Christmas Greetings to Richard Dawkins from the «other» Richard.

Christmas Greetings to Richard Dawkins from the «other» Richard.

By

Richard Morgan

Dear Dr Dawkins,

Thank you.

Thank you for The Blind Watchmaker, which rescued me from my labyrinthine search for God and spirituality over a quarter of a century ago. Reading that book was a true “I once was blind, but now I see” experience. You made an atheist of me, Dr Dawkins.

Thank you for being a bright beacon of Reason and Science shining in the darkness of religious folly, even though that darkness comprehended it not – and still doesn't.

Thank you for that “oasis of clear-thinking”, the RichardDawkins.Net Forum which so brightened my life in 2006, and to which I led my thirsty mind several times every day for over fourteen months.

Thank you for publicly expressing your appreciation, in the pages of that same Forum, of my little composition, “You'll see it again, but...” ⁽¹⁾ that was inspired by the touching incident that you related in"Climbing Mount Improbable". In this book, you recall waking your daughter Juliette, then two, one night and carrying her in a blanket to look at Halley's Comet. "She didn't take in what I was saying,” you wrote,” but I stubbornly whispered into her ear the story of the comet and the certainty that I could never see it again, but that she might when she was 78."

Do you remember, Dr Dawkins, how amused you were by the musical caricatures I cheekily composed of some of my favourite members of the Forum? And how you suggested that I do the same thing for your detractors, your “fleas” as you called them with a wink at Yeats' “Was there ever a dog that praised its fleas?"

How cruel I was, much to everyone's glee, when I posted “The Wee Flea” ⁽²⁾ representing that “dishonest fruitcake”, Free Church of Scotland minister, David Robertson. He had had the gall to attack your Zeitgeist-lifting book, The God Delusion, by publishing The Dawkins Letters.

Do you remember how our demolition job of TDL became the longest ever discussion in the Forum? How we loved to hate The Wee Flea as he called himself.

You know, I almost feel the need to apologise for spoiling everybody's fun by becoming a convert to Christianity in April 2008 ⁽³⁾, as a result of interacting with that plodding Presbyterian minister. Do you remember how one of the members of the Forum kindly suggested I seek help since I had clearly suffered a temporary brain infarction? Well, either it wasn't a brain infarction, but a genuine “road to Damascus” conversion, or it wasn't temporary, because more than three years later I'm still praising God and looking forward to celebrating the birth of Christ - as a real Zeitgeist-lifting event.

Thank you, Dr Dawkins, for stepping in personally and shutting down that discussion in your Forum (September, 2008) which had started becoming almost libellous, as my former RDNet friends publicly vented their anger and scorn, and hate'n'bile on me, after I had had the temerity to go on a Christian radio and talk about my experience in your oasis of clear-thinking.

As we approach Christmas, 2011, I realise that I have much to thank you for, and I wish to do so in this open letter. I imagine you will interpret this as a Christian attempt to kiss and make up. Well, you know you, that's exactly what it is. Why have I chosen Christmas? Because I think we may have some common ground on which we could meet now that the dust has settled.

My thoughts naturally turned to you as I left a Carol Service this afternoon. I recall your saying back in 2007, ⁽⁴⁾ "I like singing carols along with everybody else. I'm not one of those who wants to purge our society of our Christian history.”

So, how about it, Dr Dawkins? For old times' sake? A quick chorus of Gloria in Excelsis Deo, perhaps? Or maybe We Three Kings followed by Silent Night?

You see, Dr Dawkins, truth to tell, I still am, and always will be, deeply grateful to you, since it was in your oasis of clear-thinking that I found the Living Waters.

Go figure.

May I wish you a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year?

I may?

Thank you very much, Dr Dawkins.

Yours faithfully (sorry about the “f” word),

Richard MORGAN

1 http://youtu.be/mgXPNAPNc-E

2 http://youtu.be/uhmXA3zVBGs

3 http://www.freechurch.org/pdf/monthlyrecord/sept08.pdf

4 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7136682.stm

Fred Hahn, over on Cosmicfingerprints, has just made this fascinating post.

FredHahn says:

November 7, 2011 at 6:42 pm

No Rich, I don’t think you get it at all.

What Jesus meant by that statement was: “Be happy now. Rejoice in life for its own sake.”

