Meet the new Boss...Same as the Old Boss

Theo Hobson, writing for the Guardian, has some interesting thoughts about Richard Dawkins:

The truth is that Dawkins does not want equal rights; he wants what he says that the Jewish lobby has: disproportionate influence. If atheists had more political power, "the world would be a better place". He wants the gospel of atheism to spread; he wants it to change the culture.

I have been chided in the past for referring to the "militant" atheism of Dawkins and his like. But the desire for one's creed to spread, in order to make the world a better place, surely merits the label. Atheists reply that there is nothing dangerous or sinister in the desire to see more rationality, less superstition. Really? Dawkins was asked what he hoped an atheist bloc in the US might achieve, and this is the first part of the answer he gave: "I would free children of being indoctrinated with the religion of their parents or their community." Is this not amazing? I have seldom read a sentence that has induced such a sharp shiver of revulsion. This man evidently dreams of a state in which it is illegal to take one's children to a place of worship, or to say prayers with them as one puts them to bed.

The dreams of folks like Dawkins have inspired many over the centuries, inlcuding the likes of Lenin, Stalin, and others who would have the state mandate what you can, and what you cannot, offer up in the interest of the common good. The results of following up on such dreams have inevitably been far worse for the common good than following up on the theistic dream.