The Four Horsemen: Hour 2 of 2 - Discussions with Richard Dawkins, Ep 1

the two two issues converge here one is the question what do we want to accomplish what do we reasonably think we can accomplish and then this this article of faith that I think circulates unfortunately among people of our viewpoint that you can't argue anyone out of their beliefs well is this a completely fatuous exercise or can we actually win a war of ideas with people and I think certainly judging from my email we can't I'm constantly getting email from people who have lost their faith and in effect been argued out of it and and the straw that broke that camel's back was either one of our books or some other process process of reasoning or incompatibility of what they knew to be true and what they were told by their faith that I think we have to just highlight the fact that it's possible for people to be shown the contradictions and you in internal to their faith or the contradiction between their faith and what we've come to know to be true about the universe and they just that you know it can the process can take minutes or months or years but they they they have to renounce their superstition in the face of what they now notice I was having an argument with a very sophisticated biologist who's a brilliant expositor of evolution and he still believes in God and I said how can you what's this all about and he said I accept all your rational arguments however it's faith and then he said this very significant phrase to me there's a reason that it's called faith he said it very decisively very almost aggressively that there's a reason that it's called faith and that was to him the absolute knock down clincher I can't argue with it because it's faith and he said it proudly and defiantly rather than in any sort of apologetic when you get it all the time in North America from people who say you've got to read William James and have had to be able to judge other people's subjective experiences with something that's by definition impossible to do right if it's real to them why can't you respect it I mean this wouldn't be accepted in any other field of argument at all depression people are under is less critical thing about them I had a debate with a very senior Presbyterian in Orange County I asked him because we were talking about biblical literalism of which he wasn't an exponent but I said well what about the graves opening at the time of the crucifixion according to sin Matthew Matthew I'd rather say and everyone getting out of their graves in Jerusalem walking around greeting old friends in the city I was going to ask him doesn't that rather cheapen the idea of the resurrection of Jesus but he mistook my purpose he wanted to know if I believe that it happened that was what he thought right and he said that as a historian jool say was he was inclined to doubt it right but as a Presbyterian minister he thought it was true I thought well all right then how Gilbert now absolu see for me it was enough going to say that I said in that case I rest my case I don't want to say any more to you now you've said all I could say yeah well it's one at one other chip I'd like to put on the table here there's this phenomenon of someone like Francis Collins or your or the biologist you just mentioned who someone who obviously has enough of the facts on board in enough of a scientific education to know better and still does not know better or professors not to know better and there I think we have a cultural problem where this was actually brought home to me at one talk I gave a physics professor came up to me at the end of the talk and told me that he had brought one of his graduate students who was a devout Christian and who was quite shaken by my talk and they and and all I got from of this report was that this was the first time his faith had ever really been explicitly challenged and so there's something about that it's true it's true to say that you can go through the curriculum of becoming a scientist and never have your faith explicitly challenge because it's taboo to do so and now we have you know engineers who can build nuclear bombs in the Muslim world who still think it's it's plausible metaphysics that you can get to paradise and get 72 virgins and we have people like Francis Collins who think that on Sunday you can kneel down in the dewy grass and give yourself to Jesus because you're in the presence of a frozen waterfall and on Monday you can be a physical geneticist well according to our friend great Pervez Hoodbhoy the grip pakistani this is there are people who think you can use the jinns the Devils Ryan harness their power for the reactant was almost tempting to find such a project yeah yeah and it seems then I gather that the gain I can't get over him still the respected Jim trigram Adonis and Antony's College Oxford says in his book I'm told that he believes in jinns - right right I hope I'm not doing him an injustice I've been told that in his book in the steps of the Prophet he says as much so when one is up against things that are flat-out primitive and superstition I think it may be easier than we then where we're supposing to shake people's faith there's been there's been a moratorium on this for a long time we're just the beginning of a new wave of explicit attempts to shake people's faith and it's bearing fruit and the obstacles it seems to me are not that we don't have the facts or the arguments its these strategic reasons for not professing it not admitting it notting admitting it to yourself not admitting it in public because your your family is going to view it as a betrayal you're you just embarrassed to admit that you were taken in by this for so long it takes I think tremendous courage to just declare that you've given that all up and if we can find ways to help people find that courage and give them some examples of people who have done this and you know they're doing just fine they may have lost the affections of a parent or something like that they may have hurt some family members but still I think it's a good thing to encourage and I don't think we should I don't think we should assume that we can't do this I think we can yes is almost patronizing to suggest that that we couldn't I'm suggested earlier that it shouldn't that is not on the other hand I think we all know people who seem to manage this kind of split-brain feet of as Sam said believing one thing on a Sunday and then something totally contradict your own compatibility in incompatible on in the rest of the week and there's nothing I suppose neurologically wrong with that I mean there's no reason why one shouldn't have a brain that's split in that mm-hmm that calm but but it but it is unstable in a certain way but yeah and I'm sure you're right that people do this and they're very good at it and they do it by deflecting attention from it yeah and let's start but but how does a nerd with it let's start focusing it is how when you live with a contradiction in your with it by not by by forgetting that you're doing this and by not attending to I think what I would love to do is is to invent a a memorable catch phrase or term that would rise unbidden in their minds when they caught themselves doing it and then they would think oh this is one of those yes cosmic shifts it yes there Dennett and Dawkins and Harrison and Hitchens are talking about oh right and they they they think this is somehow elicit just just to create a little more awareness in them of what a strange thing it is that they're doing yeah I'm afraid to say that I think that cognitive dissonance is probably necessary for everyday survival everyone does it a bit I mean tolerating cognitive dissonance no practice actually magazine a person who could