Dawkins' Documentary: Root of all evil

[Rye]

There are likely people here that have wanted to see it but never had the chance, and there are probably people that need to see it on forums some of you people visit, blogs, or whatever.

The whole thing is up on youtube, now, and I'm sure he'd want it watched by as many people as possible, so here are the links:

Part 1: The God Delusion

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Part 2: The Virus of Faith

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6

[Gandalf]

Wow, this guy is good.

I love his very calm, matter of fact tone.

[nickolay1]

Very good indeed.

I also really wanted to punch the dipshit evangelist pastor in the face.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Personally, I'd have rather used a torrent for better quality, but given that's verboten to talk of here it's not apt a recommendation. Though one wonders about YouTube which has a great amount of copyrighted stuff on.

[King Kong]

Many thanks to you Rye, it was a real pleasure to watch this.

I hadn't heard Richard Dawkins' voice before, and his soft-spokeness initially surprised me. But his occasional sarcastic comments and steady, sincere tone, punctuated by moments of real emotional conviction, carries across his ideas as effectively as his writing.

His interviews really brought across the point mentioned in the Weinberg quote: that it takes religion for good people to do evil things. A very eloquent and passionate defense of atheism.

[Molyneux]

The smarmy minister seemed bastard, but as for that goddamn fundamentalist Muslim jackass...

I seriously wanted to spit in his face. That son of a bitch actually made me empathize with Shep's point of view for a moment.

[Eleas]

Dawkins is quite well-spoken. I'm definitely saving these.

[Eleas]

Ghetto edit: What I found the most disturbing was, as always, the comments given by readers. I'm almost starting to think the Internet somehow excerbated the problem by allowing all these fundie fucktards a platform in which to practice spewing their drivel without fear of public mockery.

[mr friendly guy]

Seen it before on Youtube.

I admire how Dawkins managed to keep his cool. When that pastor said the Bible has NO CONTRADICTIONS I would have ripped him apart by pointing to the first chapter (book) Genesis.

Its also nice how Dawkins points out the statistical insignificance of Lourdes "miracles". Seriously if a drug company marketed a drug which "cured" 66 out of millions of peole it wouldn't have been approved. But apparently religious miracles are held to a different standard.

You also got to laugh when Dawkins so owned one of the Christians (the one organising those homophobic plays), when he asks Dawkins why he believes what he does. Dawkins replies BECAUSE OF THE EVIDENCE. That is pwnage.

[Pick]

This is wonderful, yet so depressing I can only watch a bit at a time.

[Medic]

Holy fuck, his God would not have saved him had I talked to that condescending moronic pastor. The "scientists" that pastor refers to in The Root of All Evil Part 1-2 are most obviously proponents of ID.

And wow, that fucking jew that converted to Islam in part 1-3... yeah. I've yet to debate in person any flavor of religious fundamentalist, so that was pretty eye opening.

[Talanth]

I've only seen the first three clips but from thoes it seems far more the fundies who are the problem than the religions themselves. The benign flocks of catholics at the bigining were more what I've seen in my own life (if that extreem), and in that context religion is harmless bordering on emotionaly benificial: helping people cope with reality as a sort of placibo for life. I know that human nature when coupled with religion will produce insane fundementalists, I just wish it didn't have to.

[Rye]

I've only seen the first three clips but from thoes it seems far more the fundies who are the problem than the religions themselves.

That's the easy and frankly simple-minded response to it, and it misses the point: that when you encourage and venerate faith and religiosity, like the religions shown do, you will automatically get fundies. When you venerate ancient texts as somehow important just because you believe in them, you will get fundies. The whole process of faith and religiosity will generate fundies, and in many cases, they cannot be considered a "corruption" at all.

The mass gathering of catholics like the ones in the opening sequence illustrates just this; they are acting like a herd, all their senses and upbringing are telling them not to doubt, not to question, to go with the flow and believe along with everyone else. Same thing in the Hajj leads to people getting trampled and dying from heat exhaustion, exact same thing was happening in that evangelical rock show abortion.

As he said, of course politics etc have an impact on people, but let's not miss the elephant in the room when it comes to producing fundies that put their religion in front of your and their lives.

[Vympel]

I loved the Pastor's claim that the Bible does not contradict himself. One has really got to wonder if he's ever read anything but the cliff notes of it.

And Richard Dawkins is an awesome presenter. I loved it how immediately leapt on the strawman that evolution posits that the human eye (for example) formed "by accident".

[Lord Woodlouse]

I've only seen the first three clips but from thoes it seems far more the fundies who are the problem than the religions themselves.

