Richard Dawkins on Canada AM

well they say the two things you should never talk about at a dinner party or politics and religion many people ignore the first rule talking politics until they're blue in the face but very few people are willing to dive into a debate about religion our next guest is one big exception his book The God Delusion is generating a lot of controversy and in the process a lot of sales author Richard Dawkins joins me now in studio pretty difficult subject to write about and but and what I was going to ask you is when you when you set out to do it knowing how you're gonna put this together you probably knew that there were gonna be a lot of people they're gonna be very angry about this book well I would never thrust it on a dinner party I suppose I knew they'd be angry I think the the anger is exaggerated I think that religion has got used to getting a free ride so not just that people don't talk about it at dinner parties but when they do talk about it they treat it with a kind of harsh respect and even people who disagree with religion usually go out of their way to say how much they respect it well I think it's had too much respect and it's time that change and you're not singling out any particular religion in this case mute refer to God you're referring to God in every form well yes I'm suppose I'm mostly referring to the Abrahamic God the God of the Christians Jews and Muslims but really any kind of supernatural God meets needs to be looked at with the same critical eye and you unabashedly in the book and the really the theme running throughout is that without religion had there if there were no religion we wouldn't have had a 9/11 we wouldn't have had a number of these atrocities but in fact there are a number of atrocities that happened that maybe religion wasn't well yes I mean I think actually that's a secondary theme of the book the primary theme is that it just isn't true there isn't a god or there's no evidence for a god and it's very unlikely so rather than concentrate on the evils of religion which I do as well the first point I'd make is that it's that it's not true and and I think that's important but you seem but you're saying it's not true based on scientific fact that you can but isn't that what faith is believing even though you don't see yes that is exactly what and that's what's wrong with it because there is no grounds for believing in something that you see is putting it too narrowly but that in for which there is no evidence of any kind what isn't there a difference between religious fanaticism as in what would have been behind 9/11 and and the religion that people need and want in their lives think the religion that does missionary work around the world that is to the betterment of humankind there is of course a moderate religion and and there are many extremely nice people are religious there is a danger though that people get lulled into a false sense of security by the niceness of moderate moderate religion and they forget the the real nastiness of immoderate religion and they also forget that a moderate religion is extremely numerous in the world it's not as though the the unpleasant aspect of religion is a kind of tiny fringe it's very very numerous in the Islamic world and in the United States of America and in other places too well you talk a lot obviously about atheism and in the book and and interesting you point out that an atheist hood is is powerless against religion because atheists don't they're independent by nature so they're not necessarily going to form a power group well there is that there is that problem we don't seem to have been very good at getting our act together politically but you can compare it to being gay like you say yeah 20 years ago the way you know gays and lesbians had to fight is the way that these atheists who say they're stuck in the closet I don't know what it's like in Canada I think that is what it's like in the United States it's not what it's like in Britain or in Europe I mean Britain and yet in Europe you pretty much have to apologize if you if you are religious in intellectual circles but the United States that that's not true I think rather few intellectuals in the United States are actually religious but they kind of go along with respecting it I hope that's going to change and with your book what ultimately would you hope people will walk away from this with I think I hope people will walk away thinking critically for themselves don't take anything on Authority don't say I believe in it because it's my tradition don't say I believe in it because either I or somebody else has had some kind of private revelation say I'm only going to believe in this if there's any evidence for it Richard Dawkins fascinating book controversial and fascinating thank you for your time thank you very much still to come on Canada a.m. how to avoid getting seasick over cruise vacation prices we'll have some tips in the first installment of a five-part travel series

Channel: br0k3nglass

Views: 98,940

Rating: 4.798995 out of 5

Keywords: richard, dawkins, god, delusion, ctv, atheist, atheism

Id: Hyqvy52Kerg

Length: 4min 41sec (281 seconds)

Published: Mon May 07 2007

Reddit Comments

[u/Fakyall]

When was this? he was in Canada and i didn't even know about it.

With the passing of Hitchens, it made me realize that I want to try and meet him at a book signing or something at least once.