Atheist Richard Dawkins is once again stirring the decency pot with Twitter comments about rape and pedophilia.
“Offensive” and “damaging” are the words spokespeople for victims of abuse are using to describe the 73-year-old’s words about what he deems logical thinking.
“Date rape is bad. Stranger rape at knifepoint is worse. If you think that’s an endorsement of date rape, go away and learn how to think,” he tweeted.
“Mild pedophilia is bad. Violent pedophilia is worse. If you think that’s an endorsement of pedophilia, go away and learn how to think,” he continued in another tweet.
“Stealing £1 is bad. Stealing an old lady’s life savings is worse. How DARE you rank them? Stealing is stealing. You’re vile, appalling,” he said in another tweet.
After a barrage of backlash from other Twitter uses to his exercise in logical thinking, the professor bowed out of the social-media debate with a final tweet:
“What I have learned today is that there are people on Twitter who think in absolutist terms, to an extent I wouldn’t have believed possible.”
“What staggers me is that for such a self-proclaimed intelligent man to even talk in these terms is to completely miss the point,” Peter Saunders, chief executive of the National Association for People Abused in Childhood, told the Daily Mail.”There is no such thing as mild or serious pedophilia. There is child abuse, and the consequence for the victim is that they can be scarred for life.”
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