The kingdom of “heaven” is happiness here on Earth.

I have issued him this challenge:
Do you have any more gems where that came from? Perhaps you could treat us to your personal exegetics concerning, ““Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” According to you, this would be blatant blasphemy, since my SELF is God, and Christ requires us to deny our SELVES.


If Fred should take up this challenge (I'm not holding my breath), here's what he might say:
What Jesus really meant was that we should put our false beliefs and unnecessary fears on the cross. Get rid of them. We must deny our erroneous concept of self in order to discover the power and joy of true Selfism.


Any bets?

Pump up the Spirit Chapter 1

Pump up the Praise?

« I wonder how that one managed to sneak though the spam-filter, » thought Jon.

« News from Full Praise Sound Systems : Christian amplifiers for all your worship needs. »

It was early Monday morning, Jon’s first coffee hadn't yet kicked in, so everything was still blurred and unreal and difficult to understand. He had just rolled out of bed, struggled to work out the difference between "horizontal" and "vertical", opted for "lurching diagonal" and switched on his computer almost as a reflex.

Aiming with difficulty and almost missing, he flopped down into his battered COE chair, purchased on eBay, screwed up his eyes to make them both point in more or less the same direction, and opened his eMail page.

The previous evening's Praise meeting had been wonderfully spirit-filled, and the congregation had kept them on stage for an hour longer than planned.

It had been a perfect session. As usual, all the members of the group had prayed fervently together in the wings before going on-stage - the two singers, the two guitarists, a keyboards player, a drummer and himself - the bass-player. They had prayed, as usual, in the wings - humility oblige, but just loud enough for the audience to pick up their sincerity and fervour.

The sound system worked perfectly, the congregation had been warmed up by a particularly stimulating sermon. The preacher had handled the audience with professional skill, drawing them along with him as he alternated between uproarious anecdotes, booming denunciations of sin, Democrats and liberals, soft, broken-voiced anguish for the lost, and clarion-call exhortations to repentance and salvation.  Yes, they had all been truly blessed, as hearts were opened, people released from sin and suffering, lost souls brought to the Lord. All of which promised hope for the future and increased CD sales after the service.

Praise the Lord!

But now it was Monday morning. And Jon wasn't praising anybody - yet. Except, perhaps, the world's coffee-producers.

The morning-after is never easy.

Had Jon been more alert he wouldn't have opened the rogue spam.

Hackers are always one step-head of anti-virus programmers (Door's Law), and as a rule Jon consigned all unfiltered spam mail to the bin without taking the risk of opening them.

But that morning was not like just any other Monday morning.

And the FP Sound Systems mail would turn out to be unlike any other spam message Jon had ever received.

Looking back, with hindsight, Jon thought that perhaps it was the coffee that was the problem.

Not the coffee he had drunk.

The coffee that had splashed onto his cordless (thus tail-less) mouse.

Perhaps that had caused some sort of system malfunction. Certainly the cursor had developed a mind of its own. It had taken to hovering over blank spaces on the screen, and sitting there, trembling expectantly as if saying, « Will somebody please click me? »

That was Jon's second fatal error – he had clicked.

And as the saying goes, « Click in haste, re-install Windows at leisure. »

There was a URL for FP Sound Systems which took him to an ordinary-looking site, which opened directly onto its « Hot News »  page.

So what was hot? wondered Jon.

He had recently acquired a  BassTone  400 Pro amp with 10-band graphic EQ, mid-notch switch (great for slap playing), two-band studio-grade compressor,  with an integrated GPS for finding out-of-the-way church hall venues, so why bother looking at what FPSS had to offer?

The "Hot News" page was almost completely filled with a photo of what seemed to be a fairly impressive four by ten half-stack bass amp, though white seemed to be a strange colour for an object that got knocked around a lot.

He clicked on the image to see if could  get a more detailed close-up of the head.

A pop-up opened which allowed him to identify the controls.

No less than four bass-specific bands of active EQ, clip LED, 10dB pad, mute switch with LED... fairly standard stuff.

So - apparently nothing of interest to him there.

Then he saw that there were two control buttons that had started flashing gently.

Something new and original perhaps?

He zoomed in on them to try to identify them.

Below each button there was a jack input socket and above one of them the letters HSB and above the other SIT:Int.

HSB?

SIT:Int?

