The Root Of All Evil?
The Root of All Evil? is a television documentary, written and presented by Richard Dawkins, in which he argues that the world would be better off without religion. The documentary was first broadcast in January 2006, in the form of two 45-minute episodes (excluding advertisement breaks), on Channel 4 in the UK. Dawkins has said that the title The Root of All Evil? was not his preferred choice, but that Channel 4 had insisted on it to create controversy.
His sole concession from the producers on the title was the addition of the question mark. Dawkins has stated that the notion of anything being the root of all evil is ridiculous. Dawkins’s book The God Delusion, released in September 2006, goes on to examine the topics raised in the documentary in greater detail. (Excerpt from en.wikipedia.org)
Part 1
Part 2
March 8th, 2009 at 07:59
I like his point that absolute faith very often leads down a ruinous path. I also like his point that dismissing reason as the correct basis on which to formulate our beliefs, in favour of ‘faith’ leads to division between peoples.
However, I believe he fails to see his own unwavering faith in science. For any “scientific fact”, if you haven’t seen the data, understood the experimental method and controls, and evaluated the statistics on which the conclusion is based, you are taking that ‘fact’ on faith, and faith alone.
In the documentary, he goes around the world interviewing people with strongly held (indoctrinated) religious beliefs, but then, mostly, mutes what they are saying, and ‘paraphrases’ it in voice-over. I’m not sure why it irked me, I probably would not have cared what they were saying, or would have been incensed by their lunacy.
Worth a watch though.
March 17th, 2009 at 02:43
The language is the indoctrination.
April 7th, 2009 at 03:17
Good observational work. Dawkins believes (rightly so) that religion has been a source of unchecked and endless intolerance and destruction throughout history. But his faith in science is sometimes lacking in the same objectivity he applies to religion.
Scientists, like mullas, priests, etc. share the same human nature. They can be impartial or be opportunists. There is regular news of researchers and scientists who, funded by special interest, minimize the negative and inflate the positive in forwarding the agenda of their financial benefactors.
And while faith has it’s dark places, there are many who become better, more responsible and more constructive because of that faith.
Dawkins goes too far in creating a ‘black’ and ‘white’ contrast between science and religion.
The foundation history of the Mormon faith, for example, is one of the most discredited in the western world. But most Mormons you’ll meet are often honest to a fault.
Atheism doesn’t address well explored hypothesis like collective consciousness or offer anything rational for individuals that exhibit true para-normal abilities. And ’science’ is largely responsible for horrendous missteps like Eugenics.
Science, like religion, won’t change human nature just like Communism eliminates dictators or Capitalism workes best without regulations.
We have to stop creating divisions and start looking for common ground.
April 14th, 2009 at 19:41
I agree with what was stated by “Shane” and “Paul” here.
Dawkins’ absolute “believe” in science is just as dangerous as the faith of extremist Jews, Muslims and Christians. I am sure that he would not object to genetic engineering, stem cell research etc.
Drawing a black and white picture is bad journalism. If one decides to make a documentary one should be fair to all sides.
A documentary should gave the viewer the chance to make up his own mind, this is clearly lacking, I believe it should not be called that (“propaganda” is more appropriate”).
For his blatant bias the “documentary” deserves no more that 1 out of 5 Stars.
Best Regards,
Der Oberst
April 30th, 2009 at 17:55
I admire Dawkin’s courage but not his methods. Where I think Dawkins, and most science in general fail is that it seems to have forgotten its roots in natural philosophy. The major fault-line of science is that no one is given an education that guides the student through the chain of reasoning that led to the diverse number of scientific disciplines that we now have. We’re given brisk coverage of Galileo’s trial without understanding why it was such a big deal at the time. Only with great effort can a person learn the intermediary debates that underpin much of our understanding today.
