Apostasy ( /əˈpɒstəsi/; Greek: ἀποστασία (apostasia), 'a defection or revolt', from ἀπό, apo, 'away, apart', στάσις, stasis, 'stand, 'standing') is the formal disaffiliation from or abandonment or renunciation of a religion by a person. One who commits apostasy (or who apostatises) is known as an apostate. These terms have a pejorative implication in everyday use. The term apostasy is used by sociologists to mean renunciation and criticism of, or opposition to, a person's former religion, in a technical sense and without pejorative connotation.

The term is sometimes also used metaphorically to refer to renunciation of a non-religious belief or cause, such as a political party, brain trust, or, facetiously, a sports team.

Apostasy is generally not a self-definition^{[citation needed]}: very few former believers call themselves apostates because of the pejorative implications of the term.

Many religious groups and some states punish apostates. Apostates may be shunned by the members of their former religious group^[1] or subjected to formal or informal punishment. This may be the official policy of the religious group or may be the action of its members. Certain types of churches may in certain circumstances excommunicate the apostate, while some religious scriptures demand the death penalty for apostates.

Sociological definitions[link]

The American sociologist Lewis A. Coser (following the German philosopher and sociologist Max Scheler^{[citation needed]}) defines an apostate to be not just a person who experienced a dramatic change in conviction but “a man who, even in his new state of belief, is spiritually living not primarily in the content of that faith, in the pursuit of goals appropriate to it, but only in the struggle against the old faith and for the sake of its negation."^[2][3]

The American sociologist David G. Bromley defined the apostate role as follows and distinguished it from the defector and whistleblower roles.^[3]

• Apostate role: defined as one that occurs in a highly polarized situation in which an organization member undertakes a total change of loyalties by allying with one or more elements of an oppositional coalition without the consent or control of the organization. The narrative is one which documents the quintessentially evil essence of the apostate's former organization chronicled through the apostate's personal experience of capture and ultimate escape/rescue.
• Defector role: an organizational participant negotiates exit primarily with organizational authorities, who grant permission for role relinquishment, control the exit process, and facilitate role transmission. The jointly constructed narrative assigns primary moral responsibility for role performance problems to the departing member and interprets organizational permission as commitment to extraordinary moral standards and preservation of public trust.
• Whistle-blower role: defined here as one in which an organization member forms an alliance with an external regulatory unit through offering personal testimony concerning specific, contested organizational practices that is then used to sanction the organization. The narrative constructed jointly by the whistle blower and regulatory agency is one which depicts the whistle-blower as motivated by personal conscience and the organization by defense of the public interest.

Stuart A. Wright, an American sociologist and author, asserts that apostasy is a unique phenomenon and a distinct type of religious defection, in which the apostate is a defector "who is aligned with an oppositional coalition in an effort to broaden the dispute, and embraces public claims-making activities to attack his or her former group."^[4]

Law[link]

International law[link]

The United Nations Commission on Human Rights, considers the recanting of a person's religion a human right legally protected by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights:

The Committee observes that the freedom to 'have or to adopt' a religion or belief necessarily entails the freedom to choose a religion or belief, including the right to replace one's current religion or belief with another or to adopt atheistic views [...] Article 18.2^[5] bars coercion that would impair the right to have or adopt a religion or belief, including the use of threat of physical force or penal sanctions to compel believers or non-believers to adhere to their religious beliefs and congregations, to recant their religion or belief or to convert.^[6]

Countries[link]

This section requires expansion.

In some countries apostasy from the religion supported by the state is explicitly forbidden. This is largely the case in some states where Islam is the state religion; conversion to Islam is encouraged, conversion from Islam penalised.

• Iran – illegal (death penalty)^[7][8][9]
• Egypt – illegal (death penalty)^[9]
• Pakistan – illegal (death penalty^[9] since 2007)
• United Arab Emirates – illegal (death penalty)^[10]
• Somalia – illegal (death penalty)^[11]
• Afghanistan – illegal (death penalty, although the U.S. and other coalition members have put pressure that has prevented recent executions^[12][13])
• Saudi Arabia – illegal (death penalty, although there have been no recently reported executions)^[9][14]
• Sudan – illegal (death penalty, although there have only been recent reports of torture, and not of execution^{[15] [16]})
• Qatar – illegal (death penalty)^[17]
• Yemen – illegal (death penalty)^[17]
• Malaysia – illegal in five of 13 states (fine, imprisonment, and flogging)^[18][19]
• Mauritania – illegal (death penalty)^{[citation needed]}
• Syria – possibly illegal (death penalty) although there is evidence to the contrary^[20]
• Morocco – illegal to proselytise conversion (15 years jail, flogging)^[21]
• Jordan – possibly illegal (fine, jail, child custody loss, marriage annulment) although officials claim otherwise, convictions are recorded for apostasy.^[22][23][24]

Religions[link]

Indian Religions[link]

Indian religions are generally not exclusivist, different beliefs are permitted and there is no clear-cut concept of heresy or apostasy.

Baha'i[link]

Some Muslims often regard adherents of the Bahá'í faith as apostates from Islam,^[25] and there have been cases in some Muslim countries where Baha'is have been harassed and persecuted.^[26]

Christianity[link]

The Christian understanding of apostasy is "a willful falling away from, or rebellion against, Christian truth. Apostasy is the rejection of Christ by one who has been a Christian....", though many believe that Biblically this is impossible ('once saved, forever saved').^[27] "Apostasy is the antonym of conversion; it is deconversion."^[28] The Greek noun apostasia (rebellion, abandonment, state of apostasy, defection)^[29] is found only twice in the New Testament (Acts 21:21; 2 Thessalonians 2:3).^[30] However, "the concept of apostasy is found throughout Scripture."^[31] The Dictionary of Biblical Imagery states that "There are at least four distinct images in Scripture of the concept of apostasy. All connote an intentional defection from the faith."^[32] These images are: Rebellion; Turning Away; Falling Away; Adultery.^[33]

• Rebellion: "In classical literature apostasia was used to denote a coup or defection. By extension the LXX^[34] always uses it to portray a rebellion against God (Joshua 22:22; 2 Chronicles 29:19)."^[33]

• Turning away: "Apostasy is also pictured as the heart turning away from God (Jeremiah 17:5-6) and righteousness (Ezekiel 3:20). In the OT it centers on Israel's breaking covenant relationship with God though disobedience to the law (Jeremiah 2:19), especially following other gods (Judges 2:19) and practicing their immorality (Daniel 9:9-11). . . . Following the Lord or journeying with him is one of the chief images of faithfulness in the Scriptures. . . . The . . . Hebrew root (swr) is used to picture those who have turned away and ceased to follow God ('I am grieved that I have made Saul king, because he has turned away from me,' 1 Samuel 15:11). . . . The image of turning away from the Lord, who is the rightful leader, and following behind false gods is the dominant image for apostasy in the OT."^[33]

• Falling away: "The image of falling, with the sense of going to eternal destruction, is particularly evident in the New Testament. . . . In his [Christ’s] parable of the wise and foolish builder, in which the house built on sand falls with a crash in the midst of a storm (Matthew 7:24-27) . . . he painted a highly memorable image of the dangers of falling spiritually."^[35]

