Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Dawkins Kicks Ass: Without Even Trying!


The first of a two-part series entitled “The Root of All Evil”; featuring Prof. Richard Dawkins was screened on Channel 4 (UK) on Monday night. No, it wasn’t about money, the “evil” referred to in this case, was religion. The hour-long episode subtitled “The God Delusion”, showed Dawkins travelling to the USA and the Middle East, the two worst hotbeds of religious strife in today’s faith-flummoxed world.

I had to admire his courage as the hugely-outnumbered Dawkins had to contend with the obvious hatred he faced from a Christian fanatic and a less fanatical but no less dangerous-looking Muslim zealot. In both cases the hatred – it seemed clear to me – was born of anger, anger they felt I think, because deep inside, these men knew their dogma was wrong and they had no recourse but to vent anger when faced with logic and reason. Both were perfect examples of a description written by Dawkins some time ago, i.e. religious fanatics cannot argue rationally, all they can do is resort to violence and often murder those who disagree with them.

Had this not been on TV, I think Dawkins might have feared for his life, the American evangelical, a character by the name of Pastor Ted Haggard, was a particularly nasty-looking specimen; this man’s eyes spoke of the probably murderous thoughts running through his God-virus-polluted brain. These fanatics didn’t even have the sense to see that they were making Richard Dawkins’ case for him! Dawkins could hardly get a word in but he didn’t need to, his reputation had preceded him and the “religites” just wanted to get angry with him so they could brag to their brainless brethren.

Sorry folks, to anyone but an idiot, the score line was a resounding:

Dawkins – 2, Religious Nutcases – 0

To a reader of Dawkins works, the story lines of the program was easily predictable (I even found myself prompting Richard’s next phrase from time to time) but nevertheless definitely achieved its purpose and made Christianity, Islam and to a lesser extent Judaism, look lame and foolish.

The next episode will feature Dawkins postulation that religion can be thought of as a “virus of the mind”, even though this idea is now well known; I still think it will be compelling viewing that any open-minded person will enjoy. I’m looking forward to it!

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Google video has this material now, we need more people like Dawkins - good stuff!

8:40 pm  

Post a Comment

<< Home