By [UPDATE - REPLY FROM CRANMER]
Added: Mon, 01 Feb 2010 00:00:00 UTC

Thanks to Grania for the link.
If you are unfamiliar with English history take a look at the Wikipedia entry for Archbishop Cranmer. Basically the archbishop who legitimized the break by Henry the VIII with the Roman Catholic church. Later tried and executed for treason and heresy by Mary I who was catholic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Cranmer

http://archbishop-cranmer.blogspot.com/2010/01/should-richard-dawkins-be-arrested-for.html

‘And the Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Dawkins, that there is none like him upon the earth, a perfect and upright man, one that obsesseth ad nauseam about the non-existence of God, and escheweth all reason?’

With apologies to Job, is there a man on earth more obsessed with establishing beyond doubt the non-existence of that which does not exist than Professor Richard Dawkins?

Cranmer was asked during the week to fisk/respond to Professor Dawkins’ rant in The Times, but it is hardly worth it. He displays a sub-GCSE level of comprehension of theology and an utterly simplistic caricature of religious philosophy. If one were to critique evolutionary biology in such crass terms, Professor Dawkins would be the first to dismiss one as being an intellectually deficient ignoramus.

Yet it is a provocative piece of writing, inciteful even, for he appears to presume that the Revd. Pat Robertson is the archetypal Christian, and lauds him for his adherence to Christian orthodoxy.

What fate would befall Cranmer if he equated all Muslims with the ‘obnoxious’ Osama Bin Laden?

What persecution and injustice would he endure of he criticised the Qur’an; parodied the ‘nauseating’ and ‘barbaric’ teachings which emanated from the ‘nasty human mind’ of Mohammed; or said the ‘entire religion is founded on an obsession’ with killing the infidel? What if he mocked the ‘moral depravity’ of the ‘be-frocked and bleating’ imams; lampooned the ‘odious doctrine’ of Allah; or denigrated the sincerely-held beliefs of the ‘faux-anguished hypocrites’ who constitute the ummah?

Might he find himself in court, like Geert Wilders, accused of inciting hatred for daring to articulate a religious opinion?
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[UPDATE]
A reply from "Cranmer" on Richard's post.

A response to Richard Dawkins

http://archbishop-cranmer.blogspot.com/2010/02/response-to-richard-dawkins.html

Cranmer has been accused of all manner of nasty and hurtful things by the loyal disciples of Professor Richard Dawkins; even of rabid censorship on the grounds that so many of the contributions on the previous Dawkins post were ‘supportive’ of His Grace’s position.

No contributions have been censored (other than one anonymous two-liner of foul language), but doubtless the false allegation and numerous accusations of cowardice and ineptitude give them a superior degree of self-satisfied comfort.

Even the Professor himself appears to have expected that his letter might be censored.

God forbid.

Not upon this blog anyway, which appears is fast-becoming the last bastion of unfettered religio-political speech in the United Kingdom.

Professor Dawkins’ letter appears to be genuine, for he himself has said so. He will have to forgive His Grace for his doubting cynicism: when the White House emailed His Grace à propos of nothing, it took him a little while to realise that it was genuine; after all, Lambeth Palace has never bothered to write, and neither has Her Majesty's Leader of the Oppposition, let alone Number 10. So one might understand and excuse a little skepiticism when someone visits who purports to be the eminent and distinguished Richard Dawkins.

But the good Professor has been timing His Grace on the passing hours it has taken to respond (which is a little unfair, for His Grace does not have an abundantly-funded foundation behind him). Cranmer is content to respond to the Professor's series of comments and questions thus:
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TAGGED: COMMENTARY, RELIGION, RICHARD DAWKINS

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