That's the easy and frankly simple-minded response to it, and it misses the point: that when you encourage and venerate faith and religiosity, like the religions shown do, you will automatically get fundies. When you venerate ancient texts as somehow important just because you believe in them, you will get fundies. The whole process of faith and religiosity will generate fundies, and in many cases, they cannot be considered a "corruption" at all.

The mass gathering of catholics like the ones in the opening sequence illustrates just this; they are acting like a herd, all their senses and upbringing are telling them not to doubt, not to question, to go with the flow and believe along with everyone else. Same thing in the Hajj leads to people getting trampled and dying from heat exhaustion, exact same thing was happening in that evangelical rock show abortion.

As he said, of course politics etc have an impact on people, but let's not miss the elephant in the room when it comes to producing fundies that put their religion in front of your and their lives.

I have to doubt that religion MAKES people herdminded. We're social animals, that mindset is pretty much ingrained into what I should think is the vast majority of our species.

If religion mystically disapeared I'm almost certain some philosophy or political idealogy would fill in the gaps. More often than not these things are used more as excuses for a lack of thought, or for a reason to do something nasty. Things they pretty much wanted to do anyway.

[Eleas]

I have to doubt that religion MAKES people herdminded. We're social animals, that mindset is pretty much ingrained into what I should think is the vast majority of our species.

There is nothing to suggest that we can't control this impulse, however. A great difference exists between encouragement of individual thought and willful surrender to conformity.

If religion mystically disapeared I'm almost certain some philosophy or political idealogy would fill in the gaps. More often than not these things are used more as excuses for a lack of thought, or for a reason to do something nasty. Things they pretty much wanted to do anyway.

Without religion, irrationality would take a sharp downward turn, because religion's only basis lies in irrationality. Without religion, these "excuses" as you call them would not constantly praise the stupid for embracing their stupidity, nor the malicious for indulging in malice. If men no longer are exhorted to act in a certain way, the number of such occurences should lessen, because in many cases there would be no stimulus to trigger the act, no social context in which the perpetrator could call malice virtuous.

Just as, for instance, a mental disorder may be dormant until sparked by some form of trauma, religion will all too often happily supply the straw to break the camel's back, or a crazed man's inhibitions.

[Executor32]

Ghetto edit: What I found the most disturbing was, as always, the comments given by readers. I'm almost starting to think the Internet somehow excerbated the problem by allowing all these fundie fucktards a platform in which to practice spewing their drivel without fear of public mockery.

Yeah, like this one:

no god? haha, then how u exist then? this guy is a lost soul.

It just oozes with intellect and wit.

[Eleas]

Yeah, like this one:

no god? haha, then how u exist then? this guy is a lost soul.

It just oozes with intellect and wit.

Yeah, precisely that one. It made me weep for humanity.

[King Kong]

I have to doubt that religion MAKES people herdminded. We're social animals, that mindset is pretty much ingrained into what I should think is the vast majority of our species.

Indeed. But religion encourages this behavior, which is the main point. And as Dawkins pointed out, severe religious indoctrination when one is young can severly impact a person's mind so that they value this attitude and behavior for the rest of their life, effectively making them herd-minded. While the potential is innate, as you pointed out, religion is the single greatest social system that reinforces this behavior and makes it dominant in people's minds.

If religion mystically disapeared I'm almost certain some philosophy or political idealogy would fill in the gaps. More often than not these things are used more as excuses for a lack of thought, or for a reason to do something nasty. Things they pretty much wanted to do anyway.

True, but the motivation that religion provides from supernatural justification is unique. I imagine there's nothing quite like knowing that the Creator of the Universe personally approves of your actions or that you will damned in hell for eternity. In addition, religion can justify a much more bizarre variety of actions and beliefs than philosophies based (somewhat) in reality. All other alternatives must have (some) constraints imposed by logic and the reality of the world in which we live; religion has no such constrictions.

Finally, religion is unique in that it teaches, in essence, to devalue existence as a burden. While extreme political ideologies may teach the devaluing of one's life in favor of the state or the great leader, at least they do not deny the importance of reality itself.

[Lord Woodlouse]

There is nothing to suggest that we can't control this impulse, however. A great difference exists between encouragement of individual thought and willful surrender to conformity.

True, but as I say I'm sure some other systems of thought could easily substitute for the process in the absense of religion. Communism is obviously the prime example, a system which is not religious in the least but which people would often subject themselves to with a dogma normally associated with the religious. That people would hold with the faith and belief of a final victory over capitalism.

Any largely followed organisation, corporation, philosophy, political idealogy or religion will have inherent herdminded followers, even if the bloody thing has a rule specifically telling you to think for yourself, I'd wager.

