When I first saw in a video Richard Dawkins giving a talk in a university in the USA (that was the one that had students from Liberty University who together with their lecturers disgraced themselves and were taunted for being stupid) - I think the university had "Randolph" to its name, I was shocked that Dawkins was so incredibly rude. He called GOd infanticidal, genocidal and a whole string of terrible descriptions. I saw the video with another altar boy and some friends in the choir (I was still in the Evensong choir) and we were all thunderstruck. How could a grown up and a respectable Oxford fellow be so rude and unethical?
I was very young then and I didn't have a good impression of Dawkins. Much later, I met Dawkins with my dad and I found him a very agreeable person. He was very interested in my knowledge of science and he thought I was well-read and he was particularly impressed that I had read Jerry Coyne's book and his book. He laughed good-naturedly when, in reply to his query, I said Coyne's book was better. He very humbly agreed with me!
He was very concerned that I was both an altar boy and a choir boy and he looked at my dad in horror, like he had done something terribly wrong. He was very comforted to learn that I was a cultural Christian and he complimented my dad for bringing me up well. He said it was far better to have one boy like me with my knowledge of religion and the improbability for God to exist than to have a thousand boys not brought up in the Christian tradition and not knowing a thing about the God concept and why it's wrong since they can always fall prey one day to the deception of religion at a later age.
So I used to think Dawkins was rude and disagreeable. It was only when I had grown older that I knew the more important question is was he right in the disagreeable things he said? The truth of the content of his speech is MORE important than the way in which he said it. But we need maturity to see this. Many old people still dismiss Dawkins for his "rudeness". I would have imagined old people should by their age have learnt to put away childish things but apparently not all of them can do that, especially the old women in church. For them, form is always more important than substance.
I was very young then and I didn't have a good impression of Dawkins. Much later, I met Dawkins with my dad and I found him a very agreeable person. He was very interested in my knowledge of science and he thought I was well-read and he was particularly impressed that I had read Jerry Coyne's book and his book. He laughed good-naturedly when, in reply to his query, I said Coyne's book was better. He very humbly agreed with me!
He was very concerned that I was both an altar boy and a choir boy and he looked at my dad in horror, like he had done something terribly wrong. He was very comforted to learn that I was a cultural Christian and he complimented my dad for bringing me up well. He said it was far better to have one boy like me with my knowledge of religion and the improbability for God to exist than to have a thousand boys not brought up in the Christian tradition and not knowing a thing about the God concept and why it's wrong since they can always fall prey one day to the deception of religion at a later age.
So I used to think Dawkins was rude and disagreeable. It was only when I had grown older that I knew the more important question is was he right in the disagreeable things he said? The truth of the content of his speech is MORE important than the way in which he said it. But we need maturity to see this. Many old people still dismiss Dawkins for his "rudeness". I would have imagined old people should by their age have learnt to put away childish things but apparently not all of them can do that, especially the old women in church. For them, form is always more important than substance.
