'Snob' Dawkins won't debate with islanders who observe the Sabbath
Richard Dawkins, the "celebrity atheist", has been described as an elitist snob for turning down an invitation to debate with members of the Free Church of Scotland during a visit to one of Britain's most God-fearing communities.
Richard Dawkins is the author of The Selfish Gene and The God Delusion Photo: REX FEATURES
Stornoway harbour on the Isle of Lewis Photo: Photolibrary,com
By Auslan Cramb,, Scottish Correspondent
1:09PM BST 20 Aug 2012
The evolutionary biologist has put a previously unsung arts event on the map by agreeing to act as the headline speaker at the Faclan book festival in Stornoway.
He will give a lecture at the event in Stornoway on November 2 on his 2006 book, The God Delusion, which argues that belief in a supernatural creator is irrational and harmful to society.
His appearance, in front of an audience of 200, is a guaranteed sell-out despite calls from one religious group for a boycott. The speaker before Prof Dawkins, the theologian and philosopher Keith Ward, will put the opposite point of view in a talk entitled "Why There Almost Certainly is a God".
However, Prof Dawkins has angered his many critics on the islands of Lewis and Harris - where the Sabbath is strictly observed and shops and leisure facilities are closed on a Sunday - by turning down the offer of a debate with the "Wee Frees" in their Hebridean heartland.
The Rev Iver Martin, minister of Stornoway Free Church, welcomed the visit and said the church endorsed "freedom of discussion and the exchange of argument".
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He added: "However, with Richard Dawkins presenting a particularly one-sided narrative, I would hope that there would be opportunity for fair, even handed, reasoned debate at which both sides of the theistic argument can be heard."
Mr Dawkins told a local newspaper that debates made good drama, but did not make for good understanding.
He added: "How amusing to find I am now being urged to take part in a debate. Fine if your goal is to grandstand, no good if it is to educate. I shall not be taking part in any debate while I am on Lewis.
"If your case depends on pulpit-style oratory, manipulating the emotions of your audience and playing with words, debates will probably work for you very well. They do not, however, work for explaining science."
He said the region had a reputation for solid faith, but added: "If that were really so, you might think it would be able to take a simple talk by an evolutionary scientist in its stride."
He also criticised the Lord's Day Observance Society, which called for a boycott, saying: "It is one thing to stay away yourself, but to call for other people to stay away just because you want to stay away yourself, that sounds perilously close to bigotry. Or is it desperation?"
The Rev David Robertson, a Free Church minister in Dundee, said Prof Dawkins was "not a coward" but and "elitist snob who once told me he would consider debating with me if I was the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Pope or Chief Rabbi".
He added: "Dawkins considers, like so many of his fellow new atheists, that there is no debate and they, and they alone, have the truth.
"Ironically, such arrogance and intolerance of others is the very definition of the fundamentalism that Dawkins professes to hate. I suspect that Richard Dawkins's problem is that he is not a good debater."
Roddy Murray, director of Faclan, said Prof Dawkins was "one of the greatest scientists and thinkers of our time" and it was misleading to suggest that everyone on Lewis had strong religious convictions.
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