Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins on his experience with Darwinism and why creationists dont know anything. TRANSCRIPTION: I think we should look at the history of religion, be fascinated by it, just if you look at the history of art and so on. But I dont think that religion has anything useful to teach us. One of the main reasons why people are religious is because they are persuaded by the apparent design of living things and thats completely destroyed by Darwin. If you actually read any book by a biologist about evolution, its hard to see how you could fail to be persuaded of it, the evidence is just absolutely pact. There is no doubt about it. Its not a controversial issue. History is completely certain. Its as certain as the fact that the earth and the other planets, orbit the sun. More than 40% of the American population, if opinion polls to be believed, think that the world is less than 10,000 years old and thats a shocking figure. It shows deep profound ignorance. It sounds very laudable to teach the controversy, to teach both theories. But there arent two theories, there is only one theory around, there is only one game in town as far as theory of science is concerned. Of course you get negative reactions from creationists, but who cares about creationists, they dont know anything. I think it was my father who first introduced me to Darwin and Evolution. I was immensely moved by it and it did start a rollercoaster in a way and then I started to become really quite antireligious after that. I went through a sort of middle ground of what you might call Deism. I think I gave up Christianity before I finally gave up the idea of a sort of creative designer of some kind. Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist. Before that you could be an atheist, he was for example, but it was quite difficult because you had no good explanation for why living things look so well designed, Darwin provided that. There are other reasons for being religious like moral reasons or people sometimes feel they have a personal relationship with God or with Jesus or with Mohammed or whatever it is and that kind of reason for being religious would not in itself be undermined by Darwinism, but its quite wrong to believe that science reduces humanity, that science somehow gives you a bleak, cold, empty, barren view of the universe and of life, quite the contrary, sounds as enriching and fulfilling. Whats going to happen when I die, if I met god in the unlikely event after I died, I think the first thing I would say is well, which one are you? Are you Zeus? Are you Thor? Are you Baal? Are you Mithras? Are you Yahweh? Which god are you? And why did you take such great pains to conceal yourself and to hide away from us?
Posted on: Thu, 21 Aug 2014 12:50:34 +0000
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