(April 12, 2011 at 9:05 pm)Statler Waldorf Wrote: I think it's quite clear he is talking about molestation in general, and he would defend a molestor against the "mobs" even if he were a vicemt of one because it is an embarassing but otherwise harmless experience. How you can even attempt to defend Dawkins on this one is beyond me, I have heard of fan-boyism but c'mon.Believe me, I'm as far from a fan-boy of Dawkins as you can possibly get. The God Delusion did nothing for me; it is a book full of pathetic arguments written by a biologist with no formal training in philosophy.
However, one thing Dawkins is not is a defender of child molestation; I think that is quite obvious from his actions and speeches against it in public. He has admitted on multiple occasions to being molested as a child (links are in this thread), so if you can't see that he was clearly referring to himself, you need to go and relearn English grammar.
The subject of the sentence in which Dawkins makes his remark is "I" (in other words, Dawkins himself). He is calling himself the victim, and his experience more embarrassing than harmful (something which he repeats in his blog post).
(April 12, 2011 at 10:39 pm)Cinjin Cain Wrote: I am not condemning Dawkins or anyone else. I'm simply admitting that Statler did have a point and that I would be a liar if I said that I would not react with disdain if I read the exact same words out of the catholic church's latest news flyer. (and further more, I believe you would too)He didn't have a point as far as I see it. If I read the exact same words in a catholic church news flyer, I'd still read them in the proper context: as an admission of a personal event; nothing more. There are plenty of pedophile priests in the Catholic Church, but there are plenty more priests who are disgusted by child abuse (and I bet a few of them were molested like Dawkins as well).
