richard dawkins: forgive me, spirit of science

on the RDFRS, richard dawkins celebrates the 400th anniversary of the king james bible:

'let’s celebrate the four-hundredth anniversary of this astonishing piece of english literature. warts and all – for i have deliberately refrained from mentioning the carnage, the smiting, the vindictive, genocidally racist, jealous monster god of the old testament. warts and all – for i have drawn a veil over the new testament misogyny of paul, the founder of christianity: or the pauline obscenity of every baby being born in sin, saved only by the divine scapegoat suffering on the cross because the creator of the universe couldn’t think of a better way to forgive everybody. warts and all, let’s encourage our schools to bring this precious english heritage to all our children, whatever their background, not as history, not as science and not (oh please not) as morality. but as literature.'