Pre-eminent atheist Richard Dawkins said on Easter Sunday that he identifies as a “cultural Christian” and that he prefers to live in a country based on Christian principles and would not want the UK to become an Islamic nation.
Emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford and God Delusion author Richard Dawkins said that he identifies with Christian society and that he would choose it over other countries based around other faiths, namely Islamic nations.
Speaking to LBC Radio’s Rachel Johnson — the sister of former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson — Dawkins said on Sunday that he was “slightly horrified” that Ramadan lights were put up in London instead of Easter ones.
“I do think that we are a culturally Christian country, I call myself a cultural Christian. I’m not a believer, but there is a distinction between being a believing Christian and being a cultural Christian. I love hymns and Christmas carols. I sort of feel at home in the Christian ethos. I feel that we are a Christian country.
Dawkins noted that the number of Christians is declining in the UK, which he said he is “happy with”, but said that he would lament the loss of cathedrals and other cultural aspects of living in a Christian country.
“I think it would matter, certainly if we substituted any other religion, that would be truly dreadful.”
When pressed by Johnson on whether he saw the decline in church attendance and the increasing numbers of Islamic mosques being built across Europe as a problem, the professor said: “Yes I do”.
Stating that he would have to choose his words “carefully” — perhaps in light of the attack on fellow New Atheist Salmon Rushdie in 2022 by a radical Islamist — Dawkins said: “If I had to choose between Christianity and Islam, I would choose Christianity every single time”.
“It seems to be a fundamentally decent religion that I think Islam is not,” he added.
Questioned as to what he felt was indecent about the Muslim faith, Dawkins said: “There is an active hostility to women which is promoted, which I think, is promoted by the holy books of Islam… I’m not talking about individual Muslims, who are quite different.
“But the doctrines of Islam, the Hadiths and the Qur’an are fundamentally hostile to women, hostile to gays and I find that I like to live in a culturally Christian country although I do not believe a single word of the Christian faith.”