An Appetite for Wonder

We are delighted to be able to print an extract from Richard Dawkins's new book An Appetite for Wonder, the first instalment of his long-awaited autobiography.

This bug in a jar proves the non-existence of God.

From an early age I realized two things:
1. I am the cleverest person who ever lived, even greater than my hero Charles Darwin.
2. God does not exist.

You can keep all your great thinkers and philosophers: Aquinine, St Augustus, Decarthorse (memo: check names). They weren't fellows of New College, Oxford with their own Foundation. Nowadays, nobody has heard of them, except the Regius Professor of Divinity, and what does he know about the personal hygiene of flies? Well, there you are.

At school I won all the prizes: the Mrs Joyful Prize for Raffia-Work, the Charles Darwin Prize for Cricket (my essay on "why crickets don't need bats" was reprinted in the school magazine), and of course the Victor Ludorum Prize for the largest brain, measured at Standard Temperature and Pressure.

Would a loving God have allowed such an ugly fish to exist?

Where was God in all this, you may ask? Was He there when I called upon Him, at the age of five, to strike Nanny with a thunderbolt? No, all He gave her, in answer to my prayers, was a slight sniffle, and that would probably have happened anyway after I poured lemonade down her neck.

Darwin is really cool, don't you think? He debated with his critics in a masterly way. I admire the fact that he used to make public pronouncements saying that all Catholics were "vile"! Why on earth didn't they give him a knighthood? Come to think of it, why on earth don't they give me a knighthood? Or, better still, a peerage? I can trace my ancestry back to Sir Richard Dawknobs, the 18th century composer, who many said was greater than Handel. (See pages 48 to 61 for my family tree.)

At school they gave me a special cap to wear.

The secret to life, by the way, is genes. And memes. And - a new hybrid that everyone has missed - gnomes! Basically, a human being is just a gnome's way of making another gnome. And you can never have too many gnomes. Gnomes are denizens of geological time: gnomes are forever.

In Volume 2 - how the Catholic Mafia sent me horses' heads.

Great religious bores of today

You know how it is when you get on the bus and someone comes and sits down next to you, even though there are lots of empty seats...

I'm an atheist you know, I don't believe in any of that "sky-fairy" nonsense, I've been reading a brilliant book by that man Dawkins he's an Oxford professor, he was a very famous biologist you see, discovered genes, or DNA, or memes, or something, so he knows what he's talking about.

Genes, or DNA, or memes, or something.

Anyway he's now become an expert on theology, and he points out just how vile Catholicism is, they brainwash the kids you know. See those children over there, going to St Mary's School? You can see that they're mentally scarred by the prospect of ending up in Hell. Oh well, maybe it's because they've got a French test today, anyway, they're not looking very happy, are they? Dawkins says that's worse than child abuse and he's right. He's written lots of books with long words in them, you must have heard of him he's married to that woman on Dr Who...

That woman on Dr Who.

He got up, and another man sat down next to me...

Hello, I'm a deacon you know, you can tell that because I'm wearing a biretta, I'm just as good as a priest really but you'd be surprised just how many priests look down on us and give us all the dirty jobs to do. I do baptisms you know, they're safe in my hands, you don't see many of my baptisms going wrong.

A baptism gone wrong.

The same goes with funerals, they often give me funerals to do because I never smile, but I read a big book about how to do funerals, and the main thing to remember is to stand well back so that you don't fall in the grave, it upsets the bereaved if the deacon falls in the grave. Note that I am wearing a biretta on my head. My wife ironed it, in fact she irons my head flat every morning so that the biretta will fit on top. I've also got a dalmatic, but I don't wear it on the bus, it's white with black spots, because my wife saw a film "The 101 Dalmatics" and this gave her the idea.

The 101 Dalmatics.

I can do exorcisms as well, even though deacons aren't supposed to. I woke up last night and saw the ghastly demon Ek-al-Byar leering at me, and saying "You're not a proper priest," but I said "Begone!" and turned the light on. It had turned into an old coat hanging on the wardrobe door. You see what powers I have...

Finally, another man wanted to share his grievances with me...

You're interested in religion, are you? Did you know that Pope Paul VI was replaced by a replica in 1967? Look at these photos, it proves it.

  

The real Paul VI (L) and the impostor (R).

Note how the impostor has his ring on the wrong hand. They exploited the confusion caused by Vatican II to smuggle a demon onto the throne of St Peter, so it's been Sede Vacante for the last 45 years. Look at the way Pope John-Paul II behaved - first he murdered John-Paul I, and then he bought himself a bent crucifix. It's clearly evidence that he was a demon.

