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How do we explain the mysteries of life?

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Science has steadily overturned

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old religious myths about
how all this came to be.

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Yet those who adhere to
Judaism, Christianity or islam

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still prefer to ignore reason,

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and have faith in their forever
unprovable, omniscient creator.

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I had thought science was
rolling back religious belief,

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but I was wrong.

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Far from being beaten,
militant faith is on the march

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all across the world,
with terrifying consequences.

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As a scientist, I am increasingly worried

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about how faith is undermining science.

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It's something we must resist,

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because irrational faith is feeding

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murderous intolerance
throughout the world.

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In this programme, I want to examine

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two further problems with religion.

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I believe it can lead to a
warped and inflexible morality

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and I'm very concerned about the
religious indoctrination of children.

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I want to show how Faith acts like a
virus that attacks the young

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and infects generation after generation.

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I believe in a law-giver;
a god right there

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actually not behind it, right
imminent here; right now.

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I want to ask whether ancient mythology

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should be taught as truth in schools.

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Professor Dawkins, I'm very impressed
that you're the new messiah, and I

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appreciate your desire to
redeem the world, but-

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It's time to question the
abuse of childhood innocence

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with superstitious ideas
of hellfire and damnation.

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I would rather for them to understand

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that hell is a place that they
absolutely do not wanna go.

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And I want to show how
the scriptural roots

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of the Judeo-Christian moral edifice

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are cruel and brutish.

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What in the 21st century are we doing

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venerating a book that
contains such stuff?

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Science weighs up evidence and advances.

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Religion is high-bound belief for belief's sake.

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It's bad for our children,
and it's bad for you.

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There is something exceedingly odd

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about the idea of sectarian religious schools.

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If we hadn't got used to it over the centuries,

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we'd find it downright bizarre.

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Sectarian education has proved
to be deeply damaging.

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It has left a terrible legacy.

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When you think about it, isn't it weird
the way we automatically

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label a tiny child with its parents' religion?

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These are Jewish children.

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In another part of Jerusalem,
we've seen Moslem children.

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In Northern Ireland we have Catholic children
and Protestant children

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all going to separate schools.

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But what's so special about religion
that it is allowed

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to label small children 'Catholic' or
'Protestant'; 'Jewish' or 'Moslem'?

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Nobody would categorise children
by the political party their

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parents support; call them 'Tory'
or 'Labour' children.

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We agree they're too young
to know where they stand

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on questions of politics.

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So why is not the same for where
they stand on the cosmos,

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and humanity's place in it?

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In genetic evolution,
a species divides into two,

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initially geographically. There's
some initial separation

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between the two sub-species,

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and they divide away from
each other genetically.

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There's no longer gene
flow between them,

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and so they can become separate species.

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It's a divisive force.

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Sectarian education acts in a similar way.

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Children are initially isolated from each other

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because of their parents' Faith.

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Then their differences are
constantly drilled into them

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and they embark on opposing life trajectories.

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Such divisions are encouraged,
not just in faraway Israel

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but right on our doorstep, in
Northern Ireland for instance

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or in London.

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In north London, the
Hasidic Jewish community

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is the largest after
Israel and New York.

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Here, religious division is taken to its extreme.

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These ultra-orthodox Jews
only marry within their sect.

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Television is frowned upon,
and of course

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children attend exclusive
religious schools,

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cloistered away from external influences

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which just might persuade them

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to look outside their community.

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I want to find out why these children
are being segregated,

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and whether their culture allows them
to open their minds to reality.

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Hello?

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- Hello.
- Rabbi Gluck. Nice to meet you.

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- Richard Dawkins.
- I'm Richard Dawkins. How do you do?

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Thanks for coming, nice to meet you.
Please come in.

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Thank you very much.

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Rabbi Gluck is London born and bred,

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but you wouldn't
necessarily know it.

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His accent is a testament to the
isolation of this religious sect.

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Why should children be victims of the

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particular tradition in which they
happen to have been born,

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rather than choosing for themselves

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by being shown all the
evidence that's available?

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We are all to a certain extent
affected by our surroundings.

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There's no such thing as a
person living in a vacuum.

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No, indeed.

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We're all affected by our parents, by our families

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but at the same time we have a choice
to stay or otherwise.

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I think it's important for

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a minority to be able to have a space

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where it can express itself; where it can
learn about itself.

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Well couldn't you preserve the customs,
the traditions, the history

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without somehow imposing upon the children

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views about the universe which modern
science would say are simply false?

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I would say impose upon a Jew anything,

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I would say that's something
which is impossible,

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I think it's scientifically impossible.

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We believe that God created
the world in six days,

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we know about evolution - every single
Jewish kid knows about evolution

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and has thought about it and has studied it,

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and has looked at it, and has
thought, "What's going on here?"

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How many of the children who come up
through your system, your school system

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end up believing in evolution?

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I'd- I think that- that- that the- the majority
don't believe in evolution, they...

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but at the same time it isn't they don't
believe because they don't know about it.

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You realise they're being taught
that the entire world

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began after what archaeologists would
recognise as the agricultural revolution?

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I mean, these children are being brought up
in a very distorted world indeed,

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and I worry about children being victims

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of this kind of what I can only
describe as mis-education.

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I find the terms 'distorted' and
'mis-education' rather disturbing.

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Judaism has its tradition.

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I think there are various er, scientists
who have their tradition.

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This so-called 'the theory of evolution'-

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Well it's called that, but that's
in a very technical sense.

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But still, but still it's called that,

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and it's not called the 'law' of evolution.

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Well I will call it the 'fact' of evolution, and-

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Then you're- you're a
fundamentalist believer in it.

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No, no, I'm not a
fundamentalist believer.

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The age of the earth: 5,000 years?
I mean that is-

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I'm sorry, Rabbi, that is ridiculous!

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Of course, Rabbi Gluck is
right that it's important

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for us to learn about
our own background,

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but what upsets me is
that in pursuit of that,

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these innocent children are being
saddled with demonstrable falsehoods.

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And this is not just a
problem of the Jewish minority.

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There's pressure from
an increasing number

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of Faith schools of other religions

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to put scientific fact on a par
with primitive creation myths.

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In science classes, why can't they
simply teach science?

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- You said this is truth 'cos it's based on evidence.
- Well no, you don't exactly say that,

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you say, "We're struggling
towards the truth," and

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as new evidence comes in,
we refine it.

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And in the middle of that, Jesus
says, "I am truth."

