Richard Dawkins - The Root of All Evil? [Documentary - free download]

Dave!

Hey, I haven't actually seen this docu just yet, but I am in the process of watching it.

I hadn't heard anything about it, but stumbled upon it today, and thought I'd share it with you people. Richard Dawkins is a famous evolutionary scientist, and in this documentary he argues that the world would be better off without religion.

It can be downloaded at these locations:

Part 1: http://www.antonioedward.net/component/option,com_remository/Itemid,28/func,fileinfo/filecatid,50/parent,category

Part 2: http://www.antonioedward.net/component/option,com_remository/Itemid,28/func,fileinfo/filecatid,49/parent,category

(they're both in mp4 format (they work in Quicktime), and are great quality)

Or alternatively you can find it broken up into different parts on YouTube:

Part 1.1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPaD6D54L4o
Part 1.2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGeL1yFeK6I
Part 1.3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76UDVB-ofpI

Part 2.1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kcKInudkq4
Part 2.2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T27Ef_xvYMs
Part 2.3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPBdz-TXlaI
Part 2.4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTKLM09FeNM
Part 2.5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwD9HOrjLRw
Part 2.6: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGLPViVW5ms

*phew* I haven't actually checked all the YouTube videos, but they seem to be in order.

It looks like an interesting documentary anyways! Enjoy

Rev Hellfire

Nice one. It's an interesting documentry for sure and well worth the watch. But I feel its not a very effective one, its certainly not going sway anyone who's sitting on the fence with it's overly simplistic approach to religion and its place in society. But that just my view most of the others here have loved it, but then again it sits well with their views.

Dades

Thanks DaveMcG,

See this thread for the post-doc discussion from last time.
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054870453

Methinks I'll rewatch it anyway.

(I'm assuming for the moment the links are okay on Boards)

5uspect

Its a good documentary alright (you can get from google video too). I agree with Rev Hellfire tho, Dawkins is preaching to the athiest choir and will not influence many mainstream religous types. I recommend his book the Devils Chaplin. Its a collection of some of this best essays and has a good section on religion amoung other topics.

aidan24326

Thanks for the links DaveMcG. Missed it when it was on Channel 4 the first time.

UU

Thanks a million OP for that. Although, I don't quite agree with everything Richard Dawkins says, I do think he is quite a character and certainly does a good job in challenging religion. I do think that pure science has the potential to be just as letal as religion can be because of the ever so common human ego-centred frame of thought.

5uspect

There's a good dispatches on C4 now about Islam in the UK, somewhat more indept and balanced than the Root of All evil.

aidan24326

Just watched this yesterday for the first time (thanks again for posting the links DmcG) and while it was an interesting documentary there probably wasn't alot in it that I didn't already know, and having read Richard Dawkins' books I was aware of his views on the subject and his theory of religion as a virus of the mind (ties in with his idea of memes as cultural replicators).

I thought he presented his views quite well and was pretty restrained given his obviously strong feelings on the subject. The American Pastor who accused him of arrogance was himself an arrogant prat.

I agree with his views in many ways, that atheists have spent too long pandering to the fanciful and often downright nonsensical notions of many religious believers, and in the need for political correctness have stopped short of saying 'yes I think you're a complete idiot to believe such total sh*te'.

Basically he is saying that religious faith or the general heading of 'religion' seems to give people license to believe absolutely anything without having to explain themselves in any way, other than to play the 'faith' card. Whereas in any other context such fanciful ideas (gods in the sky,eternal life/damnation in heaven/hell,an entity who hears your prayers) or downright false ones (earth only a few thousand years old,people in lourdes being 'cured' by miracles,a man in a robe turning wine into christ's blood etc.) would rightly be dismissed as the ravings of a loony, or at the very least considered uneducated and ill-informed.

So why does wearing a badge called 'religious faith' entitle anyone to make such outlandish claims without having to offer a shred of evidence and with their often absurd 'beliefs' not open to any ridicule in the way that such fairyland nonsense otherwise would be? Even if his documentary mightn't have swayed too many minds on the subject, it's good that prominent academics like him are attempting to open up this important issue to more public debate.

Rev Hellfire

It all depends on how much value you place in the idea of the 'truth' of religion. To me its not that importent, whats importent is do people get any benfit from it.

If people want to believe in pink dragons in their garage I'm all for it, if they gain benfit from it then it's not that absurd from where I'm looking at it. And to be honest if a society grows up which follows said pink dragon and gains more good than harm from it then I'm all on for that.



Ps. Anyone know any other good documenaries ? Not downloadable even.
Might be worth a sticky with a list of recommended reading and viewing.


edit: Changed my post cos its all been said before.

