CelticBear’s Musings

Richard Dawkins was on yesterday’s Penn Radio, and the show can be downloaded here:
http://penn.freefm.com/episode_download.php?contentType=36&contentId=155831
He’s published a novel: The God Delusion, which helps to explain the ways and whys people believe in God, and how dangerous and morally devoid it is.

Below is a snippit and rough paraphrase of some of what was said on the show that I liked:

When asked the question about where morals come from, he expressed that they certainly don’t come from the Bible, “and you can prove that by simply reading the Bible. You will be horrified by the morality it presents.” People can find verses that advocate doing good, but you have to pick and chose, and by what system does one do that?
“If the only reason you do ‘good’ is because you’re being watched by the great survailence camera in the sky, you’re going to hell if you do ‘bad’ and you want to go to heaven, that’s a pretty ignoble reason for doing good.
People who do good for the sake of doing good are the ones we should really respect.”

There’s nothing special about any of the Creation Myths. Any five-year-old can invent the stories of Adam and Eve and a God poing “POOF! That now exists” or the world being on the back of a turtle.
True imagination is required to understand the life cycle of a star from nova to black hole. The great expansion creation of the universe is much more wonderful and amazing than any Creation story…and has the added benefit for being proveable.
It’s sad that the rational reasoned thinker, the scientist, is described as being cold and passionless while the “nutjobs” get the credit of having passion and wonder. Great wonder and amazement is found in the real! The existing universe! The rainbow is no less wonderful because it’s a result of the refrection of light energy through water…that makes it more amazing and fascinating than some deity going “POOF! Rainbows exist.”

Unfortunately when religion goes, what takes its place may be even worse, like New Age claptrap. (In response to being asked what he thinks about such things like the movie “What the #$*! Do We (K)now!?“)

It’s mentioned that he was in a made for TV film called “The Root of All Evil?” which can be seen on YouTube:
Part One: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQ8_bIji7gQ

Part Two: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4xIi-TwY-Y

He brought up the absurdity of the idea that once God’s off the table, then rampant chaos would ensue. people would go around killing and raping each other. He had the misfortune of being on a talk show where a caller said flat out that if it weren’t for God’s rules, he’d kill and starting with his neighbor. Now, that’s (hopefully) not representative of all religious people, but it’s certainly a serious indictment of the level of morality people have who believe without God morality ceases to exist or be important.
“That’s not the kind of person I’d like to know.”

There was a study done once where students were put in situations where they were given the opportunity to cheat on an exam, not knowing they were being watched. Students of various religiosity and atheists. The only group that did not cheat by and large was the atheists. (Jokingly, it was suggested that the atheists were capable of passing the exam without needing to cheat.)

More can be found on RichardDawkins.net.