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Richard Dawkins defended "mild pedophilia" in an interview this weekend. And while the quote itself is quite jarring, especially to those who look to Dawkins for his influential writings on atheism (but haven't noticed some of his other strange stances), it's far from the first time that the scientist has launched a defense of the behavior — or talked about his own abuse at the hands of boarding school teachers. First, here's what Dawkins said to The Times magazine, as condensed by the Religion News Service:
There are shades of being abused by a priest, and I quoted an example of a woman in America who wrote to me saying that when she was 7 years old, she was sexually abused by a priest in his car.
“At the same time, a friend of hers, also 7, who was of a Protestant family, died, and she was told that because her friend was Protestant, she had gone to hell and will be roasting in hell forever.
“She told me, of those two abuses, she got over the physical abuse; it was yucky, but she got over it. But the mental abuse of being told about hell, she took years to get over. "
To sum it up, Dawkins has basically implied that raising children with religion is worse than sexually abusing them.
Anecdotes and plausibility arguments, however, need to be backed up by systematic research, and I would be interested to hear from psychologists whether there is real evidence bearing on the question. My expectation would be that violent, painful, repeated sexual abuse, especially by a family member such as a father or grandfather, probably has a more damaging effect on a child’s mental well-being than sincerely believing in hell. But ‘sexual abuse’ covers a wide spectrum of sins, and I suspect that research would show belief in hell to be more traumatic than the sort of mild feeling-up that I suffered.
DigitalResonance
reply to post by Malynn
My thoughts exactly.. Making a mountain out of a mole hill.
To sum it up, Dawkins has basically implied that raising children with religion is worse than sexually abusing them.
“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.
He said the most notorious cases of pedophilia involve rape and even murder and should not be bracketed with what he called “just mild touching up.”
DeadSeraph
reply to post by DigitalResonance
So then you agree with him that bringing a child up with a religious background is worse than "mild feeling up" of children by adults? Those are his words. Doesn't matter how you try to downplay it, when an adult engages in "mild feeling up" with a child, it is sexual abuse.
Utter horse #. I should have known his disciples would gladly overlook something so disgusting.
Atheists, here is your champion.
DigitalResonance
reply to post by DeadSeraph
Another one who totally missed the point of what richard was saying... I know he's an atheist but u don't need to exaggerate what he was saying... What he said is clear if u just read what's written and not what u want him to of said because of your distaste towards the man.
tothetenthpower
reply to post by DeadSeraph
Atheists, here is your champion.
What? You're implying that the extremist atheist speaks for all the atheists?
I guess Pat Robertson and the Westboro Baptist Church speak for all Christians right?
At the very least Dawkins is discussing the issue of sexual abuse in the church, something the church itself tries to stay away from at all costs. That's neither here nor there however.
The point is, that what he said is idiotic and it expresses his personal, extremist views on religion and it's effects on people.
It's an extremist viewpoint, not shared by the majority of atheists, who although do not believe in God, do not see a reason to belittle and mock people who do.
~Tenthedit on 9/12/2013 by tothetenthpower because: (no reason given)