Christian Soldiers
Tony Blair often brings out the very worst in people.
For some reason fellow citizens - who seem normal and otherwise intelligent - lose the plot and start to howl at the moon.
As if the former Labour leader is the cause of all life's trials and tribulations.
The same is true of Richard Dawkins - the country's most famous atheist - a polite and mild mannered man who pulls no punches in his views about God and organised religion.
But for reasons known only to themselves - Dawkins seems to send true believers into a wild and violent rage.
In which they lose all self-control and compare the professor - and like minded supporters - to Nazis and stormtroopers - and accuse him of being in league with a devil that he doesn't even believe in - in the first place.
Witness this incredible diatribe from the Giles Coren - a journalist of sorts - who was sent to a private boarding school in London and seems never to have forgiven his parents - for turning their backs on organised Judaism.
"For I am a churchgoing Jew. A Judaeo-Christian in its most literal sense. I am so not an atheist that I have not one religion but two. And when Richard Dawkins, the Nerd King, preening master of self-promotion, slippery old silver fox, “disco don” of the Dark Side, God-slayer and pompous champion of the Atheist Delusion, got all tangled up trying to deliver the subtitle of The Origin of Species on the Today programme last week, I was beside myself with glee, like almost everyone in Britain apart from Lucifer himself (who couldn’t believe he’d failed to drill Dawkins on that one in the practice runs . . .).
Dawkins, in his sour, power-crazed, demagogic old age is bringing more than a whiff of Nuremberg to his definitions. Standing there at the temple doors, counting numbers, taking names, telling people who and what they are. Going on the radio to mock believers with word games (and then coming a cropper himself, as fools do).
He should go screw himself. This is England, we have an established Church, and there is one on every corner. They’re a bit like pubs in that respect (though that may not be exactly what the Queen was trying to say). Anyone who wants to can go in for a drink. But nobody has to get drunk, unless they want to. And it’s not for Darth Dawkins and his geek stormtroopers to tell you whether or not you are an alcoholic."
Methinks the young man protests too much - he should lie down in a dark room for a while and perhaps seek some therapy - for his anger towards his parents.
I quite admire Richard Dawkins - he is about as far from being an aggressive 'militant' as it's possible to get.
Yet his rational analysis of the world around him - seems to send poor, troubled souls like Giles Coren into a complete spin.
All Richard Dawkins does is to point out that there is no rational basis for believing in a supreme being - and that the place of organised religion in our society is completely overblown - as it is in many others as well.
In years gone by Richard Dawkins would have been murdered for holding and voicing his beliefs - perhaps at the stake.
And I get the sense that people like Giles Coren - would be first in the queue to light a match.
