Atheist Richard Dawkins on 'The God Delusion'

By Terrence McNally, AlterNet. Posted January 18, 2007.

In the last few years, Americans have seen the dark side of religion. The events of 9/11 brought home the extremes to which some radical Muslims would go to defeat infidels and attain virgins. At home, we've seen assaults on the separation of Church and State and attacks on the teaching of evolution and the distribution of life-saving condoms. And now, it appears the godless are fighting back.

During the recent holiday season, there were prominent articles about atheism in The New York Times and the UK's Financial Times and Telegraph, and a segment on NPR's All Things Considered. Richard Dawkins debated the existence of God on the London chat show, The Sunday Edition. Dawkins' book, The God Delusion was a top 10 bestseller on the lists of both the New York Times and LA Times, number one at Amazon UK and Amazon Canada, and number two at Amazon.com. Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris was recently an equally successful bestseller.

A group calling itself "The Rational Response Squad," has launched The Blasphemy Challenge, a campaign to entice young people to publicly renounce belief in the God of Christianity. Participants who videotape their blasphemy and upload it to YouTube will receive a free DVD of The God Who Wasn't There, a number one bestselling independent documentary at Amazon.com.

Richard Dawkins holds the Charles Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University. His 1976 book, The Selfish Gene, popularized the gene-centered view of evolution and introduced the term "meme." In January 2006, Dawkins hosted on the UK's Channel 4 a two-part documentary on the dangers of religion, entitled (against his wishes, I might add) The Root of All Evil. His newest book, The God Delusion, is an international bestseller.

Below is a shortened version of Terrence McNally's recent interview with Richard Dawkins. You can also listen to the audio of the full interview.

Terrence McNally: When and how did you become an atheist?

Richard Dawkins: I suppose it was discovering Darwinism. I was confirmed into the Church of England at the age of thirteen. I then got pretty skeptical about it, but retained some respect for the argument from Design -- the argument that says living things look as though they've been designed, so they probably have been. I then learned the real scientific explanation for why they look as though they've been designed, and that was enough for me. I lost my religious faith pretty much then.

TM: What do you think explains the current interest in atheism?

RD: I would love to think that there really is something moving -- a shifting in the tectonic plates, and, at last, in America, atheism is becoming respectable; that one can now come out of the closet and proclaim one's self.

I got certain indications of that on my recent tour of the United States. I got packed houses everywhere I went. Of course, I was preaching to the choir, but I was impressed by how large the choir is and how enthusiastic. Over and over again people came up to me afterwards and said how grateful they were that I and Sam Harris and others were finally speaking out and saying the things that they wanted to say, but perhaps didn't feel able to.

TM: You compare the experience of atheists to that of gays in the fairly recent past. Do you think that's an apt comparison?

RD: I think the parallel is a valid one. Until recently nobody dared admit that they were gay. Now, they're rather proud to do so. Nowadays it's impossible to get elected to public office if you're an atheist, and I think that's got to change. The Gay Rights Movement raised consciousness. It initiated the idea of Gay Pride. I think we've got to have Atheist Pride, Atheist Consciousness. I think it's pretty clear that a fair number of members of Congress must be lying because not a single one of them admits to being an atheist. The probability that in a sample of over 500 well-educated members of American society, not a single one of them is an atheist, statistically, that is highly unlikely. So, some of them, at least, have got to be lying, and I think it's a tragedy that they have to.

TM: Could you address a couple of reactions that I see in the media, either to atheism, in general, or to you and your book? One, people ask why are atheists so angry?

RD: That's a very curious misperception. We get accused of being angry or of being intolerant, but, if you were to look at critiques of one political party by the other... when Democrats criticize Republicans, or Republicans criticize Democrats, nobody ever says, "You're being intolerant of Republicans, or angry." It's just normal, robust argument.

People have gotten so used to the idea that religion must be immune to criticism that even a very mild and gentle criticism of religion comes across as angry and intolerant. That's yet another piece of consciousness raising that we've got to undertake.

TM: You and others are accused of being arrogant, condescending. What would you say to that?

RD: Exactly the same thing. Nobody says that a Democrat who dismisses Republican ideas is arrogant. They just assume that's what politicians do. They attack each other's ideas with good, robust give and take. That's exactly what people like me and Sam Harris are doing with respect to religion. Once again, the accusation of arrogance comes about because religion has acquired this weird protection that you're not allowed to criticize.

See more stories tagged with: religion, god, atheism, richard dawkins, fundamentalism

Interviewer Terrence McNally hosts Free Forum on KPFK 90.7FM, Los Angeles (streaming at kpfk.org).

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