An apology from author Richard Dawkins published in yesterday’s Guardian:
I
am distressed to find myself reported as participating in a "literary
spat", and as "pouring scorn" on an individual, comedian Peter Kay, for
whom I actually feel nothing but goodwill (Heard the one about the
atheist who scorned a comedian for his belief in a comforting God?
March 8). The explanation is as follows. I am one of those whom
reporters regularly telephone for a soundbite. Last week, I was fed a
quotation from somebody, previously unknown to me, who said he believed
in God because he found it comforting. Assuming I was one of a panel of
usual suspects being asked to comment on this rather common sentiment,
I gave my usual response.
Now it seems
that I was being set up by a hired publicity machine, so that I would
appear to be mounting a personal attack upon a particular individual
who is my rival for a literary prize. And I also learn that the
quotation they selected is an unrepresentative one from a book I
haven’t read (I look forward to doing so), which is competing with my
own for the same prize. I hope you will allow me publicly to apologise
to Peter Kay and wish him well in the competition.
Richard Dawkins
Oxford
The Guardian story that set it off:
It may be the least likely literary spat in history. Richard Dawkins,
the evolutionary biologist famous for his rottweiler attacks on
religion, has poured scorn on Peter Kay, the northern comic best known
for a gentle joke about garlic bread.
The comedian and the scientist
are rivals in the Galaxy British Book Awards, in which Dawkins is a
frontrunner for his bestselling atheist diatribe The God Delusion, and
Kay is nominated for his popular memoirs The Sound of Laughter.The controversy erupted after Dawkins read an excerpt from Kay’s
autobiography, in which he wrote: "I believe in a God of some kind, in
some sort of higher being. Personally I find it very comforting."
The
believer-baiting academic responded with contempt. "How can you take
seriously someone who likes to believe something because he finds it
‘comforting’?" he said.
"If evidence were found for a supreme
being I would change my mind instantly -with pride and with great
surprise. Would I find it comforting? What matters is what is true, and
we discover truth by evidence, not what we would ‘like’." Kay, at
present appearing in The Producers at the Palace theatre in Manchester,
was unavailable for comment last night and his publicist declined to
respond on his behalf.
In fact, while his book has extensive
passages on religion, Kay rejects the Catholic church and disputes the
divinity of Jesus. The comedian, who was educated at a convent school,
writes: "I believe that a man called Jesus did walk the earth at one
time but I don’t think he was the superhero that the Bible makes him
out to be … I think Jesus was just an ordinary person, like me and
you."
He also criticises the teaching of the nuns at his school
in Bolton, referring to an episode in which pupils were taught about
abortion by watching a gory slide show and passing around a plastic
replica of an aborted foetus.
He writes: "[The nuns] bundled a
girl out of the hall when she informed them that her sister had had an
abortion. I half expected to see her head impaled on the school gates
at hometime - come to think of it, I never did see her again … shit!"
There
was consternation yesterday in the comedy world over Dawkins’s choice
of target. Steve Bennett, editor of the comedy website chortle.co.uk,
said: "I know he came from a Catholic school but most of the stuff in
the book from that is anecdotal funny stories. There were some nuns he
liked and some nuns he didn’t like. Peter Kay’s not an obvious person
to be at the centre of this sort of controversy. His stock in trade is
a cosy world of things we can all relate to, and I suppose a belief in
God is part of that cosy world."
It is not the first time Dawkins’s atheist militancy has encountered an unlikely opponent.
He
was criticised recently for describing Nadia Eweida, the BA employee
who refused to take off her cross at work, as having "one of the most
stupid faces I’ve ever seen".
The Phoenix Nights star’s memoirs,
which record his childhood and rise to the threshold of stardom, were
the celebrity publishing sensation of last year. The Sound of Laughter
sold a record-breaking 600,000 copies in the first two months after
publication and sales are now approaching 1m. It is in the running for
the book of the year and biography of the year awards.
Kay’s line
in Phoenix Nights: "Garlic bread - it’s the future, I’ve tasted it,"
was named best one-liner in television comedy in a poll last year…
