Ritröð Guðfræðistofnunar - 01.09.2008, Blaðsíða 24

preferred football team, but often available when other labels are not.”23 In
other words, religion is only part of the problem - a judgement that few
would find questionable. Yet even here, Dawkins’ core anti-religious beliefs
lead him to some problematic judgements.
The simplistic belief that the elimination of religion would lead to the
ending of violence, social tension, or discrimination is sociologically na'ive.
It fails to take account of the way in which human beings create values and
norms, and make sense of their identity and their surroundings. If religion
were to cease to exist, other social demarcators would emerge as decisive,
some of which would become transcendentalized in due course. Dawkins
has no interest in sociology, as might be expected. Yet the study of how
individuals and societies function casts serious doubt on one of the most
fundamental assertions of his analysis.
Furthermore, one may legitimately point out that Dawkins and others,
such as Daniel Dennett, have given rise to precisely the same “in-groups”
and “out-groups” by their unwise endorsement of the notion of “Brights”
in 2003. For those who missed this diverting episode in American cultural
history, a “Bright” was defined as someone who holds “a naturalistic
worldview” which is “free of supernatural and mystical elements”.24 Just
as “gays” was seen as a better word to designate homosexuals, “brights”
was coined as a term for atheists. Except the choice of the term “bright”
turned out to be a public relations disaster, reeking of intellectual and
cultural arrogance. If atheists were really so smart, how could two of their
leading representatives fail to see that the “brights” label would backfire
so spectacularly? And the problem lay not simply in the field of public
relations. The use of the label immediately created a mindset leading to
precisely the “in-groups” and “out-groups”, mimicking what Dawkins and
Dennett had declared to be one of the cardinal sins of religion.
When launching the “Bright” movement in the New York Times back in
2003, Dennett insisted that telling people that he was “a bright” was “not
a boast but a proud avowal of an inquisitive world view.” Well, that’s not
23 Dawkins, The God Delusion, 259.
24 Daniel C. Dennett, “The Bright Stuff”. New York Times, 12 July, 2003. See also Richard
Dawkins, “The Future looks Bright”. The Guardian, 21 June 2003.