Richard Dawkins TV launches Baloney Detection Kit

Please let me into Camp Dawkins

Big Chief Richard will throw open the flaps (nets?) of Camp Dawkins this summer so that children can enthuse about the bearded ape's most ardent fanboy, as they learn all about evolution and science. Of course, they will also be encouraged to question any beliefs that might stand in the way of scientific progress. But I wonder how they will manage to identify and differentiate between how to think and what to think? Camp Quest doesn't want to indoctrinate anyone, after all. Does it?

Well, the answer is that children will have to think their way through various challenges, like "Which planet did "spoon man" Uri Geller come from?" and "Do unicorns really exist?". Those old favourite group games like "Pin the tail on the theistic evolutionist" or "Find the Christian weirdo and put them on TV" are unlikely to feature, simply because Big Chief Richard doesn't like to be shown up by children, who could do both better than him.

So, if what we should think (=atheism) is dressed up as how we should think (or critical thinking skills) doesn't do the trick, then there is a cunning backup plan. Hard cash. The children may be paid to sing along with Big Chief Richards' song. I'm not kidding. After they have completed one particular challenge hunting imaginary animals they are rewarded with the prize of a £10 note signed by Big Chief Richard. PowWow! But better check the Currency and Banknotes Act (1928) before you advertise that. Dawkins' "shyness" is always an interesting disclosure isn't it? And the connection between what to think and how to think is especially clear when you consider that it is a picture of the bearded ape himself on the £10 note.

While some Christians are concerned by Camp Dawkins, I am not. For one thing, freedom works in two directions. Christians would hit the roof if they were told that they couldn't have Church holiday club this year because someone who didn't know them had decided that it was indoctrination. If that is what Christians' enjoy, then those same freedoms should be extended to others (within reasonable limits). Dawkins really isn't a threat. Camp Quest just sounds tediously boring, as opposed to threatening. And don't let it escape your attention that the buisness model is pretty flawed too. In fact Dawkins is propping it up by parting with more than a ten pound note to make this happen. Roughly £225 per child (x25) in fact (adventure centre cost = £500, Camp Quest cost = £275), without even mentioning air fares of American volunteers. So it may not be sustainable, even if it is possible to persuade your local atheist "brights"/volunteers enough to take time off work year upon year to extol the virtues (they are not ontologically grounded) of naturalistic materialism gather around the camp fire to sing Imagine by John Lennon.

I enjoyed George Pitcher's comment on the story here

Six out of ten 10 children (59 per cent) believe that religion "has a negative influence on the world".

"Teenagers even say family, friends, money, music and even reality television are more important than religion. It also emerged six out of ten 10 children (59 per cent) believe that religion "has a negative influence on the world".

"The survey also shows that half of teenagers have never prayed and 16 per cent have never been to church. The study of 1,000 teenagers aged 13 to 18 was carried out by Penguin to mark this week's publication of controversial novel 'Killing God' by Kevin Brooks.

"The book is about a 15-year-old girl who questions the existence of God.

Kevin Brooks, the author, said: "I can't say I am surprised by the teenagers' responses.

"Part of the reason that I wrote Killing God was that I wanted to explore the personal attitudes of young people today, especially those with troubled lives, towards organised religion and the traditional concept of God...How can the moralities of an ancient religion relate to the tragedies and disorders of today's broken world? And why do some people turn to God for help while others take comfort in drugs and alcohol?

Telegraph article here

The penguin survey was done by livity

Can anyone find a link to the research?

If this is accurate then the shape of the UK in the future is likely to change a great deal. What can the church do to try to reach out effectively and seize the (why? you might ask do I use this word?) opportunity?

