Dawkins invokes God, unsuccessfully

You'd need a heart of stone not to laugh. Richard Dawkins, the self-effacing scourge of believers everywhere, was on the radio this week arguing that, guess what,  religion no longer has a purpose.  Said he: “an astonishing number [of Christians] couldn’t identify the first book in the New Testament”.  For what it's worth, it's St Matthew's Gospel, but the interesting part is what came next. Dawkins's fellow-panellist was Giles Fraser, who was Canon of St Paul's Cathedral until he quit in a huff last year over the Occupy London protests. Here's a transcript, courtesy of Stephen Pollard in the Daily Telegraph:


Fraser: Richard, if I said to you what is the full title of The Origin Of Species, I’m sure you could tell me that.

Dawkins: Yes I could.

Fraser: Go on then.

Dawkins: On the Origin of Species…Uh…With, oh, God, On the Origin of Species. There is a sub-title with respect to the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life.

Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy, and the inadvertent invocation of the Almighty is a particularly pleasing touch. But without taking sides on the serious underlying issue here (I could, but I won't), just what was Dawkins trying to prove anyway?  I'd bet a tidy sum that most people think that Darwin's book is called "The Origin of the Species" (at least Dawkins got the first line of the title right).  I'd bet an even bigger sum that not one atheist in a hundred has read it, and a larger sum still that far fewer people have made it through any of the works of someone like Stephen Hawking than have read St Matthew's Gospel.  

Does Dawkins really mean to suggest that what's important and true should be decided on the basis of what people can easily recall?   If so,  St Matthew and the rest of the Bible (or the Torah, or the Koran) still have a pretty sizeable lead over string theory and the multiverse.