I came to sit down to a bit of tv the other night, and started flicking through the TV guide on Sky+ to see what we’d recorded the previous week that we still had to watch. Apart from the usual episodes of Chuck and ANTM, I noticed that my wife had recorded a Channel 4 documentary with Richard Dawkins – celebritised self proclaiming atheist – called ‘The God Delusion’. She had mentioned that she started watching it, and that I should watch it too so we could talk about it afterward.
I’d heard of the book ‘The God Delusion’ and knew that from a Christian perspective it would be detrimental to watch a program like this without being a firm believer, so I took my chances and started watching from where my wife left off.
Firstly, I’ve got to say that even before I knew anything about Richard Dawkins beliefs or lack of, I’ve always found him to be very pretentious and arrogant, but I started watching with an open mind anyway.
I won’t describe or go through everything he said, but the whole documentary was basically his overall view of any “religion” and his defiance to accept the fact that any religion can be a good thing.
Everybody is enigmas to their opinion or belief, but for a man to go so public about his beliefs (whether he knows he has beliefs or not) is really asking for trouble! It wasn’t so much that he set out to question the existence of God, and accept arguments from both points of view, but rather that he purposely went out of his way to ridicule and arrogantly protest against every possible form of religion involving a God.
There were hints that he said which not only confused viewers, but didn’t consistently make sense. And when challenged with a argument which anybody would consider ‘reasonable doubt’ which argues the case for the existence of God, he would simply brush it aside and go to another subject.
The main thing which aggravated me was the utter dribble some of the ‘Christians’ he interviewed came out with. Dawkins had managed to find the mist idiotic, insensible Bible belt Christians I’d ever seen. Not least the friend of the pastor who got the lethal injection for shooting and killing a gay man. Pure idiocy.
It’s fair to say if you want to get the most opinionated, over-bearing views on Christianity and the Bible, go to America – not all parts I admit, but most states.
I know at least 4 people off the top of my head who I personally know could stand a better debate with Dawkins than anybody he interviewed.
He did interview a man in England, who made quite a bit of sense, but struggled to answer some logical questions, who ran a Christian school. Being brought up in a Christian school I could understand where Dawkins was coming from in som perspective, however he didn’t/couldn’t grasp that not all ‘religious’ schools are ran by boot-camp Christians. Ours wasn’t. Yes our RE lessons incorporated mostly if not entirely of Marks Gospel, or other books, but so what. I didn’t want to learn Science, it ha absolutely no relevance to me and I haven’t used it since, but I didn’t worry that since would be my only way forward in knowing anything once I’d left school! The same rule goes for Christianity in schools. It doesn’t stand to say that everybody emerges a Born Again Christian who wants to kill all gay people and burn the Koran. The majority of people who left our school went on to have babies before they were 18, and to turn gay, and become alcoholics, to turn to Jewish and Muslim cultures and beliefs. However a lot went on to make mistakes and turn back to Christianity, of their own accord, because it offered something better than the world could, not a crutch. But a peace and security that doesn’t come from music, worship bands, soft talking preachers, but from a real and very noticeable presence from a God who loves and cares.
Dawkins being who he is and what he is, will probably miss this reality. Having dismissing it for a fable, an untruth and a ‘delusion’.
I dismissed the program as uninformed and ridiculously immature. For a man of such stature I would have expected something a bit more in-depth, researched and insightful. But hey-ho, that’s scientists for you.
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