I can understand the intellectual point that Dawkins is trying to make, and indeed he offers an example of what he means, which he offers in the article
"‘There are shades of being abused by a priest, and I quoted an example of a woman in America who wrote to me saying that when she was seven years old she was sexually abused by a priest in his car.
‘At the same time a friend of hers, also seven, who was of a Protestant family, died, and she was told that because her friend was Protestant she had gone to Hell and will be roasting in Hell forever.
‘She told me of those two abuses, she got over the physical abuse; it was yucky but she got over it.
‘But the mental abuse of being told about Hell, she took years to get over."
However, I think that attempting to censor or restrict the right of parents to raise their children within a framework of sincerely held beliefs or convictions would be both immoral and also impracticable.
If a parent has a sincerely held belief that their religion, or their brand of politics offers their children the potential for greater happiness, or eternal life after death, or greater benefits to you as an individual, or greater benefits to society as a whole - Do we have the ethical right to demand that they refrain from passing these on? And, practically speaking, since such beliefs and convictions can subconsciously colour your approach to life, how can you not pass on such values, at least subliminally? How would society enforce such censorship and restriction?
Society has to confine itself purely to what is taught in schools, I think. Secular schools should steer clear of religion. Nor do i think parents should have the right to exempt their children from certain aspects of education - I am thinking principally of sex and relationship education here- on either religious or political grounds.
I also have issues with religious schools - i see them as detrimental and divisive to society- but again, it is a free society, a democracy, and we do have freedom of religion, so it would be impracticable to ban them.
@O_G You are obviously perfectly entitled to your opinions. But upon what do you base the assertion that his book ,the God Delusion, lacks argument and rebuttal? Can you offer us an actual example where he states something without offering some evidence or argument for that statement?
You also said this; "How about while he's having a go at reasonable folk with reasonable beliefs, especially after explicitly saying mere pages before that he's not ? "
What do you mean? Can you offer an example?
Lots of people got very annoyed by his book. Many get very annoyed by his tone. Almost without exception, those annoyed are those who have a religious conviction which they feel Dawkins has trampled upon.
I saw very little in his book that would raise the blood pressure. If you have examples of factual inaccuracies or claims he has made, I would be very interested in reading them.
We need more people like Dawkins, challenging the influence of religious belief on our societies, not less, in my opinion....