Dawkins and the Root of all Evil

I watched Prof Richard Dawkins The Root of All Evil? last night. I got it at Civic Video for a dollar twenty, which is their Thursday deal. He was preaching to the converted, as they say, but I can't seem to get enough of anti-religious material. I also read God is Not Great when I was in Cambodia. Hitchens strikes me as the more colourful debater and invokes more interesting examples than Dawkins but I enjoyed this documentary none the less.

Dawkins is primarily interested in what he terms the big three religions - Christianity, Islam and Judaism - even though one of those is practiced by what can only be described as a tiny percentage of humanity. They are all dependant on one scripture, however, and together constitute over half the worlds religion adherents (according to the back of the DVD case - C = 33.06%, I = 20.28% and J = 0.23%). Dawkins neglects major religions foreign to the West though, such as Hinduism, which I think is an oversight.

The most interesting scenes in the documentary are when Dawkins speaks to fundamentalists. He travels to the US and speaks to several evangelical Christians, to North London to see ultra-orthodox Jews and to Gaza where he meets a Islamic extremist (who was interestingly raised as a secular Jew in New York). Dawkins can't help appearing utterly flabbergasted by all of them, which is quite endearing I suppose, almost as if he is thoroughly offended each and every time by their inherent bigotry - even though he knew very well what sort of people he was planning to mingle with.

Dawkins is not particularly even handed and deals more with Christians than the other two religions, presumably because he's English and a "Protestant Atheist". He would not make a great journalist because he is far too incensed by the ideology of his interviewees to allow them to fully articulate their beliefs. Not too far into each interview the religious proponent is all too aware of Dawkins anti-religious agenda and is keen to cut proceedings short. What he learns from all of them in the end though, and even displays a slight admiration for, is their overwhelming confidence. None of them is in the least bit interested as he reminds them of their lack of evidence. I suppose this is the ultimate problem with fundamentalist religion. It is impervious to attacks of logic and evidence.

Paul Berman Interview

An interesting interview here.

"To be sure, lofty disdain comes in different versions. In its respectable version, lofty disdain right now adopts a position of long-faced sadness over Israel for being such a reprehensible place, for existing at a moment when states ought to fade away, for being racist, for perpetuating religion, for being an example of European imperialism, and so forth. One shakes one's head in sorrowful regret that the Israelis are the way they are.

But the disdain takes another shape, too, which is cruder, though it follows more or less from the first version. In the cruder version, the Jews are not just regrettable for being retrograde. Much worse: the Jews have done something really terrible. By forming their state and standing by it, they have set out actively to oppose the principle of universal justice and happiness - the principle that decrees that a people like the Jews should not have a state."

Contemporary high mindedness.

I met a Jewish girl with a Hindu name last night. Great big, bubbly creature she was too.