Famed
evolutionary biologist and atheist leader Richard Dawkins reportedly
said this week that “nice Christians” and “nice Muslims” might actually
be making the “world safe for extremists.”
While speaking at the Edinburgh International Book Festival in the U.K.
on Wednesday, Dawkins apparently claimed that moderates inadvertently
contribute to faith-fueled fundamentalism and extremism.
“It’s very important that we should not demonize ordinary, law-abiding,
very decent Muslims which of course is the vast majority in this
country,” Dawkins said, according to the Telegraph.
Dawkins went on to say that moderate religious people who are kind
create the notion that “there’s something good about religion” and that
there are benefits to bringing children up to embrace theological
ideals. He such such a notion leads people to believe in something
without having evidence or the need to offer justification.
“They’re entitled simply to say ‘oh that’s my faith, I believe it,
you’re not allowed to question it and you’re not allowed to ask me why
I hold it,” he continued.

“Once
you teach people that that’s a legitimate reason for believing
something then you as it were give a license to the extremists who say,
‘My belief is that I’m supposed to be a suicide bomber or I’m supposed
to blow up buildings — it’s my faith and you can’t question that,’” he
added, according to the Telegraph.
Dawkins also told the audience during the same appearance that he
wasn’t always the outspoken atheist activist he is now. In fact, when
he was 13 years old (alias,
Wormwood),
he prayed regularly and sought God out over a two-year period, the
Guardian reported.
“I was briefly seduced by it and took it all in and would pray very
vigorously every night,” Dawkins said.
The atheist leader recently came under fire for tweets about “date
rape,” “stranger rape,” “mild pedophilia” and “violent pedophilia.”
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