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<COMMERCIAL BREAK>

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We live in the shadow of
a religiously inspired terror

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in an era when science
has plainly shown

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religious supersitions to be false.

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And yet it's a strange anomaly that
Faith schools are increasing

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in number and influence in
our education system,

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with active encouragement from
Tony Blair's government.

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There are already 7,000 Faith
schools in Britain,

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but the government's Trust Reforms
are encouraging many more.

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Over half the new City Academies
are expected to be sponsored

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by religious organisations.

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The most worrying development is
a new wave of private evangelical schools

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that have adopted the American
Baptist A.C.E. curriculum:

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'Accelerated Christian Education'.

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Have you been to one of
these schools before?

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- No, I never have.
- No. Okay.

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Accelerated Christian Education slips
religious superstitions back into science.

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If you want to be rude, you'd say
it's "programmed learning",

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If you want to be polite,
it's "individualised instruction".

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- Okay.
- So really, each one is teaching themselves.

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To a certain extent, of course. That
has to be modified

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with adult supervision and so on.

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I had a look at the curriculum
booklet that you use for science,

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and it was very noticeable that God or
Jesus did come on just about every page.

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Yes, yes. We don't have anything like
religious instruction in the school

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- because it is part of the-
- I can see you wouldn't need it.

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No, of course not. Absolutely.

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In one section of this thing, I
suddenly - I was sort of taken aback,

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because I suddenly started reading
about Noah's Ark.

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I mean, what's that got to do
with a science lesson?

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Well I suppose that depends on your
opinion. It could have a lot.

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If you believe in the story, it could
have a lot to do with science.

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But I mean the stuff that I was taught
when I was a kid at school in science

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now you would laught at
and say it was a myth,

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- But that's what I was taught-
- But what were you taught?

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When I was taught at- one of the
things that they told me at school

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that I've always remembered was that the
moon came from the ocean here on earth.

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and was flung into space, and
that's where it came from.

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Well what you should have been taught,
I suppose, is that there is

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a strong current theory that
that's what happened.

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So what you're really
trying to ask me is,

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"Do you think the Genesis story
was true, and that

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God created the world in seven days?"
That's what you'd really like to ask me, right?

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My answer to that is, "I don't know."

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Having said that, do I think that if God
wanted to do it in seven days he could?

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- Yeah, I think he could.
- He can do anything.

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- Yeah.
- Yes.

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So it's sort of an academic question,

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which actually I don't care about
the answer very much really.

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Does that make sense?

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Kind of, yes. It does make sense.
It doesn't make sense to me

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because I do care about the answer.

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Why?

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Because I care about what's true, and I-

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- I care about what's true.
- Yes.

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Well I find Christianity encompasses
everything about life.

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Christianity is life, so it's about
everything. It touches

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education, politics, care, social
services, everything.

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Let me ask about another thing
in the booklet, which was

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about AIDS and HIV. I think
somewhere it talks about

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AIDS being the wages of sin.

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Is that mixing health education
with moralistic preaching?

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I suppose the flip side of that is that if
there is no God and there is no law-giver,

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why does it matter what I do? Why is
rape wrong? Why is paedophilia wrong?

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Why are any of these things wrong
if there is no law-giver?

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You've just said a very revealing thing. Are
you telling me that the only reason

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why you don't steal and rape and murder is
that you're frightened of God?

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I think that all people, if they think they can
get away with something,

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and it is- there is no consequences, we
actually tend to do that.

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I think that is the reality. Look at the
world in which we live.

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That is the reality.

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- Okay, well I think better leave it at that.
- Okay.

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Adrian Hawkes, I'm sure, is
a well-meaning man.

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But why should he impose his personal
version of reality on children?

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Not only are they encouraged to
consider  the weird claims of

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the bible alongside scientific fact,
they are also being indoctrinated

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into what an objective observer
might see as a warped morality.

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Let me explain why, when it comes to children,
I think of religion as a dangerous virus.

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It is a virus which is transmitted
partly through teachers and clergy

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but also down the generations,
from parent to child to grandchild.

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Children are especially vulnerable to
infection by the virus of religion.

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A child is genetically pre-programmed
to accumulate knowledge

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from figures of authority.

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The child brain, for very good Darwinian
reasons, has to be set up

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in such a way that it believes
what it's told by its elders,

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because there just isn't time for
the child to experiment with warnings

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like: "Don't go too near the cliff edge," or
"Don't swim in the river; there are crocodiles."

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Any child who applied a scientific, sceptical,
questioning attitude to that would be dead.

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No wonder the Jesuit said, "Give me the child for
his first seven years and I'll give you the man."

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00:16:07,000 --> 00:16:11,000
The child brain will automatically
believe what it's told, even if

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00:16:11,000 --> 00:16:13,000
what it's told is nonsense.

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00:16:15,000 --> 00:16:18,000
And then, when the child grows up,
it will tend to pass on

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00:16:18,000 --> 00:16:22,000
that same nonsense to its children.

243
00:16:27,000 --> 00:16:30,000
And so religion goes on, from
generation to generation.

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00:16:39,000 --> 00:16:43,000
For many people, part of growing up
is killing off the virus of Faith

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00:16:43,000 --> 00:16:46,000
with a good strong dose
of rational thinking.

246
00:16:47,000 --> 00:16:49,000
But if an individual doesn't
succeed in shaking it off,

247
00:16:50,000 --> 00:16:53,000
his mind is stuck in a
permanent state of infancy,

248
00:16:53,000 --> 00:16:57,000
and there is a real danger that he
will infect the next generation.

249
00:17:02,000 --> 00:17:06,000
I'm going to meet someone who has
experienced religion as child abuse first-hand.

250
00:17:07,000 --> 00:17:08,000
- Jill Mytton.
- Oh, hello.

251
00:17:08,000 --> 00:17:11,000
- I'm Richard Dawkins, how do you do?
- Hello, Richard.

252
00:17:11,000 --> 00:17:14,000
Jill Mytton was brought up in a
strict Christian sect.

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00:17:14,000 --> 00:17:17,000
Today she's a psychologist who
rehabilitates young adults

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00:17:17,000 --> 00:17:20,000
similarly scarred by their
narrow religious upbringing.

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00:17:22,000 --> 00:17:25,000
They need to be allowed to hear
different perspectives on things.

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00:17:25,000 --> 00:17:28,000
They need to be allowed to investigate.
They need to be allowed to

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develop their critical faculties, so that they
can take a number of different viewpoints.

