CATHOLIC HERALD
‘I’m a cultural Christian’, declares Richard Dawkins, the world’s most
famous atheist
Richard Dawkins –
one of the world’s most famous atheists – has declared himself to be a
“cultural Christian”.
The author of The God Delusion, a 2006 best-selling attack
on the existence of God, made his remarks in an interview with Rachel Johnson
for LBC radio in which they discussed how the Muslim season of Ramadan was
being celebrated in Oxford Street, London, instead of the Christian feast of
Easter.
Mr Dawkins, 83, said: “I do think we are culturally a Christian country.
I call myself a cultural Christian.”
He said: “I’m not a believer, but there is a distinction between being a
believing Christian and a cultural Christian
He added: “I love hymns and Christmas carols and I sort of feel at home
in the Christian ethos, and I feel that we are a Christian country in that
sense.”
The author, an evolutionary biologist and ethologist who also wrote the
1976 book The Selfish Gene, also said he “would not be happy if,
for example, we lost all our cathedrals and our beautiful parish churches”.
He continued: “So I call myself a cultural Christian and I think it
would be truly dreadful if we substituted any alternative religion.”
The decline in church attendance coupled with plans to build about 6,000
new mosques in Britain was a problem for the UK, Mr Dawkins said in the
interview.
He said: “If I had to choose between Christianity and Islam, I’d choose
Christianity every single time.
“It seems to me to be a fundamentally decent religion, in a way that I
think Islam is not.”
He added: “The way women are treated in Christianity is not great about
that, it has had its problems with female vicars and female bishops, but there
is an active hostility to women which is promoted I think by the holy books of
Islam.”
Mr Dawkins clarified that books such as “the Hadith and the Koran” are
“fundamentally hostile to women and hostile to gays”.
He said however that although he recognised its benefits of Christian
culture and enjoyed “living in a culturally Christian country” at the same time
he did “not believe a word of the Christian faith”.
"I’m a cultural Christian."
ReplyDeleteIs that so Mr Dawkins? In that case you should stop attacking the Catholic Church the true repository of all Christian culture.
Sugarboy Nando
And now we have the usual evasion tactic - hurried posting of another thread to push yet another humiliation down the page.
ReplyDeleteGene, you have spent the last two days trying - and failing - to smear me as a supporter of the Paedophile Information Exchange and, by extension as someone who supports paedophiles and condones paedophilia. In that time I have conducted reasoned refutation of your lazy smears, and asked you simple closed questions that you continue to refuse to answer, because you can’t answer or daren’t answer or both.
And do tell us:
Of what does my refusal to declare my views on the Paedophile Information Exchange speak?
To your question "do I have to spell it out" my reply is an emphatic "Yes, you do".
And while you are about it, you can answer the following questions as well. Kindly eschew the weaselly evasiveness of a lifetime, and oblige me with three straight answers.
Are you accusing me of having supported the Paedophile Information Exchange? Answer yes or no.
Are you accusing me of encouraging, or of having encouraged, paedophiles in their sexual practices? Answer yes or no.
Are you accusing of supporting, or of having supported, the practice of paedophilia? Answer yes or no.
And, lest we forget:
ReplyDeleteHad Ratzinger unfrocked Kiesle in 1985, the abuse of children at St Joseph's would not have continued for a further three years. That is a FACT, no matter how often you try to deny it.
Ratzinger's apology in full reads as follows [my footnotes}:
“I can only express to all the victims [1] of sexual abuse my profound shame, my deep sorrow and my heartfelt request for forgiveness. I have had great responsibilities [2] in the Catholic Church. All the greater is my pain for the abuses [3] and the errors [4] hat occurred in those different places [5] during the time of my mandate."[6]
1 ALL THE VICTIMS, Gene: victimS, plural: you can tell this by the S on the end of the word. All the victims of sexual abuse that occurred during Ratzingers time as Archbishop of Munich [1977- 1982] and later head of the Congregation of the Faith and Pope - that is, 1985 - 2013. The phrase "ALL THE VICTIMS therefore must include the victims of Stephen Kiesle between the years 1985-1988, when Ratzinger failed to unfrock Kiesle. [2] I HAVE HAD GREAT RESPONSIBILITES [see 1 above]: and one of those was to detect, root out and expel priests and others in the Catholic Church whose favourite hobby was buggering small boys and raping little girls. These GREAT RESPONSIBILITIES obviously include those children abused by Stephen Kiesle after Ratzinger failed to unfrock him in 1985. [3] THE ABUSES - these must include the abuses committed by Stephen Kiesle after Ratzinger failed to unfrock him [unless you can prove differently, Gene?].