Jon shut the image window, and scrolled down to see if there were more detailed specifications.

Yes, there, right after the voicing filters.

HSB : Holy Spirit Booster.

With  six pre-set levels :

1) Unitarian (this also doubles as the « Off » switch);

2) C of E  (low church) (environment-friendly, low-energy consumption. Safe for use in the presence of children of all ages.) ;

3) C of E (high church) with  automatic cut-off level filter which can be by-passed for week-day charismatic prayer meetings;

4) Calvinist (functions with the « Sola Scriptura : Psalms-only by-pass » plug-in);

5) Evangelical (general) – an excellent, all-purpose function with high-frequency emissions  to

 stimulate endorphin secretions. (FDA approval pending);

6) Pentecostal: automatic HS level-detection, kicks in when ambient levels fall below « snakes and poison ». Can be pre-programmed to emit brief, high-intensity "slain-in-the-Spirit"

signals. Ensure that epileptics have been healed (see 5) or invited to leave the room before use

« Hilarious, » thought Jon.

« What a great joke. I'll have to send the link to the other members of the group. »

At that moment he noticed that his IM icon was flashing.

The little window opened « FPSS is on-line and would like to invite you to chat. Accept? Refuse? »

Fully awake by now, Jon clicked  « Accept » but immediately typed in « BRB – need another coffee first. »

FPPS says: I'll b w8ing 4 u, Jon. I've been w8ing a long time. C u l8r

Changing his status to « absent » Jon was about to go to the kitchen when he realised that he hadn't yet checked out the "SIT:Int." function.

Scrolling a bit further down the page, he found it.

SIT:Int  : Speaking in Tongues: Interpretation only (for use with FPPS« Gifts of the spirit » vox-sensitive microphones : see : Optional extras. Can be linked to any word processor or voice simulator, a selection of regional accents available, celestial reverb integrated.)

Priceless. And it wasn't even the First of April.

What a joker!

He didn't yet know that it was no joke.

That something was about to happen that would change his life.

Pain

Pain may close my eyes to You
For pain can make me selfish;
Hurting seems a lonely place,
Where hope can seem so foolish.

"Lord, please take my pain away!"
Becomes my only prayer,
Sometimes shouted, sometimes wept
As if there's no-one there.

"Come into my Sanctuary,
There you'll understand.
Though still in the desert,
Behold! The Promised land."

I dared to open tear-filled eyes,
And as I looked around,
I saw that both my pain and I
Were now on Holy ground.

I knew then that the pain I felt
Would one day disappear,
And, knowing that, I suffered less,
As Love pushed out my fear.

"Lord, you gave my pain a sense,
As Your pain bought Salvation,
For in my pain I found your Grace,
- This is my Celebration!"

Not today...

They said "Look to the Cross" so I did.

But it didn't look the same today.

The Cross hadn't changed

But my eyes were seeing differently.

The Cross gave me no comfort

For today my heart would not be comforted.

An icy cloud of grief has numbed

All my Cross-sensitive emotions;

Yesterday it was the shape of Hope,

Today it is only geometry.

They said, "Read the Bible" so I did.

But the words were dry and empty.

The Bible hadn't changed,

But I was reading it differently.

They said, "You should pray to God" so I did.

But I couldn't find the right words.

Praying hadn't changed,

I supposed that God hadn't changed either,

But how was I to know?

They said, "Talk to a friend" and so I tried,

But on days like this, there are no friends,

Because on days like this

Words of comfort hurt so much

I have to shut them out;

Sympathy is maddening

And kindness just seems cheap.

They said "Well, we can't help you then, can we?"

And they were right.

But beyond Hope or Despair,

Beyond Joy or Anguish there is faith.

Today I can not feel it, or touch it,

Read it or hear it,

But one word reaches out

And draws it in for me - "Today".

This is only today.

Many of my days have resembled today

So I can have faith that tomorrow or perhaps

The day after, or even

The day after that (Who knows the day?)

That which was true yesterday

Will again be felt and seen as true.

God will not disappear because I close my eyes,

Nor will His word lose its power

Because I can not hear the author's voice.

No, today is not a good day.

But there again, I suppose,

Neither was that Friday.

Not a good day, Good Friday.

But then and now there were and will be

Happier tomorrows.

I believe that I believe that.

And perhaps faith is stronger

When all the proof has been dashed away.