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00:17:34,000 --> 00:17:37,000
and weigh them up, and decide
which one is for them.

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They need to find their own pathways; not to
be forced into a particular mould as a child.

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If I think back to my childhood, it's one
that's kind of dominated by fear.

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And it was a fear of disapproval while in the
present, but also of eternal damnation.

262
00:17:59,000 --> 00:18:01,000
Do they get taught about hell
fire and things like that?

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00:18:01,000 --> 00:18:06,000
Absolutely. And to a child, images of hell
fire and gnashing of teeth

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00:18:06,000 --> 00:18:09,000
are actually very real; they're not
metaphorical at all.

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00:18:09,000 --> 00:18:11,000
- Of course not.
- No.

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00:18:11,000 --> 00:18:14,000
If you bring a child up and discourage
it from thinking freely and making

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00:18:14,000 --> 00:18:23,000
choices freely, then that's still- to me that is a
form of mental abuse or psychological abuse.

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Or if you tell a child that when it dies
it's going to roast forever in hell.

269
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In hell. That is abusive, yes.

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What did they tell you about it?
I mean, what happens in hell?

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It's strange, isn't it. After all this
time, it still has the power to

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affect me when you asked me that question.

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Hell is a fearful place. It's
complete rejection by God.

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It's complete judgement.

275
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There is real fire.

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00:18:56,000 --> 00:18:58,000
There is real torment; real torture,

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00:19:00,000 --> 00:19:03,000
and it goes on forever, so there
is no respite from it.

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00:19:26,000 --> 00:19:29,000
It's deeply disturbing to think that
there are believers out there

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00:19:29,000 --> 00:19:34,000
who actively use the idea of hell
for moral policing.

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00:19:42,000 --> 00:19:46,000
In the United States, Christian obsession
with sin has spawned a national craze

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00:19:46,000 --> 00:19:51,000
for 'hell houses' - morality
plays-cum-Halloween freak-shows,

282
00:19:51,000 --> 00:19:56,000
in which the evangelical hobby-horses of
abortion and homosexuality

283
00:19:56,000 --> 00:19:59,000
are literally demonised.

284
00:20:07,000 --> 00:20:12,000
Pastor Keenan Roberts is rehearsing a new
production of his Colorado-based hell-house,

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00:20:12,000 --> 00:20:15,000
which he's written and staged for
almost fifteen years.

286
00:20:16,000 --> 00:20:21,000
He fervently believes that you have
to scare people into being good.

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00:20:22,000 --> 00:20:28,000
The call upon my life as a pastor, as a
minister, is to tell people what the book says,

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00:20:28,000 --> 00:20:32,000
and what I, and we in our church,
and hundreds of churches

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00:20:32,000 --> 00:20:36,000
across this country and around the world
are doing is, we have found

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00:20:36,000 --> 00:20:43,000
a very creative, effective tool that is
getting people's attention

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00:20:43,000 --> 00:20:46,000
- to consider the message.
- I believe it. I believe it.

292
00:20:53,000 --> 00:21:02,000
We want to leave an indelible impression
upon their life that sin destroys.

293
00:21:04,000 --> 00:21:10,000
Every scene preaches the truth that
either sin destroys or Jesus saves.

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If this is a rehearsal, think how
horrific the full production must be.

295
00:21:35,000 --> 00:21:40,000
I presume you have a cut-off age for the tour,
I mean no children below an age of-

296
00:21:39,000 --> 00:21:42,000
What is your cut-off age?

297
00:21:43,000 --> 00:21:47,000
Well over the years of having
audiences and people go through this,

298
00:21:47,000 --> 00:21:55,000
we have come to the decision that the best
age for young people is really at twelve.

299
00:22:01,000 --> 00:22:05,000
Would it worry you if a child of twelve
coming to see your performance

300
00:22:05,000 --> 00:22:09,000
had nightmares afterwards?
Or would you like that?

301
00:22:09,000 --> 00:22:14,000
I would like them... I would like
for their life to be changed.

302
00:22:14,000 --> 00:22:15,000
No matter what.

303
00:22:16,000 --> 00:22:21,000
I would rather for them to understand
that hell is a place that they

304
00:22:21,000 --> 00:22:26,000
absolutely do not wanna go. I would rather
reach them with that message at twelve,

305
00:22:26,000 --> 00:22:30,000
than to not reach them with that
message, and have them live a life

306
00:22:30,000 --> 00:22:32,000
of sin and to never find the lord Jesus Christ.

307
00:22:43,000 --> 00:22:47,000
In the case of homosexual marriage,
what harm does that do?

308
00:22:47,000 --> 00:22:50,000
Why would you be so
passionately against that?

309
00:22:49,000 --> 00:22:51,000
They're living in sin.

310
00:22:52,000 --> 00:22:54,000
That's your opinion. But it's nothing to
do with you, is it. It's their decision.

311
00:22:54,000 --> 00:22:57,000
It's not my opinion. I'm
telling you what the bible says.

312
00:22:57,000 --> 00:23:00,000
It's the bible's opinion. But these are two
people who want to live together.

313
00:23:00,000 --> 00:23:04,000
Isn't it their own business? What
right have you to interfere?

314
00:23:29,000 --> 00:23:32,000
I want them to know
homosexuality is sin.

315
00:23:32,000 --> 00:23:37,000
But you believe it presumably on the
basis of scriptural authority.

316
00:23:36,000 --> 00:23:37,000
- Absolutely.
- Yeah. Um...

317
00:23:38,000 --> 00:23:41,000
- Unapologetically.
- Yes, unapologetically. But why are you

318
00:23:41,000 --> 00:23:45,000
so sure that's right? I mean if you think
about where the scriptures come from,

319
00:23:45,000 --> 00:23:47,000
I mean, who wrote them, and when?

320
00:23:47,000 --> 00:23:49,000
What makes you so confident
they're right?

321
00:23:49,000 --> 00:23:51,000
- It's what I believe.
- I know you believe it, but why?

322
00:23:51,000 --> 00:23:55,000
It is a Faith issue with me.
Why do you not believe it?

323
00:23:54,000 --> 00:23:56,000
Uh... because of evidence.

324
00:24:00,000 --> 00:24:05,000
Hell House is the brash end of a much bigger
problem with the way religious belief works.

