Honestly, as much as I’d loved all his previous books, I was a bit disappointed by Richard Dawkins‘ The God Delusion; not because the arguments weren’t sound but mostly because the entire book oozed with an air of arrogance. Of course, when you’re one of the smartest people on the planet, arrogance goes with the territory, but still. He came across as a fundamentalist at times, albeit an atheist fundamentalist. Wasn’t that the very thing he spoke against- fundamentalism?
So reluctantly, I sat down to watch the 2 part British TV series, The Root of All Evil, Dawkins’s attempt at provoking a religious self analysis of the average couch potato. As much as I want to limit the use of superlatives, I can’t help but marvel at what he’s tried to accomplish. The TV series is brilliant, thought provoking and thoroughly convincing and it’s sure to enrage some people, hopefully for the better.
He journeys from the Lourde to Jerusalem and meets people ranging from devout believers to fundamentalists. His conversations range from the humorous to thought provoking to the genuinely scary. The second part dwellled on a more pressing problem, indoctrination of religion; bringing up children to believe in superstitions.
What really had me all worked up was a conversation Dawkins has with a psychotic evangelist, Ted Haggard. His ignorance of the concept of evolution and science in general is amazing-it’s amazing that millions of people actually listen to people as retentive as him. Evangelists sicken me, and I like to think I know a thing or two about them. But a little reading into the life and times of Ted Haggard left me…well…satisfied.
In November 2006, former prostitute and masseur Mike Jones alleged that Haggard had paid to engage in sex with him for three years and had also purchased and used crystal methamphetamine. Jones said he had only recently learned of Haggard’s true identity and explained his reasons for coming forward by saying, “It made me angry that here’s someone preaching about gay marriage and going behind the scenes having gay sex.”
But on Haggard acknowledged some, but not all, of the allegations, and was removed from all of his leadership positions in religious organizations, including the church he founded. At first, however, he claimed he had never met his accuser and in a television interview said “I am steady with my wife. I’m faithful to my wife.”November 5, in a statement Haggard said, “I am a deceiver and a liar. The fact is I am guilty of sexual immorality…There is a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I’ve been warring against it all of my adult life. … Please forgive my accuser … actually thank God for him. He didn’t violate you; I did.”
-From Wikipedia
And he almost had dibs on the best seats in heaven!
I loved the way Dawkins ended the series. Being non religious/atheist/agnostic doesn’t really make life all that bleak, it just leaves endless possibilities at our disposal.
We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die, because they are never going to be born. The number of people who could be here in my place outnumbers the sand grains of Sahara. If you think about all the different ways our genes could be permuted, you and I are quite grotesquely lucky to be here: the number of events that had to happen in order for you to exist, in order for me to exist. We are privileged to be alive and we should make the most of our time on this world.
