of religion.

(the following post is purely based on the analysis of the author.)

ugh. i have never seen a more narrow-minded documentary by Richard Dawkins from (i think) Oxford.
there's 2 parts to it, so watch it if u have time..


so anyways, he's out to prove that science and religion does not exist hand in hand, and basically, if one exists, the other must cease to exist.
and another theory of his is that religion = root of evil



i think basically his argument's rather scanty. his argument says that because of fundamentalists from the various religious groups, be they christian or muslim or whatever, that terrorism / various acts of violence of terror does occur - so religion is bad. -_-""



i took some notes down while watching the show cos i was so darn agitated. here's my take on the whole thingamajig.
credits to missizzy.org for the link :)



Dawkins constantly insults / barrages us with derogatory terms..
"complete utter nonsense" "bullocks" etc, whatever u might expect from a Brit.
so anyway his first statement that goes along the line of "each Catholic has the same delusion of having a religion, which is reinforced when everyone has the same delusion" meaning to say when catholics gather and pray / mass/ whatever, that seeing everyone else has the same belief as them, whether that belief is right or wrong (which Dawkins believes) that they'd continue living with their delusion 0_o""""



oh come on!!!
and he goes on to say that 'religion is false hope' - he takes the example of believers bathing in the lake of holy water /drinking it, etc, somewhere in France (i presume). so he questioned the logic of miracles, the statistical number of people that actually get cured - which is a measley 66 out of 1 million pple who try to get cured.



so Dawkins IMMEDIATELY pronounces that this is statistically misleading that miracles do happen. yes i agree on that terms, but he totally DISREGARDED the actual number of people who have received miracles all over the world. like seriously. drinking holy water is not the only way / place to get cured. maybe if he had substantiated his argument furthur it would have helped instead of embarrassed him. hogwash.



next, Dawkins goes on to define the meaning of science vs. religion. science - which he indulges in - is basically the questioning of logic and being skeptical. religion - the positive supression of critical hypothesis. -__-"" which i think he defined himself to help his argument.



the thing i feel is that he sorta targetted the Catholic community cos not only is it the most how to say.. OBVIOUS choice, but also cos it's got a hugely popular / famous load of debatable topics that have been going on for centuries. so which means it's in his favour to undermine the meaning of religion!



he goes on to say that religion actually is created by man and man alone by giving the example of the assumption of mary - that is to say that mary's body was brought up to heaven when her time on earth was up and didnt actually die. However, only 6 centuries after Jesus' death was this popularised and after that the Pope of that time declared it to be the truth as he 'received the word from God'. meaning to say that because of such vague evidence of the assumption of mary that 'faith', 'christianity', etc are utter rubbish.
i'd say his argument is rather weak yah? i'd explain myself later.



later on in the show, he goes to substantiate evolution and charles darwin etc, and asked "who is the designer" - who is the designer of life on earth? well since there isnt a concrete answer, evolution must be the key to life on earth and bacteria was the first form of life on earth and God is no God. it's really a chicken and egg story to me. well then, mr dawkin, who designed the bacteria if u say there's no designer?? -_-""""



so that's what i scribbled down, cos the show became rather comedic and boring to me
he seemed to insult / infuriate whoever he interviewed, especially with his lack of tact and really upfront frankness. you're dealing with religion here, and it's not very wise to include everyday brit expressions with rabbis, priests, pastors, etc.



"dont u think that whatever you're teaching the children is absoultely irrelevant, ... utter rubbish!!" - the rabbi's expression immediately changed from geniality to insult / disgust. i was extremely shocked that he was so rude.



he interviewed a pastor from usa somewhere i forgot and i must admit i was rather pissed with the pastor too cos he seemed too proud as well. well mr pastor thought dawkins was intellectually arrogant (agree) and they seemed to be bickering and inserting more and more insults to one another. well mr pastor was annoying to the fact that he said "..... be a great man like me!" 0_o"""""
man.
u do not preach to someone else that u are great. it just shows you're not. ( i forgot which verse in the passage says that) and another thing, you do not chase people away from the church - who basically are curious about religion after all.



so anyway, like a true scientist, dawkins puts up hypothesis, finds the correct evidence to back up his claim, and pronounces his hypo true. maybe he should have counterargued and substantiated his claim even furthur and not make his documentary so flaky. it was seriously rather annoying to watch the whole show and he possibly has made more enemies than friends during the whole production process.



well then, if someone would come up with another documentary and prove his whole diva-documentary false, then i'd say yay! and mr dawkins, like a true scientist, would admit flawed hypo :) (as stated in his documentary that his teacher once did that. i suppose the student would follow his teacher too)



i do admit that i cannot answer his questions properly since i have many on my own and that i do not know enough to make my own argument. but somehow i think that if u wish to make ur 'fundamental beliefs' and broadcast it to the whole world, please. do some more research before proclaiming you've got the answer.

there. whew! i feel a bit more happy now :D