Pants on fire
This is an old item (December 2) but it’s only now been drawn to my attention, and I want to say about it because it’s so remarkably and revealingly malicious and inaccurate. You won’t be surprised to learn that it comes from someone who presents himself as of The Party of Nice. It is Mark Vernon, smearing Richard Dawkins, in a post ostensibly about Christmas frenzy.
(It seemed appropriate that the Guardian should launch it’s [sic] Advent calendar with a piece from that now most hysterical of writers, Richard Dawkins. Ostensibly it celebrated the moral courage of Christopher Hitchens, which I don’t doubt is worth admiring, only 50% of the piece was against the Pope, and 25% of the piece was about himself.)
Ostensibly yourself, bub.
If you look at the linked Dawkins piece, you will see for yourselves how shamelessly wide of the mark that announcement is. Two sentences are about a pope or popes. The first paragraph is partly about himself, but it’s also about newspapers, headlines, spoiling jokes, irony and hero-worship, and more. In short, it’s an introductory paragraph, which touches on various things to draw the reader in and set the scene. It’s just standard practice – it’s far from being a grotesque display of egotism, as Mark Vernon more than implies.
The entire rest of the piece – the second half of para 2 through paras 3, 4 and 5, all the way to the end – is about Hitchens.
So that’s Mark Vernon’s way with the truth.
Well of course this is an attack on gnu atheism. The rules are suspended.
What a pustule!
For at least the last 2 years it has been the case that the nastiest, most spiteful, most contrived, most twisted, most vicious attacks in the whole atheism debate have consistently been from those who say we should be nice. I think they must be competing with the Creationists to see who can be most dishonest.
I’m making it my mission to replace omnipresent copies of the bible with The God Delusion in hotel rooms I stay in across the US. Or maybe I should leave the bibles next to TGD so people have a clear choice. I have a trip coming up. Should be interesting.
“…that now most hysterical of writers, Richard Dawkins.”
What voice these folks are hearing in their head when the read Dawkins? It ain’t Dawkins’, that’s for sure.
Exactly, Paula. I try to post on them whenever I see them, and by god they keep me busy.
The brazenness of Vernon’s post is remarkable. It’s so easy just to look at the piece and see how false Vernon’s nasty assertions are.
The Guardian recently published this on CiF:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/dec/31/human-rights-imperialism-james-hoge#start-of-comments
Those pesky human rights busy-bodies with their imperialistic ambitions to impose democratic values on black people who need a firm hand!
As to this response to Dawkins – has anyone even heard him raise his voice let alone become ‘hysterical’?
I thought we gnus spoke in a colf monotone because our scientific world view and lack of spirituality renders us Spock-like?
Only the faithful have passion enough for public displays of emotion.
The poisoned honey approach of these butthurt faith-heads is such a common phenomenon that it needs a name.
Vernonvenom?
Buntingbabble?
Hobsonhatred?
I remember reading the Dawkins piece and thinking what a fine tribute it was to Christopher Hitchens. And none of it is really about Dawkins, just about how someone missed the point of an article he had written about a very different kind of hero. Mark Vernon is as astonishingly undiscerning person. I have noticed this so often that it is rarely I bother to read the man. Am I just imagining it, or is he published less often now?
Well judging by the sidebar on his site, he’s still publishing books like mad, Eric.
Welcome to the Guardian, you wont believe how many woo merchants it promotes. This is despite the fact that most of the readers of this paper are too intelligent to fall for this bullshit. You just have to read the majority of the comments on Cif to see how out of touch the writers are to the papers readership.
Given that most of his output consists of permutations on two basic themes (“Rabbit is the Question” and “Dawkins is a bit of a shit, isn’t he?”), it’s not surprising.
Paula is right! These intellectual midgets hate gnu atheists because they are a constant reminder that they have surrendered, that they have sold their principles; that you can live a great and meaningful life without lying to themselves and to the world.
Not only a purveyor of vacuous bullshit, but illiterate:
“Not divinity emptying itself, but the populous stuffing itself.”
“… kind that are signed on mass by ‘the team’ …”
Oops, markup fail: on mass
When you have nothing rational to say, simply attack the person instead. The media’s favourite pastime.
Mischaracterising Dawkins is probably overdue for recognition as a profession. Tenacious and insistent when necessary, but hysterical? And unfailingly polite into the bargain. There are moments when he’s hit with something so stupendous, one can almost feel the adrenalin rush he’s getting (I’m thinking, for example, of Ted Haggard calling him arrogant). And there was that panel when he kept on asking an imam to state Islam’s punishment for apostasy, only getting the answer we all knew after admirable doggedness.
I also read his Hitchens tribute back when it came out and it never struck me as being anything other than that. It’s funny, though. We are still the only minority one can hate in public without fear of backlash and Hitchens is one of our best-known figureheads, yet he commands an amazing amount of respect from our opponents and I think that was also true before the developments of the last few months.
Yup, agree. But I don’t see his name as often in the Guardian and other places I frequent. Just seems to me his name is less prominent, and I’ve never thought it worthwhile to buy one of his books! I mean, look at them! I’m trying to think what kind of person would find a whole book of Vernon’s stuff worthwhile. I find it hard to get through an article. A book is simply out of the question. It’s simply hard to imagine the man ever having a coherent thought.
I think Dawkins could take on the Buddha in a debate and still come out sounding like the calm one.
As someone absolutely not in charge of my emotions I can only look upon Dawkins’ implacability with awe.
:- ) Well that’s my impression too Eric!
I really wish that he’d just stick to writing his apophatic theology/The Holy Rabbit bullshit. At least that’s fun to laugh at!
Someone want to explain/link to what the hell the Rabbit thing is?
It’s something I wrote about a year ago: http://richarddawkins.net/articles/4845-rabbit-is-the-question
1) The h in “hysterical” is aspirated in English.
2) “A book is simply out of the question. It’s simply hard to imagine the man ever having a coherent thought.” Hee.
Richard Dawkins is trying to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.
I commented on his entry at the time, but I noticed that even then he chose to put a gloss on the meaning of the Irish phrase I used. According to him:
‘Catch yerself on! – a request to ask someone else to be sensible. Normally used when person B has offered to do something that is too generous in person A’s eyes.’
Er, no, it’s used in the sense of person A telling person B to stop being so daft.
Heh. I saw that, Geoff. I don’t know the expression, though, so I didn’t realize he’d paid himself a compliment.
Has he been “too generous” to Dawkins? I think not!
[…] Ophelia Benson points out why this is misleading. […]