corrosive, a point stressed by Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion. 'The troubles of Northern Ireland would disappear in a generation if segregated schools were abolished,' he says.[/quote]

The troubles in NI had little or nothing to do with religious sectarianism. Religion was simply a reliable indicator of underlying political affiliation....Nationalism or Unionism.

The reason the 'troubles' in NI abated had little to do with Tony Blair's efforts or the lack of sectarianism in education. It was primarily due to increasing levels of education (generally), economic improvement and a consequent increase in cosmopolitanism in SOUTHERN Ireland (Rep. of Ireland). That resulted in a slow decline of support for the IRA in the South over the last thirty years.

I was educated in the Republic of Ireland during the sixties and seventies when the economy was on its knees and people took a strange pride in living in an 'Island of Saints and Scholars' (harking back to the Middle Ages). I was forced to learn 'rebel songs' at Primary school (a non religiously segregated state school). There was a general attitude of parochialism and a fear of the outside world where moral decay was considered rampant (a little like the attitude of the Islamic world today). Sinn Fein (the political wing of the IRA) used to conduct collections outside church gates on Sunday mornings.

The Seventies brought improved standards in education and the Eighties/Ninties brought economic affluence and the 'tiger economy'. The result was a new generation of people who saw the sheer stupidity and parochialism of Nationalism. The IRA couldn't recruit successfully in the Republic of Ireland and the organisation eventually withered and died.

RD made an unfortunate error in The God Delusion on this point. He effectively retracted it in subsequent interviews. It's a pity that he didn't see fit to correct it in the paperback version.

6. The Gullible Age: Review of 'The Enemies of Reason'

Comment #61411 by Cregaune on August 5, 2007 at 4:48 am

"They find some film star or somebody like Tom Cruise or whatever his name is who's thick as two short planks and he becomes a sort of advertisement."

Wishful thinking I know, but wouldn't it be marvellous if Tom Cruise sued RD for libel and the defence insisted that Mr Cruise take an IQ test?

7. Susan Blackmore interviews Dan Dennett

Comment #58272 by Cregaune on July 24, 2007 at 8:04 am

There are only two possibilities:

1) I'm a fool, in that I'm not able to understand what the hell Dennett is on about or what the problem is. It seems like sheer nonsense to me. It reminds me of the kind of bull***t one reads in programmes before a 'contemporary' classical music concert....and I sure as hell don't understand a word of that stuff. I bet nobody does; including the author.

2)I'm a little boy who sees a naked-emperor issue if there ever was one. Should I cry out?

8. Pope says science too narrow to explain creation

Comment #31271 by Cregaune on April 11, 2007 at 8:12 pm

"It's not as if I wanted to stuff the dear God into these gaps - he is too great to fit into such gaps,"

Did he really say this? Really? Did the Roman Catholic pope of 2007 really say that God is 'too great' to fit into the gaps that the concept of the 'God of the Gaps' leaves open? Granted, it does sound good but it is of course logical nonsense.

I can almost feel the the lovely feeling of cringing Catholic theologians worldwide!

9. Is God poison?

Comment #30848 by Cregaune on April 10, 2007 at 4:10 am

Oh, and one little point for Pedants Corner. I suspect that Bethune thinks 'coruscating' means excoriating, caustic, scathing. It doesn't. It means glittering or sparkling.

Hmmm......in both cases I'd find myself faced with the necessity of heading to Dictionary Corner. Is that a sad reflection on my limited vocabulary or a sadder reflection on the intellectual pretensions of those who would step outside the safety of the vernacular?

10. Across the Universe: A Guide to the Past, Present and Future of the Cosmos

Comment #27876 by Cregaune on March 27, 2007 at 5:26 am

Patrick Moore may be an "amazing man" He may even be "great"; but a liberal he is not.

Let's not forget that in the late eighties he spoke out on numerous occasions (press and TV) in favour of 'Section 28' (a law introduced in the UK in 1988 and repealed in 2003 which forbade local councils from "promot[ing] the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship".)

I can think of greater men.


Cregaune