Richard Dawkins calls for arrest of Pope Benedict XVI

[aftugger]

Not directly related to intactivism, but nevertheless and example of good people fighting to protect children from sexual abuse:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article7094310.ece

[finman]

It seems inappropriate to put the words Richard Dawkins and good in the same sentence.

He was strangely silent when the Somalian Defence minister came to Britain for heart surgery even though that minister is allegedly responsible for many deaths in his country, but then he is not Christian.

It is Richard Dawkins views that support eugenics, racism and the slave trade and the appalling way the aborigines have been treated in the past. Even Nazi ideas come from this way of thinking.

This is just another opportunity to hit out at Christianity. I cannot remember Richard Dawkins taking very much interest in abuse of children before.

[peterpink]

In their favour the Abrahamic religions gave up child sacrifice several millennia ago. Sadly they replaced it with forced circumcision of defenseless babies to produce the blood instead. It is this sort of sexual abuse, as well as child rape that people like Dawkins object to.

[hastur]

It is Richard Dawkins views that support eugenics, racism and the slave trade and the appalling way the aborigines have been treated in the past. Even Nazi ideas come from this way of thinking


how very WRONG you are.
Religion is used to support torture and infant mutilation and the slave trade.
I live in a place that has klan and neo-nazis,theres a nice little push pin in a map at the Simon Wiesenthal Center marking just a few miles from where I live as a problem place.,...racists use religion to claim they are gods people and the rest are mud people.Science has revealed that we are all the same.

Science flies to the moon.
Religion flies into buildings.


I am an atheist and I support an end to torture.
An end to the persecution of minorities.
Atheism is not the tool of destruction....an end to faith is our species only chance to survive before some believer releases a disease or horrible weapons or something yet to be created to bring about their holy whatever they think.yes some religious nut will pervert the tools of science and destroy us all someday.
Ancient books that convince people of absurdities have the power to convince them to commit atrocities.
Don't get me wrong,some great beauty has come from faith,beautiful music and art and even some philosophy but the wars in its name,genocides,inquisitions and so on,please.
We have the tools to destroy ourselves and thinking the invisible friend in the sky will take you to paradise will enable some nut to unleash a real hell someday.

Science PROVES that ALL humans are related.We all originate from African ancestors.All people are our brothers and sisters and that the genetic diversity of all the so called ,"races"(we are all the same race)are our
collective strength.
Religious doctrines are often used to devalue one group vs. another because they don't worship the same invisible friend or worship the same invisible friend but in a different way.
Religion will be the last stumbling block to ending infant genital mutilation.Isn't that enough alone to see it's destructive power?
Oh well,I'm sure I am just pissing in the wind and like infant mutilation religion will still be causing pain long after I'm dead.
May the Flying Spaghetti Monster touch you with his noodly appendage.:D

[admin]

It is Richard Dawkins views that support eugenics, racism and the slave trade and the appalling way the aborigines have been treated in the past. Even Nazi ideas come from this way of thinking.

I confess I've not read a word of any Dawkins book, but I've heard him speak and what you say is not consistent with my impression of Dawkins. Do you have some citations that could support your assertions?

[Purist]

Yeah, regarding Dawkins, ditto to the above. He's an atheist (and I'd say a rationalist). The notion that atheism necessarily implies state control over reproduction, racism, slavery, or totalitarianism is utterly absurd and twisted.

What has he written about or spoken of in support of any of those things?

[Aspie]

Generally I think that Mr. Dawkins is an extremist idiot with the brain of a dodobird but I think he's onto something except I was thinking the pope could be drowned in a cross shaped tub filled with the tears of all those who have suffered because of his actions and inactions.

[veryconfused]

Generally I think that Mr. Dawkins is an extremist idiot with the brain of a dodobird .

