I have been reading Richard Dawkin's book – The God Delusion lately. I must admit I wasn’t familiar with Professor Dawkins but I am finding the book reassures me about a lot of things with respect to religion and atheism. Professor Dawkins by the way holds the Charles Simonyi Chair in the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University – all software developers who use the Hungarian notation are indebted to Mr Simonyi.
Anyway digging around on the web for Richard Dawkins leads you to a lot of videos on You Tube, in particular the ones from his program on Channel 4 TV – “The Root of All Evil”. There is one clip where he interviews Ted Haggard from the New Life Church in Colorado and the leader of tje National Association of Evangelicals in the USA.
So anyway, just as I am reading the chapter about whether Religion is necessary for us to be “moral” individuals (it’s not by the way), it comes out that Reverend Ted has been accused of all sorts un-evangelical things by a male prostitute and, at least for now, is stepping away from his leadership role in the church.
The scary thing is that Reverend Ted has, or at least had until this week, a close relationship to President Bush with weekly conference calls to the White House!
I find it quite inexplicable that the America and the UK are so far apart when it comes to religion. I could not imagine a television program about religion called “The Root of All Evil” getting any sponsorship in the USA – there would be protests, boycotts and all manner of things going on. Then, I couldn’t imagine the USA putting Charles Darwin on its bank notes either, but in the UK the 10 Pound Note has Charles Darwin on one side and the Queen, “the Defender of the Faith” on the other side.
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Richard Dawkins is interviewed for this month's cover issue of Wired Magazine. The story is The Church of the Non-Believers.
Enjoy.
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