• Adultery: One of the most common images for apostasy in the Old Testament is adultery.^[36] "Apostasy is symbolized as Israel the faithless spouse turning away from Yahweh her marriage partner to purse the advances of other gods (Jeremiah 2:1-3; Ezekiel 16). . . . 'Your children have forsaken me and sworn by god that are not gods. I supplied all their needs, yet they committed adultery and thronged to the houses of prostitutes' (Jeremiah 5:7, NIV). Adultery is used most often to graphically name the horror of the betrayal and covenant breaking involved in idolatry. Like literal adultery it does include the idea of someone blinded by infatuation, in this case for an idol: 'How I have been grieved by their adulterous hearts . . . which have lusted after their idols' (Ezekiel 6:9)."^[33]

Speaking with specific regards to apostasy in Christianity, Michael Fink writes:

Apostasy is certainly a biblical concept, but the implications of the teaching have been hotly debated.^[37] The debate has centered on the issue of apostasy and salvation. Based on the concept of God's sovereign grace, some hold that, though true believers may stray, they will never totally fall away. Others affirm that any who fall away were never really saved. Though they may have "believed" for a while, they never experienced regeneration. Still others argue that the biblical warnings against apostasy are real and that believers maintain the freedom, at least potentially, to reject God's salvation.^[38]

Islam[link]

In Islam apostasy is called "ridda" ("turning back") and is considered to be a profound insult to God. A person born of Muslim parents who rejects Islam is called a "murtad fitri" (natural apostate), and a person who converted to Islam and later rejects the religion is called a "murtad milli" (apostate from the community).^{[39][unreliable source?]}

According to some scholars, if a Muslim consciously and without coercion declares their rejection of Islam and does not change their mind after the time allocated by a judge for research, then the penalty for male apostates is death, and for women life imprisonment. However, this view has been rejected by modern Muslim scholars (e.g. Hasan al-Turabi), who argue that the hadith in question should be taken to apply only to political betrayal of the Muslim community, rather than to apostasy in general.^[40] These scholars regard apostasy as a serious crime, but argue for the freedom to convert to and from Islam without legal penalty, and consider the aforementioned Hadith quote as insufficient justification for capital punishment. Today apostasy is illegal in most Muslim countries, and subject in some to the death penalty. Executions for apostasy are rare, but allowed in some Muslim countries such as Iran and Saudi Arabia. Apostasy is legal in secular Muslim countries such as Turkey.^[41]

The hadith is quoted both by supporters of the death penalty and critics of Islam. Some Islamic scholars^[who?] point out it is important to understand the hadith in its proper historical context: it was written when the nascent Muslim community in Medina was fighting for its existence, and the enemies of Islam encouraged rebellion and discord within the community.^[42] At that time any defection would have had serious consequences for the Muslims, and the hadith may well be about treason, rather than just apostasy. Under the terms of the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah any Muslim who returned to Mecca was not to be returned, terms which the Prophet accepted.

The Qur'an says:

Let there be no compulsion in the religion: Clearly the Right Path (i.e. Islam) is distinct from the crooked path.

—Qur'an, ^{[Quran 2:256]}

A section of the 'People of the Book' (Jews and Christians) says: "Believe in the morning what is revealed to the believers (Muslims), but reject it at the end of the day; perchance they may (themselves) turn back (from Islam).

—Qur'an, ^{[Quran 3:72]}

But those who reject faith after they accepted it, and then go on adding to their defiance of faith, never will their repentance be accepted; for they are those who have (of set purpose) gone astray.

—Qur'an, ^{[Quran 3:90]}

Those who blasphemed and back away from the ways of Allah and die as blasphemers, Allah shall not forgive them.

—Qur'an, ^{[Quran 4:48]}

^{[citation needed]}

Those who believe, then reject faith, then believe (again) and (again) reject faith, and go on increasing in unbelief, – Allah will not forgive them nor guide them on the way.

—Qur'an, ^{[Quran 4:137]}

O ye who believe! If any from among you turn back from his faith, soon will Allah produce a people whom He (Allah) will love as they will love Him lowly with the believers, Mighty against the rejecters, fighting in the way of Allah, and never afraid of the reproachers of such as find fault. That is the Grace of Allah which He will bestow on whom He (Allah) pleases. And Allah encompasses all, and He knows all things.

—Qur'an, ^{[Quran 5:54]}

The Hadith (a collection of sayings attributed to Muhammad and his companions) includes statements taken as supporting the death penalty for apostasy, such as:

• The blood of a Muslim who confesses that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and that I (Muhammad) am His Apostle, cannot be shed except in three cases: In Qisas for murder, a married person who commits illegal sexual intercourse and the one who reverts from Islam (apostate) and leaves the Muslims. Sahih al-Bukhari, 9:83:17

Javed Ahmad Ghamidi, a Pakistani Islamic scholar, writes that punishment for apostasy was part of Divine punishment for only those who denied the truth even after clarification in its ultimate form by Muhammad (he uses term Itmam al-hujjah), hence, he considers this command for a particular time and no longer punishable.^[43]

In 2006 Abdul Rahman, an Afghan convert from Islam to Christianity, attracted worldwide attention about where Islam stood on religious freedom. Prosecutors asked for the death penalty for him. However, the Afghan government claimed he was mentally unfit to stand trial and released him.

Islam Online, a website, contains a fatwa dated 21 March 2004 and ascribed to 'IOL Shariah Researchers' says:

• "If a sane person who has reached puberty voluntarily apostatizes from Islam, he deserves to be punished.‏ In such a case, it is obligatory for the caliph (or his representative) to ask him to repent and return to Islam. If he does, it is accepted from him, but if he refuses, he is immediately killed."^[44] No one besides the caliph or his representative may kill the apostate. If someone else kills him, the killer is disciplined (for arrogating the caliph's prerogative and encroaching upon his rights, as this is one of his duties).

It should be noted that the website Islam Online has an article by Jamal Badawi arguing against legal punishment of apostasy:

• "The preponderance of evidence from both the Qur'an and Sunnah indicates that there is no firm ground for the claim that apostasy is in itself a mandatory fixed punishment (hadd), namely capital punishment."^[45] References to early capital punishment for apostasy were not due to apostasy itself, but rather other capital crimes that were coupled with it.

Judaism[link]

The term apostasy is also derived from Greek ἀποστάτης, meaning "political rebel," as applied to rebellion against God, its law and the faith of Israel (in Hebrew מרד) in the Hebrew Bible.

Other expressions for apostate as used by rabbinical scholars are "mumar" (מומר, literally "the one that is changed") and "poshea yisrael" (פושע ישראל, literally, "transgressor of Israel"), or simply "kofer" (כופר, literally "denier" and heretic).

The Torah states:

If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which [is] as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers; [Namely], of the gods of the people which [are] round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the [one] end of the earth even unto the [other] end of the earth; Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him: But thou shalt surely KILL him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to DEATH, and afterwards the hand of all the people. And thou shalt STONE HIM with STONES, that he DIE; because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.

—Deuteronomy 13:6–10^[46]

The prophetic writings of Isaiah and Jeremiah provide many examples of defections of faith found among the Israelites (e.g., Isaiah 1:2–4 or Jeremiah 2:19), as do the writings of the prophet Ezekiel (e.g., Ezekiel 16 or 18). Israelite kings were often guilty of apostasy, examples including Ahab (I Kings 16:30–33), Ahaziah (I Kings 22:51–53), Jehoram (2 Chronicles 21:6,10), Ahaz (2 Chronicles 28:1–4), or Amon (2 Chronicles 33:21–23) among others. (Amon's father Manasseh was also apostate for many years of his long reign, although towards the end of his life he renounced his apostasy. Cf. 2 Chronicles 33:1–19)

In the Talmud, Elisha Ben Abuyah (known as Aḥer) is singled out as an apostate and epicurean by the Pharisees.

