Sunday Sermonette: the Equal Time Provision

This Sunday we pause to consider the Equal Time Provision, championed by our President for the case of Intelligent Design (of course some Times are more equal than others, but that's what the debate is not all about). So let me make a rare demur from this public health observation from the wonderful Richard Dawkins:

"I do think the Roman Catholic religion is a disease of the mind which has a particular epidemiology similar to that of a virus... Religion is a terrific meme. That's right. But that doesn't make it true and I care about what's true. Smallpox virus is a terrific virus. It does its job magnificently well. That doesn't mean that it's a good thing. It doesn't mean that I don't want to see it stamped out."

Richard Dawkins (Interviewed in: Sceptic vol 3, no 4, 1995) (via Positive Atheism)

I don't think this is quite fair. Under the Principle of Equal Time I would prefer to rewrite this:

"I do think the [X] religion is a disease of the mind which has a particular epidemiology similar to that of a virus... Religion is a terrific meme. That's right. But that doesn't make it true and I care about what's true. Smallpox virus is a terrific virus. It does its job magnificently well. That doesn't mean that it's a good thing. It doesn't mean that I don't want to see it stamped out."

where X = Judaism, Protestantism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, . . .

(see also last week's Sunday Sermonette for a similar Dawkinsism)