Richard Dawkins: ‘Being Raised Catholic is Worse than Child Abuse’

Godlessness personified.

Raising your children as Roman Catholics is  worse than child abuse, according to militant atheist Richard  Dawkins.

In typically incendiary style, Professor  Dawkins said the mental torment inflicted by the religion’s teachings is worse  in the long-term than any sexual abuse carried out by priests.

He said he had been told by a woman that  while being abused by a priest was a ‘yucky’ experience, being told as a child  that a Protestant friend who died would ‘roast in Hell’ was more  distressing.

Last night politicians and charities  condemned the former Oxford professor’s views as attention-seeking and  unhelpful.

The remarks are due to be broadcast tonight  by Qatar-based TV network Al Jazeera.

Interviewer Mehdi Hasan asked Professor  Dawkins about previous comments he made, when he said: ‘Horrible as sexual abuse  no doubt was, the damage was arguably less than the long-term psychological  damage inflicted by bringing the child up Catholic in the first place.’

Mr Hasan asked: ‘You believe that being  bought up as a Catholic is worse than being abused by a priest?’. Professor  Dawkins replied: ‘There are shades of being abused by a priest, and I quoted an  example of a woman in America who wrote to me saying that when she was seven  years old she was sexually abused by a priest in his car.

‘At the same time a friend of hers, also  seven, who was of a Protestant family, died, and she was told that because her  friend was Protestant she had gone to Hell and will be roasting in Hell  forever.

‘She told me of those two abuses,  she got over the physical abuse; it was yucky but she got over it.

‘But the mental abuse of being told about Hell, she took years to get over.’

Read more here.

The atheist Dawkins should stick with what he knows: biology. Clearly, he has no idea what the Church teaches and is a theological dilettante of note!

 

Atheists Erect Anti-Christian Billboard in Times Square

On The Deacon’s Bench:

The Catholic League notes:

Hanukkah is currently being celebrated, but fortunately for Jews they are not being attacked by David Silverman. No, like other haters in the atheist community, the president of American Atheists saves his vitriol for Christians.

Silverman’s latest assault is a huge billboard in New York’s Times Square.

The decision by Silverman to exploit Jesus crucified as part of his annual attack on Christmas is not hard to explain. Two years ago, he ran a billboard on the New Jersey side of the Lincoln Tunnel that said, “You Know It’s a Myth: This Season Celebrate Reason.” I answered with a billboard on the New York side of the Lincoln Tunnel which read, “You Know It’s Real: This Season Celebrate Jesus.” We both actually had some fun with that exchange.

Last year Silverman’s billboard outside the Lincoln Tunnel featured a picture of a statue of the Roman god Neptune, a classical portrait of Jesus, a depiction of Santa, and a guy in a devil’s mask. It said they were all myths. When asked by the New York Times why I wasn’t upset, I said, “It’s inane. Nobody knows what this means. I mean, Neptune? Over here, we just looked at each other in puzzlement.”

This year Silverman wanted to make a big splash, so he decided to draw blood. It shows what he is made of. He and his supporters do not want to be left alone—they want to inflame the passions of those with whom they disagree. Unlike Christians who do not provoke, harass or otherwise mock atheists, Silverman and his ilk want nothing more than to stick it to Christians at Christmastime. It’s who they are.

Meantime, over at Huffington Post, writer Diana Butler Bass takes aim at the “War on Christmas” and says the real problem is a “War on Advent”: 

With FOX News seeking to expose those who refuse to say “Merry Christmas” as secular collaborators to the War on Christmas, I confess that I am confused. FOX holds itself up as the network that stands by traditional values defending America and faith from heresies and infidelities of all sorts.

Did FOX get the wrong memo?

According to ancient Christian tradition, “Christmas” is not the December shopping season in advance of Christmas Day; rather, it is Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and the Twelve Days following that run until early January. During most of December, Christians observe Advent, a four-week season of reflection, preparation and waiting that precedes the yearly celebration of Jesus’ birth. In many mainstream and liturgical (and even liberal and progressive) churches, no Christmas hymn will pass the lips of a serious churchgoer for another two weeks. If you wander into a local Lutheran, Episcopal or Roman Catholic parish, the congregation will still be chanting the ethereal tones of “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” or “Watchman, Tell Us of the Night.” There are no poinsettias, no Christmas pageants, no trees or holly, and no red and green altar linens. A few days ago, they might have preached about St. Nicholas — but not Santa Claus. There are no twinkling lights or over-the-top Christmas displays. Just four candles in a simple wreath, two partially burned, two yet to be lit. The mood is somber as December moves toward deeper darkness, and the night lengthens. The world waits, and it is time to prepare for the arrival of God’s kingdom. It is not Christmas. It is Advent.

