Friday, March 29, AD 2024 5:48am

Richard Dawkins: Bigot and Coward

Atheism

Atheist blowhard Richard Dawkins never has the least hesitation in bashing Christians and Jews, but when the subject of Islam comes up, at least when he is being interviewed by Al-Jazeerah that will blast his comments throughout the Islamic world, well that is another matter:

While you may not agree with the views of the new breed of aggressive atheists who have emerged in recent years you have to admire their courage for bravely standing up and speaking truth to power against the various religious institutions whose integrity they seek to undermine. No matter what consequences they might face, they aren’t afraid to lay out their case against religion in terms that are often harsh and sure to offend.

Here is an example from an article called Facing uncomfortable truths:

In a recent Al-Jazeerah interview, Richard Dawkins was asked his views on God. He argued that the god of “the Old Testament” is “hideous” and “a monster”, and reiterated his claim from The God Delusion that the God of the Torah is the most unpleasant character “in fiction”.

As you can see, Dawkins has no trouble attacking the Hebrew God in a most direct and uncompromising manner. No atheist wallflower he.

Asked if he thought the same of the God of the Koran, Dawkins ducked the question, saying: “Well, um, the God of the Koran I don’t know so much about.”

How can it be that the world’s most fearless atheist, celebrated for his strident opinions on the Christian and Jewish Gods, could profess to know so little about the God of the Koran? Has he not had the time? Or is Professor Dawkins simply demonstrating that most crucial trait of his species: survival instinct.

Whoops. It’s funny how these confident, cocksure prophets of atheism-who barely have time to take a breath between slamming the tenets of Christianity and Judaism-often get curiously tongue-tied and shy when the subject of Islam comes up. The idea that Dawkins doesn’t “know so much about” the God of the Koran is absurd. Of course he knows about Islam. And the same disdain and disregard that he has for Judaism and Christianity should surely apply to Islam as well.

Go here to read the rest at Fraters Libertas.  We live in low and dishonest times, and the rise of bigots and cowards like Richard Dawkins is a sign of those times.

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T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Thursday, February 28, AD 2013 9:17pm

Glenn Hubbard at Instapundit, “Don’t want your religion attacked? Behead a few attackers. It doesn’t take many — most of them are cowards and poseurs, and will shut up at the least hint of risk. Hey, don’t blame me. I didn’t set up this incentive system.”

Jon
Jon
Thursday, February 28, AD 2013 9:25pm

Of course anything atheists associate with the God of the Old Testament would equally apply to the Koran, if not more so. The fact is that Islam gets a free pass while Christianity and Judaism are bashed. Islam is covered under political correctness, I guess. Ravi Zacharias, a Christian apologist, pointed out that Islam is so far away in people’s minds that it simply doesn’t present itself as something they feel they need to argue. Also, many people have only a very abstract sense of Islam while remaining ignorant of its implications.

BigSoph
BigSoph
Thursday, February 28, AD 2013 9:27pm

You also have to be careful to avoid being sued in more civilized lands

Make remarks seen as anti-Islamic in Canada and you will be before the CHRC in no time

Feel free to be snide towards Catholics though

Why is it though that human rights codes protect peoples’ beliefs in their imaginary invisible friends but not rational thought?

JL
JL
Thursday, February 28, AD 2013 9:42pm

Hitchens was an equal-opportunity basher. He was a formidable intellect, a witty writer, and a worthy debater. He was also, shocker, relatively pro-life. About him, Bill Donahue lauded his free-thinking, unPC stances, and said “his style would at least get people to listen to him. I don’t think you can say the same for the others. They lack that panache that Christopher had.” (Hitchens comments on Mother Theresa were detestable, however). I liked listening to him and he made me think.

I heard Dawkins out initially, because he had a sort of kindly stooped-over-geezer look about him, but quickly realized he was a mere scientist posing as a great mind; he was absolutely destroyed by Rowan Williams in their Oxford debate. He is also intellectually inconsistent, essentially making arguments along the lines of “I don’t believe in God but he wouldn’t do that if he actually existed.”

My biggest problem is with Sam Harris; the man is an idiot. Not content to merely say that God doesn’t exist, he instead thinks one can create an entire system of morality solely using science, as not only a metric of morality but as a provider of moral first principles. His dismisses philosophy but fails to recognize that the hinge to his entire argument, the premise that existence is better than non-existence, is fundamentally non-scientific. People like him bother me the most, ridiculing those who base principles off un-provable premises but then go and do the same thing, just without mentioning that “g” word.

JL
JL
Thursday, February 28, AD 2013 9:44pm

I guess my overarching problem with all of them, and most atheists in fact, is that they’re far more avid scriptural literalists than most Christians and certainly most Catholics are.