During the Spanish inquisition, a systematic conversion of Jews to Christianity took place, some of which under threats and force. These cases of apostasy provoked the indignation of the Jewish communities in Spain.

Several notorious Inquisitors, such as Tomás de Torquemada, and Don Francisco the archbishop of Coria, were descendants of apostate Jews. Other apostates who made their mark in history by attempting the conversion of other Jews in the 14th century include Juan de Valladolid and Astruc Remoch.

Abraham Isaac Kook,^[47][48] first Chief Rabbi of the Jewish community in then Palestine, held that atheists were not actually denying God: rather, they were denying one of man's many images of God. Since any man-made image of God can be considered an idol, Kook held that, in practice, one could consider atheists as helping true religion burn away false images of god, thus in the end serving the purpose of true monotheism.

In practice Judaism does not follow the Torah's prescription on this point: there is no punishment today for leaving Judaism, other than being excluded from participating in the rituals of the Jewish community, including leading worship, being called to the Torah and being buried in a Jewish cemetery.

Other religious movements[link]

Controversies over new religious movements (NRMs) have often involved apostates, some of whom join organizations or web sites opposed to their former religions. A number of scholars have debated the reliability of apostates and their stories, often called "apostate narratives".

One camp that broadly speaking questions apostate narratives includes David G. Bromley,^[49][50] Daniel Carson Johnson,^[51] Dr. Lonnie D. Kliever (1932–2004),^[52] Gordon Melton,^[53] and Bryan R. Wilson.^[54] An opposing camp less critical of apostate narratives as a group includes Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi,^[55] Dr. Phillip Charles Lucas,^[56][57][58] Jean Duhaime,^[59] Mark Dunlop,^[60][61] Michael Langone,^[62] and Benjamin Zablocki.^[63]

Some scholars have attempted to classify apostates of NRMs. James T. Richardson proposes a theory related to a logical relationship between apostates and whistleblowers, using Bromley's definitions,^[64] in which the former predates the latter. A person becomes an apostate and then seeks the role of whistleblower, which is then rewarded for playing that role by groups that are in conflict with the original group of membership such as anti-cult organizations. These organizations further cultivate the apostate, seeking to turn him or her into a whistleblower. He also describes how in this context, apostates' accusations of "brainwashing" are designed to attract perceptions of threats against the well being of young adults on the part of their families to further establish their new found role as whistleblowers.^[65] Armand L. Mauss, define true apostates as those exiters that have access to oppositional organizations which sponsor their careers as such, and which validate the retrospective accounts of their past and their outrageous experiences in new religions, making a distinction between these and whistleblowers or defectors in this context.^[66] Donald Richter, a current member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) writes that this can explain the writings of Carolyn Jessop and Flora Jessop, former members of the FLDS church who consistently sided with authorities when children of the YFZ ranch were removed over charges of child abuse.^[67] However, Donald Richter remains a member in good standing and loyal to the leadership of the fundamentalist sect from which the former members fled and has no apparent training or expertise in psychology or behavioral sciences. Richter has been criticized for his biased and propaganda-style writing.^[68]

Massimo Introvigne in his Defectors, Ordinary Leavetakers and Apostates^[69] defines three types of narratives constructed by apostates of new religious movements:

• Type I narratives characterize the exit process as defection, in which the organization and the former member negotiate an exiting process aimed at minimizing the damage for both parties.
• Type II narratives involve a minimal degree of negotiation between the exiting member, the organization they intend to leave, and the environment or society at large, implying that the ordinary apostate holds no strong feelings concerning his past experience in the group. They may make "comments on the organization’s more negative features or shortcomings" while also recognizing that there was "something positive in the experience."
• Type III narratives are characterized by the ex-member dramatically reversing their loyalties and becoming a professional enemy of the organization they have left. These apostates often join an oppositional coalition fighting the organization, often claiming victimization.

Introvigne argues that apostates professing Type II narratives prevail among exiting members of controversial groups or organizations, while apostates that profess Type III narratives are a vociferous minority.

Notable examples[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

This is a list of some notable persons who have been reportedly labeled as apostates in reliable published sources.

Christianity[link]

• Julian the Apostate the Roman emperor, given a Christian education by those who assassinated his family, rejected his upbringing and declared himself to be a pagan once it was safe to do so.
• Sir Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford was declared 'The Great Apostate' by Parliament in 1628 for changing his political support from Parliament to Charles I, thus shifting his religious support from Protestantism to Arminianism.
• Abraham ben Abraham, (Count Valentine (Valentin, Walentyn) Potocki), a Polish nobleman of the Potocki family who is claimed to have converted to Judaism and was burned at the stake in 1749 because he had renounced Catholicism and had become an observant Jew.
• Maria Monk, sometimes considered an apostate of the Catholic Church, though there is little evidence that she ever was a Catholic.
• Lord George Gordon, initially a zealous Protestant and instigator of the Gordon riots of 1780, he finally renounced Christianity and converted to Judaism, for which he was ostracized.
• Brian Moore, spoke strongly about the effect of the Catholic Church on life in Ireland.
• Martin Luther, the founder of Lutheranism, was considered both an apostate and heretic by the strict definition of apostasy according to the Catholic Church. Most Protestants would naturally disagree, calling him a liberator and revolutionary.

Islam[link]

• Ayaan Hirsi Ali labelled an apostate by Theo van Gogh according to Ayaan Hirsi Ali^[70]
• Tasleema Nasreen from Bangladesh, the author of Lajja, has been declared apostate – "an apostate appointed by imperialist forces to vilify Islam" – by several fundamentalist clerics in Dhaka^[71]
• Younus Shaikh from Pakistan was sentenced to death for his remarks on Muhammad, considered blasphemous; but later on the judge ordered a re-trial.^[72]

See also[link]

• Religious conversion
• Forced conversion
• Religious intolerance
• Apostasia of 1965
• Defection
• Treason

References[link]

Further reading[link]

Look up apostasy in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Bromley, David G. 1988. Falling From the Faith: The Causes and Consequences of Religious Apostasy. Beverly Hills: Sage.
• Dunlop, Mark, The culture of Cults, 2001 [3]
• Introvigne, Massimo Defectors, Ordinary Leavetakers and Apostates: A Quantitative Study of Former Members of New Acropolis in France – paper delivered at the 1997 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion, San Francisco, November 23, 1997 [4]
• The Jewish Encyclopedia (1906). The Kopelman Foundation. [5]
• Lucas, Phillip Charles, The Odyssey of a New Religion: The Holy Order of MANS from New Age to Orthodoxy Indiana University press;
• Lucas, Phillip Charles, Shifting Millennial Visions in New Religious Movements: The case of the Holy Order of MANS in The year 2000: Essays on the End edited by Charles B. Strozier, New York University Press 1997;
• Lucas, Phillip Charles, The Eleventh Commandment Fellowship: A New Religious Movement Confronts the Ecological Crisis, Journal of Contemporary Religion 10:3, 1995:229–41;
• Lucas, Phillip Charles, Social factors in the Failure of New Religious Movements: A Case Study Using Stark's Success Model SYZYGY: Journal of Alternative Religion and Culture 1:1, Winter 1992:39–53
• Wright, Stuart A. 1988. "Leaving New Religious Movements: Issues, Theory and Research," pp. 143–165 in David G. Bromley (ed.), Falling From the Faith. Beverly Hills: Sage.
• Wright, Stuart A. 1991. "Reconceptualizing Cult Coercion and Withdrawal: A Comparative Analysis of Divorce and Apostasy." Social Forces 70 (1):125–145.
• Wright, Stuart A. and Helen R. Ebaugh. 1993. "Leaving New Religions," pp. 117–138 in David G. Bromley and Jeffrey K. Hadden (eds.), Handbook of Cults and Sects in America. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.
• Zablocki, Benjamin et al., Research on NRMs in the Post-9/11 World, in Lucas, Phillip Charles et al. (ed.), NRMs in the 21st Century: legal, political, and social challenges in global perspective, 2004, ISBN 0-415-96577-2