[4] THE ERRORS - these must include Ratzinger's failure to unfrock Kiesle in 1985 and probably his failure to alert Fr Thomas Ryan that he was allowing a convicted paedophile rapist to minister to the young people in his church.
[5] THOSE DIFFERENT PLACES - except, of course at St Joseph's Church, Penole, CA, where Stephen Kiesle, still a priest, continued to abuse children during the years 1985-1988 - Ratzinger made it clear that his apology did not include this, didn't he, Gene, and you can prove that, can't you? What's that? oh, you can't? Dear me, and YOU call ME a lying tosser... [5] DURING MY MANDATE: that is, during the years 1985 - 2013.
It is clear to anyone whose mind has a greater ratiocinatory capacity than a pair of skid-marked underpants that Ratzinger was apologising for all the sexual abuse committed on his watch 1985-2013 by priests whom he failed either properly to oversee, accurately to diagnose and condignly to punish, as well as arranging for their being unable to access children and young people ever again.
"I can only express to ALL the victims of sexual abuse my profound shame, my deep sorrow and my heartfelt request for forgiveness." It's that word ALL that gives it away, Gene: I'm sorry if it's confusing. Stuff your pissy little opinions up your arse. I will not apologise for telling the truth, and I will go on telling it until you acknowledge that it is the truth. In the meantime, I continue to wait for your answer to this:
"Detters can we leave A.N. WILSON and ARIANNA HUFFINGTON behind?"
Not until you have dealt honestly with this example of your lying bastardy:
'Gene writes beautifully - something not always the case with authors of trail-blazing literary works.' [A.N. WILSON]
"The genius of James Joyce is alive and well and living amongst us. His name is Gene Vincent." [A.N. WILSON]
'I was enthralled. A new star has shot into the literary firmament. [ARIANNA HUFFINGTON]
When you are going to admit that you have made these reviews and their authors up? Make no mistake: I am going to keep on asking until you tell the truth, or I lose patience, inform Mr Wilson and Ms Huffington and let nature take its course.
And lest we forget:
ReplyDeleteGene, three straight questions for you.
Kindly eschew the weaselly evasiveness of a lifetime, and oblige me with three straight answers.
Are you accusing me of having supported the Paedophile Information Exchange?
Answer yes or no.
Are you accusing me of encouraging, or of having encouraged, paedophiles in their sexual practices?
Answer yes or no.
Are you accusing me of supporting, or of having supported, the practice of paedophilia?
Answer yes or no.
I will keep on asking until you answer.
"Anonymous12 April 2024 at 06:50
ReplyDeleteWhy would I want to defend Tatchell, Gene?
Is it because I support paedophilia?"
Is it because I support paedophilia? !!!!!
You support paedophilia!!!! Oh! Dear! Oh! Dear Oh Dear!
Gene
No, Gene, that won't wash.
DeleteYou have been trying to goad me by claiming that, as I am left wing politically, I must also support the Paedophile Information Exchange - on the nonsensical grounds that it was affiliated for a time fifty years ago to the NCCL [it was], and that the NCCL [now known as Liberty] was a left wing organisation [it wasn't and isn't].
For the same reason you have been trying to goad me into commenting on the views of Mr Tatchell in the hope that I might say something you can twist into support for his views on the age of consent and sexual intercourse between adults and children under the age of consent. [I won't]. That is why I asked the question - to highlight the grubby and nasty smear into which you were trying to entrap me - a question, not a statement.
All of this is, of course because having been soundly trounced over your attempts to exonerate Joseph Ratzinger for his criminal negligence over paedophile priests in the Catholic Church, you are desperate to regain some semblance of credibility for your vain attempts to bully me into submission.
It won't work, no matter how much bullshit you throw at me, or how often you now try to twist the above post into my saying that I support paedophilia, which I didn't. In the meantime, how about answering these simple, closed questions? Your refusal to answer them is eloquent testimony that you have painted yourself into a corner.
Kindly eschew the weaselly evasiveness of a lifetime, and oblige me with three straight answers.
Are you accusing me of having supported the Paedophile Information Exchange?
Answer yes or no.
Are you accusing me of encouraging, or of having encouraged, paedophiles in their sexual practices?
