British TV - Richard Dawkins Interview

he's described by some as Britain's most outspoken atheist he's certainly an eminent scientists he believes that religion fuels war can ferment bigotry and even in some cases abuses children his latest book The God Delusion I have it here is a rebuttal of religion of all types and judging by the response from you the viewers who have been emailing us all afternoon his ability to provoke controversy is undiminished he is Professor Richard Dawkins of Oxford University Richard a very good afternoon to you how do you do thank you for coming in thank you what prompted this volume I wanted to write a book like this for a while my American agent about six years ago said don't even think about it you will never sell that in America things have changed six years of Bush and I think America is ready for an attack on religion Britain Britain always has been and I'm just sorry I didn't write it before in writing the book what did you want it to achieve well I do want to change people's minds anybody who writes a book I suppose wants that I'm not optimistic enough to think that I'm going to change the minds of really deeply religious people but I think there's a large middle ground of people who think of themselves as vaguely religious they go to church once a year or something and they've never given it much thought I want them to give it much thought and I think that when they do they will conclude that actually the religion of their upbringing is probably nonsense you want people to go through an active decision-making process where they arrive at a conclusion which says enough of this nonsense I'm moving on yes I know that's difficult what would that achieve well I think it would achieve a much less cockeyed view of the universe I think people would be able to look out through open eyes at the world at the universe at humanity and see a more realistic picture of the way it is well now lots of emails and viewers and I know you'd be happy to take a few of them because they raise on specific points so Mohammed from South London writes in and says you believe that our world and our species all come from nothing but a bang by accident without design or organization don't you think this is completely ludicrous given the complexity of the world and of our bodies it's like saying that I plant a bomb in of and after it explodes the dust clears and there's a building standing there with elevators lighting meeting rooms and a reception well I was a logic in vector of course it's not like that and that's not that's nothing like what I believe any modern scientists would not believe in that it doesn't come about by chance it comes about in the case of the living world which is the most striking of them it comes about by Darwinian evolution by natural selection which is poles away from chance I'm afraid that the gentleman who emailed simply needs to go and read a book about evolution another one here from cool vinda in Tunbridge Wells professor Dawkins I understand your horror at what human beings do to one another but isn't it a bit simplistic your approach indoctrination and willingness to kill can also come in the form of nationalism and political ideology it why pick on religions well I couldn't agree more I mean if you look at Stalin for example if you if you look at many of the worst tyrants in the 20th century they have had ideologies other than religious they've been fanatics about whatever it is in Hitler's case a kind of crackpot racism in Stalin's case a crackpot Marxist and there are all sorts of other reasons than religion but religions are pretty good one because religion means faith and faith means believing something without evidence and if you believe something without evidence and you've been brought up to think that belief without evidence is somehow supremely virtuous and you don't have to justify your belief you just say that's my faith don't question it that's a recipe for danger extending that logic you Philip from North Wales says if you like this kind of set of values removed from religious structures wouldn't a country like North Korea be your ideal kind of country very far from it because North Korea has a most hideous ideology it may not be recognizably a religious ideology but is just as fanatical just as fundamentalist in the sense that it's based upon some kind of a book some kind of a recipe which does not require evidence it doesn't require if you need argument is positively forbidden um another one here but what you want to achieve it's from it's actually unnamed I've got to admit that but it's from somebody who calls himself stop and think he says what he imagined you will achieve with these attacks on religion people actually need a set of values decency and honesty and truth he says anthem yes decency and honesty and truth come from philosophy they come from law they come from love of people they come from the Golden Rule do as you would be done by there are all sorts of good sources for decency and truth religion is actually not one of them if you think about where we'd be if we followed the mark the morals of the Bible we would be if a husband was discovered that his wife was not a virgin on their wedding night he would have to stone her to death we would stone people to death if they break the Sabbath if they worship graven images we as a matter of course modern theologians have none of that I'm not saying that they do and that is indeed my entire point we do not none of us take her morals from Scripture we take our morals from something else to the extent that we take them from Scripture we cherry-pick we choose the nice book verses from the