Testimonies, memoirs, and autobiographies

• Babinski, Edward (editor), Leaving the Fold: Testimonies of Former Fundamentalists. Prometheus Books, 2003. ISBN 1-59102-217-7; ISBN 978-1-59102-217-6
• Dubreuil, J. P. 1994 L'Église de Scientology. Facile d'y entrer, difficile d'en sortir. Sherbrooke: private edition (ex-Church of Scientology)
• Huguenin, T. 1995 Le 54^e Paris Fixot (ex-Ordre du Temple Solaire who would be the 54th victim)
• Kaufmann, Inside Scientology/Dianetics: How I Joined Dianetics/Scientology and Became Superhuman, 1995 [6]
• Lavallée, G. 1994 L'alliance de la brebis. Rescapée de la secte de Moïse, Montréal: Club Québec Loisirs (ex-Roch Thériault)
• Pignotti, Monica, My nine lives in Scientology, 1989, [7]
• Wakefield, Margery, Testimony, 1996 [8]
• Lawrence Woodcraft, Astra Woodcraft, Zoe Woodcraft, The Woodcraft Family, Video Interviews [9]

Writings by others

• Carter, Lewis, F. Lewis, Carriers of Tales: On Assessing Credibility of Apostate and Other Outsider Accounts of Religious Practices published in the book The Politics of Religious Apostasy: The Role of Apostates in the Transformation of Religious Movements edited by David G. Bromley Westport, CT, Praeger Publishers, 1998. ISBN 0-275-95508-7
• Elwell, Walter A. (Ed.) Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible, Volume 1 A–I, Baker Book House, 1988, pages 130-131, "Apostasy". ISBN 0-8010-3447-7
• Malinoski, Peter, Thoughts on Conducting Research with Former Cult Members , Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 1, No. 1, 2001 [10]
• Palmer, Susan J. Apostates and their Role in the Construction of Grievance Claims against the Northeast Kingdom/Messianic Communities [11]
• Wilson, S.G., Leaving the Fold: Apostates and Defectors in Antiquity. Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 2004. ISBN 0-8006-3675-9; ISBN 978-0-8006-3675-3
• Wright, Stuart. "Post-Involvement Attitudes of Voluntary Defectors from Controversial New Religious Movements". ''Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 23 (1984):172–182.

Richard Dawkins
Dawkins in 2010 at Cooper Union in New York City
Born	Clinton Richard Dawkins (1941-03-26) 26 March 1941 (age 71) Nairobi, Kenya Colony
Nationality	British
Education	MA, DPhil (Oxon)
Alma mater	Balliol College, Oxford
Occupation	Ethologist
Years active	1967–present
Employer	University of California, Berkeley University of Oxford
Organization	Fellow of the Royal Society Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature
Known for	Gene-centered view of evolution, concept of the meme, as well as advocacy of atheism and science.
Notable work(s)	The Selfish Gene (1976) The Extended Phenotype (1982) The Blind Watchmaker (1986) The God Delusion (2006)
Influenced by	Charles Darwin, Ronald Fisher, George C. Williams, W. D. Hamilton, Daniel Dennett, Bertrand Russell, Nikolaas Tinbergen, John Maynard Smith, Robert Trivers
Spouse	Marian Stamp Dawkins (m. 1967–1984) Eve Barham (m. 1984–?) Lalla Ward (m. 1992–present)
Children	Juliet Emma Dawkins (born 1984)
Parents	Clinton John Dawkins Jean Mary Vyvyan (née Ladner)
Awards	ZSL Silver Medal (1989) Faraday Award (1990) Kistler Prize (2001)
Website
The Richard Dawkins Foundation

Clinton Richard Dawkins, FRS, FRSL (born 26 March 1941), known as Richard Dawkins, is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford,^[1] and was the University of Oxford's Professor for Public Understanding of Science from 1995 until 2008.^[2]

Dawkins came to prominence with his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, which popularised the gene-centered view of evolution and introduced the term meme. In 1982 he introduced an influential concept into evolutionary biology, presented in his book The Extended Phenotype, that the phenotypic effects of a gene are not necessarily limited to an organism's body, but can stretch far into the environment, including the bodies of other organisms.^[3]

Dawkins is an atheist, a vice president of the British Humanist Association, and a supporter of the Brights movement.^[4] He is well known for his criticism of creationism and intelligent design. In his 1986 book The Blind Watchmaker, he argued against the watchmaker analogy, an argument for the existence of a supernatural creator based upon the complexity of living organisms. Instead, he described evolutionary processes as analogous to a blind watchmaker. He has since written several popular science books, and makes regular television and radio appearances, predominantly discussing these topics. In his 2006 book The God Delusion, Dawkins contends that a supernatural creator almost certainly does not exist and that religious faith is a delusion—"a fixed false belief."^[5] As of January 2010 the English-language version has sold more than two million copies and had been translated into 31 languages.^[6]

Biography[link]

Dawkins was born in Nairobi, Kenya.^[7] His father, Clinton John Dawkins (1915–2010),^[8] was an agricultural civil servant in the British colonial service, in Nyasaland (now Malawi). Dawkins has a younger sister.^[9] His father was called up into the King's African Rifles during World War II,^[10][11] returning to England in 1949, when Dawkins was eight. His father had inherited a country estate, Over Norton Park, which he turned into a commercial farm.^[8] Both his parents were interested in natural sciences; they answered Dawkins' questions in scientific terms.^[12]

Dawkins describes his childhood as "a normal Anglican upbringing".^[13] He was confirmed, and embraced Christianity until his mid-teens, at which point he concluded that the theory of evolution was a better explanation for life's complexity, and ceased believing in a god.^[9] Dawkins states: "the main residual reason why I was religious was from being so impressed with the complexity of life and feeling that it had to have a designer, and I think it was when I realised that Darwinism was a far superior explanation that pulled the rug out from under the argument of design. And that left me with nothing."^[9]

He attended Oundle, a Church of England school,^[9] from 1954 to 1959. He studied zoology at Balliol College, Oxford, where he was tutored by Nobel Prize–winning ethologist Nikolaas Tinbergen, graduating in 1962. He continued as a research student under Tinbergen's supervision, receiving his M.A. and D.Phil. degrees by 1966, and remained a research assistant for another year.^[7] Tinbergen was a pioneer in the study of animal behaviour, particularly in the areas of instinct, learning and choice.^[14] Dawkins' research in this period concerned models of animal decision-making.^[15]