Answer yes or no.
Are you accusing me of supporting, or of having supported, the practice of paedophilia?
Answer yes or no.
I will keep on asking until you answer.
"Anonymous12 April 2024 at 06:50
ReplyDeleteWhy would I want to defend Tatchell, Gene?
Is it because I support paedophilia?"
My word! Things have taken such a strange turn. Fancy Detterling stating that he supports paedophilia!
Mary Winterbourne
No, Gene, I have not stated that I support paedophilia - the sentence "Is it because I support paedophilia?" is a question. You can tell by that funny curly thing at the end of the sentence.
DeleteYou have been attempting to smear me by insinuating that I do so for two days, and your latest attempt - to goad me into defending Peter Tatchell's attacks on the law of the age of consent - was a particularly crass and crude attempt to do so. You have been trying to goad me into commenting on the views of Mr Tatchell in the hope that I might say something you can twist into support for his views on the age of consent and sexual intercourse between adults and children under the age of consent. [I won't]. That is why I asked the question - to highlight the grubby and nasty smear into which you were trying to entrap me - a question, not a statement.
All of this is, of course because having been soundly trounced over your attempts to exonerate Joseph Ratzinger for his criminal negligence over paedophile priests in the Catholic Church, you are desperate to regain some semblance of credibility for your vain attempts to bully me into submission.
It won't work, no matter how much bullshit you throw at me, or how often you now try to twist the post in which I ask the question into my saying that I support paedophilia, which I didn't. In the meantime, how about answering these simple, closed questions? Your refusal to answer them is eloquent testimony that you have painted yourself into a corner. Kindly eschew the weaselly evasiveness of a lifetime, and oblige me with three straight answers.
Are you accusing me of having supported the Paedophile Information Exchange?
Answer yes or no.
Are you accusing me of encouraging, or of having encouraged, paedophiles in their sexual practices?
Answer yes or no.
Are you accusing me of supporting, or of having supported, the practice of paedophilia?
Answer yes or no.
I will keep on asking until you answer.
As I will keep on asking this question until you answer:
"Of what does my refusal to declare my views on the Paedophile Information Exchange speak?" - as I said in answer to your petulant evasion "DO I HAVE TO SPELL IT OUT" - yes, you most certainly do - you need to say out loud what you have been insinuating so that I can nail you to the wall for it. But you won't because when push comes to shove you have the guts of a butterfly.
"Is it because I support paedophilia?"
ReplyDeleteWow! No more questions for this witness M'Lud.
Gary Bandall
No, Gene, I have not stated that I support paedophilia - the sentence "Is it because I support paedophilia?" is a question. You can tell by that funny curly thing at the end of the sentence.
DeleteYou have been attempting to smear me by insinuating that I do so for two days, and your latest attempt - to goad me into defending Peter Tatchell's attacks on the law of the age of consent - was a particularly crass and crude attempt to do so. You have been trying to goad me into commenting on the views of Mr Tatchell in the hope that I might say something you can twist into support for his views on the age of consent and sexual intercourse between adults and children under the age of consent. [I won't]. That is why I asked the question - to highlight the grubby and nasty smear into which you were trying to entrap me - a question, not a statement.
All of this is, of course because having been soundly trounced over your attempts to exonerate Joseph Ratzinger for his criminal negligence over paedophile priests in the Catholic Church, you are desperate to regain some semblance of credibility for your vain attempts to bully me into submission.
It won't work, no matter how much bullshit you throw at me, or how often you now try to twist the post in which I ask the question into my saying that I support paedophilia, which I didn't. In the meantime, how about answering these simple, closed questions? Your refusal to answer them is eloquent testimony that you have painted yourself into a corner. Kindly eschew the weaselly evasiveness of a lifetime, and oblige me with three straight answers.
Are you accusing me of having supported the Paedophile Information Exchange?
Answer yes or no.
Are you accusing me of encouraging, or of having encouraged, paedophiles in their sexual practices?
Answer yes or no.
Are you accusing me of supporting, or of having supported, the practice of paedophilia?
Answer yes or no.
I will keep on asking until you answer.
As I will keep on asking this question until you answer:
"Of what does my refusal to declare my views on the Paedophile Information Exchange speak?" - as I said in answer to your petulant evasion "DO I HAVE TO SPELL IT OUT" - yes, you most certainly do - you need to say out loud what you have been insinuating so that I can nail you to the wall for it. But you won't because when push comes to shove you have the guts of a butterfly.