And perhaps faith will be stronger...

But not today.

You may have to run with what you've got...

GREEN.

At the age of five, Mathieu wasn't what you could call an overly demanding child. He would be content if we simply bought him everything he asked for. And what he asked for depended on which of his friends he had seen that day. If Paul had a Dragon-ball Z sandwich box, then Mathieu just had to have a Dragon-ball Z sandwich box.

When Sébastien turned up one day with Cosmic Power roller-blades, Mathieu knew his days of walking were over - for ever.

That Sunday afternoon, however, our walk in the park started off as a relatively low-cost, overdraft-friendly outing.

It was one of those almost warm,early Spring days and the park was still a fairly safe place to take Mathieu. It would probably be fairly deserted, and the vendors usually didn't show up until the weather got warm enough to entice people out of their houses.

Not that Mathieu was ever tempted by the vendors, or the wares they usually peddled - giant, chrome-coloured, helium-filled balloons, guaranteed to carry your Granny off into the sky if you attached one to her arm, or bags of multi-coloured, life-threatening sweets that fizzed in the mouth with fierce, foaming, chemical intensity. But this was pre-vendor season - or so I thought.

So it was with a sort of blithe, innocent joy that we set off across the Park.

But, as you've no doubt guessed already, my innocence and joy were to be short-lived that day. As we rounded the band-stand, we came across one, lone vendor, a forlorn-looking man whose melancholy expression was explained by the absence of any wind. There was not even a breeze. And he was trying to sell made-in-China, aerodynamic, break-when-you-get-home, toy windmills on sticks.

Mathieu would never have given them a second look if he hadn't spotted his school-friend, Paul, running around in circles with one.

In spite of the lack of wind, he was hurtling around fast enough to make his windmill spin with a malevolent whirring sound.

"Daddy, can I have a windmill like Paul?"

"Sure, Mathieu, as long as I don't have to re-mortgage the house to buy one."

I left him staring spell-bound at Paul's dizzying performance and tentatively advanced a few paces towards the vendor, hoping to be able to read the price somewhere before getting too close

I saw "5 fr. 8 fr pour 2" scrawled on a piece of cardboard at his feet, and heaved a sigh of relief. The house was safe.

"What choice of colours do you have?" I asked him.

He looked at me as if I was intellectually disadvantaged, and with a disgruntled shrug, nodded towards the bunch of windmills he was holding. There was no choice of colours. They were all identical, sporting alternate blue and yellow sails.

When I cheerily announced, "Fine, well, I think I'll take one of the yellow and blue ones," he handed it to me and took my five francs without saying a word, perhaps hoping that if he remained silent I might just take my windmill and go away and leave him to concentrate on looking forlorn.

I went back to Mathieu and proudly showed him his blue and yellow, plastic windmill. He turned around towards me, grinning with anticipation, but his smile disappeared almost immediately, and large, father-torturing tears formed in his eyes.

"What's wrong, son?"

"I wanted a windmill like Paul's."

Without bothering to check up on Paul's windmill, I explained to Mathieu, "This windmill is exactly like Paul's. The man selling them had only one kind of windmill - they are all the same."

Mathieu continued to eye me reproachfully.

"No. It's not the same as Paul's. That one's yellow and blue. Paul's isn't."

I gazed around and saw Paul terrorising elderly strollers with his angrily droning windmill.

He seemed to be running even faster than before, creating a slipstream to make his windmill spin.

Surely he too had a yellow and blue windmill, I thought. When I spotted him, however, I immediately understood Mathieu's disappointment.

I bent down, and placed the stick of the windmill in my son's little hand.

"This is the one you wanted, Mathieu. It's only yellow and blue because you're standing still. If you run as fast as you can with it, it will be the same colour as Paul's - green."

Always take what you're given, even though you may have to run with it to get what you want.

The Nuthatch and the Piano Delusion

Nuthatch Matt: Hey, Flint, I've just seen something incredible. Absolutely amazing!

Nuthatch Flint: (peck-swallow-peck-swallow-peck-twitch-nervously-swallow). OK. But you'd better talk fast. The turtle doves are just over there, and they look rather hungry. Any minute now they're going to come over and throw us out. (peck-swallow-peck-swallow)

Nuthatch Matt: Well, you know that weird Morgan-plant that appears every morning and leaves a pile of seeds on the tray?