Fr. John
Fr. John
Thursday, February 28, AD 2013 9:54pm

Perhaps Dawkins was simply a coward.

Bonchamps
Thursday, February 28, AD 2013 10:09pm

I think Dawkins probably really is ignorant of Islam.

He has criticized it in the past:

http://www.richarddawkins.net/news_articles/2012/11/4/-there-s-no-god-and-islam-is-evil-speech-earns-richard-dawkins-ovation-from-islanders

I always wanted to visit the Hebrides. I hope they’re not all Dawkinites there.

Jon
Jon
Thursday, February 28, AD 2013 10:21pm

Yes, it seems that when atheists wish to discredit the Bible, they view it very literally. They try to make it seem as absurd as possible instead of acknowledging things like context and the real sense intended by the writer. Clarence Darrow took full advantage of that during the Scopes Trial.

Jon
Jon
Thursday, February 28, AD 2013 10:45pm

Another issue at stake might be people’s desperate desire to maintain friendly relations with Islamic peoples. It may be a defensive tactic to avoid controversy.

But I agree that many people simply don’t know Islam. And they really don’t know Islamic culture and society as it exists throughout much of the Middle East and northern Africa and Indonesia. They are unaware of the conflict of ideals that exists between the Islamic and Western worlds. People often travel, but how many of us spend an extended amount of time in a total Islamic society? If we did, we would realize how much of what we cherish is actually frowned upon, prohibited, or even punished oftentimes.

JL
JL
Thursday, February 28, AD 2013 11:08pm

Jon,

I have lived in the Middle East, specifically Cairo. I’ve had a similar conversation with Donald, but I think it’s a mistake to look at the Islamic world and say “they got it all wrong, and we got it all right.” Islam has definitely been hostile towards modernity, with demonstrable ill effects, but our headlong rush into the modern era has certainly bred its share of calamities.

trackback
Friday, March 1, AD 2013 12:02am

[…] Armstrong, Catholic Lane His Awesomeness, Bishop Vasa – Jeffrey Miller, The Curt Jester Richard Dawkins: Bigot & Coward – Donald R. McClarey JD, The Amrcn Cthlc Why Jim Carrey is Wrong about The Catholic Church […]

Ian
Ian
Friday, March 1, AD 2013 3:30am

Stop playing the victim card, will you?

Dawkins regularly criticises islam.

Dawkins, like me, grew up with the bible, not the koran. Note that Dawkins says “merry christmas”, not “happy holidays”.

So yes, Dawkin’s got intimate knowledge of the OT and the NT, but less so the koran.

Luke
Luke
Friday, March 1, AD 2013 3:55am

Dawkins is just as critical of Islam as all of the other religions, perhaps more so. He talks a lot about the huge injustices and threats of Islam. A quick search on YouTube and you will find tons and tons of videos where Dawkins is bashing Islam.

In this specific case, he was asked a specific question about a literary character that he doesn’t know about, and so he rightly said he doesn’t know about it.

This article takes the quote out of context and uses it to paint a picture that just simply isn’t true.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Friday, March 1, AD 2013 6:33am

Dawkins, like me, grew up with the bible, not the koran. Note that Dawkins says “merry christmas”, not “happy holidays”.

Well, you said it. Dawkins’ shtick is not philosophical or implicitly theological in character, but cultural. It is conceivable that Britain has less of a disjunction between elite opinion and popular opinion on questions religious than does the United States, but little doubt that religious observance is characteristic of only a modest minority in both sets. He applies a great deal of rhetorical force against 7% of the population; the vociferous element of that 7% is hardly trenchant. He’s a bully at heart.

On another matter, Caroline Glick of the Jerusalem Post recently appeared at a panel discussion and debate at one of the universities in Britain. It is on YouTube. The behavior of the patrician and intellectual audience left such a bad taste that she said she thought she would never visit Britain again. Among a certain social set, gross hostility to Jews is quite respectable in the British Isles and Dawkins comments need to be seen in that light (Morning’s Minion’s as well).

Charles
Charles
Friday, March 1, AD 2013 7:01am

It’s about tearing down the West. It’s the same old self-destructive trait. So full of anger at themselves, they trash their room (institutions of the West). So full of doubt over their sins, they burn bridges and isolate (influences of the West). They’re suicidal patients writ large.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Friday, March 1, AD 2013 7:13am

It’s about tearing down the West. It’s the same old self-destructive trait. So full of anger at themselves, they trash their room (institutions of the West). So full of doubt over their sins, they burn bridges and isolate (influences of the West). They’re suicidal patients writ large.

