Minimal

stressed for motivation and achievement

2006-01-09

The Root of All Evil?

There’s a risk I’ll offend a number of friends with this post, but I’m really looking forward to Richard Dawkins’ The Root of All Evil? on Channel 4 tonight (8pm). Yup, I’m an atheist.

While I respect people’s rights to believe in whatever they want to believe in (even astrology), deep down I find myself just as dumbfounded as Dawkins is at the willful lack of scientific reasoning that fills the world with religion. That may be a pretty cold, hard-headed approach to things, but I’m a computational kind of guy. I just can’t comprehend how otherwise-rational human beings are so willing to turn a blind eye to what I see as the balance of probabilities.

I doubt there’ll be any revelatory material in tonight’s programme, but it’ll be interesting to hear someone else articulate my own discomfort. And it’ll be interesting to see the responses he gets.

posted by Mal # Monday, January 09, 2006

Comments:

James - did you actually watch the programme?

Matt - cheers for the tip-off. Will have to keep an eye out.

# posted by

Mal : 12:57 pm

Hitler and Stalin, and Napolean before them, all laid waste to Europe and they were all driven by human, godless causes. Would this make them acceptible to Dawkins? I agree with James entirely.

# posted by

Anonymous : 5:38 pm

Actually just realised that there is a surplus of Matts here. My last comment is by me, not the original Matt. Or something.

# posted by

Anonymous : 5:39 pm

OtherMatt, did *you* watch the programme either? The reason I asked James was that Dawkins wasn't arguing that religion is the root of *all* evil - that was just a provocative title for the programme. He was merely asserting that religion quietly (and sometimes not so quietly) encourages intolerance and hatred. It's a big difference.

I actually agree that some people will always be dicks. And I'm sure Richard Dawkins would agree too.

# posted by

Mal : 6:40 pm

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