A Couple of Reviews

PZ comments on ‘The Root of All Evil’ at Pharyngula.

Nobody should ever call Dawkins arrogant. On the scale established by American televangelists, by Christians in general, he is a timid model of bashful humility. Pit a man who works for his knowledge, who willingly tests and reviews it continually, against a mob who trusts in revealed knowledge dogmatically, and I’ll tell you who the arrogant ones are.

Well exactly. How it did irritate me, listening to that smug unctuous man telling Dawkins he is arrogant. What a joke! But it works, you know. It works all the time. The Limbaughs and O’Reillys never get enough of that (well they wouldn’t, would they – it works) ploy, calling any failure to submit to religious dogma ‘elitist’ and an ‘attack of people of faith’. So however upside down and backward it is, it just keeps going on and on and on.

There is a review-synopsis of the first show at this new blog, which I see some of you have already found via Pharyngula. I meant to link to it yesterday but [voice rises to shriek] I’ve been busy! But there it is now – with its name derived from Pope, just as (indirectly) B&W’s is.

The naming things is an issue for those that don’t believe there actually is a God or Gods but who don’t want to be seen as going beyond evidence and logic and claiming that there definitely isn’t a God or Gods (if only people would stop thinking atheism means this!), and the arrogance this is seen to entail (for a good little book on atheism, have a look at Julian Baggini’s ‘Atheism: A Very Short Introduction’; it’s cheap and easy to read quickly).

Same here. B&W is cheap and easy to read quickly. I take a lot of pride in that.

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