move 200 or take the case someone who's a member of moveon.org they think the United States government is a brutal militaristic Imperial regime crushes the poor and invades other people's countries but they pay their taxes and it's a very very rare that they turned they send their children to school they do their stuff you know they don't act all the time as if 10% of what they believe is true right now particles would be impossible say with people in the 50s who remembers the John Birch Society who thought President Eisenhower's a communist okay you get up in the morning you believe that it's what White House is run by the Kremlin but then you go and get the groceries right right and do all that is why you just don't have to go and do many commitments here but you absolutely wouldn't be challengeable in your belief it would be very very important to you would you be no way in your life your real life affirmative indicating or practicing the opinion that you have and I'm sure that the same is true of people who say what I'd you know I shouldn't really prefer one child to another or one parent to another but I do I just not going to act as if I didn't write all kinds of things of this kind but what do you think as EDUCAUSE senator Craig say he's not gay thinking his own mind he's absolutely is not right yeah but he can't handle he got manage his life by saying ears or theism yeah so a question I wanted to ask was this we should ask ourselves what our real objective yeah do we in fact wish to see a world without faith I think I would have to say that I don't I don't either expect to or wish to see that what he might why I think is possible because it replicates so farst faith as often as it's cut down or or superseded or described it replicates seems to be extraordinary for us I think for Freudian reasons principally to do with the fear of extinction seeming failure very natural yeah paradigms wish why would you not wish wish thinking and then the other thing is would I would I want this argument come to an end with all having conceded retire and religions really won that round now nobody in the world believes and God now apart from being unable to picture this I'm not completely certain that it's what I want I think I think it is rather to be considered as of the foundation of all arguments about histology philosophy bargains on that it's it's the thing you have two ways to be arguing against the other the other legislation destroyed anything I I know don't understand what you're Simon understand you're saying that it'll it'll never work but I don't understand why you wouldn't wish it I was I'd think as a bit like the argument of the argument between I mean Huxley and Darwin I'm sorry excuse me Huxley and Wilberforce or Darrow and William Jennings Bryan I want it to go on because we're interesting when I walked outside to get more refined and there's to be ever more exposed but I can't see it with one hand clapping what do you you don't want to go on with the jihadis I mean there's a certain face if there's no but my don't have a difference of opinion with the jihadists well you do in terms of a legitimacy of their no I don't know no fair no there's nothing to argue about with that I mean there are some simple matters but I want them to be extirpated or then move it down to the people who are black in stem so they're no they're it's a pure that's a purely primate response with me they're recognizing the need to destroy an enemy in order to assure my own survival I've no interest tutorial what'd it sound be likely really this we haven't still come to your question about his number no interest at all in what they think only interested in refining methods of destroying them in other words you've simply been asking by the etruscan which by the way one gets very little secular support yeah those inaudible don't want this fight yeah the most important one is the one they want to show they'd far are the go and jump on Billy Graham well so that they know that they can't fight this an adventure I think that because we find the the idea of exterminating these people to support and we think that besides it will no I said an extra page extra page yes complete destruction of the jihadist forces extermination I think must has to be applied more species also but Christopher get going back to your to your thing about it sounds as though you like argument you like having it's almost the theater of having an intellectual argument which would be lost well I'd rather say the dialectic actually you actually in other words one learns from arguing with other people yes I think all of us around this table have probably enhanced or improved our own capacities as reasoner's yes I mean there are plenty of other things to reason about you can you couldn't having won the battle against religion we can go back to science or whatever it is we really practice and we can we can argue and reason about that and there's plenty of arguments and really worthwhile but I'd it will always be the case some will tribute their presence here to the rules of biology and others will attribute their presence here to a divine plan that has a scheme for that so you can sell a lot in my view about people from which view they take and as we will only one of those views make sense but one how do we know that because we have to contrast it with the opposite one but let me make it a game though not there disappear because you could see you could have said the same thing about witchcraft at some point you know in recent history you could say that every culture has had a belief in witches a belief in the efficacy of magic spells witchcraft is just is ubiquitous and we're never going to get rid of it and were fools to try or we can try only as a matter of dialectic but witchcraft is is going to be with us well and yet witchcraft has almost without exception I mean you can find certain communities or a tool not that's all I mean we know witchcraft which goes in clearly in eradicable spreads like wheat often under animists and Christian known only motion generation knows in Western it I was in relation really scrap which was okay evil eye and and and instead of medicine you have you think you've got rid of that I think we've got fundamentally we've got rid of that yes in any case though it's all this current there's currently a campaign to get Wiccans registered to be buried in our into the Senate well oh but why hello the way Wiccans are to whisper afters and the Aryans are right they're not real where I'm talking about them I'm talking about a willingness to kill your neighbor because you think that there is some causal mechanism by which they through their evil intent could have destroyed your crops psychically you know or cast an evil eye upon your I mean it comes it comes in ignorance of medical science I mean you don't know why people get sick and you suspect your neighbor of ill intent and then witchcraft fills the void there know what wouldn't say in this case the one wish to be one didn't wish to be without it that we lost something before we do are effectively we're not dealing with with the claims of witches intruding upon medical don't don't go to alternative medicine and acupuncture here I'm talking about real witch Grail or was it eh I was about to do that first thing and the Washington Post publishes a horoscope Sevareid a astrology that yet another bad but as usual as property is a the sake of my astrology is not going to be eradicated but if a what but it even a story no but you're confusing what whether it's going to be eradicating whether you want it to be eradicated and it sounds that you don't want it to be eradicated because you want something to argue against and something to show which I think