According to the official Gifford Lecture website "The prestigious Gifford Lectureships were established by Adam Lord Gifford (1820–1887), a senator of the College of Justice in Scotland. The purpose of Lord Gifford's bequest to the universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow, St. Andrews and Aberdeen was to sponsor lectures to “promote and diffuse the study of Natural Theology in the widest sense of the term—in other words, the knowledge of God”."
For over a century the Gifford legacy has attracted genuine world class masters in their fields to give lectures free of charge for ant member of the public interested and able to register in a timely fashion.I first became aware of this kind hearted enterprise when Noam Chomsky came to lecture a few years back.
The lectures are offered by the 4 older universities in Scotland and Terry Eagleton gave a fascinating lecture as part of the famous Gifford Lecture series at Edinburgh University entitled the “The God Debate”.It perceptive ; amusing and eloquent debunking of the most dangerous religion on the planet – Atheist Fundamentalism , and especially its chief high priests Dawkins and Hitchens.
Right from the off Eagleton identifies a spurious " have you seen the yeti , if not it doesnt exist" almost zealot driven deeply polemic agenda espoused by Ditchkins ( as Eagleton lumps the duo).Whilst Dawkins seems to be driven from the perpective that God , rather than he , is the centre of attention , Hitchens is a decidedly pernicious concoction aligned with the neo-con agenda trying a masquerade as a great universal leftist civilising cause.Hitchins goes further than Dawkins in having an objection to Faith itself as a Human Condition.
Very early he puts Atheist pin-up Saint in his place in this review.
In the case of Hitchens one can also add Levy and a plethora of French leftists to this list.
The common link seems to be a Colonial attitude that European ideals are supreme , all others are deemed inferior;null and void.
It is something Bolivar identified nearly 200 years ago , and something Edward said commented upon when analysing the “leftness” of the likes of H.G.Wells and others who had no strong objection to European states maintaining empires.
Most certainly an ambivalence to Empires and/or colonies is a fundamental continuum that the Left has not been able to shake off.
Here is Eagleton giving a Lecture on The God Debate in the US a couple of years back:
At the very core of the problem is the acceptance that the state concept as developed in Europe is a workable model rather than something to be utterly rejected as an imperial project.The history of states in Europe itself has been a disaster since the early 1820s onwards , and has only been partially cured by the EU which became a region of rights rather than a state as such.
In the former Soviet republics, the middle east, the sub-continent, africa and even central america states were specifically designed to engender lack of cohesion and dependency on an outside power.
The acceptance of the state as a model that can be worked with means the Left can either be three things
1) Utterly ineffective and marginalised
2) Guilty of trying to export a failed revolution
3) Become cheerleaders for neocon projects using spurious Humanitarian and “progressive” arguments.
The ultimate flailing failing of Ditchkins , according to Eagleton is they have turned the debate into a clash of dogmas rather than a serious discussion on Faith as a Human Condition that has much to teach to the ultimate long term benefit of all.
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