I disagree. A hypothesis: the impulse in question is one of self-aggrandizement of one’s own subculture against various rivals – competing subcultures in one’s own time and previous generations. Anthony Esolen and George Will have made this point about phenomena in contemporary academic discourse (e.g. the impulse to debunk the works of the cohorts who fought and won the 2d World War). There is nothing truly self-lacerating about it. Elizabeth Wurtzel is self-lacerating; I do not think she qualifies as much of a cultural warrior.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Friday, March 1, AD 2013 7:15am

Glenn Hubbard at Instapundit

Glenn Harlan Reynolds is “Instapundit”.

R. Glenn Hubbard is an economist who worked for the Bush Administration.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Friday, March 1, AD 2013 7:19am

Anti-Semitism has ever been a popular bigotry among most of England’s ruling elite, along with anti-Catholicism. Some of the most rabid anti-Churchill commentary in the Thirties in England depicted him as in bed with the Jews and an agent of the Rothschilds.

I suspect nowadays it is the chatterati and not members of aristocracy and gentry who are the source of this miasma. The Rothemeres were then. John Pilger is now.

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Friday, March 1, AD 2013 7:29am

AD:

Righto!

I was much sharper when I was drinking.

Jim Silberman
Jim Silberman
Friday, March 1, AD 2013 7:55am

Clearly, Richard Dawkins is familiar with the travails of writer Salman Rushdie, a fellow Brit. Attacking “the Hebrew God” is helpful to a leftist like Dawkins because it legitimizes his attacks on Israel. As for Dawkins’ attacks on Christianity, he can take comfort in knowing he is not alone. Aided by Western media, academia and many politicians, Dawkins can rely on secular culture to continue the destruction of Christendom. What atheists like Dawkins fail to appreciate is GK Chesterton’s observation that a “man who ceases to believe in God does not believe nothing; he believes anything.” The darkness waiting to replace God will consume atheists like Dawkins along with believers, and even those who believe in Allah.

Michael
Michael
Friday, March 1, AD 2013 9:32am

Afraid of attacking Muslims, not likely. I dare any Christian cleric to go on record like this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mu7AQTs_y5A

Michael
Michael
Friday, March 1, AD 2013 10:38am

It’s a wonder there isn’t a fatwa on him.

Dawkins attacks ‘alien rubbish’ taught in Muslim faith schools

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2046715/Richard-Dawkins-attacks-alien-rubbish-taught-Muslim-faith-schools.html

Dawkins: Islam is ‘one of the great evils in the world’

http://freethoughtnation.com/contributing-writers/63-acharya-s/479-richard-dawkins-islam-is-one-of-the-great-evils-of-the-world.html

Richard Dawkins destroys muslim on morality

Dale Price
Dale Price
Friday, March 1, AD 2013 11:22am

And yet, he couldn’t bring himself to say any of that on Al Jazeera, choosing to dissemble instead.

And, yes, there is a Christian cleric, Father Zakaria Botros, who’s ballsier than Dawkins, saying all of that and more in Arabic. For his trouble, he has a $60 million Al Qaeda fatwa on his head.

Tsingi
Tsingi
Friday, March 1, AD 2013 11:29am

I love this argument. Christianity is no worse than Islam! Why don’t you slam go Islam and leave us alone for a while?

Personally it’s because Islam has no direct effect on me, whereas Christianity is constantly applying pressure to force The immoral parts of the bible into law.

The fact that most of the Christians I talk to don’t seem to agree with these things either just makes if more infuriating.

If Dawkins read up on Islam, would you go after him for not being an expert on Hinduism?

Face it, Christianity is the religion whose evil affects most atheists you will come across on the internet.

People in most Islamic countries probably can’t even read this blog. Atheists in many Islamic countries are either dead already or smart enough to shut up about it.

Michael
Michael
Friday, March 1, AD 2013 11:33am

Does anyone have a link to the interview? Do you suppose if perhaps he critized Islam they may not have broadcast it? And do you think the author of this article should have done due diligence to see that Prof. Dawkins is an outspoken critic of Islam before calling him a bigot and a coward?

Dante alighieri
Admin
Friday, March 1, AD 2013 11:55am

Personally it’s because Islam has no direct effect on me, whereas Christianity is constantly applying pressure to force The immoral parts of the bible into law.

The immoral parts of the Bible?

Pray tell inform the community which “immoral” parts of the Bible – or moral, for that matter – Christians are trying to force into law?

Dante alighieri
Admin
Friday, March 1, AD 2013 11:58am

Sorry, I see Donald beat me to the punch.

I often stand in disbelief as angry atheists loudly proclaim about us scary Christianists and our desire to implement sharia, American style. And yet time and time and time again, as I’ve documented, it’s quite the other way around as it’s Christians fighting rearguard actions to ensure that secularists don’t force their amorality down our throats.