Dawkins expresses a lot of European Enlightenment beliefs and implicitly assumes that those ideals are shared throughout all of society. He creates a lot of tension and conflict by mowing over that fundamental debate that used to give science and religion common ground for rational discussion. He ultimately portrays himself as a man completely ignorant about the fundamental philosophical support of science while getting his feathers all riled up without understanding why.
No one can claim to understand science without first understanding its roots in the European Enlightenment and natural philosophy.
May 18th, 2009 at 06:44
at least science dont have to believe in some fantasy god or base their whole moral’s on a book written by a bunch of old thinkers. the ultimate truth is, the human mind can be maniupulated no matter how smart or inteligent we might be, history proves this. i believe that the reason religion have been around all these centuries, is due to fact that its been passed on from generation to generation, therefor, making it seem authentic to us. but a time will come in the far future when absolute faith in religion will cease to exist, and become totally irellevant.
May 23rd, 2009 at 21:38
I fear some hear ate missing the obvious.
Any real research involves publication and pear revision.
May 23rd, 2009 at 21:56
Faith in the unknown, and empirical data, are opposites.
May 28th, 2009 at 21:02
i disagree with “Der Oberst” absolute believe in science is not as dangerous as absolute believe in religion. No one has ever really died in the name of science as people have in the name of religion. Science tries to look at the world uniformly. Religion keeps people like gays and lesbians from being treated as equals, and religion denies certain groups of people freedoms that they should be free to have.
June 7th, 2009 at 00:45
i am appalled by the pseudo-intellectual garbage in the comments above..
to insult dawkins method based on your utopian ideals that science and religion deserve equal status shows how uneducated you all are. it literally screams ignorance. dawkins does not have faith in science. indeed he would certainly agree that unlike fabricated stories, science requires no faith to explain truth. furthermore if any of you starbucks philosophers bothered to learn what the scientific method IS AT ALL you would see that it is specifically designed to DISPROVE A HYPOTHESIS. to sit there and give credit to any faith structure by equating baseless incredibility with peer reviewed evidence is a pathetic.
as for not going into ‘depth’ about enlightenment views…dawkins assumed his audience would be educated. he wouldn’t need to spend time rehashing what people already knew. it would have been insulting to do so…clearly he never counted on you guys.
bottom line. you should be ashamed of yourselves.
June 21st, 2009 at 19:42
haha this bloke is the silliest man ive ever seen. he really doesnt get it. i feel for the guy
June 29th, 2009 at 07:01
Things proven by the scientific method can be proved by anyone anywhere anytime. It’s much like when you have a recipe for a cake, anyone can reproduce it.
Talking about “faith in science” is like saying you have “faith” that if you drop a rock it will hit the ground. That is simply not faith. It’s something that’s been proven time and time again – a rock that is dropped will fall to the ground.
I dont need to have faith that the rock will hit the ground. It’s been scientifically proven.
July 2nd, 2009 at 11:52
I enjoyed this documentary, I almost fell down laughing at some points at the sheer lunacy of the fanatics Dawkins displayed for us.
BUT
For all of his talk on science, this documentary is WAY to biased to be science. If this was a pure scientific concept, I would immediate be asking for the percentages of people that think like this, how many are fanatical how many are just believers, how many are just regular people that every once in a while try to touch something they think is greater than themselves.
As well his approach to the people he interviewed was WAY to harsh at times I could see a dimly lit windowless room, Dawkins in a trench coat and hat, the interviewee strapped to a chair and Dawkins pointing a spotlight in his face.
In any case enjoyed it just kinda defeats his purpose a bit by being too absurdly biased.
July 3rd, 2009 at 16:01
4/5
a mostly serious and good watch.
i really enjoyed that he pointed at the fact of abusing children mentally through teaching them beliefs.
-1 pt., tings i didn’t like that much:
dawkins didn’t seem to be prepared to handle certain types of people,
for the documentary sometimes cuts to another scene whenever he isn’t able to cope with his interview partners “arguments”.
sorry, but that’s not how to deal with these things.
i also wish he had more interview partners on the same topic to show that a single religious belief always varies within itself,
but also to point at certain fundamental parts that are deeply engraved and not negotiable.