Nuthatch Flint: (peck-swallow-look-round-nervously-peck-swallow) Yeah?

Nuthatch Matt: Well, I just heard it playing the piano.

Nuthatch Flint: Piano? What are piano seeds like? Don't believe I've ever seen those. ((peck-swallow-peck-swallow-peck-twitch-nervously-swallow).

Nuthatch Matt: Well, you wouldn't. It doesn't produce seeds - it produces music.

Nuthatch Flint: Never heard of that. Music. What does it taste like?

Nuthatch Matt: It doesn't have a taste, Flint.

Nuthatch Flint: OK. So what colour is it. Black and white like these sun-flower seeds.

Nuthatch Matt: No, it doesn't have any colour either.

Nuthatch Flint: OK. I get you. It's like water - you can drink it, right?

Nuthatch Matt: No, no. In fact you can't even hold it in your beak...

Nuthatch Flint: You've been at the Neighbour-Plant's parrot food again, haven't you? I warned you they sometimes put weird seeds in there that give you weird ideas and see things that aren't there.

Nuthatch Matt : No, I swear I haven't touched anything like that today. As soon as I woke up, I came straight here, chased away a few cheeky coal-tits, and I was just getting down to breakfast, when the the Morgan-Plant appeared the other side of the window and he started playing the piano and making music.

Nuthatch Flint : You've been warned to keep away from windows. You know you can't always see them, but when you try to fly through them.... You could end up with a broken beak, for crying out loud.

Nuthatch Matt : Flint - the window was part open. I didn't try to approach the Morgan-Plant, but I saw and heard it making music?

Nuthatch Flint : OK. So it "made music"? What's that go to do with the price of maize?

Nuthatch Matt : Well, it was a very beautiful experience.....

Nuthatch Flint : But did it feed your gut?

Nuthatch Matt : Flint, no but....

Nuthatch Flint : Well, it doesn't interest me. And I'm warning you - if you go round telling the others that you've been wasting your time with stuff that you can't see, you can't eat or drink, you're likely to lose your place in the pecking order for the rest of the season. Music? Noise?

If you're interested in noise, go and stir up the magpies and the crows. You'll get all the noise you want.... But try to get it into your head - sure, the Morgan-plant has an exceptionally high seed-producing capacity but this has been verified by other, more experienced Nuthatches, evidence of the morning appearance of sun-flower seeds has been collected, collated, peer-reviewed - AND THAT'S ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW. Morgan-plant's sunflower seeds are a fact. Why do you need to add "muzak"?

Nuthatch Matt : Music.

Nuthatch Flint : OK, music, I'm telling you, this balcony is exactly as we would expect it to be if there were no piano, and no music. (peck-swallow-peck-swallow-twitch-head-stare)

Nuthatch Matt : Yeah... I suppose you're right.

Nuthatch Flint : Oh- oh! Watch out. Here come the turtle doves. (Flaps in a panic and disappears into the trees.)

Two turtle doves arrive, and without ceremony squat in the middle of the pile of sun-flower seeds.

Nuthatch Matt : Excuse me, Mr Turtle-dove - but have you heard the Morgan-plant playing the piano and making music?

Mr Turtle-dove : (plodding aggressively around the seed tray) Just clear off, ok? I'm busy eating, and you know what happens to nuthatches who interrupt me when I'm eating...? Yeah, head-first into the grease-ball and a quick invitation to the Neighbour Plant's cat. So scram while you can.

Nuthatch Matt : OK, OK, don't get your feathers in a twist. I'm off. Maybe the piano and music was just a dream after all.

Flaps away into the trees, and disappears behind the branches.

He will be back for sunflower seeds. They will all be back for sunflower seeds.

Never trust anything you can't eat, OK?

Rational thinking passes through the beak and and belly.

All the rest is fairy tales.

Through the living room window, the strains of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata drift languidly out on to the balcony. The C-sharp minor arpeggios slip briefly in the the warm reassurance of D major without lingering for more than a brief moment, then lapse back into the heart-wrenching melancholy of the initial minor key, first holding us teetering on the brink of the dominant seventh with it's excruciatingly suspended forth, then dropping with an almost sickening, inevitable but abrupt plunge into the angst announced at the beginning.

Anyone for sunflower seeds?