In his speech, Dawkins portrayed a black-and-white intellectual battle between atheism and religion. He denounced the "preposterous nonsense of religious customs" and compared religion to racism. He also gave no quarter to moderate or liberal believers, asserting that "so-called moderate Christianity is simply an evasion." "If you've been taught to believe it by moderates, what's to stop you from taking the next step and blowing yourself up?" he said.The rationale behind this is no doubt Dawkins' blind faith in all religion being blind faith. He still hasn't learned anything from Alister McGrath. In Norway this attitude resulted yesterday in a rather extreme urbanist, and notorious public speaker, declaring the Nobel Prize Laureate Al Gore to be a Christian Fundamentalist.
The logic is simple. Gore is a believing Christian, hence he also must be a fundamentalist - or he wouldn't really believe. All religions are alike, especially suicide bombers.
So the question is. When will Al Gore leave his cover of fighting against global warming and go on to blow himself or the planet up, whatever his fancy is?And if the danger is really blind faith, when will Dawkins take the nest step and blow himself up? Not to mention start to advocate arresting anyone suspected of a tad of theism, before they blow anyone up.
At least there is hope that Gore will wait till he receives the Nobel Prize in Oslo this December. With Dawkins there is no time limit.
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It's a fascinating report, but where is it from?
I have long suspected that this is Dawkins' opinion, but I have yet to see it in his own words.
Ooops, I had put up a link to the article, it must have fallen out. It's amended now.
My colleague Even, who attended the conference, is fairly certain that Dawkins didn't put it quite that strongly. His understanding of what Dawkins said, is that moderates should be criticised for not being critical enough of fundamentalists.
If Dawkins is harsh, so is the English journalist Steve Turner...
“If Chance be the Father of all flesh, disaster is His rainbow in the sky. And when you hear: “State of Emergency,” “Sniper Kills Ten,” “Troops on Rampage,” “Youths go Looting,” “Bomb Blasts School,” it is but the sound of man worshipping his maker.”
And that is a rather more noble statement.
As this story is all over the web now, we'll expect Dawkins to comment if it is unfair. I am all in favor of giving the benefit of the doubt, not only in matters of belief.
My comment was to Deerstalker;-)
Still, two weeks after this comment was reported, Dawkins has not denied it.
I noticed yesterday that it was quoted on his discussion forum. The interesting thing is that noone reacted to it, something that forum is rather prone to do when finding Dawkins quoted unfairly.
Hopefully his speech (or perhaps it was from the Q&A section) will be on youtube.
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