Disclaim for sarcasm

I note, with some consternation, that a recent online attempt of mine to explain—not even to argue for or against, simply to explain—St Anselm’s Ontological Argument was somehow disseminated to the point where it reached Richard Dawkins’s website, at which point it, along with other online assays of such kind, was mercilessly excoriated by Dawkins’s brood.

            Obviously being criticised by the followers of Professor Dawkins is a major setback for anybody interested in the philosophy of religion. As we all know, Professor Dawkins is a very well-regarded pillar of said branch of knowledge and to get on his bad side (or that of his fans) is to get on the bad side of the greatest philosopher of religion since, perhaps, Erasmus. In fact, to antagonise Professor Dawkins, wilfully or not, directly or not, is to be certain one of the greatest mistakes that a modern thinker of any sort can make.

            This has all been very trying for me. My beliefs have been shaken to their core. Due to the overwhelming insight engendered in Dawkins’s thought and that of his cohort, I am more than willing to re-examine and if need be abandon some of my most well-thought-out and clearly-articulated opinions. I am truly sorry for contributing to the vast religious conspiracy seeking to suppress Professor Dawkins and his thought, for as we all know he is as oppressed in the public at large as he is respected by serious philosophers.

            And it’s not just him! Poor Hitchens, poor Harris! For are not these pitiable Rudy Ruetiggers of modern thought the most oppressed of all? Surely they are as downtrodden as the great Christian and Jewish thinkers of former days! Surely no Buber, no St Cecilia or Tertullian, can match how they have suffered for their work, nor how great the work in question is. I wish them all speed in their work: may Hitchens succeed in his truly great endeavours! May Harris’s voice ring loud and clear in American life! May Dawkins’s next project truly do what it is meant to—for is not children’s ability to enjoy fantasy truly as pernicious and evil as paedophiliac rape? And may the great paladins, PZ Myers and Ian McEwan and Philip Pullman and their ilk, come to the constant aid and defence of these great, great, truly great and deep thinkers into the realities of the religious experience. May Myers’s reasonable approach, McEwan’s unique insights, and Pullman’s good grace triumph against the obscurantist drivel of the world’s Francis Collinses, Doris Lessings, and Leonard Cohens. May those who encourage unreason be mocked! May those who encourage fanaticism be killed!

May those who are against scientific supremacy be crushed beneath the wheels of the great Professor, who as we all know had so many better things to do over the past decade than teach his students about science. May he no more do useless things like studying his actual fields of expertise and expressing his outrage at various universities’ decisions to award honorary degrees to Ben Stein; of course these are less useful than promoting open contempt for one’s enemies in western Asia and trying to destroy the concept of fiction. May he entirely abandon his attempts at promoting evolution against intelligent design and focus entirely on religious philosophy, his true area of expertise!

            MEA CULPA.

            SALVA NOS, RICARDUS.