From 1967 to 1969, he was an assistant professor of zoology at the University of California, Berkeley. During this period, the students and faculty at UC Berkeley were largely opposed to the ongoing Vietnam War, and Dawkins became heavily involved in the anti-war demonstrations and activities.^[16] He returned to the University of Oxford in 1970 taking a position as a lecturer, and in 1990, as a reader in zoology. In 1995 he was appointed Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford, a position that had been endowed by Charles Simonyi with the express intention that the holder "be expected to make important contributions to the public understanding of some scientific field",^[17] and that its first holder should be Richard Dawkins.^[18]

Since 1970 he has been a fellow of New College.^[19] He has delivered a number of inaugural and other lectures, including the Henry Sidgwick Memorial Lecture (1989), first Erasmus Darwin Memorial Lecture (1990), Michael Faraday Lecture (1991), T. H. Huxley Memorial Lecture (1992), Irvine Memorial Lecture (1997), Sheldon Doyle Lecture (1999), Tinbergen Lecture (2004) and Tanner Lectures (2003).^[7] In 1991 he gave the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures for Children. He has also served as editor of a number of journals, and has acted as editorial advisor to the Encarta Encyclopedia and the Encyclopedia of Evolution. He is a senior editor of the Council for Secular Humanism's Free Inquiry magazine, for which he also writes a column. He has been a member of the editorial board of Skeptic magazine since its foundation.^[20]

He has sat on judging panels for awards as diverse as the Royal Society's Faraday Award and the British Academy Television Awards,^[7] and has been president of the Biological Sciences section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2004 Balliol College, Oxford instituted the Dawkins Prize, awarded for "outstanding research into the ecology and behaviour of animals whose welfare and survival may be endangered by human activities".^[21] In September 2008, he retired from his professorship, announcing plans to "write a book aimed at youngsters in which he will warn them against believing in 'anti-scientific' fairytales."^[22]

Personal life[link]

On 19 August 1967, Dawkins married fellow ethologist Marian Stamp in Annestown, County Waterford, Ireland;^[23] they divorced in 1984. Later that same year, on 1 June, he married Eve Barham (19 August 1951^[24]–28 February 1999) in Oxford. They had a daughter, Juliet Emma Dawkins (born 1984, Oxford).^[24] Dawkins and Barham also divorced^[25] and she later died of cancer.^[26][27] In 1992 he married actress Lalla Ward^[25] in Kensington and Chelsea, London.^[24] Dawkins met her through their mutual friend Douglas Adams,^[28] who had worked with her on the BBC's Doctor Who.

Work[link]

Evolutionary biology[link]

Dawkins at the University of Texas at Austin, March 2008

In his scientific works, Dawkins is best known for his popularisation of the gene-centred view of evolution. This view is most clearly set out in his books The Selfish Gene (1976), where he notes that "all life evolves by the differential survival of replicating entities", and The Extended Phenotype (1982), in which he describes natural selection as "the process whereby replicators out-propagate each other".^[29] In his role as an ethologist, interested in animal behaviour and its relation to natural selection, he advocates the idea that the gene is the principal unit of selection in evolution.

Dawkins has consistently been sceptical about non-adaptive processes in evolution (such as spandrels, described by Gould and Lewontin)^[30] and about selection at levels "above" that of the gene.^[31] He is particularly sceptical about the practical possibility or importance of group selection as a basis for understanding altruism.^[32] This behaviour appears at first to be an evolutionary paradox, since helping others costs precious resources and decreases one's own fitness. Previously, many had interpreted this as an aspect of group selection: individuals were doing what was best for the survival of the population or species as a whole, and not specifically for themselves. British evolutionary biologist W. D. Hamilton had used the gene-centred view to explain altruism in terms of inclusive fitness and kin selection − that individuals behave altruistically toward their close relatives, who share many of their own genes.^[33][a] Similarly, Robert Trivers, thinking in terms of the gene-centred model, developed the theory of reciprocal altruism, whereby one organism provides a benefit to another in the expectation of future reciprocation.^[34] Dawkins popularised these ideas in The Selfish Gene, and developed them in his own work.^[35]

He has also been strongly critical of the Gaia philosophy theory of the independent scientist James Lovelock.^[36][37][38]

Critics of Dawkins' approach suggest that taking the gene as the unit of selection − of a single event in which an individual either succeeds or fails to reproduce − is misleading, but that the gene could be better described as a unit of evolution − of the long-term changes in allele frequencies in a population.^[39] In The Selfish Gene, Dawkins explains that he is using George C. Williams' definition of the gene as "that which segregates and recombines with appreciable frequency."^[40] Another common objection is that genes cannot survive alone, but must cooperate to build an individual, and therefore cannot be an independent "unit".^[41] In The Extended Phenotype, Dawkins suggests that because of genetic recombination and sexual reproduction, from an individual gene's viewpoint all other genes are part of the environment to which it is adapted.

Advocates for higher levels of selection such as Richard Lewontin, David Sloan Wilson, and Elliot Sober suggest that there are many phenomena (including altruism) that gene-based selection cannot satisfactorily explain. The philosopher Mary Midgley, with whom Dawkins clashed in print concerning The Selfish Gene,^[42][43] has criticised gene selection, memetics and sociobiology as being excessively reductionist^[44] and suggests that the popularity of Dawkins' work is due to factors in the Zeitgeist such as the increased individualism of the Thatcher/Reagan decades.^[45]

In a set of controversies over the mechanisms and interpretation of evolution (the so-called 'Darwin Wars'),^[46][47] one faction was often named after Dawkins and its rival after the American palaeontologist Stephen Jay Gould, reflecting the pre-eminence of each as a populariser of pertinent ideas.^[48][49] In particular, Dawkins and Gould have been prominent commentators in the controversy over sociobiology and evolutionary psychology, with Dawkins generally approving and Gould generally being critical.^[50] A typical example of Dawkins' position was his scathing review of Not in Our Genes by Steven Rose, Leon J. Kamin and Richard C. Lewontin.^[51] Two other thinkers on the subject often considered to be allied to Dawkins are Steven Pinker and Daniel Dennett; Dennett has promoted a gene-centred view of evolution and defended reductionism in biology.^[52] Despite their academic disagreements, Dawkins and Gould did not have a hostile personal relationship, and Dawkins dedicated a large portion of his 2003 book A Devil's Chaplain posthumously to Gould, who had died the previous year.

