Atheist Richard Dawkins Says God Informs Morality, Ending Religion Would Be a Bad Idea

Richard Dawkins, the author of the new book Outgrowing God and one of the world’s leading atheists, says ending religion would a bad idea.

Dawkins told The Times and the Sunday Times he fears if religion were abolished it would “give people a license to do really bad things.” 

“People may feel free to do bad things because they feel God is no longer watching them,” he said. 

Just as security cameras deter shoplifting, he said, individuals might feel free to commit crimes without a “divine spy camera in the sky reading their every thought.”

Dawkins told the newspapers about an experiment by professor Melissa Bateson at the University of Newcastle. She set up an “honesty box” in a university coffee room to pay for drinks – whether coffee, tea or milk – and placed a price list on the wall. During some weeks, she decorated the sign with pictures of flowers. Other weeks, she placed an image of a pair of eyes. People paid “nearly three times as much for their drinks when eyes were displayed,” she and the other researchers wrote in a paper about the experiment.  

Dawkins discussed the experiment in his 2019 book, Outgrowing God, in a chapter titled, “Do we need God in order to be good?”

“Whether irrational or not, it does, unfortunately, seem plausible that, if somebody sincerely believes God is watching his…