Cathedral of Blessed Dawkins to Open in 2013

The Natural History Museum: Proposed Site of the World's First Officially Atheist Church

Canterbury Cathedral is to find a new threat to its unofficial title as a more or less 'atheist' palace of worship in the Year of Out-Lawed 2013. The Cathedral of Blessed Dawkins will open this year to what is expected to be a rapturous reception from key figures in the National Secular Society and some celebrities.

A Church dedicated to the glory of atheism has been in the pipeline for a long time, ever since monuments built to the achievements of Mao, Stalin and Lenin and the Third Reich have, over time, lost their lustre and sacred appeal.

The Cathedral, expected to be the Natural History Museum, will give atheist worshippers the opportunity to glorify the achievements of the scientific world, as well as to spend time discussing Malthusian principles and prophecies that require an element of faith, discussing the promised land of the future eugenic utopia and the weekly chance to examine empirical evidence of fossils and fascinating PowerPoint presentations of DNA structures of the Human Genome Project organised by The Wellcome Trust. Head of the Congregation for Human Genome Sequencing will be Professor Steve Jones of the Galton Institute, formerly known as the British Eugenics Society.

Fascinating and mysterious: The Human Genone Project

The proposed days for worship will be anytime between 9am - 5pm from Monday to Sunday, so that worshippers do not have to lose out on working while they meet their weekly obligation to attend the daily offering of a climate change denier to appease the wrath of David Attenborough. Climate or Eco Faults, as well as weekly carbon emissions committed during daily lives will be absolved by a general confession of faults followed by a litany of the entire membership of the Royal Society from the 1600s to the present day.

Richard Dawkins explained, "Now that atheism has a real foothold in the country and is spreading like a norovirus around this green and pleasant land, mostly thanks to me and my books and voracious appetite for publicity, I am thoroughly self-satisfied to announce the news of the opening of the Cathedral of Blessed Dawkins and look forward to being installed as Grand High Priest of the Atheist World by A. C. Grayling, in a ceremony using esoteric mathematical formulas as yet unheard of by modern man.

Dawkins prepares for installation

As a celebration of the event of the opening, I plan to inaugurate a Year of Contempt for Religious Faith. This will be a boon to the flourishing atheist academies, universities and schools around Great Britain and as a special dispensation to those who follow the tenets of atheism, especially those who have bought my books, I will grant a discount for pilgrimages to the CERN Project in Switzerland."

Religious authorities reacted with consternation to the news of the Cathedral of Blessed Dawkins with some accusing the atheist writer, zoologist and biologist of deliberately 'aping the customs of Christianity in order to draw more worshippers to himself'.

Professor Dawkins courted controversy recently when he suggested that 'vile' Catholics who teach their children that there real spiritual consequences to moral decisions were guilty of "child abuse".

In order to counter suggestions that atheists cannot be 'good without God' and that his philosophy is derived from the 'selfish gene', Professor Dawkins has promised that he will personally open up another five abortion clinics in London as a demonstration of how charitable atheism can be, "especially to the poor and feckless".