325
00:24:05,000 --> 00:24:09,000
Taken to its extremes, as by
American evangelists, the bible

326
00:24:09,000 --> 00:24:15,000
is scanned for passages to justify right-
wing views on abortion and 'family values'.

327
00:24:19,000 --> 00:24:22,000
I'm about to meet a believer
who uses the word of God

328
00:24:22,000 --> 00:24:25,000
to fight against centuries of human progress.

329
00:24:27,000 --> 00:24:31,000
I think execution for adultery is not rejected.

330
00:24:30,000 --> 00:24:32,000
Not rejected by who? By you?

331
00:24:33,000 --> 00:24:35,000
- No. By the New Testament.
- What about you? Do you

332
00:24:34,000 --> 00:24:36,000
favour execution in adultery?

333
00:24:37,000 --> 00:24:42,000
I think that's fair to say; that that's
still a proper punishment that

334
00:24:41,000 --> 00:24:44,000
the State ought to prosecute.

335
00:24:45,000 --> 00:24:49,000
<COMMERCIAL BREAK>

336
00:24:57,000 --> 00:25:00,000
It's not so bad, surely,
to believe in moral codes

337
00:25:00,000 --> 00:25:03,000
handed down to us from the good book.

338
00:25:03,000 --> 00:25:06,000
Doesn't the bible give us a
moral framework in which to live?

339
00:25:08,000 --> 00:25:12,000
Well no. The holy texts are of
dubious origin and veracity,

340
00:25:12,000 --> 00:25:14,000
and they're internally contradictory.

341
00:25:14,000 --> 00:25:18,000
And when we look closely,
we find a system of morals

342
00:25:17,000 --> 00:25:23,000
which any civilised person today
should surely find poisonous.

343
00:25:26,000 --> 00:25:30,000
The Old Testament is in every church and
synagogue throughout the world,

344
00:25:30,000 --> 00:25:34,000
and is the root of Judaism,
Christianity and Islam.

345
00:25:55,000 --> 00:25:59,000
This is God's advice on what to do
to a friend or family member

346
00:25:59,000 --> 00:26:02,000
who suggests you believe in another deity:

347
00:26:19,000 --> 00:26:24,000
The god of the Old Testament has got to be
the most unpleasant character in all fiction.

348
00:26:25,000 --> 00:26:30,000
Jealous and proud of it. Petty. Vindictive.
Unjust. Unforgiving. Racist.

349
00:26:30,000 --> 00:26:36,000
An ethnic cleanser, urging his
people on to acts of genocide.

350
00:26:37,000 --> 00:26:41,000
If God doesn't set a good
moral example, who does?

351
00:26:41,000 --> 00:26:46,000
Abraham, the founding father of
all three great monotheistic religions?

352
00:26:46,000 --> 00:26:50,000
The man who would willingly make a
burnt offering of his son Isaac?

353
00:26:50,000 --> 00:26:52,000
Maybe not.

354
00:26:53,000 --> 00:26:58,000
How about Moses, he of the tablets
which said, "Thou shalt not kill"?

355
00:26:58,000 --> 00:27:02,000
Well the same man, it says in the book of
Numbers, was incensed by the Israelites'

356
00:27:02,000 --> 00:27:06,000
merciful retraint towards the
conquered Midianite people.

357
00:27:07,000 --> 00:27:11,000
He gave orders to kill all male
prisoners and older women.

358
00:27:19,000 --> 00:27:22,000
How is this story of Moses
morally distinguishable

359
00:27:22,000 --> 00:27:26,000
from Hitler's rape of Poland,
or Saddam Hussein's massacre

360
00:27:26,000 --> 00:27:30,000
of the Kurds and the Marsh Arabs?

361
00:27:31,000 --> 00:27:33,000
So let's leave Moses out of it.

362
00:27:34,000 --> 00:27:39,000
But there are lesser characters facing
somewhat more everyday moral dilemmas.

363
00:27:39,000 --> 00:27:42,000
Maybe they provide a better role model.

364
00:27:42,000 --> 00:27:47,000
In the book of Judges, a priest was
traveling with his wife in Gibiah.

365
00:27:47,000 --> 00:27:50,000
They spent the night in
the house of an old man.

366
00:27:50,000 --> 00:27:52,000
But during supper,
a mob came to demand

367
00:27:51,000 --> 00:27:55,000
that the host hand over his male guest.

368
00:27:58,000 --> 00:28:01,000
Yes, in the biblical sense.

369
00:28:01,000 --> 00:28:03,000
Well, the old man replied:

370
00:28:05,000 --> 00:28:08,000
"Nay, my brethren. Nay, I pray you.
Do not so wickedly."

371
00:28:29,000 --> 00:28:32,000
So enjoy yourselves by raping
and humiliating my daughter,

372
00:28:32,000 --> 00:28:36,000
but show a proper respect for my
guest who is, after all, male.

373
00:28:37,000 --> 00:28:40,000
Whatever else this
strange story might mean,

374
00:28:40,000 --> 00:28:43,000
it surely tells us something
about the status of women

375
00:28:43,000 --> 00:28:45,000
in this religious society.

376
00:28:48,000 --> 00:28:52,000
Now of course, nice Christians will
be protesting, "Everyone knows the

377
00:28:52,000 --> 00:28:54,000
the Old Testament is
deeply unpleasant."

378
00:28:55,000 --> 00:29:00,000
The New Testament of Jesus, they claim,
undoes the damage and makes it alright.

379
00:29:01,000 --> 00:29:04,000
Yes, there's no doubt that,
from a moral point of view,

380
00:29:04,000 --> 00:29:10,000
Jesus is a huge improvement, because Jesus
- or whoever wrote his lines - was not content

381
00:29:10,000 --> 00:29:14,000
to derive his ethics from the scriptures
with which he'd been brought up.

382
00:29:15,000 --> 00:29:17,000
But then it all goes wrong.

383
00:29:19,000 --> 00:29:24,000
The heart of New Testament theology
- invented after Jesus's death - is

384
00:29:24,000 --> 00:29:29,000
St Paul's nasty sadomasochistic
doctrine of atonement for original sin.

385
00:29:33,000 --> 00:29:37,000
The idea is that God had himself
incarnated as a man - Jesus -

386
00:29:37,000 --> 00:29:40,000
in order that he should
be hideously tortured

387
00:29:40,000 --> 00:29:43,000
and executed to redeem all our sins.

388
00:29:43,000 --> 00:29:48,000
Not just the original sin of Adam
and Eve; future sins as well,

389
00:29:48,000 --> 00:29:51,000
whether we decide to
commit them or not.