This is taken from wikipedia on his awards and recognitions:

Dawkins was awarded a Doctor of Science by the University of Oxford in 1989. He holds honorary doctorates in science from the University of Huddersfield, University of Westminster, Durham University,[152] the University of Hull, and the University of Antwerp, and honorary doctorates from the University of Aberdeen,[153] Open University, the Vrije Universiteit Brussel,[16] and the University of Valencia.[154] He also holds honorary doctorates of letters from the University of St Andrews and the Australian National University (HonLittD, 1996), and was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1997 and the Royal Society in 2001.[16] He is one of the patrons of the Oxford University Scientific Society.

In 1987, Dawkins received a Royal Society of Literature award and a Los Angeles Times Literary Prize for his book, The Blind Watchmaker. In the same year, he received a Sci. Tech Prize for Best Television Documentary Science Programme of the Year, for the BBC Horizon episode The Blind Watchmaker.[16]

His other awards have included the Zoological Society of London Silver Medal (1989), Finlay innovation award (1990), the Michael Faraday Award (1990), the Nakayama Prize (1994), the American Humanist Association's Humanist of the Year Award (1996), the fifth International Cosmos Prize (1997), the Kistler Prize (2001), the Medal of the Presidency of the Italian Republic (2001), the Bicentennial Kelvin Medal of The Royal Philosophical Society of Glasgow (2002)[16] and the Nierenberg Prize for Science in the Public Interest (2009).[155]

Dawkins topped Prospect magazine's 2004 list of the top 100 public British intellectuals, as decided by the readers, receiving twice as many votes as the runner-up.[156][157] He has been short-listed as a candidate in their 2008 follow-up poll.[158] In 2005, the Hamburg-based Alfred Toepfer Foundation awarded him its Shakespeare Prize in recognition of his "concise and accessible presentation of scientific knowledge". He won the Lewis Thomas Prize for Writing about Science for 2006 and the Galaxy British Book Awards Author of the Year Award for 2007.[159] In the same year, he was listed by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2007,[160] and was awarded the Deschner Award, named after German anti-clerical author Karlheinz Deschner.[161]

How can you say this guy is an idiot? He is only being aggressive against religion, and rightfully so. It isn't extremist to be atheist, you could argue that religion is the extreme. He is simply being rational and actually having the balls to confront such a backwards paradigm head on.

He is stating that religion is irrational because there is absolutely no evidence of the supernatural. In fact everyone is an atheist {with respect to 99.999% if all dieties ever imagined}, but some people just make one exception to their own religion.

He is also fed up with creationism and all the other religious beliefs that negatively affect the world. Religion makes sane people do insane things - circumcision is a good example. We should live as secular humanists and live for ourselves, not live our lives under the beliefs of something that has never been proven.

Charles dawkins is a promoter of the scientific approach to thinking. To assume nothing and build upon what is observed, not to follow an ancient scripture made by men. The truth is, people are letting go of religion. There is nothing that can stop this, because nothing can hinder free thought. Dawkins has made a positive impact on the world by making atheism not taboo anymore. He is making people more open about one of the biggest issues that has divided humanity. You should do a bit more research before you call him an idiot.

[madbr3991]

i think that Richard Dawkins is a genius. he has won many scientific awards. he Richard Dawkins speaks out against religion. all religion is just crap. religion teaches people to stop thinking on their own. religion has held humanity back for way too long and i am tired of religion as well.

circumcision is a great example of how religion has infected humanity like a virus

banning stem cell research is another great example

we cannot truly have peace with religion

[admin]

all religion is just crap
Here at the symposium today a couple speakers joked or said things like this, and there was a sort of general laugh in the room that indicated a consensus, but I was a little nervous because I had just finished meeting someone who explained how they met the person who got them into intactivism "at church."

I guess I prefer to believe things for which there is rational evidence and remain skeptical about all else. But there are things yet unknowable, and a "religion" could merely involve helping people have a contented peaceful outlook about that. I wouldn't automatically call such a pursuit crap. I guess anytime we say "all" or "none" we run the risk of being presented with a counter-example.