(well, at least he points out that all the religions are generally the same: instruments of control).
in addition i really doubt the “fact” that morals are encoded within human genes.
i believe in no such thing, chimpanzees may have social behavioral patterns, we don’t.
is there any proof for us being moral by default?
please tell me, i will also try to look it up myself.
… and last but not least again this terrible manipulating music, i want to watch an intelligent documentary, not a musical that tries to openly bias it’s viewers, really can’t stand it.
July 3rd, 2009 at 18:45
to X:
dawkins is an evolutionary biologist by profession. the ‘moral code’ he is referring to makes sense when considered from this perspective.
we all come programmed with instructions on how to survive. it is called genetic memory and is in your dna. this is commonly referred to as instinct. for example this is how babies know to suckle for nutrition.
with this in mind you can couple it with natural selection. lets say you have a giant tribe of early man, and they are all homocidal. one small faction breaks away and decides NOT to kill each other. the homocidal group will eventually die off and the other group will eventually expand. the offspring of group b will have their parents upbringing and memory (nature + nurture) instilled in them. you give that a few thousand years and voila.
of course there are going to be traces of group a, thats why there are still killers among us. they are the minority though. however it is important to note that most people who kill do so for religious reasons. ie they have to convince themselves or be convinced that there is a reason they should kill. there is a lot more group b dna.
this is of course a simplified explanation but i hope it served to explain what is meant when biologists use that term.
July 13th, 2009 at 10:35
Thats pretty interesting III, never thought of moral encoding like that before ..:)…need to read more on that:)
July 15th, 2009 at 20:09
This documentary is a good watch for those who are much more in an antagonistic phase in their lives than being an absolute atheist.
I did find some of the fundamentalist morons to be extremely pathetic in their ignorant fallacy and calling dawkin’s question’s about religion as an intellectual ignorance.
Personally I would have enjoyed this documentary further more if dawkins went a little further of equally examining fundamentalists from many other religions like hinduism,islam ,jews ,etc than just restricting most of his interviews on Christian fundamentalist and bible discussions. This documentary surely can be said as biased and why not. Thats the day dawkins wants it. Because on a rational scale , the documentary has to be biased to reveal the biased religion on the other side.
For the questions he asked are so simple,fundamental,profound and logical which irritated the shit out of those who didnt want to understand the reason for the existence of these questions rather just have some sort of an answer for it and just for the heck of it which by far explains the lunacy that religion creates.
Lolz to that part where the guy in the end says chimps are like MS-DOS and humans are like Windows 2000.
I guess rational and compassionate humans are like “Macintosh” and the religious ones are somewhere in Windows 95 zone
August 19th, 2009 at 01:22
This film although not perfect demostrated well how we basically brainwash our children. Eventhough I’m a card carrying Atheist, its almost impossible to erase the religious teachings of my upbringing. In the beginning of life children are the victims of religion, in the end we are all victims of wishful thinking and superstition. Well worth my time.
October 2nd, 2009 at 18:37
Dawkins the poster child for drooling atheist’s the world over. Very entertaining if you enjoy fictional/spinal tap type doco’s, then this is for you.
October 6th, 2009 at 17:56
it seems everyone has missed a big point to this…..
altho i agree with him genraly obviously me being an atheist but what i dont agree with is how he like teachers (and indeed the majority of the religeous populous) he imposes his beleifs on peolpe he sees as less enlightened than him, and him saying that religeon cant live side by side with science is rubbish, tell the head of the human genome project who is an out and out christian.also if he is questioning the morality of holy figures and idols, do some research into his idol darwin, he had some crazy imoral ideas about creating a master race!!!! (heard that somewhere before) he also backed steralisation of women who had handicapd or less interlectual parents or siblings. what i surgest is to live and let live. also i thought id shit myself when that jewish guy called him a fundamenatlist belever in darwinism, which i thought myself just as he said it lmao
October 6th, 2009 at 17:59
oh and darwins other theory was that imbreeding would be the seeds of this master race so guess what he did….. eugh
and you know what…… his theory there was way off. I mean imagine what the christians would do with this info…. talk about a smear campaign lmao
October 6th, 2009 at 19:51
Part 1, 41:25 the terrorist supporter speaks the truth. Too bad no one realizes.
