Richard dawkins

Well, well, well. Nick Cohen's excellent column in this week's mag  has caused a stir today. Sadly, though, Nick's astute argument became another excuse for a boring slanging match between atheists and believers. And of course Stephen Fry waded in: Mary had a little lamb It's fleece was white as snow All you religious dicks Just fuck off and go. No more discussion with dickheads. Sorry. — Stephen Fry (@stephenfry) August 22, 2013 Really? Fry's Twitter cronies lapped that up. They always do. He's so clever and civilised, our Stephen, bless his colourful cotton socks. Unlike those credulous maniacs who believe in God. In 2013! Celebrity atheists always claim the rational high ground: we are calm and normal, the God squad is angry and mad.

I love the remark made by one Oxford don about another: ‘On the surface, he’s profound, but deep down, he’s superficial.’ That sentence has more than once come to mind when reading the new atheists.

I couldn't get Richard Dawkins to reply to Theo Hobson's excellent article on 'the new new atheists'. Probably, he didn't see my message. Or maybe he thought it beneath him. Or maybe like God he just doesn't respond to all our entreaties. There's no doubt, though, that Theo's piece touched a nerve among the godless trolls of the web -- just look at the comments section. Theo must be on to something. The new atheist spring of the 2000s is wilting. Dawkins suddenly seems like a strange anachronism. In his place, a humbler and more honest atheism is emerging, led by brilliant minds like our very own Douglas Murray on one hand and Alain de Botton on the other.

The atheist spring that began just over a decade ago is over, thank God. Richard Dawkins is now seen by many, even many non-believers, as a joke figure, shaking his fist at sky fairies. He’s the Mary Whitehouse of our day. So what was all that about, then? We can see it a bit more clearly now. It was an outpouring of frustration at the fact that religion is maddeningly complicated and stubbornly irritating, even in largely secular Britain. This frustration had been building for decades: the secular intellectual is likely to feel somewhat bothered by religion, even if it is culturally weak. Oh, she finds it charming and interesting to a large extent, and loves a cosy carol service, but religion really ought to know its place.

I thought that readers might be interested in this new piece from me on Islam, the Koran and Richard Dawkins's survival instinct.

I spent Thursday evening at the Cambridge Union debating the motion 'This House believes religion has no place in the 21st century.' I spoke against the motion. My opponents on the opposite side included Richard Dawkins. My opponents on my own side were Rowan Williams and Tariq Ramadan. Anyhow - there has been a certain amount of press coverage and a number of readers have got in touch. This is just to say that I hope to post the video of the debate here as soon as it becomes available. UPDATE: Video of the debate is available here.

No sooner does Baroness Warsi denounce militant secularists who try to marginalise Christianity than, bang on cue, up surfaces Richard Dawkins with a survey commissioned by his Foundation for Reason and Science intended to demonstrate that Christianity is a minority pursuit. His Ipsos MORI poll, published today, is intended to unpick that bit of the 2001 census which found that more than 70 per cent of respondents identify themselves as Christian.

One new institution does not a revolution make. But there's still something a little revolutionary about the New College of the Humanities that is set to open, in London, in September 2012. Perhaps it's the idea behind it: a private university that charges fees of £18,000 a year (with bursaries available to those who can't afford that). Or perhaps it's the names who are fronting it: AC Grayling, Richard Dawkins, Niall Ferguson, etc. They will, apparently, be conducting tutorials themselves. The public academics, it seems, are pitching their tents on the private sector. Mary Beard lists some reasons no to get too excited here. This is, she says, little more than a US-style liberal arts college that won't offer science courses or post-graduate qualifications.