-Ron

[aftugger]

Here at the symposium today a couple speakers joked or said things like this, and there was a sort of general laugh in the room that indicated a consensus, but I was a little nervous because I had just finished meeting someone who explained how they met the person who got them into intactivism "at church."

I guess I prefer to believe things for which there is rational evidence and remain skeptical about all else. But there are things yet unknowable, and a "religion" could merely involve helping people have a contented peaceful outlook about that. I wouldn't automatically call such a pursuit crap. I guess anytime we say "all" or "none" we run the risk of being presented with a counter-example.

-Ron

Noam Chomsky once said that religion is like technology - it can be used for good, or bad. I guess that's one way to look at it.

[madbr3991]

i think the pope should be arrested. for letting all those priests molest kinds and for condemning condoms. the current pope was an active member of the hitler youth. just how many deaths is this current pope responsible for.

[Dasher]

In the U.S., except for a very small number of circumcisions performed on Jews and Muslims (estimated at less than 2%), all circumcisions are performed for non-religious reasons. And there are quite a few, around 1.5 million per year. Around 55% of baby boys are circumcised in the U.S. So the main problem, in the U.S. at least, is not circumcision for religious reasons. It's the circumcisions performed for non-religious reasons.

And the Catholic prelate who should be arrested in the priest sex scandal is Cardinal Bernard Law, the former archbishop of Boston, who knew all about it, and covered it up. He even reassigned pedophile priests. He was an enabler of child molesters.

But who will arrest the circumcisers who rape defenseless baby boys by tearing a part of their body off and leave them with a mutilated penis?

[FreddyEddy]

None of the Popes were ever allowed to be circumcised because it is anti Christ.

When sexual abuse charges against Catholic priests first arose in the 80's, 10's of 1,000's of men came out of the woodwork claiming sexual molestation by priests, also.

Being sexually traumatised as infants can cause a memory block called amnesia, in the part of the brain known as the hippocampus which functions to store emotional memories. Subsequent simular traumas later in life can trigger those hidden memories to resurface, known as Delayed PTSD. The effects can lead to false memories as our vissual and audio brain parts have not yet matured at the time of the original trauma.

Most all of the molestation charges were made by circumcised American men.

The Church was justified for protecting the innocent priests from all the false accusations, and we are not supposed to assume guilt until proven guilty.

Dose anyone know if Dawkins was a victim of RIC, too?

[freedom0speech]

It is Richard Dawkins views that support eugenics, racism

and the slave trade and the appalling way the aborigines

have been treated in the past.[Citation Needed] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed)

...

[freedom0speech]

Here's my problem. Everyone is worried about Catholic priests molesting young boys. So why isn't everyone outraged about Jewish Mohels molesting infants, cutting and mutilating their genitals, then sucking on the bloody infant penis? If I had to prioritize over which is a greater rights violation, I'm not going to pick the priests. While both are horrible, one is VASTLY worse than the other.

Let's get real here. I agree with Dawkins, what's happening in the Catholic church is horrible, but for fucks sake... everyone is too damn afraid to go after the mohels. This has to change!

[peterpink]

Let's get real here. I agree with Dawkins, what's happening in the Catholic church is horrible, but for fucks sake... everyone is too damn afraid to go after the mohels. This has to change!

The problem is not just fear of the mohels in particular, but the politically correct stance of multiculturalism. It is supposed to be correct form to tolerate all cultures and their customs for fear of being accused of xenophobia. When people criticize male genital mutilation, the Jews play what atheists call the 'hurt card' i.e. "you're criticizing my religion and culture and it hurts my feelings. I do not want to think about what you are saying rationally, because by beliefs are irrational." They then go on to play down any damage they do.

Dawkins does mention female circumcision on page 329 of this book "The God Delusion", but does not refer to male circumcision as far as I can see. (He may be a victim of the upper class English penchant for cutting their boys, but I do not know if this custom persists in England.) The other famous atheist, Christopher Hitchens is much more outspoken on religious male and female circumcision. See his book "God is Not Great", page 223 onwards. Hitchens is also famous for debating rabbis on circumcision. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xx_ov2NiNo4 for an excellent example.

