Ch.2, §1: Polytheism (pp.52–57).
Yes, there is still plenty of monotheistic chauvinism around (the assumption that monotheism is self-evidently the purest and best kind of religion). And Dawkins’ has found a lovely quote from the Catholic Encyclopedia:
Formal dogmatic Atheism is self-refuting, and has never de facto won the reasoned assent of any considerable number of men. Nor can Polytheism, however easily it may take hold of the popular imagination, ever satisfy the mind of a philosopher.
That’s from their article on the existence of God. I would, though, have preferred it if Dawkins had let on that this is from an encyclopedia published in 1909, and might not be quite at the forefront of contemporary theological thinking. This is a petty thing to mention, I know, but Dawkins fairly regularly gives the impression that he didn’t exactly expend much energy on research, and I can’t help getting irritated by that.
> an encyclopedia published in 1909
Is there a new edition of the Catholic Encyclopedia to which Dawkins should be referred or is the 1909 edition the latest available (currently in use) edition?
As it happens, there was a second edition in 1967, republished (with revisions, I think) in 2002. But going to the 1909 Catholic Encylopedia to find nasty things that Christians say about polytheism is like finding some literature from the height of the British Empire that is patronising about people ‘in the colonies’, and citing it (without mentioning where it comes from) to back up one’s claim that British people in general are racists.
Ah! That would be The New Catholic Encyclopedia.
So chastise him for using archaic online reference works when he has the resources of a great university at his disposal!
Your bible was created 2000+ years ago and people adhere to the rigorous traditions that lay within the book, yet your complaining of something being 100 years old! Forever protecting and coming up with useless arguments for the plethora of flaws. . Typical