390
00:29:56,000 --> 00:30:01,000
If God wanted to forgive our sins,
why not just forgive them?

391
00:30:00,000 --> 00:30:02,000
Who's God trying to impress?

392
00:30:02,000 --> 00:30:08,000
Presumably himself, since he's judge and
jury - as well as execution victim.

393
00:30:10,000 --> 00:30:13,000
To cap it all, according to scientific
views of prehistory,

394
00:30:13,000 --> 00:30:16,000
Adam - the supposed perpetrator of
the original sin -

395
00:30:16,000 --> 00:30:21,000
never existed in the first place; an
awkward fact which undermines

396
00:30:21,000 --> 00:30:25,000
the premise of Paul's whole
tortuously nasty theory.

397
00:30:25,000 --> 00:30:29,000
Oh but of course the story of Adam and
Eve was only ever symbolic, wasn't it.

398
00:30:29,000 --> 00:30:30,000
Symbolic?!

399
00:30:31,000 --> 00:30:35,000
So Jesus had himself tortured
and executed for a symbolic sin

400
00:30:34,000 --> 00:30:36,000
by a non-existent individual?

401
00:30:38,000 --> 00:30:40,000
Nobody not brought up in the Faith

402
00:30:40,000 --> 00:30:44,000
could reach any verdict
other than 'barking mad'.

403
00:30:49,000 --> 00:30:52,000
The strange theology and questionable
texts wouldn't matter,

404
00:30:52,000 --> 00:30:55,000
but for the unfortunate fact
that there are people out there

405
00:30:55,000 --> 00:31:00,000
who really believe this stuff is
the word of God, and act on it;

406
00:31:00,000 --> 00:31:04,000
challenging progressive values
- and the rule of law.

407
00:31:06,000 --> 00:31:10,000
If you take the 'good book' to its
literal extreme - and some people do -

408
00:31:10,000 --> 00:31:12,000
you can justify murder.

409
00:31:13,000 --> 00:31:17,000
In 1994, the reverend Paul Hill
shot and killed Dr John Britton

410
00:31:17,000 --> 00:31:20,000
outside his abortion clinic in Florida.

411
00:31:21,000 --> 00:31:24,000
In 2003, Hill was executed for murder.

412
00:31:24,000 --> 00:31:28,000
But he went to his death claiming his
actions were backed by holy scripture.

413
00:31:32,000 --> 00:31:37,000
I'm going to meet the Paul Hill's friend
and defender, the reverend Michael Bray.

414
00:31:38,000 --> 00:31:40,000
- Mr Bray?
- Yes, sir.

415
00:31:40,000 --> 00:31:41,000
- Hello.
- Hello.

416
00:31:42,000 --> 00:31:45,000
- I'm Richard Dawkins.
- It's good to meet you, sir. Michael Bray.

417
00:31:45,000 --> 00:31:50,000
On what moral basis can he, as a Christian,
defend a self-professed, cold-blooded killer?

418
00:31:51,000 --> 00:31:55,000
Your friend Paul Hill, who was convicted
of murdering a doctor,

419
00:31:56,000 --> 00:31:58,000
he took the law into his
own hands, didn't he.

420
00:31:59,000 --> 00:32:00,000
No.

421
00:32:01,000 --> 00:32:05,000
Paul Hill, by his own testimony,
acted defensively,

422
00:32:06,000 --> 00:32:08,000
not in retribution.

423
00:32:08,000 --> 00:32:10,000
That's the job of the law.

424
00:32:10,000 --> 00:32:12,000
- The job of the law is to punish.
- No.

425
00:32:13,000 --> 00:32:19,000
The job of citizens is to - is indeed, out
of love - to protect one another.

426
00:32:20,000 --> 00:32:23,000
Does it ever occur to you that that
doctor had a wife to grieve for him?

427
00:32:23,500 --> 00:32:24,500
Paul Hill killed him!

428
00:32:25,000 --> 00:32:28,000
Now the embryos that Paul
Hill was 'defending',

429
00:32:28,000 --> 00:32:33,000
they were tiny little things without any
knowledge, without any memory,

430
00:32:33,000 --> 00:32:39,000
without any fears, without all the things
that a full-grown adult doctor had.

431
00:32:39,000 --> 00:32:42,000
Doesn't that give your conscience
a little bit of a twinge?

432
00:32:42,000 --> 00:32:47,000
Well I don't think we measure the value
of someone by their cognizance of their

433
00:32:47,000 --> 00:32:50,000
surroundings or their- or even of
their relationships.

434
00:32:51,000 --> 00:32:54,000
The value that we give human beings
historically - and thankfully

435
00:32:54,000 --> 00:33:00,000
from the scriptures - is that they are created
in God's image, and they are-

436
00:33:00,000 --> 00:33:04,000
they have a certain sanctity
because of that.

437
00:33:04,000 --> 00:33:05,000
So whether they be imbeciles or...

438
00:33:06,000 --> 00:33:10,000
To most sensible people, Bray's
fellow clergyman Paul Hill

439
00:33:10,000 --> 00:33:14,000
looks like a dangerous psychopath,
righting what he perceived as wrong

440
00:33:14,000 --> 00:33:17,000
by committing another,
more terrible wrong.

441
00:33:18,000 --> 00:33:21,000
Yet people like Hill and Bray
don't see the world that way.

442
00:33:23,000 --> 00:33:26,000
They declare that their justification
is in the bible,

443
00:33:26,000 --> 00:33:30,000
and by re-declaring the bible
as the absolute word of God

444
00:33:30,000 --> 00:33:32,000
they give their actions validity.

445
00:33:34,000 --> 00:33:38,000
Many of us who don't subscribe
to any particular holy book

446
00:33:38,000 --> 00:33:42,000
worry about suffering. We actually
worry about whether the victim

447
00:33:42,000 --> 00:33:45,000
of a murder, whether it's the murder
of a - in your terms - of

448
00:33:45,000 --> 00:33:50,000
an embryo, or of an adult doctor.
I mean, can you not see

449
00:33:50,000 --> 00:33:54,000
that there's a big imbalance there
between those two deaths.

450
00:33:55,000 --> 00:33:59,000
Well I couldn't take into account
- because I'm not omniscient -

451
00:33:59,000 --> 00:34:02,000
to know all the sufferings that
various people suffer.

452
00:34:02,000 --> 00:34:04,000
Where do you think he is? Paul Hill.

