Audience of One

Atheism, ideologies and the evangelical

Yesterday the famous atheist biologist Richard Dawkins wrote an article in the Independent, and I agreed with practically everything he said. Always a nice surprise, seeing as usually when I read stuff by him it’s in the vein of “Christians are deluded by a religion that has evolved to attract the weak-minded extra-specially strongly” (a biological and theological argument that I won’t go into here, and neither will Dawkins – his view is that to argue with Christians is to give them the publicity they crave for and don’t deserve). I may believe in theistic evolution (and would hold issues with every one of the opposition’s list of oppositions) but that doesn’t mean I agree wholeheartedly with Dawkins normally. (Must read The Selfish Gene at some point actually.)

So, what’s Dawkins been saying? Well, he argues that Tony Blair is using the “bogeyman” of Michael Howard to scare people into voting Labour. He also argues that Blair has used scare tactics throughout his premiership, including using the “45 minute” WMD threat – and now covers up the tactic by claiming he believed it at the time. Given the lack of evidence (no amount of weaselling will convince me that there was anything like enough), it seems a bit crazy, but there you go.

So, Blair claims that not voting Labour will let Michael Howard into government. Dawkins considers this unlikely, and considers the best the Conversatives can hope for to be a hung parliament (which would be better for the Lib Dems than the Tories anyway).

So what would a hung parliament bring about? Well, the Lib Dems could hold the balance of power in Parliament. In simple terms, neither Labour nor the Conversatives would have enough votes to pass their policies on their own: they’d need the Lib Dems’ help. In other words, their policies would have to cater more to the Lib Dems’ views to get put into action.

A result of this could be the voting system of proportional representation becoming law. At the moment, votes only really count in marginal seats. In so many seats it’s so obvious that a particular party will win there’s not much hope in voting for anyone else. With proportional representation, no vote would be wasted. Dawkins considers this essential to the continuing effectiveness of democracy in this country, and I agree – more about this another time.

I perhaps shouldn’t be surprised at agreeing with such a vehement atheist – after all, there are very few Christians in the Lib Dems (to my knowledge) yet I agree with them. The article reinforced my belief that Christianity isn’t tied to a particular political ideology – if it were, it wouldn’t be the one supported by a great critic of the very nature of belief in God, and yet I feel the Lib Dems have the best idea out of the main three parties of implementing a fair and just society.

Matthew @ 10:40, April 24, 2005 to Politics | Comments (0)