Evolutionary biologist and famed atheist Richard Dawkins is hitting back against accusations of Islamophobia after he angrily walked out on an interview with a Muslim journalist.

Mr. Dawkins, author of best-seller “The God Delusion,” told the New Statesmen’s Emad Ahmed that his belief that the prophet Muhammad flew to heaven on a winged horse was “pathetic” before storming off.

“Dawkins is in fact so outspoken about religion, particularly Islam, that I was genuinely stunned when he decided to angrily walk away from our scheduled interview after I confirmed my beliefs in the revelations of the Islamic faith, calling my views ‘pathetic,’” Mr. Ahmed wrote in his Dec. 22 article, titled “My year in Islamophobia.”

Mr. Dawkins, 74, took to Twitter to defend himself against numerous accusations of Islamophobia, particularly by The Intercept editor Glenn Greenwald.

“I left when [Mr. Ahmed] said Muhammad rode a winged horse. A non-timewasting journalist needs at least SOME grasp of reality,” Mr. Dawkins tweeted Sunday to his 1.32 million followers. “Ridiculing belief in a winged horse is not ‘bigotry’, not ‘Islamophobia’, not ‘racism’. It’s sober, decent, gentle, scientific realism.

“If you believe you’re Napoleon or a poached egg, you’re in an asylum. If you believe in winged horses you’re a New Statesman journalist,” he added.

Mr. Dawkins later explained via TwitLonger: “I’m accused by @ggreenwald of refusing to be interviewed by Muslim journalists! Here’s what actually happened.

“I was at a Royal Society meeting to launch the new Stephen Hawking Prize for Science Communication sponsored by @STARMUSfestival, the imaginative conference series that brings scientists together with astronauts and creative musicians,” he wrote. “The very nice PR woman arranged press interviews for the speakers. Science communication is dear to my heart, and I agreed to be pulled out of the conference for a series of interviews, on condition that the journalists would ask me about the Hawking Prize & STARMUS, not religion.

“One journalist, from New Statesman, soon made it clear that he wanted to talk of nothing but religion,” he continued. “My impatience grew, fed by my desire to rejoin the conference. I kept trying to drag him back to the agreed topic. Eventually, the PR woman arrived & signalled to the journalist that his time was up, but he asked to be allowed to carry on. He had just admitted that he believed in flying horses. In exasperation that I had left the conference to talk to a time-wasting journalist whose world view was ludicrously unconnected with reality, I terminated the interview and went off with the PR woman. I now find myself accused of refusing to be interviewed by Muslim journalists!”

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