453
00:34:05,000 --> 00:34:09,000
Oh, I have high hopes that he's doing well.

454
00:34:10,000 --> 00:34:11,000
-You think he's in heaven.
-Yes.

455
00:34:11,000 --> 00:34:13,000
You think Jesus approves of
murdering doctors.

456
00:34:13,000 --> 00:34:16,000
I think that, uh... he said that, uh...

457
00:34:19,000 --> 00:34:23,000
he said that we're to love the children
just as we love others.

458
00:34:23,000 --> 00:34:25,000
Suffer the little children
to come to me.

459
00:34:25,000 --> 00:34:29,000
I reckon I have a fairly strong moral
conviction as well, but I'm not that confident.

460
00:34:29,000 --> 00:34:32,000
I wouldn't like to
go and kill somebody

461
00:34:32,000 --> 00:34:33,000
for the sake of my morality.

462
00:34:33,000 --> 00:34:35,000
How can you be that confident?

463
00:34:37,000 --> 00:34:42,000
I think, uh... my own confidence,
I guess, has come with time.

464
00:34:42,000 --> 00:34:50,000
The more I- I think the scriptures- the more
I live, the more satisfied I am intellectually

465
00:34:50,000 --> 00:34:51,000
that they interpret reality for me.

466
00:34:54,000 --> 00:34:57,000
It was curious. I quite liked him.
I thought he was sincere.

467
00:34:57,000 --> 00:35:02,000
I thought he wasn't
really an evil person.

468
00:35:03,000 --> 00:35:08,000
And I was reminded of a quotation
by the famous American physicist

469
00:35:08,000 --> 00:35:11,000
Stephen Weinberg - the Nobel prize-
winning theoretical physicist -

470
00:35:12,000 --> 00:35:16,000
Weinberg said, "Religion is
an insult to human dignity.

471
00:35:16,000 --> 00:35:20,000
Without it, you'd have good people
doing good things

472
00:35:20,000 --> 00:35:23,000
and evil people doing evil things,

473
00:35:23,000 --> 00:35:27,000
but for good people to do evil things,
it takes religion."

474
00:35:30,000 --> 00:35:34,000
People like Michael Bray are a
big problem for Christian morality.

475
00:35:34,000 --> 00:35:38,000
Not all Christians are as rooted
in the spoil of scripture,

476
00:35:38,000 --> 00:35:42,000
but they do all take inspiration
from the same holy text.

477
00:35:45,000 --> 00:35:46,000
But who is right?

478
00:35:47,000 --> 00:35:51,000
The established Church of England
is being painfully torn apart

479
00:35:51,000 --> 00:35:54,000
by these differences of
opinion over the scriptures.

480
00:35:55,000 --> 00:36:00,000
The battleground is not so much abortion,
but homosexuality and gay clergy.

481
00:36:01,000 --> 00:36:04,000
On one side are vociferous
scriptural purists;

482
00:36:04,000 --> 00:36:09,000
on the other: more moderate believers
who interpret the bible selectively.

483
00:36:12,000 --> 00:36:16,000
You're on the liberal wing
of the Anglican church.

484
00:36:16,000 --> 00:36:20,000
Maybe the other side are the ones who
are being true to their scriptures

485
00:36:20,000 --> 00:36:24,000
in a way that you're not. I mean you, who
are liberal and much closer to what

486
00:36:24,000 --> 00:36:30,000
I would think, are the one who's departing
from the- certainly from the scriptural,

487
00:36:30,000 --> 00:36:33,000
and perhaps from the fundamentals.

488
00:36:34,000 --> 00:36:37,000
Um, well if you take the issue of
homosexuality there's no doubt about it,

489
00:36:37,000 --> 00:36:41,000
there are a number of texts - not as many as
people think, but a few texts - which

490
00:36:41,000 --> 00:36:45,000
clearly regard homosexuality as wrong, both

491
00:36:45,000 --> 00:36:48,000
in the Old Testament very strongly,
but they're also there

492
00:36:48,000 --> 00:36:53,000
in the New Testament. But of course it's
a question of how you interpret the bible;

493
00:36:53,000 --> 00:36:59,000
whether it's really right to just
simply extract a few isolated texts

494
00:37:00,000 --> 00:37:04,000
rather than seeing the whole message of
the bible; the whole message of Jesus.

495
00:37:04,000 --> 00:37:07,000
But I think there's another, perhaps even
more fundamental one which links in

496
00:37:07,000 --> 00:37:12,000
to your fundamental interest in evolution. Our
understanding of what it is to be a gay or

497
00:37:12,000 --> 00:37:18,000
lesbian now is very very different from what
it was, let us say in the Roman world,

498
00:37:18,000 --> 00:37:19,000
when the New Testament was written.

499
00:37:19,000 --> 00:37:20,000
Therefore it's purely
a matter of choice.

500
00:37:20,000 --> 00:37:25,000
We now actually know that a significant
percentage of people

501
00:37:25,000 --> 00:37:28,000
are predominantly attracted
to members of their own sex.

502
00:37:28,000 --> 00:37:33,000
So it's a question of the changing facts, as
well as a changing understanding of how

503
00:37:33,000 --> 00:37:35,000
the bible should be interpreted.

504
00:37:35,000 --> 00:37:39,000
This of course is all music to my ears,
but I'm kind of left wondering

505
00:37:39,000 --> 00:37:42,000
why you stick with Christianity
at all therefore.

506
00:37:43,000 --> 00:37:47,000
And maybe some of the fundamentalists
might say just that to you.

507
00:37:47,000 --> 00:37:51,000
I think that moderates need to be passionate,
both about their religious beliefs, and

508
00:37:51,000 --> 00:37:56,000
about rationality, and it's possible to be a
passionate moderate. It's much more difficult...

509
00:37:57,000 --> 00:38:01,000
Some say that while religious fundamentalists
betray reason, moderate believers

510
00:38:01,000 --> 00:38:04,000
betray reason and Faith equally.

511
00:38:05,000 --> 00:38:07,000
The moderates' position seems
to me to be fence-sitting.

512
00:38:07,000 --> 00:38:13,000
They half-believe in the bible. But how do
they decide which parts to believe literally

513
00:38:13,000 --> 00:38:15,000
and which parts are just allegorical?

514
00:38:15,000 --> 00:38:19,000
I take it that as an Anglican
bishop you wouldn't deny miracles,

515
00:38:19,000 --> 00:38:23,000
and I think you ought to, to be consistent
with what you've just been saying.

