A new television documentary about religion presented by Richard
Dawkins on C4 in the UK.
I personally think Dawkins is too soft on religion, but it's
interesting to read a moderate viewpoint on the subject.
This is an interview with Dawkins in Radio Times magazine introducing
the programme.
">Why do you think religion is dangerous?
The way it encourages a knd of childlike slavish obedience is very
negative. It teaches people to be satisfied with inadequate answers
to profound questions. Thanks to science, we now have such an
exciting grasp of the answers to such questions, it's a kind of
blasphemy not to embrace them.
>You blame religion for causing wars. Why do you think this is?
If you're told from the cradle that it's a virtue to believe in
something in spite of the lack of evidence, that leaves you with
nothing but faith. So there is nothing people of opposing faiths can
do but disagree. That is bound to cause confrontation.
>What evidence is there that religious fundamentalism is on the rise
in the USA as well as in the Middle East?
There is the astonishing fact that in the USA not a single member of
Congress will admit to being an atheist - and they wouldn't be
elected if they did. Yet if you look at the country's intellectual
elite, especially the scientists, 90 per cent of them are atheists.
That mismatch is a strange phenomenon in a democracy.
>You imply that people who believe are deluded. Is that a good way
to win them round?
A good intellectual case can be made that the existence of a
supernatural being is improbable. And anyone intelligent enough to
understand that can be persuaded faith is without foundation. Many
atheists, in the fight to keep creationism out of schools, decide
it's best to say that believing in God and evolution isn't
incompatible. But I'm a boat-rocker - I make the case that it's
difficult to believe in God if you understand evolution.
>How do you feel about faith schools?
Ghettoisation is a terrible danger for society. What hope is there
when children are segregated and taught their own version of history,
with the other people as the bad guys? You're bound to get tribal
wars. Every time I hear phrases such as "Catholic child" or "Muslim
child", I flinch. There's no such thing. There is a child of Catholic
or Muslim parents, who, when they're old enough to be able to decide
for themselves, may choose to follow a religion.
>Isn't religion, for many people, as much to do with cultural
identity as faith per se?
Yes, that's true. Some Jewish friends, who admit to being atheists,
embrace religion to maintain a tradition that's been going for 3000
years. I understand that. I was raised an Anglican and I still love
the King James Bible. It's astonishingly beautiful English.
>If there were no religion, where would that leave morality?
If your only reason to be good is that you're frightened of a great
CCTV in the sky watching your every move, it doesn't say much for you
as a person. There is something ancient about the impulse to
morality, a strong empathetic tendency in the human mind, with clear
Darwinian roots. This genetic empathy came first - religion climbed
on the back of it.
In _The Story of God_, Robert Winston claimed many scientists are
spiritual. Do you agree?
A lot of physicists, in particular, have a deep sense of mystery
because they confront the elementary principles of the universe.
Biologists like me see the extreme complexity of nature. One feels a
great humility, knowing there is a lot we don't, and might never,
understand. Religion is pathetic compared to the level of
sophistication that physics and biology deal with."
--
William T Goodall
Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk
Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/
"The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence
whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the
silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more
likely to be foolish than sensible."
- Bertrand Russell
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