Christian teaching must change

"It is not enough to teach young [and old] believers how to have a personal quiet time, follow a Scripture memory program, and link up with a Christian campus group [or church]. We also need to equip them to respond to the intellectual challenges they will face in the classroom.....To be effective in equipping young people and professionals to face the challenges of a highly educated secular society, the church needs to redefine the mission of pastors and youth leaders to include training in apologetics and worldview.... A religion that avoids the intellectual task and retreats to the therapeutic realm of personal relationships and feelings will not survive in today’s spiritual battlefield." [Nancy Pearcey]

I believe in preaching, but I also agree with Pearcey. We need to up our game. If you are involved in any level of Christian teaching, from homegroup to sunday preaching, then can I ask you to do three things:

1. When you prepare your teaching. As well as following a careful exergetical hermeneutic (What did it mean originally? What was the authors intention? What was the oringal context?) Ask the questions: what would an out and out sceptic say to this message? How can I answer their objection?

2. Buy and study some apologetics books and resources

3. Survey the people that you are teaching, asking them what their doubts and difficult questions are. Then address the intellectual doubts as well as the pastoral ones. If you don't know how to, then invite someone who can and learn from them.

I am second

Have you seen this?

Blade Runner

One of the best films ever made, which sadly never received its deserved critical acclaim, is Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982). This clip shows Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) explaining to Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) that he has experienced moments that are going to be lost forever, like tears in the rain. Hauer reportedly came up with the monologue himself, and it summarises the aesthetic and value hungry longings of the Nexus 6 series of replicants effectively.

Are moments only meaningful if you live forever? Or does the inevitability of death render every moment potentially pointless? How can we deal with the beauty of the experience versus the groundlessness of its significance? And in Blade Runner are those moments that the artificial human characters have while sitting at the piano playing beautiful music lost? Are their desires and longings for more moments and for a life beyond four years meaningful or meaningless? And is the love that they seem to be able to learn to experience, with their implanted memories acting as cushions to give them feelings, actually worth nothing?

Roy is a replicant, an artificial human being, with a limited lifespan and we glimpse his final existiential cry. And perhaps it is not so unlike our own?

Damaris Culturewatch article discussion

Who is the real monster Dr. Frankenstein?

The original Frankenstein: 10 minute silent film (1910)


Chapter 13...

The book by the atheist Mary Shelly provides one of the most devastating analysis of human nature in Western literature. In this section the monster reflects on what he has seen in human history and what it says about human nature...

"While I improved in speech, I also learned the science of letters, as it was taught to the stranger; and this opened before me a wide field for wonder and delight.

"The book from which Felix instructed Safie was Volney's _Ruins of Empires_. I should not have understood the purport of this book, had not Felix, in reading it, given very minute explanations. He had chosen this work, he said, because the declamatory style was framed in imitation of the eastern authors. Through this work I obtained a cursory knowledge of history, and a view of the several empires at present existing in the world; it gave me an insight into the manners, governments, and religions of the different nations of the earth. I heard of the slothful Asiatics; of the stupendous genius and mental activity of the Grecians; of the wars and wonderful virtue of the early Romans--of their subsequent degenerating--of the decline of that mighty empire; of chivalry, Christianity, and kings. I heard of the discovery of the American hemisphere, and wept with Safie over the hapless fate of its original inhabitants.

"These wonderful narrations inspired me with strange feelings. Was man, indeed, at once so powerful, so virtuous and magnificent, yet so vicious and base? He appeared at one time a mere scion of the evil principle, and at another as all that can be conceived of noble and godlike. To be a great and virtuous man appeared the highest honour that can befall a sensitive being; to be base and vicious, as many on record have been, appeared the lowest degradation, a condition more abject than that of the blind mole or harmless worm. For a long time I could not conceive how one man could go forth to murder his fellow, or even why there were laws and governments; but when I heard details of vice and bloodshed, my wonder ceased, and I turned away with disgust and loathing.

The Hammer Horror evolution The Curse of Frankenstein (1957)


How we forget this....?


And if you want to follow the trail... Philosopher Peter S. Williams has been looking at Dr. Who and Monsters recently you can listen to his Meaningful Monsters talk