RICHARD DAWKINS CAN FUCK OFF!

When it comes to religion I’m really not sure what I believe and to be honest I don’t give it a tremendous amount of thought. My view is that I’ll find out eventually so why stress about it now. If there is a God then I’m not a massive bastard really, I should be able to talk my way into heaven or at least a non-smoking table in hell. If there isn’t and it turns out we really are just a giant evolutionary mishap then it won’t matter – I’ll be dead.

The truth is that no one can prove anything either way which is why it continually baffles me that people - often very intelligent people - seem to feel the need to discuss the question at length. These conversations are the definition of pointless and are basically just the intellectual equivalent of those debates about meaningless triviality you have when you’re stoned. Y’know the ones where one guy will swear blind that Marilyn Manson was in ‘The Wonder Years’ or that Dogs can’t look up and another guy will strenuously disagree. Neither side has any means of proving their point but both believe themselves to be 100% right and a very boring discussion ensues.

This is the way a conversation about religion between a religious person and an atheist should go...

“I believe that Jesus Christ died for our sins and that God is looking out for us all”

“That’s nice, I don’t though”

“Fair enough, would you like some pie?”

Of course that almost never happens, (especially the bit about the pie) what usually happens is that the atheist starts talking loudly about fossils and evolution whilst everyone else edges away slowly.

Some atheists aren’t satisfied by simply having this argument and feel the need to actually dedicate their lives to it by writing books and appearing on TV. One such twat, sorry academic, is Richard Dawkins*, a scientist and author who has a chair** at Oxford University. He’s done other stuff in the past but at the moment his whole thing seems to be going round the world and explaining to religious people that they’ve wasted their lives.

That’s fine I guess, the question is why? He’s an atheist why does he care? It’s got nothing to do with him. It’s like straight men being interested in lesbian sex. Sorry bad example, er okay, lets say it’s like a man being interested in sanitary towels.

It certainly can’t be to help them – “Gee thanks Richard – I used to believe that there was a plan to the universe, I helped people less fortunate than myself and I had no fear of death. Good job you stopped all that.”

One reason he cites is that wars have been fought over religion, therefore it is bad. Yes Richard, wars have been fought over religion, millions of people have died in its name but do you really think that there would have been no war without it? I think we’d probably just have had wars for different reasons don’t you? Sadly people just fight with each other sometimes, people’s interests are at odds sometimes, sometimes people look across borders and think ‘Y’know what? I’d quite like all that land for myself.’ More often than not religion’s just an excuse.

‘Religion gets in the way of scientific progress!’ is another justification for this campaign of one-upmanship. Yeah you’re right it probably does, but actually scientists don’t get to determine the course of humanity on their own. I know you want to play with all the exciting new science right away but everyone’s got to live together on this planet and it’s quite reasonable that the ethics of, and popular support for things like human cloning are interrogated properly, by everyone. Me you and a billion other people may think that stem-cell research is brilliant but some people don’t and they get to be heard too before we go ahead and start messing around, so be patient***. Splitting the atom seemed like a great idea too remember? Because of that we almost blew the planet up in the 60’s. Let’s just behave like mature adults rather than kids the week before Christmas okay?

But what about intolerance? Religions promote intolerance right? Okay, a very small minority use religion as an excuse to be homophobic, racist etc. But again, there are just small minded people in the world who are going to see somebody doing something different and get all angry. People hear what they want to - if someone’s chosen to fixate on the obscure parts of the bible or the qur’an that deride homosexuality then, let’s be honest, they’re most probably quite the homophobe anyway. It’s not as if there aren’t racist/sexist/homophobic academics now is it?

What he of course downplays on his TV show and in his book is the positives that come from religion, the charitable giving and actions, the great works of art and architecture (not so much music). Michelangelo had such a hard-on for God that he created arguably the greatest work of art in history. I’m pretty sure people will still be going to see the Sistine Chapel when every copy of ‘The God Delusion’ has been rightly pulped - are we really more of an advanced society without God?

Even if we assume that what he says is all true (quite the assumption) he is still basically just being a mean spirited little gob-shite - like the guys who delight in ruining the twists in films by telling you right at the start: “By the way, there’s no heaven and Bruce Willis is a ghost.”

So, in conclusion; are those guys at the Christian rock concert waving their hands in the air a little weird? Yes. Deluded? Maybe, but you definitely can’t call them miserable. They’ve figured out a way to exist in this bizarre world that works for them and they’re not hurting anyone, so leave them alone you sanctimonious prick!

*If for nothing else he’s a cock for this tag-line on his website, ‘Richard Dawkins.Net: A Clear Thinking Oasis.’ What-a-bell-end!

**Most people send their children but whatever works mate

***I have become my Mother