Dawkins: Dawkins stumped on tape? "Creationist deception

Bob Carling (carling@tcp.co.uk)
Mon, 28 Sep 1998 12:08:01 +0100

I read the article referred to below with a heavy heart. It tells the story
of an Australian TV crew who interviewed Richard Dawkins in June earlier
this year at his home in Oxford. It seems that the crew misled Dawkins as
to their intentions and the footage gained has now been misused to imply
that Dawkins was 'stumped' for an answer to a question about evolution. He
and fellow atheists are livid, hence the posting by John Catalano below.

As the article was published in 'The Skeptic', it is not surprising that it
is fairly anti-Christian in stance. However, to use footage obtained
deceitfully to then imply that Dawkins cannot answer questions about
evolution (which is what the article says happened) is no way to
communicate the love of Christ. If we claim as Christians to worship the
God of truth....

Do please read the article itself and then pray about this. Potentially
much damage can be done by Christians who do this sort of thing. Such blind
attacking of 'evolutionists' is far away from the model of St Paul in
Athens (Acts 17). There is a great opportunity for true _dialogue_ between
Christians and Dawkins (and other atheists) - such dialogue will be
thwarted by such appalling behaviour. Let's hope and pray that as Dawkins
launches his new book (see separate email about this) that ill-informed
people will not 'attack' Dawkins but seek to show him the love of Christ.

Bob Carling

>X-Authentication-Warning: maxwell.kumo.com: major-ii set sender to
owner-rdawkins@secular.org using -f
>Date: Sat, 26 Sep 1998 00:25:04 -0400
>From: "John Catalano" <catalj@spacelab.net>
>X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.04 [en] (Win95; I)
>To: MAILING LIST for the World of Richard Dawkins <rdawkins@secular.org>
>Subject: Dawkins: Dawkins stumped on tape? "Creationist deception exposed" !
>Sender: owner-rdawkins@secular.org
>
>Did creationists really stump Richard Dawkins on tape? A story of video
>forgery and "telling lies for God"...
>
>"Creationist deception exposed" by Barry Williams
>
>Published in "the Skeptic', Vol 18, No 3 (Sept 1998). "The Skeptic" is
>the national journal of the Australian Skeptics.
>
>http://www.spacelab.net/~catalj/deception_exposed.htm
>
>--
>John Catalano + catalj@spacelab.net + New York, USA
>'The World of Richard Dawkins' + http://www.spacelab.net/~catalj/
>
>Believe...Elieve...Evlieve...Evlive...Evolive...Evolve!
>
>

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Dr R.C.J. Carling, Senior Publishing Manager
National Publishing
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