Rushdie The Rude

“Intelligent design, an idea designed backward so as to force the antique idea of a Creator upon the beauty of creation, is so thoroughly rooted in pseudoscience, so full of false logic, so easy to attack that a little rudeness seems called for…If religion were a private matter, one could more easily respect its believers’ right to seek its comforts and nourishments. But religion today is big public business, using efficient political organization and cutting-edge information technology to advance its ends. Religions play bare-knuckle rough all the time, while demanding kid-glove treatment in return.”

- Salman Rushdie, deriding the arguments of scientist Dylan Evans and philosopher Michael Ruse proposing a “new, modern atheism”, in an article in The New York Times. Reproduced in The Telegraph. (Link via Amit.)