User:Woozle/Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching
Overview
This page is about the article "Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching" by Terry Eagleton (published in the London Review of Books on 2006-10-19), which is a review of the book The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. Since the response does not quote extensively and the original is quite readable, I have not reproduced it here.
Responses
Woozle
This was originally written as an email; I have left the wording as it is for now.
Eagleton basically avoids addressing Dawkins's points, trying instead to undermine his credibility with the usual tools (ad hominem, appeal to authority, appeal to snobbery, etc.) for the first 3 paragraphs.
In the 4th paragraph, he finally starts to close in on the point by beating a bit more closely about the bush: "Dawkins considers that all faith is blind faith, and that Christian and Muslim children are brought up to believe unquestioningly." The former is an arguable point, and the latter is certainly true unless you include the word "all" ("...and that all Christian and Muslim children..."). He then quickly backs away from the point, dismissing those statements by an appeal to common belief ("Not even the dim-witted clerics who knocked me about at grammar school thought that.") and by simply stating the opposite: "For mainstream Christianity, reason, argument and honest doubt have always played an integral role in belief." Right. Got any bridges you're trying to sell?
Wait, I take that back. It's probably quite arguable that they "played a role"; in fact, that might be the best way to describe the situation: defenders of the faith will regularly trot out reason and logic and manipulate them, like Punch and Judy dolls, to arrive safely back at the Official Truth. "Playing a role" is not what we're looking for; reason, argument, and honest doubt should be central to any quest for truth – be that quest spiritual or otherwise.
The rest of the piece strikes me as more of the same; if you notice what seem to be any actual points he makes, please feel free to point them out and I'll have a look at them.