JDP
JDP
Friday, March 1, AD 2013 12:18pm

Tsingi but i thought Dawkins was on a crusade for Unbelief everywhere, as a matter of principle. you’re saying no, he’s more like your run-of-the-mill ACLU member. good to know

Michael
Michael
Friday, March 1, AD 2013 12:19pm

Donald R. McClarey – The author didn’t even post a link to the supposed interview. Is that the way you think one should disparage people? As far as I know he made the entire thing up (just like the Bible and Koran were).

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Friday, March 1, AD 2013 12:21pm

” . . . The immoral parts of the Bible . . . ”

Isaiah 5:20- Woe to those that call evil good and good evil, who substitute darkness for light . . .

Fr. John
Fr. John
Friday, March 1, AD 2013 12:41pm

Paul Zummo says:
Friday, March 1, 2013 A.D. at 11:55am

Personally it’s because Islam has no direct effect on me, whereas Christianity is constantly applying pressure to force The immoral parts of the bible into law.

The immoral parts of the Bible?

Pray tell inform the community which “immoral” parts of the Bible – or moral, for that matter – Christians are trying to force into law?

I was going to ask the same question along with “Tsingi, by what standard do you judge something as “evil”?

Michael
Michael
Friday, March 1, AD 2013 12:49pm

Donald R. McClarey – Have you found the interview in question? Have you watched it? How do you know he isn’t as aggressive with Islam and he is with other religions? Or can you just take it on faith, evidence being superfluous and potentially contradictory to your opinion?

I watched a short clip of it and heard him condemning Muslim suicide bombers while the interviewer sought to distance them from Islam.

trackback
Friday, March 1, AD 2013 1:06pm

[…] whilst said Dawkins considers the God of the Torah a very bad “fictional” character, he “doesn’t know so much” about the god of the Muslims, so he’d rather keep schtum, thank you very […]

Michael
Michael
Friday, March 1, AD 2013 1:08pm

How do you know it wasn’t cut? He’s certainly outspoken on Islam as well as Christanity. Several people on the web there said their questions were cut from the show as too condemning of Islam.

Dante alighieri
Admin
Friday, March 1, AD 2013 1:13pm

Yeah, Donald, how do you know that Dawkins didn’t launch in a 25 minute long epic monologue on the evils of Islam, punched up by a juggling clown riding on the back of a unicorn to the tune of “Have Nagila?” You can’t say that didn’t happen, now can you?

Mary De Voe
Friday, March 1, AD 2013 1:25pm

Allah has no son to love or to love him. The Triune God of the Old and New Testament is love and loves. The Supreme Sovereign Being is existence and exsts. A god without love and mercy does not exist. After bigot and coward, it is all said.

Michael
Michael
Friday, March 1, AD 2013 1:30pm

Donald R. McClarey – and besides, we know Muslim fanatics can get incensed over books published in Britain, cartoons in Denmark, and videos on Youtube.

Paul Zummo – “how do you know that Dawkins didn’t launch in a 25 minute long epic monologue on the evils of Islam, punched up by a juggling clown riding on the back of a unicorn to the tune of “Have Nagila?” You can’t say that didn’t happen, now can you?”

I ave faith that all you said happened :->

Art Deco
Art Deco
Friday, March 1, AD 2013 1:43pm

“Personally it’s because Islam has no direct effect on me, whereas Christianity is constantly applying pressure to force The immoral parts of the bible into law.” –

Michael, for more than 50 years, just about every significant political dispute over legislation attempting to constrain vice has begun with exercises of discretion by either judges or prosecutors, exercises which either explicitly or implicitly annulled duly enacted legislation. The collapse of anti-obscenity law, the end of regulation of the traffic in contraceptives, the excision of abortion as an offense in penal codes, the disappearance of the ‘morals charge’ were, with few exceptions, not the initiatives of elected officials.

As for impositions, I would remind you that people send their children to school compelled by truancy law. The content of school curriculum will be a public issue as long as schooling is, functionally a state monopoly. Who made the schools loci for distributing contraceptives, who made them meat-and-potatoes for Howard Zinn’s publishers, and who now seeks to make them loci for public mobilizations on behalf of the bien-pensants’ special snowflakes?

Michael
Michael
Friday, March 1, AD 2013 1:53pm

Art Deco – I’m not sure what jurisdiction you are in but parents have access to a public system but can choose private school (my choice) or religious schools or home school.

JDP
JDP
Friday, March 1, AD 2013 1:54pm

“I watched a short clip of it and heard him condemning Muslim suicide bombers”

gutsy call

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