It’s not about proving atheism right or religion wrong. People participate in the religious structure because it satisfies (what is often legitimate) needs and desires. If atheism or non religiousness wants to thrive (I hope they do) they too should form an institution/culture of intentional community, aggressive positivity, etc. We can satisfy the needs of people without compromising the truth. The atheist community focuses too much on truth, but people join religion because of love.
October 7th, 2009 at 18:56
ah but Sam doesnt that cause segregation?
id pref everyone to keep there beleifs to themselves and not impose them on others.
a beleif can be dangerous where an idea cant.
doubt is humble
October 29th, 2009 at 02:59
Its interesting that even some of the intelligent comments here are doused with naivety. The comparison of Dawkins faith in science; to faith in religion is irrelevant. The scientific method is strictly policed by the most intelligent of our species, constantly trying to prove the theory of his/her peers incorrect by continuous testing, thereby garnering evidence. Therefore any lasting theory has been so well tested, with continuous positive results, you can damn near call it fact. You don’t need faith in truth. Also, I guarantee that Dawkins is well versed in any field of study he might happen to mention. You don’t go into the battlefield un-armed. I urge you to do some research on Dawkins, maybe watch some of his amazing interviews which are available on youtube. While you’re at it, since this topic is obviously of interest to those of you here; do yourselves a favor and check out Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens as well.
October 31st, 2009 at 22:13
The stupidity and naivete of people is so abrasively in my face each day, I can’t even stand it. The reality of every facet of human existence is so corrupt and damaging, that our complete demise is the only worthwhile goal of the planet. The only beauty left in this world, is that which humanity played no part in. If there was such a thing as god, our existence would be that gods greatest shame, and the universe would implode.
October 31st, 2009 at 22:36
A very profound thought O. Von Thomas
“If there was such a thing as god, our existence would be that gods greatest shame, and the universe would implode.”
November 1st, 2009 at 00:02
I agree also, Vlatko.
“We must question the story logic of having an all- knowing, all powerful God, who creates faulty humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes.” (Gene Roddenberry).
November 7th, 2009 at 17:30
God, God, God, blame him/her (we have to be politically correct
) for everything. How extremely convenient. Do you people realize the perfection of yourselves and the universe – it could be made by God or not, I don’t know. And neither does Mr. Dawkins (because if he knew everything he would be something like a god).
All of you people are so convinced in your own attitudes and beliefs, you don’t even realize what’s in the core of existence – BALANCE. You all are so dichotomous you don’t realize that thesis and antithesis equal synthesis. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.
November 19th, 2009 at 22:10
Perfection is static, and since no stasis occurs in the universe it therefore cannot be perfect. Species go extinct, stars burn out and the universe will expand until it collapses. The nature of all things is cyclic and changing; evolving. The most ignorant attitude of all is to believe in your own perfection as an entity.
November 21st, 2009 at 20:49
To O. Von Thomas,
Well, I see perfection different than you, but that’s just me. If I’m ignorant because of that, it’s OK, you have the right to your own opinion. Just like everybody else.
November 30th, 2009 at 16:22
Definitely worth watching if you’re interested in the opposing view of religion and society. However, although i agree with his arguments, Dawkins has little people skills when it comes to interviewing. I would much rather watch an intelligent discussion between a believer and a non believer than a partially arrogant scientist belittling those who he interviews (i think the Christian pastor really nailed it on the head with what he says to Dawkins).