that is in fact what I wasn't but in fact instead of thinking about eradication why not think about it the way an evolutionary epidemiologist would and say what we want to do is we want to encourage the evolution of a virulence we want to get rid of the harmful kinds and and I mean I don't care about astrology I don't think it's harmful enough I mean it was a little scary when Reagan was reportedly using astrology to make decisions but that I hope anomalous case aside I find the superstition that astrology is is important to be relatively harmless if we could only do the same thing if we had only relegate the other enthusiasms to the status of astrology I'd be happy right well look you don't accept my weed unlike my answer but I think the question should be is going to be asked atlas it was asked to me today again on their on the TVs do you wish no one was going to church this morning in the United States all right what's your answer well I've given mine no I don't know I was agreed with but what the answer I gave this morning was I think people will be much better off without false consolation and I don't want them trying to inflate their beliefs on me they'll be doing themselves and me a favor if they gave it up so perhaps in that sense I contradict myself I mean I wish they would stop it but then I would be left with no one to argue with and but you can't and I don't and I certainly didn't say that I thought if they'd only listened to me they would stop going okay so the two questions yeah so here's my that was my very experimentalist but I'd love to hear would you like to say that you look forward to a world where no one had any faith in yeah I I want ask this um whether it's astrology or religion or or anything else I want to live in a world where people think skeptically for themselves look at evidence not because astrology is harmful I guess it probably isn't harmful but if you go through the world thinking that it's okay to just believe things because you believe them without evidence then you're missing so much and it - it's such a wonderful experience to live in the world and understand why you're living in the world and understand what makes it work understand about the real stars understand about astronomy that it's an impoverishing thing to to be reduced to the pettiness of astrology and and I think you can say the same of religion the universe is a grand beautiful wonderful place and it's petty and parochial and cheapening to believe in jinns and supernatural creators and supernatural interferers I think it would make an aesthetic case that you want to go to fine ABS I could not possibly agree with it more but let's talk about priorities okay if we could just get rid of some of the most pernicious and noxious excesses what would what would what would be the triumphs you would go for first what would what would really thrill you as a as a as an objective reached let's let's look at Islam and let's look at Islam as realistically as we can is there any remote chance of a reformed reasonable Islam well isn't the present savage Islam actually rather recent isn't it the Wahhabi didn't know about quite a ways I think to get to get only up to a point I mean I think there's and again yet none of us are the whether we're equipped to do it we're not the most persuasive mouthpieces of this criticism it takes someone like ayaan Hirsi Ali or a Muslim scholar is someone like even Warwick to authentically criticize Islam and have it be heard by by people but especially the secular liberals of sort who don't trust our take on this but it seems to me you have different historical moments in the history of Islam that are distinct one where Islam really has you have a you some some Muslim you have a Caliphate or you have some Muslim country which is has a a reign of Islam and is unmolested but for whatever a period of time from the outside and then Islam can be as totalitarian and happy with itself as possible and you don't see the the the the inherent conflict and the inherent liability of its Creed maybe we the Samuel Huntington said Islam has bloody borders it's at the borders that that were noticing this problem and the borders of Islam and modernity at this moment the conflict between Islam and modernity but yes you can find instances in the history of Islam where people weren't running around waging jihad because they had successfully waged jihad yeah and whatever what about women and what exactly the suffering within those borders yeah why even in the best of times but there's also there's obviously some kind of syncretism and we know quite a lot now there'll be some wonderful books romantic art book on Andalusia for example on periods where Islamic civilization was relatively at peace with its neighbors and and during a lot of work of its own on matters that were not jihadists and I saw myself in during the wars in post Yugoslavia that the Bosnian Muslims would behave far better than the equations either Catholic or Orthodox and were the victims of religious massacre and not the perpetrators of them and we're the ones who believe the most emotion culturalism so it can it can happen you even you could even meet people who said they were atheists Muslims or Muslim atheist was exact us inside inside our you Korea which is it a technical impossibility but the problem is this whether we think as I certainly very firmly do believe that totalitarianism is innate in all religion because it has to want an absolute unchallengeable eternal what authority in all religion must be so the Creator whose will can't is our comments on his will or unimportant we his will is absolute chemically charged and applies afterward jealous words before we're born that is the origin of journalism I think Islam states that in the most alarming way and that it comes as the third of the monotheism and says nothing further is required right this is the last one the happy previous words from God we admit that we don't care to be exclusive but we do claim to be final you know there's no need for any further work on this point and we don't claim that this nose between way Allah T and in our world in our world surely the worst thing anyone can say is no further inquiry yes you know we've already got all you need to know all else's commentary it's the most sinister and dangerous thing and that is a claim that Islam makes that others don't quite make in the same way well let me play devil's advocate probably done there's no refutation of Islam in Christianity or Judaism but there is in Islam let's say that we only accept all the bad bits of Judaism we love Abraham and his sacrifice of his son willingness decide yeah we love all that we absolutely esteem the virgin birth and it's nonsensical bits of Christianity with all that's great you're all welcome to join with we have a final word right that's deadly and and I think our existence is incompatible with that preaching let me let me just play devil's advocate for a moment so we at least feel clear what the position is I'd rather speak for the devil pro bono well we can all speak for the devil I'm sure a lot of people think we're doing just that I for one think that the fact that something is true is not quite sufficient for spreading it about or for trying to discover it the idea that there's things we should just not try to find out is an idea that I take seriously and I think we at least have to examine the proposition that there's such a thing as knowing more than is good for us now if you accept that so far then a possibility we have to take seriously even when we reject it we should reject it having taken it seriously is the Muslim idea that indeed the West has simply gone way too far that there is lots of this is knowledge that's not good