Critique of the God Delusion on the Sanctity of Life - Part 3

So I hope so far you have been able to see that there some reasonable responses to Richard Dawkins on issues referring to the sanctity of human life. I'm going to be honest with you his arguments don't get much better but then he is a Zoologist, maybe Mr Dawkins should stick to animals over writing books against God perhaps?

Is it fair to compare Christians to radical Islamists?

This is an example of one of Mr Dawkins favourite arguments, he takes the example of a select few oddballs such as Randall Terry, whom was the supposed founder of a group known as Operation Rescue and presents his views as the orthodox and accepted view when this is quite clearly wrong . The Pro-Life group Operation Rescue is still going strong however Randall Terry actually left Operation Rescue 18 years ago [see here]. I find it weird and dishonest that Mr Dawkins finds people that even the Christian community acknowledge to be weirdos, quacks and quite unchristian in behaviour and speech as examples and representatives of our views. He then goes onto a rant about how Randall Terry wants to take over America, stating 'This ambition to achieve what can only be called a Christian fascist state is entirely typical of the American Taliban. It is almost exact mirror image of the Islamic fascist state so ardently sought by many people in other parts of the world. Randall Terry is not - yet - in political power.'(The God Delusion, pg's 330-331)

Wow is all I can say. How will someone like Randall Terry ever get into political power? Randall Terry is about as likely to be in political power, as my hamster (If I had one!) is to succeed Kim Jong II as supreme leader in North Korea, so making it appear to his readers that this as even a possibility, even in 2006, is not only dishonest but pure hodgepodge.

So can some 'Christians' views be compared to Radical Islam's?

Well my initial response would be no if your actually talking about Christians who are being consistent with the words of Jesus and Christianity in general. However there are many, many people out there who make the claim to be a Christian yet their behaviour and speech is quite inconsistent with the claim. It seems unfair to tar all Christians with the same brush as those people on the very fringe of the community. People like Randall Terry may use 'Christian' language but their actions and speech are inconsistent with historical and biblical Christianity and one thing is certain, normal people don't don't pick up the New Testament, read the gospels and the epistles and then want to start wars and kill people unless I've seriously missed something somewhere? However yes, there are some people out there who do have some very extreme views and call themselves Christians but they are a fringe and minute percentage of the general Christian populace and nothing on the scale of radical Islam!

Would it be fair of me to bring up the views of Atheist Bio-ethicist Peter Singer and claim that all Atheists want to legalise infanticide? Of course not, yet Richard Dawkins seems to think this is legitimate rational and honest argumentation. I feel another example is needed just to highlight either dishonesty or at least very bad research on his part when addressing the subject of homosexuality he writes about the crazy cat himself Fred Phelps, 'It is easy to write Fred Phelps off as a nut, but he has plenty of support from people and their money. According to his website, Phelps has organized 22,000 anti-homosexual demonstrations since 1991 (that's an average of four per day) in the USA, Canada, Jordan and Iraq...' (The God Delusion, Pgs 328-329).

Well a few quick points as far as I'm aware it's only his own family that go to his church and on his demonstrations with him, so its not exactly a big program and I imagine his only financiers are his congregation..his family. However if your like me when you first read the quote you do get the impression that this is a well supported program with lots of money and people, however this simply isn't true in any sense. Just more baseless rhetoric.