Say what you will about prominent biologist Richard Dawkins , he is an equal-opportunity offender when it comes to doling out harsh criticism of religion.
Dawkins, a bit of a celebrity atheist, was the subject of criticism this week for a few controversial tweets about Islam posted at the tail-end of Ramadan . One tweet, singled out as particularly offensive, said “All the world’s Muslims have fewer Nobel Prizes than Trinity College, Cambridge. They did great things in the Middle Ages, though.”
On The O’Reilly Factor, guest Greg Gutfeld mocked the vitriolic reaction from liberal thinkers to Dawkins’s tweets, saying that he often criticizes Christianity without being chastised. He attributed the liberal rush to defend Islam to a fear of violent backlash from extremist sects.
Further, “There must be thousands of tweets like this about Christianity from every comedian,” Gutfeld said, implying that no one (outside of, perhaps, Christians) reacts the same way when a non-Muslim religion is criticized.
Cathy Areu suggested that Christians are merely “fair game” because they are the majority. She also said that Dawkins’ tweet was “very tacky” and noted that he’s actually going out of his way to defend his comments .
Gutfeld shrugged, and simply said that liberals defend Islam “because they don’t want to die.”
Do you think that there’s a double standard in our culture when it comes to defending Islam from its critics? Watch the clip of Gutfeld discussing Richard Dawkins below, via Mediaite :
[Image: Wikimedia Commons ]
