The Bigot’s Delusion: Why Richard Dawkins saying church bells sound nicer than ‘Allah-u-Akbar' is wrong

Richard Dawkins might be one of the best science authors in the world, and one of the most vocal atheists is living proof that bigotry is not proportional to one’s intelligence. The man whose works include scientific masterpieces like The Selfish Gene, The Blind Watchmaker and The God Delusion, on Monday drew flak when he channelled his inner Sonu Nigam and compared Winchester Church bells to ‘Allah-u-Akbar’.

Dawkins, a vocal critic of religion, tweeted: “Listening to the lovely bells of Winchester, one of our great mediaeval cathedrals. So much nicer than the aggressive-sounding “Allahu Akhbar.” Or is that just my cultural upbringing?”

Understandably, his tweet drew flak from across the spectrum, including new atheists who felt that it was blatantly targeting Islam. A lot of Twitters users, including Fatima Bhutto, pointed out that his tweet was just bigotry.

This isn’t Dawkins first rodeo, and the evolutionary biologist showed he didn’t care for real-life clockmakers when he compared Ahmed – the Muslim boy whose clock was confused for a bomb – to an ISIS child soldier.

In the past, he has gone on record to state that Islam was the ‘most evil religion in the world’, for which an event hosted by KPFA Berkeley, California in August was cancelled.

In an open letter, Dawkins had defended his claims, saying he targeted the appalling ‘misogyny and homophobia in Islam’.

He had written: “I have criticised the ridiculous pseudoscientific claims made by Islamic apologists (“the sun sets in a marsh” etc), and the opposition of Islamic “ scholars” to evolution and other scientific truths. I have criticised the appalling misogyny and homophobia of Islam, I have criticised the murdering of apostates for no crime other than their disbelief.”

On the other hand, he has backed religious education (no points for guessing which kind)  in British schools saying it ‘shouldn’t be abolished’.

He has written: “I think that it is an important part of our culture to know about the Bible after all so much of English literature has allusions to the Bible if you look up the Oxford English Dictionary you find something like the same number of quotations from the Bible as from Shakespeare.

“It’s an important part of our history. So much of European history is dominated by disputes against rival religions and you can’t understand history unless you know about the history of the Christian religion and the Crusades and so on. I would not abolish religions education, I think I would substitute it for comparative religion and Biblical history and religious history. Comparative religion is very valuable partly because the child learns that there are lots of different religions, not just the one they were brought up with. They learn they are all different and they can’t all be right, so maybe none of them is right. Critical thinking is what we need.”

He had warned, that Islam was the most evil in the world, pointing out that moderate Muslims were the biggest victims of its ‘fanatical ideology’.

He had said: “It’s tempting to say all religions are bad, and I do say all religions are bad, but it’s a worse temptation to say all religions are equally bad because they’re not.”

“If you look at the actual impact that different religions have on the world it’s quite apparent that at present the most evil religion in the world has to be Islam. It’s terribly important to modify that because of course, that doesn’t mean all Muslims are evil, very far from it. Individual Muslims suffer more from Islam than anyone else. They suffer from the homophobia, the misogyny, the joylessness which is preached by extreme Islam, Isis and the Iranian regime.”

He had added: “So, it is a major evil in the world, we do have to combat it, but we don’t do what Trump did and say all Muslims should be shut out of the country. That’s draconian, that’s illiberal, inhumane and wicked. I am against Islam not least because of the unpleasant effects it has on the lives of Muslims.”

It’s ironic that he’s criticising Trump when he’s doing the same thing as the US President – alienate a group of people.

Even as one agrees, with Dawkins’ criticism of Islam and other religions, and the fact that global liberalism’s blind spot includes giving the more radical tenets of Islam a wide pass, Dawkins weighing up two religious practises on ‘cultural reasons’, appears like an attempt to malign a group of people.

Even though Dawkins has always claimed that his political views are ‘left-wing’, no wonder he is an alt-right hero with his views on rape and paedophilia. The man who claims to be a feminist has actually compared getting raped to ‘drunk driving’, and has said that ‘mild paedophilia’ doesn’t cause ‘lasting damage’.

At times his ‘criticism’ of religion, appears less like criticism and more like the work of agent provocateur - a la Milo Yiannopoulos -  to stay in the news. Sadly, the man who is vehemently described as Darwin’s bulldog for his opposition to creationism isn’t above dog-whistle racism when it suits his agenda. As they say, never follow your heroes on Twitter.