The Root of All Evil....

Last night saw the second episode of Life on Mars (see previous blog from….errr….a week ago) and as expected it didn’t disappoint. Innovative and good drama interspersed with genuine laugh out loud moments keeps Monday night alive for me. But also on Mondays on Channel 4, although I don’t know for how long, is an equally fascinating programme called Root of All Evil?

It is presented by the renowned scientist Professor Richard Dawkins, an eminent Oxford University academic and neo-Darwinist. Dawkins is a man who sharply divides opinion, not least with me. he also comes over as rather irrascible, and has the air of a Victorian schoolmaster about to explode with disbelief at the stupidity of the people he talks to. Very enteratining to watch though. I see and understand his arguments for Darwinism and his dismissal of religion, but he never satisfactorily covers the human condition for me. The condition of why we are what we are, why evolution singled us out for advanced intelligence (in comparison to all other Earth species), and to what happens upon death – his blasé proclamation of “that’s all folks” doesn’t, for me, cover the nature and purpose of our existence. In this programme, Dawkins is exposing the fundamental hypocrisies and fairy stories which underpin virtually all religions. He does this by talking to various religious figures across the three main religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Why he chose to ignore Hinduism and Buddhism is not explained. However, each of the people he interviews during the series are exposed as rather nasty people underneath it all. At least the Muslim fundamentalist on last weeks programme was nasty from the outset, but the Jewish and Christian clerics he spoke to were happy to smile for the camera but you could see the festering dislike they held for his atheistic views bubbling under the surface. In fact the American preacher from last week, with the NurembergRally-esque style of preaching physically threatened Dawkins and the crew off of his land. This week saw another American “Reverend” defending his friend, who had murdered a Doctor because he performed abortions.In his view this murdering shitneck would have gone to heaven for such an "act of love" for the unborn child! This lunatic moron even extolled the idea that a death penalty would be deemed a suitable punishment for people who commit adultery. I suppose it's one way to cut the worlds population by half!

What Dawkins manages to expose is the way that fear of eternal damnation and hell is used to exercise control and power over peoples lives, and how religion encourages hatred, intolerance, bigotry and prejudice, and ultimately leads to extreme acts of evil, something not seen by any other species on Earth. Even Chimps, with no apparent concept of social justice, equality or right or wrong have a basic understanding of how the unity of the group is better for all, and of how to gain respect and standing via acts of altruism unguided by any faith in a higher being.

Dawkins also states that although religions preach morality, peace and hope, the fact is they carry and encourage at their heart intolerance, violence and destruction. He argues that the growth of extreme fundamentalism in nearly every religion across the world not only endangers humanity but is in conflict with the trend over thousands of years of history for humanity to progress and under the auspices of our society, culture and the environment of the natural world become more enlightened and more tolerant. Dawkins argues that religion destroys and undermines this by dividing our species and by consequently encouraging insular groups to exist, following unproven, unchallenged and unprovable doctrines, which in turn feeds the unilateral views of the religious groups.

Dawkins goes on to argue that religion can be likened to a generational virus handed down from parent to child, something which the child-brain cannot challenge in its early and most malleable years. Dawkins also argues that for children transmitting such a 'warped reality' to young people, says Dawkins, amounts to indoctrination. Children are uniquely vulnerable and if they fail to question and shake off such superstition, they remain in a state of perpetual infancy. I loved the point about parents not describing their children as Tory or Labour, or of parents indoctrinating their children with specific political views.

All of this just served to strengthen my view that religion is the source of some of the vilest activities, thoughts, doctrines, tools of oppression and disputes the world has seen. It doesn’t dispel my faith in some form of further existence beyond the corporeal form, because as I say he doesn’t convince me that nothing beyond death exists. I’ve always felt since renouncing my own Catholic faith as a young teenager, that whatever follows death won’t be under the auspices of a Higher Being who created the conditions for death, misery, tragedy and hatred but of something far stranger and unexplainable than that. I simply do not believe that the human ”spirit” is a mere by-product of a living collection of molecules and atoms forming flesh and bones. I did however agree with the statement he quoted from physicist and writer Stephen Weinberg when describing religion as an insult to human dignity

Without it you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, it takes religion.

Later, GrocerJack