for us it's knowledge that that we were better off with that and the fact that many Muslims would like to turn the clock back they they can't of course but I have a certain sympathy for a Muslim who says well yeah the cats out of the bag it's too late it's a tragedy you and the West have exposed truths to yourselves and now you're forcing them on us that the the species would be better off not knowing would absolutely riveted by what you say I really love an instance in theory or practice of something you think we could know but could forbid ourselves me because that is hard man well so you brought up the bell curve I mean if there if there were reliable differences in intelligence is between race or species or but I don't think any of us do you think that's the case I think there must be something you must have thought of something you could believe but wish you didn't know oh I don't think I don't think it's hard to dream up things which if they were true it might be better for the human race to go on knowing them but would do it what could you conquer sizes or just completely fit I mean the hypothetical is one thing but Chris was asking do you actually was so happy when I suppress something that no no I haven't no can you imagine yourself doing so by the way I mean I can't oh I can imagine it I hope it never comes up but they take the the synthesizing of bio weapons and what we should should should nature publish the code for smallpox where you can just you know and within his skills that lab can because although so we'll all right but that that wouldn't be a knowledge of a knowledge of which we should remain innocent what we're building that would go like a solution for sight it certainly you can see conceive of a circumstance where or someone can seek knowledge the the only conceivable application of which would be unethical or the dissemination of which would give us put power in the wrong hands or yes I miss it but actually you brought up something which I think is crucial here because it's not so much the the spread of the raw of seditious truths to Islam or the rest of the world that I think we're guilty of in in the eyes of our opponents it's the it's the not honoring of facts that are not easily quantified and easily discussed in in science I mean the classic retort to to all of us is prove to me that you love your wife I means though this is a knockdown argument against atheism you can't prove it well if you unpack that little bit you can prove it you can demonstrate it and know what we mean by love that's it but there is this this domain of the sacred that is not easily captured by science and and is in scientific discourse has really seeded it to to religious discourses well an artistic discourse yeah which is they're not religious necessarily but they I would argue it's not even well captured by art necessarily there's something in the in same way that love is not really well captured by art and compassion is not what I mean you can you can represent it in art but it's not reducible to you don't you don't go into the museum and find compassion in its in its purest form and I think there's there's something about the way we as atheists merely dismiss the the bogus claims of religious people that convinces religious people that there's something we're missing and I think this is we have to be sensitive to this absolute little bit that's why they bring up what about when when a secularism never built anything like Durham Cathedral Rashad R or devotional painting or the music of but I guess would have answers to that I think we have answers to that i me and us we do provide a very good answer that if there was secular patronage of the Arts at that point then you know one we can't know that Michelangelo was actually a believer because the consequences of professing your unbelief in that case was was death but to if we had a secular organization to Commission my position Michelangelo you know he we would have all that secular artwork though do you do you I didn't actually say that the corollary held which I think it's true we can't know with devotional painting all right sculpture in okay sure that the patronage didn't have a lot to do with it but I can't hear myself saying if only you had a secular painter you've done just as good work oh no no I when Richard there I think I can't I don't know why and I'm quite happy to find that I don't know why I can't quite hear myself okay what Michelangelo if he'd been commissioned to do the ceiling of a museum of science wouldn't have produce something just as wonderful in some way I'm reluctant to really firm yes I find it very very easy to mmm that could be a difference between this I mean with you know with devotional poetry where I do think I don't know very much about painting or architectural music and some divisional architecture like say sand Peters I couldn't be done I don't like any I don't like any way and then and knowing that it was built by a special sale of indulgences doesn't help either with devotional perche like there's a John Donne or George Herbert I find it very hard to imagine that it's faked or John for a patron I mean yes people have to be very very improbable P would write poetry but could I be done in as clear as anyone well I frankly think that's the only explanation but but in any case what conclusion would you draw mean if Don's devotional poetry is wonderful yes so what I mean it doesn't doesn't show that it's it represents truth in any sense not in the least or my favorite devotional poem is some Philip Larkins church-going one of the best poems are written right exactly expresses I wish I had it here we'll actually I do have it here if you're not going read it but uh I wouldn't trust anyone who believed any more or any less than Larkin does when he goes through a wayside gothic Church in the English countryside right I felt I don't say believed I shouldn't say believed who felt anymore he does he's Nathan who felt hey les that there's something serious about it alright but as something written into the human personality and as well as the landscape I know you're gonna see that this is the other the goose vessei is nothing about the truth of it I don't think this is any see how this is anything other than a special case other special cases of which would be you just couldn't I can't think of a perfect example that only by being lost at sea for two years and about and then surviving that that's the only way you could conceivably have written this this account it could not be fiction or quit sad and and and in a glorious wonderful art and it right that could that can be true and we just accept that's true and and duns poetry only very extreme circumstances could make it possible and we can be grateful perhaps with those extreme circumstances existed and made it as possible in his castle yeah now you wouldn't recommend being lost at sea to everyone no you no no no I wouldn't recommend death be not proud to anyone either yeah that's a wonderful it's a complete gibberish if you look at it the words but but you a most extraordinary Jewish look any of the words but but there's an X Factor involved which I'm quite happy to both assume will persist and will need to be confronted right you raised this issue though of whether or not we would wish the church is emptied on Sundays and I think you were you were uncertain whether you would and I think I would agree I would want a different Church I would I would want a different ritual motivated by different ideas but I think there's there's a place for the sacred in our lives and but under some some construal that doesn't presuppose any [ __ ] but there's there's their suit I think there's a usefulness to seeking profundity as a matter of