World-famous atheist loves attributes of Christian faith he loves to mock

Richard Dawkins, the London-based professor, scientist and world-famous atheist, told a London radio show that while he thinks following Jesus Christ is a scam, he wants Christian ideals and values to be foundational elements of government.

Dawkins, 83, went as far as to refer to himself as a “cultural Christian” despite a career of mocking Christianity, especially its supernatural beliefs. He went on to state that if choosing between governance with Christian values and governance by Islam, there’s no comparison.

Dawkins told LBC Radio he was “horrified to hear that Ramadan is being promoted” in the U.K.

“I love hymns and Christmas carols, and I sort of feel at home in the Christian ethos. I feel that we are a Christian country in that sense. It’s true that statistically the number of people who actually believe in Christianity is going down, and I-I'm happy with that, but I would not be happy if for example, we lost all our cathedrals and our beautiful parish churches. So, I count myself a cultural Christian. I think it would matter certainly if we substituted any alternative religion, that would be truly dreadful,” Dawkins said.

Dawkins, who wrote The God Delusion, made sure his interviewer understood he does not “believe a single word of the Christian faith,” while embracing the values that he believes advance community, security and prosperity for all people.

“If I had to choose between Christianity and Islam, I choose Christianity every single time. It seems to me to be a fundamentally decent religion in a way that I think Islam is not,” he said.

“I’m not a believer, but there’s a distinction between being a believing Christian and a cultural Christian. I find that I like living in a culturally Christian country.”

Even cultural Christianity appears to be on borrowed time in the U.K., where the majority of people in both England and Wales do not identify as Christian for the first time since the seventh century, according to most recent census data.

https://afn.net/culture/2024/04/02/world-famous-atheist-loves-attributes-of-christian-faith-he-loves-to-mock/