5uspect

Rev Hellfire wrote:

It all depends on how much value you place in the idea of the 'truth' of religion. To me its not that importent, whats importent is do people get any benfit from it.

If people want to believe in pink dragons in their garage I'm all for it, if they gain benfit from it then it's not that absurd from where I'm looking at it. And to be honest if a society grows up which follows said pink dragon and gains more good than harm from it then I'm all on for that.

But when they try to pass it off as science in schools, or blow thenselves up in the name of their pink elephants than what? I have no problem with people beleiving what they want, I do have a problem with such beliefs being accepted by governments as something that must be protected as if they were fact and giving them a priviliged place in society. I feel religions should have no more importance that say groups of people who like eastenders.

Playboy

Its crap. Dont even bother watching it.

Sapien

Playboy wrote:

Its crap. Dont even bother watching it.

What's wrong with it?

Rev Hellfire

Certainly where religion crosses over into science it should be fought against.
And there is no doubt that in the US this is happening to alerming results.

Governments reflect the wishes of society and if society wishes to hold a religious view there is no reason why that should not be the case.

Personally I think religion will always be with us, its something people need and will continue to look for. The idea that it will disappear as we become more educated doesnt seem to hold much water, esp when you look to the states and the emerging theocracy there.

Playboy

Sapien wrote:

What's wrong with it?

Everything. He should stick to writing books. He comes across very poorly in the show, just as much a fundamentalist as the people he is trying to expose. He takes so many cheap shots instead of tackling the more difficult issues in the science religion debate.

Sapien

Playboy wrote:

Everything. He should stick to writing books. He comes across very poorly in the show, just as much a fundamentalist as the people he is trying to expose. He takes so many cheap shots instead of tackling the more difficult issues in the science religion debate.

I don't think he won anyone over. I don't think he wanted to. It was a sermon to the choir, and I certainly got a kick out of it.

Dades

Dawkins does come across badly, like someone who been banging his head against walls for years and has just given up trying to be subtle about it.

He can talk and write a lot of sense though.

aidan24326

The Atheist wrote:

Dawkins does come across badly, like someone who been banging his head against walls for years and has just given up trying to be subtle about it

But is this not the whole point? He's saying sod this subtle approach, let's call a spade a spade here.

You can believe what you want, pink dragons or anything else, and if someone gets some psychological benefit or comfort from that belief then fair enough. I agree with that much.

But like 5uspect said it's another matter entirely when this crap is being passed off as fact in schools, and government are protecting these delusional ravings and their mouthpieces just because they present themselves under the all-knowing label of religion.

Personally I didn't think Dawkins came across badly at all.

robindch

> Personally I didn't think Dawkins came across badly at all.

Likewise. There were bits which he could have polished a bit more, and a few bits he could have extended or dropped, but in general, I thought it was pretty good for a 100-minute look.

Stephen

Playboy wrote:

Its crap. Dont even bother watching it.

Family Guy wrote:

Oh Reginald... I disagree! *screech*

.

pH

Here's a small bit from JONATHAN MILLER'S BRIEF HISTORY OF DISBELIEF
http://youtube.com/watch?v=etiZv_rOOgc

stevejazzx

The Atheist wrote:

Dawkins does come across badly, like someone who been banging his head against walls for years and has just given up trying to be subtle about it.

He can talk and write a lot of sense though.

Yeah I got this impression also, he kept jumping in during his interviews with the various religous **nuts he talked to but even at that I thought he came across well, always tempered even in the face such absurdity; "Yes I think friend was right to murder that doctor"!!!!!
The Pastor of the fundamentalist church disturbed me the most, followed closley by Islamic guy. The part where Pastor says "I wouldn't like these people to not think for themselves" is followed directly by a scene where he's on stage getting people to shout out the word 'obidience' and 'we must obey' .....amazing stuff, scary as usual.
Overall i enjoyed it and would say it definitely worth a look.
Thanks for posting OP.

Tim Robbins

I watched both of those documentaries.
The problem with Dawkins is that he takes the worst most extreme faith arguments and then rubbishes them.
This is a political style of debating and not scientific. He should be taking the best faith arguments and challenging them.

He also uses trendy electro music and cool imagery for his own points and scary imagery and stupid music when he is rubbishing the extreme faith position - this is propaganda.
He is only really arguing against extreme faiths and not moderate ones.
But anything extremes in anything is dangerous, not just faith or religion.

He doesn't really enter the evolutionary debate at all, he just says there's loads of evidence, but doesn't discuss any of the evidence.
As an atheist, I was disappointed.

robindch

Dawkins did bring in a few regular Joes, but they're not as memorable as the clowns. It's been a while since I saw it, but wasn't the first ten minutes of the first episode taking a look at Lourdes and didn't he get to speak to a few Irish people too?

