10.28.09
Atheists are good humans, too
by James Richmond – Sydney Morning Hearald
from dawkins site
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/atheists-are-good-humans-too-20091027-hibc.html
The Dvir Abramovich was heavily discussed here a few days ago http://richarddawkins.net/article,4508,Celebrity-atheists-expose-their-hypocrisy,Dvir-Abramovich-Sydney-Morning-Herald
In his opinion piece titled “Celebrity atheists expose their hypocrisy”, Dr Dvir Abramovich laments the attention that recent publications by the so-called “new atheists” have been receiving. He takes to task prominent atheists Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion) and Christopher Hitchens (God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything) over the positions they espouse in their best-selling books.
Abramovich’s main point seems to be that the new atheists are hypocritical in criticising the evils of religion while at the same time ignoring the evils of secularism. Yet in the end one is led to wonder whether he has actually read Dawkins’ and Hitchens’ books, because both this point and the others he raises are directly addressed in their pages. Even if Dawkins and Hitchens are guilty as charged, Abramovich might equally be accused of emphasising the most laudable parts of religion while glossing over its long and continuing record of putting barriers between people, suppressing free thought and providing a convenient excuse for all manner of violence.
Dawkins is an eminent biologist who is an expert on the theory of evolution. Perhaps in an effort to counter Dawkins’ air of science-backed authority, Abramovich invokes the famous scientists Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking. In essence, he argues that if Hawking wrote about knowing the “mind of God” through science and Einstein approved of taking a “religious attitude” to the cosmos, then belief in religion is, on the face of it, not “stupid”. Besides, “billions of people across the globe” accept religion.