What followed was a discussion between antisemites who swore that the quotes were real and Jews who said they weren't. Dawkins followed up on one commenter:
@brianoflondon I only asked "What is this?" You have now told me your answer. Others have told me differently, so I'm still curious.— Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) September 10, 2015
If Dawkins cared about the truth, he could have looked up my link to the definitive debunking and explanation of every major fake Talmud quote out there.
.@RichardDawkins The best rebuttal of fake Talmud quotes online is here: http://t.co/eb8PcwMEpW @FuzzyLucifer @brianoflondon
— ElderOfZiyon (@elderofziyon) September 10, 2015
As it is, he left his opinion on the matter ambiguous. Some say it is true, some say it isn't, the truth must be somewhere in between.
Which made me wonder - if skepticism is a good trait to have (and I believe it is,) then if Dawkins shows skepticism in only one direction, he is not really a skeptic. He is like everyone else - looking for evidence to buttress his already enshrined beliefs.
Which makes him no less dogmatic than his opponents.
If Dawkins is really "curious" he would have continued the discussion. There are certainly things in the Talmud that sound strange to modern ears and an open discussion on such topics would be fine. But in this case, the famous self-described skeptic did not show any evidence of skepticism when some random hater sent him fake quotes with a picture of a smiling rabbi-type supposedly teaching that crap.
By coincidence, earlier this week I created a poster in response to another poster of fake quotes, that time attacking Zionists, showing how idiotic it is to ascribe more validity to a quote just because someone made it into a graphic.
