Richard Dawkins: Brilliant Writer or Pretentious Git?

The major anti-Papal media frenzy requires us to remember that Reuters is still pretty much a game of Telephone.

If the Pope really is saying things as stupid as he's reported to have said, like that the allegations of covered-up child-abuse are petty gossip or that it's all the Jews' fault, then wow, he's fully insane. And all we can hope for is that a consistent round of medication will bring him back to reality. But there's always the chance that he didn't really say that. I'm just saying...it's possible.

Nevertheless, it's led a few people to incorrectly cite the High Priest of Fundamentalist Atheism, Richard Dawkins, as the rogue intent on arresting the Pope for crimes against humanity. Now that would be entertaining, wouldn't it? Dawkins claimed that he never said that so here again, we have the radical media machine of hyperbole and misinformation whose sole purpose is to cause people to spazz out.

Mission accomplished.

Richard Dawkins: he's a great writer. But he's also a pretentious git.

I'm tempted to call him a “militant atheist” but since he hasn't beheaded someone, or flown a plane into a building, that hardly applies. He's just a dude who is extremely opinionated about a very touchy subject. I wouldn't like to have tea with him because he seems like such a sourpuss and willingly having tea with a sourpuss is CRAZY. Likewise, I would like to have tea with the Pope so I can find out what he puts in it; is he naturally loopy or is someone slipping him regular doses of lithium? Watching that would be AWESOME. But being there while Richard Dawkins had tea with the Pope would be CRAZY AWESOME!

I read The God Delusion. Meh. Too scientific for me. Dawkins makes valid arguments but it didn't change my life. In fact I got a bit tired of his angry rhetoric. Not everyone who believes is going to go all jihad on your ass or sacrifice a goat. Maybe they're just going to go to church or pray. This doesn't make that person a moron. Prayer is the most ancient form of meditation and if you want to be scientific about it, it's probably really good for you (calms the mind and body unless you're praying for death and destruction - I'm assuming this applies for kind prayers).

I pray. I go to church. That doesn't make me a better person than you. It makes me a person who doesn't have as much time for breakfast on Sunday. There I've said it. I've been doing it for a long time. I've hid it from people for a long time because they subscribe to the mindset that "religious belief is the most pernicious form of self-deluding mental illness to inflict the human race."

Okay. I don't care.

I've always been somewhat religious. In university I had a real crisis of faith because I questioned everything. I went to talk to the priest at my church because I was agonized over it all. He smoothed my ruffled feathers by saying, "Faith is being okay without answers". It took me a long time to be "okay without answers". The turning point for me was my mother's death. I was there, and held her hand as she took her last breath. It was the holiest moment of my life. When her spirit left her body I knew that I didn't need answers. I just knew.

How superior of us to think that we are entitled to know and understand all the secrets of the universe?