Dawkins' book The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution expounds the evidence for biological evolution.^[53] All of his previous works dealing with evolution had assumed its truth, and not explicitly provided the evidence to this effect. Dawkins felt that this represented a gap in his oeuvre, and decided to write the book to coincide with Darwin's bicentennial year.^[54]

Meme[link]

Dawkins coined the word meme (the behavioural equivalent of a gene) as a way to encourage readers to think about how Darwinian principles might be extended beyond the realm of genes.^[55] Indeed, it was intended as an extension of his "replicators" argument, but it took on a life of its own in the hands of other authors such as Daniel Dennett and Susan Blackmore. These popularisations then led to the emergence of the field of memetics, from which he has distanced himself.^[56]

Dawkins' memes refer to any cultural entity that an observer might consider a replicator of a certain idea or a complex of ideas. He hypothesised that people could view many cultural entities as capable of such replication, generally through exposure to humans, who have evolved as efficient (although not perfect) copiers of information and behaviour. Memes are not always copied perfectly, and might indeed become refined, combined or otherwise modified with other ideas, resulting in new memes, which may themselves prove more, or less, efficient replicators than their predecessors, thus providing a framework for a hypothesis of cultural evolution, analogous to the theory of biological evolution based on genes.^[57]

Although Dawkins invented the specific term meme independently, he has not claimed that the idea itself was entirely novel,^[58] and there have been other expressions for similar ideas in the past. For instance, John Laurent has suggested that the term may have derived from the work of the little-known German biologist Richard Semon.^[59] In 1904 Semon published Die Mneme (which appeared in English in 1924 as The Mneme). This book discussed the cultural transmission of experiences, with insights parallel to those of Dawkins. Laurent also found the term mneme used in Maurice Maeterlinck's The Life of the White Ant (1926), and has highlighted the similarities to Dawkins' concept.^[59] Author James Gleick describes Dawkins’ concept of the meme as "his most famous memorable invention, far more influential than his selfish genes or his later proselytizing against religiosity".^[60]

Criticism of creationism[link]

Dawkins is a prominent critic of creationism (the religious belief that humanity, life and the universe were created by a deity,^[61] without recourse to evolution^[62]). He has described the Young Earth creationist view that the Earth is only a few thousand years old as "a preposterous, mind-shrinking falsehood",^[63] and his 1986 book, The Blind Watchmaker, contains a sustained critique of the argument from design, an important creationist argument. In the book, Dawkins argued against the watchmaker analogy made famous by the 18th-century English theologian William Paley in his book Natural Theology. Paley argued that, just as a watch is too complicated and too functional to have sprung into existence merely by accident, so too must all living things, with their far greater complexity, be purposefully designed. Dawkins shares the view generally held by scientists that natural selection is sufficient to explain the apparent functionality and non-random complexity of the biological world, and can be said to play the role of watchmaker in nature, albeit as an automatic, nonintelligent, blind watchmaker.^[64]

Dawkins at the 34th annual conference of American Atheists, 2008

In 1986 Dawkins participated in an Oxford Union debate, in which he and English biologist John Maynard Smith debated Young Earth creationist A. E. Wilder-Smith and Edgar Andrews, president of the Biblical Creation Society.^[b] In general, however, Dawkins has followed the advice of his late colleague Stephen Jay Gould and refused to participate in formal debates with creationists because "what they seek is the oxygen of respectability", and doing so would "give them this oxygen by the mere act of engaging with them at all". He suggests that creationists "don't mind being beaten in an argument. What matters is that we give them recognition by bothering to argue with them in public."^[65]

In a December 2004 interview with American journalist Bill Moyers, Dawkins said that "among the things that science does know, evolution is about as certain as anything we know." When Moyers questioned him on the use of the word theory, Dawkins stated that "evolution has been observed. It's just that it hasn't been observed while it's happening." He added that "it is rather like a detective coming on a murder after the scene... the detective hasn't actually seen the murder take place, of course. But what you do see is a massive clue... Huge quantities of circumstantial evidence. It might as well be spelled out in words of English."^[66]

Dawkins has ardently opposed the inclusion of intelligent design in science education, describing it as "not a scientific argument at all, but a religious one".^[67] He has been referred to in the media as "Darwin's Rottweiler",^[68] a reference to English biologist T. H. Huxley, who was known as "Darwin's Bulldog" for his advocacy of Charles Darwin's evolutionary ideas. He has been a strong critic of the British organisation Truth in Science, which promotes the teaching of creationism in state schools, and he plans—through the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science—to subsidise the delivery of books, DVDs and pamphlets to schools, in order to counteract what he has described as an "educational scandal".^[69]

Advocacy of atheism[link]

Dawkins lecturing on his book The God Delusion, 24 June 2006.

Dawkins is an outspoken atheist and a prominent critic of religion. In an interview with Thomas Bass for a book published in 1994 he described himself as a "fairly militant atheist".^[70] In 1996, when asked if he would prefer to be known as a scientist or a militant atheist, he replied "Bertrand Russell called himself the Passionate Sceptic. It's aiming high, but I'll shoot for that."^[71] Dawkins is an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society,^[72] a vice-president of the British Humanist Association (since 1996),^[7] a Distinguished Supporter of the Humanist Society of Scotland,^[73] a member of the Secular Coalition for America advisory board,^[74] a Humanist Laureate of the International Academy of Humanism,^[75] and a fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.^[76] In 2003 he became a signatory of the humanist manifesto Humanism and Its Aspirations, published by the American Humanist Association.^[77] As a result of his advocacy of atheism, Dawkins has sometimes been described as a vocal, militant rationalist,^[78][79] and as "the UK's Chief Atheist".^[80]

Dawkins believes that his own atheism is the logical extension of his understanding of evolution^[81] and that religion is largely incompatible with science.^[82] In his 1986 book The Blind Watchmaker, Dawkins wrote:

An atheist before Darwin could have said, following Hume: "I have no explanation for complex biological design. All I know is that God isn't a good explanation, so we must wait and hope that somebody comes up with a better one." I can't help feeling that such a position, though logically sound, would have left one feeling pretty unsatisfied, and that although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.^[83]

In his 1991 essay "Viruses of the Mind" (from which the term faith-sufferer originated), he suggested that memetic theory might analyse and explain the phenomenon of religious belief and some of the common characteristics of religions, such as the belief that punishment awaits non-believers. According to Dawkins, faith − belief that is not based on evidence − is one of the world's great evils. He claims it to be analogous to the smallpox virus, though more difficult to eradicate.^[84] Dawkins is well known for his contempt for religious extremism, from Islamist terrorism^[85] to Christian fundamentalism; but he has also argued with liberal believers and religious scientists, from biologists Kenneth Miller^[86] and Francis Collins^[87] to theologians Alister McGrath and Richard Harries.^[88] Dawkins has stated that his opposition to religion is twofold, claiming it to be both a source of conflict and a justification for belief without evidence.^[89] However, he describes himself as a "cultural Christian",^[90] and proposed the slogan "Atheists for Jesus".^[91]

Following the 11 September 2001 attacks, when asked how the world might have changed, Dawkins responded:

Many of us saw religion as harmless nonsense. Beliefs might lack all supporting evidence but, we thought, if people needed a crutch for consolation, where's the harm? September 11th changed all that. Revealed faith is not harmless nonsense, it can be lethally dangerous nonsense. Dangerous because it gives people unshakeable confidence in their own righteousness. Dangerous because it gives them false courage to kill themselves, which automatically removes normal barriers to killing others. Dangerous because it teaches enmity to others labelled only by a difference of inherited tradition. And dangerous because we have all bought into a weird respect, which uniquely protects religion from normal criticism. Let's now stop being so damned respectful!^[92]

Dawkins has especially risen to prominence in contemporary public debates relating science and religion since the publication of his 2006 book The God Delusion, which has achieved greater sales figures worldwide than any of his other works to date. Its success has been seen by many as indicative of a change in the contemporary cultural zeitgeist, central to a recent rise in the popularity of atheistic literature.^[93][94] The God Delusion was praised by among others the Nobel laureates Sir Harold Kroto and James D. Watson and by psychologist Steven Pinker.^[95] In the book, Dawkins suggested that atheists should be proud, not apologetic, because atheism is evidence of a healthy, independent mind.^[96] He sees education and consciousness-raising as the primary tools in opposing what he considers to be religious dogma and indoctrination.^[16][97][98] These tools include the fight against certain stereotypes, and he has adopted the term Bright as a way of associating positive public connotations with those who possess a naturalistic worldview.^[98] Dawkins notes that feminists have succeeded in arousing widespread embarrassment at the routine use of "he" instead of "she". Similarly, he suggests, a phrase such as "Catholic child" or "Muslim child" should be considered just as socially absurd as, for instance, "Marxist child": children should not be classified based on their parents' ideological beliefs.^[98] According to Dawkins, there is no such thing as a Christian child or a Muslim child, as children have about as much capacity to make the decision to become Christians or Muslims as they do to become Marxists.^[96]

