Posts Tagged ‘Richard Dawkins’

Richard Dawkins says niceness of churchgoers enables extremists

Tuesday, August 19th, 2014

Atheist Richard Dawkins has argued that the niceness of ordinary churchgoers has helped enable religious fundamentalists to become suicide bombers. The Telegraph in the United Kingdom reported Dawkins saying moderate Christian and Muslim believers had inadvertently paved the way for extremists. Dawkins said ordinary believers do this by being “so nice” that people do not Read more

Summing up a religion one meme at a time

Tuesday, May 6th, 2014

A “meme,” as defined by Richard Dawkins in 1976, is an idea, belief or behaviour that is spread through a given culture or social system via social or information sharing. Internet memes generally take the form of an image over which text is written and are, for the most part, intended to be humorous, often Read more

Can pedophilia ever be ‘mild’?

Friday, September 20th, 2013

World-famous scientist, Richard Dawkins has attracted a lot of negative attention recently by suggesting that the “mild pedophilia” he experienced as a boy wasn’t really such a big deal. In a recent interview, he recalled how one of his teachers “pulled me on his knee and put his hand inside my shorts.” Dawkins went on Read more

Little reason for man of cloth to preach pure rationalism

Tuesday, March 26th, 2013

There is no delusion more surprising than that human beings are rational. You need only consider the position the ghastly Kardashians occupy in the hearts and minds of millions of television viewers for evidence of that. We wreck the world through overpopulation, squander resources and exterminate species far lovelier than ourselves. Climate change looks to Read more

Rowan Williams defeats Richard Dawkins in religion debate

Tuesday, February 5th, 2013

The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has defeated the prominent atheist Richard Dawkins in a debate on religion at the University of Cambridge in England. Students voted 324-136 against Dawkins’ argument that religion has no place in the 21st century. “Religion has always been a matter of community building, a matter of building Read more

Why Richard Dawkins’ humanists remind me of a religion

Friday, October 5th, 2012

Humanism in its most virulent form tries to make science into a religion. It is awash with the intolerance of enthusiasm. For a start, there is the near-hysterical repudiation of religion. To quote Richard Dawkins: “I think there’s something very evil about faith … it justifies essentially anything. If you’re taught in your holy book Read more

Richard Dawkins: Mitt Romney is a ‘massively gullible fool’

Friday, September 14th, 2012

Richard Dawkins on Sunday accused Mitt Romney of being a “massively gullible fool” as he launched into a furious tirade against the Republican’s Mormon faith. Britain’s most prominent atheist attacked the core tenets of Mr Romney’s religion, saying that the Church of Latter Day Saints’ founding prophet was “a fraud” and that the presidential contender Read more

Reflecting on Dawkins vs Pell

Friday, April 20th, 2012

On Easter Monday, the ABC’s Q&A program featured a live debate between evolutionary biologist, author and militant atheist, Professor Richard Dawkins, and Sydney’s Catholic Archbishop, Cardinal George Pell, on topics of faith, science, history and morality. The show attracted an audience of 863,000, its highest since the coverage of the 2010 Federal election; an indication Read more

Dawkins v Pell battle it out on Australian TV

Friday, April 13th, 2012

Professor Richard Dawkins and Sydney’s Archbishop, Cardinal George Pell, battled it out for an hour on Australian Television. In a debate that the Sydney Morning Herald says bordered on barely concealed mutual disdain, boiled over more than once and the Science v God, Atheist v Belief, Logic v Faith debate left all parties bruised. Pell was given Read more

Unbelievers seek religion too

Friday, April 13th, 2012

Know your enemy, ran the headline in a recent editorial of New Scientist: “To rule out God, first get to know him.” God, New Scientist seems surprised to find, is still everywhere. Try as we might to reduce the Almighty to the small “god” promoted by secularists, we can’t seem to rid ourselves of Him. Read more