Ed Brayton shares the Christmas spirit with PZ Myers

Dawkins and the Religion Petition

PZ, you really are just about the biggest asshole I have ever known, and you are lying through your teeth. What I have defended in private, and will do so in public is well, is that my post was correct given the information I had. Dawkins did, in fact, sign a petition that clearly endorses a coercive, totalitarian policy to stamp out religious belief. He has now repudiated his signature on that petition and admitted that he made a mistake, but that fact supports my post – I said it was wrong to support that petition and he now agree. And you are simply lying when you claim that I am still arguing that Dawkins supports “coercion to stop religious belief”; I am not arguing that at all. I accept his retraction that he does not support that. But his signature on that petition did support that kind of coercion and I am happy that he has now thought better of it. But the very fact that he has thought better of it shows that my criticism of that petition was right, not wrong.

To make things worse, you had the astonishing gall (and dishonesty) to claim that I am “hesitant to call out creationists” – something I have been doing for 20 years, for crying out loud. You’re a liar, PZ, and a first class, double-barrelled, fully automatic asshole.

Oh, can you feel the love?

Thanks to Telic Thoughts for referencing this entertainging thread.