Richard Dawkins interviewed by John Humphrys on Cardinal Murphy O'Connor

BBC Radio 4

Reposted from BBC.co.uk

BBC Radio 4, 'Today', Friday 9th May 2008,

1. Richard Dawkins interviewed by John Humphrys on Cardinal Murphy O'Connor (3:18, 1.5 MB)

2. BBC Radio News item about Cardinal's speech, in which RD is also quoted and an extract played. (2:01, 948 KB)

3. Cardinal interviewed by John Humphrys (7:51, 3.6 MB)

Richard Dawkins also pointed this out:

In Cardinal Murphy O'Connor's own interview with John Humphrys, he said one remarkable thing. He said that the regimes of Hitler and Stalin were ruled by REASON and that reason leads to terror and oppression. Here is an exact transcript of his words (I've removed the ums and ers, as I hope anybody would do for me in a transcript).

(Click here to listen to the audio of this excerpt) Danger because, if you go just by reason, I think, without faith, without belief in God, you can imagine, for instance in the last century, some of the faith(less), or supposedly faithless societies - people, whether it's like Hitler or Stalin, bringing up - having a country in which, if you like, a God free zone, a dictatorship ruled by reason, and where does it lead? To terror and oppression

We have become accustomed to hearing that Hitler and Stalin were motivated by atheism. But I think this is the first time I have heard any reputable spokesman (a) say that Hitler and Stalin's dictatorships were ruled by reason, and (b) say that reason leads to terror and oppression.

Richard

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Saturday, May 10, 2008