Richard Dawkins to atheist rally: 'Show contempt' for faith

[Rob H.]

51. If by "quoted" you mean "quote mined", maybe

Here's the full video:

Here's part of what he actually said, around the 7:20 mark:

I'm often accused of contempt and despising religious people. I don't despise religious people, I despise what they stand for. I like to quote the British journalist, Johann Hari, who said, "I have so much respect for you that I cannot respect your ridiculous ideas."

And starting around the 13-minute mark:

When you meet somebody who claims to be religious, ask them what they really believe. If you meet somebody who says he's Catholic, for example, say, "What do you mean? Do you just mean you were baptized Catholic? Because I'm not impressed by that."

We just ran a poll by my foundation in Britain, just ran a poll in Britain, in which we talked to those people who ticked the "Christian" box in the census--and by the way, that figure has come down dramatically--we just took the people who ticked the "Christian" box, and we asked them, "Why did you tick the 'Christian' box?" The most popular answer to that question was, "Oh, well, I like to think of myself as a good person."

Well, we all like to think of ourselves as good people. Atheists do, Jews do, Muslims do, so when you meet somebody who claims to be Christian, ask her, ask him "What do you really believe?" and I think you'll find that in many cases, they give you an answer which is no more convincing than, "I like to be a good person."

By the way, when we went on to ask a specific question of these only 54% (of people who selected "Christian" as their religion in the census), "What do you do when you're faced with a moral dilemma, where do you turn?" only 10 percent turned to their religion when trying to solve a moral question. Only 10 percent. The majority of them said, "I turn to my innate sense of goodness," and the next most popular answer was, "I turn for advice to relatives and friends."

So, when I meet somebody who claims to be religious, my first impulse is don't believe you, I don't believe you until you tell me, "Do you really believe"--for example, if they say they're Catholic--"Do you really believe that when a priest blesses a wafer, it turns into the body of Christ? Are you seriously telling me you believe that? Are you seriously saying that wine turns into blood?" Mock them, ridicule them in public.

Don't fall for the convention that we're all too polite to talk about religion. Religion is not off the table. Religion is not off-limits. Religion makes specific claims about the universe which need to be substantiated, and need to be challenged, and, if necessary, need to be ridiculed with contempt.

I'd like to echo what my colleagues from the Richard Dawkins Foundation have said: I am an outsider, but we have, we're well-staffed in America, and we're going to spread the word along with our colleagues in other organizations throughout the length and breadth of this land, this land which is the fountainhead, the birthplace of secularism in the world, and as I said before, don't let's let that tradition down. Thank you very much.