Noted atheist and pot-stirrer Richard Dawkins is no stranger to controversy. But in a recent interview with The Times (full article available here), he managed to outdo himself:
https://twitter.com/ByronTau/status/377529877903454208
Via Salon:
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.
“I am very conscious that you can’t condemn people of an earlier era by the standards of ours. Just as we don’t look back at the 18th and 19th centuries and condemn people for racism in the same way as we would condemn a modern person for racism, 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,” he said.
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.”
“Mild pedophilia”? No “lasting harm”? Only a truly depraved mind could excuse the sexual abuse of children. What a disgusting slap in the face of victims.
https://twitter.com/Matthops82/status/377535328120086528
Decent people are rightly outraged:
https://twitter.com/ADPEfferson/status/377542823383289856
Weird. Richard Dawkins says religion is child abuse. Actual child abuse, not that bad. He got touched as a kid and he's doing fine.
— Arthur (@pelirrojo79) September 10, 2013
https://twitter.com/annmariebrok/status/377541399534919680
So what I want to know is this, @RichardDawkins: What the hell qualifies as "mild" pedophilia? That "funny uncle" who gropes a child?
— Social Justice Hermit (@ProfBanks) September 10, 2013
https://twitter.com/_RachelQuigley_/status/377544364798382080
I always knew Richard Dawkins to be an intellectual fraud and ethically lost person, but that article is unbelievable. Shocked.
— Tony Hrvatska ?? (@tonybalogna) September 10, 2013
"Mild Pedophilla doesnt cause lasting harm" @RichardDawkins you sick twisted monster…
— BIOHAZARD JUDGE FOX ?⚖??☠? (@TexasLiberty15) September 10, 2013
Tonight on 'To Catch A Predator'…this Oxford don is messaging what he thinks is a 14-year old girl with the screen name Hot4GodlessDaddy"
— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) September 10, 2013
This just in: Man who spent entire adult life in Freudian quest for vengeance on "God"-cum-Father-Betrayer says mild pedophilia does no harm
— Ursus, Director of Weather and Banana Programming (@AceofSpadesHQ) September 10, 2013
Fuck You @RichardDawkins , Fuck You Very Much.
— john (@sheabot9000) September 10, 2013
Editor’s note: This post has been updated with additional tweets and the title has been amended.
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