our attention and and our neglect of this area I think as atheists at times makes even our craziest opponents seem wiser than we are and it mean take someone like Saeed Kutub who's you know as crazy as it gets I mean Osama bin Laden's favorite philosopher but he came out to Greeley Colorado I think it was around 1950 and spent a year in America and noticed that all his American hosts were spending all their time gossiping about movie stars and trimming their hedges and coveting each other's automobiles and he he came to believe that that America was so or the West was so trivial in its preoccupations and so materialistic that it had to be destroyed now this isn't this shouldn't be construed as giving any credence to his worldview but he has a point there there is something trivial and horrible about the day-to-day fascinations of most of us and most people most of the time there is there is something there's a difference between kind of really using your attention wisely in a meaningful way and our perpetual distraction and and traditionally only religion has tried to and to enunciate and and clarify that difference and I think that's you know it's it that's a a lapse in in our I think you've made that point and we've accepted it's happened I think that's I mean the as be going back to the thing about whether we like T church is empty I think I would like to see churches empty what I wouldn't like to see however is ignorant of the Bible because you cannot understand literature without knowing the Bible you can't understand art you can't Houston music there are all sorts of things you can't understand for historical reasons but those historical reasons you can't wipe out they're there and so even if you don't actually go to church and pray you've got to understand what it meant to people to pray and why they did it and what these verses in the Bible mean and what this but is it only that just the retrospective kind of historical appreciation of our good more than you can lose yourself in it just as you could lose yourself in a work of fiction without actually believing that the characters are real but you're sure you want to see the churches empty you can't imagine a variety of Church maybe by their lights an extremely denatured Church a church which has ritual and loyalty and but and and even music and music and they say songs and I do the ritual but where the irrationality has simply been long okay yet so you go to those places for funerals and weddings and yes and you have and also transfer for group solidarity solidarity to create some project which is hard to get get off the ground otherwise this I think there's one more tiny thing I mean I've been tempted to give churches as very well I would I mean if I one reason makes it very easy to keep me out of it is the use of the new English Bible instead you know I mean there's really no point cuz if anyone goes I can't see oh people stay away yeah they thrown away although pearl richer than all their try absently they don't even know what they've caught it's terrible if I if I was a lapsed Catholic and I brooded about how I wanted my funeral to it's not something I wouldn't the Latin Mass yes absolutely there's another rule there which of course is that is when it because I want a proper trial time when it becomes intelligible the nonsense becomes more transparent and and so if it's in Latin it can it can survive much better it's sort of it's rather like a camouflaged insect it can get through the through the barriers because you can't see it and whereas when it's translated into not just English with modern English you can see it for what it is but but now seriously then do you there for delight in the fact that churches are modernizing their their texts and using the it's an e static point now I go that's the worst of both well that's yeah we should be grateful for it we didn't do this to them yeah that's right we didn't impose this on it any more than we've more clever you know anymore than we I guess we didn't blow up Shia mosque so I we don't blow up the Birmingham en Buddha's Aquino desecrate we will be will be for the reasons have given myself a vision integrity we would have a natural resistance to profanity and desecration we leave it to the pious to destroy churches and burn synagogues or blow up each other's mosques and I think that's the point that we ought to we might spend more time making because I do think it is feared of us this was my point to begin with then that we wish for a world that somehow empty of this echo of music and and portray and the numinous and so for that we will be happy in a brave new world and since I don't think it's true of any of us no no we might we might we it's a point one might spend a bit more time hiking that it did the howling wilderness of nothingness it was much more likely to result from holy war right or religious conflict or theocracy than it is from a proper secularism which would therefore I think have to not just allow or leave or tolerate or condescend to or patronize but actually in a sense welcome the persistence of something like faith hmm what well i he left we have not now that is intelligently there I think what what do you mean something like faith yeah and how like faith something like the belief that the the must be more than we can know well that is funny and then it believes that that's not very yeah we know there's there's more than we presently know line that was my original point of saying if we if we could if we could find a way of enforcing the distinction between the numinous and the superstitious we would be doing something culturally quite important yes when I'm told about this well Richard and I did this at central hall with this Scruton in that rather very that very weird team that we debated who kept on saying Scruton particularly well what about new good old gothic spires and so if I said look I wrote a book about the Parthenon I'm intensely interested in it I think everyone should go everyone should study so forth but everyone should abstain from the cult of Pallas Athena everyone should realize that probably what that cultural freeze that's so beautiful describes may involve some human sacrifices Athenian imperialism wasn't all that pretty not apparently so the great cultural project in other words may very well be to rescue what we have of the art and aesthetic of theirs while discarding the supernatural and I think acknowledging the evil that was part of its creation in the first place that is we can't condone the beliefs and practices of those Aztecs but we can stand in awe of and want to preserve and there is their architecture and many other features of their culture but not their practices and not their believes I once did a British radio program where called Desert Island Discs where you have to go on and choose your six records which you take to a desert island and and talk about it and one of the ones I chose was bark marker dick mine hurt serene oh yes wonderful one holds music and the the woman questioningly couldn't understand why I would wish to have this piece of music higher beautiful music and its beauty is indeed enhanced by knowing what it means but but it's you still don't actually have to believe it it's like reading fiction exactly you could lose yourself in fiction and be totally moved to tears by thought yes but nobody would ever say you've got to believe that this person existed and that the sadness that you feel really reflected something had actually happened it's like the Bishop of Dublin who preached a sermon against Swift and said that he'd read every book of God of his travels of his part he didn't believe a word of them that's the Lucas kaskus I think well clearly we're not cultural vandals but maybe