h/t Damian Thompson
Richard Dawkins, has made buckets of money saying things like “The universe we observe has … no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference”. Yet, when it suits him, this champion of reason has no qualms in using the concepts – good and evil – that he claims don’t exist:
What major institution most deserves the title of greatest force for evil in the world? In a field of stiff competition, the Roman Catholic Church is surely up there among the leaders. The Anglican church has at least a few shreds of decency, traces of kindness and humanity with which Jesus himself might have connected, however tenuously: a generosity of spirit, of respect for women, and of Christ-like compassion for the less fortunate. The Anglican church does not cleave to the dotty idea that a priest, by blessing bread and wine, can transform it literally into a cannibal feast; nor to the nastier idea that possession of testicles is an essential qualification to perform the rite. It does not send its missionaries out to tell deliberate lies to AIDS-weakened Africans, about the alleged ineffectiveness of condoms in protecting against HIV. Whether one agrees with him or not, there is a saintly quality in the Archbishop of Canterbury, a benignity of countenance, a well-meaning sincerity. How does Pope Ratzinger measure up? The comparison is almost embarrassing.
In a bleak Dawkins universe of “blind pitiless indifference” the above ravings don’t have to make sense: they are merely the random firing of neurons in Dawkins’ fevered – I was going to say imagination, but in a materialist universe, that doesn’t exist – brain. In the real universe where good and evil do exist, a brief search of Catholic charities is all that is needed to see what a fool Dawkins makes of himself when he pontificates outside of his field.
The most disturbing part of this incoherence is the fact that Dawkins thinks Rowan is saintly. It’s hard to know what Dawkins means by that since a saint is a Christian – a person whom Dawkins enjoys hurling inane schoolboy insults at; whatever he means, Rowan Williams doesn’t need a friend like Richard Dawkins.