516
00:38:23,000 --> 00:38:27,000
I think if God was doing miracles the
whole time, then we would live in

517
00:38:27,000 --> 00:38:29,000
an Alice in Wonderland-type world.

518
00:38:29,000 --> 00:38:31,000
- Yeah.
- It would be unpredictable.

519
00:38:31,000 --> 00:38:33,000
And you and I wouldn't be able
to have a rational conversation.

520
00:38:33,000 --> 00:38:35,000
It's almost as though you think there's
a kind of 'ration' of miracles,

521
00:38:35,000 --> 00:38:38,000
which mustn't be exceeded, or we
get into 'Looking Glass' territory.

522
00:38:38,000 --> 00:38:42,000
We can't say what that 'ration' is. If
miracles were happening all the time,

523
00:38:42,000 --> 00:38:47,000
whenever we wanted them to happen, then
human life as we know it couldn't exist.

524
00:38:47,000 --> 00:38:50,000
And what about the sort of really
big miracles, like the virgin birth?

525
00:38:49,000 --> 00:38:51,000
What do you think about that?

526
00:38:52,000 --> 00:38:55,000
I don't think that it's on a par
with the resurrection, for example.

527
00:38:55,000 --> 00:38:59,000
I mean, I actually do believe that the
resurrection of Jesus from the dead

528
00:38:59,000 --> 00:39:02,000
is absolutely fundamental to Christianity,

529
00:39:02,000 --> 00:39:05,000
in a way that I don't
believe the virgin birth is.

530
00:39:06,000 --> 00:39:10,000
It seems to me an odd proposition
that we should adhere to some parts

531
00:39:10,000 --> 00:39:14,000
of the bible story but not to others.
After all, when it comes to

532
00:39:14,000 --> 00:39:18,000
important moral questions, by what
standards do we cherry-pick the bible?

533
00:39:19,000 --> 00:39:24,000
Why bother with the bible at all, if we have
the ability to pick and choose from it

534
00:39:24,000 --> 00:39:27,000
what is right and what is
wrong for today's society?

535
00:39:31,000 --> 00:39:36,000
I suspect that religion is simply a parasite
on a much older moral sense.

536
00:39:37,000 --> 00:39:43,000
I want to examine how science reveals
the true roots of human morality.

537
00:39:43,500 --> 00:39:48,000
Morality stems not from some fictional
deity and his texts,

538
00:39:47,700 --> 00:39:54,000
but from altruistic genes that have been
naturally selected in our evolutionary past.

539
00:39:55,000 --> 00:39:59,000
Humans have much more sophisticated
versions of the kinds of social

540
00:39:59,000 --> 00:40:01,000
instincts you see in chimps
and other creatures.

541
00:40:01,000 --> 00:40:05,500
But really there's no great leap. It's just...
If you can think of chimps as MS-DOS,

542
00:40:04,500 --> 00:40:07,000
and humans as Windows 2000.

543
00:40:09,000 --> 00:40:11,000
<COMMERCIAL BREAK>

544
00:40:21,000 --> 00:40:25,000
Religious believers like to claim that
their god and ancient texts

545
00:40:25,000 --> 00:40:30,000
provide them with an inside track to
defining what is good and what is bad.

546
00:40:31,500 --> 00:40:36,000
But it is surely far more moral to do
good things for their own sake,

547
00:40:36,000 --> 00:40:39,000
rather than as a way of sucking up to God.

548
00:40:39,000 --> 00:40:44,000
Our true sense of right and wrong
has nothing to do with religion.

549
00:40:44,000 --> 00:40:49,000
I believe there is kindness, charity and
generosity in human nature.

550
00:40:50,000 --> 00:40:54,000
And I think there is a Darwinian
explanation for this.

551
00:40:57,000 --> 00:41:03,000
Through much of our prehistory, humans lived
under conditions that favoured altruistic genes.

552
00:41:03,501 --> 00:41:07,001
Gene survival depended on
nurturing our family

553
00:41:07,002 --> 00:41:09,002
and on doing deals with our peers.

554
00:41:10,003 --> 00:41:13,003
The 'I'll scratch your back if
you scratch mine' principle.

555
00:41:15,004 --> 00:41:18,004
I don't think we need
religion to explain morality.

556
00:41:18,005 --> 00:41:20,005
And if anything, it just gets in the way.

557
00:41:20,006 --> 00:41:25,006
Morality is a lot older than religion.
Humans have an innate moral sense,

558
00:41:26,007 --> 00:41:28,007
or a range of moral senses that
you could think of as

559
00:41:28,008 --> 00:41:31,008
sophisticated versions of the
kind of social instincts you see

560
00:41:31,009 --> 00:41:33,009
in chimps and other social species.

561
00:41:34,010 --> 00:41:38,010
What sort of morality or proto-
morality would you expect

562
00:41:38,011 --> 00:41:41,011
to find in a chimpanzee troupe?

563
00:41:41,012 --> 00:41:45,012
We find that they live in family groups,
the mothers look after their kids,

564
00:41:45,013 --> 00:41:49,013
they work in teams, and also
chimps are particularly good at

565
00:41:49,014 --> 00:41:53,014
competing for status through
what's been called public service.

566
00:41:53,015 --> 00:41:56,015
So they compete for status not
just through brute force, but

567
00:41:56,016 --> 00:42:01,016
by being good leaders, by
intervening to settle disputes...

568
00:42:01,517 --> 00:42:06,017
What are the main evolutionary reasons
for cooperating and being altruistic?

569
00:42:06,018 --> 00:42:11,018
Working together often produces mutual
benefits for those that are involved, so

570
00:42:11,019 --> 00:42:16,019
you can often just do better by working in a
team than you can by working by yourself.

571
00:42:21,020 --> 00:42:25,020
Perhaps it is our genetic inheritance
that explains why those of us with

572
00:42:25,021 --> 00:42:29,021
no allegiance to a holy book or a pope or
an ayatollah to tell us what is good

573
00:42:29,022 --> 00:42:36,022
still manage to ground ourselves in a moral
consensus which is surprisingly widely agreed.

574
00:42:41,023 --> 00:42:46,023
As social animals, we've worked out
that we wouldn't want to live in a society

575
00:42:46,024 --> 00:42:50,024
where it was acceptable to rape,
murder or steal.