Without religion, irrationality would take a sharp downward turn, because religion's only basis lies in irrationality. Without religion, these "excuses" as you call them would not constantly praise the stupid for embracing their stupidity, nor the malicious for indulging in malice. If men no longer are exhorted to act in a certain way, the number of such occurences should lessen, because in many cases there would be no stimulus to trigger the act, no social context in which the perpetrator could call malice virtuous.

Just as, for instance, a mental disorder may be dormant until sparked by some form of trauma, religion will all too often happily supply the straw to break the camel's back, or a crazed man's inhibitions.

*shrug* Neither of us can know for certain. I believe other systems of thought can trigger the same reactions as religion, and work on the same types of hopes and fears. You don't need to invoke god to promise deliverance from misery, or to claim something is virtuous or not.

Indeed. But religion encourages this behavior, which is the main point. And as Dawkins pointed out, severe religious indoctrination when one is young can severly impact a person's mind so that they value this attitude and behavior for the rest of their life, effectively making them herd-minded. While the potential is innate, as you pointed out, religion is the single greatest social system that reinforces this behavior and makes it dominant in people's minds.

Religion encourages ALL kinds of behavior. Some negative, some positive. Sometimes neither. As I say above, and no doubt below, the ability to tap into that potential is in no sense inate to religion and would, in the case of the disapearance of religion as competition, no doubt be taken over by other systems of thought not revolving around spirituality. It already does in some parts of the world, and some strata of society. Indoctrination is not a religious only thing, and indeed, not all those with faith indoctrinate.

True, but the motivation that religion provides from supernatural justification is unique. I imagine there's nothing quite like knowing that the Creator of the Universe personally approves of your actions or that you will damned in hell for eternity. In addition, religion can justify a much more bizarre variety of actions and beliefs than philosophies based (somewhat) in reality. All other alternatives must have (some) constraints imposed by logic and the reality of the world in which we live; religion has no such constrictions.

If religion is talking about how we interact with secular society it will always have to revolve at least partially in the realms of reality. If it does not it's significance in this discussion, and how religions and the religious interact with other people, is not really relavent. When talking of how religion teaches you how to interact with others I can assure you that secular beliefs can complete quite well.

As for the significance of the Almighty, well, I'd not stretch that too far. Religion also tends to teach love, and often tolerance. These are believed in various measures and I can assure you that I have been loved and tolerated with at least as strong a measure from athiests (who have also hated and not tolerated me quite competitively).

Finally, religion is unique in that it teaches, in essence, to devalue existence as a burden. While extreme political ideologies may teach the devaluing of one's life in favor of the state or the great leader, at least they do not deny the importance of reality itself.

Most religions teach that we will be judged for the lives we live. That certainly does not mean we are expected to advocate no value to that existence.

[Darth Wong]

True, but as I say I'm sure some other systems of thought could easily substitute for the process in the absense of religion.

That does not mean this other system would have to suffer from the same flaws. Scripture-based religion's single biggest problem is its absolute resistance to modification and improvement over time. Most other systems of thought are subject to criticism and continual improvement over time.

[Lord Woodlouse]

True, but as I say I'm sure some other systems of thought could easily substitute for the process in the absense of religion.

That does not mean this other system would have to suffer from the same flaws. Scripture-based religion's single biggest problem is its absolute resistance to modification and improvement over time. Most other systems of thought are subject to criticism and continual improvement over time.

To a degree. But then it would erroneous to say religions are incapable of modification and change. Look at the Anglican church tearing itself up at the moment over their doctrine with regard homosexuals, for instance.

There are indeed conservative followers of rigid dogma, but I think you get basic equivalents in nearly all walks of life. Change will happen come hell or high water if it's in one's self interest, and on that same note it will be held back for exactly the same motivation.

[King Kong]

Religion encourages ALL kinds of behavior. Some negative, some positive. Sometimes neither.

You are correct that religion encourages a variety of behaviors, but they all expect people to take the validity of these acts and views on faith, which is the common behavior they encourage.

As I say above, and no doubt below, the ability to tap into that potential is in no sense inate to religion and would, in the case of the disapearance of religion as competition, no doubt be taken over by other systems of thought not revolving around spirituality. It already does in some parts of the world, and some strata of society. Indoctrination is not a religious only thing, and indeed, not all those with faith indoctrinate.

I'm sorry, I don't particularly relish this debate either.

While you may be correct in that people will find an equivalent system to justify their innate desires, there is no evidence (that I'm aware of) to indicate that. Therefore, we can only conclude that the removal of religion would have a net positive effect, by removing one more reason for people to do evil things. As you point out, your alternative examples are confined to particular places in the world and class segments of society. Their philosophies which justify indoctrination may not have such universal appeal as religion.

