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Dawkins praises the Christian values that make his UK lifestyle the envy of much of the world. But rejecting Christian belief while holding onto its values is illogical, contradictory and has consequences – and he knows it.

This week, Richard Dawkins made an appearance on the UK radio station Leading Britain’s Conversation (LBC).

The topic of conversation? The role of Christianity in British life. It began by acknowledging the fact that it was Easter. Yet Ramadan decorations were hung in central London streets.

A fact that makes Dawkins “slightly horrified”.

“I do think we are culturally a Christian country”, he responds. “And I call myself a cultural Christian.”

“I love hymns and Christmas carols. I feel at home in the Christian ethos. I feel that we are a Christian country in that sense.”

Dawkins Dislikes Biblical Christianity, But Disdains Islam More

Some comments posted on YouTube clearly did not understand what Dawkins meant.

He has not toned down his disdain for biblical Christianity, as some claimed.

He states point blank, “It’s true that statistically, the number of people who actually believe in Christianity is going down – and I’m happy with that.”

“But I would not be happy if, for example, we lost all our cathedrals and beautiful parish churches.”

Dawkins is perceptive and honest enough to know that much that is good in public life in the UK is due to Christianity.

And on this point, he is dead right.

Christianity has been the greatest force for good the world has ever known. The ideas of equality of all people, the value of the individual, medicine, science, education, literacy and democracy – to name but a few – all have deeply Christian roots.

It is in this vein he states, “So I count myself a cultural Christian. I think it would matter if we substituted any alternative religion – that would be truly dreadful.”

When interview host Rachel Johnson asked Richard about the erection of mosques around Europe – with 6000 currently under construction – the answer was clear and provocative.

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

Dawkins’ Cultural Christian Contradiction

Dawkins knows his ‘good life’ is due to the historic role of Christianity. And so he reveals, “I find that I like to live in a culturally Christian country, although I do not believe a single word of the Christian faith.”

“I must emphasise that the things Christians believe are actually nonsense.”

However, it is Dawkins’ wishful thinking that you can have cultural Christianity without Christianity that is nonsense.

The reason is that our beliefs drive and dictate our behaviour. If I believe that all humans are made in the image of God (Gen 1:26) and therefore intrinsically valuable, I will tend to treat people well. Behaviour will be modelled around “loving my neighbour as myself” (Mark 12:31).

Dawkins wants Christian values but rejects the beliefs. That is illogical, inconsistent and contradictory.

The Babylon Bee brilliantly pointed this out when it satirically reported Dawkins had donned a WWJD bracelet. In the Bee’s imagined interview, Richard made the following feeble attempt to deny he was contradicting his atheist views by wearing his WWJD bracelet.

“While this bracelet asks what Jesus would do, I am only prompting mankind to ask itself, ‘What would this fictional character named Jesus do in a metaphorical sense to promote decent behaviour for the betterment of humanity?’ Unfortunately, WWTFCNJDIAMSTPDBFTBOH is too cumbersome for a bracelet.”

Morality and Atheism’s Moral Void

The average secular punter naïvely believes that there are such things as right and wrong that objectively exist – but belief in God be damned.

Dawkins is under no such delusion. He knows full well what atheism means.

If the atheist worldview was true, then there is no absolute moral authority (i.e. God). Right and wrong is whatever humans claim and declare it to be.

Morality itself is an objective fiction. The human consciousness is simply an evolved biological tool to aid survival. Nothing more.

In this atheistic worldview, humans are mere animals. And their brains operate by the fixed laws of nature. There is no free will. How can there be? There is no soul/spirit independent of the body that ‘acts’.

‘Bad’ behaviour is explained that humans are defective. In the same way that a car might be defective – and we don’t hold it morally accountable – the same is true with humans.

“Instead of beating the car, we would investigate the problem”, states Dawkins. “Why do we not react in the same way to a defective man: a murderer, say, or a rapist?”, he asks.

To put it another, but horrendously graphic way, the ‘good’ feeling a person receives from serving at a soup kitchen is no different from the ‘good’ feeling the rapist receives during his heinous ‘crime’. Both examples are simply biological reactions inside a person’s animalistically wired brain.

There’s no right or wrong in the atheist universe.

Dawkins knows it. He proclaims it.

But he doesn’t like it.

Welcome to atheism’s moral void.

Dawkins and the ‘Terrible’ Decline in Christianity

Dawkins’ consistency in proclaiming an atheistically morally void world is inexplicably matched by his inconsistency in proclaiming that some things are, after all, ‘terrible’.

In response to the question, “Would it be a good thing or a bad thing if we became a less Christian country?”, Dawkins is crystal clear.

“No, I think it would be a terrible thing. In so far as Christianity can be seen as a bulwark against Islam, I think it’s a very good thing. In Africa, for example, where you have missionaries of both faiths operating, I’m on team Christian as far as that’s concerned.”

Does moral ‘good’ actually exist, Richard? Which universe do we actually live in? Because it sounds very much, now, that we live in the Christian moral one.

The Real Interview Shocker?

At the end of the interview, the host referenced a time when she went to church. Her son (who was with her) asked the priest, “Do you know Jesus to be true, or do you believe Jesus to be true?”

The priest couldn’t answer the question.

Biblically, the answer is both. The word ‘belief’ in the New Testament means ‘trust’ – and proper trust is built upon a trustworthy source. It requires and demands evidence.

A good illustration of ‘faith’ is sitting on a wooden stool. We see the chair. We can feel it. We can measure it and size it up. From there, we either trust (believe) that it will hold our weight – or we don’t. And we make our decision accordingly.

In 1 John, the apostle John writes that his teaching was based on “what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have observed and have touched with our hands” (1 John 1:1).

Christianity is true because the accounts in the Bible really happened. The events of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, for example, were witnessed by hundreds of people (1 Cor 15:6). And many of them paid the price of their faith in a hostile world with their lives.

Christians both know and believe that Jesus is the true Messiah of Israel and Saviour of the world. We know it as fact and trust in its trustworthy claims.

The fact that the priest couldn’t answer such a basic question reveals why the Church is in such decline in parts of Europe – and Australia.

Such priests and their supporters are closer to the cultural Christianity of Dawkins than the true, biblical Christianity of Jesus and his first followers.

And that is the real, hard truth that Christians must take from the interview if biblical, missional Christianity is going to survive in the West.

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Photo by Wikimedia Commons.