576
00:42:50,025 --> 00:42:53,025
We have a moral conscience
and a mutual empathy,

577
00:42:54,026 --> 00:42:56,026
and it is constantly evolving.

578
00:43:00,027 --> 00:43:03,027
Religious or not, we have changed in unison,

579
00:43:03,028 --> 00:43:08,028
and continue to change in our attitude
to what is right and what is wrong.

580
00:43:09,029 --> 00:43:14,029
Fifty years ago, just about everybody
in Britain was somewhat racist.

581
00:43:14,030 --> 00:43:16,030
Now only a few people are.

582
00:43:17,431 --> 00:43:22,031
Fifty years ago, it was impossible for
gay people to walk along the street

583
00:43:22,032 --> 00:43:25,032
hand in hand. Now it's easy.

584
00:43:28,033 --> 00:43:31,033
Some of us lag behind the
advancing wave of moral standards,

585
00:43:32,034 --> 00:43:34,034
and some of us are ahead.

586
00:43:35,035 --> 00:43:39,035
But all of us in the 21st century are ahead
of our counterparts from the time of

587
00:43:39,036 --> 00:43:42,036
Abraham, Mohammed or St Paul.

588
00:43:47,037 --> 00:43:50,037
But progressive shift often emerges
in opposition to religion.

589
00:43:51,038 --> 00:43:55,038
It's driven by improved education, and then
expressed by newspaper editorials,

590
00:43:57,039 --> 00:43:58,039
television soap operas,

591
00:43:59,040 --> 00:44:00,040
parliamentary speeches,

592
00:44:01,041 --> 00:44:02,041
judicial rulings

593
00:44:03,542 --> 00:44:04,442
and novels.

594
00:44:06,443 --> 00:44:10,443
I guess my starting point would be: The
brain is responsible for consciousness,

595
00:44:10,444 --> 00:44:14,444
and we could be reasonably sure that
when that brain ceases to be,

596
00:44:15,445 --> 00:44:18,445
when it falls apart and decomposes,
that'll be the end of us.

597
00:44:18,446 --> 00:44:22,446
From that, quite a lot of things
follow, I think especially morally.

598
00:44:22,447 --> 00:44:28,447
We are the very priveleged owners of
a brief spark of consciousness,

599
00:44:28,448 --> 00:44:30,448
and we therefore have to
take responsibility for it.

600
00:44:31,449 --> 00:44:36,449
You cannot rely - as Christians or
Moslems do - on a world elsewhere;

601
00:44:36,450 --> 00:44:40,450
a paradise to which one can work towards and
maybe make sacrifices - and crucially,

602
00:44:40,451 --> 00:44:43,051
make sacrifices of other people.

603
00:44:43,052 --> 00:44:48,052
We have a marvellous gift - and you see it
develop in children - this ability to

604
00:44:48,053 --> 00:44:52,053
become aware that other people
have minds just like your own.

605
00:44:52,054 --> 00:44:55,054
and feelings that are just as
important as your own.

606
00:44:55,055 --> 00:45:00,055
And this gift of empathy seems to me to be
the building block of our moral system.

607
00:45:00,356 --> 00:45:04,056
I profoundly agree with you, and I've
always felt that one of the things

608
00:45:04,057 --> 00:45:08,057
that's wrong with religion is
that it teaches us to be satisfied

609
00:45:08,058 --> 00:45:12,058
with answers which are
not really answers at all.

610
00:45:12,059 --> 00:45:16,059
And if you have a sacred text that
tells you how the world began,

611
00:45:16,060 --> 00:45:20,060
or what the relationship is
between this sky-god and you,

612
00:45:22,061 --> 00:45:25,861
it does curtail your curiosity.
It cuts off a source of wonder.

613
00:45:25,862 --> 00:45:30,062
The loveliness of the world
in its wondrousness is not apparent

614
00:45:30,063 --> 00:45:35,063
to me in Islam or Christianity and
all the other major religions.

615
00:45:39,064 --> 00:45:43,564
To an atheist like Ian McEwan,
there is no all-seeing, all-loving God

616
00:45:43,565 --> 00:45:45,065
who keeps us free from harm.

617
00:45:46,066 --> 00:45:51,066
But atheism is not a recipe for despair.
I think the opposite.

618
00:45:52,067 --> 00:45:56,067
By disclaiming the idea of a next life, we
can take more excitement in this one.

619
00:45:56,068 --> 00:45:59,068
The here and now is not
something to be endured

620
00:45:59,069 --> 00:46:01,069
before eternal bliss or damnation.

621
00:46:02,070 --> 00:46:06,070
The here and now is all we have; an
inspiration to make the most of it.

622
00:46:07,071 --> 00:46:12,071
So atheism is life-affirming, in a
way religion can never be.

623
00:46:16,072 --> 00:46:21,072
Look around you. Nature demands our
attention; begs us to explore; to question.

624
00:46:23,073 --> 00:46:28,073
Religion can provide only facile,
ultimately unsatisfying answers.

625
00:46:29,074 --> 00:46:33,074
Science, in constantly
seeking real explanations,

626
00:46:33,075 --> 00:46:37,075
reveals the true majesty of our
world in all its complexity.

627
00:46:40,076 --> 00:46:46,076
People sometimes say, "There must be more
than just this world; than just this life."

628
00:46:46,077 --> 00:46:49,077
But how much more do you want?

629
00:46:50,078 --> 00:46:54,078
We are going to die, and
that makes us the lucky ones.

630
00:46:54,079 --> 00:46:58,079
Most people are never going to die
because they're never going to be born.

631
00:47:00,080 --> 00:47:04,080
The number of people who
could be here in my place

632
00:47:05,081 --> 00:47:08,081
outnumber the sand grains of Sahara.

633
00:47:08,082 --> 00:47:11,082
If you think about all the different ways
in which our genes could be permuted,

634
00:47:12,083 --> 00:47:17,083
you and I are quite grotesquely
lucky to be here.

635
00:47:17,084 --> 00:47:20,084
The number of events that had to
happen in order for you to exist;

636
00:47:20,085 --> 00:47:23,085
in order for me to exist.

637
00:47:23,086 --> 00:47:25,086
We are priveleged to be alive,

638
00:47:25,087 --> 00:47:29,087
and we should make the most
of our time on this world.

639
00:47:35,088 --> 00:47:40,088
SUBTITLES BY DAVID
(davideisaura@yahoo.com)

640
00:47:41,088 --> 00:47:51,088
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