Richard Dawkins Felt 1 Elvis Presley Song Was a Sign From God

Richard Dawkins is not moved by religious or otherwise supernatural claims. He was, however, so moved by an Elvis Presley song that he came to the conclusion that heaven itself wanted him to hear it. Interestingly, he agreed with the track’s lyrics on a deep level. Here’s a look at how Dawkins lost his faith and how Elvis found his own form of spirituality.

Richard Dawkins connected with the view of nature in 1 Elvis Presley song

In his 2013 book An Appetite for Wonder, Dawkins said he was raised Anglican. However, he became disillusioned with Christianity as a young man due to the doctrine of original sin. He still believed in God because he felt the glories of the natural world pointed to the existence of a designer. He was also a huge fan of the “Blue Suede Shoes” singer. “I worshiped Elvis and I was a strong believer in a non-denominational creator god,” he said.

Dawkins once noticed Elvis’ gospel EP Peace in the Valley in a shop window. He was taken with the song “I Believe.” “I slipped the record out of the sleeve and on to the turntable,” Dawkins wrote. “I listened with delight — for my hero sang that every time he saw the wonders of the natural world around him, he felt his religious faith reinforced. My own sentiments exactly! This was surely a sign from heaven.”

Richard Dawkins felt that the song was personally speaking to him for a short time

Dawkins was unaware that the “How Great Thou Art” singer was a religious man. “Why I was surprised that Elvis was religious is now beyond me,” he said. “He came from an uneducated working-class family in the American South. How could he not have been religious?

“Nevertheless, I was surprised at the time, and I sort of half-believed that in this unexpected record, Elvis was speaking personally to me, calling me to devote my life to telling people about the creator god — which I should be especially well-qualified to do if I became a biologist like my father,” he said. Dawkins’ theistic fervor ended shortly after that, partly because of his understanding of Darwinism.  He would become, in his own words, “militantly atheistic.”

Elvis Presley revered Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, Muhammad, and others

Elvis, on the other hand, was more open to spiritual ideas than most people. While he recorded a lot of Christian music, he wasn’t only interested in Christianity. In her 1985 memoir Elvis and Me, Priscilla Presley recalled that her husband believed Jesus was only one of several “great masters” sent from God, alongside Moses, the Buddha, Muhammad, and others. 

He also considered the Hindu saint Paramahansa Yogananda, the author of Autobiography of a Yogi, to be a holy man and sought to achieve his state of consciousness. While Priscilla never classifies Elvis as a New Ager, his fusion approach to spirituality was similar to the approach of the contemporaneous New Age movement.

Dawkins and Elvis didn’t see eye-to-eye but Dawkins still appreciated Elvis’ art.