Picking one nut in the USA wasn't unreasonable, since, as he pointed out, (a) the guy is the head of the christian evangelist movement and can be taken as representative of a very large group of people, and (b) lunatic views based upon messianic and apocalyptic readings of the bible are mainstream, unlike in Europe. Same in Israel, as the on-going religious war there suggests.

> He doesn't really enter the evolutionary debate at all, he just says
> there's loads of evidence, but doesn't discuss any of the evidence.

It was a program about religion, not evolution. If you'd like to examine claim and couter-claim about that "debate", try:

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html

stevejazzx

Tim Robbins wrote:

I watched both of those documentaries.
The problem with Dawkins is that he takes the worst most extreme faith arguments and then rubbishes them.
This is a political style of debating and not scientific. He should be taking the best faith arguments and challenging them.

He also uses trendy electro music and cool imagery for his own points and scary imagery and stupid music when he is rubbishing the extreme faith position - this is propaganda.
He is only really arguing against extreme faiths and not moderate ones.
But anything extremes in anything is dangerous, not just faith or religion.

He doesn't really enter the evolutionary debate at all, he just says there's loads of evidence, but doesn't discuss any of the evidence.
As an atheist, I was disappointed.

I see your point about him picking essentisally easy targets of extreme faith and that the arguments weren't extensive but rather straight ahead.
I think though, as has been suggested earlier in this thread that he has tired of treating the subject too calmly.
I don't think that this was to the detriment of the documentary because he was honest in his approach with each interviewee. The program was inevitably one sided but I don't imagine that in religous documentaries they take much time out to consider that perhaps there is no god.

5uspect

This essay shows that Dawkins is growing tired of being polite regarding religion. It was written shortly after 9/11 and is quite aggressive, he does say in the indroduction to this work in the Devils Chaplin that he would probably tone the language down if he were to write it today but it was an exceptional time. Worth reading all the same.

Dades

5uspect wrote:

This essay shows that Dawkins is growing tired of being polite regarding religion. It was written shortly after 9/11 and is quite aggressive, he does say in the indroduction to this work in the Devils Chaplin that he would probably tone the language down if he were to write it today but it was an exceptional time. Worth reading all the same.

Enjoyed that, 5uspect.

Liked the 'contributions' of Douglas Adams and particularly that of Gore Vidal. Memorable, indeed.

Dawkins admits that it's not really religion that motivates people to violence, but the labels that it allows people to place on one another. I don't this as strong an argument as he does.

Religion historically is responsible for every culture we see today. Taking away the religion, or the 'label', will still leave the culture and every prejudice that comes with it. People are naturally xenophobic and will alway fear another way of life.

Tim Robbins

The Atheist wrote:

Enjoyed that, 5uspect.

Liked the 'contributions' of Douglas Adams and particularly that of Gore Vidal. Memorable, indeed.

Dawkins admits that it's not really religion that motivates people to violence, but the labels that it allows people to place on one another. I don't this as strong an argument as he does.

Religion historically is responsible for every culture we see today. Taking away the religion, or the 'label', will still leave the culture and every prejudice that comes with it. People are naturally xenophobic and will alway fear another way of life.

Yes but wars and fights existed before Religion was established. Check the "Punic Wars" for example.
Evolution explains war and fighting better in my opinion. It is part of the survival instinct, not to trust and hence like what you don't know.
It also explains,a 'kill or be killed' philosophy.

robindch

> Yes but wars and fights existed before Religion was established.

The Punic Wars? That's rather a long time ago!

Most of the conflicts in the world today -- Israel v. Lebanon, Russia v. Chechnya, Muslim-Thai v. Non-muslim Thai, etc, etc, etc -- use religion as a basis for motivating fighters to murder each other. Neutralize the religion and you take away the reason. What do you imagine would happen then?

> It also explains,a 'kill or be killed' philosophy.

I can't think of any biological system which operates upon a "kill or be killed" basis. Too expensive, you see. Much cheaper to have some kind of co-operation.

Dades

robindch wrote:

Neutralize the religion and you take away the reason. What do you imagine would happen then?

They'd find some other excuse to kill each other?
Money, land, skin colour, basic cultural differences - take your pick.
Fear is a great motivator too.

galactus

Typically unsubtle Dawkins.

On Lourdes:
"...in reality they're much more likely to catch something from the thousands of other pilgrims who have wallowed in the water"


PS I see he gives Darwin the credit for evolution, rather than Wallace. Tsk, tsk.

daveirl

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