If religion is talking about how we interact with secular society it will always have to revolve at least partially in the realms of reality.

You are correct. Religion, after all, is present only in our minds, a product of reality. It therefore must obey some logical rules.

As for the significance of the Almighty, well, I'd not stretch that too far. Religion also tends to teach love, and often tolerance. These are believed in various measures and I can assure you that I have been loved and tolerated with at least as strong a measure from athiests (who have also hated and not tolerated me quite competitively).

I wasn't trying to show that religious motivations always lead to evil, I was merely pointing out that supernatural justification for one's acts (whether evil or good) tends to be stronger and more satisfying to people's minds. It is true that passionate religious belief may inspire good deeds, but it can just as easily be used to defend evil ones. And, because of our unfortunate nature, this will lead to ever more inhumane acts rather than a balance between equally intense good and evil deeds.

Most religions teach that we will be judged for the lives we live. That certainly does not mean we are expected to advocate no value to that existence.

Ah, but doesn't that mean our mortal lives are important simply because they are used as a measure of our eventual supernatural fate? I still see that as a devaluing of reality.

[Rye]

I have to doubt that religion MAKES people herdminded. We're social animals, that mindset is pretty much ingrained into what I should think is the vast majority of our species.

And if it encourages it (it certainly does, just look at the language the Bible endlessly refers to God and the faithful as) every step of the way, it's pretty clear what sort of believers the Bible and modern churches prefer, and what sort of mindset they're encouraging over, say, responsible social contract.

If religion mystically disapeared I'm almost certain some philosophy or political idealogy would fill in the gaps. More often than not these things are used more as excuses for a lack of thought, or for a reason to do something nasty. Things they pretty much wanted to do anyway.

They may be "excuses" for not thinking, but they're fully endorsed (complete with death penalties for using your own moral compass) in the texts themselves, and the modern churches and temples aren't going out of their way to teach critical thinking and personal responsibility, are they? Their wages are being paid with the mob thinking, after all.

With much of religious worship based around minimalisation of the individual's thoughts in favour of !"religious inspiration" I think religion does have a rather sizable culpability when it comes to promoting herd thinking. Relying less on your own reasoning and more on the reasoning of what appears to be a character in your brain, possibly inspired by the Bible, more likely inspired by the common view of the people in your church or a mix of the two... well, I can't say I'm surprised we get religious violence, to be honest.

[Lord Woodlouse]

You are correct that religion encourages a variety of behaviors, but they all expect people to take the validity of these acts and views on faith, which is the common behavior they encourage.

Not entirely on faith. Saying don't murder is in there for fairly elementary reasons, for instance. I'd go as far as to say most things religions teach us to do in the mortal realm can be justified in a secular sense, too.

I'm sorry, I don't particularly relish this debate either.

Believe me when I say I am positively shitting myself at the prospect of starting one of these debates on a forum like SDN.

While you may be correct in that people will find an equivalent system to justify their innate desires, there is no evidence (that I'm aware of) to indicate that. Therefore, we can only conclude that the removal of religion would have a net positive effect, by removing one more reason for people to do evil things. As you point out, your alternative examples are confined to particular places in the world and class segments of society. Their philosophies which justify indoctrination may not have such universal appeal as religion.

I honestly don't think either of us can conclude a thing, without ourselves becoming gods and testing our pet theories. I think that secular beliefs would have a similar effect in the end, but I don't know that. I base that belief in the faith I've seen people put in idealogies like communism, or the ardent dedication I've seen Japanese corporations demand and recieve from their employees.

If someone tells you something you quite like to hear, people will listen. The more they want to hear it the less they'll think about what they're listening to. That applies to all idealogies and faiths.

I wasn't trying to show that religious motivations always lead to evil, I was merely pointing out that supernatural justification for one's acts (whether evil or good) tends to be stronger and more satisfying to people's minds. It is true that passionate religious belief may inspire good deeds, but it can just as easily be used to defend evil ones. And, because of our unfortunate nature, this will lead to ever more inhumane acts rather than a balance between equally intense good and evil deeds.

Yes yes, but the main reason I brought that up was to say that the Almighty no more works as a greater motivator for doing bad than he does good. Athiests compete magnificiently well on both accords.

The true core of evil is, I'd say, the absense of wealth or resources. When one is poor one is more desperate, and one will be quicker to accept the blame of a an innocent party. The more desperate you are, the more flimsy the excuse you'll need or use.

Ah, but doesn't that mean our mortal lives are important simply because they are used as a measure of our eventual supernatural fate? I still see that as a devaluing of reality.

One could easily say the opposite, in certain regards. *shrug*

A matter of opinion, naturally, and also quite dependant on which religion you speak of.