we should think of the way in which so many people suspect that that's what we are hmm if I would accept one criticism these people make one suspicion that I suspect they Harbor or fear that they may have I think that might be the one yes mm-hmm that it would be all chromium and steel and yes very much the carols and no and yes no menorah they couldn't pass anybody who makes that criticism couldn't possibly have read any one about both um well that's another problem to another couples that is the people that of course this isn't just our books it's so many books yeah people don't read them they just read the reviews and then they decide that we're about to have the Christmas was again of course in them this being the last day of September yeah you can feel it all coming on but I always whenever comes up when I go to any of these shows to discuss it was Oliver Cromwell who cut down the Christmas trees and for bad yeah it was the Puritan Protestants the ancestors of yeah my sister Bamie I suppose it would be blasphemy yeah yeah do at least respect your own traditions cuz I do yes Elmo was a great man and many in many other ways as well right this is actually a pagan festival well we were all out of our Christmas trees laughs yes we had a slightest problem with this I don't know you know we had our Christmas card with our pictures of this a good old good old norse Boozer and why the hell not well but it's not just that I mean we like solstices as much as the next person we have we have a an annual Christmas Carol party where we sing the music and we add and all the music with all the words and not not the second or Congress why not and it's just glorious stuff that part of the Chris of the Christian story is fantastic it's just a beautiful tale and you can love every inch of it I want absolutely I once at lunch was next to the lady who was on up when our opponent at that debate in London Robin over Robert Robin over there and she asked me whether I said grace in a new college when I happen to be senior fellow I said of course I say grace it's a matter of simple courtesy and she was furious oh we were like yes that I should that I should somehow be so hypocritical as to as to say grace and I had I could only say but look it may mean something to you but it needs absolutely nothing to me this is this is a Latin formula which which is has some history and I and I appreciate history Fredi air the the philosopher also used to say grace and what he said was I won't out of falsehoods but I have no objection to uttering meaningless statements that's you oh yeah the Wickham professor yes is did we unseal question on Islam I don't know I think it's well I go I'll ask a related question do you feel there's any burden we have as critics of religion to be even-handed in our criticism of religion or is it fair to notice that there's a spectrum of religious ideas and commitments and Islam is on one end of it and the Amish and the Jains and and others are on another and and there there are real differences here that we have to take seriously well of course we have to take them seriously but we don't have to do the Network balancing trick all the time there are plenty of people taking care of pointing out the good stuff and benign stuff and we can acknowledge that and then concentrate on the problems that's what critics do and and again it's if we were writing books about the pharmaceutical industry would we have to spend equal time on all the good they do or could we spend and the problems and I think it's very clear I think Sam's asking well we could criticize Merck if they were especially egregious as opposed to some other company I mean we'd be if we were focusing on the pharmaceutical industry not all pharmaceutical businesses would be the would be culpable in the same but well and yeah so then the question is what should we is there something wrong with your talking across purposes I think I think Sam's asking about whether we should be even-handed in criticizing the different versions you know whether even whether it's about good versus bad with all religions are equally bad azz is whether Islam is worse than Oceania table it seems to me that we're we we fail to enlist the the friends we have on this subject when we balance this I mean it's a tactic it's a it's a media tactic and in some sense it's a a almost an ontological commitment of atheism to say that all faith claims are in some sense equivalent you know the media says that Muslims have their extremists and we have our extremists we have jihadists in the Middle East and we have an imbalance that people will fill them yet important doctors and it's just not a real equation I mean with the right mayhem that's going on under under the aegis of Islam is just cannot be compared to the fact that we have you know two people who a decade kill abortionists and and so I think we my commitment and this is one of the problems I have with the concept of atheism is I just think it it hobbles us in this discourse where we have to seem to come spread the the light of criticism equally in all directions at all moments and and and and I think we could on any specific question have a majority of religious people agree with us any majority of people in this country in the United States clearly agree that the doctrine of martyrdom in Islam is appalling and not benign and liable to get a lot of people killed and worthy of criticism likewise the doctrine that souls live in petri dishes even Christians even 70% of Americans don't want to believe that in light of the promise of stem cell research so it seems to me once we focus on particulars we have you know a real strength of numbers and yet when we stand back from the ramparts of atheism and say it's all bogus we lose 90 percent of our neighbors well that's I'm sure that's that that's right on the other hand my concern is is actually not so much with the with the evils of religion as whether it's true yeah and I really do and I care passionately about that the fact of the matter is there as a matter of fact a supernatural creator in this universe and I really care about that and so although I also care about the evils of religion I'm am prepared to be even-handed because they all make this this Clayton seem to me yes I would I would never give up the claim that all religions are equally false and for that reason because they they're false by preferring faith to reason latent Lee at least equally dangerous equally false but surely not quite equally dangerous because of no later think so basically maybe because of the surrender of the mind you know the surrender of the mind the the eagerness to discard the only thing that we've got that makes us higher primates the Faculty of reason as always deadly I've always think the tension the amateur not the Amish can't hurt me but they can trick people who live in their communities a little church Anna Therrien but not quite in the same pointee the jedi lama claims to be a god king of hereditary monarchy and inherited godliness that's a most repulsive possible idea and he runs a crummy little dictatorship in Dharamsala and would it would be worse and praises the Indian nuclear chest it would be worse it's very limited by his own limited scope but if you add the same a very hard to that you would be more concerned well look every time I've ever debated with Islamists they all said you've just offended a billion Muslims as if they spoke for them as if there's a definite threat to this menace military turn to what they say you know if they'd said you've just defended me as a Muslim wouldn't sound quite the same as that if they were the only one who believed in the Prophet man no no it's a billion and by the way what's implied in that is watch out