During these weeks, churches are not merry. There is a muted sense of hope and expectation. Christians recollect God’s ancient promise to Israel for a kingdom where lion and lamb will lie down together. The ministers preach from stark biblical texts about the poor and oppressed being lifted up while the rich and powerful are cast down, about society being leveled and oppression ceasing. Christians remember the Hebrew prophets and long for a Jewish Messiah to be born. The Sunday readings extol social and economic justice, and sermons are preached about the cruelty of ancient Rome and political repression.

 

An Atheist Church? Coming Soon

Nonbelievers to get a place of ‘worship’:

Atheists have long criticised devout followers of faith. But now it seems Atheism is stealing from that very religious tradition by erecting a temple of worship.

Author Alain de Botton announced plans to build an Atheist temple in the U.K., reports DeZeen magazine.

A collaboration with Tom Greenall Architects, the structure will be built in the heart of London.

Dedicated to the idea of perspective, the black tower will scale 46 meters (150 ft), with each centimeter honoring earth’s age of 4.6 billion years, notes Wired.

But a place of worship isn’t the only attribute from organized religion that Atheists can benefit from, says de Botton. In his newly released book “Religion For Atheists,” the author points to design, art and community to inspire and attract a following.

Though de Botton has yet to announce a final date for opening the temple, he hopes to create a network of such buildings across the U.K., according to ArtsInfo.

Christmas vs Christopher Hitchens

An infant and a corpse. They are the most common images of Christ ― the baby in the manger or his mother’s arms, the dead man on the cross ― and they offer a final refutation and a last hope for Christopher Hitchens for all time.

Hitchens, the great pugilist pundit, died a little over a week ago, and he went out with a beautiful flourish. His last essay, “Trial of the Will” in the new Vanity Fair, does what every writer dreams a last essay will do: It distills his worldview, attaches it to the moment, and leaves it as a last testimony.

It’s the last contrarian stand of a man who spent his life being contrary ― most famously in his polemical, pointed, angry book God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, which he used as a launching pad for a twilight career as an atheist debater.

In “Trial of the Will,” Hitchens looks at the maxim “Whatever doesn’t kill me makes me stronger” and explains in brutal detail the maladies that have disproven it. He tells us how Friedrich Nietzsche (to whom the phrase is most often attributed) descended into dementia before dying painfully. He recounts how Kingsley Amis angrily begged to be killed on his death bed. Hitchens, in the throes of esophageal cancer, adds that he himself is suffering terribly as he dies.

Some things don’t make us stronger, but weaker, he says. Some things break us, and leave us without our dignity. He offers the most extreme examples of human weakness: dementia, which leaves us human shells of ourselves; or intolerable, unstoppable pain; or the helplessness of the dying.

But these are precisely the qualities of infancy. Babies can’t put two thoughts together. Babies cannot tolerate pain. Babies can do nothing for themselves but cry. The newborn baby has the mental ability of an Alzheimer’s sufferer, the helplessness of a comatose person.

Yet this is the great mystery of Christmas: Not that God became a man, but that he became a baby.

“For a child is born to us, a son is given to us; upon his shoulder dominion rests,” prophesied Isaiah. “They name him Wonder-Counselor, God-Hero, Father-Forever, Prince of Peace.”

How can a helpless, trembling infant who is unable to think straight be the “God-Hero”? Because of the power of presence and love…

Continue reading here.

 

Richard Dawkins is an Incompetent Atheist

Anglican Samizdat:

According to Peter Mullen here:

Richard Dawkins says that David Cameron is “not really a Christian”. The fact is that it is only God to whom all hearts be open, all desires known and from whom no secrets are hid. So Dawkins has no means of telling whether Cameron is a genuine Christian or not.

We can, however, know that Dawkins is not a proper atheist – that is an intelligent atheist – from his own puerile writing and pathetic attempts at philosophical theology. For example, he writes: “Either God exists or he doesn’t. It is a scientific question. The existence of God is a scientific question, like any other.”

This is idiotic. Science investigates material phenomena, observable entities in the universe. No competent theologians or philosophers – not even the atheist ones – have ever declared that God (if he exists) is an object in his own universe. Perhaps there is no God, and intelligent Christians readily admit that there may be some legitimate doubt. But if the Judaeo-Christian God exists, then he is the maker of the universe and not an entity within it.

That is why science can make legitimate pronouncements on whether bigfoot, fairies, flying spaghetti monsters – and even Greek gods who were believed to be a part of the natural universe – exist, but not God the Creator, whose actuality is independent of his creation.

You Know Christmas Is Near, When Atheists Put Up Their Billboards

Nearly $40,000 was spent during the last Christmas season on a billboard war between atheists and Roman Catholics at the New Jersey entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel. But so far, this year’s version of the atheist billboard has failed to generate much of a fight.

