"Perfidious" Brits? Part Two

The Guardian has a story on the sad state of Christianity in the postmodern UK. Of course, it is the Guardian, so who knows how valid this particular poll might be.

Eighty-two percent of the 1,006 adults questioned for the left-leaning Guardian newspaper in the run up to Christmas said they saw religion as a cause of division and tension between people compared to 16 percent who disagreed. At a time when Britain's multi-cultural, multi-faith model, their outward symbols and culture are under the microscope after last year's home-grown Islamist extremist suicide bombings, 63 percent said they were not religious.

Read more if you want to combine Christmas depression with SADS.

Darn, my cousin Dennis Mangan has a great little post quoting Theodore Dalyrymple on the subject. Here's a slice:

[TD] says that one problem with Dawkins is that he thinks progress inevitable:

And yet Dawkins disregards other important aspects of morality in which regression had undoubtedly occurred. To give only one example: the rate of indictable offences has increased 40 times in the country of his birth, Britain, in his lifetime, notwithstanding an enormous increase in wealth and the standard of living as measured by consumption of material goods. And this rise of crime alone has had a terrible effect on the quality of life of millions of people, who justifiably live in constant fear and who arrange their lives accordingly. The old, for example, are under perpetual curfew, imposed by some of the young, in Britain.

Dalrymple ends on a weak note:

Dawkins's latest book is an example of the nothing-but school of historiography: European history is nothing but the history of warfare and genocide, American history is nothing but the history of exploitation and oppression of the blacks, and so forth. For him, the history of religion is nothing but the history of bigotry, savagery, ignorance, intolerance. Of course, all of these are to be found in the history of religion, and bigots still abound. The problem with the nothing-but school of history, apart from its incompleteness and untruth, is fuels the very thing against which it rails, bigotry and hatred.

Dawkins views are that, but he also fails to make the case that a world without religion, even were it possible, would be better. The Lenins, Stalins, and Maos were not religious, nor were Tamerlane and others of his ilk driven by religion. Man will always find excuses to plunder and murder others and if religion isn't available, he will find something else.

Although I recall Tamerlane was vaguely Muslim, he and Robespierre and Adolph were not driven by religion, but in Robespierre and AH's case by hatred of religion. Dawkins shares that hatred and a vituperative temperament that should make us happy he chose not to pursue a political career!