This evening has involved huddling up against the fire watching The Trouble With Atheism on Channel 4. For those that watched Root of All Evil? with Richard Dawkins on Channel 4 earlier this year, this is exactly the opposite: a presentation on the existence of God from a theistic perspective.
The programme is interesting, especially Rod Liddle's critique of atheism, which he sees as something that is as religious as any theistic religion. The difficulty with the programme, as with Dawkins', is that it is so one sided. Liddle interviews Dawkins or other non-believers and then deconstructs their argument not to their face but to a believer (such as Alistair McGrath) or worse as the narrator. Channel 4 seem to be doing a lot of documentaries like this and I'm not a fan. It breeds frustration amongst those of the opposing viewpoint and ignorance amongst supporters.
Case in point: Liddle is just tracing a line between Darwin and Hitler (Darwin removed the spirituality from human kind and so extermination becomes much easier).
Hitler's government banned libraries from stocking books dealing with 'primitive darwinism'
Hitler said the following
'From where do we get the right to believe that man was not from the very beginning what he is today.
A glance in Nature shows us , that changes and developments happen in the realm of plants and animals. But nowhere do we see inside a kind, a development of the size of the leap that Man must have made, if he supposedly has advanced from an ape-like condition to what he is' (now)
Hitler was not an atheist.
Posted by: Steven Carr | December 20, 2006 at 06:38 AM