Reply
'Is it because I support paedophilia?' Now Detters anyone reading that sentence would assume that it is because you support paedophilia that you have been asked to defend Peter Tatchell.
ReplyDeleteNo, Gene, once again you have missed the point.
Delete"Now Detters anyone reading that sentence would assume that it is because you support paedophilia that you have been asked to defend Peter Tatchell."
I wasn't asked to defend Peter Tatchell.
You posted this:
""...But it is impossible to keep silent in the face of Peter Tatchell’s hypocrisy. He is the man leading the charge against the Catholic Church for the sexual abuse perpetrated by a minority of its priests. And yet he sees nothing wrong in adults and children having sex together as such. He is on record speaking with no sense of criticism of 9-year-olds having sex with adults. And even where there is abuse, he blames the stigma imposed by society and the court system for the trauma victims suffer rather than the sexual activity itself."
And then you asked me if I would
"Like to defend Tatchell Detters?"
In response to which I asked why you thought that I would like to defend Mr Tatchell, citing one possible reason why by asking the question
"Is it because I support paedophilia?"
Only someone as shallow, twisted and nasty as you would assume that that question was a statement. But most people would see it for what it is - a rhetorical question asked only because the answer could be taken as read.
You asked me if I would defend Mr Tatchell in the hope of eliciting an answer that you could somehow twist into an endorsement of his views. And you did so only because you lack the guts to accuse me of supporting paedophilia in a way that would render you liable to retribution for making such a filthy allegation. As always, you want to have your cake and eat it.
It won't work, no matter how much bullshit you throw at me, or how often you now try to twist the post in which I ask the question into my saying that I support paedophilia, which I didn't. In the meantime, how about answering these simple, closed questions? Your refusal to answer them is eloquent testimony that you have painted yourself into a corner. Kindly eschew the weaselly evasiveness of a lifetime, and oblige me with three straight answers.
Are you accusing me of having supported the Paedophile Information Exchange? Answer yes or no.
Are you accusing me of encouraging, or of having encouraged, paedophiles in their sexual practices? Answer yes or no.
Are you accusing me of supporting, or of having supported, the practice of paedophilia? Answer yes or no.
I will keep on asking until you answer.
As I will keep on asking this question until you answer:
"Of what does my refusal to declare my views on the Paedophile Information Exchange speak?"
Go ahead and spell it out, Gene.
You won't, of course, because you are a coward.
"Is it because I support paedophilia?"
ReplyDeleteThat surely sounds to anyone that you support paedophilia and are asking if this is the reason for something being required of you.
Sugarboy Nando
No, Gene, once again you have missed the point.
Delete"That surely sounds to anyone that you support paedophilia and are asking if this is the reason for something being required of you."
I was, as you well know, asking a rhetorical question, and one to which we both know the answer, despite your repeated, grubby, nasty campaign over the last seventy-two hours to smear me as a supporter of the Paedophile Information Exchange, paedophiles and paedophilia.
You posted this:
""...But it is impossible to keep silent in the face of Peter Tatchell’s hypocrisy. He is the man leading the charge against the Catholic Church for the sexual abuse perpetrated by a minority of its priests. And yet he sees nothing wrong in adults and children having sex together as such. He is on record speaking with no sense of criticism of 9-year-olds having sex with adults. And even where there is abuse, he blames the stigma imposed by society and the court system for the trauma victims suffer rather than the sexual activity itself."
And then you asked me if I would
"Like to defend Tatchell Detters?"
In response to which I asked why you thought that I would like to defend Mr Tatchell, citing one possible reason why by asking the question
"Is it because I support paedophilia?"
Only someone as shallow, twisted and nasty as you would assume that that rhetorical question was a statement. But most people would see it for what it is - a rhetorical question asked only because the answer could be taken as read.
You asked me if I would defend Mr Tatchell in the hope of eliciting an answer that you could somehow twist into an endorsement of his views. And you did so only because you lack the guts to accuse me of supporting paedophilia in a way that would render you liable to retribution for making such a filthy allegation. As always, you want to have your cake and eat it.
It won't work, no matter how much bullshit you throw at me, or how often you now try to twist the post in which I ask the question into my saying that I support paedophilia, which I didn't. In the meantime, how about answering these simple, closed questions? Your refusal to answer them is eloquent testimony that you have painted yourself into a corner. Kindly eschew the weaselly evasiveness of a lifetime, and oblige me with three straight answers.
