By Hannah Grossman, Maria Lencki
Published April 02, 2024
A famous atheist and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins explained he identifies as a "cultural Christian" in an interview after learning Ramadan lights were hung on a street in the UK as opposed to hanging lights to celebrate Easter.
Dawkins was referring to Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, turning on 30,000 lights for Ramadan – the Muslim holy month – on the cusp of Easter weekend on Oxford Street.
"I must say I'm slightly horrified to hear that Ramadan is being promoted instead," Dawkins said in an interview with Rachel S. Johnson of LBC Sunday. "I feel that we are a Christian country."
"It's true that statistically, the number of people who actually believe in Christianity is going down and I'm happy with that, but I would not be happy if, for example, we lost all our cathedrals and our beautiful parish churches. So, I count myself a cultural Christian. I think it would matter if we... substituted any alternative religion, that would be truly dreadful," he told the media outlet.
ATHEIST RICHARD DAWKINS WARNS AGAINST CELEBRATING THE ALLEGED DEMISE OF CHRISTIANITY IN EUROPE
Richard Dawkins, a famous evolutionary biologist and atheist, said he is a "cultural Christian." (Fox News Digital | Getty)
Dawkins said that if he had to choose between Christianity and Islam, he would choose Christianity "every single time."
"It seems to me to be a fundamentally decent religion in a way that I think Islam is not."
The evolutionary biologist said while he believes Christianity is "not great" about the way women are viewed in terms of female vicars and bishops, he feels the "holy books of Islam" promote "active hostility to women."
"I'm not talking about individual Muslims, who, of course, are all quite different, but the doctrines of Islam, the Hadith and the Quran, it's 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."
Lights and decorations on Oxford Street to celebrate the month of Ramadan, March 2024. (Getty )
The comments were a different tune than the one Dawkins took when he authored an infamous book called "The God Delusion" in 2006, where he ridiculed believers, including Christians.
"To be fair, much of the Bible is not systematically evil but just plain weird," he wrote. "Do those people who hold up the Bible as an inspiration to moral rectitude have the slightest notion of what is actually written in it?"
He also called into question children identifying with the religious homes they were born into.
"Let children learn about different faiths, let them notice their incompatibility, and let them draw their own conclusions about the consequences of that incompatibility. As for whether they are ‘valid,’ let them make up their own minds when they are old enough to do so," he wrote.
"A child is not a Christian child, not a Muslim child, but a child of Christian parents or a child of Muslim parents… A child who is told she is a 'child of Muslim parents' will immediately realize that religion is something for her to choose -or reject- when she becomes old enough to do so," he said.
Richard Dawkins authored "The God Delusion" in 2006 which ridiculed the God of the Bible. (boonchai wedmakawand via Getty Images)
The famed atheist has stirred the pot in the past when he told British journalist Piers Morgan "there are two sexes and that’s all there is to it."
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He called out the "bullies" who criticized "Harry Potter" author J.K. Rowling for commenting that there are only two sexes.
"Sex really is binary," the scientist previously explained. "You’re either male or female, and it’s absolutely clear you can do it on gamete size. You can do it on chromosomes. To me, as a biologist, it’s distinctly weird people can simply declare ‘I am a woman though I have a penis’."
https://www.foxnews.com/media/famous-atheist-says-identifies-cultural-christian-horrified-promotion-islamic-holiday