CIF spirals ever further into naught but trollbait as the religious attempt once more to win via the ever popular “opponent’s head exploded in frustration” tactic.

“This man evidently dreams of a state in which it is illegal to take one’s children to a place of worship, or to say prayers with them as one puts them to bed.“

Allow me to clear this one up for Theo. Indoctrination of children can take many forms, from the mild and conveniently-for-his-purposes heartwarming image of young ‘uns at the foot of the bed saying prayers for mum and dad, to the unquestioned instruction that the martyr’s death is glorious, or that the unbeliever is to be converted or put to death. The God Delusion mentions a study on a thousand Israeli children where they were told the story of the battle of Jericho and asked if they approved of Joshua’s actions (ie murdering the shit out of everything in sight). Sixty six percent gave total approval, and in every case a religious justification was used. The study also used a control group where the names were changed from “Joshua” and “Israel” to “General Lin” and “a Chinese kingdom”. Seventy five percent disapproved of the same behaviour. This is what indoctrination of children can do.

I imagine Dawkins takes the view that on average, the indoctrination of children is a bad thing and yes, the world would be better off without it. This does not directly equate to him thinking that the world is better if he, Theo, specifically, is not allowed to say prayers with his toddler. Or to put it another way – a world in which Hobson and his kid don’t say the Lord’s prayer together of an evening is a better place, if and only if it also a world where children don’t approve of massacring heathens. One would hope Hobson would agree, too, but I doubt it.

And just as a final rebuttal to Hobson’s ‘illegal’ rhetoric above, I’ll supply this link, in which Dawkins specifically states that he’s horrified at the idea of making it illegal for parents to teach children religion. But what do the facts matter when you’ve got a superstition to defend, eh?