Richard Dawkins backs campaign to arrest Pope
15 Apr 2010

BIOLOGIST, RICHARD DAWKINS, has backed a campaign to have the Pope arrested for "crimes against humanity" when he visits the UK later this year. Dawkins, who is famous for his atheism and his book, The God Delusion, wrote in his blog: "I am optimistic that we shall raise public consciousness to the point where the British government will find it very awkward indeed to go ahead with the Pope's visit."

For once, I actually agree with Dawkins. After all, there is good evidence that the Pope hushed up the pedophilia that was/is rampant in the Catholic Church, which no doubt led to more children being abused. In many non-religious people's eyes, the Catholic Church has become The Church of Pedophilia, and every Catholic priest a potential danger to our children. And what is remarkable is that in Catholicism priests are regarded as the mediators between God and the ordinary congregation, which means that many Catholics have gone and probably continue to go to pedophiles for confession and forgiveness.

But hold on, Dawkins is a lead proponent of Darwinian Evolution (actually, neodarwinism, a modified version that is gene focused) which was the main scientific justification for the Nazi's and others' eugenics programs, and for general racial abuse and aboriginal decimation programs (in league with religion), as well as animal abuse. So Dawkins himself is the high priest of a belief system that has caused and continues to cause terrible suffering as well.

Of course, in this case, Dawkins himself has never used his beliefs to oppress anyone else, but by peddling beliefs that encourage a hierarchical perspective of living things he is actually sowing seeds of abuse.

So whilst the Pope should certainly be arrested for not preventing abuse, Dawkins should not be getting involved because, in an indirect way, he is guilty of just as much abuse. For by taking so much meaning out of existence he is encouraging a society that behaves in an increasingly dysfunctional and nihilistic manner. So this is very much a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

Both religion and science are guilty of terrible crimes against humanity, not because they are intrinsically bad, but because it seems to be human nature to ruthlessly defend and enforce ideological fundamentalisms. When ideas take precedence over people, you have a recipe for terrible suffering.