British Channel 4 is currently showing Richard Dawkins "The Genius of Charles Darwin"

Sadly, it's only broadcast (or iPlayered) in the UK and Ireland. Happily, people have been posting it to YouTube.

The first episode gives the horrific statistic that 40% of the British believe in creationism, and do not acknowledge that evolution is a fact. Far from a non-religious culture, that's on par with the more civilized areas of the U.S. According to the 2001 census, 71% identify as "Christian", and only 15% as non-religious, and yet another survey on the same site shows less than 40% admitting a belief in "God". Something's either very seriously wrong with these surveys, or there's self-deception on a massive scale. Just informally, I suspect that it's fashionable in England to be "non-religious", and people may not attend church, but religious belief is still deeply rooted in a lot of them.

You don't get that "I believe in my Holy Book" kid unless there's religion infecting your country at a low level.

For another great Dawkins presentation, see Waking Up in the Universe

I very much enjoyed Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion (currently: "Amazon.com Sales Rank: #42 in Books"!!!). Nothing new to me, but it's a fun read, and the man has a good sense of humor. Probably you should read Climbing Mount Improbable and The Selfish Gene first, this isn't an introduction to evolution or genetics, and it relies on understanding those.

The book does have a fatal flaw, though: it relies on logic. And logic is one thing theists lack, by definition; if they could use logic, they'd have found their way out of their ignorant "faith" on their own. So it won't do much for converting theists to atheism, but it's a comfort read for existing atheists, might shift some agnostics into atheism, and exposes the insanity of theists. A good deal all around.

But the really funny part is reading Christians trying to comment or review on it. They all repeat the same basic responses (exactly as if they'd all been given the same programmed, autonomic response with no conscious intervention possible, which is of course the case):

"It's mean and hateful and spiteful! Richard Dawkins is a bitter jerk!"

Because apparently the last 2000 years of Christians torturing and murdering atheists, pagans, and anyone who wasn't exactly their own sort of Christian was just good clean fun, but a few unkind words from atheists is just too much for their compassionate, sensitive souls. Me, I think the time for being nice to lion food is long past.

"Dawkins doesn't repeat all the standard arguments we want him to use! He must not be a philosopher!"

It's so unkind of him to make theists have to think of all-new spurious objections to arguments, instead of reciting their stock spurious objections to previous arguments.

"This argument depends on God being complex! God, creator of everything, isn't complex! It says so in the Bible, and the Bible is true! The Bible tells you the Bible is true!"

Logic, Circular: n. See Circular Logic.

This stuff cracks me up. It's like they read this book, and then go out of their way to prove that they've had a giant chunk of their cerebellum lobotomized, rather than let us merely suspect it.

The complete works of Charles Darwin are now online (or are coming online), thanks to the University of Cambridge.

You should also visit the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science. He's touring right now promoting The God Delusion (current Amazon.com sales rank: #3 in Books). I just got my copy, sitting on my desk at work, but haven't had time to read it yet. Hopefully this weekend I can sit down with it. The shiny silver cover certainly attracts attention; several people have asked me about it already.

The UK Channel 4 special The Root of All Evil? by Richard Dawkins is now available online at Google Video: Part 1, Part 2.

There's also a good interview from before the production at The Atheist.

There's a line in the first episode: "Isn't bracing truth better than false hope?" I think that's what it all comes down to. My reaction is "YES! OF COURSE!" Knowing the truth, even what slim part of it we can figure out with the scientific method, is wonderful. Being able to make sense of the world honestly is hard, but that's what makes it rewarding.

Any life and hope based on lies and deliberate ignorance is worthless. The "faithful" know perfectly well that they're ignoring reality and evidence, instead taking everything they believe from a book written by a bunch of primitives. It's nonsensical to think that they had all the answers then, and that nothing new could be learned since. It's easy to just accept those answers, you don't have to think about them at all, but easy does not make it right.

I'm hardly the biggest fan of Homo sapiens. I have a very low opinion of human reason in general. Most people don't seem to have much, or they don't use it if they do have it; they're amiable primates, but not noticeably more intelligent than the chimpanzees. But even by my low expectations, the continued existence of religion really is very shocking.

All of the wonders of science and technology surround them, all of the evidence of the true history of life on Earth from archaeology and paleontology fills museums, and people still believe fairy tales from some old book? You must be kidding me.

More in my Darwin fanboydom: Intelligent Design from the National Center for Science Education, and The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins.

Charles Darwin has a Posse