Richard Dawkins, the prominent atheist and author of The God Delusion, claimed on Twitter today that some types of rape and paedophilia as "worse" than others.
He began his Twitter tirade to his 980,000 followers by saying that you can compare and rank the severity of a crime, but still endorse neither. He added that if you disagree with this, you're not "logically" thinking.
X is bad. Y is worse. If you think that's an endorsement of X, go away and don't come back until you've learned how to think logically.
Next, Dawkins used paedophilia as an example to prove his point. Dawkins did not clarify what he considers "mild" or "violent".
Mild pedophilia is bad. Violent pedophilia is worse. If you think that's an endorsement of mild pedophilia, go away and learn how to think.
He then went on to use rape as an example, saying that "stranger rape" is worse than "date rape", but adds that he is not endorsing either.
Date rape is bad. Stranger rape at knifepoint is worse. If you think that's an endorsement of date rape, go away and learn how to think.
At this point, Twitter users began requesting that Dawkins “provide a list categorising the severity of rapes".
"Mild date rape is bad. Violent date rape is worse." Is it really so hard to understand that that doesn't constitute endorsement of either?
Please, stop talking about rape.
Yes, I can imagine circumstances where rape by a friend is worse than by a stranger. The logic remains. It doesn't imply approval of either.
Dawkins emphasised that what he is doing is merely ranking the severity of a crime on a scale.
Yes yes, you rank X and Y differently. Fine. Whichever you rank as worse, it is still illogical to interpret that as approval of the other.
He ended the tirade by saying that it is just a "matter of opinion."
Whether X or Y is worse is a matter of opinion. But it is a matter of LOGIC that to express that opinion doesn't mean you approve of either.
Dawkins then began retweeting tweets from people who agreed with his thinking, although this summary received almost 1,000 re-tweets:
Confused as to how to respond to Richard Dawkins' latest claims? Try this handy flow chart. #Dawkins