right I don't care if it was only one person who believed the Prophet Muhammad had been given dictation by the Archangel Gabriel I'd still say what I was saying right but you wouldn't lay a when it would be just as dangerous that they believe that yes it would because it could spread the belief could pour more general it has in the case of Islam it has spread and is spreading and and so it's it's it's danger is not only potential but but actually I can see no controversy over in space and time the author I think is tremendously evens out I mean I didn't expect I'm sure neither did you in the 60s that there would be such a threat from Jewish fundamentalism relatively small numbers but in a very important place a treated place and deciding to try and bring on the Messiah by stealing other people's land and and trying to bring on the end yeah it's a very numerically it's extremely small right but the the consequences that it's had have been absolutely calamitous we didn't used to think actually of Judaism as a threat in that way at all until the Zionist movement and next messianic or fused with it because the Messiah Lister didn't used to be Zionist as you know so you never know when it's going to be next I don't worry I'm not likely to be so have my throat cut at the supermarket by Quaker yeah but the Quakers do a lot of the work by saying we preach non-resistance to evil right that's as wicked a position as you could possibly help given the right context what could be more revolting than that say you see evil and violence and cruelty and you don't fight yet there are they're Free Riders yeah re Franklin on what the what the Quakers were like at the crucial moment in Philadelphia wind had to be about a little freedom a secret we'll see what people despised them I would have then said the Quakerism was actually quite a serious danger so it's a it's a it's a matter of space and time but no they're all they're all equally rotten false dishonest corrupt humorless and dangerous it was true there's one point you make here that I think we should say a little more about is that you never you almost can never quite anticipate the danger of unreason I mean when your mode of interacting with with others and the universe is to affirm truths you're in no position to affirm the liabilities of that are potentially infinite and you just don't know it so to take a case that I raised a moment ago stem-cell research you don't know going in that the idea that the soul enters the zygote at the moment of conception is a terrible idea I mean seems a totally benign idea until you invent something like stem-cell research where it stands in the way of incredibly promising life-saving research and so it's I mean there's something about dogmatism which which you can almost never foresee how many lives it's going to cost because the you know it's conflict with reality just you know erupts well that's why I think of them at the moment where everything went wrong as the moment when the Jewish hello mists were defeated by the Jewish Messiah the the celebration now benignly known as Chanukah so as there cannot crash crashes Christmas that's where the human race took its worst turn there's a few people but they reestablish the animal sacrifices the circumcision and the cult of Yahweh over hellenism and philosophy and Christianity's and plagiarism of that wouldn't Christian I should never have happened know what Islam right the no doubt there would have been other crazed cults and so forth but there might have been a chance to not destroy her a mystic civilization well it's not a matter of numbers it's a matter if I may if I may say so memes and infections this was Pro very first of Courtin Lee said in the 1930s that the Catholic Church was the most deadly organization because of its alliance with fascism which was explicit and open and sordid much the most dangerous church but I would not know now say that the Pope is the most dangerous of the original is no question that Islam is the most dangerous origin and probably because it doesn't have a papacy yes candy tell it to store something they know you have some control yeah yeah well by oh me by all means yes but I would still have to say that Judaism is the root of the problem although it's only the ruh the problem in light of the Muslim fixation on that land if the Muslims didn't care about Palestine we could have the settlers trying to usher in the Messiah all they want it would would there'd be no issue it's only the conflict of claims on that real estate this is just to say that that there both sides of both folks are at fault but the only reason why two hundred thousand settlers could potentially precipitate a global conflict is because there are a billion people who really care whether those settlers tear down the al-aqsa mosque which it's their dream to do yeah because they have the belief that one part one part of the globe is holier than another right than which no belief could be more insane or irrational or indecent and so just a few of them holding that view and having the power to make make it real is enough to risk a civilizational conflict which civilization could lose I mean I think we'll be very lucky if we get through this conflict without a nuclear exchange thank you that so that's I think it's a very good topic what are what are our exit what are our most grandiose hopes and fears here what do you think reasonably could be accomplished in the lifetime of our children what do you think the stakes actually are and how would you be there yeah I mean is there something we can engineer apart from just mirror criticism I mean other stuff like practical steps what what with a billion dollars could we do to effect some significant change of ideas learning practical I feel myself on the losing side politically and on the winning side intellectually hmm I mean that's just you don't sit you don't see anything to do in the Kansai guys I don't think we would be accused of undo concede if we said of ourselves or didn't mind it being said of us that we've been opening and carrying forward and largely winning an argument that's been neglected for too long and that mean that certainly in the United States and Britain at this moment that's true it seems to me but in global terms I think we're absolutely in a tiny dwindling minority that's going to be defeated by the forces of theocracy I will probably embedding edges no I think I think I think they're going to end up by destroying civilization along tourism well of course you may be right no philology is it because it because it can be a it can be a single catastrophe because that's my big disagreement with professor Dawkins is that I think it's us plus the 82nd airborne and the 101st who are the real fighters for secularism at the moment the ones who really fighting me main enemy so in what 10 I know and I think I probably amongst Icarus that must be considered the most eccentric position you could possibly hold that's toothfairy belief among less people that I believe it to be an absolute fact he's only because of the willingness of the United States to to combat and confront they oversee that we have a chance of beating it wrong even sorry absolutely of no relevance immense no I didn't have any more takers although not on the territory of Iraq I mean maybe that we need the 82nd airborne to fight the different war in a different place for the same purpose for the stated purpose voilá by all means there are reservations to be expressed by me which I happily give you but in in principle I think that's a very important recognition unfortunately we're running out of time and impossibly tape I think we've had a wonderful discussion yeah I'm great and yeah thank you a lot to think of very much