Shocking behaviour by a Pope.

What's more the Mormons posthumously baptised John-Paul II, so that proves he wasn't a true Catholic. And the present Pope is the same. But I have been reading the prophecies of the end of time, and I can tell you there will be only one more Pope after the present one - probably an Englishman called Vincent - after which there will be Armageddon, and then we'll see the present Catholic church destroyed like it says in the book of Revelation.

The rightful Pope, Pius XIII.

Oh, is this your stop? Well, it's been nice hearing your views...

The Book of St Richard, Chapter 9

Continued from Chapter 8

1. And Richard spake, saying, "None of the existing religions has quite got the true message of Creation, that I am God and alone worthy of worship. So I shall found a new religion, and it shall be called The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science."

The book of Gene-sis

2. And many multitudes came to worship Richard, yeah, even impressionable teenage girls, who screamed and threw their underwear onto the stage whereon he strode.

3. And Richard said, "This is very gratifying, but I cannot sing, and most of my fans have already heard my famous lecture on Why did the chicken's genes tell it to cross the road?"

4. So he sent forth messengers to search through the collected wisdom of the ages (Google and Wikipedia), to obtain some suggestions for what makes a popular religion.

5. And the messengers returned and said, "Tax-free status. Regular collections of money. Polygamy. Big buildings. Brain washing. Human sacrifices. Hymns. Women covering their entire body in a sheet. Yours could be the first religion to do all these at once."

6. So Richard struggled for many months, and finally obtained tax-free status. For the Charity Commissioners said "It seems to us that you're just a barking mad self-publicist. Why do you not try and be more like Tom Cruise, Sun Myung Moon, Mitt Romney, and other pious saintly men? But we suppose we'll have to let you get away with it."

7. And Richard said, "Indeed, we plan to adopt some of the ideas of other churches, in a secular context. I quite like the idea of polygamy, as although I have had three wives, I have never had more than one at once."

Tipped as a possible "back-up" wife for Richard Dawkins

8. But his third wife Lalla smote Richard with a frying-pan, and he decided that after all polygamy was not a high priority. Likewise, she refused to cover her entire body in a sheet, so he quietly dropped that idea too.

9. And Richard spake, saying, "It is important to educate the masses, that they may be my worshippers all their life."

10. "Let me present the DAWKOTRON, which will cleanse the brains of my disciples, the Dawkies, from any lingering thoughts of other religions."

The Dawkotron in action

11. And Richard launched an online shop, dawkins.ripoffs.com, wherein the faithful Dawkies could buy relics of their god.

12. And he sold recordings of his inspiring speeches: "I have a meme" (Hitchens's Bar in Washington D.C.), "I have nothing to offer but blood, sweat, and tears - here's my DNA sample" (Scotland Yard interview room), and "Government of the genes, by the genes, for the genes, shall not perish from the earth" (Gettysburg Lunatic Asylum).

13. Then there were shirts, ties, strait-jackets, and saucy underwear, all tastefully embroidered with the motto of the Foundation.

Dawkins is God

14. And Dawkins looked the the finances, and lo! they were very good. For his latest book The God Confusion had been translated into 94 vibrant languages, including Ancient Macedonian, Paleo-Norman and Crimean Gothic, while The Dawkins Cult was attracting many worshippers anxious to be parted from their money.

15. So that all The Dawkins Cult lacked to make it a proper religion was a temple, and some catchy hymns to sing. As we shall see.

Continued in Chapter 10

The Book of St Richard, Chapter 7

Continued from Chapter 6

1. And it came to pass that Richard went on a journey to Damascus, there to receive yet another honorary degree; for many people had said to him, "Surely, you cannot be Syria's?" and he was determined to prove them wrong.

This man cannot be Syria's.

2. And, as he drew near to Damascus, a light from heaven shone round about him. And falling on the ground, he heard a voice saying to him: Richard, Richard, why persecutest thou me?

3. And Richard spake unto the Lord saying, "My opinions come from my genes, and I may not control them."

4. And the Lord spake unto Richard, saying, But consider, O foolish man, that those whose opinions come from their jeans are often using the wrong organ to think with, and are thus known as 'dick heads.'

5. But Richard understood not the words of the Lord, and vowed to persecute Him even more in future.

Have you read My new book, Richard?

