Dr Paul Allen

The woke ideology that Dawkins detests did not arise in a vacuum but is the logical outworking of the scientific materialism that he has championed. Woke ideology embraces two plus two equals five, freedom of speech being an outdated relic, reason being a tool of oppression, and merit being a conceit of the privileged. Dawkins opposes this nonsense, but it is nonsense that his scientific materialism has invited. Woke ideology is not a betrayal of scientific materialism but its logical conclusion. In fact, it becomes pretty appealing once people realize that on materialistic grounds, we are here for no reason and have no destiny beyond this brief life, so the only meaning our life can have is the meaning we give it, the meaning we construct for it. And if conventional educational values like freedom of thought and expression get in the way of the meaning we construct for ourselves, so much the worse for those values. The scientific materialism of Dawkins epitomizes modernity. The woke i...

Richard Dawkins is the last person I’d expect to start realizing the value of Christianity. He’s probably the most famous atheist in the world and he’s downright devout in his views. Totalitarian, in fact. Back in 2015, he even told the Irish Times that children need to be “protected” from the religious beliefs of their parents. “There is a balancing act and you have to balance the rights of parents and the rights of children, and I think the balance has swung too far towards parents,” he mused. “Children do need to be protected so that they can have a proper education and not be indoctrinated in whatever religion their parents happen to have been brought up in.” As for those who value the Scriptures above all? “You have to write off those people,” he advised. Horrifyingly Practical As an atheist, Dawkins is also willing to say morally horrifying things. He would disagree with that characterization because he doesn’t believe in objective morality. The Heavens are empty. There is nobody...

One of the standard ways that the New Atheists attack Christianity is by using some of the Old Testament war passages to argue that God is violent and petty. One of the favourite passages for this is the so-called Amalekite Genocide of 1 Samuel 15 . But difficulties with passages such as this are not restricted to atheists. In 2009, the popular website Ship of Fools ran a feature called Chapter and Worse. 1 Readers were invited to submit their least favourite Bible passages, and an evangelical acquaintance of mine submitted 1 Samuel 15:3 . And Samuel said to Saul, “The Lord sent me to anoint you king over his people Israel; now therefore listen to the words of the Lord. Thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘I have noted what Amalek did to Israel in opposing them on the way when they came up out of Egypt. Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’” ( 1 Sam 15:1 ‑3...

Richard Dawkins has imploded on Twitter (Photo: Heathcliff O'Malley) Another week, another half-hilarious, half-tragic Richard Dawkins meltdown on Twitter. This time, Dawkins, who prior to becoming a jester of the Twittersphere was apparently a well respected author, used the opportunity of International Women's Day to blast the "loathsome religion" of Islam . He tweeted a photo of three Afghani women in short skirts in the 1970s next to a photo of three Afghani women cloaked in the burqa today, alongside the words: "How can anyone defend this loathsome religion?" He means Islam. He always means Islam. He has a real problem with Islam, even more than he does with Catholicism, whose teachings he once described as being worse than rape. His "loathsome religion" tweet was hotly followed by another suggesting that the ritual slaughter of animals for faith reasons – ie halal and kosher – should be banned. "Many complex considerations shou...

English: Richard Dawkins at New York City's Cooper Union to discuss his book The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) For a theist there’s nothing quite like watching an atheist get an intellectual walloping from a preacher. There’s just something apocalyptic about it, and it most easily occurs when the atheist tries to chop up religion to irrelevancy without realizing that he is himself awfully religious. It happened again recently at the Cambridge Union debating society when former Anglican Archbishop Rowan Williams took on the best known name in contemporary atheism, Richard Dawkins. They were debating whether religion has a role in the 21st century. Dawkins said it didn’t. Williams said it did. In the end, Williams was handed a decidedly strong victory with more than two times as many votes from the audience as the infamous atheist, Dawkins. It was a triumphant day for the faithful and a shameful one for the irreligious. But actu...

Dawkins at the University of Texas at Austin. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Well-known atheist Richard Dawkins made an appearance as the devil on the long-running U.S. animated show "The Simpsons ." Dawkins shows up in Ned Flanders ' nightmare in the form of a giant horned devil, stirring a cauldron of people in a fiery underworld. "I'm making Catholic Saint stew!" Dawkins says in the nightmare. Flanders is Homer Simpson 's devoutly religious neighbor. In the latest segment, Flanders has a nightmare about going to hell after he loses his patience with Homer and punches him. He encounters several "warning" signs on his way to hell, such as "Brief Nudity" and "Non-Jesus-y Beards," before reaching a large cavern nicknamed " Hell's Kitchen " where the devil - Dawkins - resides. "Down here we worship famous atheist Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion ," a devil-version of Homer says, laughing...

Dawkins at the University of Texas at Austin. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) The public has moved on from the anti-religious vitriol of the 2000s.  Amid all the warm words expressed by public figures after Pope Benedict announced his retirement one comment rather stood out. “I feel sorry for the Pope and all old Catholic priests. Imagine having a wasted life to look back on and no sex,” wrote Richard Dawkins on Twitter . Even with the generally low standards of decorum on the site, the 71-year-old biologist’s comment caused groans. For while he still has his fans and admirers, Prof Dawkins has been preaching to the choir for some time, and the choir shrinks as embarrassed followers slink away from the scene. New Atheism has finally had its day. As atheist writer Douglas Murray recently noted, after sitting alongside Dawkins in a debate: “The more I listened to Dawkins and his colleagues, the more the nature of what has gone wrong with their argument seemed clear. Religion was p...