In a recent interview with the Times magazine, Richard Dawkins attempted to defend what he called "mild pedophilia," which, he says, he personally experienced as a young child and does not believe causes "lasting harm."
Dawkins went on to say that one of his former school masters "pulled me on his knee and put his hand inside my shorts," and that to condemn this "mild touching up" as sexual abuse today would somehow be unfair.
"I am very conscious that you can't condemn people of an earlier era by the standards of ours. Just as we don't look back at the 18th and 19th centuries and condemn people for racism in the same way as we would condemn a modern person for racism, I look back a few decades to my childhood and see things like caning, like mild pedophilia, and can't find it in me to condemn it by the same standards as I or anyone would today," he said.
Plus, he added, though his other classmates also experienced abuse at the hands of this teacher, "I don't think he did any of us lasting harm."
https://www.salon.com/2013/09/10/richard_dawkins_defends_mild_pedophilia_says_it_does_not_cause_lasting_harm/
This is not the first time. Multiple times he has tried to normalize pedophilia.
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/09/richard-dawkins-defends-mild-pedophilia-again-and-again/311230/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1iSxEtgEGs
What the hell is wrong with this man?
Wikipedia on him:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Dawkins
Dawkins has been awarded many prestigious academic and writing awards and he makes regular television, radio and Internet appearances, predominantly discussing his books, his atheism, and his ideas and opinions as a public intellectual.
He has won numerous awards and is known as one of the world's top scientists. Seriously.
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polyhedra ago
He's an atheist. People who don't believe in God tend to think they can do whatever they want.
scarlettm512 ago
I wouldn't say that is true of all atheists (some people just have a hard time accepting something that they cannot see or perceive themselves), but the big selling point for atheism is this idea that morality is not absolute. They like to think that the laws of morality are arbitrary and mere superstition, but the fact of the matter is that society cannot function without morals and ethics. Science itself is amoral. That is what makes it possible to do such marvelous things as find cures for diseases using science while simultaneously doing such horrible things (such as scientific testing on unwitting human subjects, creating biological weapons and weapons of mass destruction). Science used for a moral purpose is exceedingly good. Science with no morals is exceedingly bad. That is why you cannot divorce science and religion (which posits that morality is absolute and not subject to the whims of popular culture), though people like Dawkins would certainly argue that you can.
eucalyptus_spearmint ago
Nicely put. Some of you people with your gifts words, I'm envious! But this is exactly right.