Last night the TV channel ABC kicked-off the two-part Richard Dawkins documentary on how religious faith leading to fanaticism is catching up (and possibly overtaking) science and its rational, fact-based truth.
The show is not a televised version of the book The God Delusion (although references to delusional people and factions are often made). Rather, Dawkins travels America and Israel to uncover some extreme and disturbing cases.
In America, the country who has clearly been blessed by God (and it still does, at the end of every major Presidential speech or Hollywood movie - can't see the difference really, both cost lots of money to produce, some make you laugh and some you regret you wasted time for), some 'Pastor' hosts rock concert-like gatherings to brainwash people on the Bible and concepts oh hope, peace and love. The recipients of such valuable training will live to become influential people for their country, all the way to the top, and then send armies to destroy evil on the other side of the world. Amazing stuff...
In Israel, Dawkins visited the temple where Jesus was crucified. The tour guide showed him the hole in the ground where the holy cross was put in, to what Dawkins said "You don't really believe that, do you?” to which the guide responded "But of course, this is what we've been told for generations". Who cares about evidence? Anyone can make anything up.
Dawkins also interviewed some fanatic who left his West Bank fanatic friends and hopped on the other side - now a very outspoken Muslim fundamentalist. Other than having a go at Dawkins for being an atheist, this person's main beef was about women and how Western civilisation is unable to dress their women properly and get them to behave (read: covered from top to bottom, unable to socialise, work or live a normal life). Taking sexism to new heights.
Power-hungry people on both sides. And it's clearly getting worse.
NASA is still performing deep-space exploration. I don't have a problem with scientific advancements mainly because it helps us understand facts about ourselves - but when it comes to looking for life forms, this planet has some priorities to work out before we seek friends (or seek to destroy more evil) elsewhere. America has to sort out its own backyard first before stepping into hyperspace.
If all these different groups of people can't live with each other on one planet, what are our chances of getting on with some totally 'alien' species?
It's quite ironic. Religions promote love, peace and morals and yet they are the root cause of wars and hatred. And where scientists could be taking each other out on an ongoing "I'm right, you're wrong" campaign, we have worldwide collaborations against AIDS and cancer and (not enough) global warming AND we know more and more about how we got here.
2 comments:
For the record, in his book "The God Delusion" Dawkins says that he got to the project as a result on working on the TV documentary you report watching, "The Root of All Evil" (both of which are truly excellent, especially the book; I'm still waiting for a theist to give me a proper logical argument to counter Dawkins' arguments, but I suspect that by definition that can never happen...).
One thing I disagree with you is space exploration. If we do encounter aliens (and I doubt we will any time soon), then they will probably be much more advanced than us; they could set us straight. Even if we "only" find some bacteria like species on other planets in our solar system, it would still show us that we're not that unique after all (although the religious will always be able to say that it was the same god that put them there).
But anyway, we can still learn a lot from exploring space - a lot about ourselves. Look at global warming: If you want to see what happens when there's too much of it, look at Venus; if you want to see what happens when there's not enough, look at Mars. As far as I know, serious contemplation about global warming only started after observations from neighboring planets were first analyzed.
We're actually on the same page, even if it didn't come across that way.
The alien encounter was more of an analogy in terms of phycical size comparison. The humble human brain doesn't often go beyond the obvious (even if it should).
There should be no doubt that life is out there, but maybe not as we know it. And that maybe, just maybe, this entire planet will be faced with something stronger than we 've ever imagined - even if we may not be able to see it or hear it. And they'll probably call it an act of God...
Post a Comment