Are you accusing me of having supported the Paedophile Information Exchange? Answer yes or no.
Are you accusing me of encouraging, or of having encouraged, paedophiles in their sexual practices? Answer yes or no.
Are you accusing me of supporting, or of having supported, the practice of paedophilia? Answer yes or no.
I will keep on asking until you answer.
As I will keep on asking this question until you answer:
"Of what does my refusal to declare my views on the Paedophile Information Exchange speak?"
Go ahead and spell it out, Gene.
You won't, of course, because you are a coward.
Come on Detters. Relax. No one believes you support paedophilia.
ReplyDeleteI just thought I'd give you a taste of your own medicine. You don't like it to have your words twisted against you do you? This twisting of words for your own nefarious purposes is part of your stock-in-trade.
Let this be a salutary lesson for you.
GENE
I will not be condescended to by a bombastic clown like you.
Delete"No one believes you support paedophilia."
So why did you spend seventy two hours attempting to smear me that, as a member of the liberal left, I would therefore be sympathetic to paedophiles and paedophilia?
That was the behaviour of a disgusting human being who, having been humiliated at length in the matter of Joseph Ratzinger, was determined to hit back in the nastiest way you could devise - nearly as nasty as the filth you wrote about fucking my wife and fathering my son.
"You don't like it to have your words twisted against you do you?"
No, and given that it is usually your only argumentative tactic given that your bigotry is never logically tenable, I can spot it a mile off when you do it.
"This twisting of words for your own nefarious purposes is part of your stock-in-trade."
Nonsense, as is demonstrated by the way I have clobbered you in the last seventy two hours. I have used your words against you, and given that you could open a bottle of wine with your with your "logical threads", you have completely backed away from your nasty accusations.
And, furthermore, you still have not answered these questions. Pray do so.
Are you accusing me of having supported the Paedophile Information Exchange? Answer yes or no.
Are you accusing me of encouraging, or of having encouraged, paedophiles in their sexual practices? Answer yes or no.
Are you accusing me of supporting, or of having supported, the practice of paedophilia? Answer yes or no.
I will keep on asking until you answer.
As I will keep on asking this question until you answer:
"Of what does my refusal to declare my views on the Paedophile Information Exchange speak?"
"Nonsense, as is demonstrated by the way I have clobbered you in the last seventy two hours."
ReplyDeleteDetterling I think you actually believe this. You take the biscuit.
It is of course you who has been clobbered and your fellow pinko/liberal travellers - Peter Tatchell for example - demonstrated to be hypocrites and repugnant degenerates.
Oh! and remind me again. What were the excuses proffered by the Left when Richard Dawkins and the New Atheists were brushed aside by the wave of affection which greeted Pope Benedict when he visited these shores in 2010. They had wanted to have Pope Benedict arrested. They got their answer - and how!
GENE
No, Gene, you are wrong. You repeatedly tried to smear me, because I am left wing, as an apologist for paedophilia and a supporter of the Paedophile Information Exchange. I repudiated these smears and disproved their validity. I challenged you nine times to answer three simple questions as to my stance on paedophilia and you evaded answering them. Because you are too cowardly to put your money where your mouth is. You claimed that my “failure to condemn the NCCL motion on paedophile” “spoke volumes” - but challenged to spell out what this “failure” actually said, you were too gutless to answer. And finally you were forced to admit that I do not support paedophilia, in effect disowning the vile smears you had been trying and failing to make stick for three days. Even then then you tried to weasel out of your responsibility for those atrocious slurs by claiming that you were “giving me a taste of my own medicine”. Nonsense: you were trying to push the evidence of your defeat over Ratzinger and Stephen Kiesle off the front page.
ReplyDeleteAnd anent Ratzinger, it is time that you stopped telling the ridiculous lie that Dawkins et al had threatened to have Ratzinger arrested - a lie that Mr Dawkins eventually forced the Murdoch press to retract - look it up. Dawkins et al claimed that Ratzinger’s complaisance and failure to act over paedophile priests meant that he had a case to answer in the civil courts. The truth of this has been demonstrated several times using Ratzinger’s failures to deal condignly with paedophile priests, as Archbishop of Munich, head of the Congregation of the Faith and as Pope. The enthusiastic reception accorded to Ratzinger by the Catholic faithful cannot and does not mitigate these criminal failures on his part.
And you claim “victory”? if this is victory, what would defeat look like?