About A Letter to Dr. Dawkins

Dear Viewer:

I hope you arrived here well and ready to contemplate! Thanks for coming.

Richard Dawkins (born 26 March 1941)^[3] is a British evolutionary biologist, zoologist, science communicator, and author, born in Africa.^[4] He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford, and was Professor for Public Understanding of Science in the University of Oxford from 1995 to 2008. His book The Selfish Gene (1976) popularized the gene-centered view of evolution and coined the word meme. Dawkins has won several academic and writing awards.^{[5] - Wikipedia / photo: Salon.com}

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Lady Ferguson^[a] (Somali: Ayaan Xirsi Cali; born 13 November 1969)^[1] is a Somalian-born Dutch-American writer, activist, conservative thinker and former politician.^[2][3][4] She is a critic of Islam and advocate for the rights and self-determination of Muslim women, opposing forced marriage, honour killing, child marriage, and female genital mutilation.^[5] At the age of five, following local traditions in Somalia, Ali underwent female genital mutilation organized by her grandmother. Her father Hirsi Ali Magan—a scholar, intellectual, and a devout Muslim—was against the procedure but could not stop it from happening because he was imprisoned by the Communist government of Somalia at the time.^[6][7] Her family moved across various countries in Africa and the Middle East, and at 23, she received political asylum in the Netherlands, gaining Dutch citizenship five years later.^[8] In her early 30s, Hirsi Ali renounced the Islamic faith of her childhood, began identifying as an atheist, and became involved in Dutch centre-right politics, joining the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD). In 2022 she announced that she had become a Christian.^{[9][10][11] - Wikipedia / photo: wwsg.com}

Here I discuss—while going off on tangents about social media and pay walls (and a few other things), Dr. Richard Dawkins, the eminently erudite and moral Cambridge professor of biology, famous atheist, lecturer and proponent of reason and virtue and his letter, here on Substack, to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the famous human rights activist. He has written to her regarding her apostasy (if one can call it that) from atheism and adoption of Christianity. Specifically, as the subtitle to this video monologue suggests, I address Dr. Dawkins’ use of two words in his letter—spirituality and religion.

I also discuss the merits of declaring oneself a Buddhist—and submitting to—its precepts, if not (as in my case) refraining from accepting the supernatural aspects inherent in some practices of Buddhism an how one can remain an honest atheist at the same time; and I specifically mention how this could benefit Dr. Sam Harris, who seems most of the way there, anyway. Mention is given to Alain de Boton in this endeavor.

And there is more, so I hope you’ll give a listen and comment—and finally, join in supporting my podcast.

Thank you for reading and listening, if you do.

CA
Wheat Ridge, CO