Dawkins

I recently listened to Richard Dawkin's The God Delusion while I commuted to work. Generally, he was on solid ground in rejecting religion. However, I was a bit annoyed by an attitude of smug liberalism. I didn't detect this attitude in Hitchen's more eloquent and witty God is Not Great. Dawkins tend to tow the left-wing line in everything. In his discussion of abortion, he kept referring to a embryo, never a fetus, in order to minimize the horror of killing one's own unborn offspring. At least Hitchens attacked the most ardent feminists who insist on the right to abortion on demand. While Dawkins says that birth is the most logical point to grant the right to life, sonograms show the human form of late term fetuses. How much difference is there between a third trimester fetus and a newly born baby? I think that there are reasons to dislike abortion that are not based in religion. I know of atheists who are either totally opposed to abortion such as Nat Hentoff or at least uncomfortable with it such as Hitchens.

Dawkins also paints a picture of America that is on the brink of becoming a theocracy. While certainly religion plays an important role here, I just don't recognize this caricature as my country. Maybe because I'm on the east coast near a big city but I just don't feel that threatened by any would be American theocrats.