Channel: Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason & Science

Views: 583,064

Rating: 4.8819232 out of 5

Keywords: Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, Religion, Atheism, Science, Evolution, Biology, Physics, Quantum Physics, The God Delusion, God is Not Great, Breaking the Spell, The End of Faith

Id: TaeJf-Yia3A

Length: 59min 9sec (3549 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 24 2009

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

I do not hold shitty internet prayer requests to the same value as beautiful art and architecture.

[u/freereflection]

How about you quit acting like eager beavers ready to placate the Christians. It's called the internet - either thicken your skin or get off of it. Seriously, can you say over-reaction. We've put up with how many millennia of ignorance, discrimination, murder, war, and abuse at the hands of the religious?

I'm sorry, what is the accusation? Mocking the clearly delusional act of talking to a non-existent obscure desert deity? Fuck that

[u/[deleted]]

"For those of you bullying gay people, listen to Jesus: Love thy neighbor". This is what you sound like.

[u/my_grandma_taught_me]

The internet trolls websites, not atheists. There are good people and bad people, people who like to laugh at others misfortune and those who don't. No need to treat US as an entity.

[u/drowningfish]

TIL, this video exists. How did I not know about this sit-down?

[u/Nebz604]

Don't worry, I will pray for it to stop.

[u/Theophagist]

Thanks Hitch, I get the point. On the other hand, chastise the liars back under the rocks from whence they crawled.

[u/[deleted]]

I am. Fuck their shit, I don't give two craps about some stupid fucking cultist's precious intarweb circlejerk.

If I had enough taco bell, bowel capacity and ability to time travel, I would simultaneously take a shit on the doorstep of every single religious person in the world, smear my finger in it, then write on their door in shit: "You're a fucking retard, and there is no god. Love - Shillz"

[u/[deleted]]

As much as I agree with the sentiment, there is no we to be so tightly defined here. But aside from that, absolutely. What good does it do to just troll them? It's good for a laugh the first few times, but it's achieving nothing for atheism except emphasising the arrogant adolescent misconception with which many people reject or dismiss atheism out of hand. Have a debate, read a book, start discussions. If you want to be funny, then do it in a way that doesn't make other atheists look like jerkoffs.