6. And so Richard began to think about writing an Epistle to the Delusions, wherein he might explain that he himself was the only god worthy of worship.

7. Meanwhile, there came an attack, known as 9/11, wherein many were killed.

8. And Richard said unto himself, "This is a perfect opportunity for me to tell the world that all organized religion preaches violence.

9. For is not the Pope preparing to kill us all with botulinus toxin? Do not the Baptists bite the heads off ferrets? Do not the Quakers regularly throw hand grenades through the windows of orphanages? And is not the Dalai Lama building a nuclear bomb?"

One false move and I press the red button. Then we'll all go up together!

10. And Richard explained to the world that all it needed was secularism, and everyone would live in peace and harmony, as they already did in China and North Korea.

11. Meanwhile, in Oxford, Richard continued to serve as a fellow of New College, and Professor for Public Understanding of Science.

12. And Simonyi spake unto him, saying, "Shall I change the title of thy chair to Professor for the Bashing of Religion?" But in the end this did not come to pass.

13. And in the sixth year of the new millennium there came to pass two events that changed the world; and we shall speak of them in more detail in the next chapter.

14. For the world saw the publication of Richard's Magnum Opus The God Delusion, and the creation of Richard's own church, the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science.

15. And Richard said, "Let it not be said that the Christians and the Muslims have better vestments than us. It is good that the ministers of our church shall also wear special garments."

Dawkins Foundation Garments, modelled by lunatics

16. And it was so.

Continued in Chapter 8

The Book of St Richard, Chapter 6

Continued from Chapter 5

1. And it came to pass that Richard, having passed his fiftieth year, decided to take unto himself a third wife.

2. For he said unto himself, "My genes cry out most woefully, 'Richard, it is not good for thee to be alone. Thou hast not changed thy socks for two years, and thy shirts lack buttons.'"

3. And many fair and virtuous women queued up outside Richard's house, saying, "Let us mingle our genes with thine, O mighty zoologist, thou who knowest the secrets of the blind watchmaker, and the deaf piano-tuner, yeah and even the completely mad lecturer."

4. For Richard had long since put aside the days of his youth, when he wrote mainly of chickens.

Shall I kill him now, Doctor?

5. And there came unto him a fair maiden, whose name was Leela, and she said, "O Richard, take me as thy wife, that I may stab thine enemies to death."

6. But Richard was looking for someone a little more intellectual. For his days of violence were still far in the future.

Probably too brainy for Dr Dawkins

7. And then another fair maiden, named Romana, threw herself before Richard. But he trampled her underfoot and went on his way.

Mrs Dawkins III relaxes with some friends

8. Finally, there came to him a lady from Gallifrey, one endowed with the finest of genes. And they were wed.

9. Then Richard finally achieved greatness, for he was appointed to the position of Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford. And his enemies joked, saying "Simony, eh? Did he pay for his preferment?"

10. But the answer was No, it was just that this Simonyi was a man with far more money than sense.

A slight misunderstanding

11. Anyway, the people said, "At last, after 25 years in which he spake unto us of chickens and genes, Richard will finally help us understand all of science."

11. So they asked him many difficult questions about science, such as "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" and "Why did the chicken cross the road?"

12. And Richard said to himself, "Alas, they do not yet realise that I am an expert on all areas of science, and I know the ways of the Higgs Boson, the Benzene Ring and the Last Theorem of Fermat. Yeah, and chickens too, of course."

13. "But first I shall fire off a blizzard of pot-boilers, since frankly it is quite expensive being married to a lady from Gallifrey who keeps wanting to go home and see her mother; for even the abundant wealth of Mr Simonyi cannot pay the fares".

14. Meanwhile, further recognition came to Richard, in the form of many honorary degrees, from places as widespread as the Cyberman University of Mondas, the Dalek College of Skaro, and the University of Sontar.

Richard Dawkins in the academic dress of the University of Sontar

15. But as the new millennium arrived, the life of Richard reached a turning point; for he began to lose his last remaining grasp on reality. As we shall now see.

Continued in Chapter 7

The Book of St Richard, Chapter 4

Continued from Chapter 3

1. And the tragic story which Richard had written, Jean the shellfish, became exceedingly famous. Yeah, almost as famous as the Gospel according to St Damian, that which is called The Fix.

2. And yet these were lean and barren years for Richard, for he was not yet considered to be a great prophet. And so he continued to lecture in Oxford on the ways of the aardvark, etc.

