Why does dawkins hate religion

Emerging research is demonstrating that atheist parents and others pass on their beliefs to their children in a similar way to religious parents — through sharing their culture as much as their arguments. Some parents take the view that their children should choose their beliefs for themselves , but what they then do is pass on certain ways of thinking about religion, like the idea that religion is a matter of choice rather than divine truth.

But are atheists more likely to embrace science than religious people? Many belief systems can be more or less closely integrated with scientific knowledge. Some belief systems are openly critical of science, and think it has far too much sway over our lives, while other belief systems are hugely concerned to learn about and respond to scientific knowledge.

Some Protestant traditions , for example, see rationality or scientific thinking as central to their religious lives. Meanwhile, a new generation of postmodern atheists highlight the limits of human knowledge, and see scientific knowledge as hugely limited, problematic even, especially when it comes to existential and ethical questions.

These atheists might, for example, follow thinkers like Charles Baudelaire in the view that true knowledge is only found in artistic expression. And while many atheists do like to think of themselves as pro science, science and technology itself can sometimes be the basis of religious thinking or beliefs, or something very much like it.

For example, the rise of the transhumanist movement , which centres on the belief that humans can and should transcend their current natural state and limitations through the use of technology, is an example of how technological innovation is driving the emergence of new movements that have much in common with religiosity. The science of the biological world, for example, is much more than a topic of intellectual curiosity — for some atheists, it provides meaning and comfort in much the same way that belief in God can for theists.

Psychologists show that belief in science increases in the face of stress and existential anxiety , just as religious beliefs intensify for theists in these situations. As a child, he experienced sexual abuse: a teacher at his junior school, Chafyn Grove, pulled Dawkins on to his lap and put his hand inside his shorts; at his senior school, Oundle, he fended off older boys who tried to climb into his bed at night.

Dawkins has never made much of his experiences at school, he said, because he is certain it had no lasting effect; he has argued — to much outrage, naturally — that being raised in a fundamentalist religious household might be worse than suffering sexual abuse. The scientific method, for Dawkins, is not merely essential to understanding the physical world; it can be deployed to help answer moral questions as well. In recent years, the following sequence of events has become something of an online soap, regular and predictable: Dawkins tweets, is criticised for being deeply offensive, and then writes a long article to explain what he actually meant, which usually is not too far from what he said in the first place, but expressed with slightly more nuance.

Since Dawkins joined Twitter seven years ago, he has amassed more than a million followers. His efforts are not always appreciated. I had a little jar of honey, now thrown away by rule-bound dundridges. Get it? Principle, not honey, principle. Even on more serious topics, Dawkins cannot quite fathom how often he finds himself at the centre of online firestorms. Bin Laden has won, in airports of the world every day. What do you think about X? Yet most can whistle tunes sans training. Is Sweden such a fatuously ridiculous country, bending over backwards to accommodate religious idiocy?

Stranger rape at knifepoint is worse. I said that. In the presence of his logic, there is no room for an alternative view. Date rape is bad. If you think that's an endorsement of date rape, go away and learn how to think. Try real warm embrace of a real warm friend. Gradually, he distanced himself from Christianity, but still believed in a divine creator, helped by his deep love of Elvis.

The campaign had begun: from that moment, he refused to kneel in chapel. For his part, Dawkins has always maintained that he is not in the business of conversion. Dawkins has taken shots at all major religions, but Islam has become the particular focus of his recent ire. But his public praise for the work of professional anti-Islam controversialists, such as the far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders, have not helped his case. Of course you can have an opinion about Islam without having read Qur'an.

You don't have to read Mein Kampf to have an opinion about nazism. The Muslim writer and thinker Ziauddin Sardar , who has debated Dawkins in the past, argued that Dawkins and his fellow New Atheists had dangerously stoked anti-Islamic sentiment in the west. It is not just the religious who voice concern: Dawkins has begun to alienate those on his own side. Greta Christina, an American feminist and atheist blogger, first met Dawkins at an event in It was a fantasy made real.

Yes, yes, I know you had your genitals mutilated with a razor blade, and Think of the suffering your poor American sisters have to put up with. As a fellow at New College, he agitated to allow women to be admitted, a change that occurred in His position has been interpreted in unfortunate ways by some of his followers. In an attempt to quell the increasingly unpleasant tone of discussion, Dawkins released a statement last August, jointly written with Benson, calling for an end to the online abuse.

Any person who tries to intimidate members of our community with threats or harassment is in no way my ally and is only weakening the atheist movement. Dawkins is mostly unconcerned by the possible damage he has inflicted on his reputation, but he has moments of self-doubt.

His memoirs, he pointed out, bypassed his various online wrangles entirely. In conversation, Dawkins seemed concerned that an article about him would draw disproportionately on his Twitter feed — in his eyes, an insignificant late chapter in the context of his whole career. It occurred to me, for the first time, that I was a Christian simply because I had been born into a Christian family, not because I had made a conscious choice.

Perhaps a culture needs someone like Dawkins: his unswerving commitment to a cause, his enormous capacity to inflame and offend. The zinc is gradually worn away while the propeller remains unscathed. His funeral was semi-planned. Follow the Long Read on Twitter: gdnlongread. Is Richard Dawkins destroying his reputation? Richard Dawkins at home in Oxford. Photograph: Graeme Robertson. They each argue that religion inherently incites violence, whereas atheism is more peaceful.

Although the term was coined in antiquity, it is only in the Enlightenment that the first self-professed atheists became known. This modern European atheism promised emancipation from superstition — but quickly morphed into extreme violence. With the demise of the Soviet Union and a global resurgence of political religion from the s onwards, some authors believed that atheism was in terminal decline. But the early 21st century has witnessed the rise of writers like Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens.

They emerged as public intellectuals advancing ferocious attacks on religion as both untrue and uniquely dangerous. Their arguments are not new. But, unlike more ponderous academic atheist philosophers, they seemingly cultivated combative and acerbic, media-savvy personae. Their success at writing bestselling books , giving engaging public talks and cultivating a global following through social media , has made them minor celebrities.

All three of these New Atheists were sympathetic to the attack on Afghanistan in In his book, The End of Faith, Harris says p. While it would be comforting to believe that our dialogue with the Muslim world has, as one of its possible outcomes, a future of mutual tolerance, nothing guarantees this result — least of all tenets of Islam. Given the constraints of Muslim orthodoxy, given the penalties within Islam for radical and reasonable adaption to modernity, I think it is clear that Islam must find some way to revise itself, peacefully or otherwise.

What this will mean is not all obvious.