Channel 4's "The root of all evil"

Professor Richard Dawkins - did his best to dismantle faith on Channel 4's "The root of all evil". It seemed a shame that within the programme throughout he targeted caricatures of faith, the extremists, fanatical to prove his points. It seem a shame that throughout his points were enforced with comical 'synthed jingley' hymns and obscure OT blood and gore texts. It seemed a shame that when talking to the Liberal Bishop of somewhere, that conversation was curtailed - even when he found himself 'pleasantly surprised'. Later Dawkins dismissed him as not being fundamentalist enough! It seemed a shame that Dawkins had to resort in his dialogue to being as fundamentalist and 'evangelical about his atheism' as those he was ridiculing. It seemed a shame that Dawkins was so certain with no room for uncertainty.

It's a shame that caricatures aside he made some distinct points that we as church have made it easy for him to make. It's a shame that the life of the church hasn't throw up the concept of grace for him to go off and try to dismiss, dismantle and deconstruct. I was disappointed but then if this highly intelligent mind hasn't seen it in action he probably never would have considered it worthy of dissection and the need find the 'grace gene' in a group of monkeys somewhere in Africa!

I loved his closing sentences that championed his scientific atheism by pointing to the life of freedom that was his, free from dogma. I wish I had written it down. He pointed to the fact that he was stood where he was, and was who he was as a result of a gene pool that exceeded the grains of sand in the Sahara. What odds would you get for that complete and utter accident?

Whereas he did a good job of dismantling unthinking fundamentalism I think ironically the whole programme and his approach did a good job of promoting faith!

Comments

Carl said…
I saw the advert for the show, and instantly knew what my response would be to the whole show: "Yes, it can be like that, but it doesn't have to be. I could cite plenty of examples where it isn't."

So I didn't bother watching it. Not the best response but time is of the essence at the moment!

Thanks for your post on it.
Sarah said…
I loved his last comment as well. It seemed to me that he discredited all he had said with those last two sentences. Thank you Richard for that :) and thank you for summing up my frustrations with him so nicely.
Gordon said…
Carl - shame I could have seen you blogging about it for weeks! you would have 'enjoyed' it.
Gordon said…
Thanks Sallibuc for dropping by - you could be right!
Gordon said…
Sarah - I wish I'd written it down because it almost sounded as if the two weeks material had been an elaborate joke!

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