December 9th, 2009 at 21:46
So when can they prove that this theory of evolution is a FACT.
December 9th, 2009 at 22:29
Good question, Sally. At least I think that was a question, but questions usually have that weird “?” thing at the end to distinguish them from statements. Anyway, I don’t think anyone can answer your question, as that would require us to see into the future. And if anyone knew when evolution would be proven as fact, then we would already know it was a fact, because in order for it to be proven factual in the future, it would have to be factual now. So I guess the answer is sometime between right now and the end of the universe. Or never. One of those.
December 10th, 2009 at 03:08
God rules!
December 18th, 2009 at 19:20
“well I wouldnt know anything about the Nuremberg Rallies…” Ig-norant hi-ck
December 20th, 2009 at 22:09
“So when can they prove that this theory of evolution is a FACT.”
Its hard to believe so many people on here are so ignorant and proud of it, to bad it’s not part of your specific cult to be rational and inquisitive.
P.S. – Faith is not required nor wanted in science, this is one of the stupidest things ive read and its a repeated meme on these posts. If a scientist had faith in his preferred hypothesis he would have to discard this hypothesis when evidence refuted it. The person that proposes a hypothesis must also provide a way to disprove it.
January 18th, 2010 at 13:53
Anybody that undervalues their life to the point where they have to make up a ‘am in the sky’ to give their life meaning, purpose and fulfillment is an absolute failure.
Religion kills everything that makes humans great, individuality, tolerance, respect for other viewpoints and the evolution of science (as well as the science of evolution) to name a few.
Religion, as well as it’s followers in any shape or form sickens me, and proves to me the sheer level of gullible people, who appearanlty are incapable of rational thought.
February 4th, 2010 at 03:35
I went to Ralph Ellis website and i think it’s true about what he wrote about in his books.I asked these so-called Christians in here that”where from Cain’s wife came?”since there was only 3 being left on earth,nobody answered me yet,the bible said that he went to the land of the lost and there he had a wife.According to my research,that land was were the apes settled and he intermarried with them.Now let’s talk about Jesus,them Christians don’t even realize that,if Christ was a Jew,why is that they always portrayed him as white with blue or sometimes greens eyes,just check every picture of him and you’ll see what i’m talking about here.Also there is sometimes the”sun” on top of his head or other times there is only the cross and the sun rising on top of it with this phrase”He is risen”,this is about the sun.What about “Sunday=sun+day”:this is the day of the sun which is the first day of the week and they all claimed that is the 7th day,we all know that according to their Bible,he kept the Jews sabbath which was Saturday,some even say that it is the day of the lord because Jesus was risen on Sunday morning,yea right,it’s all about the sun god because on the 22nd of December the sun disappear on the southern atmosphere and reappear on the 25th of December(Christmas)on the northern atmosphere,that’s why they say that Jesus was dead and risen after 3 days and also the birth of Jesus.If someone doesn’t believe me,why don’t you go check this verse in your own Bible”Psalms84:11,For the Lord God is a”sun” and shield”;How could it be shepherd outside feeding the flock outside during Winter?We don’t even know nothing about him from his 17 years to his 29 years of ages,where is his record here people?what did he do between that time?If someone may like to check out this too”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDdBlO3XauA”
February 17th, 2010 at 06:00
I am the true lighteth! When thou departs this mortal coil thou shall getteth everything thou wanteth, (including free cable). Give me your minds (and send be a cheque payable to “The Divine Spaghetti Monster who liveth in the skyeth” and post to PO Box 777) and I shall send thee an information pack including a picture book, and a free sticky badge with my divine image upon it. Eat of my body and drink my red wine… don’t forget the parmesan and the garlic bread.
March 8th, 2010 at 00:02
Nobody noticed that Pator Ted Haggard in the first video was the same Pastor Ted Haggard that was caught with crystal meth and a gay hooker in a motel room. Apparently been with this gay hooker for 3 years.