The next episode of The Big Picture tackles religion, a popular topic on this board.
The Root of all Evil
THE DOC
"Religious faith discourages independent thought, it's divisive and it's dangerous."
Famed UK scientist Richard Dawkins delivers a scathing indictment of religion's growing power in the post 9-11 world. Dawkins travels the physical and spiritual landscape of three great religions with pointed questions about the "process of non-thinking called faith."
He believes fundamentalist American Christianity is attacking science and he takes on Ted Haggard, one of America's most powerful Christian evangelists. He then travels to the heart of the Middle East, to Jerusalem to meet Jews and Muslims who defend their faith against his assertion that "irrational faith is back on the march" and harmful to modern civilization. Richard Dawkins holds a chair in the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University and is Britain's best known atheist. His impassioned defence of Darwinian evolution has earned him the nickname "Darwin's rottweiler."
THE TALK
Avi Lewis: "If you want to ruin a dinner party, talk politics or religion, right? Well, thankfully, The Big Picture is no dinner party, so we're going to tackle this explosive but timely subject head on. The most memorable parts of the film are when Dawkins engages in direct debate with religious figures – confronting them about the ‘irrationality' of their beliefs, and insisting that the rising power of religious extremists is a great global threat. Dawkins argues that science, and its tools of skepticism, hypothesis and evidence, are simply superior to religious faith. Case closed.
It is a powerful polemic, and makes for some uncomfortable and gripping scenes. But as Dawkins categorically dismisses all people of faith (including moderates) as dangerous dupes, you're tempted to ask whether he himself is demonstrating a certainty that borders on fundamentalism – whether his unshakeable faith in science is just as fixed as the beliefs of those he condemns.
I think it will be electrifying to see what a big crowd of people – spanning the spectrum from atheists to moderates to people of intense religious faith – will make of this in-your-face thesis. It'll be no dinner party, that's for sure."
QUOTES FROM OTHER PEOPLE
"No, I don't know that Atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered as patriots. This is one nation under God."
-George H.W. Bush, 41st president of the United States
"Good people will do good things, and bad people will do bad things. But for good people to do bad things-that takes religion."
-Stephen Weinberg, physicist
"Everything I did, I did for God."
-Yigal Amir, the convicted assassin of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak
"I think religion is a deadly threat to the survival of the species and to the continued evolution of the brain."
-Christopher Hitchens, writer
"Man cannot live without worshipping something."
-Dostoyevsky, writer
"Being religious means asking passionately the question of the meaning of our existence and being willing to receive answers, even if the answers hurt."
-Paul Tillich
