“He didn't start out as an unbeliever. Dawkins was born into a middle-class family that went to church each Christmas. At school, Anglicanism, if not rammed down the throat, was at least a given. ‘I had my first doubts when I was nine,’ he recalls, ‘when I realised there were lots of different religions and they couldn't all be right. However I put my misgivings on hold when I went to Oundle and got confirmed. I only stopped believing when I was about 15’.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2006/jan/10/highereducationprofile.academicexperts
“Happily I was spared the misfortune of a Roman Catholic upbringing (Anglicanism is a significantly less noxious strain of the virus). Being fondled by the Latin master in the Squash Court was a disagreeable sensation for a nine-year-old, a mixture of embarrassment and skin-crawling revulsion, but it was certainly not in the same league as being led to believe that I, or someone I knew, might go to everlasting fire. As soon as I could wriggle off his knee, I ran to tell my friends and we had a good laugh, our fellowship enhanced by the shared experience of the same sad pedophile. I do not believe that I, or they, suffered lasting, or even temporary damage from this disagreeable physical abuse of power. Given the Latin Master's eventual suicide, maybe the damage was all on his side.”
http://richarddawkins.net/article,118,Religions-Real-Child-Abuse,Richard-Dawkins
It’s striking to observe that, by his very own reckoning, Dawkins’ religious doubts coincide with the exact time in life when he encountered a pedophile priest. Inside the body of an aging Oxford Don is an angry 9-year-old who’s still lashing out at Christianity in the person of a long-dead Latin teacher.
What basis does Dawkins have for lashing out? Feelings are just and evolved protoplasm's way of keeping the mind entertained while it goes about its evolutionary business.
ReplyDeleteIt is indeed interesting that Dawkins claimed to be a believer, after all, he went to church at Christmas.
ReplyDeleteIf that's a believer then perhaps I should write about the time I became an unbeliever in evolution. Afterall I attended a science class or two in my younger years. I even passed. Wouldn't the qualify me as a believer in Darwinism?
"It’s striking to observe that, by his very own reckoning, Dawkins’ religious doubts coincide with the exact time in life when he encountered a pedophile priest."
ReplyDelete"It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea, than that he would cause one of these little ones to stumble." (Luke 17:2) with regards to that pedophile priest.
He says he believed till he was 15, although doubts developed around the time of the abuse.
ReplyDeleteI don't think it's accurate of you to try to make this "argument" -- after all, if you dismiss his reasons for disbelieving, that's fine, but at least he offers reasons. He doesn't just say, "It's all BS."
Considering the fact that I wrote a very long review of his book, it's not as if I'm ignoring his "reasons."
ReplyDelete