[Joseph]

The problem is not just fear of the mohels in particular, but the politically correct stance of multiculturalism. It is supposed to be correct form to tolerate all cultures and their customs for fear of being accused of xenophobia. When people criticize male genital mutilation, the Jews play what atheists call the 'hurt card' i.e. "you're criticizing my religion and culture and it hurts my feelings. I do not want to think about what you are saying rationally, because by beliefs are irrational." They then go on to play down any damage they do.

I prefer to call it the "anti-Semite" card. If you're against circumcision (nevermind the fact that only 97% or so of all circumcisions in America are gentile, nevermind that the Palestinians and Iranians circumcise, etc.) then you're an anti-Semite comparable to holocaust denialists. And of course you know how we feel about holocaust denialists...

It's "xenophobia" to criticize male infant circumcision, even "religious" infant circumcision, but it's perfectly fine to let all hell loose on FGM. All female circumcisers, even those that do it for so-called "cultural" or "religious reasons" are automatically monsters.

[freedom0speech]

Dawkins is not as strongly anti-circumcision as we are, but he doesn't believe it's needed or even warranted without consent. He was circumcised when he was born in 1941.

I've read a few things Dawkins has said on this topic (even more than what I have just found), if anyone is interested, here ya go...


"I too was circumcized as an infant (at a time when British doctors commonly did it as a matter of course) and I am not saying that I now regret it personally, on either aesthetic or medical grounds. Nor do I feel any personal resentment about the fact that it was done to me. [...] a painful, irreversible operation which has not been recommended to him on medical grounds. [...] If, later, for religious, medical or aesthetic reasons, he decides to be circumcized, that is his privilege. But if he wants to become UN-circumcized, he will not have that option. Circumcision is irreversible."[1] (http://richarddawkins.net/articles/8...or-misha#page3)

"I think ritual circumcision is barbaric[...] At my boarding schools approximately half the boys were circumcised, perhaps slightly more than half (and there were very few Jews), so obviously there was no question of feeling 'odd' because of it. In the United States, I understand that circumcision is the norm. There was a bizarre episode of Sex and the City, in which one of the women (the least brazen one, I forget her name) had her first sexual encounter with a new boyfriend and she discovered that he was uncircumcised. She had never seen an uncircumcised penis before and was disconcerted. The man apologised, and rather wistfully said it had always been a problem for him with women. He then went and got himself circumcised, and was so pleased with the result that he went wildly promiscuous and left her. Pure fiction and, as I say, bizarre."[2] (http://richarddawkins.net/articles/487852-nhs-urged-to-offer-circumcisions-to-avoid-botched-operations/comments?page=2)

1. Doctors Opposing Circumcision: An Appeal for Misha, The Richard Dawkins Foundation.
http://richarddawkins.net/articles/890-doctors-opposing-circumcision-an-appeal-for-misha#page3

2. NHS urged to offer circumcisions to avoid botched operations, The Richard Dawkins Foundation.
http://richarddawkins.net/articles/487852-nhs-urged-to-offer-circumcisions-to-avoid-botched-operations/comments?page=2

[1Taoist]

Sex and the shitty.

[Julian]

...the pope could be drowned in a cross shaped tub filled with the tears of all those who have suffered because of his actions and inactions.

This is awesome.

I now also suggest making a page listing the guilty parties in circumcision.

doctors
parents
UN
churches
religions

For both action and inaction. The Catholic church not speaking out against sexual mutilation? It's very very fishy indeed.

Of course the pope should be arrested. Uh, or something less nice.

If you are angry about circumcision it means the lust, the survival mechanism, in your body is functioning well.

If you are circumcised and know what circumcision means but are not angry, it means your survival mechanism isn't working well. Maybe you are suicidal or something.