3. For it is written that "aardvark never hurt anyone." However, since this is rather a bad joke, those who repeat it usually regret doing so.

An aardvark, not hurting anyone

4. For six long years he toiled, and then Richard wrote another book, The extended phenotype.

5. For if a book is popular, then the publisher doth demand a sequel, no matter how boring it may be. Just as many now quake in fear, thinking that we shall soon see The Son of Fix.

6. And the same maxim may apply to wives; for after seventeen years Richard put aside Marion, the companion of his bedchamber, and took unto himself a second wife, Eve.

7. Thus, although Marion was an expert in animal behaviour, some say that she could not control the animal behaviour of her husband.

8. For Richard begat a child, and called it Juliet Emma. And lo! His spirits rose and he said "My genes magnify the Lord, or they would do if He existed, which frankly He probably doesn't."

Congratulations, Dr Dawkins, your wife has given birth to some genes!

9. Then the famous ancestors of Richard, including Black Henry Dawkins the slave-driver, said to themselves, "Perchance young Richard is not such a wimp after all. For he hath passed on our genes, yeah, even unto the next generation."

10. Now Richard came to write a third book, and this is where his life changed. For he stopped being a boring old professional zoologist, and became a boring old professional atheist.

11. And it happened in this wise. Richard, being a man of great wealth, owned many oxen, and asses, and aardvarks. But his most valued possession was a clock.

12. For Richard said to himself, "I am the Lord of Time." Which will be interesting later when we come to discuss his third wife.

13. But one day the clock stopped, and he needs must take it to a clockmaker.

Clocks repaired by a blind clockmaker

14. But the clockmaker had been blind for many years, and when he returned the clock to Richard, it was damaged beyond hope.

15. And Richard said to himself, "Is this not a metaphor for the whole of Creation? I shall write a book, explaining why the World is in such a mess. Surely it was produced by a blind Creator?"

16. And I shall call the book The bloody useless clockmaker."

Continued in Chapter 5.

The Book of St Richard, Chapter 3

Continued from Chapter 2

1. For six long years Richard spake unto the young men of Oxford, telling them the ways of the sloth. Yeah, and he spake unto them also of the ways of the chicken.

2. And the young men said "Thank God that's over! Let us go down to the pub now."

3. But Richard continued his researches into the unknown. He hardened his heart against the humble chicken, and decided to break ground in pastures new.

A humble chicken

4.  And Richard cried out unto the Lord with a woeful heart, saying, "Lord, thou probably dost not exist, but anyway, here I am, an obscure lecturer in zoology. Grant unto me fame and fortune, and perhaps a prettier wife who can operate a Tardis. If not, I shall be stuck here for another thirty years, telling the young men the way of the tortoise."

5. And God spake unto Richard, saying, "Why not write a book? It did wonders for My servant Isaiah, who became a prophet in good standing."

6. And Richard said unto himself, "Clearly there is no god, but my genes are telling me that I should write a book. And I shall call it Richard Dawkins's naughty book of sex."

7. But the wise men at Oxford University Press spake unto Richard saying, "Thou mayst mention sex, if thou wishest, but we prefer a more sober title.

8. So they considered Take off your jeans, I'm feeling selfish, but eventually they shortened it to The Selfish Gene.

9. Although some called it The Shellfish Gene, and others debated whether it should be The Shellfish's Jeans. After which, of course, the world would be Richard's oyster.

Richard Dawkins and Prof. Walrus making jeans for shellfish

10. And the main theme of Richard's book, once he had deleted the passages about the women of the night eating oysters in Paris, was genetics.

11. "Lo!" he said. "I am a worthless being, and I am only here so that my parents' genes may be passed on to the next generation."

12. And many people spake unto Richard, saying "Indeed it is the truth, thou art a worthless being." But, as it happens, he had not yet passed on his genes.

13. And the ancestors of Richard, they who had built up the family fortunes, and owned many slaves in Jamaica, looked down upon him and said, "This is a poor lookout for our genes so far."

Aha, Jim Lad, young Richard is letting down the family traditions

14. Yeah, even Black Henry Dawkins,  he who had owned more than one thousand slaves, looked down (well, up, in his case), and said, "I know not what the youth of today is coming to. Young Richard is writing books when he could be dealing in slaves and passing on our genes."

15. But slowly fame was coming to Richard, although he was not yet quite as famous as the Lord.

16. For he was to fulfil the words of Ecclesiastes: Of making many books there is no end: and much study is an affliction of the flesh. 

Continued in Chapter 4.