The Miley Cyrus of philosophers:
I look back a few decades to my childhood and see things like caning, like mild pedophilia, and can’t find it in me to condemn it by the same standards as I or anyone would today.–Richard Dawkins
Unfortunately, caning of (non-predatory) adult law-breakers is still verboten to “civilized” people, who prefers caging them with predators for years at a time.
The following picture is not due to any sort of human predation. But it does bridge a coming analogy between “mild” pedophilia and anaphylaxis.
This picture is Wikipedia’s iconic image for a deadly serious health concern, least you think the child’s privacy is infringed.
Unlike most “militant” atheists, Mr. Dawkins is not a coward. So it was a real hoot a few days ago when he Tweeted:
“All the world’s Muslims have fewer Nobel Prizes than Trinity College, Cambridge. They did great things in the Middle Ages, though.”
Burn! A snotty and wordy burn, but how else would professors talk trash? Let me try one.
“All the world’s Aggies have fewer National Titles than the University of Alabama. They did great things in 1939, though.”
This isn’t my sort of thing. Utter destruction of the enemy is statement enough. And if you can’t annihilate your foes, why on Earth would you provoke them?! (Also if your Dad is a God-fearing itinerate preacher who will spank you a new one if he catches you trash-talking…you won’t be doing that. But if you insist on it, as Richard Dawkins does, be a man about it, as he is.
And he sure does crave attention, doesn’t he? Condoning pedophilia in any form! Of course, since “defending Dawkins” is in this post’s very title, you might be questioning my judgment as well. Unless there’s more to this? Yep.
Dawkins went on to say that one of his former school masters “pulled me on his knee and put his hand inside my shorts,” and that to condemn this “mild touching up” as sexual abuse today would somehow be unfair. … Plus, he added, though his other classmates also experienced abuse at the hands of this teacher, “I don’t think he did any of us lasting harm.”
You know what? He’s quite possibly right. I mean, I’ve been stung by bees and wasps numerous times. So were most of the rural boys I knew, and none of us suffered lasting harm. Of course…we weren’t susceptible to anaphylactic shock.
So, does Dawkins consider the possibility certainty that children’s reactions to sexual groping will differ? Nope. Is he aware that what’s “mild” to him is life-shattering to susceptible kids? Nope. And thus, this tepid defense of him. He doesn’t hate children, he’s narcissistic.
Now, belief in a deity can certainly lead to problems. A billion-member religion that wins fewer Nobels than Trinity College is proof of that. But atheism has its own hazards, and one of those is certainly narcissism. Belief in God retards self-worship…even if God doesn’t exist. Yes, yes, Obama professes God, and his narcissism dwarfs Dawkins’. But is it possible that not everything Barack says is true?
It seems unlikely that Richard Dawkins will have a Road to Damascus moment with regards to God. Obviously I pray that he does. And also, less importantly, that he’ll have that same blinding insight when it comes to “mild” pedophilia.
UPDATE: Wow, this post was really jagged, wasn’t it? Back and forth between disparate ideas, with no Segways in between. Or segues, either. My apologies.
World's Only Rational Man 
“All the world’s Muslims have fewer Nobel Prizes than Trinity College, Cambridge. They did great things in the Middle Ages, though.”
Just that modern scholars on islam (like Raddatz et al in Germany) actually put the “golden age” into a 20 year period and nothing more. That “golden age” was based on knowledge the primarily Christian and Jewish early scientists under islamic control salvaged from the East Roman Empire and the Sassanid Empire, not to mention that a ton was simply imported from India and China and then just renamed with Arabic terms. The most famous examples for this are algebra and the so called Arabic numbers, which are both actually Indian.
I guess when the followers of the so called “prophet” invaded India and butchered literally millions of Hindus they also stole a lot of stuff. And since islam is the golden calf for many atheists which they don’t dare to attack (don’t wanna get called racist, eh?) and how a Holocaust of the unborn is something they love, I wouldn’t be surprised if some followers of Dawkins think what the mohammedans did there was actually good.
They’re really just another badly cooked up religious cult.
Mild pedophilia?
See, there’s exactly the reason why I, as an atheist, can’t ride with atheists like Dawkins. They’re just as dangerous as the mohammedans. They have zero regard for anyone outside their ideological crap cake. Heck, one look into Germany and Austria shows it. They scream at Catholic priests and monks raping children, but they cover it up when it happens in their facilities.
The perfect proof is the Odenwald School scandal. It’s a left wing cadre forge, where sexual abuse of children has been part of the program since the school was set up, but the scandal was barely touched in German media. At the same time everyone screamed at yet another scandal in the Catholic church.
Double standards. They’re just as bad as everybody else.
Addendum.
Mild pedophila. Hey, how’s about mild sexual harassment? Mild rape? Mild murder? Mild theft? Mild assault and battery?
It’s about the principle and the principle of the law states that it is wrong to do such things. Period.
To the camp where Dawkins hails from, however, good and evil aren’t so clear. Good and evil are solely based on their view of the world.
Which explains why, for example, a guy who was in prison for raping a 7-year old girl received leave from prison here in Austria a few years ago. He promptly raped a 6-year old girl. After that they locked him up for 6 years in a special facility for criminals with mental health problems where the tax payer would pay for his therapy (he was already considered doing well in therapy from the first case, which is why they let him out, and yes, you can get leave from prison here)… Humane penal system. It’s humane towards the criminals, but utterly inhumane towards their victims. This system that is in place in many EU countries stems from people like Dawkins.
All the Roths, Pilzes, Faymanns and Merkels (supposedly a conservative, yeah right) are responsible for it. Murder today in Germany brings you up to a lifetime sentence. However… life is 25 years. After that they must release you. Locking you up in a special high security lock up for actual life (until you die in jail) violates your human rights if you’re a criminal. No matter how dangerous you are. That was decided by the European Criminal Rights Court (it’s no longer dealing in human rights) in a case over a German prisoner who sued the German state over this. He won and Germany had to pay him 50,000 Euro compensation.
As seen in Germany with a former RAF terrorist, who had murdered 9 people, and who was released after 27 years. All the German “intellectuals” (who usually scream at a Catholic priest for just looking odd a child) celebrated it as great.
As seen in Austria in the causa Unterweger, which is, in all honesty, the best proof to show that the human penal system is a complete failure. Unterweger was in for murder, for life. He began writing poetry and stuff like that. The Austrian intellectuals were celebrating him as the “Prison Poet”. They worked to get a pardon for him and eventually he was released. They paraded him around as a proof how great their humane penal system is.
The problem then was that Jack Unterweger went on to murder several prostitutes in Austria, neighboring countries and even the US….
Whooops!
But hey, it was only prostitutes, as I was once told by a “liberal”. Who cares about them, eh?
It’s the Dawkinses, the Browns, the Roths, the Pelosis of this world who ruin it for everyone in it.
Reading this, I realized how much I admire your energy and passion, edo. I have no idea how you keep it up.
Just one look into our media and it gets the blood boiling! 😛