Richard Dawkins

As a man of faith I have spent an inordinate amount of time feeling pretty cheesed off and fed up with this guy. The god delusion seemed a pretty one note show (that's the note...) and our current scientific knowledge so ludicrously inept in the face of the wonderful complexity of a single atom that I was left wondering what the point had been in writing it in the first place!

I had a huge problem with his arrogant, passive aggressive bullying of poor messed up fundamentalist christians in small town america. I got further annoyed at his moral cowardice in not also approaching the more radical examples of other world religions with his camera teams and hectoring tones (- but I realized he wanted to keep his head on his shoulders, so could just about forgive him that one).

All of this, until I visited his website and viewed the numerous clips of his discussions with people just as erudite and whose grasp of language is at least his equal. To these he is polite, allows them to have their say and - more amazing still - seems to take an interest in their  replies - this is hardly the same guy who revels in pushing the fundies buttons.

Faith is all about personal experience and no one humans personal experience can ever be the same as an other. 

The debates on the site - sadly never screened - were mutually respectful and informative. The problem with the athiest vs religion debate is the gross intolerance you see between protagonists. I read on Digg etc and other blogs scathing ugly, arrogant tones adopted by both sides, the anger swells but ultimately no-one is further forward - Richard's producers could have helped move the debate forward and gone some way to calming vistas of bitterness and intolerance had they simply shown more of a reasonable Richard speaking with reasonable men and women.

Lets have less anger and recrimination please - what is not being talked about is that "religion" with a capital R has very little to do with the intensely personal, experiential and spiritual quest that motivates some (not all) of the religious people you may meet.

In my country where religious freedoms are being eroded, churches closed, it is increasingly socially unacceptable to espouse any kind of a faith. 

It is, as "it is" and our society in the UK moves forward with a generally (if you believe what you SEE rather than what you are TOLD) moderate and inclusive tone.

To claim, as some do, athiest and deist alike, that the worlds many ills can be laid at the door of a particular and personal belief system is facile and ultimately pointless. The universe simply is as it is and the best we can do is to try and get along in it - but I would much rather we got along in it in love rather than in anger and in accord rather than discord.

To finish - I was reading a really cool blog the other day - greta christinas weblog - and she spent pages and ages going on about how anger against religion was such an important stance for athiests  - boy, she was indeed angry, incisive, explosive and absolutely determined to make anyone of faith, or spirit - doubtful, guilty, upset and generally take on all the bad feelings she had had while she had written it.

Because that's what we do with anger and pain, we want to share it, we want others to feel it and it works...

But as a motivation and a goal - I'm sorry - it sucks.

God Bless,

Iain