The Culture of Stupidity

When you hear your own doctoral supervisor–and now your boss–preach about the power of the cross of Christ against today’s culture of foolishness, it is indescribably touching. Yesterday (Apr 2, 2024), Dr. Stanley E. Porter spoke from 1 Corinthians 1:18-31 at McMaster Divinity College’s last chapel service of the Winter term. His sermon really got me thinking how foolish today’s world we’re living in is. Even with all the knowledge that we’ve accumulated, we don’t seem to proceed forward, and we don’t even know what the life is all about. In this video that I came across yesterday, the famous evolutionary biologist and one of the most outspoken atheists of this day Richard Dawkins was interviewed by LBC’s Rachel Johnson. I think he appears to be an example of this world’s “damned stupidity.” I’ve attached the transcript of the initial portion of the talk (00:20 to 2:50) below for your reference.

Dawkins: I was slightly horrified that Ramadan is being promoted instead. I do think that we are culturally a Christian country. I call myself a cultural Christian. I’m not a believer, but there’s a distinction between being a believing Christian and being a cultural Christian. So you know I love hymns and Christmas carols and I, I sort of feel at home in the Christian ethos. I feel that we are a Christian country in that sense. It’s true that statistically the number of people who actually believe in Christianity is going down. And I’m happy with that. But I would not be happy if, for example, we lost all our cathedrals and our beautiful parish churches. So I count myself a cultural Christian. I think it would matter if we substituted any alternative religion, that would be truly dreadful.

Interviewer: But which brings me to my supplementary point, which is that, as we know, church attendance is plummeting, but the building, the erection of mosques across Europe I think 6,000 are under construction and there are many more, I mean, are being planned. So do you think, do you regard that as a problem? Do you think that matters?

Dawkins: Yes, I do. Really. I mean, I, might have to choose my words carefully. I mean, if I had to choose between Christianity and Islam, I’d choose Christianity every single time. I mean it seems to me to be a fundamentally decent religion. In a way I think Islam is not.

Interview: I think you’d have to explain why you say that, Professor Dawkins. Why is Islam . . .fundamentally not decent like Christianity?

Dawkins: Yes, I mean the way the women are. Christianity is not great about that. It’s had its problems with female vicars and female bishops and things. But there’s an active hostility to women which is promoted, I think, by the holy books of Islam. I’m not talking about individual Muslims who, of course, are quite different. But the doctrines of Islam, the Hadith and the and the Quran is fundamentally hostile to women, hostile to gays. And I find that I like to live in a culturally Christian country. Although I do not believe a single word of the Christian faith.

The Apostle Paul’s trenchant statement on humanity still holds true: φάσκοντες εἶναι σοφοὶ ἐμωράνθησαν (“claiming to be wise, they became foolish,” Romans 1:22).