Richard Dawkins and the Root of All Evil
Hello all, felt the need to get on my soapbox. No video on this, just me ranting in words.
I have just finished watching the first episode of the programme The Root of All Evil, on British Channel 4, presented by Richard Dawkins. He argues that religion narrows the mind, and harms society. He has interviewed only extremists, and has not done all of his science homework.
My shock is as follows: this is the man of the Selfish Gene, ie the purpose of life is to create more life. And religion helps with this. Religion is about keeping the local community together and strong. The breakdown of the local community is a recent thing. As evolutionary psychologists would tell you, human behaviours have also evolved, to help propagate the DNA of the tribe/the family unit. This way, YOUR DNA is propagated.
Yes, religious extremists can cause a lot of harm, but Richard Dawkins of all people, should understand how this came about, and what it's evolutionary purpose is. I agree it can be wrong, but he really shouldn't be so surprised it happens. He is one of the people that told us that the only thing DNA wants is to create more DNA, preferably of itself. Why does he think culture does the things it does? I am shocked at the narrow mindedness of such a god of science, and very disappointed.
Thanks for reading. Alternative Kitten
I have just finished watching the first episode of the programme The Root of All Evil, on British Channel 4, presented by Richard Dawkins. He argues that religion narrows the mind, and harms society. He has interviewed only extremists, and has not done all of his science homework.
My shock is as follows: this is the man of the Selfish Gene, ie the purpose of life is to create more life. And religion helps with this. Religion is about keeping the local community together and strong. The breakdown of the local community is a recent thing. As evolutionary psychologists would tell you, human behaviours have also evolved, to help propagate the DNA of the tribe/the family unit. This way, YOUR DNA is propagated.
Yes, religious extremists can cause a lot of harm, but Richard Dawkins of all people, should understand how this came about, and what it's evolutionary purpose is. I agree it can be wrong, but he really shouldn't be so surprised it happens. He is one of the people that told us that the only thing DNA wants is to create more DNA, preferably of itself. Why does he think culture does the things it does? I am shocked at the narrow mindedness of such a god of science, and very disappointed.
Thanks for reading. Alternative Kitten
posted by Rachel at 9:26 pm
2 Comments:
It seems to me that Dawkins' confusion is that he wants to 'blame' the religious fundamentalists. He seems to think they're responsible for their choices, rather than being merely 'machines' (or conscious robots, as i call them) created by a combination of genes and environment.
My objection to Dawkins is that his own 'faith' is to believe that we have free will - a 'faith' for which he offers no insignificant evidence.
What is at the heart of ANY religion?
A Book, usually poorly translated from a language which was/is still evolving.
For example, English has NO diacritical marks. This leads to uncertaincies in pronunciation. (I say tohmaytoh, you say tohmaatoh.)
For further example, Hebrew has NO vowels. Neither did/does Aramaic, which Jesus, if there was such a person, could be surmised to have spoken. (What would you make of a word like 'FLCCNTN'?)
And ALL religions have an order established to interpret the meaning of words, phrases and sentence in their book. (Priests, Rabbis, Immams, it really doesn't matter.)
YOU might be allowed to memorise and even recite, parrot like, the content of the book but you are not allowed to interpret it.
Religion is fundamentally anti-media.
The 'message' is as fluid as the situation demands since the real message, the encoded information, makes no sense, litterally no sense.
I'd rather trust something that tells me that masses accelerate under the influence of gravity at a predictable rate, rather than one that can't tell me anything about how the world works.
I can't use the latter. But its prosletizers can try to use me.
I don't like being used without my knowledge.
And I'd still like to interview you for my podcast.
charles@artdogs.org
Blog: http//multiplesclerosisblog.blogspot.com/
Media: http://msb.libsyn.com/
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