Richard Dawkins: God a 'bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser'
In The God Delusion, Dawkins describes God as "jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully".
During a discussion at the BBC's Re:Think religion festival in Salford on Wednesday, Lord Sacks claimed the remarks were based on centuries of prejudice.
Dawkins insisted the passage was intended to be humorous. But Lord Sacks replied: "There are Christian atheists and Jewish atheists, you read the Bible in a Christian way. Christianity has an adversarial way of reading what it calls the Old Testament – it has to because it says 'we've gone one better, we have a New Testament'.
"So you come prejudiced against what you call the Old Testament and that's why I did not read the opening to...
Dr. Jason Lisle | 6/1/2005
