# Dawkins on Martin Luther King, Jr.

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dawkins-on-martin-luther-king-jr/468274>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [October 16, 2008, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dawkins-on-martin-luther-king-jr/468274 "2008-10-16T21:41:02Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 4

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**Author:** ![Snarky\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Snarky\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snarky_Kong)\
**Post date:** [October 27, 2008, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dawkins-on-martin-luther-king-jr/468274/61 "2008-10-27T14:52:29Z")

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> [@JThunder](#):
>
> No, he goes quite a bit beyond that. The [anthropic principle](http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/docs/barrow.html), by itself, merely states that life-permitting conditions must exist in any universe where living observers exist. It doesn’t explain WHY those conditions exist in the first place.

It doesn’t have to explain why, that’s the entire point. However, Dawkins thinks it’s less satisfying than an explanation why fine-tuning exists. He’s saying to wait for a better answer because it’s more satisfying, not because it’s needed.

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**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\
**Post date:** [October 27, 2008, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dawkins-on-martin-luther-king-jr/468274/62 "2008-10-27T15:17:34Z")

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> [@lekatt](#):
>
> I am one that doubts King spent any time studying Ghandi. Just doesn’t seem the type to wander from his Bible and Christian literature. On the other hand I believe Dawkins can make mistakes and has made a lot of them.

Oh dear. Shall I spell it out for you, then? [http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/about\_king/encyclopedia/India\_trip.html](http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/about_king/encyclopedia/India_trip.html)

> [@](#):
>
> From the early days of the Montgomery bus boycott, Martin Luther King, Jr. referred to India’s Mahatma Gandhi as “the guiding light of our technique of nonviolent social change.”

[http://www.america.gov/st/washfile-english/2006/January/20060109162734jmnamdeirf0.3977777.html](http://www.america.gov/st/washfile-english/2006/January/20060109162734jmnamdeirf0.3977777.html)

> [@](#):
>
> A student of the philosophy and principles of nonviolence enunciated by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869–1948), King in 1959 traveled to India, where he studied further the legacy of the man his widow, Coretta Scott King, later would call his “political mentor.”

[http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/eboo\_patel/2008/04/london\_calling\_martin\_luther\_k.html](http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/eboo_patel/2008/04/london_calling_martin_luther_k.html)

> [@](#):
>
> In 1959, as the civil rights movement was gaining ground, King went to India to study Gandhi’s legacy firsthand. He marveled at the religious diversity of the subcontinent, how Gandhi had brought people of all faiths and classes together to work nonviolently for freedom.

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