I Love Richard Dawkins
I had the opportunity to see Expelled with friends the other day. The movie is an unscientific, though philosophical approach to the issue of Evolution and its dialogue – or lack thereof – with any semblance of Intelligent Design theory. Ben Stein (of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off – anyone, anyone?) acts as agent provocateur, documentarian, interested party, and journalist in this hour and a half movie, the end of which climaxes with a three to five minute interview with Richard Dawkins himself.
Dawkins, the self-styled guru of atheism (put that in your metaphysical pipe…), read one of his more notorious passages from his book “The God Delusion.” In what can only be described as obvious pride, Dawkins read:
“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”
And for a moment, for me, the movie stopped, the dark room brightened, and in each word Dawkins read, I heard a voice:
I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you….
Stein ends the interview with an hypothetical question to Dawkins – if you die and you’re wrong, what will you say to God? And Dawkins responded by paraphrasing Bertrand Russell: “Why did you hide yourself so well?”
And that was it for me. I broke. I finally understood, if just for a moment, how deeply we break God’s heart in our disobedience. The God who whispers in each sunrise – I love you. In each leaf in the breeze – I love you. In each creature that draws its first breath – I love you. Even in the predictable patterns of chaos – I love you. He has not hidden himself.
For it is not God, it is us who are the most unpleasant characters in history: jealous and proud of it; petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freaks; we are vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleansers; we are misogynists, homophobes, racists, baby-slaughterers, we commit genocide, fratricide, and we kill our sons; we plague the world with diseases, with our quests for power over nations and each other. We are nothing more than bullies.
I love you. I love you. I love you.
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Just stumbled upon your blog, Sholander. Beautiful post. I hope you won’t mind if I direct others to it.
I found your blog by searching for “I love Richard Dawkins.” I don’t love him, but searching “Richard Dawkins is the man” came up with very few useful results.
I’m bummed out that you don’t really love Richard Dawkins, and I’m sure that if you told him that you did, he’d be really creeped out.
You’re right that there are lots of really sick criminals in America, especially. Funny thing is, the more religious a state in America is, the higher its rates of crime, abortion, and divorce. That really makes me wonder, if there is a god, why isn’t he looking after his most loyal supporters? Maybe he really is, if he exists, all those things Dawkins accused him of being.
You, sir, are a hedonist of faith.