re: #172 Obdicut

[Link: richarddawkins.net…]

Dawkins said this in defense of Condell:

He’s doing much of the same things those on the right do— lumping all moderate Muslims into one pot, treating Islam as though it’s monolithic, etc. I’m not going to less it pass just because he’s an atheist like me.

Not to mention that Condell is in a political party that has Monkton as chief scientific adviser; that alone should be enough for Dawkins to distance himself from Condell.

It can be a fine line to tread, for an atheist, to avoid being called a bigot, and you have to choose your words very carefully. In the case of that particular quote of Dawkins, you are correct to say that he went too far. He should have said that

some ‘moderate’ Muslim leaders support the principle that apostasy deserves the death penalty

. I’m sure that Dawkins, if asked to clarify, would have accepted the fact that very many genuinely moderate muslims do exist, while there are some who have gotten a pass as ‘moderate’ while harbouring extreme views. As written though, his statement reads too much like the kind of “there is no such thing as a moderate muslim” tripe that wingnuts like to spout.

As for Condell, he seems more and more a champion of Daily Mail values than anything else these days.