In January 2006 Dawkins presented a two-part television documentary The Root of All Evil?, addressing what he sees as the malignant influence of religion on society. The title itself is one that Dawkins disliked, noting that religion shouldn't be regarded as the root of all evil.^[99] Critics have said that the programme gave too much time to marginal figures and extremists, and that Dawkins' confrontational style did not help his cause and exhibited similarities with the approaches of religious fundamentalists more than with the approaches of the dispassionate, analytic approach of 'hard' science;^[100][101] Dawkins rejected these claims, citing the number of moderate religious broadcasts in everyday media as providing a suitable balance to the extremists in the programmes. He further remarked that someone who is deemed an "extremist" in a religiously moderate country may well be considered "mainstream" in a religiously conservative one.^[102] The unedited recordings of Dawkins' conversations with Alister McGrath and Richard Harries, including material unused in the broadcast version, have been made available online by the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science.^[103]

Dawkins' work has been controversial, and a number of Christian thinkers have responded to it. For example, Oxford theologian Alister McGrath (author of The Dawkins Delusion and Dawkins' God) maintains that Dawkins is ignorant of Christian theology and therefore unable to engage religion and faith intelligently.^[104] In reply, Dawkins asks "do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in leprechauns?",^[105] and − in the paperback edition of The God Delusion − he refers to the American biologist PZ Myers, who has satirised this line of argument as "The Courtier's Reply".^[106] Dawkins had an extended debate with McGrath at the 2007 Sunday Times Literary Festival.^[107]

Dawkins argues that "the existence of God is a scientific hypothesis like any other".^[108] He disagrees with Stephen Jay Gould's principle of nonoverlapping magisteria. In an interview with Time magazine, Dawkins said:

I think that Gould's separate compartments was a purely political ploy to win middle-of-the-road religious people to the science camp. But it's a very empty idea. There are plenty of places where religion does not keep off the scientific turf. Any belief in miracles is flat contradictory not just to the facts of science but to the spirit of science.^[109]

Astrophysicist Martin Rees, who has described himself as an unbeliever who identifies with Christianity from a cultural perspective, has suggested that Dawkins' attack on mainstream religion is unhelpful.^[110] Regarding Rees' claim in his book Our Cosmic Habitat that "such questions lie beyond science", Dawkins asks "what expertise can theologians bring to deep cosmological questions that scientists cannot?"^[111][112] Elsewhere, Dawkins has written that "there's all the difference in the world between a belief that one is prepared to defend by quoting evidence and logic, and a belief that is supported by nothing more than tradition, authority or revelation."^[84] As examples of "good scientists who are sincerely religious", Dawkins names Arthur Peacocke, Russell Stannard, John Polkinghorne and Francis Collins, but says "I remain baffled ... by their belief in the details of the Christian religion."^{[113][114][115][116][117]} He has said that the publication of The God Delusion is "probably the culmination" of his campaign against religion.^[118]

In 2007 Dawkins founded the Out Campaign to encourage atheists worldwide to declare their stance publicly and proudly.^[119] Inspired by the gay rights movement, Dawkins hopes that atheists' identifying of themselves as such, and thereby increasing public awareness of how many people hold these views, will reduce the negative opinion of atheism among the religious majority.^[120][121]

In September 2008, following a complaint by Islamic creationist Adnan Oktar, a court in Turkey blocked access to Dawkins' website richarddawkins.net. The court decision was made due to "insult to personality".^{[122][123][124][125][126][127]} As of 8 July 2011, richarddawkins.net is no longer blocked in Turkey.^[128]

Dawkins with Ariane Sherine at the Atheist Bus Campaign launch in London

In October 2008, Dawkins officially supported the UK's first atheist advertising initiative, the Atheist Bus Campaign. Created by Guardian journalist Ariane Sherine and administered by the British Humanist Association the campaign aimed to raise funds to place atheist adverts on buses in the London area, and Dawkins pledged to match the amount raised by atheists, up to a maximum of £5,500. However, the campaign was an unprecedented success, raising over £100,000 in its first four days, and generating global press coverage.^[129][130] The campaign, started in January 2009, features adverts across the UK with the slogan: "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life." Dawkins said that "this campaign to put alternative slogans on London buses will make people think—and thinking is anathema to religion."^[131]

In 2010 Dawkins supported legal efforts to charge Pope Benedict XVI with crimes against humanity. Dawkins and fellow anti-religion campaigner Christopher Hitchens were believed to have explored the option of attempting to have the Pope arrested under the same legal principle that saw Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet arrested during a visit to Britain in 1998.^[132]

Dawkins has given support to the idea of a "free thinking" school which he calls "Think for Yourself Academy".^[133] The school would not "indoctrinate children in atheism, any more than in religion" but it would teach children to "ask for evidence, to be sceptical, critical, open-minded".^[134][135]

On 15 September 2010, Dawkins, along with 54 other public figures, signed an open letter published in The Guardian, stating their opposition to Pope Benedict XVI's state visit to the United Kingdom, while acknowledging his right to tour the UK as head of the Roman Catholic Church.^[136]

Richard Dawkins Foundation[link]

In 2006 Dawkins founded the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science (RDFRS), a non-profit organisation. The foundation is in developmental phase. It has been granted charitable status in the United Kingdom and the United States. RDFRS plans to finance research on the psychology of belief and religion, finance scientific education programs and materials, and publicise and support secular charitable organisations. The foundation also offers humanist, rationalist and scientific materials and information through its website.^[137]

Dawkins has said the "trend toward theocratic thinking in the United States is a danger not only for America but for the entire world."^[138] Connected to this concern, Dawkins invited Sean Faircloth to serve as opening speaker on Dawkins' 2011 US book tour. Faircloth is author of the book Attack of the Theocrats, How the Religious Right Harms Us All and What We Can Do About It. The Richard Dawkins Foundation (United States branch) later hired Faircloth, who has ten years experience as a state legislator, as Director of Strategy and Policy.^[138]

Other fields[link]

Dawkins talking at Kepler's Books, Menlo Park, California, 29 October 2006.