The American Atheists’ new orange and black billboard, just to the left of the Lincoln Tunnel entrance on the New Jersey side, depicts four images side by side: a statue of the Roman god Neptune, a classical portrait of Jesus, a rosy-cheeked Santa touching his nose and a guy in a suit and a devil mask.

“37 Million Americans know Myths when they see them,” it says in smallish letters at the top. In large letters at the center, it asks: “What do you see?”

The purpose of the $25,000 billboard, which went up in mid-November, said David Silverman, the president of American Atheists, is to “call out” closet atheists during the holiday season and get them to be truthful about who they really are.

“This is when the closeted atheists go to church to be viewed as Christians, and this is when we want to call them out to stay home and enjoy the holidays,” he said. “We want people to realize that there may be atheists in their family, even if those atheists don’t even know they are atheists.”

Last year, their message to closet atheists was a bit more direct. A huge billboard in the same location depicted silhouettes of the Three Kings on horseback headed to the manger against a starry sky, framed by the words: “You KNOW it’s a Myth.”

It was so direct, in fact, that it inspired an anonymous 80-year-old Austrian man to call up the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, an organization based in New York, to offer to pay for a counter billboard. Hence the Catholic salvo, a billboard depicting the infant Jesus with Mary and Joseph that said: “You Know It’s Real: This Season, Celebrate Jesus.”

This year, the Catholic League is not going to respond, said Bill Donohue, its president. One reason? The atheists’ new billboard isn’t good enough, he said. (And, when they called the anonymous Austrian donor this year, he did not call back.)

Read more.

Source

Richard Dawkins Claims Jesus Would Have Been an Atheist

Says the man who is too afraid to debate Christian apologists:

In this interview with John Harris, of the Guardian, Dawkins rejects the assertion that he intentionally provokes religious believers. (“I’m not even sure I’ve used the word pernicious,” he objects, gently. “… although I actually think it is pernicious.”)

He also clarifies that, if there’s a religious-belief scale running from one to seven, with one signifying total belief and seven total atheism, he’s a six, not a seven. Then he clarifies that he would rate his belief in “fairies” and “werewolves” on the same level.

If he wins any points for diplomacy, which is an open question, he loses them with the quote that the Guardian is highlighting to promote the interview: “Somebody as intelligent as Jesus would have been an atheist.”

 

Richard Dawkins: Why I Refuse to Debate William Lane Craig

Dawkins is one an angry atheist:

This Christian ‘philosopher’ is an apologist for genocide. I would rather leave an empty chair than share a platform with him.

Don’t feel embarrassed if you’ve never heard of William Lane Craig. He parades himself as a philosopher, but none of the professors of philosophy whom I consulted had heard his name either. Perhaps he is a “theologian”. For some years now, Craig has been increasingly importunate in his efforts to cajole, harass or defame me into a debate with him. I have consistently refused, in the spirit, if not the letter, of a famous retort by the then president of the Royal Society: “That would look great on your CV, not so good on mine”.

Craig’s latest stalking foray has taken the form of a string of increasingly hectoring challenges to confront him in Oxford this October. I took pleasure in refusing again, which threw him and his followers into a frenzy of blogging, tweeting and YouTubed accusations of cowardice…

What petulant arrogance! Dawkins is only famous from the publicity he generates by defying God. Also, bear in mind his buddy Christopher Hitchens once debated William Lane Craig and came off badly second-best.

In any event, no matter what he says now (or the lame excuses he makes) , the only thing Dawkins will be remembered for in this instance is indeed, cowardice. Angry cowardice…

 

The Clergy Project: For the Unbelieving Leader in a Religious Community

Not unlike AA, there is now an organisation whose purpose is to support clergy addicted to unbelief. It is called The Clergy Project. It boasts a hundred members who:

use it to network and discuss what it’s like being an unbelieving leader in a religious community. The Clergy Project’s goal is to support members as they move beyond faith. Members freely discuss issues related to their transition
from believer to unbeliever including:

• Wrestling with intellectual, ethical, philosophical and theological issues
• Coping with cognitive dissonance
• Addressing feelings of being stuck and fearing the future
• Looking for new careers
• Telling their families
• Sharing useful resources
• Living as a nonbeliever with religious spouses and family
• Using humor to soften the pain
• Finding a way out of the ministry
• Adjusting to life after the ministry

The organisation is sponsored by Richard Dawkins who devoutly encourages apostates who have, as he says, seen the light to
join in a koinonia of disbelief with other faithless victims trapped in pulpits of pretend piety.

The above was here.

Such people really have no place leading. Better they leave than otherwise be what they are:  Hypocrites!

 

Muslim Attacks Atheist

In Pennsylvania, USA (of all places). That’ll teach ‘em atheists. Muslims are not Christians.