Dawkins explains that as a child, he was sexually molested by one of his teachers, as were some of his classmates. “I don’t think he did any of us lasting harm,” he explains. Dawkins odd stance ironically led him to defend the Catholic Church, minimizing the sex-abuse scandal that they faced: “Although I’m no friend of the Church, I think they have become victims of our shifting standards…”

Prominent atheist and best-selling author Richard Dawkins hasn’t had the best summer. Just last month, Dawkins ignited a firestorm when he tweeted a remark that many considered intolerant Muslims. “All the world’s Muslims have fewer Nobel Prizes than Trinity College, Cambridge.” Dawkins wrote, “They did great things in the Middle Ages, though.” Factually correct? Perhaps. Politically correct? Not exactly. Dawkins was suddenly clued in that many of his vocal supporters who appreciate his attacks on Christianity treat attacks on Islam as bigoted. To Dawkins’ credit, he has consistently attacked Islam alongside Christianity for some time; for whatever reason, it was that particular Tweet that caught notice. “Of course you can have an opinion about Islam without having read Qur’an.” Dawkins tweeted all the way back in March, “You don’t have to read Mein Kampf to have an opinion about Nazism.”

But recently Dawkins has faced another round of criticism for his comments that he thinks sex abuse scandals are overhyped. If there’s one crime you’d think would be off-limits for minimization, it’d be the sexual exploitation of children. But the ever-so-enlightened Dawkins knows better than you and I. “I am very conscious that you can’t condemn people of an earlier era by the standards of ours…” he said in an interview with The Times, “I look back a few decades to my childhood and see things like caning, like mild pedophilia, and can’t find it in me to condemn it by the same standards as I or anyone would today.”

Dawkins explains that as a child, he was sexually molested by one of his teachers, as were some of his classmates. “I don’t think he did any of us lasting harm,” he explains. Dawkins odd stance ironically led him to defend the Catholic Church, minimizing the sex-abuse scandal that they faced: “Although I’m no friend of the Church, I think they have become victims of our shifting standards…”

Dawkins has stood by his statements, despite the ensuing media backlash and criticism from advocates for sexually abused children. Often missing from media coverage of the case is that, like his criticism of Islam, Dawkins’ defense of “mild pedophilia” is hardly new. As early as 2006, Dawkins wrote in The God Delusion that “we live in a time of hysteria about paedophilia, a mob psychology that calls to mind the Salem witch-hunts of 1692.” Even then, he defended the Catholic Church from sex abuse charges by citing his personal experience as an abuse victim.

His defense of “mild pedophilia” and child abuse are troubling enough. However, there are forms of child abuse that Dawkins has loudly condemned again and again. Such as the evil of raising your children in a certain faith: “What a child should never be taught is that you are a Catholic or Muslim child, therefore that is what you believe.” Dawkins claimed earlier this year. “That’s child abuse.”

In another interview, Dawkins spoke about his experience with a woman who had been sexually abused by a priest at the age of 7. The same priest also told her that some people go to Hell. Dawkins dismisses the sexual abuse as minor; it’s the priest’s religious instruction that’s the real tragedy, he maintains. “She told me of those two abuses, she got over the physical abuse; it was yucky but she got over it. But the mental abuse of being told about Hell, she took years to get over.”

It takes a special lack of self-awareness to compare a widely accepted practice to a horrible crime, and then in the same breath, diminish that horrible crime. In Dawkins’ bizzaro-world, child abuse isn’t really abusive. However, teaching children to follow a certain religion is. Got that?

It’s tempting to dismiss Dawkins’ views at face value, without even giving his argument credit. But I think it’s telling that in minimizing pedophilia, he contradicts his own arguments against Christianity. Take for example, his reluctance to judge his abuser based on “shifting standards.” Dawkins appreciation of changing moral standards disappears when it comes to condemning religious figures. In The God Delusion, Dawkins criticizes Moses for his slaughter of civilians during the Israelites’ military campaigns, despite it being in line with typical Bronze Age warfare. Likewise, he excoriates the constant affirmations of slavery in the Bible, despite being in line with (and arguably, much fairer than) the standards of the time.

Perhaps the most ironic condemnation of a religious figure for failing to meet up to modern standards would be the time the Richard Dawkins Foundation released a poster criticizing Muhammad… for pedophilia. Perhaps it wasn’t “mild” enough.

Worse, Dawkins’ defense of “mild pedophilia” (and condemnation of religious education for children) relies entirely on personal anecdotes and subjective experiences. When has Dawkins ever treated personal religious revelations and deeply-felt religious beliefs with anything other than scorn and mockery? But when it comes to grown men sexually abusing children, suddenly personal feelings matter. Not the personal experience of the vast majority of child abuse victims, who recount how the experience scarred them mentally. And not the personal experience of the vast majority of people raised in a certain religion, who certainly don’t see their upbringing as “child abuse.” Just the personal beliefs of Dawkins, and those he agrees with.

It’s very tempting to characterize Dawkins’ startling views on child abuse as a symptom of some godless, relativistic moral system. But I don’t think that’s the case. If anything, Dawkins’ tepid support of “mild pedophilia” springs from an inability to look past his personal hang-ups and see the obvious, straightforward reasons that pedophilia is morally reprehensible. Supporters of Dawkins should take heed; if their idol can screw up such an obvious moral judgment that 99% of people have no problem reaching, what other major issues is he wrong about? At the very least, Dawkins comments are reminder that supposedly enlightened atheists and freethinkers are no less victim to the fallacies and moral weaknesses that inflict us all.

This article first appeared on the Institute on Religion and Democracy’s blog and is used with permission.