Bible we reject the nasty verses the criterion by which we cherry-pick is available to all of us whether we are religious or not it if virgin and faith I know they're separate concepts but can we just lump them together for a second if religion if they provide comfort allow some people to live what they call a good life I love them to have at least an understanding of the world around them even if in your view that understanding is a bit cockeyed and what's wrong with that well comfort is a fine thing and there are all sorts of sources of comfort but because something is comforting it doesn't make it true and I care passionately about what's true if somebody comes to me and says I don't care what screw I want comfort then that's fine they go away and get their comfort but if somebody is genuinely interested in what's true then I think they need to look to science they need to look for evidence a doctor can comfort you by saying you haven't got cancer when you have some people like that sort of comfort other people would rather hear the truth one of the most provocative quotes is to do with abuse why do you lump the whole concept of religion with abuse certainty of children well I'm not talking about sexual abuse now I'm talking about mental I do think that it's abusive to children to label them with the religion of their parents before they've had time to know what they really think so what I would like is to raise people's consciousness the way the feminists raised our consciousness so that whenever you hear a phrase like that's a Catholic child or that's a Protestant child or that's a Muslim child it should sound like fingernails on a blackboard you should flinch when you hear that that is not a Catholic child that is a child of Catholic parents maybe one day it will become a Catholic when it grows up old enough to make up its own mind but for the moment that is not a Catholic child you should know more corn at a Catholic child than you would call it a Marxist child or a Keynesian child or a monetarist child where'd you draw the line for parents bringing up children that they can't just leave the whole thing to be a matter of chance can they they need guidance in some ways they need to be given certain criteria by which to live their lives religion is just one way of providing children with these tramlines yes well I've already suggested that religion is not a very good way and there are other ways moral philosophy do to others what you would wish them to do to you try not to cause suffering try not to cause hurt try to be good to everybody these are all things which are which come from many different religions and from no religion that would be a fine way to bring children up morally I think it is important that children should be educated and not religion because it is a fact of life but not just one religion not just the religion that they are told you gotta label around your neck that says you are a Christian or you are a Muslim let them learn about other religions and none well then make them let them make their own mind up sorry to drop a lot lots of the people who wrote in last week were very exorcised by this story from Blackburn where Jack Straw the yes former foreign secretary had asked women to consider taking off their veils Muslim women when they came to his surgery I'm intrigued given your perspective on this what you thought of that Jack Straw never said they must take off their veils he simply invited them to consider taking off their veils which is an entirely reasonable thing to do and they could say no or they could say yes his point was that humans and this is an undeniable point that humans use their face in communication you can really see that that's why it's better to go and see your MP rather than telephone him because you can each see each other's face it defeats the object if you cover up almost all of your face but he never said you must take your veil off he simply said consider it but but interesting that even in asking the merely to consider it cause that broad isn't well isn't that interesting and what do you make of that well I mean it seems to me to show an almost ludicrous hyper sensitivity he didn't tell them to take their their veils off it's a kind of hit almost hysterical reaction for something that he didn't say now there's one here which I want to put you because it's um it's likely sort of fuzzed my brain but I want you to deal with it because you could have any big brain of a professor now it says this is Steve West to write in from Portugal by the way and says professor Dawkins has lucidly demonstrated the logical inconsistencies of the existence of a deity the question I'd like to ask is why would an omnipotent deity be limited by the man-made invention of logic well if he's suggesting that we can't use logic in order to bring our minds to bear upon the question of the existence of God I find that a most incredible cop-out I mean it means it in a sense anything goes that way madness lies because you could use that argument to demonstrate the existence of fairies the Flying Spaghetti Monster the orbiting teapot I mean that a million things golden unicorns there's no limit to the number of things that you could justify once you abandon logic professor Dawkins be great pleasure talking to you and it's certainly a controversial book and I'm sure that people will enjoy the argument but thank you very much thank you they

Channel: clintburky

Views: 166,750

Keywords: :, richard, dawkins, god, old, testament, atheist, atheism, religion, religious, creationism

Id: _8-VxIp9G2E

Length: 10min 24sec (624 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 18 2007