David Robertson: “Dawkins considers, like so many of his fellow new atheists, that there is no debate and they, and they alone, have the truth. Ironically, such arrogance and intolerance of others is the very definition of the fundamentalism that Dawkins professes to hate. I suspect that Richard Dawkins’ problem is that he is not a good debater.”

Evolutionary biologist and atheist Richard Dawkins, in an interview for the September edition of Playboy magazine, discusses a host of topics related to science and religion – and shares some of his favourite Bible verses.

Dawkins, who is known for ridiculing the different interpretations various religions have of God, noted that the idea of there being some kind of “creative intelligence” in the universe is at least more likely than there existing any one specific deity.

“I think a particular god like Zeus or Jehovah is as unlikely as the tooth fairy, but the idea of some kind of creative intelligence is not quite so ridiculous,” he said.

On the subject of Christianity, the famed atheist admitted that he had not read the entire Bible, but knew it well enough to consider himself more knowledgeable on the subject than most Christians.

“My favorite book is Ecclesiastes. It’s wonderful poetry in 17th century English, and I’m told it’s very good in the Hebrew. ‘Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.’ The Song of Songs is terrific, and it’s more bawdy in the Hebrew, almost a drinking song,” Dawkins said of his favourite parts of the Bible.

As for Jesus Christ, The God Delusion author shared that the evidence for his actual existence “is surprisingly shaky”, although he did not outright rule out Christ’s earthly existence. He expressed, however, that he found the idea of the Son of God sacrificing himself to atone for people’s sins to be “truly disgusting”, because it would imply that God could not think of a better way to atone for mankind other than Christ being tortured to death.

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