The God Delusion ... again

... and again I find myself agreeing with Richard Dawkins:
"... If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed ... If you agree that, in the absence of God, you would 'commit robbery, rape and murder', you reveal yourself as an immoral person ..." (The God Delusion, pp.226-7).

Dawkins goes on to summarise the Old Testament, and asks what moral messages can possibly be found in the tales to be found there of (e.g.) God drowning all of humanity apart from one family, God turning Lot's wife into salt, God asking Abraham to sacrice Isaac, God demanding the slaughter of all Israel's enemies ...

Then he turns his attention to the New Testament and, after acknowledging that Jesus' moral teaching was rather more palatable than that of His ancestors, Dawkins lambasts the masochism and injustice of such doctrines as Original Sin and Penal Substitution.

So far so good. But the Christianity he describes is almost medieval. I know very few Christians who behave or believe as Dawkins has stereotyped us.

I think maybe one of the differences is that I am reading Dawkins because I want to understand him, and others like him. I am interested in his opinions, and I find them stimulating, even challenging. I might even learn something from them. But Dawkin's own 'religion' - Darwinism - seems to lead him to believe that he because he is right, therefore anyone who disagrees with him must be wrong. (Some fundamentalism Christians - the very ones criticised by Dawkins -are just like that!)