In his role as professor for public understanding of science, Dawkins has been a critic of pseudoscience and alternative medicine. His 1998 book Unweaving the Rainbow takes John Keats' accusation that, by explaining the rainbow, Isaac Newton had diminished its beauty, and argues for the opposite conclusion. He suggests that deep space, the billions of years of life's evolution, and the microscopic workings of biology and heredity contain more beauty and wonder than do "myths" and "pseudoscience".^[139] Dawkins wrote a foreword to John Diamond's posthumously published Snake Oil, a book devoted to debunking alternative medicine, in which he asserted that alternative medicine was harmful, if only because it distracted patients from more successful conventional treatments and gave people false hopes.^[140] Dawkins states that "there is no alternative medicine. There is only medicine that works and medicine that doesn't work."^[141]

Dawkins has expressed concern about the growth of the planet's human population and about the matter of overpopulation.^[142] In The Selfish Gene, he briefly mentions population growth, giving the example of Latin America, whose population, at the time the book was written, was doubling every 40 years. He is critical of Roman Catholic attitudes to family planning and population control, stating that leaders who forbid contraception and "express a preference for 'natural' methods of population limitation" will get just such a method in the form of starvation.^[143]

As a supporter of the Great Ape Project – a movement to extend certain moral and legal rights to all great apes – Dawkins contributed the article "Gaps in the Mind" to the Great Ape Project book edited by Paola Cavalieri and Peter Singer. In this essay, he criticises contemporary society's moral attitudes as being based on a "discontinuous, speciesist imperative".^[144]

Dawkins also regularly comments in newspapers and weblogs on contemporary political questions; his opinions include opposition to the 2003 invasion of Iraq,^[145] the British nuclear deterrent and the actions of US President George W. Bush.^[146] Several such articles were included in A Devil's Chaplain, an anthology of writings about science, religion and politics. He is also a supporter of the Republic campaign to replace the British monarchy with a democratically elected president.^[147] Dawkins has described himself as a Labour voter in the 1970s^[148] and voter for the Liberal Democrats since the party's creation.^[149] In 2009 he spoke at the party's conference in opposition to blasphemy laws, alternative medicine and faith schools. In the UK general election of 2010, Dawkins officially endorsed the Liberal Democrats, in support of their campaign for electoral reform and for their "refusal to pander to 'faith'."^[150]

In the 2007 TV documentary The Enemies of Reason,^[151] Dawkins discusses what he sees as the dangers of abandoning critical thought and rationale based upon scientific evidence. He specifically cites astrology, spiritualism, dowsing, alternative faiths, alternative medicine and homoeopathy. He also discusses how the Internet can be used to spread religious hatred and conspiracy theories with scant attention to evidence-based reasoning.

Continuing a long-standing partnership with Channel 4, Dawkins participated in a five-part television series Genius of Britain, along with fellow scientists Stephen Hawking, James Dyson, Paul Nurse, and Jim Al-Khalili. The five-episode series was broadcast in June 2010.^[152] The series focussed on major British scientific achievements throughout history.

Dawkins presented a More4 documentary entitled Faith School Menace? in which he argued for "us to reconsider the consequences of faith education, which... bamboozles parents and indoctrinates and divides children."^[153][154]

In 1998 Dawkins expressed his appreciation for two books, famous for their criticism of postmodernism in US universities, in departments like literary studies, anthropology and other cultural studies; the two books are Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science (by Gross and Levitt) and Intellectual Impostures (by Sokal and Bricmont), both related to the Sokal affair hoax.^[155] In the same occasion Dawkins also criticised Cambridge University for awarding philosopher Jacques Derrida an honorary doctorate.^[155]

In 2011 Dawkins joined the professoriate of the New College of the Humanities, a new private university in London established by A. C. Grayling, which is scheduled to open in September 2012.^[156]

Awards and recognition[link]

Dawkins receiving the Deschner Prize in Frankfurt, 12 October 2007, from Karlheinz Deschner.

Dawkins was awarded a Doctor of Science by the University of Oxford in 1989. He holds honorary doctorates in science from the University of Huddersfield, University of Westminster, Durham University,^[157] the University of Hull, the University of Antwerp, and the University of Oslo,^[158] and honorary doctorates from the University of Aberdeen,^[159] Open University, the Vrije Universiteit Brussel,^[7] and the University of Valencia.^[160] He also holds honorary doctorates of letters from the University of St Andrews and the Australian National University (HonLittD, 1996), and was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1997 and the Royal Society in 2001.^[7] He is one of the patrons of the Oxford University Scientific Society.

In 1987 Dawkins received a Royal Society of Literature award and a Los Angeles Times Literary Prize for his book, The Blind Watchmaker. In the same year, he received a Sci. Tech Prize for Best Television Documentary Science Programme of the Year, for the BBC Horizon episode The Blind Watchmaker.^[7]

His other awards have included the Zoological Society of London Silver Medal (1989), Finlay innovation award (1990), the Michael Faraday Award (1990), the Nakayama Prize (1994), the American Humanist Association's Humanist of the Year Award (1996), the fifth International Cosmos Prize (1997), the Kistler Prize (2001), the Medal of the Presidency of the Italian Republic (2001), the Bicentennial Kelvin Medal of The Royal Philosophical Society of Glasgow (2002)^[7] and the Nierenberg Prize for Science in the Public Interest (2009).^[161]

Dawkins topped Prospect magazine's 2004 list of the top 100 public British intellectuals, as decided by the readers, receiving twice as many votes as the runner-up.^[162][163] He has been short-listed as a candidate in their 2008 follow-up poll.^[164] In 2005 the Hamburg-based Alfred Toepfer Foundation awarded him its Shakespeare Prize in recognition of his "concise and accessible presentation of scientific knowledge". He won the Lewis Thomas Prize for Writing about Science for 2006 and the Galaxy British Book Awards Author of the Year Award for 2007.^[165] In the same year, he was listed by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2007,^[166] and he was ranked 20th in The Daily Telegraph's 2007 list of 100 greatest living geniuses.^[167] He was awarded the Deschner Award, named after German anti-clerical author Karlheinz Deschner.^[168]

Since 2003, the Atheist Alliance International has awarded a prize during its annual conference, honouring an outstanding atheist whose work has done most to raise public awareness of atheism during that year. It is known as the Richard Dawkins Award, in honour of Dawkins' own work.^[169]

In February 2010 he was named to the Freedom From Religion Foundation's Honorary Board of distinguished achievers.^[170]

Media[link]

Selected publications[link]

• The Selfish Gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1976. ISBN 0-19-286092-5. 
• The Extended Phenotype. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1982. ISBN 0-19-288051-9. 
• The Blind Watchmaker. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. 1986. ISBN 0-393-31570-3. 
• River Out of Eden. New York: Basic Books. 1995. ISBN 0-465-06990-8. 
• Climbing Mount Improbable. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. 1996. ISBN 0-393-31682-3. 
• Unweaving the Rainbow. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 1998. ISBN 0-618-05673-4. 
• A Devil's Chaplain. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 2003. ISBN 0-618-33540-4. 
• The Ancestor's Tale. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 2004. ISBN 0-618-00583-8. 
• The God Delusion. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 2006. ISBN 0-618-68000-4. 
• The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution. Free Press (United States), Transworld (United Kingdom and Commonwealth). 2009. ISBN 0-593-06173-X. 
• The Magic of Reality: How We Know What's Really True. Free Press (United States), Bantam Press (United Kingdom). 2011. ISBN 978-1-4391-9281-8. OCLC 709673132. ^[171]

Documentary films[link]

• Nice Guys Finish First (1986)
• The Blind Watchmaker (1987)^[172]
• Growing Up in the Universe (1991)
• Break the Science Barrier (1996)
• The Root of All Evil? (2006)
• The Enemies of Reason (2007)
• The Genius of Charles Darwin (2008)
• Faith School Menace? (2010)

Other appearances[link]

• Doctor Who: "The Stolen Earth" (2008) – as himself
• Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (2008) – as himself
• The Purpose of Purpose (2009) – Lecture tour among American universities
• Beautiful Minds (April 2012) – BBC4 documentary

Notes[link]

References[link]